Title: What We Feel (10/12)
Author: klmeri
Fandom: Star Trek TOS
Pairing: pre-Kirk/Spock/McCoy
Summary: Spock asks Jim and Leonard to consider their future together.
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Part Ten

There are times when Jim wishes he could rise from his Captain’s chair and cry “CUT!” like the Bridge is a set in an old-fashioned film. And yes, Bones, he wants to say, his knowledge is mostly comprised of random historical facts, because Jim loves to read and know and generally own every obscure book he can find planet-side—a habit sadly waylaid by living in space. But that is not his point, not at all.

James Kirk’s real point is that, here, once the action begins it never stops.

“Incoming!” cries Chekov, rattling off coordinates along the port side of the ship.

The Captain tells Sulu to take them down at an angled rotation. The ship shudders with the force of the hit but the shields hold, and the blow isn’t as bad as it could have been.

“Uhura!” he snaps without meaning to (something he will think on later and apologize to her for). “I need an open line to that ship!”

“Sir…” she begins to respond.

The Enterprise has precise little time for can’t. “Keep trying,” he grits out. Spock has already grabbed his attention. Jim listens for a moment, then orders, “I need its weak points, Mr. Spock. Anywhere that can give us the advantage.” Or buy time.

It will be pointless to try and outrun this battle cruiser again, not unless Jim packs the three intruders into a shuttle and launches them into the black of space. He has thought about it, if only for grim amusement in passing, but it simply is not smart to let them go that way. Their other option, a nearby inhabitable planet as a drop-off point, will take two week’s travel at warp factor six, according to the charted maps.

And if Jim admits a bit of truth to himself: he doesn’t want to tuck tail and run away. He wants to fight these bastards, whoever they are, and leave them with no uncertain doubt that the Enterprise (and Starfleet) are not for easy pickings for anti-Federation terrorists.

They’ve been locked in this battle for over thirty minutes, neither side ceasing to move, to attack and respond to attack. Again, that unknown vessel popped out of nowhere, despite that JIm has been expecting their arrival for a week, his crew on edge too with the same expectation. Jim now wonders what sort of cloaking device they could possibly have, or sensor-suppressing shields, if not for sight—any myriad of technology that Starfleet has not likely seen before.

“Pull back!” he commands.

The Enterprise retreats to a safer distance, as if taking a time out to breathe and reorient itself. The other ship follows lazily. Kirk leans forward in his chair, hands white-knuckled on its arms as he narrows his eyes and watches the screen. What is it about that ship that niggles at him? What is he missing?

Jim barely catches the soft whoosh of the lift doors, so intent is he on figuring out the enemy and their next move.

A hand lands on his shoulder. “Jim.”

He automatically relaxes back into his chair. “Bones.” Turning his head to look at McCoy, he asks, “How’s Medical holding up?”

“We’re a’right, Captain. Whatever y’all are doing up here, it’s keeping the ship intact a whole lot better than last time.”

It does not escape Jim’s notice how Bones glances at Spock’s station more than once as he talks. Spock, Jim knows, will have his back to them both. The Captain returns to staring at the Bridge screen.

The enemy is lingering just on the outer edge of their firing range.

“What’s the matter with them?”

Bones’ question startles him. “What do you mean?”

“I mean,” the doctor says, brows drawn together, “they’re in the middle of a space battle and they’re moving at a snail’s pace.”

His mouth opens on instinct, once, before he closes it and his body jumps forward, back perfectly straight. “That’s it, Bones!“

McCoy blinks at him, then slowly grins. “What did I say, Jim? Did I solve the mystery?” Then, with a twinkle in his eyes, “Do I get a prize?”

Jim laughs for the first time since he stepped onto the Bridge, torn away from finishing Amanda Grayson’s strongly worded message in the privacy of the Ready Room, to issue a red alert for all stations.

“Spock,” he calls over his shoulder, “how fast are they moving?”

