Chapter 2 - Vulcan Martial Arts as Analogy for Life

Kirk swung his arms to warm up his joints, enjoying the freedom of movement of the workout suit. He didn't usually think of his duty uniform as constricting, but lately everything felt constricting.

At zero zero ten hours the gym area was empty so they chose the larger general area for sparing, rather than a room. The mats weren't as thick, but the extra space was useful.

Spock emerged from the locker room and hung his robe on a hook.

"Do you remember how this proceeds, Captain?"

Kirk had taken up a roughly human wrestling position. He stood straight and brought his feet together. He wasn't supposed to give any indication of what his first move might be, just stand neutrally until he committed.

"You've only taught me five moves," Kirk said.

Spock stood with his feet together, on his toes. Kirk watched how lightly he bounced. In the lower gravity, he was going to move like lightning. "There are not many suitable for your body strength, Captain."

"Thanks." Kirk longed to drop back to a wrestling stance.

Spock moved without warning. Kirk did the only thing he could as he went down, which was to sweep awkwardly with his right leg at the back of Spock's right knee. The both fell hard, but Kirk twisted to land half on top. His gain was short lived, he was pinned, chest to the floor, knee against his thigh, hand up his back a scant five seconds of grappling later.

"Uncle," Kirk muttered.

Spock let him go. "The proper call is Sh'shunk."

Back in starting position, Spock said, "You need not hold back, Captain. I assume you will relieve more of your frustration if you engage in a higher level of violence."

Kirk was reminded that they had started these workouts after Spock's Pon Farr, to mentally get past the difficulties of that little matter of a fight to the death. Kirk stretched his neck and it cracked.

"Does it seem like I'm holding back?" Kirk asked.

Spock's brows rose. "If you are not, I apologize, Captain."

Kirk let the frustrated, hurt anger flow into his limbs and into his fingertips. He wasn't angry at Spock, but he could pretend to be. Spock waited for him to move first.

Kirk lasted thirty seconds because he ignored the five moves he knew and played dirty. Spock didn't complain as he let Kirk get up.

"Do I have a chance at all?" Kirk asked when they were again in position. Kirk tried for psychological distraction. "I don't understand how something involving so much contact could be popular with Vulcans."

"It is one of the less popular forms of physical training. And its history predates our becoming peaceful. It must include contact. In ancient times it was as much a battle of minds attacking each other as bodies."

So much for psychology, Kirk thought.

The door to the showers opened and two members of engineering quieted and slowed as they walked through the gym. When they stopped as if to watch the ship's two senior officers spar, Kirk said, "Something I can do for you gentlemen?"

The ensign grinned. "No sir." The other said, "Good even, sirs." And they were gone.

"My inferiority to you is a running joke," Kirk said.

Spock raised a brow, appeared superior, and said nothing.

Kirk was having none of it. He launched at Spock, feinted twice, and used a wrestling hold to pull Spock over hard enough that he could keep rolling and land with a knee in Spock's abdomen and one hand wrapped behind Spock's back, although that meant his own hand was trapped as well, holding his wrist. Spock shook off his attempt at a hold with his other hand and flipped Kirk almost effortlessly over to the side.

Kirk forgot to roll, or couldn't tuck his chin because of their close positions and his trapped arm. He landed flat on his back, smacking the thin mat.

Spock had him pinned an instant later, but relented when Kirk sucked air and failed to draw any breath. Kirk's anger at himself faded the fourth time he still couldn't get a breath and panic began to take over. Spock's arm slipped beneath his shoulders, tilting Kirk's head back, but this made it worse. Kirk tossed his head side to side to get him to stop.

Spock smoothly raised him to a sitting position and lifted each of his knees to a bent position as though he were a doll that weighed nothing. Kirk didn't care since it allowed him to suck in a small amount of air, finally.

"It is merely a temporary constricting spasm of the diaphragm muscle, Captain. It will pass."

After a few more shallow draws of air, Kirk gasped, "Thank you, Doctor McCoy."

"Would you like me to page sickbay?"

