Chapter 11: The Joy of Meeting Again
AN: I was not satisfied with the previous chapter — particularly the description of the Mighar device — so I polished it up and reposted it.
xxx
The pain of parting is nothing to the joy of meeting again. ~ Charles Dickens
xxx
Geyan rode his back like a viig, giggling. He rolled, tossing Geyan to the dusty ground and trapped him, found the most ticklish spots. The child's shrieks brought his wife running, but a glance reassured her all was well and she returned to her studies. He was being unfair, had promised quiet distraction to keep his eldest son occupied. All that shrieking was hardly conducive to allowing her to concentrate on her work.
Food, that would quiet Geyan, who took after him and owned a prodigious appetite.
"Do you want some tarki, Geyan?"
Enthusiastic agreement.
"You may have the tarki, but Mama is trying to work, so we both must be quiet." His wife would laugh at him. What was the chance that reasoning with a three year old would bear any success? He shrugged. He was resourceful. He would think of other forms of distraction.
xxx
Kirk let out a yawn that threatened to unhinge his jaw and gave the galley's coffee maker a baleful stare. The coffee flask was half-full, but he had turned the device off to prevent the contents stewing and now it was stone cold. He shrugged, filled a mug and set it to nuke in the microwave oven. Another yawn.
He lapsed into woolgathering while he waited for his coffee. Garrovick had no tolerance for fools, but he gave credit where it was due. Despite his recent misadventures, Sting's mission to Surakkan had been declared, if not a resounding triumph, then at least a useful exercise. He'd take that in a heartbeat.
As a Tactical officer he'd been trained to look at the long game and his instincts told him his last mission, the concentration of Starfleet's ships at Starbase 15, were all part of a bigger picture. Garrovick had let on, had clued him up about an imminent Vulcan attack and it didn't take much to put two and two together and see an imminent joint op for Starfleet and Vulcan's High Guard. Not for the first time he wished he had a higher security clearance, because what was less certain was the target Vulcan, which apparently was calling the shots on this, had identified and selected. A game was in progress, but he could not identify what pieces were on the board. He craved more data.
The microwave pinged readiness; he stirred the mug's contents and headed for the Bridge. As expected Scott was present and the engineer looked his way as he entered. So much for wanting a quiet word with him, because Stepanova was also present at helm.
"Report," he demanded, sliding into the seat at Command.
"We are a little more than an hour away from our best guess of the rendezvous point, Mr Kirk," said Scott.
Again with the 'Mr Kirk'. He nodded a response. Sitting in on McCoy's weekly poker night demanded he up his game and sharpen up his poker face, which came in kind of useful at the present time.
"Ensign," he said, "I think it's time you got yourself a nice hot beverage."
"Sir?" she said, her gaze straying toward the nearly full cup of tea balanced on her console. A crease appeared between her eyes.
He resisted the temptation to roll his eyes. "Ensign, give us the bridge." Stepanova's confusion cleared; she glanced at him, at Scott and then made a hasty retreat. He pressed a button on his console, securing the bridge behind her. Mr Scott regarded him with a wary eye. "How you doing?" he asked the engineer.
"Lieutenant Kirk?"
"Lieutenant Scott."
An even warier engineer.
"You know, I've lost count. It's been 'Lieutenant' and 'Mr Kirk' since we left Scorpion behind. Been waiting for you to 'sir' me. It's taken me until now for me to figure out what's going on." He leant back in his seat and folded his arms. "Tell me if I'm wrong here, but this is what I think is rattling around in that head of yours like a lost spanner in a Jefferies tube: you think Garrovick is going to press you into a command role because Sting's latest commander is about to crash out in ignominious fashion — for that matter, I'd insist on a downright spectacular fashion for the immolation of my career, but I digress. Yes? On the right track, am I?"
Scott said nothing; a muscle tightened in the engineer's jaw at the peremptory tone he'd employed. Pissed off engineer. Much better.
