Chapter 5 - Pike

The auditorium was fuller than for Kirk's talk, with more civilians sitting in. Spock stood beside Grange, who skulked just as much this talk as he did during Kirk's. Kelia was not using her extra powers of charm tonight. Apparently captains were off limit, or perhaps Pike, at twice Kirk's age, was too old for her preferences.

The talk went on for an hour longer than it was scheduled for. Captain Pike had long, embellished stories of exploring beyond the edges of probe-mapped space, encountering undocumented spacefaring civilizations, both current and dead, energy beings who treated the crew like toys, scenes of geological beauty beyond what humans were able to comprehend. Neither he nor the audience wanted to stop interacting. But eventually, the captain gave in to Kelia's strained glances at the clock.

Kelia thanked Captain Pike in glowing terms, then made announcements about the All-Arounds, the senior cadet team scores. The other cadets waited as well, listened in. The senior cadets had been placed in randomly assigned teams at the opening of the term and were competing on grades, sports, low demerits and extra credit community projects. So far the red team was far in the lead, and Kelia spent some effort making sure the green and blue teams felt properly shamed. Someone asked why there was no ultraviolet team and wasn't that ethno-human-centric, which generated some laughter.

As the room emptied out of cadets, Spock tried to excuse himself to talk to P'Losiwst about continuing their station console practice, but Grange called him back.

"You're with me, Cadet. I have orders regarding you."

Spock tipped his head at P'Losiwst and Veeyla and followed Grange out.

Grange waded through the crowd exiting through the outside doors. When they were in a clear bit of hallway, he said, "Just to let you know. Yes, this is odd. No, I don't know what it's about."

Spock raised a brow. "Yes, sir."

They made their way down a short connector and into the main building, which was quiet in the late evening, the lighting entirely recessed and indirect.

Grange made his way through the darkened administrative area, buzzed at the door to the Superintendent's office. The door opened and Grange gestured for Spock to enter. Spock glanced in question as he passed, but Grange just tossed his head to urge him inside.

The Academy Superintendent was standing behind the desk and Captain Pike was lounging in a comfortable guest chair, long legs crossed, gleaming boot raised as if to inspect it. The door swished closed.

"Cadet Spock. Come on in."

Spock stopped two meters before the desk and stood at parade rest. He understood better the habits that made Kirk adopt that pose even outside of Starfleet.

"Have we met personally, Cadet?" Admiral Justin said.

"No, sir." Spock could smell alcohol radiating off the admiral, although not in high concentrations.

"Very good. I've given a few introductory speeches over the course of the term, so you've seen me, I'm sure. I'm Vice Admiral Justin."

"Honored, sir."

"And this is Captain Pike, as I'm sure you are aware."

Spock adjusted his stance to better face both of them. "Also Honored, sir."

No one spoke. Spock waited. He was curious, but assumed a point would be gotten to in due time.

Admiral Justin hitched up his uniform and sat down behind his desk. Relaxed. "This isn't an official protocol we are going to conduct, here, Cadet, just so that's clear." He waited. "You understand?"

"I think so, sir. You are conducting an unofficial protocol."

Captain Pike snorted. Spock turned his way. Pike was rubbing his mouth to eliminate his smile. Spock turned back to the highest rank present and waited.

"Cadet. See that box there on the corner of the desk? The walnut one."

Spock did. A well polished case with squirrely grain sat where he indicated. It had a brass latch made to look distressed and burnished, but it had an ID bioscanner built into it.

"It's unlocked. I want you to open it and look at what's in there. Examine it if you want to." He glanced at Pike as if to confirm something.

Spock stepped up to the box, swung clear the second stage catch of the latch. Inside was a glass and titanium phaser. From the style of the design it appeared to be forty years old. The power bar showed it was fully charged. Spock turned the case and craned his head to see if it had a safety and whether it was engaged.

"Is this yours, sir?"

"Yes, Cadet it is."

Nothing more was said. Spock was tempted to look to Captain Pike for additional clues, then decided he would give away as much as he gained, if not more. He was curious about the phaser. Such a thing would never be in a Vulcan's possession and Kirk only used a phaser in the line of duty out of the weapons locker. He didn't seem to own one personally. This device was old, but well cared for, like a favorite object, a sculpture or a musical instrument carried through life. But one that could deal vulnerability or death or pain, sterilely, bloodlessly, at a distance.

Spock considered confirming that he could pick it up, but he had been explicitly told he could as part of his instructions. Spock stared at Vice Admiral Justin. Something was going on, but he could not make a high enough probability guess to base his actions on. He did what he pleased to do, what he would do if he were alone, and took up the phaser, pointed down, checked that he had correctly assessed the status of the safety locking out the trigger, that the setting was on low stun. An energized locking bar was in place to block the mechanism from shifting above heavy stun, it too had a biosensor, one added later based on the mismatch in mechanism styles. The little triangular monitor indicators all glowed as if the phaser had just come off a charger, a fiery green from deep within the core of the unit.

