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by Lanaea

In Progress. K/S, but slow-building. A misshap brings the Enterprise back to Earth for a while.

21. Chapter 21

Jim was dead on his feet by the time he stumbled into his quarters, after the rendezvous with Uwibami was complete. He left the bridge in Spock's capable, Vulcans-only-need-like-five-minutes-of-sleep-a-week hands, and quite happily collapsed onto his regulation standard bed. The important part was that they were on the ship, and they were moving through space, and so he was content with the state of affairs. Even considering the lack of first officers in his sheets.

At least he was too tired to dream.

The next morning he was fairly cheerful when he made his way to the mess hall. He stole an apple off of Bones' tray – earning himself an eye-roll as the good doctor then went to retrieve another one – and sought out Spock. Who, he was happy to see, had made the addition of several cranberries to his otherwise unfamiliar plate of Vulcan cuisine.

He was less happy about the fact that Uhura was sitting next to him.

Both of them looked up as he sauntered over, masking some of his discomfort by taking a large crunch out of his stolen apple. Quite pointedly, he looked at his communications officer, and then sat down on Spock's other side.

"Good morning, Jim," Spock greeted, a little more stiffly than he had the other day.

For a moment, Jim considered extending his hand for a 'kiss'. He wondered if Uhura would know what it meant. But the mood was a lot more closed off than he'd expected – well, he hadn't really thought about it much, truth be told – and a part of him was afraid that if he did extend it, he'd be left hanging. Regardless of what Spock had said about returning the gesture. Besides which, even though it was only touching fingers, it seemed somehow like it would be a much larger display in the crowded mess hall, and Spock was doubtlessly not the type for public displays. He decided he wouldn't do it.

He nearly dropped his apple when Spock did.

It was very subtle, almost under the table, but still, very clear as well. Especially because he did it with the arm which was on his opposite side. Surprised, and a little thrilled, Jim connected their fingers, and felt once more that indistinct, pleasant warmth. It only lasted for a very brief moment. Then Spock inclined his head, as if to say 'there, relax', and turned back to his meal.

Jim was floored. Had he just… how had he known that he'd wanted to reach out? Or had he even known? Was he really that obvious? Damn. That was kind of awesome, though.

Uhura was gaping at them. So it was a safe bet that she knew what they'd done. Before she could speak, however, Bones and his tray joined them.

For one surreal moment, Jim felt like he was at the academy again. Or in highschool, with the public dining facilities, and the strange, convoluted romantic entanglements. Except it couldn't be highschool, because there were other people sitting at the same table he was.

"…I can't believe you just did that," Uhura finally said, directing her incredulity to Spock.

Bones shot an uncomfortable glance between all three of them. "Don't tell me what they did!" he declared abruptly. "There's no use in eating breakfast if I'm just gonna lose it afterwards."

"Perhaps you should make some effort to diagnose the cause of your frequent bouts of nausea, Doctor," Spock said evenly. "An unhealthy Chief Medical Officer does not bode well for the crew as a whole."

"Oh, believe me, Spock, I already diagnosed the damn problem," Bones grumbled back at him, giving him a withering look. "And goddammit, Jim, quit gaping at him like he is your breakfast, or I swear, I'll start eating my meals with the nurses. The lovely, lady nurses… why the hell am I even over here?" he muttered, but nevertheless, stayed sitting.

Jim was a little surprised at being called-out, but then he caught himself and just grinned shamelessly. "Sorry, Bones," he said, not sounding the least bit apologetic, and turned his attention back to his apple instead. After it was done he decided he really was actually hungry, though, and left for a minute to get himself some real food.

When he got back, Uhura was questioning McCoy.

"How long have you known about this?" she asked, before gesturing lightly in Spock's direction. "I can't get anything out of either of them."

Bones shrugged. "Well, it ain't my place to say," he replied. "Besides. I keep tryin' not to think about it." He punctuated this statement with a pointed look of distaste. Jim retook his seat next to a conspicuously silent Spock.

"Ears," he said helpfully.

"Oh, goddammit, Jim, so help me, I will poison you and make it look like an accident!"

"Even if you succeeded, Doctor, such an action would still substantially tarnish your medical reputation," Spock pointed out, before shooting Jim a curious glance. Jim winked, and the ears in question turned just the tiniest bit darker by way of response.

Uhura watched this entire interaction with open curiosity, leaning one arm against the table and resting her chin upon it. Most of her observations seemed to be focused on Jim, who was beginning to put on an increasingly cocky attitude by way of reflexive response. It was what he always did when he was under negative scrutiny, and he was going to assume that Uhura's scrutiny was negative.

"So," he said, straightening in his chair with an odd combination of devil-may-care attitude and authority. "Any problems last night?"

"We suffered no difficulties," Spock answered him promptly. "There was a minor accident in engineering. An ensign was burned by a misaligned power relay, but the injuries were not substantial. All systems appear to be functioning normally, and the Uwibami is still accompanying us safely and without incident."

"Good to know," Jim said happily. He glanced around the mess hall, taking in the milling activities of the crew, and the few covert glances their own table was being subjected to. Over a ways away Scotty was sitting with Sulu and Chekov. Catching his eye, the Chief Engineer gave him a wave and then a thumbs-up. Jim chose to take it as an impromptu engineering status report. The helmsman and the navigator both pointedly looked in the opposite direction at his glance, however. That wasn't too unusual for Chekov – he had his weird, socially awkward moments, what with being the youngest crewmember – but Sulu was typically quite friendly to him. There was something to be said for a man who'd jump off of a mining rig and risk falling to his death for you, after all. Of course, if they were talking about what Jim thought they were talking about, then it made sense.

He wondered if there were any bets going around yet. These kinds of rumours usually prompted them.

With a shrug, he decided there wasn't much for it, and went back to his breakfast. Spock completed his own a few minutes later, and with his usual efficiency, excused himself to his duties. Jim watched him go, and then pointedly ignored Bones' muttering about 'moony eyes'.

There was now an empty space between himself and his communications officer.

He started eating faster. The one time he glanced over, she made the 'I'm watching you' motion with her hand.

Strangely, he didn't know if she was joking or not. He would go with 'not', because she still kept looking at him as if he were a shoe that potentially had a spider hiding inside of it, but the turbolift animosity seemed to have toned down. Then again, that could have been because Bones was sitting right across from them, and his friendship with the doctor was ship-wide fact. Just like the man's protective streak.

"Oh, calm down, lieutenant," Bones finally cracked, having watched Uhura shoot Jim uncertain looks for the better part of several minutes. "Jesus. Spock ain't made of glass, and even if he were, Jim wouldn't break him."

Uhura gave him a slightly skeptical look. Jim graced Bones with a cheerful smile of thanks at being defended.

"I'm not saying you'd do anything to him on purpose. Necessarily," the communications officer said, shifting a little and turning her glance between them. "But romantic relationships are very serious for Vulcans. And Spock's been through a lot. You can't just mess around with him."

"I know that," he defended. Then he looked over at Uhura, feeling his own unease, and an awareness of his ineptitude with this situation.

It occurred to him that it might help if he tried to think of her as Spock's version of Bones. After all, the good doctor had made his own 'if he screws up, how about we poison him?' offer, comments about squishy underbellies notwithstanding. Even though he'd never had that kind of relationship with the man, he supposed that if he forgot that Spock and Uhura had dated, then her concern as a friend made sense. She didn't know what Spock saw in him – as Bones didn't know what Jim saw in Spock – and if she had the an idea of some of his first officer's troubles, then she had a good reason to be worried.

"What do you think I'd do to him?" he asked, suddenly curious.

Uhura looked at him in surprise, clearly not expecting the question. Then she considered it for a moment, turning it over in her head. Likely, she was also turning over what thoughts she would omit in response, or how to phrase it all while keeping in mind that Jim was still the ship's captain. "…I'm not sure," she admitted at length. "Get bored with him, maybe. Run around on him. I know you're not sleeping together."

Bones glared at his breakfast. "Yeah. So do I, unfortunately," he grumbled. Then, deciding, he gathered up his tray and stood. "That's it, I'm done. You two enjoy your chat about whatever the hell it is you find appealing in that man," he advised, before all but stomping off.

Somehow, though, Jim highly doubted that they were going to broach that subject.

After a beat, he said: "I'd break up with him first."

It was true, too. If he stopped wanting to be with Spock, then he'd just say as much to Spock. If he got tired of trying to talk his first officer into bed and decided he'd rather just have sex with someone else, well, that would be that. Though the idea of doing that didn't hold any appeal for him. In fact, it seemed very repugnant.

