Chapter 41 - Hanging
Spock crossed the basement of the Starfleet Annex and approached the pool of light containing Lieutenant Carrom. The seating area was quiet tonight. The hush seemed to honor Spock's solemn state of mind regarding Kirk. Illogical to make such a connection. Romantic. Poetic. Unacceptable.
"Cadet." Carrom sounded resigned and frustrated in equal measure.
Under his curious gaze, Spock took a seat, firmly settled into Zienn's disciplines, gently taught. Zienn's freely given consideration the day before had itself threatened to undermine Spock. At least Shutan, his literature tutor, had been appropriately harsh and dismissive of Spock's experiences. That had been preferable.
Carrom sat with one fist propped on his hip. "I admit I can't read your face one iota. You hear from Kirk?"
Spock twitched his head to shake it.
"What's his status show as on his public record?"
"Deployed. And the sector."
"Well, Starfleet thinks they know where he is." Carrom didn't move to pick up the padd balanced on the armrest, just watched Spock for a time. "You apparently didn't want to change partners for the rest of the project."
"I must work with everyone. Even those who do not like me."
Carrom sat back farther, sighed. "I don't approve of you-your past actions anyway. They alarm me, frankly. Random violence like that . . . It's the end of civilization to behave like that. The end of everything." He sighed again, took up his padd, propped it awkwardly on his knee without sitting up.
Spock pulled out his own device. The model spun, showing copious yellow and red, the unresolved engineering conflicts. Spock pushed a coolant system pump across a bulkhead which would make the total length short enough, but it would leave the department short of living space, which now turned a gray-yellow in response. He paused the model long enough to display Kirk's status in the upper control bar. It remained unchanged.
Unlike Amanda, Zienn had suggested Spock suffer now, accept and fully understand what his future would be like without Kirk. He insisted that emotional peace in the now could only be achieved that way. The alternative was full emotional isolation until he had more information, which Zienn did not recommend for one such as Spock.
"You have to give in," Carrom said.
Spock looked up, wondered how Carrom had read his mind. Carrom stared back with a confused, then curious expression. As if he understood Spock had found other meaning in his statement.
"I meant on the model. It can't be solved as is."
Spock looked down, gripped the padd edges, appalled at how much he'd revealed. His disciplines were still in place, but he didn't want to look up again. He longed to escape the room.
Carrom said, "Thirty five days of silence on the kind of grab and go missions Kirk should be on IS a little long. You are right to be worried. Distraction's the best medicine though. You can't. Do. Anything. From here."
He sounded increasingly angry in some deep way, even though he spoke amiable words. Spock had no choice but to look up. He sensed unspoken thoughts rattling Carrom's muscles against untapped action. Spock thought he could guess the words. A lot of people never returned home because of the Militants. Family at home worried at the silence, just like Spock was now, without hope.
They stared at each other. Spock's discipline held. The pieces Zienn was teaching him, one patient session at a time, were meshing together in his mind and were easier to call upon, even when he was already losing ground.
"Let's finish this," Carrom said. "My daughter won't leave me alone about you visiting again. She's really good at spotting lies so I need to be able to say you and I don't have a project anymore." Carrom sat forward, hunched. "These are the systems we are going to miss spec on. Here. Here. . . ." He went down the lines of a list he'd already made.
Spock followed along on his own copy, watched systems move out of conflict to yellow, a few to green.
"I have another list, but let's start there for round one. Now we document why we think we can get away with those numbers. We need to go back to the original assignment, the expected types of missions the ship will be put to, length of mission, distance from base, that sort of thing."
"Skill level and expected distribution of personnel?" Spock said.
Carrom shrugged his pointed shoulders. His attitude was increasingly dismissive. "Sure. If you want to write that. Go ahead. But let's finish this thing. Be great to be done early." He scratched his hair back, began swiping rapidly at the screen.
Spock wanted to try and arrange the out of spec systems yet another time. He resisted. Did as he was told.
Spock rode an open platform lift from the Annex basement to the ground level, rode up through dim lights shining through abstract sculptures with water sluicing down their sides. It was late. Carrom had drunk four tall coffees, but they had declared their project complete, ten days early. Spock turned his mind to his other courses, the extra materials he had been neglecting.
The inner connector to the Academy was roped off and dome shaped bots were resurfacing the floor. Spock stepped outside, breathed in the chilly night air. He walked around the long way over glowing sidewalk seams and low path lighting. The trees and palms shot up from tall planters, solid black against a hazy blue sky streaked with the landing platform lights on the taller buildings.
