What's In a Name

by KCS

Five times Nyota Uhura called Jim Kirk something other than Captain, and one time he was glad to return the favor. Gen, will be primarily crew-centric.

3. Chapter 3

Title: What's In a Name
Characters: Kirk, Uhura, various
Rating: T for occasional movie-level violence and language
Word Count: 19,000 (this chapter)

Warnings/Spoilers: Spoilers for all AOS movies, various spoilers for TOS universe elements, no knowledge of which is necessary to understand the story. Specifics footnoted or explained at the end of each chapter.

This chapter, spoilers for my other WIP, A-Haunting We Will Boldly Go, because Reasons.

Summary: Five times Nyota Uhura called Jim Kirk something other than Captain, and one time he was glad to return the favor

A/N: This WIP has been meandering around on my hard drive for quite some time, bits and pieces being added to it here and there, and at the encouragement of some very good writing friends in the LJ/Dreamwidth community I finally have enough of it finished to start posting.

I was floored by the response to this little scribbling; thank you so much, all of you who responded with such lovely comments. I may not get to replying to all of them but I do truly appreciate your time and love reading them, every one. Much love.

---

Being in deep space, for weeks and months on end, will wear on even the most hardened of starship officers. There's a reason that week-long shore leaves are mandated at least once a year for all starship personnel, and why if average crew morale dips below a certain percentage that Medical is required to bring it to the captain's attention. Even the most well-balanced of crewmen can become slightly stir-crazy, remaining shipbound for months on end, which is one reason why even though their mission is uncharted space, Jim insists upon allowing shore leave parties every chance they get on new planets.

He himself gives his Security force fits because he won't stay aboard; but half of that is not out of any rebellious desire to break regulation, but simply because he needs something other than solid duranium and synthacrete under his feet, needs to see a real sky again and breathe non-recycled air. Much as he loves the stars, he sometimes just needs to know the void holds other things in order to keep himself grounded as well. Especially in the months since what they've a little under-dramatically started calling The Khan Incident, he feels a little claustrophobic even on so huge a starship as the Enterprise, if he doesn't get onto solid ground every so often.

There's talk of some new holographic replication technology currently being tested in Starfleet experimental facilities, and intended for starship use someday, which will help with recreation and crew morale during deep space missions like theirs. Holodeck technology, is what its supposedly being called in the scientific journals. Bones and Spock went on and on and on about it and its ramifications for medico-scientific experimentation last night at dinner and he finally tuned them out somewhere around the seventeenth fascinating because seriously, he gave them his full attention for forty minutes like a good friend should and come on, guys. The rest of the table had already made their escape while they could, Spock's own girlfriend included, openly laughing without a shred of mercy at his desperate, silent plea for solidarity as she did so.

Traitor.

But this new tech will help a crew when they can't get shore leave, by giving them more elaborate methods of recreation. A sort of shipboard shore leave, supposedly. If it works, which he's skeptical of, it will be pretty amazing; they'll just have to see which ship being constructed right now will be the first to test it. His money's on the Excelsior, since the kid in line for its captaincy has a rear admiral on the board overseeing the project.

That said, they still have to make their own entertainment aboard the Enterprise with the tools and facilities at their disposal, bereft of such ridiculously advanced technological wonders. He encourages the crew to have social events, form clubs, and in all ways keep the life-blood of the ship running fast and furious, knowing it is the best way to ensure a happy, healthy crew while away from all of their star systems, Sol only one of many.

That does not mean, however, that he appreciates someone starting a prank war below decks, the results of which have somehow managed to work their way up the ranks onto his Bridge. The Bridge is sacred. A safe place. His inner sanctum and royal chambers rolled into one, and his staff know better than to screw with him here.

Or they did, anyway.

Leaning on one elbow, he stares at the computer on his armrest for a second in disbelief, as a series of suspicious coughs sound from the nearest half-dozen officers along with what he assumes is a muttered equivalent of what in the galaxy in Swahili from Communications as switches are flipped on the Linguistics Banks control board. A moment later, Uhura shakes her head at him, indicating the problem's nothing she can see, and he continues his slow half-circle, swiveling his chair around the Bridge and trying to nail the culprit.

Meeting only what appear to be genuinely innocent expressions, he finally gives up and just punches the comm-button with more force than is really necessary.

"Bridge to Engineering. Mr. Scott, who the hell have you been letting tamper with the linguistics banks down there?"

In front of him, Chekov's high-pitched little wheeze of laughter is not very well muffled in his sleeves, and he sees Sulu give their navigator a gentle warning kick to the ankle.

"Uh…no one, to my knowledge, sir. There's no call to be changing anythin' in those databanks, Captain, and they're a sight harder to get to than almost anythin' else down here. Why, may I ask?"

"Because when I told the computer to record a captain's log just now, the recorder on my chair said 'sure thing, Hot Stuff,'" he drawls.

Behind him, Uhura of all people finally loses it. She has one of the most ungirly snort-laughs of anyone he's ever heard, and it's such a rare and hilarious thing to hear in public that even Spock looks taken aback. And maybe a little turned on.

"Uh." There's an awkward cough over the line, and he hides a smile, turning back to the chair comm as his chief of said comms straightens back up, fanning her face with both hands and trying not to look anywhere in his direction. "Well, sir, I can promise that I dinna change anythin' to make it say that. Sir."

"I'm pleased to hear it, Mr. Scott," he says dryly. "I am not pleased about being sexually harassed by my own log computer. Look into that for me, will you?"

"Aye, sir! Right away, sir. Doing it now, sir."

"Bridge out." He shakes his head, pinches the bridge of his nose in exasperation. "If I find out any of you sitting here today is responsible for this?"

"Really, sir," Spock drones, without even looking up from his computer.

"We are not stupid, Keptin. It is wery funny, but we are not so stupid." Chekov ducks a swat upside the head from Sulu, and shrugs. "What, it is funny."

He finally has to laugh himself, and settles back in the chair with a gesture of resigned amusement. "While I agree with you, Mr. Chekov, if we'd had an ambassador on board or worse, an inspecting admiral who happened to hear that? I would not be so forgiving. I'd probably be out a job, and you'd be looking for another captain."

His youngest Bridge member looks slightly abashed, but totally unrepentant, which either means he's responsible (doubtful; like the kid said, he's not stupid) or he just enjoyed the joke way too much.

"Either way, it had better be fixed before this time tomorrow, or I will personally go looking for the hacking signature of whoever is responsible. And I can guarantee whoever did it is not going to be able to hide from the best hacker on this ship. Spread the word, gentlemen, and I'm not joking. Keep your pranks confined below decks."

---

If that had been the only incident, he'd have let it slide with no further thought. It is funny, after all, and while Scotty says he can find no evidence that any of the linguistics banks have been tampered with, the problem appears to "magically" fix itself before beta shift ends, so obviously Jim's threat had come through loud and clear earlier.

But then the rest of it starts.

Bones's colorful opinion of his breakfast draws everyone's attention within a three-table radius the next morning in Officers' Mess. Having all but dozed off again waiting in line for the replicating units to churn out various officers' selections of cereal, replicated eggs and waffles, and the dozen non-human breakfast foods that are low-budget to synthesize wholesale, the swearing is vehement and unexpected enough to scare Jim half to death, whereupon he jumps wide awake for the first time all morning and spills his coffee all over the floor, prompting a helpful rush of eager yeomen armed with a flurry of cleaning supplies.

When the chaos has finally calmed back down, he grabs his own tray and hurries after his CMO, shaking his head in confusion.

"What is your problem?" he demands, flopping down with a huff.

Bones just looks over his own coffee at him, and then shoves a plate sourly across the table, indicating it with the handle of his cup. "Somebody in Engineering's gettin' cute with the food scripts again."

He squints at the plate. "Is that…heart-shaped sausage?"

"If you can call it that. I dunno why I even bother tryin' to eat this, they never have gotten the grits script right. Might as well be eating ration cubes." Bones stabs the sausage heart with a little too much enthusiasm, slicing into it with a surgical precision that's just this shade of maniacal. "What's with the hearts, anyway, did we miss an old lovemaking holiday I don't know about?"

"Not to my knowledge. Valentine's isn't until next winter cycle, and the other major Federation worlds got rid of those stupid romantic holidays a long time ago, thank goodness. The Orions are the only ones who celebrate a Global Day of Passion, and it's not this time of the seasonal cycles. At least that I know of. Oh my God, I could kiss you."

"Try it and you'll be heading to Sickbay with Leonard instead of the Bridge in twenty minutes." Setting a new coffee cup on his tray, Uhura rolls her eyes, but smiles as she keeps moving, obviously on her way to her station but having seen his mishap earlier.

"You're spoiled, Jim."

"Yeah," he says, grinning shamelessly. "So how's come I didn't get pink sprinkles or something on my oatmeal, then, if it's some romantic holiday everybody forgot about?"

"Ugh. I dunno what's goin' on, but if they don't have enough to do in Engineering? I got twenty-four bio-beds that're due for hardware upgrades. Send those young fools up to Sickbay."

"Why're you telling me, it's not like I had anything to do with it. I hate Valentine's Day." One reason why he'd cultivated and over-cultivated a reputation to the contrary in his Academy days, and even his first captaincy months. He's a little (just a little) wiser now.

Dying will do that to a man.

"Besides, it isn't Valentine's Day, or any other romantic Federation day. Maybe one of the engineers is about to propose to somebody, who's getting serious down there?"

"No one, that I know of. There's only sixteen regularly co-habiting couples and one trio among the Engineering and Programming departments, and ten of them are in open relationships, you know they have to disclose all that to Sickbay for psych reasons every time there's a serious status change. Nobody's getting that serious, and with good reason, Jim."

"Yeah," he replies, absently. It's not a good idea, to get too attached out here. They've all learned that the hard way. It takes a lot of commitment, to decide whether or not the gamble is worth the risk.

"Besides, if someone wants to introduce a subroutine into any of the food and drink processors the code has to be cleared through Science and signed off on by Medical first to make sure there's nothin' in there that could kill one of the species on board, and I haven't signed off on anything, Jim."

"I don't think anyone's going to die from reshaping the fake sausage patties, Bones. They're not even real meat."

"I'm not saying they are, Jim. But what if tomorrow some idiot decides to dye the milk pink or something? We have three crewmen who are severely allergic to certain kinds of artificial food coloring!"

He pauses, cup halfway to his mouth, as the implication sets in. This is why his people are so good at their jobs.

"You're right, Bones." He sighs, puts the cup back down undrunk. "I'll find out what's going on and put a stop to it, okay?"

"I'm not tryin' to scare you, Jim. But this is my job."

"I know. And nobody'd do it better."

"Damn right." Jamming the last unfortunate piece of sausage into his mouth, McCoy pauses, then points with his empty fork. "Uh-oh. I thought you were gonna do something about that."

"About what?" He half-turns in his seat, and then cringes, whipping back around with his fingers over his eyes. His 'Fleet-assigned Yeoman, Janice Rand, has become something of a problem in her…overwhelming attention to his every need, to put it nicely. "Ugh. Why, Bones."

"I'm guessin' that means you haven't."