Uhura shook her head at him. "See, that's the problem," she said. "You're doing whatever it is that you do, and thinking in terms of 'right now'. But he's not. If he's with you, then he's thinking in terms of years."

Jim knew that. Spock had said as much. It wasn't his fault – all he'd said was that he would try, because he wasn't ready to part from his company, from this growing affinity they had. But just because he knew that nothing lasted forever didn't mean he was responsible for Spock's idealism. Or his cultural differences.

"I know all this," he said at last, and then stood, wondering if he should have even bothered speaking. A momentary flare of defensive temper surged up in him as he made to leave, seeing that suspicion back in her eyes again. "But considering that you weren't with him for 'years', I don't see how you can tell me off," he blurted, before he could stop himself.

Uhura's eyes widened at this declaration. Immediately, Jim felt a bit bad. He wasn't prone to judging other people's relationships, and he knew the split between the two of them had been amicable. Maybe that was why their friendship got on his nerves a little bit – if they'd slid apart, then wasn't it just as possible that they could slide back together? But if Spock said it wasn't, then he was also inclined to believe him. So it was all just a bit confusing.

"…I guess you have a point," she conceded after a long, tense moment. Jim was surprised. "But even though it didn't work out, I was thinking in his terms."

Which is more than can be said for you, hung silently in the air.

Jim found he didn't like the sentiment. But he couldn't think of anything to say against it. So instead, he turned, and made his way quietly from the mess hall.

When he got to the bridge he didn't meet Spock's gaze, or Uhura's when she arrived not long after. It was still a little early to report to duty, but he didn't have anywhere else he wanted to be. So instead he got to work on officially updating himself on what Spock had already told him, and monitored the status of the Uwibami. Vulcan II was further from Earth than Vulcan had been, and the cargo ship was fairly slow, so it would be a couple more hours before they reached their goal.

Right when they dropped out of warp, that would be the likeliest moment to encounter trouble. According to reports, that was when the ship had been attacked the last two times.

He'd only been on the bridge for about an hour when Spock called his attention. "Captain," he said, and Jim looked over to find his first officer staring at him from the science station. He moved to his side.

"Mr. Spock?"

"If I may have a word?" he asked. Jim glanced around, noting that there was a fair amount of quiet around the station, and then leaned in closer.

"Sure. What is it?"

Spock was not quite frowning. But it was clear that something was bothering him, in that subtle, I-don't-know-how-I-know-but-I-do kind of way. He was starting to think that Vulcans suppressed their emotions so much that they shoved them into the air around themselves. "Something about these attacks does not add up. The pirates are believed to be Klingon because of the make and model of their vessels. However, their behavior is not consistent with that of Klingon raiders."

Jim frowned, considering. He knew a lot about Klingon military tactics, and warfare, because he'd studied plenty of it in the academy, and they'd had a few close calls the past couple of months to test his knowledge. He was sure he had a good handle on them, all things considered. But pirates were different – they didn't have military structure, so even with traits that were culturally motivated, their behavior would be more difficult to presume. It would depend on the individuals in charge.

"What do you know about Klingon 'raiders'?" he decided to ask, since he himself had already covered the information on the pirates they were expecting.

"Not a great deal," Spock admitted. "They are uncommon. But as with most of their species, they adhere to warrior principals, and engage in blunt, ruthless tactics. If they were truly responsible for these attacks, I would not expect the crew and ship to have been spared on both occasions."

Jim considered this, sizing it up against what he knew of Klingons, and what he knew of the pirates. Spock made a good point. "Agreed," he decided. "Something about it stinks. Maybe someone's trying to stir up trouble between the Federation and the Empire?"

The last thing the Federation needed right now was a war. After the Narada incident, most of their potential enemies had started sniffing around the borders for signs of weakness. Only the Romulans had stayed quiet. They seemed to have made the executive decision to emphasize their disassociation with Nero and the destruction of Vulcan by withdrawing in their usual, xenophobic fashion. Maybe word had reached them that, in a hundred or so years, they'd have a supernova on their hands, and they'd decided to devote their energies to a solution. Maybe they were embarrassed. That was anyone's guess, but for the moment the Federation was happy to leave them in their corner of the galaxy, and they seemed happy to remain there.

Jim wandered back to his chair, but didn't sit, opting instead to rest a hand against the back of it and think. After a moment, he realized that he'd just essentially leaned in close proximity to Spock and held a whispered conference with him without really thinking about his physical presence. Surprised, he glanced back at his first officer, wondering if some delayed response had kicked in and now his unexpected attraction had run its course.

Spock had gone back to his work, his eyes narrowed slightly and frame bent at the waste as, for whatever reason, he decided to forego the use of his chair. Jim assessed him.

Nope. Still smokin'.

Pleased, he could only conclude that it was his preoccupation with the job at hand that had kept his mind from wandering. He was actually relieved, even though it hurt his 'hey, we should jump each other to keep from being distracted on the bridge' argument. He'd been a little genuinely worried about that.

Of course, the fact that he was thinking of it now, while still on duty and with a matter still at hand, probably counted as a strike against him. But nevertheless. Good job, Captain Kirk.

He turned his mind back to the job, and with a better mood now. If it wasn't actually Klingons, then they may have to hold off on the 'blowing them to smithereens' part of the process, if for no other reason than to find out what was going on. It was possible that this was some kind of trap or set-up. Considering this, he called up what information he could on the space-flight capable species in this sector. Any with anti-Federation or anti-Klingon sentiments would be of interest. But, to his surprise, he found nothing. There were a few populated worlds. However, with the exception of Vulcan II, none of them had warp-drive capability yet.

Then again, it was very possible that the location and target were chosen because it was Vulcan II. Everybody knew how shaken the Federation had been by the near-annihilation of one of its founding species. At this point, if any group wanted to supremely piss them off then targeting the colony would be a good way of going about it. After all, it wasn't like Starfleet command was known for giving orders to the tune of 'make an example of them'. Not that Jim was about to hold it against anybody.

The problem occupied his mind as he went about his duties, but he knew he wouldn't really have an answer until they dropped out of warp.

"Captain," Sulu said with some alarm, at right about the estimated time for their arrival. "The Uwibami has dropped out of warp."

"What?" Jim said. Protocol was always, always that the escort dropped out of warp first, in case there was anything unpleasant lying in wait. He swore, and even as he did the Enterprise dropped, too, and the viewscreen lit up to the unpleasant sight of two Klingon ships. A cruiser and a smaller scouting vessel, both closing in on the cargo ship. They were older models, neither of them any match for his Enterprise, but still formidable enough to destroy the Uwibami.

"Lock phasers onto the enemy ships and open a channel," he ordered immediately, the bridge crew moving to obey as a sudden, thick tension spread through the air. "Unidentified vessels. This is Captain James T. Kirk of the U.S.S. Enterprise. You are in Federation space and intercepting a Federation ship. So power down your weapons and back the hell off, or we will open fire on you."

Okay, so maybe that wasn't exactly official protocol-speak towards the end there, but it got the point across.

There was the briefest of moments, his heart thumping in his chest as he watched the Klingon vessels circle the Uwibami like sharks. Why had they dropped out of warp first? Was it just some bout of stupidity, or was there a traitor onboard the vessel?

"No response, sir," Uhura informed him from her post.

"They're charging weapons, Keptan," Chekov added.

Jim swore again. "Mr. Sulu, try and get us between them and the Uwibami. Target their shields and weapons systems," he ordered. But he didn't think they'd be able to maneuver into position in time. Only for a second, he hesitated. These kinds of orders could bring death – even if it was the death of aggressors. Then: "Fire."

The spacescape was lit up with the deadly colours of phaser light. The Klingon vessels had split their targets – one firing on the Enterprise, the other, the Uwibami. Both shots were wide, inaccurate – the Enterprise was missed completely. The Uwibami took a couple of direct hits, one of which damaged their cargo hold.

"Enemy shields are down to ten and fifteen percent," Chekov informed him. At the same time, Sulu finally got them between the pirates and their target.

"Open that channel again," Jim ordered. "Unidentified vessels. I repeat. This is Captain Kirk of the Federation starship Enterprise. Stand down."

There was another quiet, tense moment, which felt like it lasted much longer than it did.

Then the viewscreen changed, intercepting the response. The bridge which stretched before them was definitely Klingon – but the crew was definitely not. Jim didn't recognize their species. It looked mostly human. Sitting in center stage was a man, presumably the leader, with short, yellowed hair, and a series of odd bone protrusions along his cheeks. They appeared to be a common trait for his people.

