Chapter 25 - Repairs, Part 1

They were finally warping away from Y-9032b. Kirk didn't like abandoning the Spitfire to Ashe's stubbornness, but he and Yabe were both outranked.

"Comm, let me know when you contact a relay and keep trying to get a connection to Tico. I realize that's difficult given that we don't know her location." Kirk decided to just explain that he understood the limitations of a task, rather than wait for extra justifications.

"Yes, sir."

Chief Long came to the bridge. She gave him her reports and said, "I feel my department has failed you, sir."

Kirk looked up from what he'd been handed. "Not in the least. It's a month or more worth of effort, not a few hours." Kirk looked into her lined face. "Neither of us likes admitting defeat, Loangrath. But we have duties we are neglecting and those duties involve other lives. We have to move on." This sounded good, but Kirk was preaching to himself too. It irked him to turn away from a plan with potential.

Long said, "If you could get me a few more Vulcans, I could transform my department."

"I'm afraid the others in the brig will not do you much good. Not very human-friendly."

"Spock seems to be."

"Spock is accustomed to humans, or one human, at least."

The bridge crew were sneaking glances back at them.

"You sir?"

Kirk lowered his brows. "I was referring to Spock's mother. Lovely woman."

"You've met her?"

"Yes. She has the best tea cakes." Kirk handed the signed reports back. "I'd kill for one of her tea cakes about now."

The glances back were amused now. Apparently this was the correct way to handle this issue.

Two hours later, Gall reported that the nearest Federation relay had responded to a ping, but that she could not get it to accept their summary report.

Kirk stood up and came behind her. He was acutely aware of his own posture now and remained relaxed, one hand behind his back, fingers loose.

Gall said, "Pretty sure I'm sending this transmission properly, sir."

"Too much noise still? Can I see it?"

She pulled up the raw data.

"Its not rejecting the header," Kirk said.

"No sir. Just the main packet data. It's like it identifies us and shuts down the connection. There is no handshake response, no encoding schemes, no checksums, no terminate."

"Stop trying to send. Let's think about this."

Kirk turned around and found the rest of the bridge crew watching him, faces worried and achingly hopeful.

"Before anyone asks, no I can't think of a positive reason for this development. Helm once we pick up our probe, take us 121 mark 3. Let's change vector unexpectedly. Gall, you have Wasp's radio id from one of their transmissions, correct?"

"Of course, sir."

"Can we pretend to be Wasp?"

"It's hardwired into the equipment, and highly against regs, sir."

"Rejecting our transmissions is highly against procedure."

She hesitated. "True, sir."

"We have at least two spare subspace radios. Have engineering rig one to look like Wasp and we'll try transmitting again when we get a little farther away from our previous location along the new course."

Gall said, "You want to know if we're being singled out, sir?"

"Yes, and Wasp isn't going to be sending anything. So there is no risk of confusion." He went back to the center seat. "We've been in a radio blind spot, maybe a broadcast went out to all ships. Maybe we missed something that would explain it. But Starfleet or not, we have a job and that's figuring out what happened to Tico."

When Kirk left shift, Gall left at the same time, followed him to the officer's deck.

Kirk waited with her until the passageway cleared.

"Are there any private relays we can reach?" Kirk asked.

"Funny you should mention that, sir. You wanted to try and send a message to your mystery correspondent and I wonder if we could use that same technique to get a report closer to Starfleet HQ."

"That's an excellent idea. Except for the security issues."

"I can send a doubly encrypted message that at worst is thrown away at the wrong receiver. The message isn't long enough to decrypt by brute force. I'm thinking of sending a strongly encrypted message into a private relay enveloped in weak encryption that will be decrypted down the line and possibly redirected where it needs to go when the system cleans out the orphaned messages."

"Then give it a try. Send our report to Commodores Stone and Mendez first. Command SF second.

"Yes, sir." She sounded grim. "What's going on, sir?"

"I don't know." He almost said more. He almost said that someone seemed to really want a war with Vulcan. But he worried that he was in earshot of Spock in the nearby cabin.

Kirk touched Jones on the elbow. "We may be glad we were out here. Away from whatever is going on."

She nodded, head down.

Kirk said, "As to our mystery receiver, send this message: have son, unharmed."

She looked up sharply, glanced toward his quarters. "Oh."

Kirk gave her a small smile. She nodded and walked slowly away, attention on her padd.

Spock stood up when Kirk entered his quarters.

"May I be of use?" Spock asked.

"Yes, but let me think about how. In the meantime, I'm behind on reports, my department heads are starting to deliver them to me in person. This after I gave them lessons in report writing."

Kirk switched his bunk out for the desk and chair and pulled up the monitor. It was a luxury to only have reports to worry about.

