A/N: I have a beta now (I KNOW RIGHT :D ) but I wasn't able to get in touch with her. So, yeah, there's gonna be some spelling errors. I am seemingly incapable of tracking them down. -_- I swear, I hate them as much as (probably more than, come to think of it) you do, but after typing for three plus hours straight, I just can't read any more.
Clavicles: collar bones.
.bdobd.
The next two days were some of the worst…
No. That wasn't quite right.
Jim had been through hell and back, and he'd seen people he loved be affected by it, and he'd watched his government fail him, and those had been the very, very worse days of his life.
This was somewhere up there, though.
The Enterprise's halls were uncomfortably empty. It reminded him of the school rooms on the first days of the Genocide, when all of the 'flawed' staff members were taken away at gunpoint to be killed, and all of the students had been sent home early.
Kodos's men came for them the next day. Jim survived because he went back to his classroom to try and find Ms. Pettit.
But, no, still, that wasn't quite it.
Things were, honest to gods, not that bad. Everyone was healthy. Everyone was alive. He had his ship under his feet, and the mission was going about as well as could be expected.
It was, literally, almost embarrassingly, only Spock that was making him feel so anxious. He'd been on the ship during a leave before, and he'd been alright, after a few minutes of utter horribleness.
And there'd been orders that he'd hated before, too. Ones that had meant that he'd have to sacrifice his people – his people, not someone else's playthings, his crew, his family – for the 'greater good'.
But he'd had Bones and Spock, and the bridge complement, and Giotto and Scotty and everyone, to help.
It was so much worse without them.
Jim stuck his index fingers in his belt loops – damn uniforms didn't have pockets – and wandered morosely into his quarters. He parked himself at his desk and turned on his computer.
It came to live with a maliciously cheerful little 'ping'. Jim glared ineffectively at it, and started to scroll through his messages.
Sulu wanted more for botany, like usual. Jim'd call up Pike and see if he could get the man something; he deserved a treat for handling Archer so well.
Scotty wanted more for engineering, fine, they were due for an upgrade. They could stop by Base XI; Tishri'd give them a good deal.
Nothing from Spock.
Jim was surprised at how much that bugged him, and moved on before his brain started obsessing over it.
Chekov told him Calta was nearly skipping with glee (the bastard would be, wouldn't he?) and sent him an invitation to a Yuletide party on the Enterprise –
Jim gave a choked laugh.
Well, it appeared that Chekov might want to host a Christmas party this year. That sounded like a good idea, actually. He'd have to get help from Uhura and permission from Giotto, though. Jim RSVPed for the… idea of a party and told him to talk to the head of Security before ordering any decorations.
Giotto wanted a promotion for Lieutenant R'Vish. Jim though the name sounded familiar, looked it up, and realized that he'd had an Admiral's daughter working on the bridge for a year and hadn't realized it till now. Weird.
Giotto said that Spock agreed, as well, and Jim signed off on a ceremony to take place Whenever-Possible.
Whenever-Possible was military for 'Soon-ish', but Giotto wouldn't let the poor kid hang there. He'd take care of it.
Bones told him to get a move on with Spock. Jim closed the message before he could hear the rest of it.
Uhura?
Weird.
Uhura never sent him stuff. She got one of her little minions to do it for her.
The blonde leaned back in his chair and opened the audio file. Uhura's official Fleet profile picture – which looked a lot like a high school yearbook photo; everyone's did – opened on the holoscreen.
"Hey, Cap'n," she said, mimicking Scotty unconsciously. Jim snorted softly.
"Just wanted to give you an update on Admiral Nestly. He'd been really quiet – nice, you know, quite polite, but not really saying much. And then right before we docked I checked in on him and he just went off on how his 'favorite Captain' wasn't getting all the effort that he deserved, or something like that.
"But I didn't think Nestly had a favorite.
"So I looked into it, and I found out something really interesting. There are six Captains, right? And there are eight Admirals. Everyone's been saying that for a year, now.