"Federation Captain Kirk," said the man, blinking a pair of strange, vertical eyelids. "We surrender."

Jim straightened, his curiosity heightened. "Are there any more of you?" he asked.

"No," the man replied. "It is only we two. That is all we have." His voice was solemn, but to Jim's ears sounded sincere. Still, he was smarter than to take their word for it.

"Mr. Spock?"

"Sensors show no signs of other vessels, Captain," Spock confirmed.

Satisfied, Jim nodded. "Alright. Lieutenant Uhura, hail the Uwibami and find out what they thought they were doing," he instructed. Then he turned back to the viewscreen, where the alien crew was still waiting, their postures rigid, solemn – but frightened. If their species showed fear the same way most did, at least.

"In the meantime," he said. "Maybe you'd like to tell us who you are?"

Silence. Straight-faced, cold silence, like that of prisoners refusing to divulge sensitive information.

After a moment, Jim shrugged. "Alright. Lower your shields, and prepare to be boarded."

There was more silence. But the pirate leader turned to one of his crew, making a gesture with his hand, and after some activity, Chekov reported that their shields were down.

"Mr. Spock, have Security Chief Giotto prepare the appropriate teams for securing their ships," Jim instructed, delegating the task to his first officer as he focused his attention on the viewscreen. He folded his arms, puzzling over this little mystery he'd been presented with. Klingon ships, but not a Klingon crew. A species he didn't recognize – and while there were a lot of space-faring peoples out there, he had a pretty good memory for that kind of thing. Something about this whole set-up was rubbing him the wrong way, and it wasn't just the general wrongness of piracy, either.

Pirates shouldn't have much hesitancy about identifying themselves – not after they'd been captured, anyway. If anything, they should be screaming their government's name loud and clear in the hopes of getting a diplomatic break. And the behavior wasn't lining up. They'd opened fire, as if they thought that they could take down a Federation Constitution Class Starship, but any sane person would know exactly how that would play out.

"And Spock?" he added more quietly, as his first officer got the Security Chief on the line. "Tell them to look out for traps. I want those ships thoroughly scanned for any signs of bullshit before they beam over."

A stiff nod was his reply, but he didn't need anything more than that. He re-addressed the alien crew. "Our security teams will beam aboard your vessel. You will be placed into custody. If you resist or attempt to flee, we will open fire. You've violated Federation law by pirating and attempting to pirate our cargo ship," he said, moving to the middle of the bridge and standing, legs apart and voice strong. "These are serious crimes. You will be prosecuted for them."

Nothing. No protests, no requests to have their own government contacted. They weren't a Federation species, he was almost certain, so that wasn't the issue. Radicals, maybe? They were tight-lipped enough. The only thing he'd gotten out of them was their surrender… but then again, most radicals didn't surrender.

After a minute with no further response, he turned away, making the 'cut' gesture that signaled to end the transmission. The screen showed open space again. "Lieutenant, contact Starfleet Command. We're going to need another ship for this, it'll be too risky to try and escort both vessels and their crew on our own. Tell them we've captured two Klingon vessels – that should cheer them up." There were always some maniacs in the research and development teams who loved to get their hands on even out-dated enemy technology. He could escort them to the Vulcan II colony and leave the pirate crews there for another vessel to be sent, but he wasn't under any orders to do so, and his curiosity with this situation was compelling him to stick with it.

"Aye, sir," Uhura agreed.

"Has the Uwibami responded?"

"It's coming through now," she informed him, and then she tilted her head, adopting the look of concentration which said that she'd gotten the message and was piecing it together. "Their captain sends her apologies. Their engines are old. Apparently they forgot to re-time their drop out to synchronize with ours before they went into warp."

"Damn," Jim said, wondering briefly if it was a deception. But that might just be starting on the slippery slope to paranoia – the ship was old, and it was the entire situation that was making him uncomfortable. Not necessarily this aspect in particular. "Ask them if they need any help."

With a nod, Uhura turned to her task. Jim frowned, his mind running circles around this. Something was trying to piece itself together, an idea just on the periphery of his mind. He could almost…

There.

The suspicion formed, suddenly, clearly, and with intent he moved over to one of the computer stations and quickly called up the information on the nearest inhabited worlds. None of them had warp drive capability.

But as he sifted through the information, looking pointedly for visual references this time, he realized that one of those species was manning the two ships drifting on his viewscreen.

For the umpteenth time since the Uwibami had dropped out of warp, Jim let loose a string of profanity. He didn't know about Klingon pirates, and he didn't know about Klingon opera, but he knew about Klingon tendencies to commit violations of the Prime Directive agreement between the Federation and the Empire. There had been several incidents of them providing technologically primitive species with weapons or mechanics far beyond their level of development.

Although, somehow he doubted that they'd just handed two of their ships over to a race which, according to their information, had only recently obtained nuclear capabilities on their own world.

Then again, Jim honestly couldn't say what was really going on until he had more information.

"Sir, the Uwibami has informed us that some of the geological equipment they were carrying has been damaged, in addition to one of their cargo holds. But otherwise they're unharmed. They're requesting permission to proceed on impulse to Vulcan II."

Jim thought about it.

"Alright," he said at length. "Let them go ahead. And open a channel to the Klingon cruiser again."

With a nod, Uhura complied. The alien bridge crew was just as they had been before communications were cut, as if they'd never moved. Maybe they hadn't. Jim adopted his 'captain's stance' and faced them once more.

"According to our ship's computers," he said. "Your people call themselves the Irri?"

That got him a reaction. A flinch, from a few of the bridge members. Not the leader, though. Jim regarded them thoughtfully. "Your civilization isn't capable of advanced space flight yet," he noted, eliciting a few surprised reactions from his own crew. "How did you get access to Klingon technology?"

They didn't respond, maintaining their silence.

Jim considered his options. Then he spoke again, deciding to try the gentler approach. "The Federation's different from the Klingon Empire. We have laws that are supposed to protect peoples like yours. If the Klingons have done something to you, we might be able to help. Or find a good reason to overlook your piracy."

For a moment, he thought he'd just get more of the silent treatment. But eventually their leader spoke again. "We cannot stand against your weapons," he said. "We submit to your judgment."

Jim regarded him carefully for a moment. Then he turned to his first officer. "Are the security teams ready, Mr. Spock?" he asked.

"They are," Spock confirmed.

"Good," Jim said resolutely. "Make sure they secure the ships' computer systems as well. If there's any clue there about what the hell is going on, I want it." He looked back to the Irri crew. "Our people like to use relevant circumstances to mitigate our judgments. We won't pass them until we understand what's happening."

There. That seemed to give them pause for a moment. Or at least, their leader blinked again, and shifted his position slightly. Jim was suddenly very, very grateful for all the time he'd spent with Spock lately – it seemed to have increased his capacity for picking up on subtle body language. Not that he was exactly a slouch before, but there was something to be said for the proper motivations.

"Our words are our own," he said at length, before he closed up again, like a man prepared to face his death sentence.

Damn, Jim thought, not liking any of this one little bit. "We're going to have to find out, whether you help us or not," he said.

Silence.

After a minute, he sighed again, and cut the connection once more. Well, he'd let the security teams handle it for now. Someone was going to have to go to the Irri homeworld to figure out what the hell was going on there.

"Captain," Spock said, approaching him as he considered their options. "The Uwibami reported that some of their geological equipment was damaged during the firefight. This equipment is integral to the colony's development, and its delayed presence has already begun to have ramifications on the settlement. Given that the enemy ships are no longer an immediate threat, I request permission to contact the Uwibami and assess what has happened. We may be better equipped to help with any necessary repairs than the colonists are at this time."

He was still, stiff, and formal, which in itself silently conveyed his anxiousness. Jim looked at him for a moment, and then nodded.

"Go ahead, Mr. Spock," he replied. "But keep me informed."

"Of course," Spock agreed, before swiftly moving off to carry out his task.

Jim regarded the two Klingon ships still drifting on screen, and frowned. This was shaping up to be one hell of a mess. The Uwibami had been damaged, the pirates were technically still protected under the Prime Directive, and the Klingons had gotten their hands into who-the-hell-knew-what. Not to mention the fact that the only people who probably knew what was going on were being incredibly tight-lipped about it. His instincts were telling him that the next step would be the Irri homeworld. But they couldn't up and leave the two ships to go investigating, and there wasn't enough room in the Enterprise's brig for both crew compliments, either.

There was nothing for it but to wait it out on Starfleet Command's response.

In the meantime, talking to the Irri crews, however unproductive, was the best option remaining to them.

