Alright, here's my next installment. Many, many, many thanks to my beta TheWindowView for taking the time to edit my work and even tell me when I'm doing something wrong.
As always, please read and enjoy :)
"So," he asked while still carefully watching the specimen on the slide for changes. "If you aren't in a relationship, what kind of conversation was it to make my first officer think you were?"
Nia paused as she worked out what he was asking. "I think I understand what you are asking." Blushing, she told him "Well, I have to admit to some foolery on Crewman Michaels' and my part. She had asked me about some rumors she heard and I told her that in reality I'd been more intimate with the sparring mats than with anyone on this ship."
Kirk stared at her. "'Matt' as in sparring mat, not as in human male Matt."
"Yep."
"That is," he waited a moment to try and find an appropriate term. He gave up. "That is the funniest thing I've heard since we started this trip."
She looked at him warily. "And yet, you aren't laughing."
"I'm waiting for the image to sink in. You know, the one of Spock crouching outside the doorway, listening to 'girl talk' about 'Matt'." He glanced at her. "Was there lots of giggling?"
"Why, oh why would you want to know that?"
"It'll perfect the image."
She rolled her eyes. "Yes. To be true, I'm sure our voices were breathy from trying to keep from laughing. Seems the only effective way to do so is to decrease one's air supply."
"Makes it harder to talk, too."
"Which is why we eventually gave in. Lieutenant Jenkins yelled at us since she could apparently hear us down the hall." She grinned sheepishly at him.
He chuckled. "So if I ever need some comedic relief, I should come to the labs?"
Nia stared at him in horror.
"What?" He asked.
She sputtered for a moment then told him "You do that, you get to deal with being the first person to try the patience of a Vulcan. He is the one I report to, you know."
"Is it supposed to do this?" Kirk asked and gestured to the microscope he was looking into.
"Do what?" She asked in return.
He gestured again at the microscope "This!"
Sighing, Nia brushed past him to look into the microscope. "Oh." She studied for a moment longer. "You started the recording, right?"
"Yes, I did." He watched her adjust the scope to refocus the image. "Now, what makes you think I haven't already tried the patience of a Vulcan?"
Nia stilled. She'd heard a few pieces of a story involving the Captain and the First Officer, but nothing close to the full story. Asking Chekov and Sulu about it had produced nothing other than a few side glances and the polite request for her to 'butt out'. Not their exact words, but that was the feeling she got. "So, is there truth to the scuttlebutt? Did you have a hand in emotionally compromising the Commander?"
The smirk he gave her was a bit darker than any of the others he had born previously. "Emotionally compromising? No. Getting him to admit it? Yes." And he was quite unprepared for the can of worms that opened. It had taken a week before the bruises started fade.
"That can't have gone over well." She knew enough of the time frame to have an idea as to what was on the commander's mind at the time. She'd touched him; she knew the grief the Vulcan felt.
"Not at all." He shrugged. It had to be done, and the end justified the means in this case. "Is the reaction within the parameters you were predicting?"
"You mean hoping dearly for?" She corrected. "No it isn't."
"One hypothesis rejected… How many more to go?" He entered the reaction into the data tablet sitting on the table and filed the video log of the reaction along with it. "How long have we been doing this?"
"As you well know, we've been doing this for two hours. We've rejected four hypotheses and have too many left to get done tonight." Nia sighed and again tucked back the white locks that were hanging in her face. Her hair had begun to come loose hours ago, but she hadn't bothered to rebind it. She really wished she'd caught her mistake sooner and had saved herself the trouble of repeating a day's worth of work.
"How vital is the work you are doing?" Kirk suddenly inquired. When she looked up at him confused, he explained "I mean, I've heard there is a situation with the food crops on Palad, but how vital are the food crops there? And how bad is the problem? I know Palad has placed an embargo on all food stuffs and even refused to aid the stranded Vulcans." He was biting his tongue as he made the last comment. He knew better than to treat a diplomatic situation so casually.
Nia just shook her head. "I don't understand why that happened. The situation on Palad is a significant problem, but not dire in the way that we would be unable to help those in need. At this point, the situation will be close to dire in fifty years if we cannot get the parasite under control."
