Chapter 8 - Inmates, Part 2
The Leadership class discussion did not vary enough from the pre-class materials to hold Spock's attention. Spock occupied his spare capacity by plotting out the best order to install the remaining sensors in the Apollo's engine bay. One of the existing sensors had been sending out readings on the edge of spec compared to the others. There would be a procedure for reporting this, and documention for replacing it. He pulled up those rules while the discussion went on between the instructor and the students in the rows closest to the front.
Hully's messages to Spock regarding his project came up in the sidebar of his padd's screen. Her usual, teasing him for his status as a cadet interspersed with encouragement to do well. He wondered if this behavior was typical. Spock would ask Lt. Grange that evening when he saw him.
Lt. Grange had grown quieter around Spock, more formal and less coarse when he did speak. Spock assumed that Hully's behavior was more in line with what Kirk expected of Spock's enculturation experience than Grange's was, as offensive to Spock's sense of logic as that conclusion was.
The instructor was clarifying methods of group ambition formation. Spock wondered what Kirk was doing just then. By the rough schedule Kirk had been allowed to share, he should be transporting prisoners at this time. Since Commander Graham's debriefing of him, Spock had been thinking more about his former shipmates, thinking about how violent they were capable of being when it suited them. Acting in a manner disconnected from the values Spock thought immutable for his people. If any of them harmed Kirk on this mission, it would be Spock's responsibility for having placed him there in full knowledge of their nature.
And painfully fitting. Certainly the others Spock had been forced to stand by and watch be harmed also had lovers, family, beings whose lives were irrevocably altered by said violence. Waiting for word from Kirk that he was back aboard the Hampton and they were making way to Vulcan made Spock feel sullied, deserving, perhaps, of this potential pain.
Spock closed his eyes for a count of ten. This romanticism was a human weakness and it served no useful purpose. But at the moment, Spock had little other purpose. Despite assignments, lectures, duties, assurances he had made to himself about his plans for the future, his pleasure at being there at the Academy, Spock felt adrift. Too much of himself was elsewhere, out of his direct control.
And no amount of logic was capable of recalling it.
Lethe carried in a tray of small bites of fabricated food and placed them on a side cabinet. Kirk watched her flat expression pass him one way, then the other. He watched the door long after, avoiding Adams' narrowed gaze.
They ate a little. They were encouraged to refill drinks they had only pretended to sip.
Adams was on drink three before he smiled at Kirk and said, "Commander, I'm quite certain I overheard your explicit orders to pilot your shuttle up to your ship. Did I not?"
Kirk gave a casual wry smile. "The shuttle was quite full without me, Doctor. Lt. Nangana is a worthy shuttle pilot, and the prisoners were well tethered by your guards."
Adams put on a concerned face. "Your shuttle will be even fuller for the second round."
Kirk looked to Graham. "It's possible we'll need to make two more runs. But that's the Commander's decision. I'm just an advisor." Adams' face lost all humor. Kirk pretended he didn't think this noteworthy, raised his glass to him, said, "More time to socialize. Right, Doctor?"
Adam's smiled again, but it didn't reach his eyes. "Well, we have more than eight hours remaining before a second shuttle trip. We should get that facility tour out of the way. If you are still interested, that is."
Kirk put his drink down beside the barely touched food tray.
"Would you be so good as to accompany us, Nurse Noel?" Adams put out an elbow in invitation to escort her.
Noel took Adams' arm with just her fingertips. "Well, not much else to do, it would seem."
They passed through double utility doors into a long parallel tunnel lined with equipment racks. Piping and conduits ran overhead, forked off into the rock walls. Kirk took it all in, memorizing the layout. He stalled as much as possible and walked all the way to the end, forcing Adams to follow. He asked questions about air movement and purification, power grids, and waste treatment, questions he could intelligently follow-up on due to being recently close to Spock's studies in ship design.
Adams interrupted Kirk's question about failsafes to say to Graham, "You always let the people under you do all the talking, Commander?"
Graham lifted her chin. "He's here as my expert."
Kirk couldn't judge if she was annoyed or just bored.
"You can't be taking an interest in the minutia, Mr. Kirk," Adams said. "Not a man of action like yourself. And I can tell you are a man of action."
Kirk crossed his arms. "What makes you assume I'm a man of action, Doctor?"
Adams laughed. "Everything about you." He held out a hand to invite them to step out of the power distribution section. "Your area is spaceships, Kirk. Battles. Risky exploration. The intelligent mind is my area of expertise. That's how I know. There is no reason, either emotional or egotistical, for you to care about waste recovery, or switching, or backups and power phases."
