Personal Logs of an Above Average Man: Act I
Author's Note: By the way, if you haven't noticed yet, this entire episode will be solely from Jim's POV. I wanted to do a true bottle episode and it's SO MUCH FUN. :D And on that note, Happy Thanksgiving to my fellow folks in the States, and I will see everyone back here for Act II on 11/29!
If Jim had hoped for a distraction from the frustrating circumstances plaguing him, he wasn't about to find it on the bridge. But, duty called, and he was due on the bridge any minute.
Cup of coffee finished, personal logs filed and encrypted, Jim had run out of ways to pass the time before he would eventually have to take a seat in the chair. On any other day, he would have been more than happy to be at his station.
But, a survey mission he had purposely selected because of its lack of danger or volatility?
He suddenly found himself in the same mindset that had considered the Vice Admiralty position on the Yorktown. Bored, staring at the nebula before him with limited interest, and his finger drumming the arm of his chair to the Beastie Boys song running through his head.
Since he had arrived an hour before the rest of his alpha shift came on duty, he had plenty of time to think. As any one of his senior staff knew; Jim liked to play the part of the devil-may-care explorer and adventurer, but he was good at understanding political machinations. He and Spock had shared many a friendly debate over a game of chess, ranging in topics from the Klingon alliance to rehashing the flaw in Spock's Kobayashi Maru simulation. It was part of what had eventually drawn him to the Vice Admiral position.
It wasn't that Jim wanted to be out of the chair. He just knew that he was equally capable of making a difference as an admiral, because he could politic with the best of them. At least, he thought he could. Right now, he was trying to figure out how much of the last year had been political machination and how much of it had been possible treason.
He had two assumptions he could make.
One: Conner Kent was somehow involved with the changing of the guard at Starfleet headquarters and saw Jim as an enemy. Along with Admiral Cale, he had orchestrated transfers, retirements and shifts in personnel expressly to show them Jim's less politically favorable actions.
Two: Conner Kent was an ally. If that was the case, why would he be pushing for Jim to be demoted? Without the Enterprise or the Federation to back him and Diana, they would be no closer to achieving any of the goals the ambassador had unless she was reassigned. And did that alliance extended to Jim? If not, Diana would find herself on a different ship while Conner let Jim take the fall.
In either case, what was causing the shift? What had changed in the last six months to make it unpopular for Jim to go after the Orion Pirate Syndicate? Knowing that Diana felt that hadn't affected the Accords, there must have been something else.
So, that left him, once again, circling back to the Romulan involvement.
Only this time, as the hour ticked on and he was left undisturbed by his gamma shift personnel, he could afford to look at the larger picture.
Every time he'd considered Kent's actions, he'd been thinking about the Verex III incident. But, if the Klingons had still been willing to meet for peace, then that was a scapegoat. He needed to pull back, look at everything regarding the galaxy's politics for the last year.
The entire reason he'd met Diana had been because Romulans had fired on his shuttle in the first place. They were well within Federation space, but they wouldn't have been interested in watching stellar phenomenon. The Enterprise had only reached the Eos system to watch its star in transition. Yet, the Romulan Centurions on Themyscira had been looking for Jim's shuttle, suggesting they were interested in data-gathering of a more military use.
Then, there had been the game of cat and mouse that the ship had played while Jim was on Delphi. The Enterprise hadn't seen a Romulan ship since the Eos system. There had been no time for those Centurions to break through the atmospheric barrier on Themyscira, nor would the shuttle have had the same command codes as its counterpart vessel.
So, it had to be an inside job. Someone had to be leaking intelligence to the Romulan Empire.
There was no way of knowing if they had Romulans masquerading in Starfleet's ranks, or if it was worse. If this was another Admiral Marcus-type situation, manufacturing a war simply to justify their military aims, then there was no telling how many ships might have been compromised by that level of a security breach.
The turbolift doors opened behind him, and Jim pulled himself out of his reverie long enough to turn and see Sulu, Spock, Acosta and Uhura arriving to their stations. For weeks, that had been the standard configuration for his alpha shift, so he thought nothing of it.
