Enterprise High

being a high school AU of ST: XI

with many hijinks

and much angst

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Chapter Five: Court Martial

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For the next week, the senior class studied frantically for Mr. Maru's first exam, the evil one Gaila had told Kirk about. The literature for the test consisted of Oedipus Rex and Antigone. The class were trying to practically memorize the plays. Spock was doing quite well on this front; he had committed to memory the important passages and was focusing now on minutiae he thought Mr. Maru might ask about.

Kirk, in his haphazard way of studying, simply read the plays twice a day, highlighting things that interested him. They had started school on a Monday; the test was held on the second Wednesday of the year.

As Kirk rode to school that second Wednesday, he reflected on the past week. He definitely liked San Francisco more than Riverside, Iowa. Not only was the city larger and more interesting, the people were better. And he got to make an at least semi-fresh start, although that hadn't gone quite as well as he'd planned. His standing amongst the Hoverclub members had improved slightly as he got nicer to Spock and further away from Chekov (Sulu was even acknowledging his existence now). He'd hung out at the Shore Leave with them a few more times without getting slapped or yelled at or hit on by anyone. He was sort of becoming friends with Uhura. But not all was right with the world. Chekov was still paying more attention to him that he would like, and Bones still wasn't speaking to him. Kirk hadn't really had a chance to talk to Bones about their fight. He'd either been studying or attempting to improve his image, and he didn't think that getting into a yelling match with Bones in front of the others was going to help anything.

But the problem was, he didn't know what to say to Bones. He didn't feel nearly as bad as he knew he should for tricking him into the makeout session; it had just been too much fun for him to regret it. He thought Bones might be legitimately attracted to him, but then he realized that it might be Bones reacting to the first semi-sexual contact he'd had since he'd broken up with Jocelyn. And (Kirk's mind was going at warp speed putting all of this together) since Bones had started dating Jocelyn three and a half years ago, that meant that Bones was only fifteen, and Kirk was willing to bet quite a lot of money that Bones at fifteen wasn't particularly interested in sex. In fact, he'd still been talking with Bones at that point, and no, Bones hadn't so much as kissed anybody yet, because he was still in his "other humans are covered in horrible deadly germs and must not be approached without a biohazard suit" phase, which thankfully he had eventually learned to function with. But then again, before some middle school teacher had accidently slipped Bones a copy of The Hot Zone, Bones had really loved playing doctor.

So, unless something happened in the summer between when he and Jocelyn broke up and Kirk arrived, Bones had only ever made out with Jocelyn before this.

Huh, pondered Kirk, no wonder he's freaking out. And then Kirk wondered if Bones and Jocelyn had been having sex. Surely they had. They were in high school. They were human. They were dating. It was practically inevitable.

But, he considered the course he'd surmised the relationship had gone. In the first year, they had been good together, close and strong. In the second year, Jocelyn had lost interest, but Bones hadn't. In the third year, they just coasted, together but apart. And if they were so young during their most passionate time, then, maybe, just maybe, Bones was still a virgin.

If so, then Kirk had to borrow a word from Spock: Fascinating.

x

Mr. Maru's exams were the stuff of legend. They were basically impossible to cheat on. Mr. Maru was not allowed to festoon his testing room with keyhole cameras, so he took extreme measures to prevent academic dishonesty.

The tests were not given in his regular classroom, but in a lecture hall that differed every year and was not assigned until the night before. Everyone was required to turn in their communicators before the test. They were scanned by metal detectors (a rarely-used right reserved to test-giving teachers) before they entered the room, were assigned styli and answer documents, and received absolutely clean copies of the test. Absolutely no food or drink was allowed in the room. No jackets, no hats, no gloves. Hands, arms, and legs were checked. Bathroom breaks were not allowed.

Kirk felt like he was entering a prison. None of the other students looked too happy either. Mr. Maru stood at the front of the room, glaring at all of them.

"This is more like it," he said once everybody had found his or her assigned seats. "Let's get started."