The Vulcan reads out a speed and projected time of impact, should the Enterprise remain in place and the enemy continue to approach at that speed.

Too slow.

“Correlate the sets of their coordinates for the last twenty minutes with the vessel’s speed, Mr. Spock, and estimate their capacity for movement.”

Spock works silently on the task, fingers flying across his console.

“Jim?”

“Bones,” he tells his CMO in serious voice, “we may have been fools not to install a second chair up here for you.”

Matching his tone, McCoy replies, “While I’m flattered, I think this old country doctor will stick to what he knows best and leave the captainin’ to you.”

They smile at each other. Spock, now standing on Jim’s right, interrupts with “Captain,” meant to gently draw Jim back to the situation at hand. Spock hands him a PADD.

He scrolls through the data, nodding once or twice. The vessel is not playing a game of cat and mouse, because it literally does not have the capacity to do so; its range of speed is equivalent to a freighter loaded down with cargo. The Enterprise, given her build and warp-core engines, could literally dance circles around it. Which, Jim realizes, is pretty much what his ship has been doing.

“So they weren’t waiting,” he muses, “for our guard to drop—it took them this long to catch up to us!”

“The explanation seems logical, Captain. I have also re-evaluated the sensors’ energy readings with regards to the new data. Conclusively, the vessel’s speed is compromised by the amount of energy necessary to power systems deemed more essential to their method of attack.”

“The heavy shielding.”

Doctor McCoy looks between him and Spock. “So you’re saying they have to sacrifice their ability to move in order to tangle with anybody? Their engineers must be dumb as bricks. No wonder they want this ship!”

Jim agrees. “All the more reason why we aren’t going to let them take it.” He taps a finger against his lips in thought. “If we had the manpower, it would be easy enough to surround them and knock out their shields.” Like a group of small predators working together to take down one large, bumbling prey.

Then an idea strikes him hard, causing Captain Kirk to rise hastily from his chair. “Sulu, you know how to play chicken?”

The pilot’s mouth stretches in a grin. “Yes, Sir!”

“You have the conn, then.” Jim is already moving towards the turbolift. He continues to say, “Chekov, coordinate with Sulu and strike their shields often enough to keep up the appearance that we are still on the defense. Don’t use more power than necessary.”

Chekov nods, turning to Sulu to devise a plan.

“Jim!” McCoy slides in next to him, Spock on both their heels. “How about sharin’ your master plan with the rest of the class?”

“It’s simple, Bones. We call in the army.”

McCoy looks at Spock and something unspoken passes between the two officers. Spock tells Kirk cautiously, “Captain, the Enterprise is the only constitution-class starship scheduled to explore this sector of space for the next forty-two days. I estimate that response to a distress call—”

“Yes, Mr. Spock, we are the only ones out here.” He steps from the lift, as its door open at his intended destination. “But they don’t know that!”