"I haven't had the time! We got waylaid by that side mission to Beta Cerulea, and then I got stuck on Cestus Prime for a week on that stupid board of inquiry, then we've been too busy with the quarterly evaluations, and now we're scrambling to get the shore leave parties rotated out before we have to vacate our spot in orbit tomorrow morning – when would I have had time?"

"I think Uhura would have been glad to do it for you."

He snorts. "It's not her job."

"No, but I'm pretty sure she's tired of tripping over the girl when she leaves Spock's cabin in the mornings. You do know three or four days a week Rand hangs around hoping you'll leave for breakfast or something before she goes on duty?"

"What?" He stares across the table, now very much weirded out. "I did not know that, that's just freaking creepy. And –" He breaks off as McCoy's throat clears in warning, and tries to look normal as the woman in question comes up to their table. "Good morning, Yeoman. What can I do for you?"

"The reports from Requisitions and Transport for the last twelve hours, Captain. You said you wanted to see them twice a day until we leave orbit?"

"So I did." He forces a smile, and takes the padd from her. When she just stands there, he looks back up, eyebrows raised. "Was there something else? I'm afraid I'm not a fast enough reader to go through two hundred pages while you wait, Yeoman."

"Oh. Ah, no, sir."

"Then thank you, you're dismissed."

Janice turns a little pink under her blonde braids but leaves readily enough, perhaps seeing something less tolerant in his expression than he's had up until now. But if what Bones says is true, then she's crossed a line that he has to address immediately. He can't afford to keep putting it off, because it's uncomfortably close to mentally unstable behavior.

Slightly inappropriate advances are to be expected by someone in the lower ranks, because a higher-ranking officer would never initiate the advances and there'd be no way to determine interest otherwise; but stalking is something else. And besides that, he's made it clear more than once to her that he's grown past being a slave to his impulses. There will be no on-board relationships for him while this ship flies, he loves his people too much to risk that.

"How has this not been brought to my attention until now, Bones? If you knew about the lurking in the corridors, that means someone filed a report that flagged you."

"Uhura did, and I'd expect nothing less because that's bordering on stalking behaviors, Jim. But she told me you'd said you were going to deal with Rand yourself, and while she may be willing to cross you if you need an ass-kicking, she respects your authority. God knows why," Bones mutters into his coffee, glaring at the red skirt disappearing out the Mess doors. "Doctor-patient confidentiality, I'm not going to discuss her further with you, Captain, but as the ship's counselor in addition to Chief Medical Officer, my official recommendation would be to leave her here. Transfer her to the Starbase."

"That's horrible, Bones."

"Jim, there's clear documentation in her personnel file from not just Uhura but Scotty too, about her disregard for protocol below decks as well as above. She just…enjoys her privileges, as Captain's yeoman, a little too much. And you've let it go unchecked."

He sighs, massages at both his temples. "How much documentation."

"The fact that you don't know, is a problem, Jim. Lord knows you work harder than anyone on this ship, 'cept maybe Spock, but you have to keep a better tab on people who directly report to you. It's part of bein' a leader."

"God, will you just – stop with the lecture, okay?"

"Nope." Bones cocks an eyebrow over the coffee cup at his exasperated face. "Nobody else on this crazy train is brave enough to tell you when you're being a jackass, so you'll take it from me and deal with it."

"I hate you."

"No you don't."

"I kind of do, right now. Bones, I've never transferred someone to a 'Base posting. That's harsh."

"It's really not, Jim. She has skills, and she has brains, even if she hides them sometimes. She'll qualify for a ship posting within 8 weeks if she plays her cards right with the 'Base branch. And people transfer to 'Base postings all the time; this ship is just an exception to that."

"Exception to what?"

"The normal personnel rotation of a starship. Basically, the Enterprise is known in the Fleet as the one vessel where only way off is to die," Bones replies dryly. "People on other ships transfer on and off all the time in a normal personnel rotation, Jim; it's just that they don't here, that's why this seems harsh to you. Your people are crazy loyal, kid. But that comes at a price sometimes, and booting the ones you have to are part of that price."

"I just…"

"Don't want to do it, I know. It sucks, Jim. But you're gonna have to do things that suck a whole lot more in the next four years, you know."

"Did I say I hate you, yet?"

"Mmhm. Eat your oatmeal."

---

In the end, Janice takes it better than he thought she would. Bones is right, as he always is, damn the man. The girl has brains, actually quite a lot of them, and she knows when to choose a stalemate instead of risking a future checkmate.

She also recognizes that she's being cut a very, very generous offer when she could very easily be given much less.

Jim allows her to write a transfer request and then signs it with high recommendations, and in just under twenty-four hours she's beaming down after the last landing party beams up from shore leave, to take up a position in the Base's branch of Starfleet HQ.

Uhura informs him over breakfast that morning that the next yeoman in line for promotion is Yeoman Theresa Ross, whom he only vaguely remembers from a departmental inspection in Communications a few months back, and when he pulls up her personnel file he sees she voluntarily identifies as an asexual.

Thank gods for that, at least. For once in his life, everybody seems to have caught a break.

At least until a few hours after they leave orbit.

Starbases, especially those on the edge of charted space, are busy places, and so most starships of any size in orbital dock have a set time they are permitted to remain in that dock, due to other ships arriving. As the Enterprise was not scheduled to stop here and did so for needed repairs, she was squeezed into the timetable, so to speak, and so has to vacate the orbital docking platform precisely on schedule due to the Appomattox arriving ten minutes behind her departure with a medical emergency and requiring that space in the orbital dock.

The commander of the base was kind enough to allow the Enterprise crew shore leave in rotations despite the unscheduled stop, but squeezing them all into 48 hours was extremely difficult, and there were more than a few officers who forewent the leave completely, himself and his senior staff included. He's not sure Scotty has even left engineering, overseeing the repairwork being done on the dilithium chambers, and he and Spock have been up all hours trying to finish backlogged crew evaluations.

But almost 700 of their 800-odd crewmen were able to beam down for at least six hours of leave, many of them for the first off-ship leave they've had since the five-year mission began, and he's pleased with that. They have a regular shore leave scheduled in another two months when they return to charted space near a key Neutral Zone checkpoint, but this will only improve morale until then.

Granted, it has created a stupid amount of work for his senior staff now, because every time you have a mass exodus off-ship, there are safety protocols when the crew arrives back on-ship. Scanning for contraband, scanning non-contraband for anything which could be harmful to any of the various species aboard, mandatory medical examinations for anyone who's, well, taken advantage of the local entertainment, let's say. Bones is having a fit because he can't understand how this many of the crew managed to get so busy in only six-hour shifts each, but they are a very young crew, after all.

He tries not to laugh as he reads through another irate, capital-lettered memorandum from Sickbay and then hits Delete instead of Approve, erasing it from the system to cover both their asses. Bones has got to stop hitting Send instead of Save when he's pissed at someone, because if Jim didn't actually read this stuff it'd go straight to Command, choice language and all.

It makes for a somewhat amusing change of pace from the reports from Engineering he's been slogging through, the majority of which are about strange power fluctuations Scotty's been seeing but has been unable to pinpoint with any accuracy since they left the base. Uhura had been seeing the same fluctuations across the comms grid when they should have dropped off after hitting warp speed, and so he'd sent her and Spock too down to Engineering to have a look at the programming; he wants no more repeats of any unidentified power surges as they did before leaving Terra on their launch eve.

And, as usual, he jinxes them with just the thought.

The turbolift breaks down, trapping them both inside, and while less competent officers who are involved might take advantage of the opportunity it only pisses these two particular officers off. His ears are still burning with the choice Romulan language Uhura was muttering in the background during Spock's call, informing him it would be approximately ninety minutes before Scott had the lift running again.

Spock returns to the Bridge via a working turbolift fifty-eight minutes later, Scotty obviously fearing Nyota's wrath far more than breaking a few rules of physics in reaching the fused emergency hatch in the lift's roof. Uhura had continued back down to Engineering to look at the communications array, but Spock explains he believes his time is better spent on the Bridge, utilizing his own more powerful computer to see if perhaps the Enterprise's data banks might be housing a virus of some kind.

"A virus?" he asks, incredulous. Spock nods, already typing furiously on his computer, windows flying up at a dizzying rate. "Aren't we firewalled like, heavier than even you or I could get past?"

"Negative. Starfleet's highest security protocols, Priority One, can and have been hacked in the past by individuals possessing a Level Five computer programming ability, which both of us possess. Before installation, the M-5 computer's firewalls were tested against my own abilities, and while I was unable to penetrate them in a ten-hour period, that does not mean they are impenetrable by mechanical or other means."

"And we don't exactly have the M-5 prototype anymore, thanks to you," he replies in an amused undertone. "Just its subroutines in the databanks."

Spock's eyebrow inclines in acknowledgment, though his eyes never leave the computer. "A virus would be a logical explanation for the slight, one might call them glitches, in the algorithms controlling systems in Engineering. Such a virus could have been introduced unintentionally, perhaps by faulty programming in one of the new hardware modules installed during our repairs at the Starbase. Or, it could have been installed intentionally, which would indicate an entirely different set of motives and perpetrators."

"Well that's just fabulous."

"As I said, it is a conjecture only. But if it is there, we must locate and destroy it before more vital systems than have been affected begin showing signs of malfunctions."

He sighs, and straightens back up, hand on Spock's chair. "Well, if anyone can find it, you can. Let me know when you want me to spell you, yeah?" Beta shift is about to take over for alpha, but they both know Spock won't leave until he finds what he's looking for. Spock nods absently, already engrossed in a window of coding that gives even Jim a headache, and he rolls his eyes, switches duty roster over to DeSalle, who's taking command for beta today. DeSalle has been briefed on the weirdness by Scotty, apparently, so that's that.

Hopefully, the rest of the evening will just be the normal weirdness that follows this ship around.

---

Yeah, not so much.

Spock is still in, like, the exact same position, to the inch, that Jim left him, meaning he has literally been working this entire time without a break. DeSalle glances up as Jim enters the Bridge, then does a double take.

"Evening, Mr. DeSalle. How's she running?"

"No other issues, Captain." The man looks a bit nervous. "Is everything all right, sir?"

"Other than the weirdness happening on the recreation deck right now, everything's fine, Mr. DeSalle."

"Sir?"

"We have twenty-seven crewmen currently being treated in Sickbay for various stages of allergic reaction because someone thought it would be amusing to create what I'm told is an artificial Aldebaran night-lily garden in Rec Room Two. I wasn't even aware that we had a replication script written for those particular flowers, but apparently we do. And apparently it includes a very active strain of very realistic flower pollen."

DeSalle blinks. "Besides just being wasteful, sir…how the very devil would you get that many smuggled through the ship without being seen? The things are nearly as big as a man's head!"

"When you find out, let me know, Mr. DeSalle." He mutters with a helpless gesture. "At any rate, I'm going to stay up here for a few more hours in case of emergencies. You're more than welcome to work the Engineering station, or if Mr. Scott could use you below you can join him; wherever you're most needed to figure out what's going on with these bizarre malfunctions."

"Aye, Captain. If you intend to take the chair, then I'd be happy to get back to the systems below, sir. We're rewiring the comms board from scratch under Lieutenant Uhura's direction, sir."

