Disclaimer: Characters contained within do not belong to me, but to Gene Roddenberry, Paramount Pictures, etc.

Author's Notes: I am honored and humbled by your incredible reponse to this story. Thank you so much. Really. Thank you. Lisa, you know how much you rock. Everyone, please keep reading and enjoying!

BTW, there will probably not be another update until Friday. Thursdays are my crazy days.

The Opposite of Logic

by Kristen Elizabeth

"Lieutenant Uhura, reporting for duty, Captain."

Kirk swung his head around to look at the woman who stood by the communications station. Her chin was held high, her back was straight...and her stomach stuck out in front of her like she'd swallowed a watermelon.

"Lieutenant," he greeted her. "I think we're covered up here." He smiled generously. "Take the day off and rest."

Uhura's eyes narrowed. "May I speak to you privately, sir?"

Looking forward again, Kirk caught Hikaru Sulu's eye. His navigations officer raised both eyebrows before quickly returning his attention to his controls.

Reluctantly, Kirk dragged himself up from his chair. "Go ahead, Lieutenant," he said when he'd reached her side.

"When I requested to stay aboard the Enterprise, I assumed that I would continue to carry out my duties as your chief communications officer," Uhura informed him, staring straight ahead, refusing to make eye contact.

Kirk cleared his throat. "And you have. Admirably."

"How is that possible, sir, when in the past two weeks, my scheduled duty time has dropped from 70 hours a week to a measly 21?"

"We thought..."

"We?" she repeated harshly, catching the curious stare of a nearby science officer. "I've been discussed?"

Glancing around, Kirk frowned. "I really need an office or something." Putting his hand on Uhura's back, he guided her to the farthest corner, not entirely out of earshot of the crew, but far enough for a measure of privacy. "Look, the bridge can be a dangerous place, Uhura."

"The whole ship can be a dangerous place," she argued. "In fact, the bridge might just be safer than anywhere else!"

He held up his hands. "I get why you're upset, but Bones says..."

"Don't even try to put this on him," Uhura cut him off.

"I'm not," he protested. "Bones says you need lots of rest, so I was trying to give you that. Time to rest." He looked down at her stomach. "You're feeling okay, aren't you?"

She replied between clenched teeth, "I'm fine, Captain. There is no reason I can't keep performing my duties to the best of my ability. Which, as you are no doubt aware by now, is pretty damn good."

Kirk smiled. "No arguments here."

"And if I may speak freely," she went on. "In the future, I would greatly appreciate it if I could be included on any discussions about my schedule or my health."

"Done," he agreed after a second. Before she could return to her station, he caught her arm. "Uhura..."

She looked down at his hand then back up at his concerned blue eyes. "I'm fine," she repeated, softer this time. "I just want to work, Jim." Her chin trembled. "I need to work."

"Have you heard from him at all?"

"No. May I go, Captain?"

Kirk released her arm with a sigh. "Ensign Mitchell," he addressed the man currently manning communications. "You're relieved." As soon as Uhura was seated with her comm piece attached to her ear, he returned to his chair. "Chekov, lay in a course for the Nagal system."

"Aye-aye, sir," the younger man replied.

"Warp Three, Mr. Sulu."

The two hours it took to reach the Nagal system passed smoothly. For Uhura, they were the first two hours since she'd woken up that morning in which she did not even think about her baby's father. There was a pleasant numbness that came from constantly monitoring the ship's frequencies, picking up bits and pieces of subspace communications as they warped through the stars. In those two hours alone, she heard four different alien languages, none that were cause for alarm, but all of them interesting.

She smiled to herself as her baby kicked happily. Apparently, he liked translating Tellarite as much as she did.

"Dropping out of warp, sir," Sulu eventually announced. "In three...two...one."

The Nagal system was a brilliant casade of pinks and oranges. It was so breathtaking that the crew found themselves momentarily mesmerized.

But only momentarily.