It wasn't until he glanced back at his navigator's station that he realized someone was very obviously missing.
Furrowing his brow, he glanced down at his display on the arm of his chair, scrolling through the duty roster. "Mister Spock, correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe Ensign Jaylah is assigned to the alpha shift?" Kirk asked, no sign of teasing in his voice. He'd given his new ensign a full week on the beta shift while they made their way back out to deep space from earth, but she didn't seem like the type to simply forget that her schedule had changed.
His ever-placid first officer made his way over towards the captain's chair, hands clasped behind his back. "That is correct."
Jim simply motioned to the station still occupied by a crewman that he hadn't had the opportunity to know yet. "Something seem a little off to you?"
Spock followed his gaze, then arched an eyebrow. "Perhaps she, too, needed 'rest' after her 'adventure.'" That was a not-so-subtle jab.
Jim gave Spock a sidelong glance that was one part disbelief and one-part amusement. "Remind me never to take it easy on you, Spock. I never knew you were so touchy about a little R&R."
Spock unclasped his hands so he could instead fold his arms in front of him. "I am hardly 'touchy'. Surveying a class 3 emissions nebula is hardly a mentally challenging task."
Jim sighed, turning a bit more in his chair to face him. "That's why I didn't make the three of you take a full day of rest." Jim glanced back at Uhura, who was watching them both with amusement. "You sure you want to marry him? At this rate, your honeymoon will be between duty shifts." Even if the Khitomer Accords hadn't been signed, he was elated that Spock and Uhura had gone through with their plans to get married by both Vulcan and human standards.
"Don't worry, Spock promised we would follow some human traditions, and that's one of them." She said with a grin. He couldn't help but return it earnestly. He loved to see them both happy. He'd jumped at the privilege to marry them when they'd asked months and months ago. He just hadn't expected them to adopt this sense of urgency over the last couple of weeks.
"Any other fun traditions? Maybe some non-human ones?" Jim said, unable to stop himself from teasing his steadily more uncomfortable Vulcan friend. "I hear on Betazed, the entire wedding party and guests are all naked - "
"As neither of us is Betazoid, Jim, that is a completely unnecessary suggestion." Spock cut him off abruptly, as close to exasperated as he'd heard him in a while.
Jim leaned forward a bit, enjoying the simple opportunity to tease him. "Boy, the Klingons really must have grated on your nerves. What'd they do, insult your parentage?"
Spock seemed unfazed. "Hardly." Jim didn't take that for an answer, so instead, he stared down his friend until he finally offered as additional color: "Klingons are most illogical."
Jim chuckled, momentarily relieved for the sense of normalcy on the bridge. It didn't alleviate the boredom, or help him forget the questions he had on his mind, but at least it reminded him that he was still captain and this was still his crew. The rest… the rest was noise. He'd sort it out.
Once he got his ensign to her station.
"Lieutenant Uhura, please locate Ensign Jaylah for me." Kirk finally said as he flipped a few switches on his arm display so he could use his chair's audio pick-up.
After a moment, Uhura's search came to an end. "Looks like she's in Cargo Bay 1, sir." She sounded just as confused as they all did.
Jim pursed his lips, trying to determine if he should be amused or concerned. He went with the former. "Bridge to Cargo Bay 1: Ensign Jaylah, I know schedules probably aren't your favorite thing, given Academy course loads, but on the Enterprise, I prefer to have you report on time. Care to explain why you're in the Cargo Bay?"
He expected some sort of excuse or apology from Jaylah. Instead, a completely different and unexpected voice answered instead. "My apologies, Captain Kirk, but I must ask to borrow your ensign for the day." Diana's forced sense of formality gave Jim the impression he was apparently somewhere on the outside of a very inside joke. At the least, she was conspiring. There was mischief in that formality. The same way he would convey all of his flirtatious personal intent with simply using her professional title.