"Lieutenant," he said, moving over to Uhura's station. "Contact Security Chief Giotto. Let him know I'll be joining his teams onboard the cruiser."

"Sir?" she asked, surprised.

"Hey," he said. "Maybe they'll be a little more receptive to talking face to face." Then he turned, heading for the turbolift. "Mr. Spock, you have the bridge."

He missed seeing the briefest look of concern in his first officer's eyes as the doors to the lift slid shut behind him.

Using a transporter wasn't really supposed to feel like much of anything. If you asked Bones, it left a man with an itchy sort of discomfort, and the nagging idea that they might have left some piece of you behind. Jim was pretty sure this was psychological. But he personally was often a little weirdly tingly after he'd been beamed somewhere, so then again, maybe not.

The Klingon cruiser had none of the Enterprise's airy openness about it. The walls were painted a weird sort of cream-grey, and the lighting was tinged with red, making him feel like he'd just walked inside a moldy condiments jar. But it also smelled oddly disinfectant-y, as if someone had scoured the interior from top to bottom.

Probably not a good sign. Especially not for the Klingons who'd originally been onboard.

Giotto met him in the transporter room. He was about fifteen years older than Jim, their most experienced senior officer, and didn't always seem too keen on being part of the youngest crew in the Fleet. At the moment he was regarding his captain with something akin to exasperation.

"Captain," he said, nevertheless polite, as Jim descended the transporter pad.

"Lieutenant Commander," Jim returned with equal professionalism.

"Permission to speak freely?" Giotto asked, as they made their way into the corridor. It was an unexpected question – usually the Security Chief just did what was required of him, expressing his lack of enthusiasm only in the occasional look or gesture.

After a beat, Jim nodded. "Granted," he said, managing to catch himself before he replied with 'yeah, go ahead', which definitely sounded less captainly.

"There's no good reason for you to be here, sir," Giotto informed him bluntly, folding his hands behind his back as they walked. Most of the doors on the ship had been opened wide, preventing the creation of hiding places or ambush spots. Several sections had security personal already stationed outside them, marking that they'd been checked and found clear, but required some kind of guard. "I'm more than capable of doing my job as Chief of Security, and that includes questioning detainees. You would have been better served to stay on the bridge, and let me handle things here."

Jim glanced at him. "I'm not here to undermine your ability to do your job, Mr. Giotto," he replied. He could kind of see where the guy was coming from, he supposed, although he was a little off in his assessment of things. "What we've got on our hands is shaping up to be a Prime Directive shitstorm. You can handle detainees, but this is probably a mangled First Contact and a diplomatic nightmare all wrapped up in a probable violation of a treaty agreement with the Klingon Empire. That sounds more like the purview of the captain to me."

There was an uncomfortable pause.

Giotto blinked. He was looking at Jim with an expression that said he'd had no idea his captain even knew what words like 'purview' meant.

Well I do, so suck it, Jim thought to himself, but he found he wasn't angry. Especially when his Security Chief actually deigned to retract his protest and agree with his perspective.

"We haven't been able to get much out of their computer yet," Giotto then volunteered. "The database is locked, and in Klingon. There's access to the main systems, but it looks like whatever the original crew was doing, they were keeping a lid on it."

"When you're satisfied that the ships are completely secure, I'll assign some communications officers to help with the Klingon," Jim said. Then he let Giotto lead him the rest of the way to the ship's mess hall, where several armed security personnel had corralled the pirate crew.

When they entered, the Irri were all standing in the center of the room, hands at their sides and expressions varying from pointed neutrality to a sort of wary defiance. The leader he recognized from the viewscreen was at the front of the group. When he saw Jim, he did his strange, sideways blink, and then shifted so that he was facing him, legs braced apart and chin slightly raised. In person, he was at least a full head taller than the majority of humans in the room, including the captain.

"Federation Captain Kirk," he said, and Jim decided all at once that he was more chatty in person. If only because he'd said anything at all.

"Just Captain Kirk is fine," he replied, moving a little closer into the room. The security personnel came a little more sharply to attention at that. "What should I call you?"

There was a pause. Jim got the distinct impression that he was being sized up. Then the leader straightened his shoulders back, and said: "My words are my own." There was a certain tension which fell over the room at that, and the other Irri also set their shoulders back and straightened their stances. A few even scowled.

Information on most pre-warp societies was usually pretty sketchy, especially when their words were somewhat on the periphery of things resource-wise. All Jim had been able to find out about these people was their rough level of technological advancement, the fact that were called 'Irri', and the name of their homeworld. None of that could tell him what the hell was going on.

"Does that mean you aren't talking?" he asked. The fellow blinked again – but this time he proved that he had four sets of eyelids, because it was a horizontal blink.

"Your weapons are stronger than ours," he repeated. "But I am stronger than you. If you want my words, you will have to tear them from my stomach."

…That was probably one of those cultural turns of phrase which didn't translate well.

"I'm not looking to tear anything out of anybody," Jim said. "All I'm interested in is finding out what's going on."

Another horizontal blink. He was sure, now, that the expression was pointed, although what it meant was still up in the air. "Coward," he said.

Jim bristled, even though he knew it would probably be the smartest thing to just take the high road and not react at all. But he couldn't help it. Not only was that pretty damn insulting, but the way the guy said it gave him the impression that he thought it was even more insulting than Jim did. Going off of the looks on the other Irri's faces, he'd say there was a solid foundation to back that thinking up on.

Okay, diplomacy, diplomacy. He was starting to see why the Klingons might have been interested in these people. He could put two and two together – their leader was challenging him to a fight.

It would probably not be a good idea to accept. The guy was like twice his size, and his culture probably had a whole set of rules for combat which Jim would be utterly unfamiliar with.

Then again, if it got them talking…

No. It was still a bad idea.

"My people try and avoid solving things with violence," he said, even aware as he did that, especially coming from him, that was a bit of a load. It probably would have been more accurate to say 'ideally my people ought to prefer to try and avoid solving things with violence, most of the time'.

"My people do not choose cowards for leaders," the Irri threw back, and then he made a gesture with his hand. It was a cutting motion just below his waistline. Going out on a limb and making a few assumptions, Jim guessed that it was meant to imply that he had no balls.

Okay. The guy wasn't that big. He was pretty sure he could take him.

"Let me get this straight," he said. "If I fight you, you'll tell me what I want to know?"

"Captain…" Security Chief Giotto said uncomfortably. Jim raised his hand to cut him off, keeping his gaze fixed on the Irri leader.

"If you are stronger, my words are yours," the Irri replied.

"Alright," Jim decided. He had then planned to ask, essentially, what the rules were, but his apparent acceptance seemed to signal 'fight time' to his broad-shouldered adversary. An arm lashed out, taking an immediate swing at his head. Reflexively, he ducked.

"Don't fire!" he immediately called to the security team, knowing straight away that they would if he didn't stop them. But there was no way to know how shooting at the Irri leader would go down, except for the understandable assumption that it would not go down well. In an instant, Jim was able to gather that this was to be a fist-fight, both from the swing at his head and the earlier declaration regarding the differences between weapons' strength and an individual's.

Unfortunately, the second he took to order his security officers not to stun the bastard cost Jim a moment of attention, which resulted in having a very sharp knee planted in his gut. The breath was knocked out of him and stars danced across his vision at the painful blow. A moment later, however, he managed to pull away, doing an awkward, skidding half-roll to put some distance between himself and his opponent and get a damn second to think. Apparently the Irri were all for getting straight down into things, however, because the leader came right after him, moving to take another swing. He was strong, but his motions were fairly stiff. A little awkward.

Jim's only advantage was speed. Fortunately, he was used to fighting people who were considerably larger and slower than he was. Who would've thought that bar brawls would come in handy when it came to diplomatic relations? He managed to plant a couple of good hits, but each one bruised his fists, and didn't seem to dent his opponent very much.

The few blows that landed on his own person were jarringly painful. He kept low, trying to use the other guy's size against him by attacking his legs, and ducking his moves. Jim decided it probably wasn't the most straight-up tough-guy fight he'd ever had, considering all the darting around and dancing he was doing, but it seemed to be working. Several minutes in the Irri leader was starting to wear down, tiring, but he himself was still going steady. He can't keep up the pace, Jim noted, before he ducked and twisted and managed to plant a boot in the guy's kidney.

Presuming he kept his kidneys where humans did, at least.