Kirk was prepared for a difficult test. But he wasn't prepared for such a useless one. The questions were exactly as Gaila had described: How many letter O's are in the first speech by Oedipus in Oedipus Rex? A) 24 B) 41 C) 49 D) 38 E) 34. When the Chorus speaks for the fifth time on page 14 in Antigone, what is the second punctuation mark used? A) , B) ; C) – D) ? E) (.

This is insane, thought Kirk, gaping at the screen. These questions were literally impossible.

He and the rest of the class sweated through the test. People either turned their tests in ten minutes after class had begun or near the very end. Kirk and Spock were some of the last to finish. Outside the room, the survivors were consoling each other.

"God, that was horrible," said Kirk hollowly, exiting with Gaila, who looked positively livid.

"Every year that test pisses me off," she growled. "It does nothing to actually evaluate our intelligence. I feel so helpless while I'm taking it."

"The experience can be educational," said Spock. "I can see what Mr. Maru is attempting to teach us with the exam. We cannot know everything. We cannot always succeed."

Kirk and Gaila just glared at Spock.

x

Mr. Maru posted the results after school. Spock was the only student to receive above a 40 (he got a 42). Most of the class made between a 25 and a 35. Kirk, to his horror, received exactly the class average, a 31. He had never, ever gotten below a 95 on a test before. He stared at the grades for a while, despondent. Nobody was particularly sympathetic, although Scotty patted him kindly on the shoulder.

After everyone else had wandered away, Kirk knocked on Mr. Maru's door. The lights came on and Mr. Maru opened the door a crack, looking suspicious.

"Can I help you?" he asked Kirk.

"I'd like to take the test again," said Kirk.

"That's against school policy," said Mr. Maru. "A final grade's a final grade."

"I'm not even going to try to argue that it's an unfair test," said Kirk. "Which it is. You don't have to give me the grade I get the second time around. I just—I just want to try again. Right now."

Mr. Maru raised his eyebrows. "An interesting request," he said. "Actually, I've been waiting for quite awhile for somebody to ask to retake it. Nobody has. So, I'd love for you to. Come in. And good luck."

x

The next day, a crowd gathered around the grades once more. Kirk, later than usual, hurried up to English amongst even more interested stares than normal. He paused at the edge of the mass of students, confused. Scotty emerged from the crowd, grabbed his arm, and drew him over to the grades.

Wordlessly, Scotty pointed to Kirk's grade, which had been crossed out. "26. Nice try" was written next to it.

"What happened?" Uhura demanded. "Did you try to cheat or something?"

"I retook the test," said Kirk, feeling hollow. "Guess it didn't go too well."

"How can you have retaken it?" said Uhura. "You've already seen the questions."

Spock broke in. "I believe that Mr. Maru composes close to seven hundred questions for this exam and randomly fills each individual test with fifty of those queries. Undoubtedly he made sure James had not seen any of questions on the second test before he gave it to him."

Kirk was thinking. "Where do you suppose he keeps the questions?"

"Excuse me?" said Spock sharply. "James, you cannot be suggesting—"

"I'm just wondering," said Kirk lightly, feeling much better as an idea unfolded in his mind. "I would never do anything dishonest." He grinned at the crowd. "You know, I think I'll try to take that test again."

"James, cheating one of the most severely punished crimes a student—"

"I'm not going to cheat, Spock," said Kirk mildly. "I'm just going to take a test."

x

It took some work to convince Mr. Maru to let him take the test a third time, but he managed. Since the Hoverclub was leaving at four thirty to get to Riverside by seven, Kirk took the test during the last part of his study hall period. He came back early, chomping arrogantly on an apple. A fleck of juice flew into Spock's eye as Kirk passed him. Spock sat up, positively glaring at Kirk, who flashed him a brilliant smile.

"That was fun," he said, flopping down into his seat.

Uhura rolled her eyes. "I'm sure it was. Maybe you'll bring up your grade this time, get a 32 or something."