"Is that a threat? No. Don't bother sickbay." Kirk shifted as if to stand, then decided he needed a few more full breaths before he did so. He rested his arms on his knees and looked across the room. "I'm not convinced this activity is making me feel any better."

Spock shifted to sit beside Kirk's left foot, facing him in roughly the same posture. "I could attenuate my strength to a human norm if that would help."

It was Kirk's turn to raise a brow. "You'd do that?"

"If you wish."

"I think you spend too much time adapting to me." Kirk said this without thinking ahead.

In the indirect light of the gym, dimmed slightly for ship's night, Spock did not look alien. He looked like every other member of the crew.

Spock said, "I do not think that is true."

"No?"

"The word 'stubborn' has appeared in my personnel records and commander logs fourteen hundred sixty one times over the course of my career, not including Starfleet academy."

Kirk didn't know why he was continuing with his side of this conversation. "I didn't say you weren't stubborn, just that I was making you adapt too much."

"That is an interesting subtly to concepts I would have been inclined to conflate."

"I don't think they are the same thing at all."

"Spoken like someone whose record contains the word 'stubborn' eight hundred and four times."

Kirk laughed. "Did you count just now?"

"Yes."

Kirk stood up, stretched, and breathed deep, which made him cough. "I try to be adaptable, when called for. But stubborn when it matters."

Kirk held out a hand. Spock accepted it and straightened to standing with the ease of someone built for higher gravity.

"I outweigh you, don't I?" Kirk asked.

"By approximately three point four one kilograms."

"That's a huge advantage. Can you use only a human's strength and we'll go again? I want to see how I fare."

Spock nodded and took up his position and closed his eyes. Kirk waited, watching him. Spock opened his eyes and nodded. Kirk was in motion an instant later.

Kirk tried to use the last actual Vulcan martial arts move Spock had taught him, but Spock blocked him and, probably because of Kirk, they toppled to wrestling. Kirk hooked his elbow around Spock's shoulder and threw himself to the side to roll them both over. Without his superior strength, Spock's lithe body came over easily and he had to arrest the roll with a leg thrown wide. But Kirk had better position on him now, although far from pinned.

"This is unnerving," Spock said.

Kirk smiled and tried to change his grip again, but Spock wriggled free and Kirk was forced to jump to his feet to dodge an attack that surely would have had him down.

As they circled, Kirk tried to catch his breath. "This is still not fair. I tire, but you never will at this effort level."

"I cannot help that."

"Can we start again? I can try one of the other actual moves you showed me."

Spock stood straight. Kirk briefly considered launching against him, but decided that was cheating too much.

They started again.

Kirk used what he thought of as 'move two' where one planted one's foot between your opponent's two feet and used your hip and upper body to twist your opponent off balance. Spock's feet were tightly together, so Kirk planted his soft bootied foot on top of Spock's, which left him no way to recover except to pull Kirk down with him until his feet were free and keep rolling, tearing from Kirk's grasp and immediately twisting around and knocking the half-recovered Kirk back over and pinning him.

Kirk couldn't breath again for the knee and elbow pressed into his back.

"Uncle."

The pressure increased.

"Uh . . . Sh'shunk."

There was a definitive full second before Spock released him. An eternity in view of Vulcan reaction time.

Kirk stood and rubbed his neck.

Spock returned to starting position. "Again?"

"I'm not sure you're going to let me up next time," Kirk said.

"I'll let you up, Captain," Spock said.

Kirk stared at him.

"One more." Kirk took his position, a little farther back.

"I do believe you are holding back, Captain. You would have great difficulty actually harming me."

Kirk shook his head. And got a running start, and knowing Spock liked to dodge right, dodged the other way under the assumption that Spock knew that Kirk knew that he always dodged right. He guessed correctly and carried Spock to the wall behind him with an audible thud on the thin inner bulkhead.

Spock made the only logical move since a neck pinch was off limits, which was to pike his body and try to shove Kirk off with a knee. Kirk dropped and pushed Spock's bent knee straight up so that he rotated over Kirk's head. Kirk didn't want him to make a smooth landing. He hooked an elbow around Spock's leg and fell with him, landing half across his chest, grappling to get a hold of Spock's wrists.

