Chapter 2
Kirk woke to the sound of a persistent ping, disoriented at the unfamiliar sound until he roused into the land of the living and realised it was the ship's communications system demanding his attention. He flicked the comm switch and sought out the time shown on the communications panel. Just after oh seven hundred hours.
"Kirk here."
"This is Colclough, Captain Kirk."
"What can I do for you, Captain?" The two of them danced around each other in exquisite politeness. On arrival he'd been so exhausted, he'd barely had energy for politeness and Colclough had taken it amiss. Now it was 'Captain' and 'sir' at every juncture.
"I am afraid I have bad news, sir. Gloriana is diverting to Port Cochrane."
"That is taking me out of my way, Captain." What the hell? Now wide awake, he quelled mounting impatience. "Why Cochrane Point?" although he could probably guess. Also Port Cochrane, indeed. Laughable to distinguish the tiny station with the designation of Port. Any Starfleet captain obliged to put in there was having an exceedingly bad day. More like glorified trading post, offering the sort of tat tourists would find exotic and presumably desirable; its main rationale for existence was that it operated as a transfer point for civilian transports, particularly passenger vessels.
Colclough uhmmed and ahhed, but at last confessed it was a commercial decision. They would take on extra passengers there. No doubt the fine print on flight bookings covered such course diversions. At the moment even an uncomfortable, slow shuttle held some appeal.
"I would like to send a sub-space communication to Enterprise, Captain Colclough, to advise them of the delay." And get Starfleet to send a ship and get him off this damn vessel before he died of frustration and boredom. He had a starship in mid refit he needed to oversee, dammit.
"Certainly, Captain Kirk, it is the least we can do." Colclough's voice was pregnant with relief that his august guest had not unloaded the expected opprobrium on him. The august guest could have, but he doubted the change of course was Colclough's idea. "Please standby while I transfer you to my comms officer. Colclough out."
"Captain Kirk, this is Harris. Please standby while I hail Enterprise, sir." Old habits die hard. From the formality of manner in which Harris addressed him, he suspected the greyed communications officer was retired Starfleet and determined to flaunt her efficiency, an efficiency of which he was an appreciative beneficiary; she must have anticipated his request, because it was only scant moments before he was speaking to Uhura.
"Spock on the bridge, Uhura?"
"Present, Captain."
"How's my refit coming along?"
"On schedule, sir."
"I don't know whether you've heard, but the Gloriana is diverting to Cochrane Point."
"Indeed? That will delay your arrival at Andoria by a considerable margin."
"Tell me about it! Spock, if I spend another hour aboard this ship, I am going to lose my mind. Enterprise is being refitted and I want to be around to see it in progress. Understand, it's not that I don't trust my crew—"
"Jim," Spock said, interrupting his whining, "I can arrange for a long distance shuttle out of Starbase 24 to dock with Gloriana within approximately twelve to fourteen hours. I regret I cannot be more precise on an ETA at this time."
"I can live with twelve to fourteen. I can sleep through most of that. I think. I hate being a passenger, Spock." It alarmed him that that last bit came out almost as a wail.
"Understood, Captain. Spock out."
Since there was little else for him to do, he burrowed back under the covers and did his best to catch up on his sleep. He would be glad of it once he arrived home. Refits could be a fraught affair, even with an exemplary crew. He blanked his mind and, and perhaps because he knew he would soon be leaving, sleep claimed him quickly.
xxx
Another chime drew him out of a confused dream, where all his efforts to return home met with hurdle after hurdle. He squinted at the clock. Ten hundred hours on the nose.
He hit the comm panel switch. "Kirk here." No response. He flicked the switch again. "Kirk here." Sluggish synapses finally fired and he threw off his bedcovers and headed for the door. The thing about sleeping as much as this, it left him muggy and sluggish when he woke up.
"Captain Kirk, this is Tay," said a tentative voice, when he answered his door chime.
"Who?"
"Siran's brother."
Ah, Tay and his merry little band of Vulcans. He gave himself the once over, checking his attire, or more probably a lack of it, wouldn't outrage the delicate sensibilities of a guest, opened the door and waved his visitor inside. "What can I do for you?"
"My brother is in what Captain Colclough calls the brig," and, in case he needed further elucidation, added, "he is under arrest."
Brig? A brig? What the hell sort of outfit was that man running? Starfleet wannabe!
His new friend had a bad case of the fidgets. The boy looked down at his hands, the worst culprits, and attempted to quell his agitation with a formal pose of hands behind back, back ramrod straight.
"Captain, I beg you to intercede with Captain Colclough on my brother's behalf. Any remuneration you may wish for your service, my family will undertake."
That gave him pause, until he realised it was only a cry for help, not an offer of a bribe. He forsook telling Tay to calm down; no need to add insult to injury, even though Tay was betraying his youth with his distress. A human counterpart would be in tears.
"Alright, let me ask the obvious: why is your brother under arrest?"
"Captain Colclough accuses my brother of attempting to steal his ship."
xxx
Strange to think of decor and brig in the same context, but Gloriana's version came with startlingly white walls and bright lighting that hurt Kirk's eyes.
