Chapter 14 - I'll Meet You Halfway, Give Me a Map

"You need a break, Jim," McCoy said. He'd stopped by Kirk's quarters around the time alpha shift would have started. "There's some pretty walks, some little bars. Come planetside. You need it."

Kirk continued to review the crew manual sections on fraternization and improper relationships. He could hear Admiral Diamond reading it out loud in his head.

"Jim. Yoo hoo?" McCoy pointedly pulled over a chair with a loud rasp.

"Not right now, Bones."

"Jim, what's going on?"

Kirk looked up at him, looked back at the monitor again.

"What the heck happened here?"

"Things are not looking good, Bones, and I'm finding out my best friends aren't really. Including you."

"Whoa there, Jim." He stood up and cut behind Kirk at his desk and pulled out the brandy. "We aren't having a conversation like this unless one or both of us is drunk."

"Don't bother talking. I need to drop it for now." Kirk rubbed his forehead. "I need to forget, is what I need to do, but I can't seem to."

Bones held up the bottle to the light. "Drop what? I don't even know what we're talking about. Last I saw you, you were meeting with that lovely lawyer friend of yours and next thing I know you are the saddest sad sack I've seen in a dog's age. At least when we were carting Diamond around, you were putting up a fight."

Bones toasted Kirk and drank half a shot. He poured one for Kirk and pushed it to him.

"Jim. I'm ordering you to drink that."

Kirk had a long moment where he contemplated violence. He rubbed his knuckles over his lips.

"Jim, what the hell is going on?"

Kirk put on a fake smile and took the glass. "Nothing I can't deal with. Cheers."

The comm whistled. Uhura's voice came through, "Captain, Ambassador Sarek requests that you spend an hour or two at the Orion Summit, if you can spare the time."

McCoy said, "Well, that fits in perfectly with my ordering you to take a break from this ship. And that IS an direct order, Captain, Sir."

A bundle of taut muscle and sore spirit, Kirk wandered the sea-green grounds and greeted the participants he recognized from the ship. The journey here felt like a month ago. McCoy had found the bar immediately upon arrival and settled in with like-minded participants. He had tried to stall Kirk's departure, but Kirk couldn't possibly sit still. Besides, if he hung out with McCoy and drank anything, he'd likely tell the doctor exactly what was on his mind, and later regret it.

He eventually found the ambassador with Sunap in tow, but sans Spock, which Kirk had not expected.

"Captain Kirk, I'm pleased that you could join us."

"Ambassador."

Kirk joined a formal discussion about defense of far flung colony worlds, grateful for a chance to forget his own troubles. Two members of the press picked up the slack when the participants ran out of questions. By the end Kirk and the two of them exchanged questions and analysis across the heads of the participants.

The discussion ran overtime but finally broke up and Kirk stalled returning to the ship. He followed a path along a rise between rows of young, yellow-barked trees. He heard fabric blowing in the wind behind him and turned to find Sunap following him.

Kirk waited for the youth to catch up.

Sunap glanced behind him and came to a stop before Kirk. His poise for his age was admirable.

"Cousin James Kirk. May I seek your advice?"

Kirk shook off the odd greeting as Sunap's way of apologizing with something lost in translation.

"Of course."

Sunap took up a stride to match Kirk's and said, "I have determined you are the best person of which to ask this."

"I hope I can help, in that case."

"I am having difficulties in communication. Or perhaps not in communication. I do not know where the failing is precisely. I am communicating clearly. But I am having a difficulty with Doba regarding the need for an expression of future or even short-term intentions . . . " He trailed off. "I am expressing myself ineffectually."

Kirk wanted to smile, but held back. "Let me guess. If I may be so bold? Doba is hoping for some kind of expression of your commitment to continuing a relationship, before the two of you separate. And you may have been given an ultimatum on this point-"

"I feel I have," Sunap said. "I do not like it."

"Right. Not surprising you don't. You have pride from here to Centari, why should you give into demands like that? But on the other hand, you have something to lose by standing by your own pride, but you aren't sure what it is precisely, just that you might lose it."

Sunap stopped. "How is it that you know this?"

"Your situation's a bit more typical than you realize."

Sunap said, "I will not make an expression out of my thoughts if I am pressured into doing so. I perhaps should simply say that and see what results. I will not bend for this."

Kirk said, "You give in, you might just have to give in more. Why start down that path? But on the other hand, if you never meet anyone halfway, you can end up alone."

They had reached a copse of leaning flowering trees. Kirk said, "In summary, you insist she shouldn't require reassurance, and it isn't logical to give it, correct?"

He had Sunap's full attention.

Kirk went on, "What would you do if you were standing on that dock out there with a flotation device in your hand and someone were drowning nearby?"

Sunap's brows shifted to derisive. "This is an inane question. I would throw the flotation device to this person."

"Of course you would. Now, what if it isn't a stranger, it is Doba, and what if it's not water but emotion she is drowning in?"

Sunap stared at him while he thought that over. When he spoke he sounded impatient. "You had a suggestion."

"I do." Kirk started walking again. "First off, you should only do something you are comfortable doing. Otherwise you aren't being true to yourself which ultimately means you aren't being true to any kind of future with or without her. But if you are clever about it, you can solve your problem. Do you have something meaningful with you that you are willing to part with?"