"Sh'shunk," Spock said before Kirk could fully pin him. "That was a highly unexpected move, Captain."

Kirk rolled straight to his feet and offered a hand up.

Spock said, "A Vulcan sparring arena has no walls, only sheer drop-offs at the edges."

"You forgot to mention that." Kirk ducked to wipe his face on the edge of his shirt. His shirt came away wet.

Spock considered him. "Feeling better, Captain?"

Kirk grinned. "Yes, actually."

At the beginning of the alpha shift, Admiral Diamond followed Kirk onto the bridge.

"Can't we go any faster, Kirk?"

"This isn't an emergency, Admiral." Kirk stepped down beside Chekov. "Navigator, what is our estimated travel time to rendezvous with the Daedalus?"

"Forty-six hours, eight minutes, Captain."

"And the Lexington is estimated to arrive when?"

"Thirty-four hours, twenty three minutes, sir."

Kirk took the center seat. "Even if we increase our speed by half a factor to warp six, we will not arrive before the Lexington." He glanced at the engineering station, but Mr. Scott was not at it. He could have used his support just then for the maximum safe cruising speed of the Enterprise. "If we are following the manual, Admiral, as you suggest we do more often, we should maintain warp 5.5, the speed at which we do not unnecessarily wear out or put the ship at risk."

Diamond stood at the engineering console, hands twitching behind his back.

Kirk had won that round, but facing the next pressed on his spirit.

Spock arrived on the bridge. The two of them had not met in the corridor this morning because Kirk had attempted to arrive on the bridge before the admiral. In vain.

Kirk managed a quirked half smile for his first officer, who nodded in return.

The bridge went quiet. Kirk wished McCoy was there for company. Even Rand had taken to leaving his reports in his quarters rather than bringing them to the bridge. His entire ship normal smooth flows were being disrupted.

Shift dragged on. Kirk had lunch brought to the bridge for himself in the hopes that he'd get a break then, since the Admiral preferred the mess. But it wasn't to be. The admiral decided to skip eating just to stay.

Kirk circled the stations as he drank his coffee, doling out morale boosts that didn't feel sincere and made his stomach even more acidic than the coffee. He resumed his seat, trying hard not to fantasize about practicing Vulcan martial arts on the Admiral.

Diamond said, "You have downtime, Kirk, especially at current cruising speed. Why aren't you running drills?"

Sulu and Chekov half turned at their stations to look back at Kirk.

"We ran two months worth of drills last week, Admiral. The crew deserves a rest."

"This isn't a rest, this is tedium."

Kirk sipped his coffee to stall speaking since he could feel he would say something he'd regret.

"I'm not sure how you would know that, Admiral."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, you haven't been on a ship since you were an ensign. Are you certain you remember?"

Admiral Diamond's face reddened. He stepped down beside Kirk's chair. "I'm on a ship now, Kirk. I have eyes."

"I really think I am a better judge of the state of my crew, Admiral. It is my ship."

"You are currently outranked."

Kirk felt Spock stepping up behind him. His blue uniform shifted into the right hand corner of his eye.

Kirk couldn't find anything to say that wouldn't make things worse. For all he knew he might be running drills right now if Diamond weren't on the ship. His decision making had become skewed.

"Mr. Sulu, prepare a round of phaser drills at 1% power."

Chekov and Sulu glanced back again, faces questioning.

Diamond said, "Add in a loss of gravity to that simulation, Lieutenant."

In his calmest tone, Spock said, "That will put quite a bit of strain on the hull, Admiral, to disable the artificial gravity in only one section of the ship."

Diamond's lips puckered. "Cancel the failed gravity piece of the simulation, Lieutenant."

The admiral stepped up to the turbolift. "I'll go and observe the phaser crews directly myself."

Kirk nodded, face blank. As he turned his chair forward, he found Sulu's and Chekov's disappointed gazes fixed on him.

"Run the drills," Kirk said, hating himself for saying it. At least it made them turn to their stations.