"But if you list all of the Captains, there aren't six of them.
"Kirk for Pike, and then Nimeret for Bolim, Tranya for R'Vish – did you know that we have her daughter on crew? She's a Lieutenant –, Nimeav for Calta, and then Topos doesn't have an Admiral.
"So that's five. Kirk, Nimeret, Tranya, Nimeav, and Topos.
"But there are six Captains, supposedly.
"So I did a bit of research and this guy called Menthe, no first name, popped up in duty rosters from two years ago. He'd be the sixth Captain.
"I hadn't heard anything about a Captain Menthe. Do you know anything? It's been bugging me.
"Thanks,
"Lieutenant Uhura out."
Jim blinked quietly at the dark screen for a moment. He went into the bathroom and stared at the drain in the sink.
This was really bad.
The whole point of mission confidentiality was that no one knew about the mission until it had succeeded. Or, no one ever knew about it.
If it didn't succeed, that is.
Jim leaned over the sink as he felt his stomach roll ominously.
But now Uhura knew about Menthe. And she didn't know about how she wasn't supposed to know about Menthe.
She was professional, though. And she would know better than to go spreading the word around about something that he hadn't signed off on yet.
Jim waited for the nausea to stop, and then went back to his desk. He typed out a short note about how Menthe had died in the Narada Incident, and must've been no one had gotten around to posting it.
Then he went back into the bathroom and threw up.
.bdobd.
Spock's rather poor command of the French language had not been aided by his attempts to drown it into submission.
And the intoxicants were having a merry time playing havoc with his knees.
So he had resigned himself to sit slumped at a French bar, 'nursing' (an odd 'turn of phrase') a something-or-other that managed to render him completely incapable of rational thought, for the rest of the night, when Nyota arrived.
She was on one side of the bar.
Spock was on the opposite side of the bar.
The expression she assumed when she recognized his rather unusually splayed form was enough to cause him to seriously consider making a dash for the back exit. He even stiffened slightly in preparation.
That was as far as he got, however.
Uhura did not have any difficulty reaching him, or spinning him around, or shoving what he assumed was a hypo filled with sobriety medication into his clavicles.
"That hurt."
"You needed it, you great idiot." She sat upon the stool next to him. "Of all the nights for you to test how much you could take…"
"I do not hold," he gestured with the glass, "well."
"No one does." She sounded angry, and scared. "That's the only reason people drink that shit, is that it gets everyone drunk."
"Fascinating. I –,"
"No. You shut up. What the fuck happened?"
He would not break the Captain's confidence. "It is… I do not believe it to be of your concern, though you may disagree."
She snorted. "No kidding. Fine," she became serious again, "but I need you to listen. Are you clear?"
"…"
"Are you sober, I mean."
"Ah." Spock considered the question. "Mostly."
"Good. I need you a bit tipsy."
That was ominous.
"I sent a message today to the Captain, asking about a guy named Menthe. You ever heard of him?"
"… Negative."
Uhura raised an eyebrow delicately. Spock got the impression that if he answered falsely, he may soon awaken with fewer organs than he had than when he fell asleep. "I know of him. He was the captain of the Excalibur II."
"Right. And the Excalibur captains are always weird, right?"
"… They are known for being of a more explosive temperament, yes."
"But not Menthe, right?" Uhura was oddly fixated on the man. "He was picked because of his Communications experience, right?"
Spock attempted to sit straighter on his stool, and succeeded. "I was not privy to the confidential processes surrounding –,"
"Oh, for the god's sakes," Uhura burst out. "You were the head of the Communications Department! You had to have heard something!"
"He was known for his work with the Xindi Empire. His promotion was well received by the Academy professors."
Uhura apparently expected him to continue. He did not, and raised a brow to encourage her to do so. She sighed. "Fine. Be that way.
"Nestly's into Communications, right? He likes them? So he, supposedly, is really partial to Menthe."
"That would be one interpretation of the data, yes." Spock did not know where this conversation was heading.