Jim figured he'd rely on that tried and true method to see if he could learn what precisely Diana and Jaylah were doing in the cargo bay. He relaxed against the arm of his chair a bit before he continued, clearly curious. "Ambassador Prince. I didn't realize you were working on anything that require a navigational officer. Not that we don't love helping you with whatever diplomatic mission is necessary, I do have several other navigators who would be able to assist - "
"This is a request uniquely suited to Jaylah's skillset, Captain, so I'm afraid I must insist."
Without missing a beat, Jim simply smiled and replied. "And I'm afraid I must insist that you let me know what she's working on when she should be at her duty station."
"As the project has barely begun, I don't think that's necessary."
"As captain, I disagree - "
"No one can bother us, Captain. I need time to work and I need the doors to stay closed because I cannot have people coming in and out like bugs." Jaylah's voice cut through the comm line, although she must have been in another part of the room.
"Excuse me?" Jim said, trying not to be both amused and annoyed. "Did you just commandeer my cargo bay?"
"We can provide you an update once we make more substantial progress. I assume that I won't need to insist with my full Ambassadorial authority, Captain Kirk." Diana had swept back in without hesitation.
Jim cleared his throat, feeling momentarily outplayed and more than a little reminded of how much her wit and stubbornness made him love her all the more. She was determined to evade the question. He really wished he knew what had happened between coffee this morning and now to commandeer his cargo bay and an ensign. "Of course not, Ambassador, I think we can survive without her for the day. But, I look forward to hearing your very compelling reasons for the short notice."
"Glad to hear it. Cargo Bay 1 out." With that, Diana ended the communication before he could even hear more than a string of alien curses from Jaylah as something crashed quite spectacularly.
Jim cast an almost comically worried look at Spock at the thought of Jaylah destroying something in the cargo bay. Spock's expression in return was nothing short of unhelpful.
Well, he was down a navigator and the most excitement for the day would be a nebula. Great.
Leave it to his chief medical officer to choose that particular moment to give him a distraction.
"McCoy to the bridge."
Jim sat up a bit. "Go ahead, Bones."
"Come on down here. I want to run another physical, make sure your neural patterns are still optimal."
Jim closed his eyes and tried not to let it show that he absolutely did not want yet another physical. Bones hadn't stopped running them since Circe had dropped off the memories, and at this rate, Jim wasn't sure they'd ever end. But, he knew he couldn't just whine and tell him no. Instead, he glanced around the bridge, trying to catch Uhura or Sulu's gaze to help him out of this. "Ah, Bones, I think I might be stuck up here for a while. I think we're in the middle of something…"
Unfortunately, he should have known better than to even glance at Uhura. His lieutenant simply smirked and said plainly, loud enough for Bones to hear. "No, Captain, I think we'll be just fine without you."
Jim didn't bother to hide his almost comical look of betrayal her way. He mouthed, "Oh, come on," as she simply smiled back at him.
"You heard the lady. I heard the lady. Get your butt down here, Jim. McCoy out."
Jim didn't even have time to protest before that communication was cut as well. "You have to be kidding me…" He said softly as he stood. As he scanned the room, he realized that none of his crew seemed all that upset he'd be leaving the bridge. In fact, Sulu and even Spock seemed a bit relieved that he would be headed for the turbolift. "You know, I could consider this mutiny."
"I will be sure to note the reprimand in the ship's log, then," Spock remarked, an edge of sarcasm in his tone that reminded Jim that he wasn't always imagining an emotional undertone to that Vulcan composure.
"Besides, we'll all be glad to know there haven't been any lasting effects from the last few months, captain." That was Sulu, offering a bit more diplomatic tone.
Sighing, Jim tugged down his shirt a bit and narrowed his eyes at them as he made his way to the turbolift. "Mister Spock, you have the conn…" He finally remarked before stepping onto the lift with the tone that suggested all of his crew might be plotting against him.
Of course, if they were, it was probably to make him take a few days off. Like that would happen.
The sensation that his crew was somehow plotting against him in the face of nothing but a nebula to occupy them didn't really seem to dissipate as Jim made his way down to Sickbay. In fact, no sooner than he had stepped off the lift into the corridor, only to see two ensigns giggling when they saw him, he realized that something was clearly afoot.