Siran lay on a cot in the brig's cell. At least he presumed it was the boy. A medic tended to him and blocked most of his view. Colclough had ordered the forcefield barrier raised, which seemed a little excessive under the circumstances.
"We had to stun him with a phaser," Captain Colclough said, underlining the thought. "That is Doctor Briscoe examining him." Medical prying. Not a development to make Tay any less restive.
"That," Tay said, agreeing with his assessment, "is not required. My cousin is a healer; he will treat my brother for his injuries." Tay's entreaty fell on deaf ears; a dyspeptic Captain Colclough, a man normally given to an excess of bonhomie, bestowed a glare that went someway beyond brusque and dallied with outright incivility. It was just as well an intercom hail drew him away.
On reflection showing up in Starfleet gold might not have been the most politic decision. The uniform obliged Gloriana's captain to hear him out, but Colclough didn't have to like it, nor did he have to conceal his distaste for the manipulation. A lot of the man's resentment probably still stemmed from their ill starred introduction and now his rude and uppity guest was taking it upon himself to stick his nose into Gloriana's business.
If Colclough were prepared to hear him out, he could offer the observation that a general aptitude for the sticking in of one's nose might be regarded as the raison d'être of a starship captain. Many an adventurer, who took it upon themselves to try the Federation's toleration for their brand of mischief, could attest to Starfleet officers' untimely inquisitiveness.
Colclough finished his call, but made no attempt to engage either of them, instead clasping his hands behind his back and focusing his attention on Briscoe and his prisoner. No point trying to placate the captain at this point in the trajectory of his annoyance, better to let him simmer down a little.
In lieu of fascinating conversation, he turned his own attention to examining the brig. The smell that sanitisers could not scrub out of surfaces he identified as a faint, but pervading, smell of vomit. So, less a brig and more a drunk tank; in which case the two sets of personal restraints mounted on the wall were a little excessive for so pedestrian a use. Drunk tank or not, though, the docking port that seemingly formed an integral part of the brig made him scratch his head. No starship captain would tolerate such an obvious security breach.
"My cousin is a healer, he will treat my brother for his injuries."
Colclough's head snapped round and he speared Tay with a glare. "I am not hard of hearing, sir.!"
"Tay has asked me to lend assistance, where I can, Captain."
Which chipped further away at Colclough's patience. His brow lowered. "And I must ask what's this to do with you, sir?" he snapped.
"I do have some experience with Vulcans."
Colclough would know the identity of his first officer. The other captain's gaze went to the livid marks about his throat, but he said nothing. He had not really believed the story of an over enthusiastic wrestling bout.
"Do you really want to keep that boy cooped up in here? It's possible that Siran's family may be well placed on Vulcan." Tay's eyebrows lifted at this, proving it to be the over statement he had suspected, but, small mercies, his new friend offered no correction. "In which case, you might find yourself at the centre of a diplomatic incident." He left Colclough to mull that over. Judging by the way the man's jaw tightened and worked, it was a complication he had not considered.
"Then let them. The matter can be adjudicated in the Federation courts, when we put in at our final destination, Raisa."
Oh, sweet—
Unfortunately Tay was not done. "Captain, I demand my cousin be allowed to examine Siran." Colclough bristled at so peremptory a demand. So much for the diplomatic approach. Where was a gag, when he needed one?
He sent Tay a quelling look. "Excuse my Vulcan friend; he is concerned for his brother."
Colclough drew himself up in all his portly glory. "I'm not in the habit of mistreating my passengers, Captain, no matter the provocation, and there was plenty of provocation to go around, believe me. That man," Colclough levelled an admonishing finger — j'accuse! — at the motionless figure on the cot, "assaulted two of my crew — one of them has a broken arm." Colclough's glower intensified. "That man battered down the door to the flight deck with a Vulcan cudgel—"
"Lirpa."
Not helping, Tay.
Colclough drew an aggrieved breath. "That man demanded my people change course for Vulcan at the point of said weapon, whereupon the flight deck crew signalled a security emergency. Security arrived. The Vulcan would not desist and promptly attacked when he was told to stand down. At which point in proceedings he was stunned and brought here. I immediately called Doctor Briscoe to provide medical attention." Colclough seeking somewhere to bestow a glower that, with the telling of his tale, darkened into a deeper shading of righteous offence, laid the full force of it on his fellow captain. He restrained himself from an it wasn't me. If venting helped Colclough, then it was all to the good, far, far better to offer up the sympathetic ear. "Although, why the urgency to return to Vulcan beats me."
He would not enlighten him. Siran's attempt to turn a ship around bore far less success than another endeavour in the same vein he could think of. The liner's controls were pretty foolproof, but did Siran even know how to pilot a ship, any ship?
Tay, at last, taking a leaf from his book, laid off the demands. "Captain, I apologise on behalf of my brother. I assure you this is not his normal behaviour. My family will make all necessary reparations to your company and to the members of your crew, who have been injured. He is not well and treatment for his condition requires his prompt relocation to Vulcan."