The comm whistled and reported that the Tico was issuing a distress call on multiple subspace channels and had been repeatedly for days. They were limping back toward Ranger's position, badly damaged. Kirk took the connection on his monitor, ignoring that a civilian was sitting across from him. The connection came up slowly, stabilizing only reluctantly.

"Kirk here, Captain Seyburn, what can we do for you?"

"We need your location, you're the closest ship." Seyburn gave their coordinates and trajectory. "We can't get a message through to command, even on the emergency channel."

The connection went out.

Kirk switched to the bridge and told them to change course to intercept the current transmission.

He waited thirty seconds for the helm to adjust, then asked, "What's our ETA?"

"Thirty six point one hours, sir."

"Ask Long if we can safely eek out another tenth of a warp. Better to arrive intact, but maybe we have a little safety margin to spare."

Kirk sat thinking, staring at Spock. "Speaking of hacks," Kirk said. But the connection to the Tico reestablished.

Kirk said, "We're en route, Captain. Can you hold on thirty six hours?"

"We'll try our best."

Kirk wanted to point out that the Ranger wasn't a repair ship, but that would only unnecessarily strain Seyburn. Kirk reassured him instead they would meet soon and signed off, promising to update on their position in twelve hours.

Kirk stared at Spock again, rubbed his chin. He paged Rand.

She arrived at the door, padd under one arm.

Kirk stood. "Come in Yeoman. You are considered the mistress of paperwork on this ship. I have need of some paperwork magic. How familiar are you with the filing to become a private contractor?"

"Somewhat. Shall I pull it up?"

"Do so."

While she tapped on the screen, she said, "Who is the application for?"

"Spock."

She paused. Sighed. "I don't believe even I can make that work, sir. But I have the form. Line one: Earth ID Code." She put the padd back under her arm.

Spock recited a number-letter code.

She stared at him, raised the padd and tapped that out, read through the rest of the form, filling in as Spock replied.

"Sir, I can copy in the typical engineering contractor language. Covers the job description and all the reasons a contractor is necessary. Lack of in-house talent. Distance from base. Cost reasons, etc."

She tapped away. Held the padd out for Spock to sign, then for Kirk.

"That's it, sir. Anything else?"

"Make a copy of the application along with a record of attempted transmission on a separate tape. I might need it."

When she was gone, Spock said, "You are the quintessential optimist."

"It's a war. We're short on skilled personnel. The application isn't allowed to ask about race. You have a clean earth ID. If we can establish a connection, I think the application will go through and no one will be the wiser. I like having you around and intend to keep you around as long as possible." Kirk tilted his head. "As long as you are happy to be here."

"I am quite pleased to be here."

Kirk put his paperwork aside and sat back. "Not as pleased as I am to have you."

Spock raised a brow. "I estimate that as highly unlikely."

"An estimate without any numbers?" Kirk smiled. "Estimates about emotions. Tsk. Tsk."

Teasing Spock was a bad idea. It made Kirk's desire rise. He pulled his reports back under his nose until he finished the essential ones.

The feeds were quiet and contained only a few ship comments mired in code words he did not know. Next shift, he'd have to ask Gall if she knew what some of it meant. He could sleep, but he didn't feel like sleeping. He put his feet up on Spock's bunk and interlocked his hands behind his head. He felt comfortable yet energized.

Kirk said to the ceiling, "I worry what you might have been forced to do to maintain your cover."

Spock looked down. "May I ask why you are asking?"

"I'd ask if you were my crewman. That's why I'm asking."

Spock's left brow twitched. His expression became distant. "I was forced to kill and eat some of an animal called a granlatee, that is a half amphibian native of Tellar and sold alive at the supply ports we frequented. It is a hardy creature with a great deal of meat on it."

"That bother you?"

"Not terribly."

"But that bothers you, I suspect."

"Indeed."

Kirk said, "Killing animals isn't what I'm worried about."

Spock looked down. He put his scanner aside and loosely clasped his hands. He looked smaller in that posture.

"Killing was reserved for the elite among the Outliers who could do so without succumbing to a bloodlust as a result. They had to be careful. Fortunately. For my sake." Spock swallowed hard. "Eventually, I would have been called upon. But standing by while death is being doled out-"

Kirk waited more than a minute.

Kirk finally said, "It's like wading through a swamp. You cannot keep the stinking muck out of your boots. The best you can do is leap from soggy hillock to soggy hillock and not slip in and drown."

After a time, Spock nodded. "An apt analogy. I still feel the muck on me at times."