Bones would have him busy, trying to distract him from figuring it out. Of that, he was sure. Mister Sensitive had done the same to plan that surprise birthday party for him. But, if Jim wanted to know what was going on, he wasn't going to be able to get any gossip from his normal means. With Diana seemingly wrapped up in some scheme with Jaylah, that left only one crewmember that Jim hadn't yet seen that morning to question.
And he had a feeling that person would know exactly what Jaylah was working on.
Jim pivoted and strolled past Sickbay until he reached a different turbolift, then took that down to Engineering.
Anyone knew what Jaylah was up to, it would be her number one fan and his chief engineer.
Engineering was bustling, even in light of what should have been a very relaxed couple of days. After having been furloughed at San Francisco for a week, Jim would have thought Scotty would have the ship in even better condition. But, given the way some of the white duranium plating seemed to be missing from a few of the bulkheads, that didn't seem to be the case.
Jim caught sight of his favorite Scotsman pointing a couple of ensigns in red uniforms towards an exposed power coupling.
"I want that refitted with transparent aluminum by 0800 hours, d'ye hear me? Bloody idjits, I told ye the EPS manifolds, not the bloody power couplings." Scotty was saying as Jim crossed the large bridge over towards main engineering control.
"Mister Scott," Jim began, hands behind his back as he caught the other man's attention. "I thought we were taking it easy this week. Starfleet gave us all those new supplies and manpower, I didn't think there was a single bit of her to be stripped and redone." He didn't really care about the expense or the drain of his eligible security teams who were helping out. It was more that Scotty had, once again, determined that the Enterprise needed to be spoiled rotten. No point in asking what he was doing, Jim knew he wouldn't stop the man.
"Captain!" He said with a grin, grabbing for his cup of tea and saucer off of a console. "What brings you down here? Would ye like a cuppa?"
Jim chuckled, then shook his head. "No, thank you. I've had about as much caffeine as I can get away with before I have to see Bones for an impromptu physical. I'd rather not give him any more ammunition."
Scotty's eyebrows rose as he sipped his drink, then put the cup down with a gentle clink. "What's he on about now? Ye look fit as a fiddle to me. Better than ye have in months. I'm sure the Ambassador would be inclined to agree." The gentle tease in Scotty's voice suggested that Diana's part in the Delphi incident had been forgiven in successfully rescuing Jaylah.
He grinned. "Why, thank you, Mister Scott." Scotty didn't catch that Jim was partially indulging him. Instead, he just set his teacup down and nodded as if he'd done a great service. Jim chose not to call it out, and instead continued on. "But, since you mentioned the Ambassador, I was hoping you might be able to fill in a few blanks for me."
Scotty crossed his arms over his chest, leaning against his console. "Dinnae if I'll be any help, but sure. What's on your mind?"
"Well, for some reason that completely escapes me," Jim took a moment to walk past Scotty so he could watch the ensigns installing the transparent aluminum over the power coupling. "Jaylah has been conscripted to help Ambassador Prince with some sort of project that's more important than her duty shift." He glanced back over at Scotty to check his expression. "And apparently that involves using Cargo Bay 1. You wouldn't have any idea what she's working on, would you?"
"Ah." Scotty simply replied. To his credit, if he was hiding anything, he was doing a remarkably good job not showing it. But, he did seem to have some idea what was going on. "Well, I think I might be responsible for that. Partially, anyway. She came to me yesterday mornin' with a notion, wanted to continue the project she'd started at the Academy."
Jim furrowed his brow as he tried to recall what that last project had been. "Something about… stabilizing holograms, right? No more flickering relays like the stuff she had on Altamid, or the constant power drains that Starfleet Engineering keep fighting with?"
"Aye. She's looking to create a stable holo-matrix. Up until now, it's been completely theoretical. Everything that she's done on Altamid involved highly sophisticated refraction, like rudimentary cloaking devices, but she'd been able to create solid photonic elements on the occasion." Scotty nodded. As he did so, his chest puffed up a bit. It was clear that he was remarkably proud of Jaylah's achievements at the academy and wanted to help her continue them. But, Jim knew his chief engineer, and that interest wasn't just professional.
