Unfinished Business

Chapter 10 : Why We're Here

March, 2273

Kirk called Bones and Spock to meet him in the officer's lounge. He didn't expect the reaction - or lack thereof - that he got from Spock. The man acted almost like a robot, and referred to himself by his job function. Kirk was confused, and concerned.

"Science Officer Spock reporting as ordered, Captain."

Why did he have to order this man to talk to him? They had spent so many hours, sitting and talking, sometimes over a chess board, that it was almost second nature to discuss each new mission with him. And now it was so strange, and so difficult, to get anything from him at all. He asked him to sit down, and Spock just stood there, and stared at him, as though he hadn't heard the words at all. And then Bones had to make a crack, of course. That at least got the man to open his mouth, even if what came out was not what he wanted to hear. And his voice was still so flat and odd, not Spock at all.

Again he asked him to sit, and waved Bones toward one of the couches. And he started the conversation he wanted, armed with knowledge only recently obtained. "At last notice, you were on Vulcan, apparently to stay."

And Bones chipped in, mentioning that strange rite of the Vulcans, to divorce themselves entirely from emotion, but mispronouncing the name, probably on purpose.

This at least got Spock to say something, even if it was only to give the correct pronunciation, and to admit that he had indeed been studying the kolinahr.

Kirk seated himself on the arm of the couch Bones was on, and asked Spock why he would break that ritual, to come to them, and then in exasperation, asked the third time for Spock to sit down, which he finally did, stiffly bending himself to perch on the chair opposite them.

Spock then told them that he had sensed a great consciousness while he was still on Vulcan, a powerful source, with thought patterns of exactingly perfect order. It was his belief that they came from that object which was advancing on Earth, and he called it 'the intruder'. But the next statement out of his mouth was curious in the extreme. "I believe it may hold my answers."

What answers? And why would this object from who knows where have anything that would be beneficial at all to Spock's thought processes? Kirk was lost, not knowing how to reply to this strange statement. Once again, Bones jumped in with a light rejoinder, telling Spock how lucky he was that they just happened to be heading that way, with a grin on his face. Kirk cautioned him and turned back to Spock. "We need him. I need him."

"Then my presence here is to our mutual advantage."

Kirk stared at Spock, still not sure how to interpret what his old friend was saying, and still offput by the stillness of the man's face, the lack of any of the subtle signs that he had grown to recognize. What was wrong with him? And why, why had he chosen kolinahr? What had happened to change him so much?

He told Spock that he expected any thought patterns that he detected to be immediately reported, no matter whether he thought them to be of personal interest or not. And Spock looked solemnly back at him, and agreed. And then asked whether there was anything else. With one last, inscrutable look at Bones, and then back to Kirk, he rose and left the officer's lounge, his hands clasped behind him as he went.

When Spock had left, McCoy rose from his seat, and looked at Kirk with great concentration. "If this thing out there is as important to him as he says it is…." His voice trailed off.

Kirk looked back, equally disturbed. "That he won't put his own personal interests ahead of the rest of us?" He shook his head. "I can't believe that. He wouldn't." Before they could continue, the communicator on his wrist chimed, and Uhura's voice alerted him that they were only minutes away from visual contact with the cloud. He acknowledge, and headed for the bridge.

The first thing he did on reaching the bridge was to activate the red alert. Auxiliary crew members came running, to man all the stations on the bridge that were not necessary during normal operations. And then he ordered the cloud on the main viewer, at full magnification. Uhura informed him that she was hailing on all frequencies, with no response. And then Spock spoke up, in that strange, harsh voice he had now, telling him that they were being scanned. Quickly he told him not to return scan, that it would be interpreted as an attack.

Spock then said that the type of scan being used was one never before encountered. Uhura once again stated that there was no response to friendship messages. Chekov wanted to send the entire crew to battle stations. He reiterated that they would take no provocative actions. Decker leaned over the railing around the bridge pit and suggested a defensive posture, screens and shields. He thought about, and slowly replied that he would do nothing that might be interpreted as hostile.

He turned toward the science station, and asked Spock for the composition of the cloud. When Spock replied that it was a twelfth power energy field, both Sulu and Decker were alarmed, and he found himself out of his chair, and leaning over the railing toward Spock. Decker was insistent, saying that they had already seen what this thing's weapons could do, and that they must take defensive actions, when Spock interrupted, to say that he suspected that there was an object at the heart of that cloud.

He took a few seconds to think, to not respond to Decker's charges with anger, and realized that the man was just doing his job. He turned, and stood behind the pilot and navigator, and ordered a flight path that would take them to that object, and ordered it on the viewer. And they were headed in, towards who knew what, and to who knew what danger. It was what they were there for.