There was a low growl, the first sound the Irri leader had made since they started their fight, and then Jim was too slow to duck a sudden bursting, bruising fist as it lashed out and connected with the side of his head. He staggered back, stars dancing across his vision and pain lancing through his skull like an explosion. As soon as it landed, he knew it was bad. Fractured cheek bones and eye-sockets kind of bad. The sort of thing a certain doctor would string him up for.

But he kept his footing, and when he could finally bring himself to uncurl his head from his arms and try to regain some sense of orientation, it was to note that the Irri had fallen. He was lying on the ground as if he'd twisted and collapsed, the last of his energy expended with his final lash outwards. His breathing was heavy and his eyes were closed.

The others were all staring at them in silence.

Jim was too out of it to notice much else, like the fact that his security officers were looking at him with varying degrees of awe, or that the Irri were all rapidly blinking their vertical eyelids at him. All he could do at the moment was make a pained sound that only wished it was the curse word he intended. His head fucking hurt, dammit, and his perception of the universe was being shot to hell.

"Giotto to Enterprise," he heard, albeit painfully. "You're going to have to lock onto Captain Kirk and the pirates' leader and beam them aboard. They're both in need of immediate medical attention."

"Copy that, Lieutenant Commander," Uhura's voice drifted back over the communicator. "Can you affix a signal to the pirate crewmember in question?"

Giotto moved to place his communicator atop the fallen Irri, who was lying very still apart from the heavy in and out of his breaths. "Signal ready," he said to it after he'd laid it down, and then stepped back. A moment later the dull, almost-bronze swirl of dematerialization surrounded them, and when Jim re-appeared in the transporter room, he found his ability to stand finally abandoned him. The universe tilted unpleasantly, and he tumbled off of the transporter pad, which definitely didn't help his situation any.

"Captain!" he thought he heard whoever was manning the station exclaim. The only impression he managed to get around the swirling, pounding torrent of pain in his skull was the vague red of an ops uniform. Then again, that might have been his blood. Sometime later, which might have been a moment and might have been an eternity for all he could tell, there was the sound of running footsteps, and a familiar southern drawl cursing into the air.

Gentle hands pulled him out of his awkward, sprawling position, and he closed his eyes and found it very difficult to think of anything other than the fire running across half his head. He was pulled onto a stretcher, and someone was asking his name.

"Dammit, Jim, answer me!" he finally made out, as some of his disorientation and pain-induced nausea faded a bit, and let him focus again. There was a whirring by his ear.

"Bones," he managed to say, and immediately regretted moving his jaw. "Shit," he hissed, although the word actually came out more like 'shttt', instinctively moving his arms up to his hurting head. They were halted firmly mid-motion.

"Don't move," he was instructed. Nothing else, either – which meant the CMO was stressed, and too stressed to even bother with his usual litany of curse words and reprimands. Well, it felt like he'd caved in half of his face, so he could only hope that wasn't actually the case.

A dull, medical light rested over him, bleeding through his eyelids as he was moved with disorienting speed through the corridors. The pain began to lessen, and he exhaled slowly in genuine relief as it did.

So… why had he picked the fight with the alien guy who was twice his size again?

He was sure there had been a reason, but right now he was also sure that he was an idiot. Although, he was the idiot who actually won the fight, so at least he was less of an idiot than his opponent.

Then again, he hadn't split the other guy's skull open, either. At this point he'd take 'very, very tired' over 'fire, pain, agony, someone shoot me now and vaporize my nerves so that they stop screaming at me, please'.

After a while he felt brave enough to risk opening his eyes and taking in the sight of the medical bay, and Bones' hand running something blinky over him.

"What is the captain's status?" he heard Spock's clipped tones ask. Which was a little odd, because he couldn't see Spock. It made sense, however, when Bones darted over to the com system and angrily punched the button for it.

"Goddammit, Spock, I'll tell you when I'm sure of it," he barked into the box, and then seconds later was back at Jim's side, and doing something welcomingly soothing with a pen-shaped object to the side of his cheek. One of the new nurses was running a scan on him, too. "How many fingers, Jim?" Bones demanded, holding up his hand.

It took him a moment, but he got there.

"Two."

The silence told him he'd gotten it right. Well, that and the fact that he knew there were two fingers. He'd gotten in trouble before for just guessing on that one in the past. Especially when he got lucky and guessed correctly. With his eyes shut.

After that he was instructed to stay as conscious as he could while light whirled and pain lessened, and hands moved around him. He'd guessed pretty accurately about what had happened when he'd been hit. His cheek bone was fractured, but his eye socket was more or less alright. His jaw had taken a beating, too, and one of his back teeth had been halfway knocked out. There were other injuries as well, from earlier on in the fight, but he was understandably less worried about those than the ones on his head. His hands were pretty beat-up from his initial punches, though, and it was as he was reclining against the medical bed with some crazy device strapped to his skull that he finally noticed the blue and purple bruises which had flowered under his skin, and the stiff, drug-numbed ache which throbbed up his arm when he tried to move his fingers.

Well. That sucked.

He decided to turn his attention elsewhere, and instead focused on the Irri leader, who was lying quietly not too far away. He was, as Jim suspected, mostly just exhausted. The way his people had a certain economy of movement to their gestures was starting to make sense to him, now, if they didn't have a lot of stamina. As he regarded him carefully, the Irri met his gaze – surprisingly awake – and then, after a moment, blinked his vertical eyelids at him.

Huh. No more horizontal blinking.

"Doctor," he heard a familiar voice say from the front of the medical bay, and turned his gaze – as much as he could, with somewhat restricted head movement – in the direction of Spock's still-clipped, curt tones. "You said you would keep me informed. Where is the captain? What is his condition?"

"Relax, Spock," he heard Bones reply, although from his angle, he couldn't see either of them. "He'll be alright. Provided I don't kill him myself for being a damn fool."

There was a pause. Then, "I am perfectly calm, Doctor. As first officer it is merely imperative that I be aware of the captain's status."

"Oh, right, of course, Spock. That was silly of me, but I forget that you don't have any emotions. So. I guess you'll be heading on up to the bridge now? But come to think of it… why didn't you just use the com system again? Was there something else you came down here for, other than to make sure we still had a captain?"

"…If that is all, then I shall return to my duties."

Jim didn't know whether he was annoyed with Bones or relieved. While it was always a pleasure to see Spock, he was kind of a mess just then. Even by his standards. And though he'd never admit to it, now that he was decidedly more familiar with the intimate side of Vulcan nature, he was a bit self-conscious of his hands.

He heard a big, Bones-sounding sigh. "Dammit, Spock, don't be an idiot. Go and check on him. He's awake. Probably eavesdropping, too."

There was a pause. Jim could almost hear the hesitation. Then footsteps. A shadow fell momentarily across his sheets, over his side, and then Spock was standing there. His expression was perfectly neutral as he took in Jim's state of being, gaze moving from his face, to his chest, then down until it stopped at his hands for a moment, before moving back up again.

Smiling was painful and inadvisable. Jim managed a very small, crooked one anyway. But he couldn't keep it up for long.

"My familiarity with medical facilities has been increasing at an exponential rate, relative to my familiarity with you," Spock said.

Moving his face around a lot was as inadvisable as smiling, and difficult, because what didn't hurt was heavily numbed. So all Jim could really manage to say was, "huh".

"I will maintain diligent command of the ship until you are fit for duty again," Spock continued, and in a weird, toneless, withdrawn sort of way it was almost like he was talking to distract himself. "Lieutenant Commander Giotto has apprised me of the situation which led to your injuries. The Irri crew have maintained their refusal to communicate. It is likely we will only be able to obtain cooperation from the one you entered into physical conflict with, provided that your agreement is honored."

"…'Kay," Jim said, with more solemnity than was often associated with an abbreviation typically employed by small children. He was a little surprised when Spock actually kept talking to him, even though his communication skills were clearly not at their peak.

"The geological equipment onboard the Uwibami suffered critical damage. The colony's technicians are confident that they will be able to repair it, however, they have requested that we lend whatever manpower we can to facilitate that repair over the next several days. Given Mr. Scott's current situation in Engineering, it may prove difficult or inadvisable to grant this request. Any decisions on that matter shall be left to your discretion once you have regained competency. We are still awaiting a reply from Starfleet Command."

There was a pause.

"That is all I have to report," he said then, and Jim wondered if he was alright. He looked very blank and robotic. "I shall return to the bridge."

He didn't walk away at first, though. For a moment, he just stood there, continuing to stare at him with a pointedly fixed mask. Then he reached over and very gently lowered his hand on top of Jim's. That was it, that was all he did, and Jim couldn't even feel it properly, because he was all drug-numbed and everything. But Spock, at least, was still on duty and in command, there were still issues to be dealt with and situations to handle, and it was clear that he'd wound himself in very tightly.