Spock and McCoy are full of questions as they follow him through Security and to the brig, and Jim obliges them with all the answers that he has.

~~~
before…

“Name one time, Spock, one time where a plan of mine has failed.” Kirk is rummaging through a drawer of shirts as he says this, quite carelessly.

Spock begins to talk and Jim is too busy frowning at a green wrap-around top with a ripped shoulder seam. Why is this still in here? Surely the laundering—

“Jim.”

“Spock?” He looks up to find what must be the subtlest long-suffering face in the galaxy.

“Jim, I have recounted four plans which resulted in disturbing consequences. Would you like me to continue?”

He blinks.

“There are a total of twenty-six instances,” Jim is informed graciously.

His smile is lopsided and slightly foolish. “No need to continue, Spock. Point taken. But this plan will work.”

“I cannot attest to its likelihood of success until you furnish details, Captain.”

Jim decides to grab a regular gold command tunic and tugs it over his head. “Bones needs something to take his mind off of his woes today. So you and I are going to have a, um, how do I say this? Skirmish.”

The Vulcan tilts his head and observes Kirk silently for some seconds, no doubt looking for a prominent indication of Jim’s insanity. Finally he says, “Explain Doctor McCoy’s ‘woes.'”

“It’s Joanna’s—you know about his daughter?” Spock nods. “—birthday and, well, the ion storm has knocked out all incoming and outgoing transmissions…”

Apparently Jim doesn’t need to explain beyond that point. Spock says softly, “I understand.”

There is an awkward pause in which Jim fidgets with the boot in his hand and Spock stands like a looming statue in the entrance to his bedroom, neither inside or outside but precisely on the line in-between.

Jim eventually has both boots on his feet and nothing else to keep him busy. So he straightens to his full height (he still feels short compared to Spock, probably always will) and turns to his Vulcan friend. “Ready?”

“To skirmish, Captain?”

He grins. It’s an outright lie that Vulcans are incapable of having a sense of humor. “Let’s find Bones first.”

Spock follows him from his quarters. “Would it not add credibility if we enacted this plan in a randomly selected location on the ship?”

“No,” answers Kirk, “because then someone else will become involved first and Bones will hear about it after the fact and that will just make him yell at both of us an extended number of days.” A possibly end up with them undergoing full psychological examinations.

Spock supplies dutifully, “There is an eighty-six point two percentage probability in favor of the doctor’s overreaction.”

Jim is well-aware of Bones-statistics. “We want him there, and hopefully just him—” How embarrassing would it be to have a large audience? “—so that Bones can focus on something besides how miserable he feels because he can’t talk to Joanna. He helps us, we help him… It’s cathartic for everyone!”

Spock’s only response, as the turbolift doors close on the pair, is “Fascinating.”

Jim suspects the Vulcan is already mentally cataloging a new section of Things Humans Do Which Require Further Investigation. That doesn’t matter, though, because both Jim and Spock know what is truly important right now: their mutual friend named Leonard Horatio McCoy.

~~~

Leonard shakes his head as they stand in the long hallway of one particular set of holding cells. “Jim, are you sure about this?”

Jim looks at McCoy for a long moment. Kirk’s answer, when it comes, sounds firm. “Yes.”

The doctor’s shoulders slump in relief; he has no choice, then, but to be as committed to Jim as Jim is to his faith that the plan will work. Spock, who stands between them, only remarks, “I will proceed to the transporter room and prepare.”

At Kirk’s brief nod, the First Officer walks to the exit. They are surprised when Spock pauses. Leonard shifts on his feet, as the Vulcan’s unreadable gaze falls upon McCoy. “You should return to Sickbay, Doctor.”

He bristles. “Is that a suggestion or a demand, Spock?”

“It is neither,” he is told. “Merely a concern for your safety.”

Then Spock is gone.

Jim meets Leonard’s eyes. The doctor finds it necessary to warn the man. “Don’t even think it, Jim.”

But he can see that Jim already has, perhaps at the same moment as Spock. This time it is Jim’s turn to ask, “Are you sure, Bones?”

“Yeah, I am.”

McCoy stays still as Jim reaches out, runs a hand down Leonard’s arm, only letting fingertips linger on the inside of his wrist before dropping that hand away. It is Captain Kirk, steeling his countenance, who says, “You first, Doctor.”

Leonard only spares a moment to pluck a emergency medi-kit from a wall panel on his way.

The three devils are, it appears, surprised to meet Leonard face-to-face. He quirks his mouth at them and disarms the force field of the cell with deliberate slowness. They don’t step up to meet him when he enters the brig cell; in fact, they back away like he is dangerous.

Last time Leonard checked in the mirror, he didn’t look like a wild man. Maybe it is his audacity to confront them which they find unsettling. Nevertheless, McCoy is not a man to look a gift horse in the mouth.