"Knock it off, Mr Scott. For the record, I am just fine and dandy. I have no intention of going anywhere — well, not unless I get promoted — and you can relax on that score, too; there's no way that's going to happen anytime soon, not after giving du Plessis a pile of lip."
"It is appropriate when you are the one in command, Lieu—"
He glared. "If you had started out with that tone I wouldn't say anything, but you didn't. I do not desire you undermine me in front of the crew, but I certainly do not need a façade of false respect to bolster my confidence and security. I do expect a discreetly conveyed honest opinion when you have a better idea or think I'm doing something foolish. I may not agree, but I need that input from you. Besides," and he grinned. "I miss you telling me I'm no' right in the heid!"
A stiff engineer returned his glare, expression pinched. Was he imagining things or was Mr Scott grinding his teeth? Somewhere in that head of his, though, his words were weighed and considered and, it seemed, the engineer was not immune to his argument. Scott let out a breath.
"Alright." Scott's expression lightened by one frosty degree. "But I need you to do something for me." He held up a forestalling hand. "For me and the crew. I need you to take better care of yourself and not have such a cocky disregard for your own safety. I can't decide whether you are genuinely oblivious, or whether you've been kidding yourself, about how close to death you came after you picked that thing up off the hull."
He scoffed. "This is Starfleet. We're aboard a Venom class ship. We're at war. Being in harms way is kind of par for the course."
"All of which is correct. Still, I am asking that you moderate the way you approach things and not take needless risks with your personal safety."
Did Scott think he would have delegated recovery of the device to one of the crew? To Gregory? Everything in him revolted at the notion and he said so.
"I am not talking about your disinclination to order the crew to undertake dangerous assignments. I am talking about you taking reasonable precautions. Gregory tells me you would no' wait until she located a shielded containment vessel for the Mighar thing. We had time, but you wouldn't wait."
His turn to bristle. He hadn't waited because he wanted Sting away from Surakkan, but you know what? Scott's assessment was fair. "Very well," he said. "If — and I mean if — circumstances allow, I shall take better care of myself."
Scott let out a breath and allowed himself a curt nod that drew down the curtain on their little frank exchange of opinions. A silence stretched between them, marred only by the sounds of normal Bridge activity. As if conscious of the potential for awkwardness, Scott cleared his throat and said, "Jim, you really back-chatted du Plessis?" The return to informality heartened him.
"I did, but I can hardly take credit for it. I wouldn't normally be so indiscreet, but what can I say, I was pumped full of nasty chemicals that reduced my inhibitions. I may have been off my face, but I don't think the admiral's ego understands the distinction. Do you?"
Scott wince morphed into a snicker. "No. Doesn't stop me from wishing I had been a fly on the wall."
Scott wanted to move on; he, on the other hand, thought a little more reassurance was in order. "You know it would be a foolish move by Garrovick to put the best engineer in Starfleet into a command position and Garrovick isn't stupid." Unlike some captains they had the pleasure of knowing. Indeed, perhaps the prospect had alarmed Scott so much because their late and little lamented Captain Goodborne may have toyed with the idea. It would have fitted the pattern of some of Goodborne's strange notions of 'thinking outside the box'. "Case in point, it hasn't escaped my attention that our engines have been having hissy fits since we left Scorpion behind. Yet somehow they're behaving and pulling us along in the same direction. I see we're still on schedule for our rendezvous."
Scott ignored the blandishments. "You really do feel alright?"
"I do."
"The best engineer in Starfleet?"
He grinned. "Don't let it go to your heid."
xxx
A tell-tale lit on his Command console.
"Contact confirmed," said Scott, manning Tactical. "An object just over three metres long and a metre and a half wide. Distance approximately sixty thousand kilometres."
"Acknowledged. I presume that is the converted probe and what we're here for?"