Sunap reached into his pocket and pulled out a case which he opened. Inside were a few palm sized sensors and a pen phaser.

"You had that on my ship?" Kirk said of the phaser.

"It is precisely zero point one milliamp weaker than the allowed maximum for passengers."

"I should have known. What do you use it for?"

"I cut samples with it."

"Ever carve with it?" Kirk began looking around at the ground.

"At times of great boredom."

Kirk picked up a piece of white, gray and pink granite that sparkled even in the cloudy light. "Here, carve that into an IDIC. You can manage that, right?"

Sunap weighed the stone in his hand. "Easily."

"Explain what the symbol means and give it to her."

"But it won't mean anything to her."

"It will. Because it means something to you."

Kirk resisted smiling when he added, "Trust me."

"I have no choice. I am outside my expertise."

Sunap departed through the trees just before the summit participants came back into view on the return walk. Kirk walked on alone, buffeted by the breeze.

Spock was standing beside his father near a check-in table. Seeing him there, Kirk found he had talked himself out of the worst of his hurt anger. He approached feeling not quite himself, but not nearly as undermined as he had been.

"Afternoon, Mr. Spock."

"Captain."

The summit was busier than before. Small clumps of press were recording the various proceedings. Kirk spotted Sangelica, holding court before two hovercams and a handful of badged press. She looked naturally suited to the job of PR, confident and lovely.

Sarek said, "The politics surrounding colony issues are more prominent this year. Which is both positive and negative. The transparency is welcome, the increased divisiveness is less so."

While Sarek's attention was on some louder activity near the gates, Spock turned to Kirk with a hint of question in his gaze. Kirk gave him a head-tilt and looked away. He wasn't ready to let him off the hook yet.

A group of press people went by, their hovercams following them with status lights off. They were arguing among themselves about the definition of 'colony' and 'world'.

Kirk watched them as they rounded a bend. He was getting an idea.

Kirk waved that Spock should remain and retreated to an open space well away from events and well away from Vulcan hearing. He dialed in Areel's private transmitter code.

"Areel, I have an idea I want to try on you. Admiral Diamond thinks we're running scared."

"Aren't we?"

"Probably." Kirk turned to put his back to the stiff wind coming off the narrow bay. "But I want to be on the offensive for once. What if we request a public fact finding hearing to commence before the actual hearing?"

"Jim, did you hit yourself on the head? That's a terrible idea."

"No, I don't think it is. Our entire vulnerability is tied to the fact that we are the ones who don't want anything revealed."

"Correct Jim. And that remains true."

"You're not catching on. I want to put Diamond on the defensive. We don't have to lose control of all information. Just most of it."

"Jim, you didn't even want to show those photos to your own officer."

"We don't have to publish them. I want to open up the process. I want to take reality and use it to shove Diamond back on his heels. The man exists entirely in a bubble. That's his weak point, Areel. We're trying to fight him inside his own bubble where we cannot win."

The other end of the connection went silent.

"I don't know, Jim. This is sort of crazy, but crazy in a way that might give us an edge. We certainly could use one. But you have to be prepared for the consequences and they could be significant. Can you be? Can your 'reserved' officer be?"

"Right now I think Spock would follow me through a force five ion storm. So yes, I think we can be."

"I'll see what I can arrange. If you are going to crash and burn, might as well do it in style."

"That doesn't sound like you at all."

"It's not like me. I hope it's like you, because otherwise we're both lost, Jim dear."

Kirk walked back through the heart of the Orion Summit. Spock watched him approach over a rise from the gazebo where he had followed his father. Kirk's gaze scanned the grounds, searching.

"I sense that things are difficult, Spock," Sarek said.

"They are unexpectedly so. But perhaps they are improving on one front." Spock nodded out over the grounds. "The captain has that look on his face."

"Which look is that?"

"The one he has right before he puts me into check when I do not expect it and he knows I do not expect it. Or the one he gets right after the Klingon warship's shields fail. It is the same look in both cases."

Kirk caught sight of him there and tilted his head.

"I will rejoin you if I have the opportunity, Father."

Kirk slowed to let Spock fall into step. They wound through the grounds a kilometer or so and came to a halt at the base of an artificial rockfall where the trail came to an abrupt end.

Kirk said, "Areel thinks I'm crazy, but she didn't drop me as a client, so we still have a chance. You also are going to think I've lost my senses. But the more I think about it, the more I'm certain this is the only way to get an advantage over Diamond."

"And that is?"

"To hold a public hearing the day before the closed one."

Spock's brows rose. "I do not see the advantage in that, Captain."

"It's there, Spock. Trust me. We're boxed in right now and we'll lose if we stay here, or at best be badly bruised surviving." Kirk sighed. "I admit, I wouldn't have considered this had we not had that little revelation yesterday. I feel a bit more willing to drag you through the mud as a result."

"I will survive."

"You haven't seen the photos."

"I can recreate them well enough from available data." He bowed his head. "Nevertheless."

"You're certain? What about your family?"

"They will survive also. Perhaps better than you realize."

Kirk huffed out the breath he'd been holding. "Well, that's it then. If we accept the worst that can happen, we can take the advantage." Kirk started to pat him on the arm, then pulled back. "You in a state of high emotional control?"

"Indeed."

Kirk put his hands behind his back and locked one hand around his other wrist to keep them there.

"Thank you, Captain."

"Don't mention it."