"Ah. Best not keep her waiting, then. If she's able to break away, though, ask her if she'd return to the Bridge for me?" If anyone has a shot at dragging Spock away, it'll be her, and he needs to make sure she's not overstretching herself as well – two birds with one stone.

"Yes, sir." The young man bobs his head, hastily records the duty change in the log, and then fairly skips into the lift, no doubt pleased to be returning to his own domain early.

Jim pauses by Spock's chair, leans down slowly so as to not abruptly initiate personal-bubble-contact. "Dude, have you moved at all, in six hours?"

"It would be impossible to type computer codes without moving one's fingers, Captain."

"You know what I mean. Go get a salad or something."

"I am not in need of sustenance at this time."

"Ugh, you're impossible. Fine, what've you found?"

"Nothing."

"Seriously?"

Spock spares him a side eye-roll. "Captain, are you aware of how extensive the databanks are for the Enterprise's central computing core alone?"

"Yes, Commander, I am. I am also aware that the probability of a virus being loaded directly into those banks is extremely low due to the difficulty in introducing it past a level five firewall and the necessary retinal scan on four different checkpoints just for access to the outer level of code alone. Now, introducing it at the junction point between the central core and the memory banks, that's a different story. Those firewalls are stupid easy to crack if you know what you're looking for, although the memory banks aren't the best place to plant a virus because it's not as easily triggered."

Spock pauses mid-type and turns to look at him, eyes narrowed. "You believe the virus to be conditionally dormant, rather than consistently active?"

"It would have to be dormant sometimes, because Scotty's too good to not see it when he's directly examining the core. And if it's powerful enough to shut the lights off on the Bridge and stop a lift, then it has to be visible when it's active."

"Your supposition has merit." His First turns back around and begins shutting down windows, rebooting certain ones with different algorithms, brows drawn and already obviously a million lightyears away, lost in thought.

"Well, thank you, Mr. Spock." He grins, and slides off the counter, patting the back of Spock's chair instead of the man himself, because that's Not Cool for a telepathic species, even if at this point Spock probably wouldn't care; he wants to make sure the rest of the crew follow a good example.

He takes a stroll around the Bridge, greets a few beta crewmen he rarely interacts with, pauses here and there to take a look at a station. Stands for a few minutes in front of the viewscreen, watching the simulated stars as they flow liquidly by in a time-delayed representation of what they'd look like if the ship were not at warp and just traveling at a rapid sublight speed through the beautiful void of space.

Finally, he smiles at the beta pilot and navigator, who are obviously trying to sit ridiculously straight and tall under his scrutiny when they have to be bored out of their minds on this sleepy evening shift, and moves back around the Bridge. Looks again at what Spock is doing, receives a warning side-glance of buzz off Jim, and raises his hands, backs away with a grin.

Behind him, the turbolift whirs briefly and the doors open, revealing his Comms Chief, ponytail slightly askew and looking more than a little tired as she relieves the redshirt manning Comms.

He strolls over, opens his mouth, and snaps it shut again as she lifts one finger, pointing it at his face.

"Do not start with me. Sir." She glances over at a blinking light on the comms board, rolls her eyes, flips two switches and presses a red button before looking back at him. "Under regulations I have the right to personally oversee any shipwide operations which directly affect Communications, regardless of whether or not they fall within my normal duty hours." Another light starts blinking, and she turns away, types something rapidly and presses it, shutting off the light before turning back around. "I was not about to let that Riley kid rewire the master circuit board without direct oversight, thanks very much."

He clears his throat. "I was just going to ask if you could try to get him off the Bridge to eat something, but that's all good to know," he says in amusement, jerking a thumb over his shoulder at the oblivious figure of his First Officer.

She blinks. "Oh."

"Also, we have three days before we reach the Janus system, you don't have to get the repairs done in one day. Don't overwork yourself. I need you here on the Bridge at 100% during your shifts."

"Understood."

"I'll sic Bones on you if I have to."

"I hardly deserve that, Captain," she replies dryly, flicking another switch and rapidly pressing a series of buttons to send the comm across the board. "Give me five minutes to clear this backlog and I'll get him off the Bridge, sir."

He smiles, and moves back down the steps to the command dais. He might as well do some paperwork. Joy.

His padd waits for him on the chair, beckoning with that annoying Red Light of Doom that means he has a bazillion reports waiting for signature. He's just about to grab it when something snaps, then pops loudly to his right.

He looks over, and sees the Environmental Control engineer yelp and wave a small puff of smoke away from his console. Great, another malfunction.

"Careful, Mr. Mercer," he sighs. "Move to Ensign Li's station, she won't be back until alpha shift tomorrow. I don't want anyone touching that console until Scotty takes a look at it, just in case."

"Aye, Captain." The young man nods cheerfully and moves over two consoles, promptly getting back to work as if nothing had happened.

"Lieutenant Uhura, shoot Scotty an incident report on that, will you?"

"Yes, Captain."

"Thanks." He sighs, and reaches for the comm button on his armrest to ask for a status report from Engineering.

And then –

It's like something from a holo-vid, because he's never seen anything quite like it and hopes he never will again, but it's happening and he can't move away and holy hells, this is going to hurt

His hand hasn't quite touched the controls yet, but there's actual honest-to-God like, lightning, arcing out of them right at his hand

Not good

Freezing his fingers in place and instantly locking up every muscle in an immediate, horrible jolt of suffocating pain that steals his breath and for a second, his brainpower

is his brain even still working?

The quiet chirps of consoles and instruments float around in a frozen sort of unreal moment of peace

then blood starts pounding so loud in his ears that he can't hear much of anything else and Jesus, why can't he pull his hand away, it feels like he's been frozen here for hours and why hasn't somebody seen something's wrong

and now he's starting to get lightheaded

although that could be because his lungs are, you know, locked up so tight

he can't even scream

Though his hand's on fire, the rest of him starts turning awfully, horribly cold and sick. The pounding in his ears shifts to an eerie ringing, tinny and nauseating, and great, he's about to pass out again. What is this, the eighth time something's almost killed him on this very Bridge?

Ninth?

He'd really like to see the tenth, you know.

Something blindsides his shoulder like a freight train.

The burn in his hand stops, fingers suddenly as numb as the rest of him. The Bridge tips abruptly on its side, and he drops like a rock into something a whole lot warmer and softer than he was expecting, and a lot louder.

God, this crew yells a lot. He's pretty sure Bones can hear that Code Gold being belted out twelve decks down without the comms system, even if only patches of it are filtering muzzily through the haze to him.

"…hell just happened!"

"…Scott, cut off all power to…command chair on the Bridge…further notice."

"Sickbay says ETA four minutes, Lieutenant!"

"…lemen, switch your consoles to auxiliary power immediately…vent further incidents. Captain. Captain."

Someone's hand is on his face, and Christ Almighty, only Spock's fingers are ever that cold. If his brain would actually start sending signals again to the rest of him, he could tell the guy thanks but no thanks for actually foregoing the I have a fifteen-meter personal space bubble rule.

"Captain, can you hear me?"

"Lieutenant, I have the doctor for you, on audio!"

"McCoy to Bridge, someone up there talk to me!"

"Doctor, the captain has sustained a prolonged electrical shock from a live current, voltage unknown."

Wow, Bones needs to stop swearing on open channels. They're recorded, you know.

"Is he breathing?"

Something shifts his head, there's not quite as cold fingers on his neck, hair brushes his face briefly.

"He's breathing, Spock. Pulse slow but steady."

"Yes, Doctor. His pulse appears to be below the normal rate for a human, but not irregular, and he does not seem to have sustained more than moderate burns on his left hand."

"Thank God. Okay, is he conscious?"

"Negative."

"Is he responsive at all?"

"Negative."

"Hold that thought," he mutters, trying to move a finger on the hand that doesn't feel like it's still on fire.

The words are so slurred he's shocked they even get out of his mouth, but apparently brain-damaged sound is better than no sound at all, because one of his crewmen gives this weird little delighted screech that is like nails on broken glass to his pounding head.

His uninjured hand's picked back up by someone, and he manages to clench his fingers around it, trying to ground himself back in the land of the living. When your brain's been turned into scrambled eggs, it's not as easy as it sounds, okay.

"Doctor, he appears to be responding, but not entirely coherent." Spock's voice from somewhere overhead, and he sounds almost…happy, about that.

It's freaking weird.

"I'll take it. Look, see if you can get him aware of his surroundings, don't let him move and I'll be there in just a second. And whatever he touched, nobody else touch it, for God's sake. McCoy out."

"Captain?" A voice that's too far away and too timid to be attached to the strong hand he finally lets go of is probably one of the beta crewmen; this is way more excitement than they ever see, and he's probably scared everyone half to death.

Welcome to the Bridge, gentlemen.

He blinks unsteadily for a second at a hazy ceiling, and decides that's not worth the effort, sorry, bye.

"Captain. It would be best if you regained alertness prior to the Doctor's arrival on the Bridge."

He hears a snort that can only come from Uhura, and if his face wasn't still frozen he would laugh.

Gee, you think, Spock?

He tries again, eyelids fluttering until they can stay open without that annoying twitching. Finally, everything starts to focus, and he blinks a familiar face and haircut into view.

"Y'r bedside manner sucks."

His First's eyebrows disappear into his hairline as he sits back on his heels, relief shining in those dark eyes.

"What…happened?" he murmurs, trying to turn his head. Something stops him, thankfully, because the aching pain it produces, all over, would be much worse if they hadn't.

Ah. Uhura's not having any part of his stupidity. Good girl.

"Apparently some kind of electrical buildup had occurred in your chair's armrest controls, Captain. Upon coming into contact with the arc you were subject to an electrical current which caused intense muscular contractions, not permitting you to pull away."

"Sorry sir, it took us a good second to even realize something was wrong," Mercer pipes up from somewhere to his left.

"Not…your fault, guys." He closes his heavy eyes for a minute, then re-opens them, frowning. "But…how'd I get off it, then?"

"It was awesome, Captain!" The Farosi lieutenant from Hydroponics enthuses, all six arms waving in excitement.

"Not…from my angle, 't wasn't," he replies dryly.

Mercer coughs to cover a laugh. "He means to say, Captain, that it was Mr. Spock who stopped Johannsen here from grabbing you and just making himself into another piece of human toast."

Ew.

"Gross, Mercer!" His head jostles as Uhura thwaps the young engineer on the arm.

"Sorry, Lieutenant. Uh. That's to say, Captain. Mr. Spock prevented a secondary incident with the electrical current."

Right, conductivity. "Wait, there's like…nothing on this Bridge that doesn't conduct electricity, guys." He blinks back at Spock, who only raises an eyebrow. "Oh, no. What the hell did you break this time."

A round of nervous titters goes around the circle.

He groans, and raises a trembling hand to his eyes. "You're kidding me. What was it."

"The science screen. Sir."

"The what?! Ow, God." Pain shoots through his very eyeballs as his vehemence sends blood rushing back to numb extremities. "Please tell me you're joking."

