Enterprise to Galileo

Stardate 2258.133

Dear Spock,

Thank you so much for taking such excellent care of the jungle boots I gave you. Due to your protective action, they will be pristine and ready for your next adventure, assuming you survive to have one. I really can't thank you enough.

Dr. McCoy is equally grateful. We could hear his gratitude all over the ship. Kirk is philosophical about the event, and Mr. Scott has likewise taken no offense. He says it will be an interesting test of the ship's sensors to locate you through a turbulent atmosphere with no signal amplifier on the remote end. I think he's looking forward to the challenge.

Your replacement has arrived and has dived into her duties with the enthusiasm worthy of a recent graduate. She seems particularly enamored of the enhancements you had designed into your console. She has been glued to your station all morning, investigating the controls one by one, and playing over old recordings of yours to make sure she understands how to get the best operation out of the equipment. I think she'd still be there if Captain Kirk hadn't dragged her away to have lunch with him and Dr. McCoy. He said the doctor owed her an apology, although he didn't say for what.

I know this might sound desperate, but do you mind if I say how much I miss you already? I know you probably haven't even achieved orbit around Emagious III yet, but it feels as if you've been gone for weeks. Enjoy yourself, my dear one. I'm thinking about you.

Your own,

Nyota

* * *

Nyota hunched miserably in the main cafeteria after her shift was over. It was her usual dinner hour, but she wasn't remotely hungry. "I'll never survive," she moaned.

Ensign Lo, who'd accompanied her down from the bridge, smiled kindly. "It's not that bad."

Nyota looked up disbelievingly. "Not that bad? 'Does Commander Spock sit or stand while he's working'— not that bad?"

"It was a reasonable question."

Lo kept her voice down, out of deference to the crowded room. Comfortingly, the main object of Nyota's concern wasn't likely to overhear them. Mallory sat at the big corner table with Sulu and Chekov. The three of them were having a spirited conversation, interrupted by many bouts of laughter, as they revisited the "touchy bunch" incident of the morning. Chekov was laughing as heartily as the rest of them over his slip. Their good-natured banter drew so much interest that they were continually enticing other off-duty personnel into the growing mob.

Nyota hadn't the patience to observe them. She was preoccupied with her own concerns. "Reasonable! How could Mallory's question be considered reasonable? I have never in my life inquired as to how another person sat while they performed the communications function."

"Mallory's short," Lo replied.

Nyota merely pouted, slouching over the table with her hands under her chin to prop up her head. She was too depressed to sit upright.

Lo took the initiative to elaborate. "Mallory's short; Spock is fairly tall. He designed the instrument panel, not for some random 'average' science officer, but for himself. So the tolerances aren't standard. Mallory was having a hard time seeing some of the readouts while she was seated, particularly from the viewer. It was perfectly reasonable for her to ask about how Spock operated the station."

Nyota mulled Lo's statement. "I suppose that's possible," she admitted grudgingly. "But why does she have to play his record tapes over and over?"

Lo shrugged. "She's probably just trying to catch up on the mission. Anybody would do that."

"But she watches the visual playback. Why does she need to see Spock talking to hear what he says?" Over and over again, she neglected to add.

Lo seemed unimpressed with this observation as well. "Probably because Spock recorded the messages with video on. That is the normal method of creating log entries."

"You find nothing strange about her behavior?" Nyota challenged. "Nothing odd at all about her saying, 'Ooh! So this is where he sits?'"

Lo grinned. "I admit she's a little over-enthusiastic, but she's that way about everybody. I mean, look at her."

Another burst of laughter sounded from Mallory's table. Chekov, bright red, was laughing helplessly. Mallory was nearly falling out of her chair, while Sulu grinned at both of them.

Nyota frowned. Mallory was certainly ingratiating herself with the rest of the bridge crew. She tried to put her dissatisfaction into words. "She keeps touching his console."

"As opposed to everybody else, who only looks at theirs."

"Not the controls; the console. She keeps... running her hands over it."

Lo rolled her eyes. "No, she doesn't."

"She does! I've seen her." Nyota shivered. "It's creepy. It's like... she wants to touch where Spock touched. As if she wants to pick up his finger germs or something."

"You're imagining things!"

"Oh, yeah?" Nyota leaned forward. "What about her talking about watching Spock walk around campus in his tight, gray uniform? I didn't imagine that."

"Be fair." Lo sipped her tea. "Mallory said nothing about his uniform being tight."

"She shouldn't have been mentioning his uniform at all."

Engineer Nelson, at the next table, turned around in her chair. "Why not? I loved that uniform."

Nyota started. "How long have you been listening?"

"Not long. But the words 'tight, gray uniform' got my attention." Nelson grinned. "You're talking about the one Spock wore as an instructor, right?"

"Yes," Nyota answered uncertainly.

"I loved him in that uniform. Man, did that ever draw attention to his... attributes!" Her fellow diners murmured agreement.