"Then why are so many of your people leaving the planet? If it isn't such a big problem then why is there a push for colonizing other planets?" Kirk wasn't sure if he believed her assessment of her planet's problems.
"Honestly, I'm baffled by the sudden increase in immigration. The government must have come up with some sort of incentive program. At this point, our crops are being affected. The specific crops that have been hit the hardest are the ones we use to feed our… cattle is the appropriate term, I believe." She chewed her lip. "See, when agriculture first started on Palad, it was to grow plants favored by the herbivores that my people eat. We have a heavier meat diet than what most humans expect. We eat the same number of carbs, but need a higher amount of saturated fats. Now, our seas have plenty of fish, but not enough to feed our growing population. There hasn't been enough since the start of our industry."
"When you had a population spike." Kirk surmised.
"Exactly, Kirk." She refused to call him 'Jim' like he requested. He settled for 'Kirk'. "Palad has a wide variety of plants, but we have such a cold climate that many aren't as edible for us, the humanoids on Palad."
"Well, who else?"
She smiled, but otherwise ignored his interruption. "We have a decent variety of fruit trees that grow in what you would call cooler temperatures and berry bushes as well. We have lots of herbs, and the south has much more edible vegetation. However, many of the Northern prairies have been turned to farms for the daplos, our cattle, or they are farms for feeding the daplos."
"Palad is mainly rainforest, right? Mostly temperate and some tropical?"
"That is correct. This makes it difficult for us find planets we can move to. When most of our year is close to winter, we have developed an insensitivity to cold and a-"
"Sensitivity to heat. What does that mean for the settlers who are stranded?" If she didn't know, then he was going to go straight to McCoy and ask him. Earlier that day, he'd been in contact with the Exeter and gotten a full report on the planet the ship was headed to.
"It depends on the planet. If it is an ice planet, there should be little to worry about, beyond malnutrition and possible dehydration." Nia informed him, grey eyes watching his reaction carefully.
"They've been accepting water rations, and it is probably a good thing they have. The planet the settlers landed on is mostly desert. They appear to have found the only oasis in a hundred mile radius-"
She didn't hear much beyond 'desert'. Instead she tuned him out as she tried to work through the increasing weight of dread in her stomach. You knew there was a chance, you knew! Yet, she hadn't stopped hoping.
Kirk noticed her far off expression, and realized "This is a worst-case scenario for you, isn't it?"
Nia turned away from him and leaned her back against a countertop. "How many casualties have been reported?"
Her question was the only answer he needed. Still, he answered hers. "The settlers have refused to say. What do we need to do to prepare for our arrival?"
"You'd be better off asking Dr. McCoy. He is quite skilled and will have in depth knowledge to the exact treatments that will be needed. There will likely be more than a few that have succumbed to heat madness." She could only hope that the number was low, that while in Wena's capable hands she was able to keep the most of them healthy. That the water rations were enough to fight it, to keep it at bay.
"Heat madness?"
"My people are sensitive to heat. Our brains don't handle excess heat too well." She told him. "We may have higher average internal temperatures than humans, but our environment is usually much colder. I had to be careful in my first years on Earth not to overexert myself until I knew the extent of my own heat sensitivity."
Kirk watched her, blue eyes taking in the deepened worry lines and the not quite human act of chewing on the back of her knuckles in worry. "I'm going to go speak with Bones. We can't be too prepared for what we might find." He went to walk past her, then paused and set a hand on her shoulder. "We are also close enough to justify an increase in warp speed. We'll get there within the week and we will help them however we can. I promise you that, Sargent."
Nia looked up at him, tears of relief welling slightly before she blinked them back. "Thank you," she told him. No matter what rumor she heard from then on about the captain being a womanizer, Nia was going to remember the character presented before her today, on this crazy and twisted day.
With the change in situation, it would not have been logical for Spock to inquire of the conversation the captain had with Dr. Sargent. Even without the change in situation, Spock had no logical reasoning for asking. And so, he didn't.
He waited for Kirk to come to him.