"He had to, sir." Mercer's eyes are wide with earnesty. "We had to have something big enough to knock your hand away that wouldn't conduct the current, and there's like, nothing on the bridge that's not got synthesteel or durasteel in it except the viewscreen and our console screens. Commander Scott's written a paper in the Starfleet Engineering Journal about the fact that it's a potential safety concern. Even our uniforms are replicated from organic, partially plant-based materials, they're still conductive. The only thing we could actually get at in time was the free-standing screen, sir. It broke right down the middle easy enough. No electronics damage, just the syntheglass. It was like a big shield to just sort of…plow you over, sir."

"Oh my God. Spock, you're costing me a fortune here."

Spock looks totally unrepentant about the fact, and is saved from any further discussion by the eruption of McCoy and a trio of nursing techs onto the Bridge. Spock budges a scant few inches, taking up a position by his head, and Bones is shifting his head off of Uhura's lap and fussing like a paranoid parent before he even gets situated, making Jim smile despite the fact that he feels like he's just been in a shuttle wreck.

"All right, all of you need to get back to your stations, he's fine," the doctor declares, shooting a fearsome glare around the circle of worried faces. "Give him some breathing room, for God's sake. And get that piece of…is that the Science station? I don't want to know, just get it outta my way."

A chorus of sheepish apologies and scramble away from the medical wrath is promptly heard as twelve pairs of Starfleet-issue uniform boots hastily move out of his line of vision. There's a small crash as the cleanup crew gets to work obviously rectifying the mess they've now made of a major Bridge console and the upright half of Spock's workstation. He moves one hand as much as he can and weakly smacks Bones's leg.

"Be nice, Bones."

"I'm givin' the orders here. All right, thank you, Nurse. I think we'll be fine, just leave the kit here. How do you feel, Jim."

"Like I got hit by a Vulcan hovercraft."

Bones squints at him in confusion, and Spock honest-to-God rolls his eyes. Behind them, the turbolift closes on the medical techs who have been so abruptly dismissed, and while he appreciates not having more witnesses to this mess, he makes a note to thank them later when he can actually see straight.

"He bulldozed me with a piece of the freestanding science screen apparently," he clarifies. Indignant, his First opens his mouth to defend himself, only to pause when a sloppy arm-pat comes his way. "I'm kidding, Spock. You might have saved my brain from becoming mush."

"These readings say the voltage wasn't quite that high, but you'd've still gotten some nasty burns, and probably residual muscular contractions for a day or two, maybe minor nerve damage if the current hadn't got cut off when it did," McCoy says, reading the tricorder with an absent frown. "As it is, you're gonna feel like crap for a while, no doubt about it, but I'm not seeing any sign of nerve damage now. Soon as I get this hand bandaged and some regen gel on it you'll be in decent shape, actually. Hold still, Jim. Can you hold the end of this for me, Lieutenant? That's it, thanks. You breathing all right, Jim?"

He nods, inhaling obediently to demonstrate as Bones starts making a hasty bandage around the damaged hand, the coolness of regen gel immediately numbing it from wrist to fingertip, thank goodness. "I couldn't for a second there when I hit the ground, but it's fine now, Bones. Seriously." He takes a deep breath and struggles to his good elbow, then finally makes it to a sitting position only to end up leaning heavily against the doctor's shoulder for a second as every muscle in his body cramps up all at once. "Okay, fine's maybe an overstatement."

Spock's been doing this weird little awkward jazz hands thing as if he wants to try and help but has no real idea how, and now shifts uncomfortably in place.

"Okay, I don't think I want to wait for Scotty to get up here and investigate…nrgh. Stop moving for a minute, Bones."

"That, I would have assumed was a foregone conclusion, Captain." Spock looks at him like he's grown a second head. "Doctor, are you able to accompany the captain back to his quarters?"

"I will accompany him to Sickbay and nowhere else," McCoy retorts, packing up the medical tricorder and shock kit that had (thankfully) ended up being unnecessary.

He flicks a pleading glance at his First.

"Is that entirely necessary, Doctor? Unfortunately, we are still in the middle of crew evaluations, which are not able to be discussed in the hearing of subordinates and cannot be delayed. Within the privacy of the captain's quarters, I can assure you I will ensure he remains under your medical directives while the evaluations are completed and submitted to Starfleet Command."

He stares at his First for a second in blank disbelief, then quickly schools his expression as Bones looks back his direction.

McCoy glares at them both, and finally sighs. "Jim, are you sure –"

"Seriously, Bones, I just hurt all over right now and I'm nauseated. No heart issues, no breathing problems. Just got zapped, that's all."

"Okay, fine. But if I find out you were screwin' around in there instead of resting and just doing paperwork –"

"You won't, I promise."

"Let me call Sickbay to meet me there with an electrolyte drip and no, that's not optional, shut your mouth Jim. Then we'll go." He wavers slightly but manages to stay sitting as Bones hauls himself wearily to his feet and moves over to the Comms station with Uhura, then turns to his First.

"What if he checks the outbox and sees we finished those evaluations twelve hours ago?"

Spock offers him the equivalent of a Vulcan shrug. "I believe your human expression is, your problem, not mine."

He tries not to laugh, because ow, but he loves how this supposedly unemotional alien can make him feel better at the weirdest times.

"Okay, Jim. You good to walk, or you need me to –"

"Yeah, no, I am walking if it takes me all day," he mutters in annoyance, struggling to get sluggish feet underneath him. Spock finally just hauls him upright at a speed that makes his lunch threaten a reappearance, and his eyes almost roll back in his head, leaving him grabbing at anything he can see to prevent both from happening.

"Not. Helping," he grits out through clenched teeth, eyes closed.

"Stop whining and let go of him, then," Bones's amused voice behind him, and a poke between the shoulder blades.

"Doctor, you are not ameliorating the situation in any way."

"The hell does that even mean, you green-blooded –"

"Guys, for real, I'd rather not hurl on my own Bridge. Little help here." His other arm's pulled with unusual gentleness over McCoy's shoulder, and once his stomach settles he exhales, lifting his head with an effort. "Spock, did you –"

"Switch all remaining systems to auxiliary power until the problem has been identified, yes, Captain. Mr. Scott should already be on his way to the Bridge with a team to ascertain what caused the overload in your chair controls, and there is no sign of any further such malfunction now that the rest of the Bridge has been shut down to auxiliary power."

He gives a tired smile. "Why did I bother asking."

"'Cause you're a damn control freak, that's why," McCoy mutters, pulling him unceremoniously toward the turbolift.

"I will remain to apprise Mr. Scott of the situation and then update you accordingly, Captain."

He nods, too tired to do much else, and gives a thumbs-up to the rest of the Bridge crew who are trying surreptitiously to eavesdrop on whatever they can. "Thanks, guys. Look, be careful with your equipment, okay? Anything that even looks weird, you back off and call Engineering, got it?"

A chorus of hearty affirmatives and good wishes follows him into the lift, cut off by the closing of the doors.

Finally.

"Deck Five. Override all other stops, voice authorization McCoy, Leonard H., Chief Medical Officer. What is happening on this ship, Jim?"

"I wish I knew, Bones." He sighs, leans back against the cold walls of the lift. "I wish I knew."

---

Bones slips something into that freaking electrolyte drip, or else the shock to his system is just a little too much even for him and his brain decides it's going to take itself offline for a while, because he apparently falls asleep long before Spock and Scotty finish on the Bridge, long enough that he sleeps all the way through the rest of ship's night and early morning too.

He blinks awake when the lights on the ceiling brighten suddenly to ship's day settings according to the automated Federation day rotation, something that never happens because he always wakes up before 0700 hours. What on earth…

Groaning, he flops an arm over his face. "Lights, ten percent." They obediently darken again, and there's an immediate startled exclamation and a crash on the other side of his sleeping partition.

Whoops. Obviously he has a babysitter, and he just ordered the whole cabin's lights down. Snickering to himself, he rolls to a sitting position, notes with annoyance the fact that Bones has a freaking medical bracelet on him, for gods' sake why, and orders the lights back up.

A dark head pokes around the corner, and Uhura glares at him.

"How do you manage to piss people off before you even see them in the mornings?"

He tries not to laugh, because he knows that look, and obviously she's not had her coffee yet.

"Sorry. In my defense, I thought I was done having crew-women stalk me in my own cabin, so."

"You wish. Someone had to make sure you didn't randomly die on us during the night. I drew the short straw."

"I feel the love." Where the hell is his shirt? "Uh…you mind?"

"Nothing I haven't seen before, but there's enough rumors on this ship already." She disappears around the corner. "Before you ask, McCoy put that bracelet on you when he left here around 2300 hours, once he was sure you weren't going to do more than drool all night."

"I do not!" He tugs a fresh tunic over his head with a wince; he still feels like he's been run over by a hovercraft. And he's getting a little dizzy. Great.

"I literally could not care less about your hygienic sleeping habits, Captain."

He reaches shakily for the bed and collapses on the foot of it, head spinning. Okay, that's probably why Bones had the monitor on him, a clear sign that he's not going back on duty today.

"How long does it take to put on a shirt, anyway?" She peers around the corner, takes one look at his face, and winces. "That bad?"

"Yeah," he admits, exhaling slowly. He leans forward, rests his head in his hands for a second. "This may have been a mistake."

"You think, sir?"

"I do, sometimes." He manages a grin and stands back up, inhaling slowly until the dizziness dissipates, leaving only nausea behind. "Okay, let's do this. When is the briefing for Janus IV, again?"

"Uh, no. Sit your ass back on that bed or at least the couch. And nowhere else."

"You're on thin ice, Lieutenant."

"And you're on medical leave, Captain. For twenty-four hours at least." She points to the couch across the room. "Don't make me call Spock."

"You're going to have to, we have a call with the Admiralty in less than two hours!"

"No, you don't."

"Uh, yeah we do."

"Not if the comms systems are being rewired, you don't." She smirks. "Shame we had to start on the primary reception dish this morning in order to stay on schedule with the re-installations."

He looks at her in horrified awe.

"What. It needed to be done."

"Like, next year sometime, not right now!"

"Well, I don't think Admiral Decker's going to know that, do you?" she demands, giving him a none-too-gentle push toward the couch and handing him his data-padd on the way. "Besides, until we track down this virus it's not going to hurt anything to do system restores."

He collapses on the seat, grunting as every muscle flashes fire through his overtaxed nervous system. "Still looking for it, is he?"

"Still sitting in the same place I left him eight hours ago," she sighs, perching on the armrest of the other chair. "I hate when he gets like this."

He opens his mouth to apologize, because technically Spock's latest freak-out is due to his close encounter of the electric kind, but she waves the words away, shaking her head. "It's not you. I just…don't know how to help him, sometimes. We're too different, Captain. Sometimes I just don't think we work."

"Look, Lieutenant…" He scrubs a hand down his face. "Nyota, I'm like, the worst qualified person to comment on what constitutes a healthy relationship, but it looks to me like you're giving him what he needs right now. I know it's not how you want to give it, but that's not how he's wired, you know that. So you are helping. Probably better than anyone else would. Most girlfriends would be bitching his pointy ears off about not being taken to breakfast by now. Or something."