Kirk let the sympathetic affection he felt come out through his voice. "You will for a while, I'm afraid. What you did was brave. Not just anyone can do what you did. The personal cost is extremely high, no matter the outcome. You have to die a little inside watching something terrible happen that you cannot stop. You would have sacrificed yourself for no gain, but knowing that doesn't reduce the internal damage it causes."

"I am relieved to hear to speak so." Spock stared at his fingers. "I cannot understand. Why kill if there is an option? It cannot be argued to be logical. When we met on Wolfram Thesus 5, I was fascinated by your experience with death, now I am appalled by any association with it."

"I'm glad to hear that."

Spock looked up. "To be honest, James, you are not so different in your willingness to kill if the reason and need is compelling."

"That's brutal, Spock."

"Perhaps my assessment is colored by stress."

"I'm surprised you want me to touch you at all." Kirk regretted saying this immediately. His own stung ego was talking for him.

Spock tipped his head to the side thoughtfully. "I have divided my mind in the last few months. I can hold many viewpoints at the same time, contradictory ones, which is not something I tended to do previously. I can see the horror of your penchant for violence but also deeply appreciate it given that I am relying on you for protection. It is disturbing how much the broader reality can be lacking in logical absolutes. I believed peace came from naiveté about violence. I think now I was grossly mistaken."

Kirk said, "Peace is an agreement between mature people who fully understand the costs of violence."

Spock nodded. "Perhaps. Yes."

"Is this conversation helping you or not? I can't tell."

"I don't know. I should perhaps meditate."

Kirk pushed off the wall and stood. "I'll go check in with my second shift and stay on through the first split shift. That will give you about seven hours alone. Will that be enough?"

"You need not be away that long, I only require three hours or so."

"That's pretty efficient meditation."

"Indeed. Previously, I rarely meditated in lieu of sleep. But it is distinctly human to sleep every rest period, so among the Outliers I forced myself to adapt in an attempt to not stand out. It was difficult at first, but my meditation has significantly improved."

"You never know what you can do until you have no choice but to do it."

Spock nodded. He seemed emotionally fatigued.

Kirk said, "Let me know if you need anything at all. You can push the stud to talk to Comm who will pass a message on. That way you don't have to page the whole ship."

"Understood."

On the bridge the second shift Comm said that engineering had the masked subspace transmitter in place.

Kirk said, "First, try sending the paperwork that contains no location data."

Comm worked at his board for a time. "Transmission complete, sir."

Kirk leaned over the board. "Strip the location data off the summary report of our action at Y-9032b."

"That doesn't leave much, sir."

"Try it anyway. Leave a marker where you took the coordinates and star systems off so it's clearly censored in case anyone does get it."

Comm worked for a time. "That went through as well."

"So, we don't know if its location data that's blocked or our transmitter that's blocked. Either way, I'm glad we got something through." He stood straight. "The Militants aren't nearly the threat they were before and the Federation needs to know that."

Kirk triggered the door to his quarters.

"We're approaching the rendezvous with Tico."

"May I be of use?"

"Yes, you may."

Spock raised a brow and stood up.

Kirk had a uniform over his arm. He held up the red shirt. "Put that on. Fortunately your are thin, taking in an abandoned uniform is easier than the opposite."

Spock accepted the shirt and held it out, stunned. "I am to wear this?"

"It's not a real uniform. The insignia's removed. It's just a red shirt . . . that happens to look like a uniform."

Spock slipped out of his brown robe and into the pants and shirt. Kirk wondered if he should be feeding Spock a lot more or if he was always so thin.

Kirk tugged on the hem of Spock's shirt and only after doing so realized how overly familiar the gesture was. He spoke to cover for it. "It could have been taken in more. But it looks okay. Welcome aboard, Spock." He forced his smile to convert to serious. "I'm sending you with Chief Long and her team to the Tico. I will be escorting you until I'm certain there won't be any trouble."

Kirk tugged on the shoulder seams of the shirt. Spock looked right in that outfit.

"Ready for this?" Kirk said.

"What are my duties?"

"Doing what people tell you to do. And if you think you can't do it, simply stating that so it gets assigned to someone else. And following my instructions about your safety. To the letter. Understood?"

"Yes, James."

Kirk glanced up.

Sounding slightly amused, Spock said, "Would you prefer I not use your name?"

"I don't know. It was pretty funny last time you did that. Ship commanders are mythical creatures that lack real lives and familiar names."

"I feel odd using your rank when I am not one of your crew."

"Other civilians would use it. On the Tico, best use rank with everyone. Here in my quarters it doesn't matter what you call me." Kirk put his hands at his sides and stood straight. "Ready?"

"You asked that already."

"You didn't answer."

"Yes, I am ready."

Kirk looked him over. Spock's ears were not something that could be hidden. "This is going to be interesting."