Captain's personal log, stardate 2261.111
We're on our way home. Not for long, just enough time to take care of some engineering and systems upgrades that Scotty's insisting on. We'll also return the personal effects and remains of the Marena scientists to their next of kin, or, in Ensign Galliuilin's case, to Starfeet for disposition.
The crew will have a couple weeks of leave, with the exception of Ensigns Rand and Chekov, who will both be spending some time at Starfleet Medical at Doctor McCoy's recommendation. I have been assured that Rand will not face a court martial for the death of Galliulin, and she has requested reassignment to a Starfleet training facility when she is cleared for return to duty. I concur that a new assignment would be advisable.
Meanwhile, I've requested a meeting with Admiral Nogura, which has been granted. I am not looking forward to it.
Also, I still have a wedding to officiate day after tomorrow. Note: verify all waivers have been signed in the presence of a witness and a legal representative, and that no recording devices will be allowed.
It was a typical springtime morning in San Francisco—sunny, a little brisk this early in the day, a breeze that tickled and, with a playful gust, threatened to upend McCoy's cap. He clamped his hand down on his head until it abated. He felt slightly ridiculous in this get-up, but Jim had insisted that you couldn't just walk into Nogura's office in your everyday uniform—"It's the big man himself, Bones." So here he was, in dress uniform, all spit and polish, feeling like his neck was in a sling, and waiting for Captain James Kirk, who had invited him along for this little adventure. He squinted against the morning light, searching for Kirk's familiar, jaunty gait among the throngs of people crossing the plaza in front of Headquarters. A faint waft of sea salt overlaid with the sweet, minty fragrance of eucalyptus teased by, and he closed his eyes and breathed in deeply.
"Hey."
His eyes flew open as he jumped a step back, then scowled at the man who had appeared next to him. "Don't do that, Jim."
The captain's eyebrows lifted and he tilted his head at McCoy. "You're twitchy today."
The doctor flicked his hand at him in dismissal, then sighed. "Yeah, I guess so," he admitted. "Long day already."
Kirk steered him toward the entrance. "You get Rand settled in?"
"Yeah." He didn't want to talk about it, but Kirk was being either oblivious or stubborn. McCoy figured it was even money on which.
"How is she? What about Chekov?"
"Later, Jim," he replied shortly, and nodded at a passing commodore followed by her frazzled-looking yeoman scurrying along under a pile of printed reports. This was neither the time nor place to have a consultation about a crew member's mental health….or lack thereof, in this case.
At his tone, Kirk held up a hand. "Got it." He reached the entrance first and stepped, without breaking his stride, into the revolving door. McCoy made for the swing door to the side—the revolving ones always gave him an unpleasant moment of claustrophobia—and they emerged at the same time into the Headquarters lobby. He removed his cover and raked his fingers through his hair to smooth it, then looked around. He hadn't been here in a while, but he couldn't see any significant changes.
Unlike the fortress they had recently been marooned in, however briefly, this was an open, airy space, white columns and windows everywhere; not inviting, exactly, but alive with people and voices and movement. He stood a little ways behind Kirk as the captain spoke with the security guard behind the reception desk, soaking in the feeling of being on a planet that felt, smelled, and looked like home.
"C'mon. Eightieth floor."
As they waited for a lift to arrive, Kirk tapped his right foot against the floor, and rolled his shoulders as if to loosen them.
"Now who's twitchy?" McCoy muttered in his direction.
"I don't exactly have a great track record of meeting up with admirals here, Bones."
He was taken aback at Jim's clipped tone, then realized he should have foreseen this. This is the space where Kirk had first been unceremoniously relieved of command by Pike; then had stumbled into smoke-filled chaos to find Spock next to the admiral, and had pressed his fingers into the man's neck in futile search of a pulse.
The story of that night, which began with a reconciliation between the demoted captain and the admiral in a dive bar, had come out in bits and pieces when McCoy could catch the man unawares, rare moments when his defenses were lowered. The early halting, flat-affect, time-warped retelling of the trauma was almost unbearable, but he knew that the memories must be excised and then stitched together into a story that would someday make sense to Kirk, or at least in a way that he could live with. But after all this time, he was not at all convinced that Jim would ever move far beyond the primal, pre-narrative space where Pike's death loomed in his captain's head.
"I know. You're fine, Jim." He meant it to ease the tension, but Kirk rubbed at his forehead where McCoy knew his headaches always started.
"Am I?" The words were nearly inaudible and the doctor wasn't even certain they were intended for him. The lift came to a stop.
