It was early morning, and the handful of individuals about in the main lobby of Starfleet Academy paid no attention to Spock when he beamed in. The burgeoning light filled the atrium with the same steel gray as Spock's uniform. He stopped before the public feed display to see if pausing would ease the small throb in his skull. It did. He synced his assigned padd to a terminal to register himself as on-campus and made his way with a sedate pace to his dormitory room.
Spock meditated in the silence of his room until his head felt normal. He was one of the last to arrive for Propulsion. Halfway up the tiers, P'Losiwst sat straighter, leaned over and with quick cajoling made half the row shift down to open a spot on the aisle beside her. Faces rose, watched Spock make his way with expressions varying from sympathetic curiosity to morbid curiosity.
By the time Spock was settled in place, Absom was waiting in the middle of the dais, remote in hand. He stared at Spock for ten seconds, began to lecture.
"I didn't know you were coming back today," P'Losiwst whispered.
Spock kept his head down over his padd. He kept trying to push his ill ease away into the false past, but his mind was not fully cooperating. Logically, everything was fine, and would be for the next two hours. But logical reassurance only partly dampened his body's desire to be alert to danger. If this was how humans had to function he would have to raise his esteem of their ability to excel through uncertainty.
Absom asked someone in the front row to describe the adjustments needed for thrust calculations orthogonal to a gravity source. Spock dreaded having to explain that he had been barred from doing his coursework, but he was not called upon. At the end of class, he moved slowly down and out of the auditorium with P'Losiwst close behind.
She kept close until lunch break, when she waved others on without them. They stood in the long corridor at the end of the lab wing until it cleared out.
Spock said, "I must ask if you wish to discuss what happened."
Her antenna remained forward, attentive. "You okay?"
Spock straightened. "I will be." He resisted blushing, with only partial success.
She was smiling. "Why would you ask if I want to talk if you can't bear the thought of talking?"
"I will bear it."
She shook her head in mock disgust. "Let's get lunch."
Spock had envisioned a quiet lunch in his room, or perhaps out on the lawn by the food hovers, but P'Losiwst walked straight through large groups of loitering second and third year cadets to the break area, put her pink, glittering satchel down at an open table. She didn't seem to register the sudden drop in the volume of discussion, the gazes that came around their way and fixed there.
"Sit down. I'll get you something," she said. She glanced up to verify this with him, and went to the dispensers.
Spock sat with his hands clasped between his knees. He met one staring gaze and it turned away, back to her fellows.
P'Losiwst returned. She spoke very low as she arranged the food. "Trust me, Spock. I'm an old hand at this." Acting as if nothing was amiss or different, she began eating.
"Are you an 'old hand?'" Spock said.
"Yes."
"I am surprised to learn this."
"If you are a bored teen with too much money and time and parents that want you out of the way, and on top of that a way too asshole-ish ego, what else are you going to expend it all on? You go skiing on the ice ridges of Goroth, you lock your gossiping friend who can't keep a secret outside in the snow mid-shower beside the busiest ski run. You go to the Rivingstorm concerts of Dead Sand Jupiter Station, you fix your dweebiest two wannabe new companions from your father's main competitor up with drugs they can't handle and a pair of shape shifting hookers. Shall I go on?"
"I am gaining perspective on the concept."
Other students came in, filled the tables around them with chatting, questions about lectures, teasing.
P'Losiwst licked a thick red Andorian pudding off her spoon, smiled. She continued to speak so Spock could just barely hear her. "I'm already plotting out the revenge of the century. These losers have no idea who they are dealing with." She took up another large blob of bright red, smiled broadly around the spoon in her mouth.
Spock raised a left brow. "I see."
"If you want to talk, I'm happy to listen. I might be distracted right now, but I'm listening."
Spock tried to eat, rearranged the excessive food she'd fetched him. "I regret the meld. It was an unacceptable intrusion."
"I thought it was kind of interesting."
"I hope you are being honest. It is socially untenable for me, bordering on immoral."
"I am being honest. You're tough to get to know. Really. Short of stunning you into submission and getting naked with you. That is." She ate another gloppy spoonful. Her eyes flowed with an usually high pearlescence.
Spock looked away to control the warmth on his cheeks.
"The press trying to talk to you?" she said.
"Not that I am aware of."
"My old friends are talking to them, telling them stories that didn't need to be exaggerated. But so far only in the Andorian feeds. I'd talk to them, try and make the Academy out to not look so bad, but I don't want to give the story more life. I don't want these losers getting any warning what's coming."
Spock ate a few bites. "Has your father given you any difficulty?"
She pushed her red muck around with the spoon. "He hasn't said anything. Which is weird. No way he hasn't heard." He exhaled.
"I wish to be honest with you," Spock said, "but I do not know if it is best to be."
A table of third years were departing in unusual silence. Spock would not have noted it except for the the way they acted overly normal over the top of taut nervous energy.
"Hm. There are times I prefer to be lied to. Less than before the Academy, though." She ran the spoon around inside the container, licked off the edge. Her blue tongue had turned purple. "But I guess I want you to be honest." She looked squarely at him. "I think."