"Oh, I think I did pretty well," said Kirk, mouth full of apple but still managing to look smug. "I studied a bit before I took it. Probably raised my grade quite a lot."

x

It took until fifth period for Mr. Maru to run the test through the grader, and it wasn't until sixth period that he had recovered enough from shock to storm down to economics and slam the door open. The entire class, including Ms. Okogbo, jumped in their seats.

"James Tiberius Kirk," growled Mr. Maru, so furious he ignored Ms. Okogbo's alarmed exclamations. "How the hell did you get a perfect score on this test?"

"Me?" piped Kirk, the picture of innocence. "A perfect score? How surprising!"

"It cannot possibly be surprising to you that you got a hundred on this! You had to have cheated!"

"Oh, I don't think so," said Kirk sweetly. "Surely you recall sitting there and watching me take the entire test. You checked me for clues or answers, took away my jacket, did all of the usual. Looked at my desk. Gave me a stylus. Mr. Maru, I took the test I was given."

"Bull," said Mr. Maru. "You can't have known all of those answers."

"Ask me the questions right now. I'll know the answers."

"Question thirty six," Mr. Maru read off the PADD he was holding. "What proper noun is used in line two hundred and thirty of Oedipus Rex?"

"Thrace."

"Twenty one. In line two sixty one of the same, how many punctuations marks are used?"

"One, a comma."

"Forty eight. How many letter A's are used between lines 783 and 801 of Antigone?"

"Twenty four."

"How can you possibly know that?"

Kirk shrugged. "I'm really very intelligent."

"You must, I do mean absolutely must have cheated."

"I took the test I was given," Kirk repeated.

Mr. Maru was frozen with rage. Kirk watched him impassively.

"Principal's office," he spat. "Right now."

x

Principal Barnett had already heard quite a lot about James Kirk from other teachers, all of it positive, although there was some mention of him being a bit conceited. He did not expect to meet Kirk under such circumstances.

Mr. Maru insisted that Kirk had cheated on the test. Principal Barnett had dealt with Mr. Maru's cheaters before; a number of students had attempted to improve their grades on Maru's exam by academic dishonesty, but none had been so successful, or so discreet. Mr. Maru was forced to admit that he had kept an eye on Kirk the entire time Kirk had taken the test. Kirk enthusiastically denied that he had cheated while taking the test. But Principal Barnett had noticed something strange about Kirk's use of tenses.

"You deny cheating while you were taking the test."

"Yes, sir."

"And you say that you simply took the test you were given. That you knew all of the answers on that version of the test. A version of the test that Mr. Maru had not given you previously."

"Yes, sir."

"Well, Kobayashi, I think we have our solution," said Barnett, turning in his chair to look at Mr. Maru. "Mr. Kirk did not cheat during the test. He cheated before the test."

Kirk nodded solemnly. "That I did, sir."

Mr. Maru was bamboozled. "But… how?"

"I was wondering the same thing," said Barnett.

"If the game is up?" said Kirk, looking at them. "I guess it is. Well, I'd heard that Mr. Maru wrote a lot of questions for the test. So I just hacked in to the school's computer system, accessed Mr. Maru's file of questions, deleted fifty, added fifty of my own creation, sorted them in, and sent them to the top of the list to make sure Mr. Maru would assign me those questions."

The men started at Kirk.

"You what?" said Barnett.

"I hacked into the school's computer system, accessed—"

"Okay, that right there," said Barnett. "It's basically impossible to hack into the school's computer system. No—for a student? It is impossible. If you have that depth of knowledge of programming, you shouldn't be in high school."

"That's why I'm graduating early, sir."

"How much time did you have to do this?" Barnett demanded.

"Oh, I wrote the questions during second and third and skipped to the computer lab to do the hacking during fourth," said Kirk. "You can ask my teachers. I was oddly distracted. And the lab monitors were worrying about a strange virus that was attacking the system and ignoring little old me."

"You will not be so flippant about this," Mr. Maru growled. "You will receive a zero for the test grade and be placed on academic suspension."