They took the long way around—it's a nice view of the bay this way, Jim said, but he noticed they conveniently avoided passing by the big conference room—before ending up in front of a nondescript Starfleet-issue gray door which slid open as they reached its motion sensor.
The admiral's aide glanced up from her desk. From her eyes, he guessed she was Betazoid, and felt Kirk stiffen next to him.
"Good morning, Captain. Lieutenant Commander," she nodded at them in turn and then blinked at Kirk, assessing him coolly. "Captain, your concern is unfounded. The admiral would not ask that of me. Please be seated. I will advise him that you have arrived."
McCoy stole a look at Kirk, who, to his astonishment, was blushing. No sooner had they made their way to a pair of chairs and settled in, than the door to the inner office opened. Nogura appeared and they had to stand back up, Kirk fumbling as he almost dropped his cap. The admiral had a reputation for keeping his subordinates on their toes, so to speak, and McCoy supposed that-along with having a Betazoid aide-this game of musical chairs was just a tactic meant to keep people discombobulated.
"Please, come in and sit. James, it is good to see you again," the admiral smiled and extended his hand, and Kirk took it. "Doctor," he said, turning to McCoy, "I do not believe we have met."
"No, sir, we have not." The man was small in stature but radiated a formidable aura of confidence and authority.
"I am pleased to meet you. Doctor Seifert has had only positive things to say about you."
Well, that was unnerving. He shot a glance at Kirk, but the captain was occupied with trying to adjust the chair Nogura had directed him towards. It was a little low to the floor for him.
"I'll be sure to thank her for the kind words the next time I see her." He saw the man's eyes narrow, then the admiral smiled and lowered himself into his seat behind his desk. It took up half of the width of the room, and was made of a gleaming exotic wood, a vast surface with only a monitor set at an angle that faced away from the guest chairs. He clasped his hands together atop the desk and fastened his unreadable eyes on Kirk. "What can I help you with, James?"
Not What did you wish to see me about, or What do we need to discuss, but How do you need me to help you? McCoy was beginning to understand why this man was disliked to the far reaches of the Alpha quadrant, his name uttered more often than not in conjunction with a derogatory epithet.
Jim gave up on the chair and leaned forward, trying not to slouch. "Sir, I have some questions about our recent mission to Marena—"
"The K''am Khangolia system? Your official report was, shall we say, notably sparse."
If the interruption was meant to distract Kirk, it did not work. "Yes, sir," he continued. "I have concerns about the history of our involvement in the system and the orders I received. Three Starfleet personnel and two civilians perished there, and I'm losing another ensign due to injuries she suffered."
"Yes, I heard about Rand," the admiral replied absently. "But the history of our involvement, Captain, is none of your concern." His voice hardened. "Furthermore, I hold you responsible for the injuries to your crew. Galliulin went of her own volition, but there should have been no other casualties. Your orders were to send her down alone. Under no circumstances, even if she did not survive, were you to allow any of your crew down there."
There were at least four different things McCoy wanted to say all at once, but he held his tongue. Uppermost in his mind was the palpable frustration and confusion roiling off of Jim; he also worried about the Betazoid in the next room and what kind of mental fortitude she had to possess, to sit there and take the tidal waves of emotion that this man must provoke from his guests all day long.
When Kirk spoke, it was with the deadly dangerous tone he'd heard only rarely from his captain, teetering just on the edge of insubordination. "I accept that I am not owed an explanation for our involvement in whatever disgraceful activities occurred there. But—" he held up a finger as Nogura's eyes darkened in irritation, "You are responsible for ordering that young woman to her death. You knew what had happened there, how many Orions died, and that there was some unidentified, lethal force there."
At the mention of Orions, Nogura stood abruptly and his chair made a scratching sound against the floor. "I am ordering you to never speak of this matter again, Captain Kirk. That goes for you, too, Doctor," he focused his stare upon McCoy, "and all of your crew who have knowledge of the Orion involvement." His voice rose and he jabbed his finger in Kirk's direction. "The entire system has been placed under quarantine and this event will never appear in official records. This is an intelligence matter and lives are at stake. Do you understand?" He stared at them in turn, gaze furious.
"You mean more lives?" the doctor said softly. Nogura's gaze latched onto him and he had a sudden, ridiculous image of an enormous squid, its tentacles entwined in the sails and stays of an old wooden warship. You've unleashed it now, McCoy, he thought.
"What is your point, Doctor? The past cannot be undone." The admiral's eyes had turned cold and distant.
