With a kiss let us set out for an unknown world. ~Alfred de Musset
"You've only been back on the ship for six hours!"
Spock blinked, uncertain if there was a point being made. To be precise, they had been back on the ship for six hours, forty-two minutes, twelve seconds and counting. Closer to seven, therefore. Behind his back, he squeezed his left wrist hard to stifle the compulsion to offer a correction.
"I had intended to impart this information with fewer explicit details," he said, "but I suppose this will save time by eliminating your need to press for them."
Kirk shook his head with a rueful chuckle, "I don't know about that, Spock. I have so many questions. It's a lot to unpack."
"Then I will defer to Lt. Uhura as she now seems willing to provide specifics."
Uhura dropped into a chair and let her forehead hit the tabletop with a soft thud, and then again for good measure. After a moment of poignant groaning, she sat up, hands primly in her lap.
"I am deeply sorry, Mr. Spock."
"What is, is," he replied. The phrase, spoken in his native language, was as close to a shrug as a Vulcan could get. He was relieved to see her shoulders relax, however slightly.
An awkward silence followed, filled with equal parts speculation and humiliation. Kirk cleared his throat. "Why don't we all have a seat."
Not an order exactly but certainly a strong suggestion.
Spock chose a chair at the table that would ensure he wasn't sitting directly across from Uhura, minimizing the chance their eyes would meet. McCoy (who still looked as if he'd had the rug of universal constants pulled out from under him), sat equilaterally to the two – possibly unconsciously.
Having given the command, the captain remained standing however, rubbing his chin, occasionally looking up and askance as if options were hovering in the air. Fifty-two seconds passed.
"Jim," McCoy grunted.
The captain started, eyed them quickly, his expression sheepish. He opened his mouth, changed his mind, closed it. Took a deep breath and tried again. "Yeah, I don't…" Gulped. "I'm…I'm…I'm kind of hungry. Bones?"
"What?"
"Hungry? Late lunch? Early dinner?"
"Um, sure, I guess…"
"What about you two?" A finger toggled between first officer and chief communications officer. "Have you eaten?" Fractional pause. "Food?"
McCoy snorted reflexively. Uhura seared a glare into the captain's forehead.
It took Spock a moment to catch on. "We have neglected our nutritional needs," he replied coolly.
"Great! Excellent!" An unsettling and disproportionate response made more so by the captain practically flinging himself at the intercom across the room. He paused before hitting the switch but only to rub his hands together in the manner of a cartoon villain implementing an evil plan. "I'm about to abuse my executive privilege and order real food delivered to this room. Anyone in the mood for pasta?"
In this case, proposed socializing over a shared meal.
Vulcans did not eat meat, or more specifically, did not eat the meat of walking, swimming, or flying creatures that were slaughtered to provide it. But unlike some Vulcans, Spock would also not eat lab-grown meat, or anything meant to resemble meat, or sometimes, not even protein products if they were advertised as "meat substitutes." He claimed adherence to the spirit of Vulcan ethical imperatives, but right now, watching him poke a fork at the shavings of kalapuiya sitting atop his bucatini, it looked like the captain was starting to regret cajoling his galley chief to dig into her private stash of culinary treasure.
"It's a kind of truffle from Rigelius." Kirk said, twirling noodles around his fork with appropriate reverence.
"Ah," Spock replied, and then proceeded to sequester the accompanying pearl tomatoes to the side of his plate.
Jim Kirk had a healthy appreciation for food (having survived a famine) and was clearly struggling to refrain from comment. The whole point of the meal was to afford mild distraction, a friendly stress-free respite between friends and colleagues before getting into the weeds, so to speak.
But the doctor recognized Spock's behavior as an effort to control something that could easily be controlled. And though McCoy enjoyed taking the piss out of the guy, now was not the time.
Uhura, on the other hand, was shoveling food into her mouth in a most unladylike manner. Noting his observation, she leaned back and wiped her chin with a napkin. "The food in jail was virtually inedible. I didn't realize how hungry I was until now."
Spock glanced quickly at her, then back down at his plate. Jail food was one of the reasons for being ravenous, certainly.
