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CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

True to his word, Kirk set out to patch things up with the Sharks at the earliest opportunity.  The earliest opportunity was lunchtime.  Kirk headed, naturally, for the Mess Hall.  There he found a table full of Sharks.  He also found something far more surprising.

As Kirk walked through the Mess Hall, he noticed something.  The Starfleet crew wasn't glaring at him.  Somewhere along the way, maybe after the battle with the Cambias brothers, they'd given up expressing contempt with every glance.  Instead, they were treating him with absolute indifference.  Kirk was pleased, considering it a definite improvement.

Except that now the Sharks were glaring at him.  Kirk sighed, and went that way.

Kirk pulled out a chair and dropped into it.  He crossed his arms over his chest, and looked at the Sharks.  They looked back.  "So," Kirk said.  "You don't look happy."

A grumble rose from the gathered pirates.  "No," Harry said pointedly.  "We're not."

"That's unfortunate," Kirk said politely.

Harry ignored the comment.  "We were a little thrown by what happened on the bridge this morning."

"Oh come on, don't make more of it than it was," Kirk said languidly.

"You threw us off the bridge!" Reeves protested.

"Well, yes," Kirk admitted, "but try to understand where I'm coming from.  I need that bridge crew to keep doing their jobs, that's how we're getting this ship to the Romulan Empire.  Once we're there, well…"  He shrugged expressively.

The Sharks muttered agreements, but grudgingly.

"And you're still not happy," Kirk observed.

Harry tried to explain.  "It's not just about this morning, it's a lot of things.  We have noticed how much time you've been spending with Starfleet people."

"So what?" Kirk asked, trying not to sound defensive.  He didn't succeed very well.

"Well, it's just kind of got us wondering.  I mean…whose side are you on, anyway?" Harry asked, coming to the point at last.

Kirk stared at them all for a long moment, mind working furiously, a fact not evidenced by his expression.  This was every bit as serious as he'd been afraid it might be, and he needed to martial his forces to handle it.  "I can't believe you said that," Kirk said finally.

Harry shifted uncomfortably, but stuck to his position.  "It's true."

"After everything we've all been through, where do you get the nerve to say that to me?" Kirk demanded, electing to play the part of the wounded, steadfast leader.  "We wouldn't even be here without me.  We wouldn't be anywhere, except maybe captured by Starfleet and sent to the penal colony in New Zealand by now."

"Certain others of us had something to do with it all," Reeves pointed out, undoubtedly mindful of his rather important role of hacking into the computer.

"Absolutely and I wouldn't deny it," Kirk said immediately, quickly and easily switching to the affirming leader.  "You've all proven your worth time and again.  But you can't deny it, we never would have beaten the Enterprise in battle without me.  Hell, take it back a step: Starfleet never would have sent a starship after us to begin with.  But they did and I did, and here we are.  Well on our way to making a fortune."

"He has a point," Harry acknowledged, clearly more relieved than anything.  He genuinely liked Kirk.  It wasn't a comfortable position to be on the opposite side of the table from him.  Besides, he'd seen what had happened to that side of the table often enough to know it wasn't wise to sit there.

The other Sharks were mumbling agreements, somewhat more enthusiastically than before.  Mentioning the money had been a wise move.  Kirk acknowledged progress made, but knew that he needed to push it farther.

"Have to admit, we've come a long way in the last few years," Kirk said lightly, lounging in his chair, apparently relaxed but carefully directing the conversation down a new and specific path.  "A couple of years ago we were still holding up bars every so often."

"Don't knock it, those were some good times," Harry said nostalgically.

"You never stuck to the plan," O'Riley said pointedly.

"I still don't know why the plan was always to steal the money," Harry argued cheerfully.  "Why not go for what really matters?"

It was an old and familiar argument, one they'd been over so many times that there was certainly no new territory to cover and everyone knew just where it was going.  A good-natured chorus of "Oh come on, Harry!" and "Just let it go!" rose from the Sharks.

"I mean it," Harry insisted.  "What are you going to spend the money on anyway?"

Laughter and amusement spread among the pirates, and Carl obligingly gave Harry the required one-word cue.  "Drinks."

"Exactly!" Harry concluded triumphantly.  "So why not eliminate the middle man and steal the drinks to begin with?"

"Because money's easier to move," O'Riley contended.

"And that's what's great about spaceships," Harry countered promptly.

"No, what's great about spaceships is that you can use them to attack other spaceships," Reeves corrected.  "And that's where the real money is, not in some dive of a bar on some dive of a planet.  It's all out flying through the cosmos.  Merchant ships really oughta have heavier shielding," he concluded thoughtfully.

"Or travel in packs," Harry agreed solemnly.  "There's a lot of dangerous characters out here."

"Even that might not always help.  Imagine if we had one of those cloaking devices I've heard the Romulans have," Reeves said dreamily.  "I've heard they can go right by a ship with no one the wiser.  We could get right in the middle of the pack and pick 'em off one by one and they wouldn't have any idea what was going on."

"Who needs it?  Fly in an' let 'em fear you as they see you coming, that's what I say," Carl said firmly.

"There's an advantage in that," O'Riley acknowledged.  "Always nice to put some fear in the victims.  Makes 'em cooperate.  Like that cargo ship we robbed last month.  People who go into space should have more nerve than that."

That was enough to start them on a long string of rememberings.  The time they attacked six ships in five days, then managed to lose nearly all the money within another two days.  That little colony on the rim they'd raided a while back.  That stash of Romulan ale they'd found under the floor of one ship after the captain had sworn there were no secret compartments.  And many, many others.

Kirk was leaning back in his chair, listening, eyes half-closed but alert.  This was what he had been aiming for.  Reminiscences of past glory would boost the Sharks' self-esteem and confidence levels, and remind them that an awful lot of those glories had been dependent on one Jim Kirk.

As this had been his goal, he should have been pleased.  But he wasn't, really.  Because somehow, the stories didn't seem quite so entertaining as they had in the past.  In fact, he was beginning to feel just a bit…uncomfortable.  He refused to call it guilt.  Unbidden, the thought came that Spock and Bones wouldn't approve of any of this.  That held true for almost anything he had done in the last few years.

He told himself that he was different from them, fundamentally different.  He was a pirate.  They were Starfleet.  He had to live by different rules, and what he did was just what was necessary to do to get by in the galaxy as he found it to be.  He accepted all of that.  He told himself further that their opinions didn't really matter anyway.  He couldn't quite accept that, but he tried.

This was his last run, he promised himself.  After this, he'd get out of the business for good.  He'd make his fortune on this last deal then buy a little one-person ship—no, better make it two-person, one that was sleek and fast and trim, and go sailing off into the infinite stars without a backward glance.