Chapter 40 - Retreat

Spock went to his dorm room just long enough to change into his uniform. He went early to his evening session of station simulation training. He stood off to the side and watched the other first year cadets finishing up their scenarios. It was illogical to feel anything as a result of being in their presence, but he did. He felt relieved. When a station opened up, Spock sat at it. He reset the simulation to baseline and looked over the first scenario's presets.

Every practice session was with a different group of students now that they had reached minimum proficiency. Station training was intended to make personnel easily replaceable, not irreplaceable. Spock noted each arriving student as they pulled themselves into a seat at the assigned station pod. As the simulations ran, the students talked, got familiar with each other along random topic arcs. They spoke to Spock only occasionally, as if assuming he did not want to share but not wanting to systematically ostracize him for it. Spock felt gratitude for this but did not show it.

Training finished, Spock retreated to his room. He reviewed the lecture videos for the next day, the extra readings. He learned nothing new doing so. He stared at his padd, at the empty spot along the sidebar where notice of a message from Kirk would appear when one was available. Spock let his emotions have room to move, to drift, to see where they would settle.

Lt. Carrom's opinion of Spock and his actions was of only mild importance relative to Kirk's silence. Perhaps even unimportant except as an indicator that Spock faced a long term necessity of proving himself many times over.

Spock changed into a set of thick cool-season robes and lay on his bunk in the dark. For the first time since Kirk had left on assignment, Spock allowed himself to review memories of Kirk in fine detail: conversations over boxes of takeout food, the smile in his eyes upon encountering Spock unexpectedly, the unconscious way his body tried to align itself to his own if they were in proximity to one another, his compact body emerging from the shower scented with lemon zest and ginger and encased in steam.

Spock revisited every detail of memories which he'd chosen solely along emotional measures. He ignored the illogic of the action. He estimated he was dooming his control, at least until he would see Zienn and could get assistance, but he found solace in the memories that would be impossible to obtain any other way.

Spock meditated lightly, holding the echo of the memories close as a pseudo-presence to keep him company, making tangible a wholly intangible thing. Like his relationship to Kirk itself. That, at least, held a certain logic.


"You really know how to get on my shit list, Lieutenant."

Carrom stood in the office pod in the Starfleet Annex, just outside the door to Captain Chanel's temporary desk. She wasn't looking at him. In the harsh light, her makeup stood out as a thing separate from her skin, like armor.

"I would have appreciated a warning, sir." Carom straightened more. "I don't think it's too much to ask."

She looked up at him and said nothing, just looked. He met her challenge, didn't fidget.

A group of three passed through the pod, went to an office and the door slid closed.

Chanel said, "I'm aware that you need to do well in this class to get one of those highly coveted, mid-level earth assignments. You made the naive mistake of writing that on your application for the class." She used a mocking tone for this.

Carrom moved his jaw but didn't reply.

"The only warning you needed about Cadet Spock was the one I gave you. That he was just a kid. Why do you think I assigned him to you as a project partner, you, a rare man these days with three kids. I thought you'd work with him better than some wet-eared ensign who might think him ripe for being bantered around."

Carrom's lips twitched.

She dropped her voice. "If you don't trust Starfleet, or me, why are you standing here?"

Carrom didn't let his posture slip. He felt too much like one of those ensigns right then. "I don't know, sir."

"Well, that's finally a sensible statement from you." She shifted around the few things on her desk. "I don't ever let students change partners. That's not how the world works. You learn to deal or you find another line of work. But I'm going to make an exception and let Spock decide if he wants to continue being yours."

"You don't believe it's a given he wants to switch?"

"Lieutenant." She put her hands on her hips, pushed her already square shoulders back. "I oversaw a hearing for a security officer that crushed Spock's fingers under her boot after stunning him unconscious. I watched him stand up without prompting and argue for leniency because he thought she understood well enough what she'd done and would be an asset as a result." She waited. "Did you stun Spock silly and break the fingers of his hand?"

Carrom was sweating. "No sir. Of course not."