"I had my father intervene with yours. I was concerned that he may insist you withdraw. I found that unacceptable."
Her wide eyes remained fixed on Spock for half a minute. "I don't even know what to say. My father wouldn't ever, in this wide galaxy, talk to yours."
"My father stated that he'd convinced your father to leave things be. He gave me no details of the meeting."
She put the empty container down and stared at it, eyes wide. "Wow."
"I made this request of him when I was not myself. I apologize for interfering."
"You are interfering." She sounded peeved.
"I value your companionship."
"You really got hit on the head." She frowned, looked down. "I shouldn't have said that. Old habits rearing up. It's okay. You notice a lot better who's a real ally after something happens."
"Logically so. This is the sort of thing that must be tested to be proved."
"Who passed the test? I wasn't much help. You kept fighting." She picked up her container, rotated it a quarter turn, set it down again.
Spock looked up at the senior cadets standing in a loose circle by the dispensers. They stood too close together, heads bowed to talk low.
"It is the staying power of loyalty that matters. And I believe your assistance is just beginning."
She smiled, showed all four sharp teeth.
- 8888 -
The scouts were out, this time on an extra long patrol. The crew was getting impatient for something to happen, bad or good. They'd moved camp a hundred klicks because they'd been told not to remain in one place for more than seven days. And rather than wait exactly seven, Kirk moved in five and a half.
"Any new orders, sir?"
Kirk looked up at Hun standing with the greasy clouds on the horizon behind him.
"Our orders are to be on the lookout. We will end up as bait, signal confusion, or holed up in reserve when something does happen. Your guess is as good as mine which it will be."
"No idea when we'll be going back to base?"
"Nothing official. But the older team members seem to think something's imminent. I know it's hard, but don't let your guard down. All right?"
Hun scuffed his boots, one than the other, rubbed his jaw. "We've been sitting a long time."
"It's our job to sit until it becomes obvious we need to act."
Hun shuffled off. Others had raised their heads to listen in, went back to what they were doing.
Kirk tapped the smallest of his static rods on a rock and slipped it into a sectioned sleeve, rolled that up and slipped that into a pocket low on his pant leg. The phaser rifle was as clean as it was going to get. He propped it up beside him against a tall rock and sat back with his padd. He'd gotten to like the bulkiness of the armored padd. It felt like something real.
He pulled up the transcription of Spock's latest audio message. He'd listened to the message Spock had sent when he'd been released from the hospital, but not one since. Spock's low timbre had been methodical, as if his mind was running too slowly to keep up with communicating. The medications, Spock had said. Kirk hoped to hell it was that. He expected Med One would not have released him so soon if he'd been that injured, that they would have kept him for treatment. Although, for someone like Spock, maybe there wasn't any.
Kirk's gut tightened. He was avoiding a reckoning. Something he'd not expended the effort to recognize before now. He flipped down the receiver over his left ear, kept his eyes up, half on those working around him, taking his cue to clean gear, and half on the horizon between the scuttles.
"James. It is my third day at the Academy and I am still catching up. I continue to feel better, although I find that sleeping every night leaves me strangely detached during waking hours. I look forward to returning to restful meditation instead.
"My fellow student, P'Losiwst, was adamant that we act as if nothing has occurred and indeed this was wise. For her, this includes taking the table beside that filled with third year cadets and treating their sudden silence as normal. The third year class are all subdued. I suspect mostly by their lack of rest. Their break times are quite short and they hurry in the corridors, with little opportunity to correct the lower cadets.
"I am not fully accepting of the logic of punishment for all. Although, at the moment, it has created a surprising peace and calm outside of class time."
Kirk smiled, listened to the rest of the message with that smile fixed on his face. When it was done he rested the padd on his knees to tap on the screen.
"Spock. I can't reply in audio. I don't have enough privacy. Just to warn you, if we have to bug out, I won't be able to respond for a few days, or more. I badly need to you open up a little while we can talk. You keep not answering my question, which is how are YOU doing?"
Hummer stepped out of the supply scuttle and it rocked and crunched against the ground.
"Chock that with a few big rocks, crewman," Kirk said. "Something we can leave behind in a hurry."
Hummer rubbed the smooth part of his head, looked around at the ground.
Kirk turned back to his padd. Sighed. He needed to be honest with Spock if he expected honesty in return.
"Spock. If you somehow believe I can't understand where you are right now, don't think that. I do understand. All too well. You don't feel like you're accepted. But it's not true. Cadets simply ignore those that they don't like. It's like teasing and nicknames. It's not always done to harm, but to define and recognize differences so that person can be more a member despite obviously standing out. Cadets don't waste their time doing that with those they don't want to have in the service beside them.
"I know I keep telling you that you need to earn a place. You do that by keeping on with your duties, not matter the personal cost to you. I know you are doing that already, but I want you to do that secure in the knowledge that you're still on the right track."
Kirk stared at the screen. Camp was still quiet. He opened a new message to Overlander.
"Spock suggested I write you. See what's going on with you. And to ask you a favor because I think you're the only one I can ask this of. Next time you see Spock, please give him a hug from me."