So he might as well have thrown his arms around Jim. All things considered, the gesture was roughly equivalent.

"You must endeavor to avoid getting yourself killed in my absence," he said, in a quieter voice than the one he'd been using before. Then he retracted his touch, and turning, left.

In the still and quiet moment which followed, it occurred to Jim that Spock had been worried about him.

Everything about his demeanor had implied that he was upset, in that roundabout, very Spock way, and if he hadn't have been able to guess it beforehand, the last thing he'd said had sealed the deal. The realization filled him with an almost uncomfortable warmth. It also meant that he now felt like a heel. The contrast was kind of weird. On the one hand, knowing that Spock would worry – that struck a note in him that he didn't think he was entirely comfortable acknowledging. But worry was unpleasant, and putting Spock through something unpleasant felt like shit. So he also felt kind of guilty at feeling good about knowing that Spock was worried about him.

He was starting to see why Vulcans had given emotions up as a bad idea. Not that he was going to be subscribing to Surakian principals any time soon, but still. Score one point for the Vulcans.

Unfortunately, awkward and convoluted though his feelings may have been, he wasn't given much else to focus on for the next hour, until Bones finally relented and took the stupid machine off of his head. He was very reluctantly cleared for duty, with strict orders to 'take it easy' and the warning that if he got himself injured again, he'd be bolted to a medical bed for an indefinite period of time. The Irri leader was also on the swift path to recovery, if the fact that he was sitting up was any indication. Bones hadn't been able to figure out a whole lot of his physiology yet, so they were sort of playing it by ear with him. The security guard who'd been stationed to watch over him looked epically bored, however, and Jim couldn't say he blamed her.

Jim regarded his former adversary carefully as he considered whether he should question him now, or give him more of a chance to recover.

Well. Patience was a virtue, but he was curious.

"So," he said, moving across the medical bay, and experimentally flexing his bruised hands as he walked. Not as bad as when he'd been hit by the chair, at least. The bruises would probably be gone soon, too, modern medicine being what it was. "You wanna tell me your name now?" He'd start small.

"Chlaloon'ch'Pahalgren-roon," the Irri replied without hesitation, but with, of course, another vertical blink. Jim was starting to think it was a sign of deference, or agreement, since he'd only done the horizontal blink when he was trying to pick a fight.

"Damn, that's a lot of name. You got a problem with me just calling you Roon?" he asked. Anything else would probably be too much of a mouthful for him just then.

"No," Roon replied frankly. His breathing was still just a bit wheezy. "It is my preference, Captain Kirk."

"Good to know," Jim said in his best 'I'm-a-nice-guy' voice. He walked over so that he was standing relatively close to Roon's bed, but hopefully not in a threatening kind of way. "So, Roon, are you alright? We don't know a lot about your species, so if there's anything wrong you'll probably have to tell us."

Roon cocked his head, and then made a motion which made Jim think he was running tongue across his teeth. "I am without energy," he said. "But I will live, and be stronger. Wiser as well." As he said the last part, his expression turned somewhat speculative, and Jim guessed he was taking a moment to wrap his head around getting beat by an unarmed guy who came up to his chin.

"Also good to know," Jim decided. "So is there a limit on what I get to ask you here, or can I just fire away?" He was trying to keep this from seeming too much like an interrogation. There was a good chance these people were just in some kind of horrific mess, after all, and he found that some of the cold anger he'd initially felt for the pirates preying on Vulcan II had been tempered by circumstances.

"My words are yours," Roon replied. Jim took it to mean that he could ask whatever he wanted.

"How did you gain access to the Klingon vessels?" he asked, cutting straight to the chase. He still kept the nice-and-friendly tone to his voice, though.

"I do not know this word 'Klingon'," Roon replied. "But our vessels came to us from the sky. We set our sirens to shout them down when our furthest-seeing eyes caught them."

If Jim had to guess, he'd say that the universal translator was having a hell of a time with the Irri's language. A nuclear-stage civilization ought to have terms like 'telescope', but if it were a particularly romantic or complex way of speaking, that would probably explain the odd break-down. "Sirens?" Jim asked, suspecting that the term wasn't quite matching up to the true meaning.

Roon nodded. "We built them when we heard the voices from the sky, to shout back at them. They shouted so loudly that the vessels came loose and fell into our waters."

Okay. So. The Irri had managed to construct a device which caused ships to fall out of their orbit. That was good to know, although it still didn't explain what two Klingon ships had been doing in their orbit in the first place.

"You shot down the ships… and then flew them into space?" Jim asked, a little impressed despite himself. It was odd, though. Most recorded cases of pre-warp civilizations who got their hands on advanced technology had them keeping it on their world, taking it apart and figuring out how it worked. As far as he knew nobody had ever just turned around and flown an alien ship back off their planet.

"Yes," Roon replied. "We wished to see upward, into the black sky. It took us weeks to learn how to make the vessels fly again."

Weeks?

…Holy shit. Weeks. Unless he was lying, and going off of his gut he'd say he wasn't. Jim found he was impressed again, even though this was looking more and more like a diplomat's worst wake-up-in-a-cold-sweat nightmare. He didn't think they were entirely comfortable with the systems yet, though, going off of their less-than-stellar aim in the firefight, and the fact that they hadn't ranged very far from their homeworld. But still. Damn.

"So you wanted to explore."

A blink, and then a nod, confirming his statement.

"Then why did you attack our cargo ship?" he asked.

"We wished to have another vessel," Roon replied. "We saw the ships come and go from the dry world. When we learned how to make the burning lights strike, we thought to fight and claim one. But we did not think wisely. When the vessel was beaten, we had no way to claim it in the black sky."

Translation: they shot at the Uwibami but, afterwards, didn't know their tractor beams systems could tow it back to their planet, and so just kind of drifted alongside it. Jim could see where this was going. "Let me guess – after you shot at the ship, you suddenly found your cargo hold full of equipment and supplies?"

When the attacking vessels hadn't destroyed the Uwibami, the crew, frightened, had likely – and not unreasonably – assumed they were being pirated, and beamed over their vessel's cargo in the hopes of maybe not getting horribly killed. To their eyes it would have seemed like that was what was wanted from them, especially if the Klingon ships had their shields down. Jim could only assume they must have been. Maybe the Irri had taken a while to figure out those systems, too?

"Yes," Roon agreed. "We were astounded."

"I'll bet. And then you figured out that if you attacked the cargo ship, it would happen again?" Jim reasoned.

"It did. But the second time the small vessel was hit by burning lights. We saw the 'shield' that flickered around the 'cargo ship' and learned how to make it flicker around our own vessels. We thought it would make us strong. Our weapons were stronger than theirs – but not yours."

"No," Jim agreed. "They wouldn't be." That really was impressive. It was also, as he'd initially assessed, a Prime Directive shitstorm. He sighed, running a hand along the back of his head. These guys had no idea how lucky they were that the Enterprise had found them first, and not, say, more Klingons. Although he supposed he shouldn't feel too sympathetic towards them, since even if the repeated piracy had been mostly accidental, they'd still fully intended to shoot down and steal a cargo ship. They just hadn't figured out the transporter systems or tractor beam – thankfully.

"Alright," he said. "So if you were exploring, why didn't you make any attempt to land on the 'dry world', or contact the people there?"

Roon blinked again. "We feared that if we did so, they would be able to take our vessels from us. We thought they were the ones who built them."

Well, Jim supposed, if they hadn't gone very far, it probably would have seemed reasonable to assume that the first space-faring, intelligent species they came across was the same as the ones they'd shot down. And in a way he was right – they were most certainly going to have the ships taken away from them. But the worst of the damage would have already been done, especially if they'd started figuring out how to duplicate the technology they'd seen.

"They are not, are they?" Roon asked him, the first question of his own that he'd voiced. "They are like you. Federation. You call the ones we brought down, with the ribcage-heads, Klingon."

"Yup," Jim agreed.

"All the Klingon died in the water when their ships fell," the Irri said.

"That's lucky for you," Jim replied. "They're physically stronger than we are." If the society held physical strength in some kind of esteem, then definitely, the Klingons would have run roughshod over them if they hadn't drowned.

Roon's expression turned to one of concern, his brows drawing together. "They are you masters?" he asked.

Jim snorted. "Not a chance," he said. "More often they're our enemies, although we've got something of an uneasy truce with them right now."