"It's damn good pasta," McCoy said, "but I'd be remiss as a doctor if I didn't advise you to slow down."
Busy gulping sparkling water, she acknowledged his suggestion with a finger wave suspiciously close to flipping him off.
When they'd all eaten their fill (or in Spock's case – anything), a yeoman cleared the table, brought in good coffee and Spock's favorite tea, was thanked, and dismissed.
Dessert was just a lot of free-floating anxiety. Kirk took a swig of coffee.
"First things first – and I think I already know the answer but – did either of you manage to make headway on that detailed accounting Mr. Sabanci requested?" Squirming silence confirmed what he knew. "Right. Okay then."
The yeoman had also left a tricorder on the chair next to him. He placed it on the table and activated it.
"Starting from when you beamed down to the chancellery building. Everything you can remember. Go."
Two Days Earlier
After the brunch banquet, and all the introductions and customary speeches about opportunity and growth and shared values and harmony and peace and the spirit of cooperation, blah de blah – the Federation's project manager for the array took off with her staff to tour the proposed locations for planet-side operations. Commander Spock and Lt. Uhura were left to answer questions from a surprisingly sparse press corps, who all trickled away as soon as the reception began in earnest. The two officers then spent the next hour being shuffled from politician to politician by Ms. Harkness the chancellor's press secretary, nodding at strawman arguments and equivocations framed as questions. There was a great deal of self-aggrandizing and not a lot of listening to answers.
As the hour dragged into two, Commander Spock became increasingly terse until his responses devolved into little more than monosyllabic grunts. If any of Caishen's many dignitaries, moguls or parliamentarians thought he was being a dick, they seemed to chalk it up to cultural differences.
"It is the way of Vulcans, my dear," Uhura overheard one of them say to a pretty, young woman clearly not his wife. "They believe the social graces are a waste of time."
Not exactly true. Vulcans were exceptionally generous hosts she'd been told (which was the reason a good guest got up early to make breakfast). And she'd once observed Ambassador Sarek, wine glass in hand, compliment the smoothness of the tannins and surprisingly delicate finish of a Violacean vintage to the Violacean ambassador herself. He was a man who knew how to schmooze without compromising his values.
Sipping her third glass of perfectly adequate sparkling wine, Uhura wondered if Ambassador Sarek's son was only pretending to be crap at Schmooze 101 – in much the same way her brother had claimed sudden intestinal distress to get out of doing chores.
Spock appeared at her side, seemingly out of thin air, and her guilty flinch nearly spilled her drink.
"We are purposefully being prevented from leaving," he declared.
She barked a laugh, then clapped a hand over her mouth to hold back the giggles that followed.
"Sorry, sorry." She cleared her throat a couple of times. "And what leads you to this supposition, sir?"
He cocked a brow, uncertain if her request for clarification was also a facetious one. She put on her best sober and attentive expression and after a moment's wariness, he presented his case.
"Four times in the past thirty minutes I have made overtures towards our departure and all four times either Ms. Harkness or Mr. Iwasaka have redirected me with spurious intentions; either to introduce me to someone I have already met, or to engage me in conversation with persons who are confused as to why."
Now that she thought about it, she'd been steered away from the exits more than once. And when she went to use the facilities Ms. Harkness joined her. Still, it was hardly proof of nefarious intent.
But as the party started winding down and thinning out, it seemed obvious by the way Harness and Iwasaka would plaster smiles on whenever they were caught looking at the two of them, that there was something going on.
Deciding he'd had enough, Spock marched over to Chancellor Heuri. Unnerved, Uhura trotted after him. Ms. Harkness looked panicked. Iwasaka moved to intercept.
They all stood, tense and awkward for a moment. The two elegantly dressed women with whom Heuri had been chatting, publicly subdued their intrigue and moved off to speculate about it at the bar.
"We must return to our duties," Spock said. He looked at the chancellor and his aide pointedly. "If there is nothing further."
"Actually..." Iwasaka began. Spock's expression made it clear there was nothing further. Iwasaka exchanged a quick look with the chancellor, gave Spock a polite nod and moved off to speak with a security guard. An act which struck Uhura as vaguely ominous.