She snorts, then laughs, kicking him lightly with a high-heeled boot. "Your diplomatic skills are improving, Captain. That was almost beautiful."

He folds his arms, sulking.

"But thanks." She slides off the armrest, smiling for real now. "Now if I could just convince him to at least take a walk or something before he just becomes one with that desk chair…"

"Leave that to me." He heaves himself to his feet, ignores her incredulous look, and stumbles over to his desk, whereupon he collapses into the chair and flips the computer on, hits the comm-switch.

Spock's voice filters over the channel a moment later, obviously surprised. "Captain. I was given to believe you would not be in this stage of recovery until later this morning."

"Yeah, well, Bones always underestimates my drug tolerance. And it's amazing what actually sleeping at night will do for you, you know."

"Indeed."

Uhura hisses from behind him. "Captain –"

"Shhhh!" He motions for her to stay quiet, as he re-opens the channel. "But I'm starving, you want to go get breakfast? You can catch me up on the Janus mission."

"Captain, Doctor McCoy has given strict instructions that you are under medical observation for twenty-four hours. Those were the terms of your agreement with him, though I was of the opinion at the time you were already under enough sedation you were unlikely to remember said agreement."

Great, he was talking while drugged off his ass, that's never a good thing. At least it wasn't to anyone but the two of them; they know better than to let him do that in front of even the most trustworthy of other crewmen since he has trust issues bigger than a Dreadnaught-class starship.

"Yeah, well, he's probably still asleep, he'll never know. And I took that stupid medical bracelet off, anyway."

"I will not be complicit in such a deception, as I am certain you are aware the doctor has his own methods of revenge where my physiology is concerned."

"Oh, come on!"

"Negative."

"But Spock, seriously, I'm starving. Remember, we skipped breakfast and midday yesterday to get those evals done."

"Do you not have a yeoman for such tasks, Captain."

"Seriously, you want to start that mess up again?"

"I doubt Yeoman Ross has such designs upon your person, sir."

"I don't want my crew to see me like this, Spock." His last trump card, the guy's more stubborn than usual when Jim can't use visual and the power of shameless begging aka puppy eyes. "Please."

An audible sigh. "Remain in your cabin, Captain."

"Yessssss."

Definite amusement, this time; he's totally won. "I will not be procuring the items which have been locked out of your meal card by Doctor McCoy."

"Dude, I'd eat that nasty Vulcan cereal you like at this point, I'm starving. You're a lifesaver, Spock." He makes frantic motions pointing toward the door, then takes his finger off the comm. "Well, get down there if you want it to look like you were already there eating when he gets there!"

Uhura's eyes widen briefly, and she makes quick work of her sloppy ponytail on her way to the door. "I owe you one, Captain."

"Yeah, yeah, you can name your firstborn after me. What's the Vulcan word for Jim?"

"Flekh'pi-maat," she calls over one shoulder as she hurries out the door.

He frowns, slowly parsing that together, then scowls.

"Hey!"

---

Twenty-four hours is a long time, at least when you're used to working a twelve-hour shift and then some, and before six hours of enforced leave is past he's climbing the walls and driving literally everyone on his command staff so nuts that Bones lets him back on his computer to at least work remotely from his cabin.

Scotty hadn't been able to find anything wrong with either his chair or Mercer's console on the Bridge, and after running full diagnostics on all systems, the crew went back to work and had no further problems. (Other than the fact that Scotty called to let him know that it was raining in Shuttle Bay Two. Raining, when the fire suppressant system aboard ship doesn't use water. He's not even trying to explain that one.) The fact that it's unexplained bothers him, as do all of these other bizarre happenings on the ship, and a rampant virus is looking more and more likely.

The occurrences are too methodical, too…intentional, to be accidents, so someone had to have deliberately planted a virus if that's indeed the source. And if you're going to plant a virus in a starship computer's memory banks, it's got to have a purpose beyond replicating stupidly shaped food and delivering mild injuries to unsuspecting crewmen.

It just doesn't make any kind of intelligent sense, and most viruses do. That's part of the problem; Spock can't find it, and that might be why. The guy's brilliant, but he thinks linearly, like a computer himself. If this thing has a purpose beyond the usual, it might be harder for someone like Spock to locate.

Jim has sixteen hours to kill, and a different approach; maybe human intuition will succeed where Vulcan genius just can't quite make the leap.

Spock and Bones come in to check on him after beta shift is over, obviously suspicious of the fact that he's been quiet all day. They're probably checking to make sure he's still breathing at least, and stop just inside the door. He can fairly feel the stares boring a hole into the back of his computer terminal.

"What." He doesn't have time for a critique of his methods, okay, it may not be an elegant system but it works for him.

"Uh…Jim. What are you doing."

He looks up from the main screen, glances around, and wow, yeah, it probably does look a little mad scientist-y in here.

"Hey, I was going to call you guys in a few, come look at this." He points at the screen with a stylus, then leans over to look at one of the six padds that are balanced precariously on various items all over his desk, all running separate programs.

"Jim. This is not what I meant by 'light paperwork'."

"Yeah yeah yeah, Bones, I get it – Spock, take a look at this." He grabs one of the padds and shoves it under his First's nose. Spock's eyes cross briefly before he takes the instrument with a patient sigh and moves it to a more suitable distance, scanning the lines with crazy Vulcan rapidity. Jim watches as his gaze narrows, then goes back to re-read the code with more attention.

"I'm not imagining that, am I?"

"You are not."

"I thought so." One of the padds beeps at him, and he grabs it. "Look, it just showed up again, this time in the cultural icons databanks. I wrote a scanning program to flag it every time it appears somewhere in the records banks for the last week."

"Fascinating."

"And I've already found markers in the Xenosociological, Xenobio, and Arts and Literature banks."

"Found what, Jim!" Bones is about to explode, basically.

Jim turns around, and indicates for Spock to share the data-padd. "What's that look like to you, Bones?"

McCoy takes the instrument and squints at it, gradually losing annoyance as he scans the information. "Looks like…Jim, this looks like genetic sequencing code, like I use in brainwave and genetic regrowth simulations. But it's not like any I've ever seen, there's some bizarre complex neural chains in here that don't make any kind of sense written like this."

"Precisely, Doctor."

Jim taps the stylus against the desk. "That's showing up all through our memory banks, Spock. Nowhere in anything like our weapons systems or crucial operations systems that I've found yet, but everywhere in anything that could remotely be educational in learning about us."

"Holy…Jim, are you saying what I think you're saying?"

"Commander, am I totally out of my mind here?"

"I do not believe so, Captain. We have been attempting to locate a virus in the Enterprise's key computing banks, when this appears to indicate that in reality we have somehow acquired a sentient or at least intelligent life form within those banks, which by choice or design is inhabiting our software and informational storage systems."

"Or the computer itself developed sentience. That's a freaky thought."

"I doubt that, Captain. This seems far too specifically targeted to be a computer-wide issue. And surely, there would be more indication of such a powerful sentience than these markers."

"Okay, so…some life-form, that, what, is pure electrical energy? Does that even make sense, with the laws of science as we know them? This is totally not my area of expertise."

"It is theoretically possible, Captain. There have been such non-carbon-based life-forms discovered in the galaxy, the inhabitants of the Patros system being one. They survive in a nearly pure plasma environment, which our scientific research team has yet to fully understand, and they are to our understanding at least possessing a rudimentary intelligence."

"Do you think whatever this thing is, has malevolent intent?"

"If we're saying it's responsible for all the malfunctions that've been happening aboard, it's landed a couple dozen of the crew in my Sickbay and electrocuted you last night, isn't that enough?" Bones demands.

"Wait a minute, Bones." Jim holds up a hand, thoughtful. "If it wanted to kill me, all it would've had to do was up that voltage a little more. Definitely not hard to do, if it's an electrically-based life form. And if you're talking about the stupid night-lily garden, there's definitely easier ways to hurt the crew than inducing asthma attacks with flowers from a planet we don't even have a crewman from aboard."

"Agreed. However, malfunctions aboard ship have not been confined to those two incidents, sir."

"No, you're totally right, and we have no idea if they're even connected; like I said, I haven't found any kind of operational traces of this thing. We need to figure out what among these malfunctions is just coincidence and what's actually related."

"That should be fairly easy to do if the entity's energy signature is evident in the computer records logging the incidents."

"They're corrupted in most cases, I already spot-checked. We can run a full analysis on the minor ones but the major ones, the code's unreadable."

Spock's eyebrow frown is hilariously annoyed.

"Anyway, regardless of its intentions, I need Uhura if we're going to figure out how to communicate with it, be it ghost in the machine or just machine. Get someone to take over the Bridge and have the command staff meet me in Briefing Room Two in twenty minutes."

"Yes, Captain."

"I'm going back on duty whether you clear me or not, Bones. If we have an unidentified life form aboard this ship somewhere, then it's my duty to make a First Contact."

"I know, I know. Go on, get. But if you overdo it, you're not gonna like bein' embarrassed in front of your entire command crew when I cart your ass back to Sickbay, fair warning."

"Duly warned. Now come on, Doctor, we have a new friend to make."

---

He rubs his eyes with the fingers of one hand. "Run that by me again, Scotty."

"I dinna know how, sir, and I would swear none o' my people are responsible. Who has the time on this bloody ship to do such a thing, and who would want to!"

"If they do have time? I'm firing you."

"Aye, and ye'd be perfectly right to, sir! This is a bloody mess, is what it is!"

"Gentlemen, while no doubt humanly therapeutic, this is hardly productive to the problem at hand," Spock says dryly, without even looking up from the computer where he's leaning over McCoy's shoulder as they try to splice the genetic sequencing portion of the Medical mainframe into the Science database, obviously with varying degrees of success. "Doctor, that is not going to –"

"I'm not done yet!"

"I was merely trying to point out that –"

"If you don't back offa me, I am gonna make sure in your next physical that you can't ever have mini-hobgoblins, so help me, Spock!"

"You want to weigh in on that?" Jim asks, eyebrows raised, and Uhura smacks him with her padd.

"Seriously, though, Scotty. What exactly is involved in overhauling the processors to the point that, well –"

"All the food they make is a disgusting shade of vomit-orange, no matter its shape or taste?" Uhura supplies dryly.

His stomach, which had been growling until about ten minutes ago, turns over slightly. "Yeah, that."

"Sir, I've never even seen it done. Wholesale changin' the color, I mean."

"It's a pointless waste of programming, time and effort, Captain." Sulu shakes his head. "If I remember correctly, wouldn't it take an enormous amount of time and manpower?"

"That's why I'm asking. I know it took me like four hours to just to hotwire the beverage replicator in my cabin into making root beer, for gods' sake – and that script is fairly straightforward, complex sugars and so on. We're talking massive amounts of coding, every possible item on the Officers' Mess menu, in every combination. We're just lucky it's confined to Officers' Mess, it if hit the lower decks mess? I can't imagine the chaos in those computer banks."

"Aye, sir, that's what I'm saying – I can't even imagine how many hours such an overhaul would take to write, much less patch into the hardware and systems. We dinna even have the manpower, I don't think, much less be able to do it without being noticed for so many hours!"