"Aye, today's conveyance of choice for all self-respecting modern spies." Scott fed more of Tactical's results to the Command console. "I double-checked and it's the real thing, no' some piece of Pasherin mischief masquerading as our customer and likely to blow up in our faces." Scott wore the sort of expression a botched repair would engender. He snickered at the parade of disdain, glad for a resumption of that normal grumpiness.
"Very good. Transmit signal to the probe." Sting made her rendezvous without any difficulty. At this rate they'd be home and dry within twelve hours.
His console was still linked to Tactical and a quick glance was enough; it reported an irksome detail. "Scotty, nothing seems to be happening." The signal was supposed to make the probe drop out of warp, but another glance at his readouts confirmed no change in its course. He frowned at Scott, who checked Sting's systems.
"Signal is definitely transmitting." Scott met his gaze, eyebrows pinching together. "Hmm. Well, that was all ticking along far too smoothly."
Course unchanged. Speed was another matter. "Unless my eyes deceive me that thing is moving faster."
"Aye, it is," said Scott. "What's more, it's in direct response to our signal."
He let that sink in.
"Can we target it with a photon torpedo?" Stepanova asked. He and Scott stared, and their young helm officer looked away to hide her blushes. "Can we pretend I didn't just say that?"
"Fine by me. Irina, can you match course and speed?"
"Yes, Lieutenant Kirk. It's fast," Stepanova added. "If it keeps on that course, it will hit the Axanar system in twelve days."
"That's not going to help the occupant any; he's going to be out of air and dead in twelve hours," said Scott.
"Yes, he will," he agreed, and glared out the viewport, but the stars ignored his ire. What was that about being home and dry? So much for patting himself on the back a moment ago. A vision flashed before his mind's eye: his chastened self presenting his person to his captain, tail between his legs in abject failure.
He wouldn't have it and, after all, he'd made a promise to Scotty.
Scott huffed a breath. "Jim, what have ye cooked up in that wee noggin of yers?"
Well, something similar had worked with Apollo and why change a strategy that worked. "Scotty, if we close with the probe and collapse Sting's subspace field, that should also disrupt the probe's and bring it out of warp, yes?"
Scott winced. "What is it about ye and abusing my engines? And after I spent the last twelve hours sorting out what was making them so cranky." He scrubbed a hand over his face. "Venom class are a hell of a lot flakier than other ships in the fleet. No telling what would happen. Warp core breach even. And if we stay in one piece, but don't stop that probe and it continues at warp speed, we'll be left far behind. No telling how long it will take to make repairs and catch up again, if we even can."
"Scotty, if you have a better idea, I'm all ears. The captain and Seaton only told me what they needed to, but I can read between the lines. Whoever is in that probe represents something big, maybe a game changer."
"Jim, if we're going to do this, we have to get really close. I mean really, really close." He paused and looked to Stepanova.
"I can do close," said Stepanova. "We practiced for this at the Academy."
The engineer's eyebrows rose. "At high warp?"
"No, but I think I can."
Think, Scott mouthed at him and muttered something else under his breath that might have been another Klingon curse. What other option did they have though? "The things I'm talked into." He hauled himself out of the tactical seat and moved to the engineering console. Scott started a dialogue with Gregory and Kyle in engineering, which as usual went over his head, and which he tuned out. He pulled up more data from Tactical and stared at the values. Amber telltales protested at how hard Stepanova pushed Sting, but they were gaining on the probe. Just. Looked like they would get one attempt at this. He opened a comm channel.
"Red alert! All hands battle stations!" A little self-important and unnecessary that latter. Even by Sting's usual sparse crew complement, she had only a skeleton crew aboard: Scott, Stepanova, Gregory, Kyle, Doctor M'Benga and himself.
"Distance to target now twenty thousand kilometres," Stepanova said, unnecessarily in his case as he was already tracking their progress on his own station. He got out of Stepanova's way and left her to do her work. Over the next few minutes helm steered them into position. From their perspective slightly 'above' the probe, still trailing their target, but gaining. She closed to fifty metres and gave he and Scott a triumphant smile.