"Nestly got really angry right before we docked. He said that his 'favorite Captain' wasn't getting all the help he needed, or something."
Spock was tired. "Nyota, I am tired, and I am not operating at peak efficiency. You are going to have to explain this in full."
"I am, I am." She peered suspiciously around the room, as if one of the half-dead patronage were going to eavesdrop on a human and a drunken Vulcan. "So I asked Kirk about this, and he told be that Menthe was a Captain who was killed in the Narada.
"But Menthe wasn't! The Excalibur was sent out, but Menthe stayed behind in San Francisco to help with the Vulcan messages.
"The Captain is totally up to something!"
"… And?"
Uhura blinked. "What?"
"Lieutenant Uhura." Spock swiveled boozily on his bar stool to rest an elbow on the bar in front of them. "Why do you think I am here?"
Nyota blinked again. "You… You already knew about Menthe?"
"I did not know that the issue had resurfaced. I am, however, in frequent contact with Barnett."
Uhura did not have to know that Barnett had never mentioned Menthe's name.
"So… Do you know what'd going on? All I've got is that Nestly's pissed, which probably means that Calta's happy, and Menthe didn't die in the Narada, and the Captain's hiding something."
"Recall that the Captain left the ship before anyone else was allowed to exit."
"You think that it's connected to this?"
"I know so." Spock eyed his glass, considered taking a worldly drink, and then dismissed the idea as being shortsighted and ill conceived. "I had a disagreement with the Captain two days ago. I asked him about his visit to the Palais de Concorde, and he said that he could not tell me. I pushed him to answer, and he lost his patience."
Nyota's eyes gleamed. Not far beneath the surface of any truly great Communications specialist, there is a terrible gossip. "What do you think he did down there?"
"I do not know. I have taken my time on-planet to research Captain Menthe, and have found nothing conclusive."
"Damn." Nyota set her elbows on the bar and propped her head in her hands. "It'd not like we can look it up on the ship's computers; the Captain has all of the records."
"Indeed."
"Fucker." She pouted. "Well, if he's so anxious that he's snapping at you, then things should come to a head soon."
"What does my identity have to do with his temper?"
Uhura sent him an incredulous look. "Are you kidding me?"
Spock considered the expression, arrived at a very pleasant answer, and felt his ears go green.
Nyota grinned toothily. "Even you can see it."
.bdobd.
Spock awoke the next morning with a mild headache and serious dehydration. He planned his next actions while drinking his second quart of water.
The last conversation Spock had had with his superior officer, Jim had become infuriated when Spock had implied that Jim was too ill or too affected to stand. Jim felt helpless or weak, and did not want to be reminded of that fact.
Jim had stated multiple times that the mission only involved him, to the exclusion of everyone else on the ship. The Admirals were involved to a slight extent; he had said so quite blatantly. 'This is just the Admirals and the Captaincy.'
Jim had lied to Nyota when she had inquired after Mr. Menthe. Menthe had not been seen or heard from for three months. The Excalibur II had not been sighted for the same amount of time.
The Captain's mission was most likely to contact or save Menthe, or to gather information on his disappearance. The President was either directing the efforts, or had information that was necessary for the eventual completion of the mission.
Spock could not think of a single way to bring all of this to the forefront without the Captain absolutely losing his mind.
Jim's affection – he could refer to it in his head, at least, without becoming visibly affected – played in his favor. Also, if Spock could argue that the mission was somehow detrimental to the workings of the Enterprise in the long term, and the Federation at large, than maybe Jim would be forced to explain the mission parameters, if only to prove Spock wrong.
There really was no acceptable way to broach the topic, however. Spock wandered over to the hotel's complimentary holo-screen and placed his glass on the bed. He went over to the closet and selected a clean uniform.
He turned on the holo-screen. Maybe he could find inspiration in a minor news item.
.bdobd.
Jim was on the bridge, running a test of the climate control unit with Scotty, and turned on the news on the main screen to distract himself from how goddamn fucking cold it had become in four seconds flat.
The world fell apart. Jim couldn't afford to.