Spock turned it carefully around, kept the emitter down. Examined it as an object of reverence, examined it as a device. The phase transducers, the energy conduits, everything very simple and carefully crafted to be highly reliable and not prone to damage.

"Handle a weapon before, Cadet?" Captain Pike asked.

Spock looked up, at Admiral Justin, who was watching him knowingly. Vice Admiral Justin had Spock's full records, such as they were. Spock had walked into a trap of sorts that he had not foreseen. It was the kind of situation Kirk somehow seemed to understand the moment it was presented to him. Spock experienced a burning frustration with himself. He had, in that moment, put himself and Kirk at risk with his poor ability to comprehend things without explicit evidence.

"Cadet?" Pike said in that obey-me voice.

"Yes, sir. I have sir."

"You know that beforehand?" Pike demanded of Justin.

"No. I didn't." Justin said. "What'd you handle?"

Now that Spock had hesitated, he was sunk. He understood that also too late.

"A launcher, sir. I do not know the specific model."

"Against who?" Pike asked.

"Bots sir."

Justin sat back. "I see. That's not in your records."

"No sir. For complicated reasons. It was omitted."

Pike said, "Cadet. You battled bots with a launcher and didn't want to put it on your Starfleet application?"

"It was unnecessary. I could obtain admission without doing so." Spock put the phaser back in the case, back into the perfectly molded felt form that it had come out of.

"Where did you do this fighting, I'd like to know?" Pike said.

Vice Admiral Justin was watching Spock intently.

Spock didn't answer.

"Do you know the penalty for not answering, Cadet?" Pike didn't sound threatening, he sounded curious.

"Yes," Spock said. "I have read all of the regulations pertaining to students and personnel. The difficulty is that I am faced with punishment for my refusal to answer which I may or may not be willing to accept, I have not yet decided, but answering reveals omissions by others in Starfleet who are not present to concede to their revelation."

"Cadet," Admiral Justin said. "I'm the bureaucrat that forced Personnel to file your Partnership Registration properly when they didn't want to. I can piece this together without an answer."

Justin leaned back more, appearing to enjoy himself. "Chris here won't say anything."

"I won't?" Pike said.

"Give the kid a break, Chris. The omissions aren't his doing. Does he look like he has a deep space commission?" He gestured at the box. "Nice phaser, isn't it."

"It seems a carefully crafted device. But I am unfamiliar with a powered weapon as a personal object of reverence, sir."

"You are familiar with unpowered weapons as personal objects of reverence, though," Justin said.

"More as clan heirlooms, sir."

"How many Vulcan traditional weapons have you been trained to use?"

Spock stopped to consider how to classify them. "The six traditional in our clan and two others from another clan."

"How many traditions of hand-to-hand fighting are you trained in?"

"Three, sir."

Justin looked at Pike. "You aware of that?"

Pike shook his head, brows low.

Justin reached behind him for a decorative bottle of blue liquid and a glass that was already stained blue. He talked as he poured. "Mistake one, Chris. That precious experience you are basing your wonderful assumptions on was with ordinary Vulcans. I know that because those are the only ones who leave the planet, the ones with fewer options at home and less bowing to ancient traditions. Spock here is from one the highest ranking and oldest families on the planet. No one can question those families on their commitment to peaceful non-emotion. So, he's schooled in pre-reform practices and traditions, including weapons, and martial arts."

"I wasn't aware of that."

Justin sipped his drink. "You aren't aware of much of anything, and you needed to have your fat nose rubbed in it. You aware that a wedding in his family can still to this day end up in a fight to the death?"

"You're pulling my leg now."

"Cadet, how's that work exactly, someone refuses the marriage? You still call the wedding spot a place of marriage and challenge? That I know."

"Yes sir. If one party of the betrothed does not wish to be married, that party can challenge. The betrothed and a champion selected by the denying party then fight."

Pike was sitting forward. "To the death?"

Spock turned to him, puzzled this. "How else could it work?"

Pike blinked at him. He sat back slowly. "You still haven't answered my original question. The admiral is trying his darnedest to distract me from it."

Justin spoke into his glass. "Because I can guess the answer. I still have more pieces of the puzzle than you, Chris. Though not all of them. Hadn't really bothered to make a picture out of it until now I admit. You got me riled up. Got the old mission commander juices flowing." He held up his glass in a toast to Captain Pike, set it down again. "Cadet, you do have to answer the Captain. You need to get in a better habit of answering questions from your superiors. You need to learn to trust more. Especially trust more."

Justin waited a beat. "Where did you battle bots, Cadet?"

Spock stared at the edge of the desk. "Wolfram Thesus V, sir."

Pike shook his head. "I don't get the significance of that, I admit. That was a turning point in the war."