"Then I expect Spock will forgive you. He wants to join us so badly he has to forgive us a lot of things. And I'd trade ten of you for him, so he and I are in sync on wanting him in." She turned to her desk. "Now get out of here."

She called out as he was leaving. "And I still expect better of you from here on."

He stopped and turned back, put his feet together. A pair of lieutenants strode by, engaged in conversation, barely noticing him there. "Yes, sir."


"Show me the scans you've got." Kirk crouched in the shade of a recently sliced off rockface sticking sharp end down into the silt at the bottom of the ravine.

The remainder of their party had arrived and arranged themselves in groups along the canyon, checking in with each other on foot every hour. Kirk now had Hummer to convene with, as well as his Second. The three of them bent low with helmets loosened, set back on their heads. Uirik's red hair emerged around her cheeks as grease saturated tendrils.

Kirk patted Kilpea's ankle. He hadn't moved in an hour. He'd checked his breathing twice in that time.

Kirk called Bark over. "I'm putting you in charge of Kilpea for a while." He waited while Bark's eyes widened. "Understand?" Kirk said firmly.

Bark nodded, alert now. He dropped to his butt beside Kilpea's head and shook his armored shoulder. "Stay with us, Buddy. Okay?" he nearly shouted into Kilpea's ear.

A smile tried to form on Kirk's lips.

Kirk turned back to Hummer. "Let's see the scans. You've got the base?"

They reviewed new scan of the base taken at very low power by leaving a scanner on top of a rock spire for an hour and moving away in case it was fired upon. There was nothing new except evidence of a few short tunnels under it, which Kirk could have guessed. No apparent life forms, but some areas were better blocked than others.

"What was that?" The display had flickered, whited out on some of the frequencies.

"A ship flew overhead, during scanning really low."

"Let me see. Something fired on us around that time." Kirk held up the scanner, angled it so the hazy dust on the screen didn't catch the light. "Yeah, that's it. Scanner doesn't have the exact craft on record, but lists it as low-development. Unmanned."

Uirik took the scanner in turn, watched the same data over again. "It is pretty crude. No wonder no one's riding in it. The power packs are unshielded, and there are a lot of them retrofit in the pilot bay. What kind of range were they trying to get out of it?"

"Would it have blown if we'd hit it?" Kirk asked. "We returned fire when it attacked."

Hummer took it back, made adjustments. "I expect. If you were trying to hit it, you got funky lucky you're a bad shot." He looked up. "Sir."

Kirk smiled crookedly. "It's okay. The extra power packs perhaps aren't for range. They're for a larger blast." Kirk stretched, tried to shake off the oppression of that narrowly missed awful alternative. "It kept harrying us. Maybe attracting fire was the intent. Another idiot device with simple programming. Go straight to the enemy, try and make them blow themselves up playing defense. It's targeting was subpar too, maybe that was why. You're right. It's good we didn't hit it."

Kirk pulled his knees up, hooked his arms around them. "Given how simple the craft's program is, we could lure it to the gun emplacement. Shoot it down where the blast in is range of the gun. The blast might be big enough to undermine the emplacement stability and take out the localized shielding, leave it open to smaller fire."

Hummer and Uirik and Bark looked at him, waited. The idea was workable, with some cooperation from the enemy's idiot programming. And some luck. It was likely the low level scan that had triggered the small pod ship to come after them. They could repeat that. A small team, three or four, could undertake the operation, easily. They had exactly three sharpshooters with them. Place a scanner set to delayed scan toward the base within blast range of the gun, get in position at a safe distance. Fire when the ship came to harry whoever was sending out the scan. Use the enemy's simplicity against them for a change.

Kirk said none of it aloud. He didn't want to fix it in their minds the way it fixed immediately in his own. He sat unmoving in the trickle of breeze, aware of the angle of the sunlight on the wall of the canyon, the stillness of everyone in view.

Kirk breathed in, let it out. "Let's let the Skuttles have target practice." He pushed to his feet. "We're rested. Time to retreat. We have rock tunneling buster torpedoes for this. No need for heroics."