Nyota pursed her lips. "That's no way to talk about your commanding officer."

"He wasn't my commanding officer then. But you can't deny that Spock in his tight uniform was easy on the eyes." She winked at her tablemates. "He still is."

"Yeah, but that gray uniform definitely added something," Nelson's best friend Chu interjected.

"That's right," Technician Karlsson put in beside her. "It really showed off his posture. In fact," she turned to face Nyota more directly, "I think that's probably why the two of you got together."

Nyota felt affronted. "Because of his uniform?"

"Because of your posture. I think you two had the best posture in all of Starfleet Academy." Karlsson's tablemates strongly endorsed this opinion.

But Nyota felt unsettled. "I can't believe you were all watching Spock walk around in his uniform."

"Darlin'," Nelson answered, "there was no other way to watch him— at least for us." She snickered, as did her cohorts.

Nyota set her jaw. "That's not funny."

"Oh, relax," Lo said, patting her forearm. "There's no law against looking at a well-made man."

"It's not like anybody would try to steal him," said Nelson. "We know we'd get our heads handed to us on a plate."

"Try telling that to Mallory," Nyota snapped— and then instantly regretted her words.

Nelson's eyebrows went way up. "Soooo, it's like that, is it?"

Lo sipped her tea again. "In Nyota's mind, it is."

Everyone in Nelson's party turned to watch Mallory at the other table. Chu muttered, "How come she's hanging all over Chekov, if she's got the hots for Spock?"

"I didn't say she had the hots for him," Nyota retorted angrily.

"You said she was caressing his console," Lo pointed out.

Nelson's eyes lit up. "No! Really?" She bit back a grin. "This keeps getting better and better."

Nyota began to worry. Nelson was a huge blabbermouth; if Nyota didn't head this off quick, it would be all over the ship. "Please don't say anything. I mean it. I've just—I had a bad day and I'm overreacting. It's like Lo says; there's nothing in it."

"Seriously," Lo confirmed, looking bored. "There's nothing in it."

"Of course. There's nothing in it." Nelson shrugged, and then casually started to stand.

Nyota put a hand on her arm, alarmed. "Where you going?"

"Over to introduce myself to Mallory," Nelson said, as her tablemates rose to join her.

Nyota felt her heartbeat kick into overdrive.

"Seriously," Lo repeated, now looking threatening. "Don't say anything. Nyota's under enough pressure as it is."

Nelson feigned astonishment. "Of course I wouldn't say anything! Who do you think I am, a first-year cadet? No, I'm just a friendly project lead in engineering who wants to get better acquainted with the bridge officers she'll be working professionally with. That's all. And, if it happens to come up in conversation, ask her what she thinks about Commander Spock in his tight, gray uniform."

"Don't say a word!" Lo growled.

Nelson's amused glance traveled between Nyota and Lo. "Hmm. I thought you were exaggerating, but now I'm starting to think that there's really something in this."

Nyota reluctantly tried one last tack. "Listen, I hardly know Mallory. It isn't fair to put her on the spot for something that's probably just my imagination."

"Maybe not, but it sounds like there's a lot of great imagination running loose around here."

"Besides," Nyota hesitated. "If you say anything, she's going to know it came from me and... I dressed her down earlier today for asking too many personal questions." She met Nelson's gaze unhappily. "I told her that people didn't gossip about each other on this ship."

Nelson stared at her. "What ship have you been serving on?"

"Nelson," said Lo, "let it go." Then, more firmly, "Don't make me pull rank."

Nelson threw up her hands. "Fine. I won't say anything about Commander Spock. But Mallory does sound interesting, and I'd really like to meet her."

"I'll know what you say!" Lo called after her, as Nelson and her clutch of four moved away. They melted into the throng around Mallory's table. The laughter and buzz got louder.

Lo turned back to Nyota and smiled. "She won't say anything. She likes to play the troublemaker, but she does toe the line."

"Thanks."

Lo shot a look at the replicators. "So, are you ready to eat yet?"

"I think... I'd better check my personal messages first."

Lo gave her a wry look. "You only sent Spock a message during lunch break. He won't even have received it yet by subspace."

"Well, what if he sent me a message the day before? It might be here now."

Lo sighed, then patted Nyota's arm sympathetically. "All right, but don't spend all your time holed up in your quarters waiting for him to write. You have friends. Use them."

"Thanks. I will."

Nyota exited with rather less dignity than normal, but no one was observing her, and it didn't matter in any case. There was no way she was going to remain in a room watching Nelson prowling the edge of the crowd like a wolf, ready to pounce on Mallory at the first opportunity. She couldn't bear to see one more knowing smirk, or hear one more word about Spock's tight, gray uniform. It was hard enough missing him in the first place, without having everyone bring up images that made his loss even more difficult to bear.

Nyota almost whimpered as she slipped into the hall. Behind her, the crowd erupted once again in laughter—which the rec room door obligingly cut off behind her.