"It was. While you were off cataloging pure energy beings and meteor ice fish, we had a bit of a dust up going on." Justin held his half-full glass up and examined it as the liquid caught the light.

Pike looked up at Spock. "So, you have bot experience."

"Where he got it doesn't leave this room," Justin said.

"Yes. Understood. But that's good. I wouldn't have expected that."

"Very brief experience, sir," Spock said.

"And he's willing to pick up a weapon. You owe me a hundred credits, Captain Pike."

"Oh, shit. I do." Pike reached into his pocket, sorted through his credit chits. Tossed one on the desk.

Spock watched this, feeling numb.

Admiral Justin smiled at Spock. "Little lesson in human behavior for you, Cadet."

Spock nodded, became even more calm and detached. "Yes, sir."

Vice Admiral Justin sipped his drink. Captain Pike tapped his fingers on the soft arm of his chair. Spock waited. Minutes past.

"Patience of a saint." Justin said this to no one in particular, then looked up at Spock in question, expectant.

"I was not aware that earth sub-deities were considered to have a high tolerance for protracted delay."

Justin smiled. "Come on, Chris, wouldn't you like to have this around?"

Pike rested his chin on his hand, his brows shifted lower. He sounded accusatory. "He's playing it up."

"Of course he is," Justin was smiling more. "It lets me rub your nose in it even more. Sure you don't want a drink? Your talk is over."

"Hell, sure."

Justin poured a second glass out, pushed it over to the corner beside the weapons case. Spock looked down at the floor.

"Dear Christopher Pike, so certain he knows what's what. Fame has gone to his head and pushed out his old humble, willingness to learn. Which will kill him and his entire crew if we let it take up residence there."

"May I ask a question, Admiral?" Spock said.

"Absolutely."

"Do you and the captain know each other well?"

"Not at all. I think this is the first time we've met."

Pike became thoughtful. Nodded.

Justin sounded soothing. "It's what happens when you are old hands at something like Starfleet, Cadet. Everyone whos the same are your people, and you just know them."

"Fascinating, sir."

"You'll get there, Cadet. How is Commander Kirk?"

"He departed on a mission."

"Good for him. Can you say what ship?"

"He is on the Hampton right now, sir. I'm afraid I cannot say more as I do not know the status of the mission with regard to its secrecy."

Pike lowered his drink suddenly. "But Kirk told YOU."

"No, sir. The commander of the Hampton, Graham, told me. During a debriefing as necessary background to said debriefing."

"Cadet Spock gets around, Chris." He watched Spock a bit, cradled his drink in his hand, waited. "At some point, are you going to ask to be dismissed?"

"Sir, I am not aware of the protocol for such a meeting. And even if I were cognizant of said protocol, I was informed at one minute and seventeen seconds into this meeting that it would not follow any protocol."

Justin smiled at Pike. "And we've only had him a few weeks. Imagine this in a few years." He looked up at Spock. "Indeed you were so informed, Cadet. But one thing before you are dismissed. Captain Pike needs to admit that your presence here at the Academy doesn't require any extra consideration." He turned pointedly to Pike.

"You devil. I . . . " He glanced up at Spock. "All right. But he's not very much like the Vulcans I've worked with. Tried to work with."

Justin slapped the top of his desk, sending an explosion of noise through the room. "Of course he's not. Last piece of your ignorance I'm rubbing your nose in, you old coot."

"I'm almost twenty years younger than you." He almost took a drink. "Sir."

"Act like it then. Don't malign my students without having any facts at hand. Like for instance the fact that this particular student is as human as he is Vulcan."

Pike again didn't get his drink to his mouth. "This one?"

"Yes."

Pike narrowed his gaze and stared at Spock. "Oh."

Justin looked up at Spock. "Our most famous captain of exploration is full of deadly assumptions, Cadet. And you are formally dismissed. We've tormented you enough."

"Yes, Admiral. May I state for the record, that I do attempt to strictly model my behavior on the Vulcan ideal despite my background."

Justin started to speak, stopped. He put his glass down. "It's not your lack of emotion or your unflappable demeanor that is being referred to. It's that you understand what's going on in the heads of those around you. Let's you work with others."

"I was not aware that I was different in that way, sir."

Justin's voice became gentle. "You are, Cadet."

Spock nodded, fell thoughtful. "Yes, sir. Thank you, sir." He turned to Pike. "Captain."

Spock encountered Grange in the corridor leading to the dormitories. He was conducting spot checks of uniforms and issuing demerits, something Spock had never seen him do.

"How'd it go?"

"Strange, sir."

"That I knew from the circumstances. Anything else you can say without getting into trouble saying it?"

"Captain Pike lost a bet to Vice Admiral Justin, sir."

"Ah. Ha ha. That kind of thing." Grange laughed. "Thought you were somehow in trouble, but couldn't figure what kind. Go on. I don't need you this evening. Get something useful done."

"Yes, sir. Good night."