The hum of the city was comforting, meditative. Spock slowed, breathed in consciously, accepting the moist air conflicting with the passages leading to his lungs. He heard a sound and turned, alert. His mind had gone distant, but pulled back to his immediate vicinity. He sensed attention on himself.
"It's our friendly neighborhood Vulcan." It was Jaek's voice, modified by a mind altering chemical, likely alcohol. He was sitting alone in an alcove of stone benches against the wall of the laboratory building.
Spock stepped that way, but stopped at the opening to the larger sitting area. Multiple hazy lights bled into the air, leaving backlit indistinct outlines that were tricky even for Spock's night vision. The breeze was low and the building radiated the day's warmth. In the middle distance a fountain gurgled.
"What'er'ya doing out this late, Cadet?" Jaek's shadowy form projected a mimicry of seriousness.
"I had a late project meeting in the Annex with Lieutenant Carrom, sir."
Jaek waved a canteen around to gesture and Spock smelled ethyl alcohol.
"How's the project? Going well, I suspect." He sipped then lowered the canteen to his lap. "You probably aren't loathed by your project partner."
Jaek had been assigned to an officer as a kind of punishment to said officer. Spock stood straighter. "You would estimate incorrectly, sir."
"Would I? Surprised. Surprised. You're stupid smart. You know. What's not to like."
"The lieutenant has stated his reasons for his dislike and I am not in a position to argue otherwise."
"Well. What do I know." Jaek held up the opaque canteen as if to see the amount in it. "I'd offer you some, but I'm already in trouble."
"That is all right, sir. It has little effect on me."
Jaek scratched his ear, then the side of his head, which was clipped short to a shadow like a three-day-old beard. "Work work. What do you do for fun, Cadet?"
"I am quite pleased with the task of learning itself."
"So the Vulcan says." Jaek snorted. "Except. You know. I heard… You know, I heard someone said you got caught with an unreg in your room earlier in the term. It's always the quiet ones that can't hold back."
"That was many weeks ago."
"Still." Jaek's lips sounded curled with amusement.
Spock felt less substantial there in the dimness thinking of Kirk. "I am not certain what response you are expecting, sir."
"I . . Awh . . ." Jaek waved his canteen, shrugged. "If you wanted to share . . . You know. Opening up a bit . . . " He took a sip. "Being one of the team."
"Vulcans do not share information about their personal lives."
"This makes it hard for anyone to get to know you." Jaek pointed at Spock as he said this, and didn't sound nearly as drunk.
"I do not think that knowledge changes my willingness to share," Spock said.
"Well." Jaek sat back, crossed his legs. Spock's eyes had adjusted and Jaek's form was filling in with shades of blue-gray. "Okay. I'll share. I don't know how to make my best friend quit this place. I talk it down so much, I want to leave myself. I'm starting to believe my own crap. And Ensign Mintimore, my esteemed annoyed partner from Chanel's class, isn't helping. Or IS helping. Too much."
"If I may, sir, I see only a loss to this institution if you depart. Although my opinion carries little weight, I realize."
Jaek, the hazy shadow, lowered his canteen to hang it between his knees. He was slouching, staring at Spock. "Not zero weight, Cadet." He shifted, slouched more. "You know. It occurs. Admiral Justin always says you think exactly like him. What do you suggest with him?"
"If you estimate you are going to fail. I suggest you renegotiate with the Vice Admiral as soon as possible."
"Dog dirt. That's the same as failure." He huffed out. "But I'm already going to flop. The more I talk Starfleet down, the happier Hortie seems."
"If I may. You are talking down this institution to someone who does not belong in it. That makes him and it a better match."
Jaek paused, jaw working. "Right." He took a swig. Breathed in and out a few times. "You're damn right." He sighed, fully exhaled. "Well, damn. I think I need to talk Hortie down instead, make him unhappy to be here with me. Dirty dog hell." He drank again, and again, then pounded his fist on his thigh and groaned. He sat back, spent.
Spock considered asking to be dismissed, but did not wish to add to the strain.
Jaek heaved to his feet, lost his balance in the low light and scuttled to the side until he could put his hand down on the top edge of a concrete planter. "Whoa. Had more than I thought." He shuffled to a bench closer to Spock, dropped the canteen with a thunk, and sat with his hands gripping his thighs. "Maybe I should sleep here. Sober up."
"Do you want me to fetch you a sobering pill?"
"No. I want to be drunk." He looked up, voice faint. "But thanks." He stared straight ahead for a time. "So easy to just lose it all. I didn't think about it like that. The rules are the rules, but always a bit soft around the edges. Then you've crossed a line and it's all just teetering . . ." He sat back, hard. "You have any noreg visitors in your room lately, Cadet?"