"Wait, Captain, you've had a decent root beer script this whole time and you haven't shared it with anyone?" Sulu jumps, glares across the table as a high-heeled boot obviously makes contact with his shin. "Okay, okay, I get it, time and place. But you've had that swill programmed into the Mess beverage selectors, right?"

"It is wery bad, you know."

"Oh my God, will you grow up."

He has not had enough coffee for this. The table is looking very appealing as a landing platform for his head at the moment.

"Spock, how's it coming over there?"

"Slowly, Captain," is the reply, drier than New Vulcan sand.

"It'd go a lot faster if you'd stop lurkin' over my shoulder like a Vulcan vulture!"

"Doctor, your illogically hashed similes aside, you do not have the necessary clearance codes to bypass the Level One firewalls needed to join the two systems, nor the knowledge to finalize the splicing of the genetic sequencer into the communications array and universal translator."

"Yeah, okay, it's gonna be a while," he mutters, scrubbing a hand over his face. He still is having brief bouts of dizziness, thankfully that one was just a second or two. "So, can I assume that this orange food epidemic is another Malfunction of Weirdness and not one of our crew being such an idiot that I have to dump him at the next supply station?"

"Ah…that'd be my guess. Sir."

"Great. So we just need to figure out then, what the hell is going on on my ship, people."

Something in his tone seems to indicate that he's fast approaching the end of his usually pretty bottomless patience, because Uhura shoots a warning glance across the room and he sees Bones actually scoot over a few inches so that Spock can pull a chair up to the computer, conferring in a low tone over something on the screen.

Good grief, he must look like crap for them to be actually working together.

He drags his hands over his face, exhales slowly, trying to release the frustration, because this mess and the fact he still feels like he's been in a shuttle wreck is nobody's fault. "Okay, look…can you throw up all the malfunctions that've happened in, what…when did they start, exactly?"

"Mm, we had the normal minor mishaps, sir, but nothin' really out of the ordinary until we broke orbit from Station Sigma Iota. I dinna suspect anything was really wrong until those power fluctuations didn't stop when we jumped to warp, like they usually do."

"Other than your log backtalking you on the Bridge, Captain," Sulu interjects, obviously trying gallantly not to smile at the remembrance even as Uhura's quick fingers flick the list of malfunctions up onto the holo-projection.

"Wait, the food weirdness started while we were in orbit too, with the heart-shaped pancakes. I thought that was someone in your department screwing around, Scotty."

"Really, sir. If we were going to spend that much time in the food replication scripts, we'd do something about that god-awful excuse for haggis, thank y'very much."

"You mean you would." Uhura rolls her eyes and flicks the item upward, adding to a truly impressive list. "Anything else?"

Scotty squints at the floating display. "Add the deflector dish shortin' out while we were in orbit, I suppose."

Jim half-turns. "I wasn't told about that."

"Well, no, sir. 'Twasn't even that much of a short, really, it just went down for about ten minutes while we were in orbit of the station, that's why the last two waves of shore leave parties were delayed."

"Cause?"

"Interference from a cargo vessel passing us in the dry-dock corridor, filled to the brim with magnetic ore and trilithium. Knocked the dish's long-range dispersal unit out of kilter a fraction and caused a chain reaction in the deflector calibrations. Believe you me, I had quite a word with the 'Base authorities about maximum distance parameters, but there was no real harm done."

"So for ten minutes, we were totally vulnerable, is what you're saying."

"Well, sir, we were within the shields of a Starbase dry-dock, I'd hardly call that vulnerable!"

"On this ship?"

"Aye, ye may have a point. But we received no alerts of any kind, sir, and any infiltration would have been registered, dish or not."

"True. At least, if it was a form the computer recognized."

"Which this probably isn't," Uhura points out.

"The lieutenant is correct, Captain," Spock's voice interrupts their discussion, coming across the room. "If these readings are accurate –"

"My readings are always accurate, thank you!"

"As I was saying," his First continues, as if he'd never been interrupted, "Doctor McCoy's readings do indicate an at least sentient life-form of some undetermined mechanical or electrical origin."

"You say at least sentient. How sentient, are we talking?"

"Unknown, Captain. I would venture to say intelligent, however, based upon the systemic methodicity with which it has gone through our memory banks to learn about our various species."

"That's a little unnerving," Sulu mutters.

"If its intents were hostile, Mr. Sulu, we would have been exterminated long ago," Spock replies, unperturbed. "Those same memory banks hold all the information such an entity would require to activate or deactivate any number of crucial ship's systems which would severely cripple or destroy this vessel and cause widespread damage or loss of life."

"He's right. We could've gone up in a fireball going into warp if its intentions were really hostile, and I for one would be dead if it really wanted me to be." He rubs his forehead, thinking. "So what are its intentions, Spock? Speculate."

"Unknown, Captain. We can presume that is either has no desire to, or is unable to, communicate with us, if after six days it has not."

"So what does it want, then? Just to, what, research and study us by putting us through weird scenarios?"

"We've had alien races do weird things to us just for experiments," Sulu points out. "Remember the Metrons?"

Everyone in the room except Spock winces, and even he gives a perturbed eyebrow.

"But it'd be able to do that without having to hide out in our memory banks, guys. That was a complicated marker, no average hacker would have found it. It's well-hidden, so it doesn't want to be found."

"Or it's lost," Uhura says suddenly, and as one they all turn to look at her. She's been oddly silent the whole discussion, and Jim knows that's because she's been studying the mission briefing, what little they have of it.

Unknown alien encounters rely heavily on communications, and these kinds of missions come down far too hard on her shoulders a lot of the time. She always rises to the challenge, but it's not due to luck. She deserves that chair as much as the other Bridge officers do, and he'll fight anyone who hints otherwise.

"Come again?"

"I said it could be lost, Captain." She rotates the display back around the table so it faces him, eyes flashing with excitement. That means she's got something, something that both he and Spock missed, probably.

"Clarify, Lieutenant." Spock's clearly intrigued, but fully in Science mode at the moment.

"What if whatever it is, got…I don't know, sucked into our memory banks on accident, while the shields were down and the deflector dish was in reverse? When the power shuts off, it creates a vacuum effect, right?"

Scotty nods. "Aye, not a very strong one, but it does. And with the dispersal calibrations off-kilter, I suppose it might've been a wee bit stronger than usual."

Jim straightens in his chair, headache and dizziness forgotten. "So, in theory, is that possible? Spock?"

"It is possible." Spock looks totally lost in thought, and obviously fifteen steps ahead of them all. "Were such a being made of pure energy, and the deflector dish running in reverse for a time, however brief, it might possibly have unintentionally attracted and trapped such an entity without our sensors detecting the difference of energy as being intelligent in nature."

"Exactly!"

"That sounds like a pretty big reach," Bones interjects skeptically. "No offense, Lieutenant. But there's a big jump between what we're seein' here and an intelligent life-form stuck inside our computer, tryin' to get out."

"Bones, that doesn't mean it's not a possibility."

"I'm a doctor, Jim, not an electrical engineer! You want proof of life I need something to work off of, not theoreticals!"

"That's just it! Captain." She stands up, and starts pointing at items in the list of malfunctions. "Don't you see a pattern in these?"

"Uh." If he didn't have a fast-approaching migraine courtesy of being, you know, electrocuted, maybe. "You're gonna have to help me out on this one."

With her stylus, she starts circling items in the list in red, one by one, and he squints at them along with everyone else at the table. She's trained, highly trained, to see patterns where no one else is; that's a vital component of communications. If she's seeing a pattern, there is one. She then starts circling others in blue, finally stepping back and looking at him expectantly.

He still doesn't see the connection. Obviously, he can sort of see a connection between his log hitting on him and the stupid heart-shaped sausage, and the Aldebaran night-lilies could be connected to the Terran lavender plants that had grown overnight in the Laurentian section of the Xenobotany lab, but…

Wait a minute.

He stands up, leaning forward to get a better look at the screen. "Computer, group malfunctions by color."

Yeah, that's…interesting.

"Computer, rearrange malfunctions in chronological order, same visual effects."

Okay, that's even more interesting.

"Computer, access personal data terminal, Kirk, James T., Captain, voice recognition override. Access last program created."

Uhura's face breaks into a knowing grin.

"Working. Access granted. Program ready."

"Run program. List marker points in all computer banks beside malfunctions in chronological order of access."

And there they are, populating one by one, nice little bullet points – a malfunction for every time whatever-it-is accessed something in their memory and data banks.

"You two want to let the rest of us in on whatever this is?" Bones finally explodes, to his credit having lasted this long.

"I'm pretty sure these malfunctions are all going to correspond with the access points we've found for that…entity, if we're calling it that," he replies, eyes still on the populating list. "It looks like for every time it accessed information about us, something happened soon afterwards somewhere on the ship."

Spock's eyebrows incline. "It would appear your conjectures are correct, Captain. But I see no correlation between these files accessed and the malfunctions themselves, so I fail to understand how this information benefits us."

"You wouldn't see the correlations, probably, if I'm right. Lieutenant?" He shoots Spock a reassuring smile to let him know that wasn't in any way a slight, there's a very good reason for it, and Uhura nods, obviously pleased that he caught on finally.

"I suspected the connections but didn't have any proof; your algorithms are supplying that, Captain. Nice job."

"Well, thank you." He smirks, and gets a thwap upside the head from Bones, who has lost all patience and moved over to the table to look at the list.

"Moron. So what'm I looking at here, exactly, that proves it's an intelligent life form."

"I believe it's trying to communicate with us, Doctor." Uhura's eyes sparkle with excitement as she points at the first line of bullet points. "Each of these points indicates a time when the trapped entity accessed some information in our systems that gave it an idea of how to communicate with us. It then made the attempt, in the only way it could – by manipulating our systems electronically."

"You mean, because it's stuck in there, all it can do is reprogram and rewire things?"

"Well it's not like it can just start talking, Bones."

"Why the hell not! Communications is a system!"

"Doctor, once again you revert to your specist habit of regarding the universe from a humanoid-biased medical system. There are many species within the galaxy who do not use speech at all, who do not even possess the capabilities or vocal cords, who therefore would not even have a mental concept of 'speech' much less be able to reproduce it at will –"

"All right, all right, point taken. Damn Vulcan know-it-all." Bones runs a hand down his face. "Let's say you're right, and this thing's been tryin' to communicate by god knows what, these things have been dangerous!"

"They really haven't, Bones," he interjects, pointing. "The Aldebaran night-lily thing? On Aldebar they're a sign of peace. How was the thing supposed to even grasp the concept of allergies and asthma if it doesn't have a circulatory system?"

"Jim, it almost burned your brains out less than twenty-four hours ago!"

"You said yourself the voltage wasn't enough to kill me," he replies calmly. "And this was just after the Arts and Literature banks were accessed."

"I don't remember ever reading a book that said a good way to communicate was to electrocute them, sir," Sulu says dryly.

"No, but how many times have you heard Terrans say they feel a 'spark' with a special someone?" Uhura counters quietly.

"Huh." Sulu blinks.

"It would have no idea that was not meant as literal," Chekov nods.

"And if that wasn't proof? These things she's got circled in red, I think they correspond to what it's interpreting as Good, or positive emotions; blue is for the opposite. Right, Lieutenant?"