"Scotty…" Jim started shakily, "Can you hear me?"
"Aye, Cap'n. Almos' done."
He gathered his tone back up into one spot, so it was a bit steadier. "… How long is that?"
"Yah cold ye'?"
"Freezing."
"Done."
Jim leapt from his chair and made a break for the lift door. Shoes squealing, he spun about and frantically shut off the news.
He made it to his quarters in under a minute and took a moment to calm himself. He then, carefully, exactly, entered the code for Nowmi's network. Or, T'Panya's, now. Nowmi'd said something about dodging her boss, hadn't she?
.bdobd.
"Not ten hours ago, Commander Spock and Lieutenant Uhura of the USS Enterprise were heard discussing the fate of a reported 'Captain Menthe'. Neither of the officers knew the whereabouts of the man, but they agreed that Captain Kirk of the Enterprise was involved with his recovery.
"The Captain was reported to have made a visit to the President's offices at the Palais de Concorde three days ago. The Admiralty does not appear to have been involved with the planning of the visit.
"Mister Menthe was the captain of the USS Excalibur II, a Constitution class starship, from 2258.42 to 2259.04. He and his ship have not been heard from for over three months.
"This is Reporter T'Panya with the IPFP-double N. We will be covering this story, along with any other breaking news, right here on Channel 60, subcode 72-8.12."
.bdobd.
Jim ordered Scotty to oversee the re-boarding, and told him to send Spock to him as soon as the man arrived.
T'Panya had been standing in front of a bar on Les Halles, where the Rungis market used to be. He spent a few minutes pawing through all available data on the place, realized that he still had T'Panya's comm number, cursed, and dove for his address book.
He was one of those stupid people who still liked the paper-and-plastic-teeth versions, and was had felt just bad enough for letting T'Panya loose, that he'd written it somewhere in here…
But he couldn't remember whether it was under 'T', 'P', or 'V' for Vulcan.
[more pawing; some cursing]
He found the damn thing under 'D' (for 'Don't call') and lurched up to his imput pad. He tapped in the number and waited.
He stuffed himself back into his chair, as a sort of afterthought.
T'Panya came back on his screen, looking very pleased with herself. Jim couldn't find it in himself to be angry at her. She really was just doing her job.
"Captain James. I had hoped that you would contact me."
"Well," he spread his arms, "here I am." He planted his elbows on his desk. "Why were you at that bar last night? Were you following my crew?"
Of course she wasn't following them. He just wanted to figure out who'd been the idiot smart enough to phone into the station.
"The bartender recorded the conversation on a security camera and sent the footage to us."
… The bartender.
Jim was going to kill Uhura when she got back. Talk about sensitive information in front of the bartender? Really?
"… Alright. What made you decide to air the piece?"
"The studio felt that more information would make itself available as the visibility of the issue increased."
"Humm. Fine, but why not show the audio or visual bits of it?"
"… It was deemed… 'In bad taste', I believe the phrase is." She lowered her voice slightly, as if that would stop the four hundred camera crew from eavesdropping. "The Commander was quite intoxicated."
Jim groaned and resisted the urge to beat himself over the head with his keyboard. "… Right. I may call you back later, but I've got a call." Scotty's comm link had popped up on his screen. "Talk to you later."
T'Panya nodded her head. "And to you, Captain James. Live long and prosper."
"Peace and long life."
Jim was reaching for the 'accept' key before the screen had totally cleared. "Scotty, who've you got for me?"
"I's the Commander, an' he's lookin' qui'e contri'e."
Scotty didn't sound very sympathetic. He must've been watching the broadcast on his jury-rigged comm.
"Send him to my quarters."
"Aye, Cap'n." In the background, Jim could hear Scotty shuffling Spock along. "C'mon Commanda, le's ge' on wi' it. Soona you star'ed and all tha'."
The doors closed on Scotty's end. "Give 'im 'ell for me, sir," the engineer whispered, "the crew's gonna be ahll worked up abou' this."