"No, sir."
"Got caught once. Gave up having company just because of that one time? You always give up that easily?"
Spock considered his reply. Considered Jaek's words. "My boyfriend is deployed now, sir."
"Boyfriend, eh? I didn't think Vulcans had those."
Spock fought a wave of uneasiness at contemplating explaining further.
"That was too much to share," Jaek stated for him. He sounded amused. "You know. Maybe I misread you at the start. Picked on the wrong plebe for the wrong reason. Maybe. Let's see. What else would I need to know?" He sounded pleased now, voice full of smile. A full transition in mood that made him sound more like Kirk than Spock imagined possible.
"What could the Louie dislike about you, anyway?" Jaek said. "Mintimore thinks I'm a spoiled poser with no useful future. But that couldn't be your issue."
"I do not wish to speak of it."
Jaek snorted faintly. "Fine. Drunk orders are hardly binding, anyway." Silence fell. "Thought maybe I could help."
"I believe, sir, that I am currently committed to learning my way through this on my own," Spock said. "Perhaps I will accept your offer of advice another time?"
Jaek laughed. "Right. That's good. Look, I'm going to just sit out here. Maybe sleep. Get lost, okay?"
"Yes, sir."
Spock stepped away. The foggy air hung like a blanket over the courtyard. He made it to his room without encountering anyone else who would question his late movements.
Spock rose up in the status light-punctuated darkness of his dorm room. He pulled his padd out from the vertical shelf where he stored it. Kirk's feed was still dark gray, in excess of 31 days out of date. Spock had not sent another message in that time. In the last message he had berated Kirk for forcing him to open up to him, but had spoken of his weaknesses anyway, had broken decorum to do it. It had not been logical to send an additional message until he'd received a reply to that one, lest his messages become one-way, like a diary that may never be read by another.
Enough time had passed, his estimate of his message being received at all was declining non-linearly. In defiance of this, perhaps, Spock pressed Kirk's line on the feed index, said, "Audio message."
The status bar spread out, showed him a waveform and measures of noise and recognition accuracy, language rule adherence, estimated message genre and tone. He swiped that panel away, and the screen went blank except for the power over frequency graph.
"James. I have resisted burdening you with another message while I await yours." His voice was calm, not quite Vulcan, but factual enough to not hurt his pride. "But the tone, if not the content, of my last message has become no longer relevant to my situation and since your query was, quote, what is going on with me, unquote, I must amend my reply."
The device's record status went to standby while Spock weighed his next words. He breathed in, held it. Became stone.
"I do not know if I am more concerned for you or for myself at the prospect that something may have befallen you. It is an interesting problem that I admit I have never previously tried to extract from the social context and rituals of death. I find myself drawn to the perhaps antisocial conclusion that the expired have no need for sympathy. And that grief is inherently self-serving, and therefore illogical. But even so I find I cannot abandon the notions of the ideal future I have been harboring. Perhaps illogically. Perhaps not. It should be logical to plan for the future, even emotionally. When one sets out towards a goal that pleases one, this is perhaps always a threat to logic.
"Day to day, I have a better perspective on small events given the underlying worry for you. This has been instructive. As well, I am now looking forward to the temple and a refocussing my energy on my inner control. My attention is too captive to my projects here at the Academy . . . "
Spock faded out to considered that he had given Kirk no warning as to his rule-breaking project with P'Losiwst, nor would he bother to burden Kirk with Carrom's reactions to learning Spock's background.
Spock backed up in the recording to eliminate the vocal hesitation. "I will finish up the term here, and be fully open to learning the mental disciplines that will assist me in situations like this in the future."
Spock paused again. The recording was a revelation of sorts. As he spoke it, the words became him. He was not merely trying on these ideas to assuage Kirk. This was the being he wanted to be. He wanted to be untouchable at will. The aching worry of the last month at the threat of losing the most pleasing aspect of his world had brought him to this place. He wondered who that other Spock had been, that younger one that found lessons in mental control so tedious and useless.
Spock began again, "You were correct that being apart would assist me in finding out who I am. I did not expect to learn so much along these aspects. But perhaps you always understood that and I was merely naive.
"James. With a romanticism unbound from logic, in that my words can have no impact on reality, I do hope you are unharmed and well. And in answer to your query. I am fine, aside from my ever-present concern for you. Or concern not for you, but actually for myself. Perhaps both. I anticipate a message from you with some emotion, whenever you have the ability to send it."