"Right. For example, after you did your Burning Man impression? No malfunctions for twelve hours, then what do we get?"

"Rainstorm in the shuttle bay." Sulu's eyes widen. "It got that from the literary banks too?"

"Humans correlate rainy days with sadness," Jim points out, shrugging. "I dunno, but if I had to guess I'd say the electrocution thing was a total accident, guys."

"I belief you are right, Keptin."

"But the orange food? That I don't get. Wouldn't it be blue, if we're correlating emotions?"

"Bones, it's not just taking from human databanks, remember. Orange could be the color associated with sadness for one of the other species aboard."

"It is," Spock says quietly, his first contribution to the conversation.

Five pairs of eyes turn to look at him.

"As the captain said, it does appear to be accessing our databanks and then using that information to communicate in a variety of methods known to different cultures and species across the galaxy. The illogical and haphazard nature of its methods would indicate intelligence, but perhaps a lack of familiarity with any of our species in particular."

Bones still looks like he's about to go in for the kill, so Jim kicks him, hard. Maybe a little too hard, but seriously, this is not the time to go after the poor guy for volunteering personal info he did not have to share and only an idiot wouldn't realize it's probably because basically the topography of his entire planet was freaking orange, genius.

So many years, and Vulcan is still is the one failure that will drive him until he dies.

"There you have it, guys. Look at this shift of red to blue here. I really think this thing might've got sucked into our systems totally on accident, started out trying to communicate its intent of peace and that it meant no harm, and it just devolved into unintentionally causing accidents trying to get out or at least tell us it was stuck. It's probably freaked as hell right now if that's the case."

"Holy crap." Sulu stares at the list. "If you're right, sir…"

"If he is, we got a way bigger problem than we thought." Bones points at the list in incredulity. "Because if we can't even verify 100% that the thing exists, how are we supposed to get it out of the computer banks?"

"If it wants to leave," Uhura points out. "Surely it could have found a way by now, if it's as intelligent as you say, Spock; there's all kinds of energy outputs from this ship daily that it could have used as an escape route. It's sticking around for a reason."

"I don't like the sound of that."

"You and me both, Bones." He sighs, tapping a finger thoughtfully against his lips. "You guys have that mainframe spliced yet?"

"Nearly, sir." Spock's voice comes from over the computer monitor. "Once these final circuits are spliced into the communications array, whenever this life-signature is located in real-time in the ship's systems it will flag the universal translator, which will then activate and send a message of neutral greeting to the entity as we would to any species in an attempted First Contact."

Well, that's something.

"Then until we hear from it again, gentlemen, I don't suppose there's much else to be done. Let's just hope our stowaway catches on and makes contact."

---

He's back on the Bridge when it finally happens, the next day.

They all go about their business as usual the rest of the day, that night, and the next morning, with nothing out of the ordinary. All quiet on every front.

Personally, Jim feels a lot better when he wakes up the next morning, although there's still some residual tremors here and there he notices when he's trying to sign his way through a metric ton of paperwork that's accumulated on his chair in his absence overnight. (He briefly contemplates and just as briefly discards his chances of convincing Spock there's a regulation somewhere that allows the First Officer to forge the Captain's signature in times of minor emergency.) These malfunctions haven't really harmed anything aboard ship, but they've been a royal pain to repair, and that triples the paperwork involved. Also the aggravation involved.

Also the headache involved.

He's already wishing he'd taken the time to eat breakfast, plowing through a series of reports from Scotty about the replicator repairs and debating on the personal ethics of sending a yeoman after a bagel and coffee and then breaking half a dozen regulations by scarfing it in his chair, when suddenly the wall sensors light up bright blue and Spock's station starts shrieking bloody murder.

He about falls out of his chair, fumbling to keep hold of the data-padd. "What in the – seriously, you couldn't make that thing, you know, less alarming than the Red Alert?" he demands, tossing the padd onto his chair and vaulting up the steps.

"I have no control over the volume of the alert system aboard ship, sir. Ensign, silence the Blue Alert klaxons, if you please."

"Aye, Commander." A serious-looking half-Katarran in Science blues, who hadn't even blinked when the Science alert went off, hastily punches the appropriate button, and the alarms stop.

"Please tell me that's indication of a flag for our stowaway, and not a biocontaminant breach in one of your labs."

"It is." Spock gestures to the report as Jim leans over the console, eyes on the screen. "It appears as though the entity attempted to access certain sub-systems in Engineering, which it was unable to do due to the improved security firewalls I installed yesterday evening."

"Good work. What systems did it try to access?"

"The transporter systems, Captain."

"Huh. That actually might work to get it off the ship, if we could communicate what we're doing, and knew how to lock onto and disperse its signal. It's just an energy-matter-energy transfer."

"To successfully initiate a transport of the entity we would need to be far more informed of its composition, not to mention its intent aboard, Captain. As Lieutenant Uhura stated yesterday, it has remained here for a purpose, yet unknown."

"Then why did it just try to access a point of exit?"

"That, I do not know. It would seem – Captain."

"Yeah?" He looks up, and sees Spock staring at something over his shoulder.

"Uh…Keptin?" Chekov sounds freaked, and that's never a good sign. He whirls around, and – okay, yeah, he'd probably be freaked too.

Looks like their stowaway's finally figured out how to access the main viewscreen.

And considering that viewscreen's the only thing between every crewman on the Bridge and the entire void of space?

Yeah, freaked is putting it mildly.

"Full stop, Mr. Sulu." His voice washes over the Bridge like a wave of calm he sure as hell doesn't feel, and a moment later he can feel the steady pulse of the engines slowly disengaging, then the slight jolt as they drop out of warp into sublight. "Lieutenant, can you get that universal translator patched back into the systems up here like yesterday?"

"On it, sir. Give me sixty seconds to disengage it from the Medical mainframe, it will blow out every circuit on the Bridge if I leave it locked into both."

"Captain, should we –"

"No one move, no one touch anything." He moves back toward the center of the Bridge, then half-turns, one hand out in a slicing gesture that halts Spock in his tracks. "You too, Mr. Spock. Observe and record, nothing more."

Those are the duties of a Science Officer during a First Contact, and they both know it – but he doesn't usually pull rank and enforce them, and he can tell Spock's more than a little pissed about it.

"Universal Translator back online and fully operational, Captain." Uhura's ponytail is cockeyed from where she caught it on a console after that hotwiring underneath the Comms station, but she gives him the go-ahead signal and sticks her earpiece in, all business.

He exhales slowly, and moves back around the edge of the Bridge toward the viewscreen, which is now fritzing like a thing possessed, a clearly tangible field of power buildup humming from all edges of it and occasionally shooting off a crackle of blue sparks in all directions. An ominous creak sounds from the port-side anchoring bulkhead that holds it in place.

If that thing blows? Most of them may not be sucked into space, because there's a nearly-instantaneous force-field that deploys to seal the rupture, but that's not going to protect anyone who's too close to withstand the immediate G-force.

"Lock the controls into autopilot and back off, Mr. Sulu, Mr. Chekov. Take everyone from the beta consoles with you and keep them on the back side of the Bridge in case this thing ruptures," he says quietly as he passes the navigation console, and if the situation weren't so serious he'd laugh at how quickly they almost scramble over each other and the command dais to obey.

"I need a reading of some kind on this, people."

"Unknown energy buildup in the visual circuits controlling the main viewer, Captain."

"That's helpful, yes, thank you, Commander." He glances back at Spock, and sees the half-amused acknowledgment of that fact. "Only visual?"

"Negative, Captain." Uhura winces and turns a knob. "Audio circuits are overloading as well, sir. Origin and type of energy unknown."

"Did we get that First Contact message broadcast?"

"Yes, sir."

"Broadcast it again. Spock, can you…I don't know, write a simplified program that would tell this thing how to use the universal translator's patching software?"

Spock blinks at him.

"Like a neon sign saying click here, basically."

"A door in the firewall," Chekov interjects excitedly, from where he's been studying the readouts in the secondary Science scanner, and beside him the young Katarran engineer bobs his head enthusiastically.

"It is possible." Spock starts pulling up coding windows, pausing only once to lean over and give instructions to the other crewmen at the Science stations.

Something cracks abruptly over their heads, and he's almost afraid to look up. The static charge coming from the screen hums louder as he approaches, and so he stops, wary. His hair's starting to stand on end, so that's probably close enough.

"Get it written and uploaded if you can, because this thing's going to take out the viewer if that power keeps increasing."

The turbolift opens, disgorging a trio of redshirts and a medical team, no doubt in response to the Blue Alert. One sharp look from him, and Sulu has them corralled and out of harm's way.

"Stay over there for now, gentlemen. If you can do anything, Spock, do it. Much as I'd like this thing off this ship, I'd prefer it not bash its way out our front window if possible."

"I doubt that's its intention, Captain," Uhura says thoughtfully, head cocked as she listens. "It does appear to be accessing the universal translator circuits now, though the patterns are pretty erratic."

The screen is changing colors in an almost beautiful wave of fluctuating, dizzying aura, all pastel yellows and pinks and a little pale blue and green here and there, floating and spinning in almost cloudy curls and spirals that make him think of nebula storms and spun sugar. With the amount of energy emanating from the screen, it's almost like it's been turned into a giant hologram, with special effects to match. While the viewer is a meter-thick wall of glass-like transparent aluminium that separates them from the void of space, it's shot through with a nearly invisible fiber-optic network of visual and audio programming tech to receive and broadcast, and it's these circuits which are overloading with whatever signal this is.

He moves a step closer and then freezes as something within the viewer shifts. The humming pauses, the colors almost stop for a moment, he'd swear as if they just now noticed his presence – but the screen is two dimensional, making anything inside it unable to see beyond its confines….correct?

But the multihued mix seems to be moving…in his direction, looping curiously in a lazy circle in his general vicinity instead of haphazardly pinging about the screen as it had been.

Well, that's interesting. He takes a step to the left, and watches as the hazy swirl of colors brightens just a fraction and follows his movements. He takes another step, then moves back to his right, and they mirror his actions again.

Interesting. He ventures another few careful steps toward the screen.

"Uh…sir?" Sulu's voice is warning enough to tattle on him to Spock, who he can tell without turning around is Not Happy.

"Captain, what are you –"

"Jim, are you out of your goddamn mind?"

He holds up a hand behind him to silence them, and moves closer, curious now – still cautious, because he really could do without another shock treatment, thanks – but curious.

"How we coming, Spock?"

Spock sounds majorly perturbed, but answers readily enough. "Nearly finished, sir. Patching in software bypass now."

There's a small jolt as the bypass grinds its way into a hardware system it was never meant to – Scotty's going to have a cow – and then for a moment, nothing.

"Bypass fully integrated, Captain."

"Come on," he coaxes quietly, almost to himself. "We can't do this for you."

Suddenly a static whine slices the air, almost supersonic pitches obviously shrill enough that both Spock and the Katarran engineer nearly keel over on the spot, sending all three medical techs and two replacement science personnel darting across the upper deck like a small army of blue-shirted ants. The piloting station's screen explodes in a shower of syntheglass shards, sparks flying. He sees a crack start to form at the upper right corner of the main viewer. Even his ears are starting to hurt now, a ringing sensation throbbing painfully behind his eardrums.