"Closer," barked the engineer, unimpressed. Stepanova's eyes bugged out and she plainly regretted what she had got herself into; he could have strangled the engineer for that.
"Take your time, Irina."
Helm bent to her task and closed in tighter, Scott ever demanding a nearer and nearer approach. He offered a soothing counterpoint, concerned his officer was going to buckle under the pressure, and provided useful data in a quiet matter of fact tone. Mr Scott was not even satisfied at a thirty metre separation; she appealed to him and he stuck his tongue out at Scott and winked at her. Anything to keep her loose. The last thing he needed was a thousand yard stare at helm.
"Closer," said Scott.
Was it his imagination or was Stepanova leaving clammy prints over her console? "Scotty, how close do we need?"
"Inside twenty metres."
At high warp? Stepanova's head shot up and she stared. He was with Irina. The engineer couldn't have mentioned that at the start? He piled on more encouragement, told her to take it slow again. By now the probe's running lights were visible in the viewport. Scott opened his mouth.
"Yes," she said, "I know. Closer."
The engineer, at last, seemed pleased. "Aye, Ensign, we need to be well, well inside twenty metres."
"I was paying attention," she said in an undertone; a flicker of irritation came and went.
Nineteen, fifteen, twelve. At last Sting was poised like a hawk mantling its prey.
"Now," said Scott and keyed in a sequence on the engineering console, which promptly died and took his own command station along for company. The ship lurched and abruptly the stars appeared stationary in the heavens, their bright glitter all the more apparent as main power went out; only auxilliary emergency lighting allowed him to see a hand before his face.
Sting drifted sensor-blind and helpless.
Stepanova breathed loud and fast. There was no sign of the probe. "You alright?" he asked.
"Yes, Lieutenant."
"Report! Scotty, where's my power? I need sensors to find that probe."
Scott growled something indistinguishable and smacked a hand on his console, frustrated because communications was down, too. "I have absolutely no idea. Ye want to come with me and see what we have to deal with? It'll save time"
Well he was doing no good on the Bridge. "Sit tight, Ensign, and mind the store," he said to helm.
At least the ship was in one piece. They found M'Benga in engineering treating Kyle for a wrist sprain; Gregory was unharmed and already working away at restoring power. Systems hummed and he blinked at the brighter illumination as back ups came on line.
"Gregory, what's our status?" Scott asked.
"As far as I can ascertain, impulse engines are undamaged, but the primary power relays are fried."
Scott nodded. "About half an hour to repair."
"Aye, sir."
He butted in. "I need sensors."
Gregory answered, "Those systems are back up, Lieutenant."
Scott offered a caveat. "If the Bridge's tactical position is still functioning; engineering and command positions died before we lost power. What about my warp engines?"
Gregory made a face. "Main problem seems to be that the inter-mixers are out of alignment. Safeties deployed to stop a matter/anti-matter cascade. It looks like it is all an easy fix, but it's a good half day's work, sir. Maybe longer if Kyle there is out of commission."
"I'm not hurt that bad and the doctor is patching me up; I can work," Kyle said.
Scott slumped against the nearest bulkhead and met his eye, all the tension oozing out of him. "I think we got off lightly. Even if somewhere Zefrem Cochrane is spinning in his grave. Just don't ask me to do that again." Judging by Gregory's expression, she agreed. The engineers' talk turned more technical, always a signal for him to absent himself. He traipsed back to the Bridge, where Stepanova had regained some composure.
"Communications, sir?"
"Engineering is working on it. Status report?"
"Sensors are back online, Lieutenant, and I have located the probe again." The Command console presented him with an uncooperative face, so he settled in at Tactical. "As you see, sir, it is currently four hundred and twelve metres from Sting."
Indeed it was. "Ensign, that was impressive fancy flying back there."
"Thank you, sir. The sensors register life signs; the occupant is Vulcan."
"Can you bring us closer on manoeuvring thrusters?"