Chancellor Heuri's expression morphed smoothly into the smile of a practiced politician. "We are sorry to have kept you so long from your duties, but your assistance and advice have been invaluable." He took Uhura's hand and held it between his own, "And the company so charming."
She pulled her hand back and responded with the required niceties. Heuri excused himself – work to do, business to attend, meetings, etc.
Spock, who'd ignored the exchange in favor of observing Iwasaka and the guard, informed her, "We are to be escorted through a tunnel to the transporters in the chancellery annex."
Ah, good old Vulcan aural sensitivity.
The transporters in the annex were for members of parliament as she recalled, so that they could go to and from chambers quickly no matter how distant their district or province.
Which meant the chancellor and his aide didn't want them to use the visitors' transporter in the main lobby.
"Our ship is expecting us to use the public transporters," Uhura told the guard as he guided them past the first set of lifts towards a branching corridor. "They're pre-set and everything."
Technically, they could call the ship for beam-up from anywhere on the planet. But barring an emergency, such an action was considered on many worlds to be an elitist abuse of privilege.
Spock's gaze shot sideways, met her own briefly. The embellishment of facts with intent to deceive was not his strong suit. She'd have to take the lead on this one.
"In fact," she said, "we're scheduled for beam-up in— uh, in – at—" Her mind scrambled to reconcile planet time with ship's time.
"14:30 hours," Spock provided. "Ten minutes from now."
"I'm afraid it won't matter, sir," the guard said. "Public transporters in this building are temporarily offline."
"Oh, that's a shame," Uhura said. "What's the problem?"
"They're offline."
Ookaay. "Well, that's all right. Mr. Spock and I can use this as an excuse to sneak off and tour the city."
The guard glanced over his shoulder with hardened suspicion. "I've been told to escort you to the transporters in the annex. It's for your own—"
She didn't hear the end of the sentence. Spock grabbed her hand, shouldered open a door onto a stairwell and down they ran. The guard appeared to stop chasing them after the third flight. The final landing opened onto a service entry at street level. He pondered briefly if he should have considered a less provocative solution. But an elevator next to the stairs signaled its rapid descent and he pushed out the door with Uhura behind him. Instantly they were hit by a muffled roar – thousands of voices in call and response from a crowd they couldn't see. At one end of the alley, another narrow street, with tall, close buildings that blocked much of the light. At the other end a broader avenue. People walked past in twos and threes, some carrying signs.
"They must be headed to the pavilion mall," Uhura said.
A reasonable speculation. When their party had arrived that morning, a dozen Caishen citizens were demonstrating on the mall in front of the chancellery. Mr. Iwasaka apologized, explaining, "They applied for permits weeks ago and resisted moving their protest to another date."
"What are they protesting?"
"It's election season, Ms. Uhura. Caishen is a richly diverse democratic society. There's always some group or other out here expressing their opinions on how things ought to be done."
Clearly some group or other had a lot of opinions to express today judging by the sound. And likely the reason Heuri's people didn't want them leaving by the front door.
Spock took out his communicator to contact the ship, but Uhura was already trotting towards the alley's east egress, towards protestors and trouble. Behind him, inside the building, the service lift came to a stop. Peripherally, he saw the doors slide open. Rather than waiting to see who emerged, he caught up to her swiftly, clasped her by the upper arm and hustled them both around the corner. Then farther still, to the end of the boulevard and the outer margins of the crowd.
He kept hold of her arm as she ducked and bobbed, trying to see how far the throng stretched, to read the various signs, some with eye catching graphics clearly prepared well in advance and others hastily scribbled onto various types of posterboard, barely legible.
She drew in a sharp breath and spun about, wide-eyed. "They're protesting the array! Why are they protesting the array?"
The couple in front of them looked back at them, excitement transforming to suspicion at the sight of their uniforms.
He tugged, then pulled her forcefully away, until they were under a store-front awning. Still too crowded to call for beam-out, but they were less noticeable. The danger was growing, a taste at the back of his tongue, an itch between his shoulder blades. He could feel it. Bodies surging forward, raw emotions as thick and malodorous as the press of their flesh. Soon he'd have no choice.
She tried to jerk her arm from his grasp and found she could not. Her eyes narrowed, outraged and (he was troubled to note) with a small measure of fear.