The whine gets louder, and he hears something shatter in the direction of the port turbolift.

"Hey, hey! Cut it out!" He charges forward, probably not his smartest move, but hell if he's going to let this thing seriously hearing-damage two of his officers and destroy his Bridge just because it's freaking out. Right now it's acting like a panicking child, and that might just be what it is, and oh God he has literally no idea what he's dealing with and what in the world, he's so underqualified for this kind of mission this is insane and he's no less panicky himself but that's going to do nobody any good so calm down, Jim.

He's always been remarkably good at hiding his own panic under the guise of giving orders. That's basically what Command is all about, isn't it?

He halts, only inches from the viewscreen. "I said stop it!"

"Captain –"

"Jim, do something before someone ruptures an eardrum!"

"Uhura, cut power to everything other than the main viewer and comms systems!"

His voice cracks across the Bridge like glass shattering, and he's grateful once again for the fact that she's the one person on the Bridge who could literally hear a pin drop even amid the horrible noise; within five seconds the Bridge plunges into total darkness except for the emergency lighting and the glow of the comms station, engineering console, and the main viewer. He stands in silhouette against the swirling hues, lit by an unearthly glow of gold and pink-red light.

The whine shuts off like it's been choked, and he exhales in short-lived relief; at least that worked, the element of surprise.

"Try that again and I will cut power to everything in this room," he says, directly at the main viewer. He keeps his voice slow and precise, as if he's speaking Standard Basic to a computer, so the universal translator will pick up every word and not add any extra descriptives or derivatives to his speech. "Your method of communication is incompatible with our physiology. You are harming my officers."

The pulsating mass circles him slowly on the viewer, then seems to retreat just a fraction.

"They going to be all right, Bones?"

"Yes, Jim. Little hard of hearing and some pain for a few minutes, probably, but nothing serious. Don't blame these two if they yell a little talking to you for the next few hours, though. I've never been more glad to have human ears, I tell you."

He'd already stopped listening at Yes, Jim, because he has a very delicate First Contact to successfully initiate, and now turns back to the screen. "You should be receiving a translation of my words through the technology known to us as a universal translation device. Access these files in our databanks if you require clarification on its construction and technical specifications."

Nothing.

Then Chekov yelps as the library console sparks underneath his fingers.

"You going to live, Mr. Chekov? And did I not give an order for everyone to not touch anything on this Bridge until further notice?"

"Aye, Keptin. But Meester Spock then told me to write this kill code for the main viewer in case you…well."

"Did something stupid like trying to stick my hand inside a console to make physical contact?"

A couple of awkward coughs from out of the darkness, and a laugh he's pretty sure comes from Bones.

Okay, so it did cross his mind, but that's a last resort; surely there's some way they can communicate with the thing without requiring direct contact.

He turns back to the screen.

"So, you found the files. Do you understand the technology involved? The universal translation device will translate your communication in the same manner if given time to build a foundational syntax for your speech."

He inhales in surprise, and hears a couple of shocked gasps behind him, when the screen and its fluctuating colors suddenly turn varying shades of blue, rippling outward until the entire Bridge is bathed in soft blue light.

It's beautiful.

"So…hm. Okay, you're speaking to a human, so that's communicating…sadness? As in, you understand our expression, 'feeling blue' or 'having the blues'?"

The color vanishes, fading in a matter of moments back to what he assumes is normal, the multihued spectrum.

"Okay…speculate, Lieutenant."

"It indicated sadness when we spoke about the translator being able to form a translation of its speech patterns, Captain. My guess would be either that it is personally incapable of physical speech and that's an anomaly for its species, or more likely that its species doesn't actually speak," she replies quietly. "If there's no phonology, the translator can't grasp enough of the pattern to build any kind of even rudimentary translation. It's a universal translator, not a communicator. If its species communicates in, say, ideas or musical tones rather than words, then the translator isn't going to have enough of a foundation to begin a foundational syntax. It would be like…trying to translate a sonata or concerto into corresponding Klingon words. It just doesn't make sense."

Oh.

Well, that would suck, yeah.

"But…" He frowns, and turns back around, looking at the fluctuating image. "How do you communicate? With your own species?"

Once again, blue. Sadness.

"You…don't have a species, then?"

Much darker blue.

He hears a soft curse behind him from one of the Science personnel.

"I'm sorry," he says quietly.

The light slowly fades back to the multicolored waves it had been at the beginning, though they just sort of float there, listless, before him.

He frowns. "Is that…is that why you haven't left the ship? You have nowhere to go?"

Purple, this time.

Okay, yeah, he's got nothing.

"Help me out here, people."

"I…don't know, Captain. Spock?" Uhura waves to get their First Officer's attention and then says something rapidly in Vulcan, a little louder than normal, letting him read her lips as she speaks as well. Spock finally shakes his head. "It has no significance in Vulcan culture either."

"Guys? Come on, think. We have thirty-four species on board, the color has to have some significance to someone, somewhere. Chekov, check the databanks, it had to have found it somewhere in there, or found the information it needed to make the extrapolation."

Dead silence for a few minutes.

"Didn't they used to give some kind of purple award for soldiers wounded in battle back in the Terran world wars or something?" Sulu ventures. "Maybe its people were all killed, and it's the last one left."

"But why would it give purple as the reason for staying? Why not just throw the color red up there, for blood? Or green, or orange, or any other blood color for the species on board."

"Good point."

"Keptin…I may have it, sir. But it is a wery long shot."

"Longer than orange food in the replicators, I doubt. Spill it, Mr. Chekov."

"The galactic folklore databanks, which have been accessed in the last four days by this entity, do talk about the Festival of Peace on Risa, sir."

"The what." He's been to Risa, okay, and festivals there are…festive. Not peaceful.

Decidedly not peaceful.

Some immature idiot across the Bridge elbows his seat-mate and sniggers, and Jim makes a mental note to educate them on time and place and otherwise keep it to yourself and in your pants, moron. When they're not in danger of their viewscreen being sucked out into space thanks to an unknown life form.

"It is an old custom which is no longer celebrated but was always held during the winter months, Keptin. Tourists were invited to take part in the, ah…group activities, but if they were not interested, they were instructed to wear the color purple. It meant they were to be left alone, sir, by the locals."

Huh.

"Purple means left alone, is what you're saying."

"Aye, sir. It is the only instance I can even find the color having any kind of cultural significance other than mentions of it in correlation to royalty on Old Terran and Sixth Age Pravarian culture."

That's…really sad, actually.

He looks back at the viewer, where the entity seems to just be hovering, waiting, lavender-violet.

"You haven't left, because you're alone," he says softly. "And when you got lost in here by accident, you found out you didn't really want to leave."

This time, there's no mistaking the brightening of warm yellow and gold that spins in a little whirlique in front of his face. It's almost…cute.

It's these moments right here, that remind him why he went into space. Not because of his last name, not even because of a dare from a man he still owes a debt he'll never live up to, not even because of the always-burning, driving need to protect the people he loves, until death if necessary.

But these little moments right here, standing on a quiet, half-darkened Bridge of his beautiful, beautiful ship, illuminated by the light of something they've never seen before and may never see again, the magic of the unknown and the awe-inspiring knowledge that he of all people gets to see it first?

The swirling mist of colors suddenly spirals up and pops into a very good approximation of Terran fireworks, and he laughs in unadulterated childish delight.

"Now you're just showing off."

The cloud turns from gold to pink and then back again, holding a slightly wavering position mirroring his, as if waiting for his next move.

"Hey Spock, how's your head?" he asks, not looking away.

"My hearing is restored enough to be functional, Captain," is the dry reply, with a definite undercurrent of yes, I am still very pissed at you but I'm willing to shelve that right now because I'm geeking out over this thing too.

"Come over and say hi to our new friend."

Light footsteps come up behind him, and he wonders how you make introductions between species that can't actually communicate two ways.

He's about to at least make the attempt when the screen suddenly lights up in brilliant shades of green.

"O-kay, I guess that takes care of that," he mutters.

"Fascinating." Spock's face looks even paler in the emerald light, as he moves in front of the screen, watching as the shifting play of hues follows his movement. "The method by which this entity has assimilated our technology for its own purposes is remarkably efficient, Captain."

"That's an understatement," he replies, and watches as the mist spirals off into a pleased little curlicue at the rare praise. "They're going to be writing papers about this one for months, you know, Spock."

"Indeed. Starfleet Command will be most impressed with the scientific and communicative possibilities. However, they may not be so pleased with the…creative alterations we have been forced to make in the Enterprise's electronic security measures in order to achieve this feat."

"You just have to rain on my parade, don't you." He laughs as the screen suddenly turns into a pretty decent visual replication of a Terran rainstorm. "Nicely done. Look, if I turn power back on to the Bridge, are you going to let my people take their stations without getting zapped by you?" The mist swirls uncertainly around his head at eye level, as if in question. "Like, stay out of the computer consoles." He pats the navigation station behind him to demonstrate.

The mist turns bright pink and then goes back to its normal color configuration, which he assumes is an acknowledgment.

"Okay, restore full power, Lieutenant. Everyone, back to your stations. We have a mission to get on with. Uhura, see if you can get in touch with Command and figure out what kind of Communications and Diplomatic teams are in residence at the Janus colony or if we're going to need to stay in orbit so you can take charge of trying to actually communicate with our new passenger and figure out what to do with it when we get there."

"Yes, Captain."

"Sulu, is your station still operational?"

"Most of it, sir. I have piloting and the warp controls, but if you're going to want close-range maneuvers when we get to Janus IV they'll need to be done from Auxiliary unless it gets repaired."

"Warp will do for now. Get us back on course as soon as you can, gentlemen."

"Aye, sir."

He sits back in his chair, after gingerly poking the armrest controls to make sure there's no power buildup. The Bridge is still bathed in a peaceful, multihued light that floats around the viewer like an oversized holographic screen-saver as they streak away into warp, on-course once more and having finally located their resident stowaway.

It'll take some convincing, no doubt, to get the thing out of their databanks once they reach the Janus system, but Janus IV is the central tech hub for that part of the galaxy and he has the feeling they'll be able to work out some kind of mutually beneficial agreement with the entity, whatever it is. Maybe they'll even be able to make new advancements with the universal translator technology due to the entity's discovery, who knows.

This will also be an opportunity to put a commendation in Uhura's official record, because that's long overdue. Spock certainly will never do it, to avoid any appearance of quid pro quo, and the 'Fleet is still notoriously sexist in recognizing their female officers. He can't change the brass, but he can change this ship, and if his Comms chief ever does decide she wants to make a higher command rank someday she's going to need those commendations. This has been one of their most successful First Contact missions yet, even if it's been one of the weirdest.

And he just has a feeling that the weirdest is yet to come.

---

Vulcan language notes: Flekh'pi-maat is the culling together of Flekh, meaning weird, and pi-maat, meaning kin or familial relative, with pi- being a prefix of endearment. So she colloquially just called him that one weird but harmless relative everyone has.