It took a very short period of time to discover that some information Spock would never need to inquire about, and would never have to find a logical reason to inquire of. Some information, Kirk simply could not keep to himself.
What he hadn't expected, however, was for the captain to bring the subject to attention while on the turbo lift, immediately after the captain informed the bridge just what to expect on the surface on the uncharted planet when they arrived. It was the morning after Kirk ordered an increase in warp speed.
"I had a discussion with Dr. Sargent." Kirk glanced at his first officer.
The man barely acknowledged his statement.
"You should speak to her."
This time the Vulcan glanced his direction.
Smirking, Kirk continued. "'Cause it turns out that I've met Matt. He a rather upstanding and… firm guy."
Spock accepted his statement and turned his attention to the opening doorway. It was only logical that Dr. Sargent would choose such a mate.
"Yeah, it turns out that Sulu really did introduce the two. Rather forcefully, if you believe the rumors." A lesser man might have given up after the apparent disinterest and apathy on the commander's face as the two walked down the hall. Kirk, however, was determined to push the Vulcan as far as he could. "Of course, now some of the women on the crew think Sargent's been playing with you the whole time she was in a relationship. One even went so far as to confront her."
"I find that when humans confront one another, the issue is rarely resolved. Is further trouble to be expected, sir?"
While the response wasn't quite what Kirk wanted, it was a start. And, he brought up a good point. "Probably not, though I can't rule out the possibility." He chewed his lip. He really hadn't thought about that, and was now wondering if he should have. He'd heard cat fights can cause problems and women were notoriously cruel when 'fighting'. Men typically brawled to save face and prove dominance. Women… women were just plain mean.
"Captain, you stated I should speak with Dr. Sargent, yet have not given me a reason why." Spock stated.
Again the smirk appeared. "Spock, have you heard what happens when you assume?"
"Captain?"
"Jim."
"I do not see how your first name describes the result of assumption, sir."
Kirk huffed in frustration. "Dammit Spock, that's not what I meant. I've asked you to call me Jim."
"And I agreed to do so when we are not on duty, as protocol dictates. Are we not still on duty?" Spock replied. Once again, a conversation with the captain was proving redundant.
"Right. Anyways, when you assume you make an ass out of you and me."
Spock thought for a moment, head tilted slightly to the side. "A human play on words based on both the spelling and phonetics of the word. Interesting, but are you attempting to imply that I have done such a thing?"
Finally, he gets it. "Yes, Mr. Spock, I am. I felt like a right ass when I asked Sargent about her relationship with 'Matt' and it turned out to be a joke between her and Crewman Michaels." Kirk stopped walking and stepped close to Spock when the commander also paused. "They were talking about the sparring mats."
Kirk would always swear that he saw the tips of Spock's ears turn green, but the reaction was so subtle and quick no passerby would have caught it.
"I see. Is this the reason I should speak to Dr. Sargent, or is there more?" Spock would always evade the subject, when asked if Kirk's claim was true. Embarrassment was illogical.
"Well, she's just learned just how much trouble the settlers are in. Close friends and family of hers are stuck in near un-survivable place, for at least a month now. What do you think?" Kirk near snapped.
"If you are implying I would be a source of comfort, I find your logic lacking. The only logical decision is to remedy the situation as soon as is possible." The commander spun form the captain and continued walking. "There is nothing more that can be done."
"Spock," Kirk grabbed the other man's arm. "She may not be human, but she isn't Vulcan either. Talk to her. Check her data, or help her with an experiment. Do something." Kirk told him. He knew he was pressing the limits of what his first officer would take from him.
"Captain-"
"Don't. Just trust me."
Spock nodded, a quick jerk of his chin. "Is that all, Captain? It appears I am needed in the labs."
"That's all, Mr. Spock."
A/N So what do you think? Maybe this isn't as dramtic as it could be, but I'm trying to keep Spock in character. He's harder to work with than I would like :/
Of course, I love hearing any and all opinions, and I just want to thank cruscherccme, and QHJumper for reviewing. Also, thank you to everyone who has added this story to their alerts or favorites. I have noticed :)