Jim mulled Jaylah's project over. "And I take it you said it was all right? No danger of something going wrong?"
Scotty dismissed the thought with a shake of his head. "No, it'll be fine. The design she has for her matrix emitters draws a fraction of the power the leading theory requires. Jim, if she pulls it off, she'll make holo-technology a reality, oh, easily fifty years before they thought it would be."
Jim found himself considering the ramifications of that, and could understand how Scotty would think the reward outweighed any possible drain to the systems. And if she was using less power, there was far less of a concern. For some reason, a bit of trivia occurred to him. He shifted so he could lean on the back of one of the larger consoles, lacing his fingers together as he thought it through. "Hey, didn't the U.S.S. Discovery have holodecks?"
Scotty canted his head back and forth for a moment as he tried to think of how to answer that. "Eh, yes and no. They had holo-technology, but she was such an experimental ship, there's a lot we won't know about what's truly under her hull until the records are declassified. The Crossfield-class is the definition of our arms race in the 2250s, and I'm not entirely certain I want to know what they've used."
"So, no way of knowing how they managed to pull it off?" Jim wondered aloud. The Discovery had gone missing when he was just entering the Academy. "I mean, I entered the Academy in 2255, they went missing in… '58?"
"Officially. There are rumors that the ship was captured, or brought back to Starfleet and quietly decommissioned." Scotty shrugged, content to talk ship history. It was like talking about the Franklin all over again. Jim had begun to think that for every new ship Starfleet sent out, Kirk and his crew found two more they'd abandoned to stellar phenomena or unusual and strange lifeforms. "Crew retired or reassigned with a false ship name in their record. We don't even know the actual names of the crew. None of it's been officially released."
Jim nodded, mulling the facts over before he finally stood up a bit straighter. "How valuable is holo-technology? From an engineering perspective. Let's say you're a Romulan engineer. Why would you care?"
Scotty turned to face him, then after a long moment slowly sank down into his chair. He grabbed his tea kettle and flipped it back on to heat up the water in seconds before pouring a fresh cup over a new teabag. "Well…" He sighed, leaning back. "Let's see. Ye have holo-technology, ye now now have the ability to create photonic barriers. Imagine how quickly ye can fortify an outpost with a bunch of photonic walls and structures. I mean, the whole idea behind a hologram is that ye just learn how to manipulate a force field into the object ye want and fill it with photons to make it look like somethin'. Ye could hide a secret base if ye had that." Scotty reached over to bob his teabag up and down in the cup idly. "Be a starship searching for lifeforms on a planet and 'Whoops! Nothin' to see here, mates, nothin' but us photonic chickens.'"
Jim had had similar inklings, but hearing it from his chief engineer only confirmed his suspicions. "Let's say you have portable holo-technology you can use planetside. If Jaylah can figure out how to successfully power those types of emitters, does that means you can use it for ships?" He found himself thinking of the old fairground game. "I really don't like the idea of playing a shell game with multiple warbirds."
Scotty's expression darkened. "Oh, aye. Ye'd certainly be lookin' at a whole new level of strategy. I'm no tactician, but once ye figure out how to create stable holograms of size, ye could send out an unmanned probe or shuttle and have it emit the holographic representation of the warbird around it. And they'd all have shields, since by definition - again - force fields are at the core of photonic holograms. Ye'd never know which one was the right one to shoot at until…"
"Until it fired on you…" Jim considered darkly. He had to hope this was all still theoretical, but it sounded all too plausible. "Anything else you can think of?"
"Well, cloaking technology is limited. Ye can't cloak while shields are up because it drains too much power from the cloaking device. Same for weapons systems." Clearly a bit more relaxed, Scotty propped his feet up on his desk. Moments like this, no matter how fraught, reminded Jim that he had the best damn engineer in the galaxy. Mister Scott was unparalleled in his understanding of technology. "In theory, two things make a cloak: One, the visual bending of light so that we simply cannae see them in the viewport; and two, a ship's emissions and sensor readings have to be contained or modulated in such a way that we cannae see them on sensors." He paused before finishing his thought. "If ye had holo-technology that was achievable, ye could switch to a kind of a cloak that used that. Use photonic energy to simulate the space around ye while effectively creating a shield."
