Day 5 (Thursday)
It was drizzling during Spock and Schassler's rotations around the outside of the barracks on roving guard. It mattered little because his clothes were still damp from the previous day's activities, but he disliked the flecks of mist that blurred his vision.
Of all his squad mates, Michael Schassler was the most intriguing because he was the most logical. He was cerebral and often prone to long silences suggestive of internal reflection, yet he was also distinctly human in his language and mannerisms.
For an hour, neither of them spoke, and Spock occupied his time considering the various interpretations of the lesson Quinones had been attempting to impart during his interrogation in the rain. Prior to joining Starfleet, he had never considered performing any task at a standard less than his best. Among humans, it was obvious that it was wiser to occasionally limit himself to avoid their disgruntlement.
"So, how are you holding up?" Schassler finally asked.
"Clarify."
"What I mean is, what are you thinking about?"
"I believe this training has created a paradox I had not anticipated," Spock replied.
"Huh?" Schassler asked, wiping the rain from his eyes with the back of his free hand.
"The better I perform in a given task, the more some members of our squad grow to dislike me. Conversely, if I do not apply myself rigorously, the cadre dislike me. It is creating mutually conflicting conditions that ensure I cannot be effective, since success in Starfleet requires I earn the respect of both superiors and peers, and eventually subordinates."
"Yeah, it's a real Catch-22," Schassler mused.
"I do not understand your idiomatic language," Spock replied.
"A Catch-22 is a no-win scenario. Like you said, a paradox," Schassler explained. "Are you talking about what Quinones pulled with you earlier when he made us stop working while you answered questions until you got one wrong?"
"Precisely."
"I actually wondered about that too, but I didn't hear what you said to him," Schassler replied. "Whatever it was, it was the right answer."
"But I did not answer his question. I merely offered a display of disobedience in refusing the answer the question he posed."
"Defiance doesn't seem like a very Vulcan trait," his squad mate stated.
Schassler spoke sensibly: rebellion wasn't a Vulcan characteristic, but it was one that had landed Spock in Starfleet all the same.
"What did you say?" Schassler pressed.
"I explained there was no answer that would satisfy his need to draw out the futile exercise he was requiring us to endure."
"You serious?" Schassler asked with a grin, turning the beam of his flashlight to the tree line as they turned the corner of the building for the twenty-fifth time.
"I do not engage in human jesting," Spock answered.
"No, of course you don't."
"I am curious: what is your judgment?"
"Wow." Schassler laughed.
"What is the source of your amazement?"
"Well, let me just say I'm flattered that a Vulcan is asking for my help in solving a personal conundrum," Schassler said quickly, before thinking to himself for a few moments and adding, "If I were to guess, I'm going to say that when a Vulcan is told to do something by someone in a position of authority, they don't question it."
"That is incorrect," Spock said. "Were the order morally questionable, unfeasible, or highly illogical, a subordinate would certainly have cause to question his or her superiors."
"Well, ok, sure, but you wouldn't whine about it, right? Say you were given an order that was moral, legal, possible, and logical but you didn't personally like it, then what?"
"In that case, it would be logical to comply," Spock answered.
"Well, not so with humans and most other species," Schassler explained. "I think what Quinones was trying to get at is that sometimes you can be faced with making unpopular decisions that negatively affect a lot of people. He gave you an order that was incredibly unfair and unnecessary and wanted to know if you'd simply carry it out to the detriment of yourself and everyone else, or question his order."
"You are implying that he wanted me to defy him?" Spock queried.
"Well, in a manner of speaking, I guess so."
"That is extremely illogical," Spock replied.
"Well, yeah, but that's humans for you. I take it you've never really spent much time around humans until now."
"My mother is human," he admitted.
"Really? I didn't know. I would have never guessed," Schassler stated, before awkwardly adding, "I mean, no offense."
"You have given no offense. Truthfully, I cannot recall a time when my mother ever posed such a paradox, but you seem to imply such contradictions occur frequently among your race."
"All the time," Schassler agreed. "But I think the point is to know how to pick your battles. I think a lot of other people in our squad are coming close to hitting their breaking point and I know a couple would have snapped if we had to keep breaking down and rebuilding furniture in the rain. By refusing to give into Quinones' ridiculous order, you picked your battle and won, and it meant a lot to the rest of the squad."
