"I am a Commodore and you will respect that rank!"

"Sir, I do respect the rank, I respect what it stands for, what it represents, I just do not respect you. Your actions are have proven to be contra to everything expected in and from a Commodore. Your actions are not even equal to those of a delusional cadet with aspirations of captaining a starship."

"I am a Commodore! Starfleet never gave me a starship. I had escort duty but never the main ship. They said I could not command. I took command. This is my ship! I got it from Kirk. I took it from Kirk!. He killed his own officer. Everybody saw it. The Enterprise is mine!" There was silence of a moment. "Well, what have you got to say? You cannot deny that Kirk caused the death of that officer."

"Officer Baylance was responsible for his own injuries both on the planet as well as on the ship. He was injured protecting his Captain. You were correct earlier in that he is not even a Security officer but he is an officer of this ship and was protecting the Captain."

"He was an officer, Mister Spock. Was. Surely you have seen the reports of the toxicity of the poison on that blade. And Kirk used him as a shield. Kirk get him killed."

"Officer Baylance was severely injured on the planet and was in Sickbay when you came in. He was in a semi-lucid state and before any of us had time to think and react he flung himself between the Captain and the blade. I am sure that the visual recording of Sickbay at the time would show Baylance somehow managing to thrust himself between the blade and Captain Kirk but he did it, not Captain Kirk. It was you who held and welded the knife, you who stabbed him with the blade going in all the way to the hilt to ensure all the poison was injected."

"It was for Kirk.. As a senior officer I would have, will have the Enterprise. I will tell them how you and the others mistreated me, were disrespectful and insubordinate. A Captain is responsible for his crew. Kirk was responsible. He caused the death of that officer. They will take him off and give me the ship when they hear the truth. When they read my report they will know what happened. They will know how Kirk killed that officer."

McCoy had kept a hand on his friend"s shoulder and had seen how Jim Kirk had kept looking at Ty Baylance, how he lightly held the man's hand, "Jim, you have to know you are not to blame."

"Don't give me that, Bones." Kirk looked up and McCoy saw guilt in the eyes, "Halls is right. I am responsible for my crew. I am,"

"You are doing the best you can for your officer, Jim. You are here with and for him now. Down there you could do nothing for him. He had acted as you would have down there and somehow he was cognizant of what was happening here and acted again. His actions, Jim. Nothing any of us could have done a thing about. You, and we, can only do something about it now."

Spock was totally unaware that his conversation was being heard and he realized he would not have minded if it were. He was prepared for any consequences he might have to confront for his actions. Commodore Halls was sane, he was also highly emotional and singularly focused. There had to be something behind that all-consuming need in the man.

"Why do you harbor such hostility against Captain Kirk?" Spock had prepared himself for some deep-seated resentment from the academy days or Kirk's early cadet and ensign days.

"You are a Vulcan and cannot possibly understand what it is like when some, some still wet-behind-the-ears kid is given your ship. Some young inexperienced pup gets the ship you should have had and is suddenly the golden-haired wonder boy of the fleet when it is the ship and not him that is respected. It is my ship. I will get my ship. I am the senior officer. I am a Commodore and Kirk is just a Captain."

"With all due respect, Sir, one can admire a ship, may respect the crew aboard it, the ideology behind it, the reason for its existing, but one cannot respect a non-living, non-sentient object without acknowledging the commanding officer of that object. I have served under the two captains of this ship and they are both commanding officers to be respected for they made this ship great by making the crew greater than any other in Starfleet."

"You served under me as well."

"No, Sir, I did not. In the absence of Captain Kirk I merely acted as a buffer between you and the crew as much as I could to maintain the high standards set by Captain Kirk. I fulfilled the duty as First Officer of this ship and to Captain Kirk to the best of my ability by ensuring the usual high standards of this ship established by Captain Pike and reinforced and maintained by Captain Kirk."

"They, the crew followed my orders without question."

"But not without delay, Sir. If you will recall the bridge crew would glance at me before they responded."

"But they all obeyed me! Me! My crew all obeyed me!"

"All is incorrect. Did you not send Lieutenant Uhura off the bridge on more than one occasion for not answering your question how you wanted it answered?"

"But she went. She obeyed me. Not you, me"

"Did you not see her looking at me before she left? Did you not see me nod and then her nodding back before she left? Did you not realize she did not acknowledge your order before she left the bridge?"

"She, she obeyed me! I was her commanding officer and she obeyed me! Unlike Kirk I know how to command a crew."

"Is it not true that it is your inability to command a crew that disqualifies you from being the captain of anything more than a shuttle?"

"I can command. I showed it on this ship. My ship. I got rid of Kirk and proved I can command."

Spock looked at the man, grateful that Vulcans had better eyesight than Humans as he could see the growing frustration in the man. Frustration yet also confidence. It all fitted together now. The reasons he had come aboard, not to observe but ti take command in the vain attempt to prove he could command. He had twice tried to kill Jim to get command. He had it all planned except for Ty Baylance.

"I believe you will find that Captain Kirk is still the Captain of this ship and is likely to remain so."

"But he killed that officer by using him as a shield. You and others saw that."

"We saw Officer Baylance place himself between his Captain and you who had a knife in your hand intent on harming said Captain. We saw you push that knife to its hilt into Officer Baylance at the same time as having claimed to having killed Captain Kirk."

"I was claiming he killed the officer. He had the knife. He should be in here, not me. He killed his own officer."

"Should an analysis of who held the knife be done it would have your prints and DNA, the DNA and prints of whoever put the poison on the blade, and the DNA and prints of our Chief Medical Officer who carefully removed the knife from Officer Baylance. It would reveal that at no time did Captain Kirk come into contact with the knife.

"On a playback of the recording of the events in Sickbay it would show that it was Officer Baylance who placed himself between your hand with the knife and Captain Kirk and how there was time for a rationally minded person to halt their attack. At that time, Sir, you were not rational. By Starfleet regulations any officer found to be in an irrational state of mind is to be placed under guard either in their quarters or the brig depending on the severity of their irrationality, their state of mind, and any irrational action they might have taken and or likely to take."

"I am not irrational! This is my ship! Kirk should be in here not me. He did not stop my actions. The death of that officer is his fault not mine. If there is to be a farce of a trial you will also be charged with insubordination and for not arresting Kirk at the same time as he could have stopped it. He will be found guilty of causing that officer's death. I will get the ship then.."

"If there is a trial,"

"Oh boy, Jim, Halls doesn't see it even now." Kirk saw satisfaction on his fiend's face, "Damn, that logical mind can spin a spider's web of entrapment when he wants it to." The blue eyes were searching his face and he tried to shove down a feeling he had. "Now you listen to me, James Kirk. There is no way you are at all responsible for anything that happened. Like Spock said, somehow Ty found something in him to get between you and that blade. None of us could have stopped him. The main thing is that he is on the mend. Spock said he has had a few moments of awareness and what he has vomited was not putrid but apparently clear fluid."

All Kirk did was look at his friend, then gripped the hand in his a bit firmer and saw how Ty's chest was rising and falling in long steady motions indicating he was in a deep sleep. He looked at the registers, they were all almost in the normal range with the pain register in the normal range. "I know, Bones. On one level I know that. I just am afraid Spock might push Halls too far, might do something physical to him."

"Now, Jim, we both know he would not do anything physical to the man. He is just assessing the man's state of mind and trying to make him face reality. He has had several opportunities to physically attack or should I say make Halls physically uncomfortable but hasn't. He wouldn't risk it."

Kirk look up at this friend in silence for a moment and saw how he was looking at him, "Are you really sure about that, Bones?"