“How are y’all doing?” he drawls almost languidly. With a thump, the medi-kit is dropped from his hand onto a long, low bench. Making a show of locating and presenting a hypospray, he remarks, “We’re not inhospitable folks. You’ve been treated well, I’m sure.”

The biggest one’s eyes dart behind McCoy, seeking the trap. “What you do?” it demands shortly.

Such pitiful Standard.

Flicking the needle of the hypospray, his smile is wide and innocent. “Someone says y’all are jumpy. I’m a doctor, remember? I’m gonna smooth you out.”

“No!” is half-snorted like a bull. “Stay there!”

He lowers his brows. “Now listen here. I don’t have time to play around with you. Four of our ships are sailing in and I need to meet with the other CMOs.”

One of the pair behind the leader repeats dumbly, “More ships?”

Leonard makes an exasperated sound, stalks forward and they back up to the wall, eyeing him. “What’d you think I said? Yes, more ships. You’ve gone and pissed off Kirk, who contacted other captains and now they’re pissed off and I and a bunch of very beleaguered individuals will have to dispose of all your ship buddies’ corpses once the blasting’s done. Now, YOU,” the doctor says in a no-nonsense tone to the leader, “come over here and stand still for this shot!”

It turns to its companions, saying something guttural and emphatic. Leonard recognizes the lines of tension, the intent, in its body language because he is expecting it. When the leader charges at him, McCoy dives to the side and flattens himself against the wall with a sharp warning cry of “Jim!”

The three idiots barrel out of the brig cell and straight into the open hall, not even seeing (Jim will tell him this later) Kirk and the Security officers around the corner behind them. The escapees simply break into freedom and not a moment after fall prey to heavy phaser stuns. McCoy hears the impact of bodies hitting the floor, waits a heartbeat, and pokes his head outside of the large cell.

“You get ’em?” he calls. Then the answer seems less important as he spies Jim ahead and hurries to meet him.

“Bones!”

McCoy would bet good money that Kirk’s expression of relief is identical to his own. “Did you get them?” he repeats.

Jim is bright-eyed and sharply smug. “Oh yes.”

Leonard comes to stand beside Kirk and eyes the three sprawled figures. “How much do you think one of them weighs?”

Jim follows his gaze. “Three, maybe four hundred pounds?”

“Mmm. Good thing you have strong Security officers then, Captain.”

Kirk frowns at him. “Why?”

“As your doctor,” Leonard clarifies, “I’m ordering you to leave the heavy lifting to younger men, Jim. One pulled back muscle and you’ll be out of commission for weeks!”

Jim simply shoots him a look that says I’m not old; the undaunted arch of Leonard’s eyebrow replies Who do you think you’re foolin’?

Kirk uses the side of his fist to smack the comm unit. “Captain Kirk to Mr. Spock.”

“Captain.”

“Is the transporter set?”

“Affirmative.”

“Good. The cargo is ready to be moved.”

“Cargo, Captain?”

Leonard rubs away a rapidly growing smile with the back of his hand as he listens to Spock’s inquisitive I don’t understand what you just said voice.

Jim replies humorously enough, “Sorry for the code, Spock. I meant the three prisoners.”

“Understood. Transporter is prepped and all personnel evacuated from area.”

“Excellent! We’ll be there momentarily.”

Leonard spends the next few minutes reminding grunting officers bent under the unwieldy weight of the unconscious enemy to “Lift with your legs! Damn it, Garris, I told you to stand aside! Your knee injury ain’t fully healed—hold still, I put that hypospray somewhere…” It is a chore and a half, but a small army of Starfleet officers, shepherded by Kirk and McCoy managed to relocate three large bull-like beings across the ship. There they dump the troublesome aliens with minutes to spare.

Spock, who stands outside the transporter room, stares without blinking as Kirk and McCoy approach him.

Jim asks, “The safe room?”

“Follow me, Captain, Doctor.”

The First Officer leads them across the transporter room and into a small office adjoined to it. Leonard quickly finds a seat, watching as Spock methodically engages all the equipment, seals the door, and effectively locks the three of them into the tiny area.