"Ah," said Roon. "Enemies. Yes, I understand this. We have many enemies too. Our weapons are stronger, or weaker. Our people are stronger, or weaker. We throw fire at one another, and it leaves behind plague. We would rather die than let them master us, and they would rather die than be mastered. So it creates fields of death and grey flower clouds." He leaned forward, then, proving that he'd gotten more of his energy back. It was still a very conservative level of motion, but more eager than anything else Jim had seen him do. "The gifts from the 'cargo ship' have helped us. There is breath to clear the soil and tools that help to heal. We need these things. We need more of these things, to stop from dying."

A grim sort of feeling settled over Jim at this revelation. What Roon was talking about sounded a lot like nuclear war. He could see how the colony's equipment would seem like a godsend to them – in addition to a lot of gauges and monitoring systems, much of it was designed for making the more unruly parts of Vulcan II more inhabitable. If their world was suffering from nuclear radiation poisoning, it would help. Not entirely, but enough to make a difference. Not to mention the medical supplies.

He was starting to think that he should get someone a little more familiar with linguistics involved in this conversation, though. Just on the off chance that he was somehow misinterpreting a lot of this. He was starting to hope that he was.

"Roon," he said. "If I ask someone else to come here and talk to you, will you answer their questions?"

The Irri blinked his 'friendly' blink at him again. "Yes," he said. "If that is your will."

…Huh. Something a little bit creepy about that sentence, although he couldn't quite put his finger on it.

Then again, 'eerie' could come up a lot in interspecies conversations, and usually without meaning to. He'd heard more than a few crewmembers mention that they found it uncomfortable to talk to Spock, for example, because he didn't smile or laugh or wave or… do much of anything, really. Well, in their opinions.

"Okay, wait here a minute," he instructed, and then walked over to the med bay's com system. He called up to the bridge. "Lieutenant Uhura, please page your stand-in and meet me in the medical bay."

There was a pause. Then a rather confused-sounding 'aye, sir'.

Well, she was the best linguist on the ship, even if her specialty was actually subspace signals. Personal issues aside it was the smart choice.

While they waited for the lieutenant to arrive, Jim tried to anticipate what the Federation's reaction to this entire situation would be. The Prime Directive had already been shot to hell. But, if past experiences were any indication, they wouldn't just leave the Irri with information on technology way ahead of their social development. That said, if there really was some kind of a nuclear holocaust going on, then just taking their shit and waving goodbye could spell death for, possibly, the entire planet, or a large portion of it. Which seemed excessively harsh. Not that that was their fault, but then again, the 'hands off' approach had already been shot to hell and back.

"Jim," Bones said, drawing himself out of his thoughts. "This is a medical bay, not a conference room. Can't this at least wait until the man's capable of standing?" he asked, gesturing towards Roon, who was reclining now.

"Are you hearing what he's saying, Bones?" Jim asked, his tone very much implying that he couldn't believe the doctor wasn't as eager to find just exactly what was going on as he was. "What were those Klingons doing orbiting a pre-warp civilization's world, anyway? And how many times had they been there for the Irri to catch on and actually build a device to shoot them down?"

Bones sighed. "Jesus, Jim, I don't know," he said. "But it ain't gonna change any between now and whenever he's fully rested."

"If he starts to look worn down, he can rest," Jim assured him. His friend didn't look too happy about it, but clearly he also realized that he wouldn't get any better, either.

"I don't like it," he said bluntly. "But at least it'll keep you where I can see you for a while. If you're head starts hurting again, let me know."

The conversation came to a halt, then, as a somewhat baffled-looking communications officer entered. Her gaze flicked curiously over Roon before it came to rest on the captain and the doctor. Jim approached, and quickly laid out the situation. Her confusion left, but now she was wearing that same vaguely horrified expression which he suspected had graced his own face a time or two in all of this.

"I need you to talk to him," he said. "You know more about how the translator would reinterpret parts of his language. Tell me if I'm right or not."

For a moment she looked a bit anxious at the idea. But then she nodded, and walked with Jim over to where the large Irri was reclined. When they approached, he sat up.

"Roon," he said. "This is Lieutenant Uhura. She's going to ask you a bunch of questions, mostly the same questions I did. I'd like it if you could answer her, but if you need to rest, just say."

He got two blinks that time. Or maybe it was one blink for him, and one for the lieutenant? "I will do this," Roon replied.

Jim glanced at Uhura. "Will you be alright with just him and Ensign…" he glanced at the young security officer, and thought about the crew lists he'd looked over when he was bringing everyone back aboard. Almost had it… "Mercado?"

For whatever reason, the ensign looked inordinately pleased. "Yes, Captain," she confirmed.

"Right. So, will you?" he asked. It wouldn't take a lot for him to assume the guy would make her nervous. He made him a little nervous, and he'd more or less kicked his ass. Even if it had come at the expense of his skull.

After a moment, Uhura shrugged and nodded. "Shouldn't be a problem. Sir," she decided.

"Great, let me know what you find out," he said, and then made to head out.

Bones scowled at him. "Dammit! I thought you were staying to talk to Goliath here some more!"

"Sorry, Bones, can't chat!" Jim replied, not bothering to turn around, but raising a hand in a wave. He heard the disgruntled huff from behind him as he exited the bay, and found himself in his ship's clear, bright corridors.

Clear, bright, and currently mercifully unoccupied corridors. He leaned against the wall just outside the door as a wave of nausea rolled over him. It wasn't the aftereffects of his medical treatment, or his fight that caused it, either. It was the turmoil of this whole situation. If he was right – and, to be honest, he didn't really think he'd been mistaken – what would Starfleet do with this? It had been pretty clear cut when it had just looked like attacks against the colony. None of their missions ever seemed to go just the way they were expected to, and usually, he kind of liked that. But this sort of moral quandary didn't settle well into his system. The worst part was that he didn't know if he was relieved or concerned that, in the end, it wouldn't even be his decision to make.

Because he was the one who'd found it. So for this moment, it was his responsibility.

Not to mention that Prime Directive violations always put everyone under the knife, and he was already being scrutinized as it was. That wasn't really the biggest issue, but it definitely didn't help any of it go down more smoothly.

After a minute, when he'd collected himself, he made his way back up to the bridge. Questioning Roon had satisfied a good deal of his curiosity, and burdened him with a lot of unpleasant information, but now he wanted to know if they'd managed to get anything from the Klingon ships' computer databases. He'd feel better once he was back at his post – more like he controlled some part of the situation.

When the turbolift let him out, the crew turned in his direction. Several then quickly turned back to their posts. A few stared for a little longer. Spock, who had been standing beside the captain's chair, raised an eyebrow at him.

"Dr. McCoy has cleared you?" he said.

"Yup," Jim assured him, heading over. "I wouldn't be here if he hadn't." Well, maybe if he'd managed to escape. But escaping Bones was no small feat.

"Then I shall relinquish command back to you, Captain," Spock said evenly, still tense and reserved, but not as bad as when Jim had seen him earlier.

"Thank you, Mr. Spock," he replied, and just to show that he could now, graced him with a proper smile. It still felt stiff, but at least he could do it.

Smack.

Both captain and first officer looked over at the sound of Chekov swatting at Sulu. Clearly, the impact against the fabric of his shirt had been louder than expected. The seventeen-year-old ensign scrambled to get upright properly in his seat again, and Sulu was doing his damndest to pretend nothing had happened. Every eye on the bridge had turned to look at them because of them sound.

Amused more than anything else, Jim walked over to Chekov's station, and then lowered a hand heavily onto his shoulder. The ensign gave an involuntary little jump.

"Something you want to share with the class, Mr. Chekov?" he asked.

"N-no, Keptan, I only needed… to… I fell over?"

"Wobbly seat?" Jim suggested.

"Oh, yes, sir, wery wobbly."

Moving his hand to the back of the chair, he gave it a little shake. It remained utterly stable. Chekov paled.

"A word of advice, Mr. Chekov," Jim said, adopting something of a stage-whisper. "Never take the answer somebody else suggests. It's usually a trick."

Sulu made a sound like he was trying not to laugh.

With a consoling pat for the ensign's shoulder, he moved back, satisfied. He wasn't exactly gossip's biggest fan, but he knew what it was good for. The trouble was that he couldn't really afford to let it become too prominent, especially during duty, to the point where the kid at tactical was leaning over to smack his helmsman left and right. So he'd embarrassed Chekov a little, but he hadn't reprimanded him or even given him supreme shit.

He was hoping that discouraged it without making him out to be a complete ass. But he was still pretty new to discipline in all its varied and complicated forms.

"Mr. Spock, what's the situation with the Klingon ships?" he asked, changing gears back into business mode.