She smiled, at ease. "When not at warp speed? No problem." He had Stepanova position the ship so that the probe was handily placed for the tail hatch and, joy of joys, there was power enough for a working tractor beam.
He left Stepanova with the conn again and went to find M'Benga.
"Now?" said the doctor, when he explained what he needed.
"Yes, now, unless Kyle needs more attention. The sooner we recover our guest, the happier I shall be. Anyway, I could do with a hand if I have to suit up and go out and get him." He led the way to Sting's small cargo hold, to the smaller cargo operations room, checking the lock seals were properly engaged behind them. One final check to confirm the forcefield was in place to maintain pressure on the cargo deck and he opened the tail cargo hatch and discovered the probe lay directly outside, no more than five, ten metres away.
Mindful of their guest's importance, he tried to be as gentle as possible, but it was a cargo system and he'd bet whoever was in that thing would end up with bruises from a nasty buffeting, not to mention the kick in the teeth the guy must have taken at being so rudely hauled out of warp. Ten minutes later, the probe rested on the cargo deck. M'Benga looked to him, but he made him wait until he resealed the cargo deck. The doctor ran to the probe, medical tricorder already out, and he assisted him to unseal the latches. The occupant wore a full face respirator mask and was so still and quiet, he doubted M'Benga's report the subject was alive. At the doctor's direction he huffed and puffed to lift out a surprisingly heavy Vulcan and lay him — his guest was supposed to be a he — upon cold deck plates, an action disquietingly like desecrating a sarcophagus. The doctor removed the respirator mask and he startled. He knew this guy. The Vulcan with the strawberry fixation, the one who'd given him the back-off pal vibe for speaking to his girl.
M'Benga grabbed a handful of the Vulcan's uniform tunic, lifting his patient's head off the deck plate and slapped his face. Hard.
"What are you doing?" He grabbed the doctor's arm to stop him raining down more blows. "Consider yourself on report, doctor!" He expected anger and racial animus, instead there was none of that and M'Benga gently resisted his hold.
"Please release me, Lieutenant. I assure you I am doing precisely what my patient requires of me."
"You have got to be kidding!"
"No, I assure you I am in earnest. He has initiated a trance and I must bring him out of it." M'Benga's calm demeanour provided the necessary reassurance to release him, which he regretted almost immediately as the doctor delivered another blow and yet another. The Vulcan arrested M'Benga's next and bolted upright.
"I am alive." Were it stated by anyone other than a Vulcan, he might have interpreted the words as a question. A brief something — fright, shock, — flitted across his face before that was closed down and his guest's features settled into a customary neutral mask of Vulcan inscrutability.
"Seems that way." He offered a grin and a hand up and, to his surprise, his help was accepted. "Welcome aboard Sting, Sub-Lieutenant Spock."
xxx
Still smarting at the peremptory summons, he cut power and let the shuttlecraft drift at the designated point in space. Worry gnawed at him. A concentration of Starfleet's forces were massed at Starbase 15 and the place was a hive of activity, with nosey captains galore. It had taken considerable resources for him to cover his tracks with the borrowed shuttlecraft and time constraints had forced him into a sloppiness he abhorred.
On a previous occasion he had answered a similar summons and had been left to cool his heels for twelve hours. He had been hungry and thirsty by the time the Pasherin ship had finally decloaked next to him. This time, however, the Pasherin transporter beam claimed him almost as soon as the shuttlecraft began to drift and he materialised in the other's sumptuous quarters.
Never back down with a Pasherin. He got in his jab first, pointing a finger. "The probe got through. This you were supposed to prevent."
"We did what we could. It is what happens when we are forced to the regrettable necessity of relying on intermediaries. Complaining will not result in a correction of matters. I confess I am surprised at your operative's success in recovering Spock."
Anger flared. All the frustrations and worry of recent weeks came to the fore. "No, don't try to put the blame for that on us. Starfleet trains its officers to be resourceful. If we operated on even terms in technology, we would not be having this conversation."