"Please, stop manhandling me." His fingers loosened. She rubbed her arm, gazing around distractedly.
"I'm going to ask what this is about."
"I cannot allow that, Lieutenant. Caishen is not a member of the Federation yet. And even if it were, it is a matter of local governance. We cannot involve ourselves further. "
"This array could make my job a whole lot easier in the future, Mr. Spock, and improve the safety of interstellar trade in this sector. I'd like to find out what the perceived issues are."
"You wanna know, Star Fleet?" A human male with a blunt face and bald head accosted them. "I'll tell you." At the words "Star Fleet" several people swiveled in interest. The man's thick finger stabbed at them, not quite touching. "You come here all high and mighty, promising good jobs and new tech and then give all the jobs to your own people—"
"Patently untrue." Spock said. Save for the project manager and her small staff all positions were to be filled by qualified citizens of Caishen. There was even a proposed training program.
"What about the planet-side base of operations?" someone else shouted. "It was supposed to be built in Marvelous and now they're moving it to Superlative? What the hell kind of bullshit is that? We've already got the infrastructure."
"The location for operations has not yet been decided—" He broke off, realizing he was engaging with the populace in a way he had warned Uhura they could not.
All noise and movement paused at the sound of police using loudspeakers, warning the crowd to disperse.
"Where are you getting this information?" Uhura's question was almost plaintive, directed broadly at anyone who deigned to answer.
In the distance, several popping sounds. People looked around in alarm. Cries from the larger distant mob moved over them in waves. Rankled shuffling changed to panicked shoves, a stumbling rush as the greater horde pushed towards those groups at the margins. Their sparce numbers swelled, funneled into the boulevard, driving everyone back.
He whirled about, trying to locate the lieutenant. He should never have let go of her arm. He should have—
A jolt of anxiety as her palm met his, her fingers tightening. She pulled him back onto the sidewalk. With their backs to the edifices of buildings they inched their way along until chasm opened up behind him so suddenly, he wheeled his arms to keep from falling backwards. It was the alley from which they'd escaped earlier.
He reached for his communicator, but it was no longer attached to his belt. He searched the ground at his feet, not particularly hopeful, then walked back a few steps towards the street. "Do you have your communicator, Lieutenant?" No response. "Lieutenant?" He turned back.
Uhura stood in the center of the alley, communicator in hand, staring at a being who appeared to be poking up through the paving. Just a torso with arms and head on top, wearing an expression Of raw panic. Or might be. As Spock had never seen the species before it was mere conjecture. For a moment he thought the being was lacking lower extremities, but then he realized they were standing on some sort of hydraulic lift – likely used for direct deliveries to the chancellery basement in this wing. A lift that was stuck. Were they coming up from below or attempting to descend?
"Hello," Uhura said. The being emitted a squawk and began to frantically jump up and down on the platform. Evidently, they had legs capable of doing so. "It's all right. We mean no harm—"
She took a step closer. Spock opened his mouth to say…something.
He remembered the creature screaming. He noted the object in its hand only when it was heading his direction–
Spherical, roughly 25cm in diameter, pale metallic blue, flying through the air.
Is that a bomb? Spock wondered, just before it struck the pavement.
"And then you kissed me," Spock and Uhura say simultaneously.
"No, you kissed me!" Also, simultaneously.
For a moment they stare at each other, brows furrowed in confusion. Then look to the captain and the doctor, whose expressions register a more extreme consternation.
"Someone threw a bomb at you?"
"What?"
"Spock said someone threw a bomb at you."
"Oh. Right. And then he kissed me—"
"No, I did not."
"Someone. Threw. A bomb. At you."
Again, blank looks followed by brief comprehension.
"Yes. An individual of an unfamiliar species. Approximately one and a half meters in height. Skin, dark orange. Large, wide ears, rounded, flaring out from the side of the head. Two protruding forehead lobes. Small, but very sharp teeth. Blue fingernails—" Spock broke off his description to glare at Uhura. "Then you kissed me."
McCoy glances at the captain. "What d'you wanna bet, nobody kissed anybody?"
"Just take all my credits now, Bones."