Spock weighed Schassler's assessment carefully and realized there was another conclusion to be drawn that he hadn't previously given serious consideration to.
"Do you believe Schmidt is correct in his assumption that our instructors are treating us unfairly due to my presence here?" he asked.
"I don't know," Schassler admitted. "I don't think so. I mean, you seem to get singled out more than some other people, but I wouldn't say it's enough to make a difference. Honestly, our squad does seem to get treated worse than some of the other squads I've seen, but I only ever see glimpses. It's hard to get a clear picture of whether it's better or worse for us, so I'm just trying to put my head down and get through what's in front of me."
"That is wise," Spock agreed.
"Besides, I did happen to see Delta Squad rolling around in muddy, soapy water in the culvert at the back of the barracks because apparently a few people in their squad don't shower regularly enough," he laughed. "Who knows? Maybe that's coming for us too. I mean, Ruzsa kind of has an 'odor,' if you know what I mean."
"Your laughter regarding impending punishment is curious," Spock remarked.
"I can either laugh about it or cry," he replied. "But really, we're almost done."
"We have only completed 9.623 percent of this course," Spock argued.
"Woah, mathlete," Schassler scoffed in surprise.
"Is that an insult?"
"It was a joke. Sometimes people tease and use nicknames with their friends. I dunno. Anyway, what I meant was, we're almost done with Hell Week."
"What is the definition of the term, 'Hell Week'?"
"I've heard things. People say the first week is always the worst. My uncle did this training fourteen years ago and I think his exact words were something along the lines of 'weeding out the tiny-hearted.' It gets a lot better after the first field training exercise. I don't know about you, but I'd be pretty hard-pressed to keep this up for another five weeks."
Spock reflected upon this new information and considered how it might alter Schmidt's irrational obsession with hating him and concluded it would probably matter very little.
When their shift was over and they turned their flashlights over to Rusza and Sagawa and signed the log, they arrived in their barracks room to the sound of a strange hissing noise. The clothing and linens he'd set out on his bunk to dry were missing. From the other end of the room, Saxena's head appeared around the corner of Schassler's cubicle and she waved for them to join her. Spooner, Spencer, and Saxena were drying their bedding with a vacuum device that had been retrofitted to suction water.
"You ladies are heroes," Schassler whispered, his tone struck with amazement. "Thank you so much."
"Yeah, Scrivner is a genius. He stole the vacuum from the floor's janitorial closet and figured out how to make it into a wet vac," Spencer explained.
"We just figured you guys might like to sleep on dry sheets tonight," Spooner added.
Normally he would have considered the liberty they took with his personal belongings to be a gross breach of propriety, but given the circumstances, he was fascinated by it. He knew humans required more sleep than he did and it was sensible to conclude that if he was tired, they must be even more so. Yet they chose to forgo sleep to provide for his and Schassler's comfort.
"That was very… considerate of you," Spock whispered.
Leslie Saxena handed him his dry uniform and a pair of socks and underwear. Her hands shook slightly and she smiled as though she were in pain and all she said was, "Uh, here."
He recalled Spooner's suggestion that Saxena "had a crush on him," and had been unable to derive the meaning of that particular euphemism. Later when Schassler had referred to him as "lover boy," he concluded they meant to imply Saxena considered him as an attractive potential mate. Yet her current behavior seemed to contradict that. She seemed afraid of him.
He could not specifically identify when she had ceased being talkative and adopted this more nervous behavior, yet he had spoken to her little since the first morning of training when he'd told her of her human tendency to complain of physical discomfort.
Twenty minutes later, his blanket was mostly dry and he retired to his own cubicle. Schmidt was fast asleep on top of his bare mattress, fully clothed and not snoring as per his usual convention. It was nearly 0100 hours and he rapidly began to drift into sleep when Schmidt said, "Dad?"
Spock remained still and focused his ears. Schmidt began muttering, "I don't know… I'm sorry…. Yes, turkeys… You never have time."