"What do you desire of me? A sop to your pride?"
"This is a problem you have created and fixing it will require more sacrifice, more pain for my people."
"One might say that is a regrettable, but an unavoidable consequence. Of course this presupposes you still desire our protection in the trials that are to come. Other races have awoken to our success, have taken note of this conflict and are inclined to train their ambitions towards this sector of space. We project a likely attack on both of our forces within the next twelve to fourteen of your months." That silenced him as the other knew it would. Only a fool would take such pronouncements on face value, but it accorded with Starfleet's own projections. Who the hell were the Breen anyway? He had made his bed and now he must lie in it. His host bared his teeth. If it was supposed to be a smile, it was not at all reassuring. "Rather than a difficulty, I would suggest you might consider it an opportunity, for in any engagement one must expect casualties. I imagine there are those who oppose your views, your wishes."
He sucked in a breath. Trust a Pasherin not to beat around the bush.
The other ignored him and continued, "Now, attend me. As for what we understand of the disposition of Vulcan forces, this is what is known…"
xxx
Kirk had nothing to do.
After the earlier excitement, Sting and crew went about her business with calm efficiency. The engines — oh, wonder of wonders — ticked along nicely at warp six and they had re-entered Federation space about two hours ago. ETA at Starbase 15 in four hours and forty-five minutes.
He needed coffee.
He arrived at the kitchen and came to a screeching halt at the open port access: the Vulcan occupied the kitchen. Spock looked up from his data pad. Leave now and it would be obvious he was avoiding his guest. He offered a nod, which the Vulcan acknowledged, and went back to scribing text onto his pad with a stylus, a frown of concentration on his face.
"Sorry to disturb you," he said.
A glance and a climbing imperious eyebrow. "You are not."
The store cupboard gave up his ever dwindling stash of coffee and his heart sank. Politeness demanded he offer up a cup of that precious commodity, reinforced by Garrovick's injunction, still ringing in his ears, that he be nice to the Vulcan. The captain would demand he go that extra mile and a sulky 'but I saved the Vulcan's life' wasn't going to be enough to cut it with the boss.
On the subject of a rescue, the Vulcan had asked Scott for tools to strip down the probe. Scott had maintained a discrete eye on their guest, while he went about the task. According to Scott, the Vulcan had not so much as blinked on discovering the evidence of obvious tampering with the probe's guidance system, nor had he addressed the subject with Scott or anyone else aboard Sting. He, on the other hand, had contacted Garrovick with a heads-up, as soon as they crossed into Federation territory.
Instead of the expected lofty Vulcan disdain for the crude, overpowering flavours of Terran beverages, those pointy ears perked up at his offer. He must be conveying the only Vulcan in the galaxy with a taste for the good stuff.
Maybe he could parlay this into a glance at what was on the pad. Didn't require much thought to figure out that all these recent shenanigans spoke of a combined Vulcan/Federation assault. Doubtful the Vulcan would commit the details to a device like a pad, but maybe if he and his pals were convinced the device was secure…
The filter flask finished its cycle and lit up with the indicator that it had finished separating out coffee grounds; he found clean cups and set the flask before the Vulcan, together with a pot of hot water. The domesticity of his actions struck a bizarre and incongruous note.
"Friends complain I make it too strong," he said, by way of explanation, nudging the hot water pot forward; it made contact with the pad. Jarred into life, the pad lit up and he caught a glimpse of text and diagrams, lots of diagrams, enough for him to conclude they had nothing in common with a tactical assault and his guest had been reading a science paper by the looks of it, unless he were to unleash his paranoia and conclude that was some form of clever encryption of intelligence material."
The Vulcan favoured coffee black, unsweetened, employing the anticipated disdain only to spurn all notions of diluting the contents of his cup. He suppressed a sob of anguish, wondering where he might renew his supply. The way things were going his current dealer would demand something substantial in trade, a kidney maybe.