"Doctor Briscoe is a more than capable medical professional." Colclough turned that glower in Tay's direction. "If that was supposed to be an appeal for me to change course, I'm not interested.
Tay frowned, as if wracking his brains for an apt response. "Please?"
He smothered an urge to laugh, which would probably push Colclough over the top, and turned the sympathy and understanding up to max again; he drew Colclough to one side. "Captain, do you really want to keep that sick boy a prisoner?"
"Kirk," Gloriana's captain finally ditched the honorific. "Are you seriously about to advocate I release someone who attacked my crew without provocation?" Colclough, his ire still raw, and suspecting he was about to be persuaded to a course of action he did not care for, was not disposed to let him get a toehold in the conversation.
"Well, if you put it like that, Captain. I would think this facility a safe place for Siran, until you drop him off at Vulcan."
Colclough goggled at him, not sure whether to be astonished or offended.
Who said diplomacy was the art of letting someone else have your way? "I am sympathetic to the aggravation and, as a fellow captain," careful, that was laying it on a little thick, "I well understand your outrage for the safety and well being of your crew. But a Vulcan on a berserk rampage? We both know there's something wrong with that picture, sir. I don't have to tell you how out of character such behaviour is for them. They embrace non-violence; for them it is not empty posturing."
"I would never have thought it possible, but that's the thing about Vulcans, one should never forget they are actually a warlike race. I suppose any Vulcan must have his breaking point," Colclough muttered in an aside that Kirk was not sure was intended for him. The captain drew in a considering, judicial breath. "I'm still thinking the Federation courts on Raisa are best equipped to sort out this mess." To get an aggravating headache off his hands, he meant.
Sort out? Was the man really that naïve? Or was he kidding himself. The latter probably. This was just the opening he needed. Make Colclough recognise that bombast would result in the worst of all possible worlds, the pitfalls of indulging his ill-temper. He would also need to provide Colclough with an out that saved face.
"Well, you're a braver man than I for considering involving Federation investigators. What little dealings I have ever had with them myself left the impression that they work to their own timetable, the priorities of busy captains be damned."
Colclough squirmed. His jaw worked some more, but he swallowed whatever he wanted to say, no doubt because it would uncork the threatened eruption. "You are proposing I reward bad, no make that criminal, behaviour with a detour to Vulcan?"
"Believe me, Captain, if Siran were aware of what he had done it would occasion a very un-Vulcan sort of embarrassment," Kirk said, ignoring Tay, standing in his line of sight and giving him the Vulcan equivalent of the evil eye for that. "Consider, sir, that it does indeed seem that Siran has diminished responsibility for his actions as a result of illness, and that there is an offer on the table for restitution of damages. It's my experience when Vulcans say something they mean it."
Colclough huffed.
He was on a roll. "I think it would also be prudent to consider what should happen if you were to lose the boy."
Colclough looked around blankly at the brig, as if to discover a hiding place.
"If he were to die." The addition of the bald clarification made Colclough shrink from him, a reaction that gladdened his own heart. "It's my experience that Vulcans are seldom ill, but if they should succumb to illness, it may be life threatening." Tay flinched, and well he might. The only time Spock had taken ill, with the same thing that now afflicted Siran, he'd nearly died. "Vulcans revere life. With their limited birth rate, they are particularly touchy about the safety of members of their race. If Siran's illness were to take an unfortunate turn, it is not beyond the bounds of reason that even the Vulcan High Council might take an interest and, if this were to occur, I imagine you and your company would be obliged to field question after question." Tay's eyebrows pursued his hairline again, but he ignored the unspoken editorial. Not exactly a lie. "Lots and lots of questions. Vulcan might even be denied to you as a port of call, if the answers received were perceived to be unsatisfactory. Believe me you don't want to mess with bloody-minded Vulcans, they can really take the fun out of life."
Colclough huffed. Huffed and puffed. Kirk let out a surreptitious hiss of his own breath. A done deal. Now that Colclough had got most of his ire off his chest, the price of escalating the situation made him balk at what it would cost in time and personnel resources.
"Alright, Kirk, I'm listening."
Yes, he was. He offered Gloriana's captain his most judicious expression. "Under your authority as captain of this vessel, you could divert to Vulcan for the sake of a medical emergency. The bean counters at your company's headquarters might gnash their teeth, but a medical emergency always trumps profit margins, and, said Kirk, aware he was going for the clincher, "you would have the sworn testimony of Enterprise's captain to back you up."
"Still listening."
"What's the maximum warp speed that Gloriana can muster?"
"Warp five."
"Then you would get him off your hands within ten hours."
Tempting prospect. "The errand of mercy angle. Probably stop a lot of whining from the passengers in its tracks, too." Colclough was sold.
"Without a doubt, Captain."
"If you two gentleman have quite finished," said Doctor Briscoe, interrupting their little détente, "you might want to consider a hitch to your plans."
"What hitch, Doctor Briscoe?" Colclough asked.
"That I am herewith placing Gloriana in quarantine."
xxx
Author's Note
I may inform Captain Kirk the person who said, "Diplomacy is the art of letting someone else have your way." – is attributed to Sir David Frost