Spock slowly extricated himself from the lower bunk and observed Schmidt visually. He appeared to be sleeping, or at least had taken no notice of Spock's presence.
"Why?" Schmidt breathed, thrashing violently and turning over onto his side to face Spock.
Spock watched him for several more minutes until he began snoring and then settled into his own bottom bunk. He was too tired to ponder Schmidt's peculiar ability to speak while asleep.
Five hours later, he woke to the painfully loud alarm over the intercom and dressed himself in his gray duty uniform rather than his athletic attire. Today there would be no physical training session: they would eat breakfast early and receive further instructions.
The rest of the squad seemed wary of the day's unknown schedule. Spock could not understand their illogical need to speculate about the instructors' intentions to induce further creative forms of punishment. It seemed to Spock, at least, that even when they were informed of the planned activities of any given day, arbitrary punishment was simply to be expected.
They were swiftly shepherded through the morning meal and returned to their barracks. Quinones gave a two-hour lecture and demonstration on the use of navigation using a tricorder device and then informed them they would spend the day practicing their newly acquired skills at a nearby training location.
They were stopped halfway through when Commander Pike arrived. Spock looked at the commandant, but Pike asked for a private audience with Spencer instead. The two left and training resumed.
Later as they waited for an intraplanetary transport shuttle to ferry them to a site called Redwoods Training Area, Morrison briefed them on their upcoming exercise and schedule for the next three days.
"This morning you learned scanning and navigation techniques," he droned. "Now we're going to see how well you learned it. I already know the answer is 'you didn't, because it never fails that we have to come out and rescue some you before you get eaten by grizzly bears."
"There aren't grizzly bears here," Rutherford whispered.
"Pushups, Rutherford," Morrison growled without even looking in her direction.
"As I was saying, you have been issued tricorders, but as a safety measure, you have also been outfitted with tracking devices so that when you are eaten by a bear, we can at least have some hope of recovering a few pieces of your corpse to send home to your families."
Spock was well aware Morrison had a tendency to jest and speak euphemistically. In fact, he was more likely to joke than be serious. He was fascinated by the man's obvious preference for sarcasm and sardonicism.
Spock had considerable difficulty in identifying when Morrison's words and intentions were in sync. Judging by his squad mates' responses to Morrison's orders over the previous four days, he hypothesized they detected his sarcasm through vocal inflections and body language he had no experience in interpreting.
"As an additional precaution against bear maulings, you will also work in pairs. Each team will be responsible for locating sixteen points on the training course using your tricorders. The points will be identified as small, blue spheres that look like this," he explained, holding up a palm-sized dull, blue ball.
"Your tricorders are calibrated to position you within ten centimeters of these points, so if you are doing this correctly, you will find them. That being said, they are not easy to find. Some are on the ground, some are mounted in trees, and I think a few are located at the bottom of water sources. I hope you like to swim. When you find a point, you will scan the code on the top on your PADD to prove you've found it. Any questions so far?"
"No, sir," they replied in unison.
"Now, if anyone has the idea that they're going to cheat, no team in this squad has the same set of points. The training area is large, cadets. Very large. There are a total of 768 unique points in the training area, and each team has been assigned their sixteen points at random by the computer so that you will each be walking the same approximate distance. Does everyone understand?"
"Aye, sir," they answered.
Spock noticed Spencer sneaking into the back of the formation and Quinones and Pike speaking quietly in the distance. Spencer had red eyes and flushed cheeks and Spock deduced from their previous encounter in the janitorial closet that she'd been crying.
They loaded into the shuttle for a twenty-minute flight to the Redwoods Training Area, and Morrison continued to taunt them with increasingly fantastical stories about what lurked in the training area, featuring everything from dragons to genetically modified rabbit attack drones.
"That guy has some screws loose," he heard Saxena mutter with a look of disbelieving contempt.
"Since I can't make you do pushups midflight, you can join Schmidt and Spock on extra duty tonight, Trainee Saxena," Morrison said, interrupting his story about a Klingon burial ground supposedly located within the training range. "I might have some screws loose, but my ears work just fine."
When the back of the shuttle opened, Spock was fascinated by what lay before him. He was amid the tallest vegetation he'd ever seen that formed a high canopy. There was nothing like this on Vulcan.