Noel sped up to walk beside Kirk, looked up at him from under her dark lashes. "Commander Kirk is a not like most others, Doctor. His motives seem to stem from a wellspring others do not possess."
Kirk rubbed his hands together. Considered her. "And what wellspring would that be?"
She tilted her head. "I don't know yet. I do continue to wonder."
Adams shook his head as he led the way out of the utility corridor and back into the reception area. The guards flanking the doors came to attention. There were pairs of them at every door now.
Adams stepped up beside Noel, pulled her back a step and said in her ear. "Well, my dear, we don't need to wonder, do we?" He held her arm harder, distorting the flesh of her muscles. "Every man has a breaking point, and all you have to do is lead them to it, then push them past it, and then you can learn all there is to know about them."
Adams smiled.
Kirk spun without looking and grabbed the guard approaching from behind by the arm, stamped his foot on the man's shin while making a grab for his stun gun. He fumbled the weapon to aim it, shook off the guard's hold and slid sideways, keeping his back to the wall. Graham had the other guard in a choke hold. Kirk flinched before the move, knowing it was coming. The guard ducked, flipped the much lighter Graham over his head in Adams' direction. She curled to avoid landing flat on her back, and tumbled over a full turn onto her knees.
Adams grabbed her by the hair, pointed a palm-sized weapon at her temple.
"The stunner, Commander," Adams said pleasantly to Kirk. "Drop it."
Kirk watched Graham's chest heave. She bit her lips. Adams twisted his hold on her hair and her eyes squinted.
Noel put her fingers on Adams' arm. "Doctor? What are you doing?"
"Just taking care of my facility, as I always do, Nurse. This place is my responsibility." He kept his eyes on Kirk. "You want to test me, Mr. Kirk? You think I won't do it?"
Kirk lowered the stun gun, dropped it to the floor. Four additional guards stormed in, two held raised net guns.
"Doctor Adams," Noel said. "Doctor Adams, I can help you. If you'll let me."
"I could use an assistant. If that's the sort of help you are offering. My last assistant got into a bit of trouble. . . . Experimenting on himself. Most unfortunate." He let go of Graham's hair, stepped back, pulling Noel with him.
Graham jumped to her feet, stood at fighting ready, hair mussed in a way that accentuated her anger. "Don't do anything you'll regret, Doctor," Graham said.
"Oh, Commander. I am meticulously avoiding regret with these actions. I assure you." Adams gestured with the little phaser pistol he held. "Put them in with their friends. That will soften them up in preparation." He turned to Noel on his arm. "Until I work out how best to deal with them both." He withdrew his arm from Noel's grip and put it around her shoulders. "I think you'll find this very interesting. I think you like peeking into people's heads just as much as I do."
Noel took hold of Adams's hand on her shoulder and held it away from herself, but left his arm in place. "I do find the human mind to be fascinating." She paused, smiled. "Especially the unusual ones."
A hand hauled sideways on Kirk's upper arm and he stumbled, put a hand down on the floor to keep his feet. He used that momentum to lunge at the midriff of the guard in front of him and was struck in the center of his back from behind. The floor came up fast, struck his chest full on.
Hands dragged Kirk back up before he could breathe properly. They towed him into the first stage of the security interlock, feet dragging, heating up. Two guards pushed Graham ahead of the group at stunner point. The interlock doors cycled. Kirk toed his feet under him, took his own weight, and shook off his guards' hold. Graham stood with her arms crossed, glowering at the pair flanking her.
"You're going to be prosecuted for this," she said. "You know that. You'll be one of these inmates before it's over."
A guard shoved her toward the still opening second door of the interlock, forcing her to put her hands up to save her face.
They were marched into the long cell block. The scent of desperation enveloped them. The guards halted at the doorway with the extra forcefield bars. Graham glanced desperately at Kirk, took a step back, right into a guard's hold. "What are you doing with us?"
They shoved her inside. Kirk wanted his entrance to have some dignity, so he strode in under his own power, chin high.
"Away from the field," a guard growled at the Vulcans. The ten guards lined up so every stun gun had a target.
Zuram gestured for those behind him to step back. Two others copied the gesture. Everyone shuffled back to the rear wall, postures brooding.
Kirk's communicator was taken and he was shoved inside first, had to catch himself on the post of a bunk bed. Graham ran into his back. The security field sizzled back into place.
The guards swung their stun guns around, checked the room, strode out. The forcefield bars energized on the outer door. The sound of heavy boots on stone retreated.
A/N: Just FYI, This is a reuse of the setup in the TOS episode Dagger of the Mind. In case it seems familiar.