"I'm not so sure about that," said Barnett calmly. "As the principal, I am in charge of disciplining students. Now, there's nothing I can do about you getting a zero, Mr. Kirk, but if my calculations are correct—and providing you receive straight one hundreds for the rest of the year—your GPA will only be lowered by zero point zero zero zero eight points. Meaning that you would still be ranked first in your class, exactly zero point zero zero zero three points ahead of Mr. Spock. I would like to both put you on and take you off of academic suspension." Barnett pressed a few buttons on the PADD before him. "There. Your time on academic suspension has been registered. Now, report to the computer lab. Ms. Valence is in charge of the computer system here; let her know what you've done and help her figure out how to stop anybody else from doing it." Barnett smiled at Kirk. "I was never very good at discipline. Consider Ms. Valence in charge of your punishment. You will report to her every day until this school has established a truly secure firewall."

Mr. Maru was positively foaming with indignation. Kirk leapt up, saluted and thanked Principal Barnett, and fled, chuckling.

x

Kirk sidled back into class near the end of seventh period. Mr. Gyan had allowed them to work on their homework since eight of the class were going to be gone the next day for the race in Riverside. Kirk got the homework assignment and sat down in the midst of the Hoverclub.

"What th' hell happened back there?" Scotty demanded. "Did you really make a hundred on th' test?"

"Yep," said Kirk. "Except now it's a zero. Evidently Mr. Maru doesn't like cheating."

"Have you been placed on academic suspension?" Spock demanded. "Because if you have, you will not be able to accompany us to Riverside."

"Yeah, I have been. But I got taken off. Barnett was impressed with me, he only entered the suspension on my record."

"He was impressed?" said Uhura.

"By my ability to cheat."

"Academic dishonesty is not impressive," said Spock loftily. "It is despicable and I refuse to believe that a principal such as Dr. Barnett would allow you to escape unpunished."

"I'm not unpunished. I have to report to Ms. Valence every day until they get the school firewall working and improved again."

"It's broken?" said Chapel.

"I, uh, might have been less than subtle when I hacked into the school's mainframe."

There was a silence.

"You hacked into the school's computer system?" said Sulu, speaking to Kirk for the first time since last Wednesday.

"A little, yeah."

"You cannae have," said Scotty. "'Tis impossible. Ah can't do it. Gaila and Sulu can't do it. Spock's never tried, but ah assume he can't either."

"Of course I would never attempt such an idiotic thing as breaking in to the school's—"

"Shut it, Spock. It's not impossible, guys. It's really not that hard at all, actually." Kirk looked around at them. "Really, it's not. I don't know why everyone's so impressed."

"When did you do this?" asked Sulu.

"Right before lunch," said Kirk.

"You were in third period," said Sulu. "You can't expect us to believe that you did this in the thirty minutes before lunch."

"Guys, seriously, it's not a big deal. Listen, I want to check my answer on number twenty, have any of you—"

"You're on number twenty already?" said Scotty. "Alright, laddie, ah'm beginnin' to think that Mr. Maru's exam might have been good for you. You need t' be taken down a notch."

"I do not! My notches are fine where they are."

The bell rang. Kirk gathered up his things quickly, but was cornered in his desk by Scotty and Spock.

"We'll talk more with you on th' ride," said Scotty almost menacingly, pointing a finger in Kirk's face. Spock, disapproving to the extreme, nodded sharply behind him.

Kirk disentangled himself and rushed home to get his bag, thinking that joining the Hoverclub might not have been a good idea after all.

x

Kirk tried to hide at the back of the transport, but Scotty hunted him down and dragged him to the front. McCoy and Chapel were sitting further back, near Sulu and Chekov. But Uhura, Spock, and Scotty were standing in front of Kirk and staring menacingly down at him. Kirk gulped.

"We have elected to let Spock speak to you about your behavior during Mr. Maru's test," said Uhura coldly. She and Scotty sat down nearby. Pike chose to ignore what was happening. He pulled the transport out of the parking garage and started off down Talon Street towards I-5.