"Quit gawking and get over here," Quinones yawned, scratching himself. "We're going to put you into teams."
Spock glanced at Schmidt began assessing the probability that he and Schmidt would be paired together. It was logical to assume the pairing would not be random and the leadership seemed to have an indiscernible algorithm for deliberately creating interpersonal conflict within the squad.
He was mildly surprised when Schmidt and Spencer were assigned to work as a team and he was partnered with Scrivner. He observed several silent tears fall from Spencer's eyes that she seemed to be taking great pains to conceal, but he failed to see the point in speculating about her anguish.
He and Scrivner received their tricorders and a PADD with relevant topographical and climate-related information. Spock viewed the list of their assigned points, plotted them against the map, and quickly analyzed the geometry. Less than fifteen seconds later, he had determined the most efficient route to collect each point and minimize the distance they would have to travel.
"If we begin at coordinate H and travel to coordinate D, we shall-"
"I'm not going to argue the finer points of mental geometry and calculus with a Vulcan," Scrivner interrupted with a chuckle. "But I agree, let's start with the farthest points and work our way back."
"Precisely," Spock replied.
They were the first to depart from the starting area; Scrivner held his tricorder in front of him at a low angle to monitor their position. They spoke little and Spock used the time to quietly meditate to himself among the gargantuan trees.
It took an hour of walking to locate their first point and another ten minutes to find it. Eventually they discovered it was buried under six inches of soil, and Scrivner scanned it into the PADD and they reset the tricorder for their next point.
"It's really beautiful here, huh?" Scrivner mused.
"Yes," Spock concurred.
"Where I come from on Deneva colony... it's mostly rocks," Scrivner added. "Anyway, this tricorder navigation stuff is a piece of cake. I've been doing it for more than twenty years, only with geological surveys."
"I recall you mentioned you were a geologist."
"Yeah. You know, you can tell a lot about a place by the rocks," Scrivner said. "Like here, you can tell there's an ocean nearby. Everything visible in the topsoil is mudstone or sandstone with small pebbles."
"Fascinating." The truth was he was fascinated for two separate reasons.
As a Vulcan, he'd had a considerable amount of education in every major scientific field, but geology was not a particular specialty of his. Therefore he hadn't studied it since primary school and much of what he had learned on the subject related to his home planet. Like most Vulcans, he possessed an inherently curious mind and a desire for meaningful knowledge, and so he listened patiently for the next two hours as Scrivner described surveying for duridium and the tribulations of handling pockets of natural gases during deep excavations.
Yet more interesting than the information he was acquiring from Scrivner was Scrivner himself. All of his other squad mates often concerned themselves with the exchange of intimate personal details when speaking with him privately. Yet it contented the older man with the thinning red hair to talk exclusively about geology.
Spock was grateful for this, until Scrivner arrived at a conversational tangent about sapphires. "Linda loved 'em," he said wistfully.
Spock's eyes glanced from the tricorder to Scrivner, searching for further explanation.
"My wife," he added.
There was a pause of several seconds, and Spock asked, "It seems illogical to express affection for a precious stone."
Scrivner laughed boldly and agreed, saying, "True, but like most ladies, she liked things that sparkle."
Spock noted his usage of the past tense. It seemed likely that his mate was deceased and hadn't simply stopped "loving" sapphires, but it would have been distasteful to inquire further into Scrivner's personal situation.
Scrivner bent down to scan their seventh point while Spock triangulated their next coordinates.
"It was a cave in," Scrivner said suddenly.
Spock turned to face the man and cocked his head.
"In the summers, my company would go up North to Camp Aapilak to mine cortenide when the ground was only partially frozen. Linda always stayed home with the kids when they were little, but when they got older she decided it would be nice to be together. Most people still chose to live underground up by the poles, even in the summer, just from the radiation and the cold. Well, the thaws were really bad last year, and runoff from the ice caps finally collapsed the tubes in the North side of the camp."
"Your loss is… regrettable," Spock said slowly, unsure of what was appropriate to say. "I grieve with thee."
"Do you have kids?" Scrivner asked, sitting down next to the blue marker point.