Spock updated him efficiently on the progress with the computer systems. Apparently he'd thought along the same lines as Jim, and sent down a few communications officers to help with the process. It was still slow-going, however, and the security team seemed to anticipate that they were going to have to turn it over to the code-breakers at Starfleet Command before they'd get anything out of it.

"Any thoughts on what those Klingon ships would be doing out here to begin with?" Jim asked him quietly after the update.

"There are many possibilities, Captain," Spock replied in the same low tones. "The Irri could possess some resource they are interested in. Given the proximity to Vulcan II and the level of security locking their ships' computers, it is also probable that they were planning some sort of tactical strike against the colony. Neither option is mutually exclusive, either."

"You think it's both?"

"I cannot say. But it does seem possible," Spock concluded.

Jim frowned. The Vulcans, for all that they'd taken a blow, were still seen as an integral part of the Federation. There was a chance the Klingons would see a strike against the colony as a chance to completely knock out a peg, so to speak. "I don't like it," he said, more to himself than to Spock. But Spock heard it anyway.

"I do not find it an agreeable concept, either," he replied, and instantly, Jim remembered that any apprehension he felt would be worse for his first officer. Well, except that he'd suppress it. But suppressing it was hard, so it was worse, unless he was actually successfully suppressing it… oh, forget it, he'd just go with 'it's worse'.

"Well, whatever the hell's going on, we'll figure it out," Jim concluded.

In the meantime, he left Spock to his station and made the executive decision to talk to Scotty, and see who – if anyone – they could spare to help with the repairs of the colony's new geological equipment. This back-and-forth lasted for quite some time, as even Scotty himself seemed to waver between the need to expediently reorganize his ship, and the desire to help the Vulcan colonists. In the end they decided to send a group of six, along with three very competent crewmembers from Maintenance, via shuttlecraft to Vulcan II, to be retrieved either when the work was finished, or, more likely, when the Enterprise was ordered from the system.

They were still hashing out some of the details when Uhura returned to the bridge.

Her expression did not bode well.

Jim decided it was time to call another senior staff meeting. He asked Scotty to head for the conference room, sent for Bones, and then had Spock and Uhura accompany him there. Sulu had the con.

"Alright, lieutenant," he said once they'd gathered. "Spill."

"…Well," Uhura began, running a hand along the back of her head a momentarily straightening her ponytail. "You essentially got it right. From what he told me, they managed to build some sort of device to knock the Klingon ships out of their orbit…" she then proceeded to reiterate pretty much everything he'd figured out himself. It was kind of depressing – he was actually hoping he'd gotten it wrong somewhere along the way. But apparently the lieutenant had also been a bit more thorough and probing in the questions she'd chosen.

"Culturally, they seem to have a strong sense of hierarchy. As near as I can tell they count military strength and weapons capabilities as a separate issue from physical prowess. That was why Chlaloon'ch'Pahalgren-roon would only answer the captain's questions after he'd beaten him in a fight." Jim was impressed that she'd actually spat out his entire name. "According to their social structure, when a person defeats someone else in physical combat, they… ah…" here she seemed to hesitate for just a moment. Then she straightened, took a breath, and folded her arms. "They own them."

There was a moment of dead silence.

"…Well that's kind of awkward," Jim noted.

"'Awkward?' It's slavery!" Uhura replied, clearly annoyed with his flippancy.

"Hey! He didn't know that would happen!" Bones jumped in defensively.

"That's why he shouldn't have done it in the first place!"

"Well how the hell else were we gonna get anything out of them?" the doctor countered. Which was a little funny, because earlier he'd been about ready to yell Jim's ear off about how stupid he'd been to accept Roon's challenge.

"There is no point in arguing over this," Spock pointed out evenly. "What has been done is done. If the captain has authority over the Irri's leader, it would prudent to exercise it until they can be returned to their world."

Jim swallowed, his seemingly careless attitude disguising the fact that he was very disquieted by this little discovery. "It's a cultural misunderstanding," he said, recalling that his last brush with one of those had left him wondering if he was married to Spock. "It's not like I'm going to keep him. I'll go tell him right now if it makes you feel better."

"I know that," Uhura relented. "It's just that it isn't so simple. The Irri have a very important hierarchy. When you beat Chlaloon'ch'Pahalgren-roon you didn't just get him, you got everyone he'd beaten, and all of the people they'd beaten. And their wives and children, according to him. You're essentially their clan's leader now, and they won't take Chlaloon'ch'Pahalgren-roon back."

She kept saying his whole name. Which was easier to focus on than the actual concept which she was conveying.

"They don't have much experience with other cultures," she added. "So they think it's like that everywhere. Since you're the captain, they think you own us, too, and that now we'll join up together. It happens from time to time in their society, although apparently it's more common these days for different clans to form alliances against common enemies. Their war is very brutal."

"Wait," Scotty said. "Yeh'r sayin' that the captain's like their king now?"

"More like their chief," Uhura corrected. "But pretty much."

Jim shifted. "I still don't see how that's a bigger problem than the one before," he pointed out. "Either way, it's not like I'll be sticking around to lead them. They'll have to find someone else."

Uhura sighed. "It's like this. From what Chlaloon'ch'Pahalgren-roon's told me, you're in charge of about five hundred people now. Those people are allied with nearly a thousand other clans of varying shape and size. All of those clans have different standing amongst one another, and the higher up it goes, the more brutal things get. If you just cut and leave them, their leadership will be in dispute – and from what I understand, that means they'll probably all end up killed."

Okay. So that definitely complicated things a little. Jim didn't want to be responsible for the deaths of five hundred people. "Why would they end up killed?" he asked. "Why wouldn't they just be absorbed into one of those other clans?"

"Because their idea of an 'alliance' leaves a lot to be desired," Uhura replied, sounding a little tired as she ran a hand across her brow. "Believe me, Captain, I've been talking to him about this for a while now. It doesn't look good."

Jim thought, feeling a kind of quiet dread at the idea that his impetuousness may have just cost half a thousand people their lives. Or him his, conversely, if he wound up having to strand himself on a pre-warp world in order to keep them from dying.

Okay. Time to find the third option.

"I'll need to talk to him again," he concluded. Not to mention start getting this shit together in a report to Starfleet, so that this whole mess could start getting cleaned up. But there had to be some kind of protocol, something that these 'clans' did if their leader died or was unfit or incapacitated. Right? They couldn't just go around murdering such large portions of their population. Not unless their reproduction rate was exponential.

Which it could be. After all, what the hell did he know?

"If I may accompany you, Captain?" Spock requested. "It is possible that I will be able to offer a different perspective."

"Good idea, Spock," Jim agreed. "I think we could use a little logic right now."

On that note they dispersed, with Scotty heading off to make the final arrangements for the colony aid team, Uhura to return to her station, and Jim and Spock following Bones back to sickbay.

When they entered, Roon greeted them enthusiastically. "Captain Kirk!" He was up and standing, with Ensign Mercado keeping an eye on him, although she didn't look particularly concerned. Maybe because, apart from nearly bashing the captain's brain in, he'd been well-behaved.

Jim replied with a smile and a nod of acknowledgement, and then his eyes widened marginally when the tall Irri took a step towards him, reached out, and grabbed both his shoulders. Ensign Mercado had drawn her phaser, on reflex, but it clearly wasn't intended to be an aggressive move. It was more like the guy planned to hug him.

And then five pale, narrow fingers closed around Roon's shoulder. His eyes rolled back into his head and he slumped to the ground with an audible 'thump'.

Jim gaped.

He looked from the fallen Irri, to his first officer, and then back again.

"…Spock?" he asked, confused.

Spock gave him a look of polite innocence.

"My apologies, Captain," he said. "I thought he was moving to assault you."

In unison, everyone looked back down at Roon as he lay in a heap on the floor of the medical bay.

"…Well," Bones said at length. "At least we know they're susceptible to Vulcan nerve-pinches now."

---

Author's Note: Sorry for the delay! I wasn't able to get to an internet access until really late. Fortunately, though, I was still writing on my laptop even if I wasn't uploading, so I decided to just keep going until I could update and give you guys an extra-long chapter. I hope that helps balance it out a little. Special apologies to the self-proclaimed 'addict' reviewers.

Also, sorry about the Nurse Chapel mix-up. I only saw the new film once, and I didn't recall the time she was mentioned – so maybe just assume she had an older sister/cousin/coincidentally-named predecessor onboard? Anyway, this chapter was all about Captain!Kirk, so not as much romantic interaction. Hopefully it was still good. I think Spock and Roon are going to be good friends now!