Spock stared at swirling crema and then savoured a first precious sip. A fleeting expression of appreciation at the taste, and something else more akin to sadness, came and went, registering so quickly it was debatable whether what he saw was real or he was applying his own human-centric interpretations.
"You like coffee?" Did that sound accusatory?
His interest in the pad, a little too blatant, had been duly noted. "I do. It is a taste acquired from my mother. I find it fascinating how smells and flavours evoke the past." Well, that was strange. Since when did Vulcans give of themselves in this fashion? Had the Vulcan's commander passed on a decree similar to Garrovick's: that Spock make nice with a Starfleet officer, establish a rapport with said officer, who might then be tapped for useful information. If this was an effort to cultivate him, Spock and his superiors were barking up the wrong tree: one, he'd been a tactical officer long enough that being careful of what he said before others was now second nature; two, Garrovick's support notwithstanding, Goodborne's paws all over his record, still left a blight on his Starfleet career and made superiors, like du Plessis, wary of him. Anyway, once Sting put into Starbase 15 that would likely be the last he'd see of this Vulcan.
"Happier memories?"
Instead of the expected huffiness at an emotive term, an eyebrow twitched upward and his guest said, "Are you interested in archaeology, Lieutenant?"
"Archaeology?"
The Vulcan made an adjustment and held out the pad for his inspection. A response that he did not speak or read Vulcan formed on the tip of his tongue, then the pad's text registered: English. Spock had engaged translation mode, but the weighty slog of academe remained preserved in turgid prose. He took the pad. Well, he was bored out of his mind, and currently superfluous to both his ship and her crew.
"It is a paper in the Galactic Journal of Archaeology, regarding an expedition that a multi-disciplinary research team conducted on an uninhabited planet Rigellians call Domarth. The scholarship is a little erratic and couched in even more fanciful terms, but the expedition aimed to provide evidence that all of the sentient races occupying our sector of space owe their existence to being seeded by a precursor species."
"I've heard this idea expressed before."
Spock nodded. "Indeed. It is not a novel theory. What I find fascinating is that the researcher's corroborating data is the most interesting I have yet seen. They maintain the same evidence as found on Domarth is replicated on a world a thousand light years away."
"That last is the fanciful bit?"
"Fanciful? No, I would say that it is rather the methodology employed by the researchers to arrive at that conclusion, which is what might best be termed uneven, and that if one were in a charitable mood. There are indeed striking similarities in the structures of the ruins. The data, however, should have been subjected to more rigorous analysis. It did not help that this was apparently an archaeological mission, and yet there were few representatives on the team for that field, or related disciplines in what you would call the humanities."
Despite himself intrigue sparked. This was the sort of thing that had prompted him to join Starfleet in the first place. Did the Vulcan know that? Was he being played? He sent the Vulcan a sharp stare. If he was, then the manipulation was an excellent job, too opaque for him to penetrate. Sense prevailed and he tossed his paranoia out of the piloting seat. Why would Vulcan investigate the interests and aspirations of a lowly and insignificant Lieutenant Kirk. How would they know this mission would be assigned to him?
He flipped through pages, found the addendum with a series of comparison images of ruins, abraded by time, and his interest rocketed. Even his untrained eye picked out the similarities. He turned back to the beginning and started reading, pausing only long enough to pour them both a refill.
"I would give my right arm for a mission to explore and find the evidence to back this up. Don't tell me. I know I am being illogical. Our war with the Pasherini being kinda in the way."
"Illogical? Yes, but just because something is illogical for the present does not make it undesirable for the future. I, too, would enjoy the opportunity of bringing to bear proper intellectual rigour to such a project."
"If we have a future. With what your commanders and mine are cooking up, who knows if both of us shall still be here a few days from now."
The Vulcan stared and shut up. He had strayed onto a topic on which his guest would not be drawn.
xxx
AN: Please review. You have no idea how much they make my day.