"My point is, Admiral, sir, that Irina Galliulin did not go willingly to her death. You know that, and to state otherwise is to misrepresent her character and to falsify the record," the doctor said mildly.
"Bones," Kirk murmured, but McCoy ignored him.
"She was there by your order, because of you and your reverse activation clause."
"My—" the admiral frowned at him, nonplussed, momentarily distracted from his rage. It was, McCoy thought, possibly the first genuine emotion he had sensed from the man. "Reverse activation clause...I don't know what you're talking about, McCoy. Galliulin and that other geologist—"
"Malloy. Lieutenant Winifred Malloy," McCoy said.
"Yes, yes, Malloy, she and Galliulin were...well, they were involved at some point. Personally." He said the word with distaste. "She came to me and begged to be sent to Marena. Said she knew they had gone silent and she would know how to interpret Malloy's research, would bring it all back if I just let her go and find out what happened. Although," he continued with a thoughtful expression, "I can see the utility of such a clause."
Great, McCoy thought. That's gonna come back to bite me in the ass. I can feel it. Also, what the fuck? None of this makes sense.
He could see anger and resignation warring across Kirk's features. Apparently Nogura did as well, for he sat back down with an air of victory and hooked his thumb into the cuff of his jacket to wipe away at an imaginary smudge on his desktop. He gave Kirk an expectant look. "Anything else I can help you with, Captain?"
Kirk stood and stepped forward, then leaned against the desk, palms flat against the surface. "I want her service record expunged."
"What? Whose record?" But Nogura's eyes slid away to the vista of sailboats and sunlight sparkling off of water, and Kirk sensed an opening.
"You know what I'm talking about. I want Galliulin's academic probation and desertion removed, and I want her discharge changed to honorable."
Nogura laughed. It was, McCoy thought with disgust, a sound as dry and empty as he supposed the man's soul to be.
"Why? What does it mean to you, Kirk? She has no family, no next of kin. Her body will be cremated, her name put on that memorial on the plaza with all the thousands of others, and no one will ever care what kind of discharge she had."
McCoy had had enough of this petty little man. He stood as well, tucking his cap under his arm. "Admiral, next of kin is not the same as family. I don't know what sad excuse you must have had for a family when you were growing up, but our crew is our family, even if we are only allowed a few days with them. So no, Ensign Galliulin will not be forgotten, and there are plenty of us who will continue to visit that memorial at every opportunity, and we will honor her."
The admiral's eyes bulged and a vein in his neck began to throb. It occurred to McCoy that he may have gone too far. The man had to be pushing eighty, and he wondered with a flash of anxiety if he might still be on his first heart.
"You're dismissed. Get out. Now."
"Yes, sir." Kirk dragged his hands away from the desktop and McCoy noted the handprints left behind with satisfaction. No doubt the aide would be in here with cleaning supplies before they got back to the lift.
"Why are all the admirals assholes?" He said after the door slid shut behind them. "Well, except for Pike," he amended.
"We've lost a lot of talent over the last few years, remember? Those who stayed behind, well, that's who we're left to deal with." But Kirk wouldn't look at him, and McCoy knew that his words are too flippant.
"Nah, that's not it. That was personal. What'd you do?" he prodded, thinking of all the opportunities Kirk had had to cultivate resentment among senior leadership over the years.
Jim sighed and punched at the lift call button. "Not me, Bones." He frowned and fidgeted with his collar and McCoy was gratified that he wasn't the only one who hated the new grays. "Apparently he and my dad had a falling out. Something about—not surprisingly—pragmatism versus morality."
"So...what? He takes that out on you, thirty something years later? Real classy," the doctor huffed.
"It's fine. And I didn't know you had that in you, Bones. You've always been such a...such a boy scout."
McCoy bit back a retort as the lift arrived and opened noiselessly. The view of the bay from inside was just as stunning as every other angle he had viewed it from so far today. He knew it wasn't fine, not really, but he let it go. "Maybe you're a bad influence, Captain. I just hope I didn't piss him off so much that he refuses your request."
"He won't," Kirk said. "He'll do it."
The doctor raised his eyebrows in amusement. "And how do you know that, oh great clairvoyant one?"
Kirk decided to disregard his friend's sarcasm. "Because it will make him feel good about himself."
After a moment of contemplation, McCoy figured he was probably right, and marveled that even Jim Kirk, one-time juvenile delinquent and arrogant wunderkind of Starfleet, could develop a capacity for emotional intelligence. But he wasn't done yet.