"I will," Kirk promised, amused, "don't worry."
The connection was cut, and Spock asked for entry in record time.
Kirk let him in and had a shark's grin waiting for him. "So. I heard you had a very interesting night. Care to discuss?"
Spock looked mortified, as he well should. He had royally fucked up. "Captain, I am so sorry. I did not –,"
"You didn't realize that the bartender existed? Or that he had ears? You seemed to get that when you were ordering the strongest shit the bastard must've had; I just got off the phone with T'Panya and she said you were fucking hammered."
"She said what?"
"She said you were 'quite intoxicated'." Kirk let his eyebrows rise, and he shrugged innocently. "I just translated it into Standard."
Spock swallowed nervously. "I… understand."
Kirk let him stew on his honestly deplorable behavior for five minutes. When Spock was done disciplining himself far more effectively than Kirk ever could, the blonde interrupted him.
"Now." He pointed to the bed. "Sit."
Spock made his meek way over and sat.
"Tell me everything you know, and everything you suspect."
The Commander started in immediately. "The mission only involves you, to the exclusion of everyone else on the ship. The Admirals are involved to a slight extent. You lied to Lieutenant Uhura when she had inquired after Mr. Menthe. You stated that he had died in the Narada Incident, which is not true; Menthe was stationed in San Francisco for the duration of both the battles of Vulcan and Earth.
"Menthe had not been seen or heard from for three months. The Excalibur II had not been sighted for the same amount of time.
"Your mission is most likely to contact or save Menthe, or to gather information on his disappearance. The President was either directing the efforts, or had information that was necessary for the eventual completion of the mission, which is why you entered the Palais under false pretenses three days ago.
"The Admiralty did not know of your visit to the Palais, and you did not want them to. The Admiralty is beginning to fragment because of the stress in dealing with the Excalibur II's disappearance.
"Nestly is partial to Menthe, who was proficient in Communications work. Calta does not like Nestly, so he dislikes Menthe by association."
Spock paused anxiously. "I… believe that is all, sir."
Kirk raised his eyebrows. "Really?"
"Yes… Affirmative, Captain."
Spock got his professional attitude back, fast. Good. There wasn't enough time to bitch and panic.
"Good. How much does Uhura know?"
"She knows of all but the minor details of your visit to the Palais. She does not know of the circumstances of your entry. She does not place the proper gravity on the arguments of Nestly and Calta. The rest, she knows."
"Will she tell anyone?"
"Negative. She realizes the seriousness of the situation at hand, and revels in it."
"T'Panya. She know anything special?"
"No. She knows what Uhura does. T'Panya has greater reference sources, however, and will quickly learn of any leaked details surrounding the Captain's disappearance."
"There weren't any; we made sure of that."
"Captain…"
"Yes?"
Spock squirmed. "Sir… Sir, the reason that the studio released the information was that it felt that more clarity would be gained by exposing the issue to a wider audience, correct?"
Here we go. "Right."
The Vulcan squared his shoulders. "Sir, the studio was correct. With greater recourses, more will be learned. It would be inefficient to continue with your orders alone, now that the majority of the crew knows of the basic details surrounding the mission."
Kirk leaned forward and put his elbows on his knees, clasping his hands lightly. "Spock. Do you know what you are asking me to do?"
"… Your tone implies that I do not, sir."
"This is an issue of huge importance that must stay quiet, or we'll all go to hell. You know the Cardassians? You know they haven't been comming us lately? They're getting annoyed, Spock. So are the Orions and the Bolians and the Vulcans and the Romulans and even probably the fucking Klingons.
"And we are one ship short.
"And your little screw-up down there doesn't exactly inspire fucking confidence."
Spock flinched with that last word, but held firm. "Sir, I will not let you do this alone."
Kirk gave him a Look.
Spock didn't budge an inch.
Jim grinned and sighed with relief. He caught Spock's stunned expression out of the corner of his eye.
"Thank god," he said, sitting up happily, "because I need a shitload of help."
.bdobd.