"No."
"Do you mind if I ask how old you are?"
"Vulcans consider it impolite to discuss age," he explained.
"Oh, sorry, I didn't know," Scrivner replied. "You just seem like you really have your stuff together. Responsible. I thought maybe you had kids. They give you a whole different outlook."
"I am twenty Federation standard years of age," Spock said after a pause.
"Really? I would have never guessed that," Scrivner said in astonishment.
Spock was uncertain what Scrivner was implying. On Vulcan, age conferred a certain amount of inherent respect, yet he knew from watching his mother worry over lines in her face and gray hair that aging was detestable among humans.
"Do you think you ever stop being a father? I mean, even if you outlive your kids?"
"I would say that you have ceased being responsible for acting as a parent, but that does not alter the fact that you once were a father," he replied, hoping he was being properly decorous.
"Parents are supposed to keep their children safe," Scrivner mused.
"Life is not safe, nor can it be rendered safe on behalf of others. It seems to be a very human failing to assume there must be some answer for every death. This is not so. Death is simply a part of life," Spock argued.
"Parents aren't supposed to bury their kids," Scrivner sighed.
"While your circumstances prove that it is certainly possible that it could happen, I would agree that it does violate the natural order of life for an advanced, sentient species," Spock replied.
"You're a poet," said Scrivner wryly, before adding, "But thanks. You're like Schassler in a lot of ways. You guys are wise beyond your years."
"Perhaps we should locate our next point," Spock said, wishing to avoid conversing about such a taboo subject as grief any further.
Scrivner nodded, put his hands on his knees to stand up, and said, "If the map's right, our next point is at the bottom of a pond. I don't suppose Vulcans are good swimmers?"
"Vulcans have denser bones and less body fat than humans, giving your species a particular advantage in that task," Spock explained.
"Do you know how to play rock, paper, scissors?" Scrivner asked, raising his eyebrows.
Three hours later, they returned to the starting area having successfully found all sixteen of their predetermined points. Scrivner was still wet from his swim in the muddy pond and Spock now knew the rules to a crude game that children often played when selecting a candidate for an unpleasant task. If he understood the simplistic rules correctly, it was only logical to select paper when playing a geologist.
They were the first ones to complete the course and found Morrison sleeping on a folding stool with his back against a tree and his hat covering his face.
"Sir?" Scrivner called.
"It had better be an emergency if you're waking me up," he said without moving. "And I mean like, on fire and being actively swarmed by bees kind of emergency."
"We're finished, sir," Scrivner explained.
Morrison sat up, caught his hat in his hands, and scowled. He checked the scanned points on their PADD and the current time. He rolled his eyes and said, "Well, that figures. You both just set a training course record. Go… chase squirrels or something. I don't care."
Spock and Scrivner sat in the shade of a tree about forty meters away from Morrison and ate their field ration packs in silence. Spock decided sleeping would be unwise and settled instead for gazing at the ground and lightly meditating. An hour later, Schassler and Spooner returned, and then Schmidt and Spencer, followed by Rylax and Rutherford and Sagawa and Ryskamp.
By 2000 hours, Ruzsa and Saxena hadn't returned and Morrison called Quinones on his communicator to transport them back to the starting area. When the pair materialized ten meters to the left, Morrison began braying with laughter.
Their flesh was an angry shade of red with darker red splotches and they each looked equally miserable.
"Looks like you found more poison oak than map points!" he said, continuing to roar with laughter.
It was a quiet shuttle ride back to their barracks, aside from Morrison's random utterances. Spock reclined slightly in the side-facing jump seat and folded his hands in his lap. Schmidt and Spencer were directly across from him and appeared to be in the middle of a tense conversation.
When they returned to the barracks, they turned in the supplies they had been issued for the day's training exercise and were marched to the mess hall. He stood in line behind Spooner and Sagawa, and though he was not intentionally eavesdropping, he heard much of their conversation by virtue of excellent hearing and forced proximity.
"I don't know what he sees in her," Sagawa whined.
"I don't know what you see in him," Spooner retorted. "I would rather breastfeed a litter of orphaned wolverines than even hang out with the guy."