"That bullshit about Galliulin volunteering, though? What the hell?" They reached the lobby level again and stepped back out into the crowd. So many people, so purposeful, all going somewhere important, no doubt. No one gave them a second glance. He and Kirk stood there for a moment, the flow of traffic weaving around them. Kirk passed his hand over his face again as if he could wipe away the memory of the last few moments, and McCoy added that to his JAMES KIRK file of observed nonverbal tics.
"I don't know, Bones. Maybe she did, and didn't want us to know for some reason."
"Or maybe," McCoy said tartly, "he's gaslighting us. That man has an advanced certificate in psychological manipulation. She was definitely not happy about being on the Enterprise."
Kirk shrugged. "We may never know. She had a lot going on inside her head, that's for sure. I think...I wonder if I set her up for what happened. With that last exchange we had."
McCoy held up a hand. "Stop. No. Don't do that to yourself." He said it partly because he was too preoccupied in the here and now to give Jim his full attention, but mostly because he had somewhere he needed to be. He clapped Jim on the shoulder. "Meet me for drinks later? Hell, see if Spock wants to come."
The ride up to the eighty-second floor of Starfleet Medical made his stomach flutter and his palms sweaty, and it wasn't because of the high-speed lift. When the door slid open, he thought the carpet was different than he remembered. Bluish-gray instead of grayish-blue, maybe. This floor was quiet, serene, with recessed lighting, flooring and walls engineered to muffle conversations that happened behind the closed doors lining the hallway in both directions. The floor above, though—and the next three above that—were different, he knew. You had to have a special clearance to ask the lift to stop on those floors, and up there, the door handles were of a specific safety design and direct sight lines were carefully planned. Hidden alarms were easily accessible, and the stairwells between the floors were laid out so that they did not overlap.
It was not always quiet up there, and in fact was often weighty with all sorts of words and emotions and thoughts that could no longer be ignored and would not be acceptable in what people thought of as polite society. There was an unparalleled freedom, where rank did not matter and there was no need to posture or pretend, on those floors where Starfleet's finest ended up when they lost their marbles. He knew all of this, of course, because he had struggled through many excruciating fifty-minute hours up there on one side of the couch, so to speak, and a much briefer span of time on the even more uncomfortable side.
But he would start here, on the eighty-second. In front of another nondescript Starfleet-issue gray door.
She never seemed to age. When her door opened, he had a fleeting thought of the immortal elves in those old stories about Middle-earth. She was tiny, not even reaching his shoulders, but there was nothing delicate or frail about Commodore Anna Seifert, head of psychiatry at Starfleet Medical and his once and former supervisor. In fact, there was something comforting about her timelessness.
"Leonard. You've put on some weight. It looks good on you."
He hadn't thought about that, but of course he had. It had been a few years now since he'd seen her in person, and he hadn't exactly been at his finest at that juncture in his life, all but hollowed out with grief and guilt over his father's death; hence the brief span of time on the uncomfortable side of the couch upstairs.
"Anna. It's good to see you."
"Come in, sit down."
The difference between the admiral's office and hers was more than mere size or perspective; hers was of course on the opposite side of the Golden Gate Bridge, and was as welcoming as Nogura's was sterile. Like her, the room was the same as he remembered: the books might be different, he wouldn't know, but were still piled up almost to the ceiling. The same worn rug, the battered wooden desk she refused to replace, the familiar view through her window with an occasional shuttle descending on its way to the Academy loading dock. He wished, out of the blue and with an intensity he had not expected, that she would for once turn the frames on her desk around so he could see the pictures of her family, and filed that away to consider later.
"I feel underdressed." She sat in her chair, not behind the desk but beside it, facing him, and smoothed her cardigan, this one a deep, rich ruby. He rolled his eyes, tugged at the fastener around his neck until it loosened, and slipped his cap further out of sight under his arm.
"The dress uniform? It's a long story, Anna."
She gave him a curious look in the face of his offhand tone. "Long stories are the best kind, no? Would you like some tea?"
She always offered, and he always accepted. Never mind that he hated hot tea; it was the gentlemanly thing to do, to accept what was offered to a guest.
"No, thanks." He hadn't expected that to come out, but was relieved nonetheless. Finally.
She paused in her picking through boxes of tea bags to look up at him, eyebrows raised.
"I...um, I don't really like hot tea. I'm sorry."
He was startled when she shot him a pleased and mischievous look. "I know that, Leonard. There is no need to apologize."