"Let me begin by stating that I know what you feel about the test," said Spock. "You may be skeptical, but I assure you that I had never received a grade lower than a 94 before I started Mr. Maru's class in my freshman year. However, this does not mean that I agree with your decision to cheat. I feel that Mr. Maru was attempting to make a point to his students. All of us expect to receive 6.0's, a college education, a good career, and a long life, among other luxuries. But we will not necessarily be given those things. Our privilege extends to our grades; our parents have influenced our lives enough that most of us are psychologically incapable of doing badly in school or in life without experiencing crippling mental consequences. Mr. Maru is simply helping us by presenting us with a no-win situation."

"There is where you're wrong," said Kirk angrily. "I don't believe in no-win situations. And you may have lived in the lap of luxury all of your life, but I certainly haven't. Maybe you higher class archons get grades and careers and happiness served to you on a silver platter, but just because my mom is in Starfleet doesn't mean I'm a spoiled brat like you. Maru's test was completely unjust. He doesn't get to arbitrarily decide what is fair or not, because then that gives everybody else the excuse to do the same thing. We're trying to rid the universe of no-win situations. Why should anyone let a no-win situation be set up? Surely modern methods of teaching can educate us about the no-win situations we're forced in to without actually sticking us in one."

"Perhaps, but perhaps not. Mr. Maru's test is designed simply to show us that we cannot have everything. It is crafted to inspire fear within us, fear of failure and of the unknown and of losing control, so that we avoid these things and so that if we cannot avoid them we know how to deal with them."

Kirk was starting to look really pissed off. "Listen, Spock, I don't need to know anything else about not being in control. I don't need another damn lesson in fear. I've worked really fucking hard to get to where I am and one bitch of a teacher trying to teach pampered babies a lesson is not going to get in my way."

Spock opened his mouth to speak, but Kirk cut him off, standing.

"No," he said, putting his hand against Spock's throat to stop him from speaking. "You will not say another word to me on this subject. You don't know anything about me. No-win situations do not exist. They may seem like they do, but you always have a choice. There is always a third option, another way out. If you deny this, and find yourself in what seems to be a no-win situation, what will you do? Die? Fail? Or cheat, just to survive? Live or succeed when you don't deserve to? I know what the other options are, and I reject them. You can get as mad at me as you want to about cheating on that test, but you cannot tell me that it was the wrong thing to do. People are supposed to stand up for what's right, even if they go about it in the wrong way."

Kirk finished. His hand was still on Spock's throat. He could feel the blood pulsing under Spock's skin. His flesh was burning hot. Spock's expression seemed loose, as if he were having a difficult time concentrating. Slowly, Kirk removed his hand, his fingers cooling, the pulse gone. The boys stared at each other for a moment.

"Your argument is logical," said Spock hoarsely. "I will not speak to you on the subject again." With that, he sat heavily on the seat next to him.

Kirk removed himself to his seat in the back of the bus. When he was sure Spock wasn't looking, he wiped his hand on his shirt, disgusted.

Suddenly Bones was settling down next to him with the strangest expression on his face.

"Listen, Jim," said Bones, staring at his knees, "I don't know how to—well, I'm not sure—aw, hell, I'm sorry, alright?"

"It's fine, Bones," said Kirk, throwing his arm around him. "I'm sorry too. I shouldn't have mistreated you like that."

"Naw, it was my fault for not keepin' you in line. And you're right, I did you wrong when I ran off with Jocelyn an' ignored you. Are we good?"

"We're good," said Kirk. He grinned at Bones. "Spock can be a real pointy-eared bastard, can't he?" he said to Bones.

"Yeah," said Bones, laughing. "But I like him." He looked out the window. "Looks like we're almost to Riverside."

"Yup, pretty close," said Kirk, peering out too. "Wonder what hotel Pike will have chosen for us."

Oh. Right, thought Bones. Sleeping arrangements. Well, this should be fun.

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