"Sir!" With one hand on her belly and the other over her ear, Uhura shook her head. "I'm picking up subspace interference from somewhere nearby."

"Clarify."

She frowned. "I don't know. It's rumbling...like thunder."

Chekov's fingers flew over his controls. "Captain, our sensors are detecting a disturbance, approximately three thousand kilometers away." He paused. "Two thousand kilometers."

"Slow to impulse. Do we have a visual?"

"Negative, Captain," Sulu said.

"One thousand kilometers," Chekov said.

"Shields up," Kirk ordered. "Uhura, what are you hearing?" When he received no reply, he looked back. "Uhura?"

His communications officer had ripped her earpiece off and was doubled over as much as her stomach would let her, grasping the side of her head like it hurt.

"Five hundred kilometers."

Kirk pointed at the closest science officer to Uhura. "Get her to Sickbay, now!"

"One hundred kilometers and closing, sir!" Chekov yelled.

"I can see it!" Sulu pointed at the canvas of space spread out before them. "That dark line...do you see it?"

"Yeah. I see it." Kirk hit a button the arm of his chair. "All decks, brace for impact. We're about to hit a quantum filament."

The last person Spock expected to see at the medical center was his father. But as he emerged from the building, Sarek had just reached the top of the long set of steps that led up to the recently constructed facility.

"Father?" Concerned, he asked, "Are you ill?"

Sarek raised his hand as if to ward off his son's concern. "I am not."

"Then why are you here?"

"A routine physical examination," Sarek replied, although there was a strange catch in his voice. "Nothing more." He indicated a nearby bench. "Can you spare a moment?"

"Of course." Together, they sat on the sun-warmed stone.

"I have long been expecting an invitation to dine at your house, Spock," Sarek began after an awkward moment of silence.

Spock looked down at his hands. "For that, I apologize, Father. But I should hope you are aware that you hardly require an invitation to visit. You are welcome at any time."

"That is something your mother would have said." Although his voice was neutral, his eyes were suddenly distant. "I am fortunate that her impeccable manners live on in you."

"Perhaps tomorrow night?" Spock suggested. "I am certain T'Lan would welcome your company."

Sarek eyed him carefully. "Would she?"

"Why would you doubt it?"

"Spock," he began. "Today was your second appointment here at the medical center, was it not?"

He frowned. "How do you know that?"

Sarek ignored the question. "Did the results of today's tests differ from your previous examination?"

"No." Spock turned his eyes up to the sky. "I am in perfect reproductive health and fully capable of..." He hesitated. "...fulfilling my obligation to my people."

Sarek stared at his son's profile. "Obligation," he repeated. "Is that how you see your marriage?"

"Did you not call it that yourself when you informed me that the Elders had arranged the match with T'Lan?"

"Perhaps in a moment of blind zealotry, I did," Sarek wearily admitted.

"Father?"

"When I asked to you to leave the Enterprise, I sensed an emotional response within you. Was I correct in my assessment?"

It took Spock a moment to reply. "In a very short time, the crew of the Enterprise, including her captain, became friends to me, as well as trusted colleagues. I regretted that we had to part ways."

"Is that all you regretted?"

If he closed his eyes, he knew he'd see her face. "Regret often proves itself a useless emotion, even for Humans," Spock rotely informed him, staring straight ahead without blinking. "Especially if a logical path is chosen."

"It is true that logic offers us peace of mind in that we can be certain that our choices are not made impulsively," his father agreed. "But that does not always mean that the logical path is the right path."

Spock turned his head just enough to see Sarek out of the corner of his eye. "Please explain what you mean by that."

"Years ago, you chose to forsake pure logic when you did not complete the koli'nahr and turned down your admission to the Science Academy. You chose to balance your Vulcan mind with your Human heart and enlisted in Starfleet instead." Sarek indicated Spock's black pants and form-fitting dark shirt. "Even now, you choose to wear Federation clothing rather than our traditional attire."

"I fail to see your point."