Spock closed out the message and released it to the system. It was oh six hundred two. He slipped out of his robes and into his uniform. He had to work out one more way of bypassing the dorm room door security. Jaek may be out of his personal sphere of revenge, but he was not out of P'losiwst's and he owed his loyalty to her first.
"The canyon is cut steepest here," Kirk said. "The rock will be denser."
Bark shuffled up beside him. His boots were so coated in silt they looked like stones. "Want me to try a low power scan?"
"No. We can't risk company. Just show me where we are on the map. We need to pick the best angle of the canyon for cover."
As they'd walked, Kirk had been idly thinking about who to send up top to signal. He had to decide that now, send that person off away from the group in case they attracted fire. He decided on one of his sharpshooters.
"Ying."
Ying was lithe except for her thighs which looked lengthened and muscle enhanced. She had the body of an entertainment world acrobat, and the customized armor to go with it.
"You're going up top." He reached out for the map in Bark's hands.
"I can go," Uirik said. She shed her helmet as she stepped up beside Ying.
Kirk thought she was still trying to find a way to live down losing Hungren. "I want you down here," Kirk said. He turned to Ying, but kept his Second in the circle to consult.
"We're going to hole up right here, at this bend." He point on the map. "Which gives us the best cover from blasts at the base and the gun." He scanned the terrain, verifying it was the best choice. "Yeah. And I want you well away, so you are going to have to book it."
Ying nodded, pushed her helmet back up off her ears, which made her resemble a statue of a hero.
"Hummer." Kirk turned to find Hummer waiting two steps away. They were all getting used to each other. Kirk resisted smiling. "Compose the shortest comm packet you can. Light encryption. Our loc, the target locs. That should be enough. I'm going to think highly enough of our fellows to assume they are alert and waiting for us. And also eager for a chance to blow things up."
He turned to Uirik. "Thoughts?"
She appeared stubborn, but shook her head. She really wanted to go up.
"All right. Let's go."
Ying stripped down her equipment belt with rapid, deft movements. He'd chosen a sharpshooter because she wouldn't fumble while exposed and wouldn't need extra time to get the transmission off. She looked to Kirk to make sure there was nothing more. Then jogged off, footfalls puffing dust.
Kirk turned to the group. "I'm estimating fifty minutes, but let's make our way to cover. We're about fifteen minutes away."
Kirk took Kilpea off Ranran's hands as the minutes ticked down. Hummer and Uirik were on either side of him, weapons at ready. Although if one of the small automated ships came at them, they were ordered to hold fire. But it made everyone feel better to be holding something lethal.
Minutes ticked away beyond the estimate. Kirk began to calculate when he'd send someone to follow. This musing was interrupted by a rumble that sent rock debris down the cliff face. He had to lay on his back to account for his charred armor, Kilpea, helmet locked in place, was curled at his side, helmet under Kirk's arm.
Kirk flicked his faceplate down. Rocks clattered on it. The rumble became lower pitched. It had to be the tunneling torpedo. He'd never felt one in operation, only seen a simulation.
The explosion shot thick dust across the top of the canyon, turning the world to a brown haze that settled around them. Then there was nothing. Uirik had slid down to the canyon bottom. She dug in her heels to push back to a reclined position, gun still resting on its butt. Everything was brown crusted.
From the angle of the explosion, Kirk assumed that was the base. Personally, he'd have taken out the gun first. Maybe he should have suggested that in the message. It seemed presumptuous to make such a suggestion to a remote command team with a full scan in front of them. But because he hadn't suggested it, the forcefield was likely still in place. Kirk sighed. His exhalation bathed his face off his helmet shield.
Uirik sat forward, stretched a shoulder. Others shifted and Uirik made a motion for them to stay in cover positions.
Time passed. Kirk tried not to think about anything other than a hot shower and a soft bed. Fortunately those two things had risen to levels of pornographic importance to his body and easily fully occupied his thoughts.
Another rumble, more violent, then another explosion. Kirk's helmet comm filled with chatter and telemetry in a burst. After a minute, brown dust was drifting on the wind high above them. Skuttles flashed by overhead, one after the other, after another and yet another pair in close formation.
"They call out the entire division?" Kirk said.
Distant phaser fire sounded. Return fire lit bands into the sky. Apparently they'd taken out the shield without taking out the gun. Uirik had raised her head to listen, then shook it, rested it back on the stone.
They waited. Kilpea fought Kirk's hold for a while, slipped out of his helmet. Hummer clambered over, took hold of the straps securing Kilpea's back armor plates and forced him into place against Kirk.
"We're going home, Kilpea. Just hang on," Kirk said.