He sat back and wondered what else she knew about him that he had never told her, but she was off again before he could spend much time mulling that over.
"My intake staff tell me that you brought me two lost souls earlier today."
"Well." He paused and measured his words. "One lost," he conceded, "and one wandering around the forest without a compass, maybe."
"I see." She poured hot water from the kettle into her teacup, holding the tea bag in place against the rim so that the steam did not waft against her fingers. "I have heard the rumors about your most recent assignment. The one who got lost—that would be Janice Rand, no? How did that happen?"
"Janice…" he picked through his words carefully even though he knew there was no need to do so here, with her, and finally settled on, "Janice never should have ended up in Security."
There was a sound of disdain from his mentor. "It's those damn career aptitude tests the recruiters use."
He could not help the look of surprise on his face. He had never heard Anna swear before.
"They're garbage, based on manipulated metrics and designed to funnel recruits into understaffed areas." Her tone was uncharacteristically harsh. "They are desperate, and so many people are forced into the wrong places...but forgive me, I am inside my soap box, as they say." She sent him a thin smile.
Standard was Anna's third language and he didn't have the heart to correct her idiom.
"No argument from me on that. She ended up in a circumstance that pushed all the wrong buttons." He can tell from her expression that he's confused the situation. "Um, what we encountered on Marena brought up a lot from Rand's past. She's also requested a transfer from the Enterprise. When the time is appropriate, of course."
"I see." Anna was not so far removed from the everyday politics and logistics of Starfleet that she would underestimate the significance of surrendering an assignment to the flagship. Her eyes became contemplative. "I will work with her."
He felt a rush of gratitude. "She's an artist," he offered. He had once caught a glimpse of the easels and half-finished works in her quarters and knew there was a thriving art therapy program on the eighty-fourth floor.
"I thank you for the insight." Anna gave him a warm and open smile.
He realized, with a pang of sorrow, that it was the last he would hear about Janice, at least from this woman.
"And the other? The young Russian with no compass?" She dropped a sugar cube into her cup and it bobbed to the surface before disappearing into the liquid.
"Chekov just...well, he lost someone, twice, and now he's lost. He's fresh off of escorting her remains and he's pretty raw. I expect he'll be stable by the time we're ready to depart."
"Hmm. All right, I can shuffle some case loads around for him. We are," she hesitated, and he saw for the first time the exhaustion wrinkling around her eyes, "we are short-staffed lately. Just now beginning to experience the fallout of the last few years, Leonard," and the way she says it, as to a peer rather than a student, dredges up conflicting emotions he's not yet ready to examine closely.
"People come into Starfleet thinking it's just an adventure, fighting for what's right, proving yourself on the way up to a command or a more exciting assignment…" she faltered, and picked up a spoon to stir the melting sugar cube into her tea, her eyes focused on the swirling in the cup. "But there is so much hurt, so much that the media and leadership does not want to acknowledge, and here we are, opening up more and more floors for the pain that they will not see."
He didn't know what to say to that, but he also didn't think she expected a response. After a moment of watching the eddy in her tea, he asked the question for which he had been screwing up his courage.
"What did you tell Admiral Nogura about me?"
The feel of the room shifted into another plane, and she sipped, looking at him over the edge of her cup. Then her brow furrowed and she shook her head, lowered the cup and placed it on the edge of her desk, keeping her eyes locked on his. "That loathsome narcissist? I've never spoken to him about you."
He wanted to believe her, but lately trust had been in scarce supply. Tea forgotten and cooling, she watched him watching her, and he thought he saw the briefest flash of dismay and disappointment in her eyes, but she was too good at this to allow that to show. He decided he had imagined it.
"You do not believe me." She said it with neither reproach nor rancor, only concern. His eyes dropped to the rug, tracing the intricate, faded patterns there.
"My god, what happened to you there, Leonard?" Her voice was gentle, inviting but not pushing. And then, because she was old-fashioned in the same way as his father and himself, she leaned forward and reached out to clasp his hand in hers, her touch warm from the teacup she had been holding. And that was his undoing, the thing that began to loosen the terrible cord of shame and self-recrimination that snaked and constricted around his soul.
The light from her window dimmed as a cloud passed by, one of the low, brooding ones that often heralded a sudden rainstorm there. He watched the shadow of it as it passed over the space of her office. He sat and breathed, and sank into the silence as she waited.
Then he sighed and finally met her eyes again. They were deep pools of blue, like his father's.
"Anna, I have a long story for you."