"That's no fun, sir," Hummer said, half joking.

"You know what's fun?" Kirk said. "Hot showers." He turned to Uirik. "Thoughts, Second?"

"I love hot showers." She looked down, blushed. The first time he'd seen that on her. Her skin gave way to it easily. She turned away, crouched to check on Kilpea.

"Find us a route to the edge of the shield and a spot where we can send up a climber to signal," he said to Hummer. "Lieutenant," he said to Uirik's back. "Warn everyone we move out in twenty."

Hummer hunched over his scanner, strode to the shade to better read it.

Kirk's chest heated, clenched. He felt he was giving in. He felt also that he doing the right thing. He tried not to show his annoyance on his face.


"Would you like your mother to join us?" Sarek made no move to smell his just poured tea.

The servant set the teapot on the table and departed without asking asking the service order.

Spock had been deep in memory. He would see Zienn that afternoon. Over the last day, he had made little effort to remain present, away from the withdrawal of memories. At this point, he feared he would need a discipline that he did not possess. Without an immediate distraction of an important task, he was finding more unreviewed memories of Kirk to re-experience.

Sarek placed his clasped hands on the table. "I assume you have still not heard from James."

"Correct." Spock did find some discipline in the face of his father's potential disapproval.

"I regret your resistance to a bonding. You would not suffer this uncertainty in that case."

Spock well knew this. He momentarily bit his lips rather than point that out in a manner that would certainly allow his emotions to lash out. He still wished to remain free of a bond, which only made the pain of the unfollowed alternative path more acute. He could indeed easily know Kirk's current state, one way or the other.

Spock fixed his attention on the centerpiece, a low white bulbous vase with little square compartments in the top of it, each with a single tulip bud in it.

"But it is illogical to dwell upon what cannot be changed," Sarek said. "Can I assist you?"

"No."

Sarek signaled for a servant and had him fetch Amanda.

Amanda arrived, eyes searching. She took the only other seat at the table. The servant departed without setting it for tea.

"I require your assistance with Spock," Sarek said.

Spock raised his head. "I regret representing a difficulty."

"It is not you who is difficult, but in difficulty," Sarek said. "And I estimate that I will speak incorrectly again."

This was very nearly an apology. Spock studied him for the first time that day. His face was softened by age more than expected, as if Spock's mental image of him was not updating as time passed.

"I'll be relieved when you are at the temple, Spock," Amanda said.

Spock turned to her. "You will?"

"First love is always unduly difficult."

"Are you like father. You expect I will grow out of it?"

She smiled painfully. "No. And I don't think your father believes that any longer." She glanced across Spock at Sarek. "I think you need to grow up a bit more and everything will get easier."

"That is not unlike growing out of it, in one manner."

"Not necessarily, Spock." Her voice grew softer. "It's like learning to appreciate a fine wine rather than simply getting drunk upon it."

Spock let his hands fall loose but clasped in his lap. "I see. And understand."

"There are two approaches to your situation," Amanda kept talking and Spock assumed he must have missed a silent communication between his parents. "You can prepare yourself for a possible future you dread, so that you will be able to face it better. Or you can assume you will cope unprepared if that time arrives. And in the meantime, not suffer the difficulty of admitting how much emotional risk you are under."

"I do not wish to prepare." Spock felt the emotional load shift upon saying this. He dropped his voice because it had come out less steady than it should. "I perhaps underestimated the burden of simply not addressing that denial."

"You are young, there is no reason you would know."

"It is illogical to act without information," Spock said.

"Of course, Spock," she said kindly.

Spock wished for relief. He was fatigued in some deep way. "I too look forward to the temple. The distraction of my projects and classes is leaving me insufficient energy to attend to my meditation."

"And you are changing, Spock." Amanda reached a hand out, placed it on the table near Spock's cup. "You have to keep up with yourself."

Spock drew his robes together, straightened himself. "I would prefer less attention."

"Of course." She smiled, drew herself up and departed with a swish of her layered clothes.