"Of the two worlds to which you belong, one clearly has more hold upon you than the other." Sarek rose to his feet. "Perhaps I am being too harsh. When your people needed your help, you came, Spock. You set aside your emotions and committed yourself to T'Lan."

Spock's eyes narrowed momentarily before he regained his composure. "Would you ask more of me, Father?"

"I would ask you only to consider this." Folding his hands, Sarek looked down at him. "If your difficulty conceiving is not a physical problem, perhaps you should look deeper into your mind." He reached out to touch his son's shoulder for a brief moment. "You were conceived in the first month of my marriage to your mother, against all odds. Such was the strength of our bond." He stepped back. "I accept your invitation to dinner tomorrow night. Until then, be well, my son."

Lost in thought, Spock remained on the bench for a long time after his father had gone.

Smoke. Fire. Blood. Pain.

When Kirk came to, he found himself face down on the floor of the bridge, his left arm twisted unnaturally beneath him. He could taste metal in his mouth from where he'd bitten down on his tongue when his chin had made direct impact with the ground.

"Captain!" Blinking against the stinging smoke, Kirk searched for the person calling to him. It was Sulu; he was slowly picking himself up off the ground a few feet away from Kirk. "All you all right, sir?" Sulu asked, rubbing his shoulder.

"Never better," Kirk said, struggling to push himself up to his knees. He gritted his teeth against the pain that the simple action sent shooting up his arm. It was fractured, probably broken. "Damage report?"

Sulu made it into his chair and began pressing buttons on the helm control. "Computers are offline," he announced. "I can't even tell if we've got life-support."

"Well, we're breathing, aren't we?" On his feet now, Kirk began looking around. Chekov was awake on the ground, blinking rapidly as if trying to get his bearings. Seeing the young man turned a light bulb on in Kirk's brain. "Uhura!"

Holding his broken arm against his chest, he limped for the comm station. At least one security officer he passed was dead, sprawled over his station like a rag doll, and although this loss pressed heavily on Kirk's chest, his attention was entirely focused on finding Uhura.

She lay on the ground, not far from the door, her arm curled around her stomach in what had probably been a desperate attempt to shield her baby from any danger. The science officer he'd ordered to escort her to Sickbay was now kneeling beside her limp body, holding her hand.

"Lieutenant? Lieutenant, please wake up!" The woman, whose hair was matted with blood from a deep laceration on her scalp, looked at Kirk frantically. "She's got a pulse, but she's not waking up, sir!"

"See if you can help Sulu get the computers back online," he told the woman. When she hesitated, Kirk added, "Go, Ensign. I've got her."

With the woman on her way to help regain control of the ship, Kirk took Uhura's hand, checking her pulse for himself. It was weak, but steady. Although he knew better than to move her in case of a spinal or head injury, he did put his hand on her belly. After a few horribly long seconds, he felt a sound kick.

Relief washed over him. "You just hang in there, kid," he told the baby. "You hear me? You're gonna be okay. You and your mama both."

"Captain," Sulu called out. "I've got partial computer access. Back-up systems have kicked in. Life-support and emergency power are holding."

"Intership communication?" Kirk asked.

"Limited." Sulu pressed a few buttons. "Damage reports are coming in from all over, though." He paused. "There are casualties, sir, mostly in Engineering."

There would be time to mourn the dead later. Kirk reached up and pressed a button on the comm station. "Kirk to Sickbay." After a moment of static, he tried again. "Bones, can you hear me?"

Through the static, he heard, "...here, Jim. What the...happened?"

"Later. I need you up here."

"...got bodies comin' in...send a team when I can..."

"Bones. It's Uhura."

There was static for several seconds. "...on my way."

Kirk leaned back against the wall, still holding Uhura's hand in his good one. "You know what?" he told her, breathing heavily. "If you wake up and you're totally fine and you don't make me go back on my word to that Vulcan idiot of yours...I won't even say 'I told you so'." He tried to wink, but his face hurt too much. "That's a promise."

To Be Continued