"So, that's it. Between that and cloaking technology, that's the arms race." Jim finally remarked. "Whichever one of us gets to it first learns how to outplay and outmaneuver the other within days." He didn't voice it, but he suddenly found himself more concerned about why the Romulans had even been in the Eos system when his shuttle had been shot down. The Themyscirans had hidden their lifesigns, but not the subspace relay...
Scotty nodded, frowning a bit. "Absolutely. And no engineer wants to know their work is gonna be weaponized. And if anyone had ever approached Jaylah about such a proposition, I imagine she would've kicked their teeth in."
"But, that could have been why someone took interest in her. Maybe she got too close to something and they wanted her to stop working." Jim suggested.
Scotty's disgust and anger were obvious. "The only ones who'd want to do that would be people interested in stopping us from getting there. No Admiral in their right mind would want to stop her, unless they had someone else's interests at heart, not the Federation's."
Like the Romulans, Jim thought. Instead of sharing that with Scotty, though, he simply pivoted the conversation a bit. "Did Jaylah ever give you the names of the Admirals and instructors who were interested in her work?"
"Aye, in her communications to me, but ye could just ask her." Scotty shrugged.
"Yeah, but I just told Diana it was fine to have her heads down on this thing. I'd like to know sooner rather than later." Jim tried to play off his concerns. "Just curious as to who took an interest. They might want to know when she figures this out." It was no good getting his crew worked up until he had a theory. Same as he did when Jaylah had been kidnapped, Jim didn't make it a habit of bringing his crew into his own half-baked theories until they were thoroughly cooked and sitting on the counter to cool.
Scotty cleared his throat and considered the request. After a moment, he stood up and went to sip his tea. "Sure. I'll send the names over." His chief engineer didn't seem to be buying Jim's honest curiosity, however. "She's not in danger, is she?"
Jim knew better than to lie, but, he wasn't about to panic him again. So, instead, he chose his words carefully. "As long as she's on the Enterprise, she's in the safest place in the galaxy. Don't worry about her. I'm fine with letting her work through her curiosities. I just wish I knew what Diana had to do with it." He made a mental note to check the Stardate of their mission to Themyscira so he could pull the sensor data and see if anything else struck him. Something else that would have caught their attention without knowing about the planet full of Amazons.
The engineer scoffed, shaking his head. "That woman is a bloody mystery to me, sir. 'Fraid I can't help ye there."
Jim grinned, wide and genuine. "That's all right. Knowing Diana, she'll let me in on the surprise when she's ready. Won't stop me from trying to find out."
Scotty was about to reply, but his attention was drawn elsewhere, somewhere past Jim's shoulder. "Oi! What'd I say? EPS manifolds! Deck three! What're ye bringin' that bloody duranium down here for?" Jim glanced back to see those same ensigns looking a little hapless. They had finished installing the transparent aluminum over the power couplings, but now were holding plates of duranium and headed somewhere towards…. Water purification, it seemed. "Sorry, Jim, I gotta take care of these two." Scotty said, bringing Jim's attention back to him as he set his drink down. "Brand new transfers. They've no idea what day it is most of the time."
"No need to apologize. Take care of our girl." The captain simply replied.
No sooner than Scotty had stepped away, Jim's communicator chirped in his pocket.
Resigned, he cast a glance up at the ceiling, as if he could will the communicator to shut up before he finally pulled it and answered. "Kirk here."
"Dammit, Jim, I'm gettin' the impression you're avoiding me. How come I have Crewman Oviedo saying he just saw you on his way from Engineering when I know for a fact you were supposed to be headed here?"
Jim laughed a bit. The doctor must have been bored. "I had to clear a few things with Scotty, but I'm wrapped up." He was pretty resigned to his fate now. Glancing over to watch Scotty rip his ensigns a new one, he rolled his eyes and turned on his heel to head back to the turbolifts. "On my way."