"He's not as bad as all that," Sagawa argued. "He's actually really sweet when you get to know him."
"He's a pompous ass," Spooner yawned.
It was simple enough to deduce they were discussing Schmidt, whom as far as he was aware had spontaneously become Sagawa's mate just two days earlier. The squad ate quickly and returned to the barracks. Spock had just enough time to shower before joining Schmidt downstairs for extra duty.
Halfway down the stairwell, Schmidt had dropped a small, light blue, rectangular card and hurriedly shoved it back in his pocket. Spock observed but said nothing, believing it illogical to confront Schmidt about his suspicion that he'd stolen the cadre's office access card without a greater body of evidence.
Schmidt took the mop bucket and carried it to the third floor, and Spock set to work cleaning the windows downstairs. Saxena returned from medical with a clearer complexion twenty minutes later and began dusting surfaces throughout the common room.
He worked slowly and methodically, eventually making his way up to the third floor. Saxena was wiping down the windowsills and didn't speak, even when they eventually came to the same window. He noticed her cheeks flush.
"Have you taken ill again?" he asked.
"Huh?" she answered, looking at him with wide eyes.
"Your face is reddening, as it was this afternoon," he explained. "Instructor Morrison said you came into contact with an poisonous species of plant."
"Oh, yeah. I'm fine. They gave me a hypo at medical and it's all better now," she mumbled.
"You are certain? Your complexion is growing redder."
"Oh, uh, well, it's hot in here," she said, moving onto the next windowsill without finishing the one she'd been working on.
"Have I caused some offense?" he asked.
"No, why-why would you think that?"
"Your behavior appears altered, and last night Spooner said you 'had a crush on me,' though I am unclear of the-"
"She told you?" Saxena yelped, taking a step back and staring at him with her mouth open.
"I am not well-versed in human idioms or emotional displays and I inferred from the available evidence that I had offended you in some way," he explained.
She stared at him at length, opening her mouth and closing it several times as well as shaking her head. Over her shoulder, he saw the door to the cadre office open and Schmidt and Spencer emerge into the hallway. Saxena reeled around and said, "What are you doing?"
Schmidt closed the door and held his index finger up to his mouth. No one spoke for several seconds and then Saxena stormed up to them with her arms crossed.
"Are you trying to get us all in trouble? You broke into their office? Why? What are you doing?" she demanded.
Saxena was younger than Spencer, but stood nearly fifteen centimeters taller and she was obviously using her height differential to intimidate her.
"Mind your own business, nosy," Schmidt snapped.
"It is my business if we all get punished for this," Saxena said, raising her voice slightly and causing obvious discomfort for Schmidt and Spencer.
"I agree," Spock said, moving in their direction.
"This isn't what it looks like," Spencer pleaded, motioning with her hands for them to all walk away from the office.
"Then what is it?" Morrison bellowed, appearing at the end of the hallway with his arms crossed.
"We were performing our assigned extra duties," Spock replied.
"You, Schmidt, and Saxena were. Maybe. But what about you, Spencer?"
"I uh- I thought- there uh-," she stammered.
"You are a terrible liar," Morrison sneered. "Maybe we could all go discuss this in my office, but the door is shut. It locks automatically, you know, and I seem to have misplaced my access card. Anyone know where I might be able to find it?"
"No sir," Schmidt answered.
"Really? That's interesting. I just came from the commandant's office, and I know he has a spare card. Maybe we should all go down there and on the way, I'll tell you what kinds of prison sentences trainees get after they are caught stealing secured cards from their instructors to break into official Federation offices and then lie about it."
Morrison's typical lackadaisical attitude had completely vanished and all that remained were a snarl and dangerously dark eyes.
"Sir, me and Spock-" Saxena started.
"No, I'm not really interested, Saxena," he interrupted. "You can explain it to the commandant. I can tell you that he's awake because I just came from there, but he's going to be very displeased that he has the four of you standing on his carpet at midnight."
Saxena opened her mouth to renew her protests but Spock shook his head. He noticed Spencer's face was pale and Schmidt's jaw was clenched.
"Let's go, felons," Morrison barked, pointing in the direction of the stairwell.