A battle-scarred skuttle passed overtop, returned cutting a banked arc, then hovered overhead. Kirk sat up, pulling Kilpea with him. Getting to this point no longer felt anything like defeat.
Kirk spent three hours in a harsh video debriefing. He wondered who he could ask if that was excessive or standard for such a mission. He stepped into the corridor, finding it constricting to have a ship close around him again. Their team's skuttles had been too damaged in the firefight to make the trip back to base, so the USS Saltonstall was giving them a lift to a commercial base on Niomtom VII from where they'd have to wait for transport.
Kirk found a table in the wide corridor used as the mess area because the mess area was used for cargo. Even here it smelled more like hydraulic fluid and volatiles than food. The ship was a tub, battered equally on the inside as the outside. He'd showered in a cargo container outfitted for the purpose and sanitized his uniform, but there weren't any spare berths. Some of his crew were sleeping in the skuttles in the lower bay he found out when he went to see how repairs were going. They were sleeping through the noise and commotion.
His padd opened on the paperwork that was due immediately and that which could wait twenty four hours. There were two messages from Spock. Kirk fumbled in his pocket for an earpiece while he read the first one.
"What shall I say? That I feel instinctively, illogically uneasy at the Academy. That I must reduce my estimation of fitting in to a level that displeases me. That I miss physical contact with you to a point of experiencing the effects of a severe lack of food or water? Do you wish to hear these things for your own reasons that I cannot see the logic in? My interactions with you are a world apart from the others around me. I still do not understand what we have such that I can understand what I am missing in its absence. It is safer for me not to consider it at all, as I have been trained to do since I was very young. You wish me to overcome that for what end purpose when you are not even here to assist with the aftermath of having done so."
Time and space dilated there in the corridor, alongside the sounds of forks and knives and scuffing chair legs. The followup message from less than twenty hours ago was lengthy for Spock. Kirk's gut felt heavy. It wasn't safe to push like that if he wasn't 100% certain to be there afterward. Spock was absolutely right about that. Kirk was messing up here.
He listened to the second message. It worried him more. Spock had pulled inward to the point of losing self-awareness.
Kirk typed, "I've returned from the mission. In transit currently. I don't have any privacy right now. Might have in 3-4 hours."
"Commander."
Kirk looked up. It was Uirik, holding two steaming cups. Her head was haloed by a waving mass of shining red healthy hair.
She toe-tapped the chair opposite him. "That's the last open seat? May I?"
The tables had filled in for meal time and Kirk hadn't noticed. Funny how fast he lost acute awareness of his surroundings once life didn't depend on it.
Kirk nodded. He sent the message to Spock to relieve his friend's worry and pulled the report list back to the front. She flicked out the chair with her toe and sat down. Her eyes were a little too attentive to Kirk's face, but she would know better than him how to fill out the reports. He asked her to help and with a smile that held more than professionalism, she eagerly agreed.
They gave up the table and moved to the half-destroyed skuttle cushions that lined the bulkhead on the deck below. Around them crew slept and played games. Uirik relaxed into instructing Kirk on the ins and outs of reporting to this sector's command, became almost outgoing. Her leg didn't avoid touching Kirk's and given the close quarters and others listening, he felt constrained in how aggressively he could urge her away. He was pleased to see her open up, and decided to treat it as chummy, let it go for the time being.
Spock settled into his dorm room. Lacking his largest project, his day of courses and side studies had gone perfectly according to schedule. He pulled up old interactive tutorials on leadership on the room monitor, and made his way through them. This had become his weakest subject. The only difficult one for which he had no tutor.
Spock's padd chimed from where it sat on the bunk. He listened to the chime replay in his mind several times, comparing it over and over to the one he had been waiting anxiously for. Every comparison came up a match.
He moved himself to the padd rather than move the padd to himself, lowered himself to sit before it as if it had become a holy object. There was a short message from Kirk. He was fine. He was busy with his duties. If Lt. Carrom had not told Spock his concern for Kirk was justified, Spock would be suffering heavy embarrassment.
Spock rose up and turned off the monitor. He took out the white robe Kirk liked to wear, which Spock had left unwashed. He bundled the robe up and lay on his side to use it as a pillow. He breathed deeply through it, immersed himself fearlessly in the memory of Kirk there before him, sun in his hair from behind him. The scent filled in the memory, made it whole: Kirk glancing down, lips smiling at the corners to match his eyes. Eyes coming up again. Human. Emotions outward. Boldly sexual. The Kirk he'd avoided for weeks.
Spock put his mind into a posture of sleep, held himself there in the memory until real sleep overtook him.