- 8888 -
"Come in, Cadet. Have a seat."
Spock stopped just before the Academy superintendent's desk. "I'd prefer to stand. If I may, Admiral."
Justin let go of his chair and came around to stand beside his desk. He looked Spock up and down. "How are you doing, Cadet?"
"Improving, sir."
Justin smiled softly. "I am very pleased to hear that. If you are up to it, I have some official business to discuss with you. If you are not up to it, it can certainly wait."
"I would like to dispense with the issue at hand, sir."
"Well, if you change your mind as we go, let me know. For starters, I'd like you to tell me what happened."
Spock straightened his back.
Justin said, "I want to hear it from you."
"I see, sir. A fellow first year cadet, P'Losiwst Jlowisam and I, were returning from a research lab tour."
"It was quite late. Which one?"
"The Antaras moon lab, sir. The meeting was late to allow for cadets to make the journey without missing class."
Justin paused. "Antaras is recruiting you? And Cadet Jlowisam as well?"
"Yes, sir."
"Well, you can I understand. But Jlowisam I'm surprised by."
"After overhearing a conversation between members of the lab's management, I suggested that an engineering management intern may be applicable to their project. And they agreed."
"So you two were returning late with permission. Very good. Go on."
"Outside the gymnasium we were surrounded by third year cadets. I did not know their intent, but they were hooded and made movements that indicated they intended to waylay us rather significantly."
"You took down thirteen or fourteen of them. I saw on the scanner tape."
Spock had put his emotions aside already. "I had no difficulty until I was stunned. I, unwisely, tried to rise from the first blast. And was stunned a second time. I regained consciousness already stripped and taped to my companion."
Spock waited. Justin nodded that he should go on.
"Our attackers disputed about their plan. And it was settled that we would be doused in the fountain."
"But they didn't make it. They dropped you. Why did they drop you?"
"I do not like water."
Justin smiled with an unwilling wrinkle to his lips. "Are you hydrophobic, cadet?"
"No. I could, if necessary, immerse myself with minimal hesitation. This was unnecessary. And I estimated the water would be cold."
"I suspect you are correct. What did you do?"
Spock straightened more, stared at the wall behind the desk. "I removed the barriers to my mind so that those carrying us would experience what I was experiencing."
Justin raised his chin. "That's all you did?"
"Yes. The stun's effect overwhelmed my disciplines and the muscle weakness. . ." Spock tried to find words for his state of mind that night, repeatedly tugging helplessly at bonds that should fall away easily.
"Can you go on?"
Spock didn't like the quiet airiness of his own voice, but he had to continue. "I simply wished to be left alone. But my means to achieving that were unconscionable and for that I am regretful. It is not the way of our people to act in such a manner. And I have represented my people poorly as well as breached a significant social more."
Justin looked him over for a time. "I'm curious. Could you have done more than what you did, more than just using what you were already experiencing against someone. Are you capable of it?"
Spock looked away at the tall stone curve of a sculpture in the corner. "Given time to meditate. Perhaps. This is not something I have practiced. Obviously." Spock thought of Sybok and felt even more darkly regretful.
"It's actually being taken quite seriously."
Spock fixed his gaze somewhere beyond the corner of the room, beyond the statue. He felt relieved, and wondered at the illogic of it. "I understand, Admiral. May I enquire if I should have a representative here at this time?"
Justin again held back a smile. "I am your representative, cadet. I have no interest in losing you from this institution. But if you'd prefer another in addition, we can hold off further discussion until we can bring one here."
Spock exhaled slowly and didn't breathe in again. His mind cleared. "I have already admitted guilt."
Justin waited as if to see if Spock would say more. He crossed his arms. "You lost control due to the specific nature of the events. Would you agree?"
"Yes, sir."
"What precisely would you say caused you to lose control?"
Spock remembered the frantic thought patterns, the helplessness. "I couldn't move except very weakly. I couldn't shake the grip of hands that should not have been able to hold me."
"Being stunned then."
"My nervous system was still inhibited." Spock finally met Justin's gaze. "That is no excuse," Spock said.
"You were disoriented I would expect?"
"Not at that time. Upon regaining consciousness, yes. My mind and my companion, P'Losiwst's minds were intermingled. That was quite disorienting."
Justin's arms fell. He put a hand on the desk behind him. "I spoke with her. She didn't mention that. She didn't mention much, actually. Seemed unconcerned by events."
Spock who knew she was planning a brutal, intricate revenge said, "She is resilient."
"That's what we like to hear."
"I shall try to be more so as well, sir."
"You are leaving us at the end of the term for a time in an exclusive temple, as I recall. This will include mental discipline training of a sort?"
"My time there will be entirely mental and telepathic discipline, sir."
"And you are quite young for your race. You barely qualify to be here."
This wasn't a question.
Justin stepped behind his desk. "We're all in the process of learning, Cadet. I'll contact you when I need you again. You're dismissed."
His voice stopped Spock at the door. "Cadet. Anything else that might happen the rest of the term will be given undo scrutiny. Please keep that in mind."
Spock thought of P'Losiwst's plotting. "Understood, sir."