He crosses his arms. “How cozy.”

Jim chuckles as he leans over a computer monitor. “Spock, can you control the settings from in here?”

“Yes.” Spock explains that he has already locked onto the enemy’s ship as a beaming destination, and they only need wait for the transporter room to be discovered and utilized. “We have sealed sectors fifty-nine through sixty-two. There are limited possibilities for exploration.”

“Except the transporter room,” McCoy says.

“Correct, Doctor.”

Jim claps his hands once, pulls a chair up next to Leonard’s and settles in. “Then we wait for them to wake up and find their way here. Great.” Kirk looks first at Leonard, then at Spock. “So… I guess no one remembered to bring a game of chess?”

Spock turns back to the softly beeping computers. “I did not.”

Leonard shivers unexpectedly and drops his eyes. Stuck in a room with Spock, he thinks. What a perfect time this would be to address a few personal issues… When he raises his eyes again, it is to find Jim staring back at him—and undoubtedly thinking the exact same thing.

They are balanced on a knife’s edge now, and not simply because of the danger lurking outside this room, beyond the ship. Leonard swallows down his nervousness and breathes deeply.

Then Spock announces that “Scanners show movement, Captain. The enemy is aware and in pursuit.”

Leonard, alongside Jim, looks at three heat signatures in the shape of dark red masses slowly migrating down a corridor on a holomap. Without thinking, his hand searches for Jim’s, finds it and hangs on.

“Good luck to us,” he cannot help but mutter.

~~~
before…

Jim is filing his nails.

Filing his nails.

Leonard is not quite sure why this strikes him as odd, but it does.

Jim’s slightly amused reply snaps his attention back to the present. “Why are you being so defensive? There was no implied criticism of you in my decision to remove you from the case.”

“That is not the reason I am here. I’m here—” Wondering why I have to spell this out for you, Jim. “—because Doctor Coleman’s record states that he’s incompetent.”

Jim looks up sharply. “That’s the opinion of an individual.”

“—and well as flagrant medical blunders.”

Jim tries to walk away and McCoy simply cannot allow it, by the professional code of honor he tries to uphold and by his genuine concern for what could be ailing his friend. He says slowly but firmly, “I appreciate the fact that you had a decision to make. I also find myself in that position now, Jim. And I’m asking you to report for an examination.”

This strikes too close to home; too close to that time, which seems only like yesterday, that he had to face Jim with his heart pounding in his throat and make a similar threat. Kirk had been obsessed then, so much that it was impairing the man’s judgment. Back then, it had been enough to arouse Leonard’s concern that Jim could consider sacrificing time when Theta VII desperately needed medical supplies.

Now the doctor’s attention is drawn by these events surrounding a woman, Janice Lester, and how Kirk blithely hands Dr. Coleman medical authority without a care for protocol or Coleman’s history.

Leonard had had Spock by his side during his confrontation with Kirk over the obsession, to stand as witness and supporter—and against Kirk. He remembers that in this moment, as he stands facing Kirk alone; he remembers it later, too, when Spock is caught trying to help Janice Lester escape.

Circumstances worsen. Jim places Spock under arrest on the charge of mutiny. Leonard begins to realize, as he sits at Spock’s trial, that the tables have not just been turned, they have been flipped upside down, and solid footing has devolved into tentative steps on cracked ice. He is not sure if the Enterprise crew’s morale, the crew as a whole, will recover from this if all goes ill.

Kirk demands Spock’s repentance. The Vulcan, however, is more intractable than McCoy has ever seen him. Spock’s words strike every man in the trial room like a blow, not just Kirk, who grows more enraged: “No, Sir, I shall not withdraw a single charge that I have made. You are not Captain Kirk. You have ruthlessly appropriated his body but the life entity within you is not that of Captain Kirk, you do not belong in charge of the Enterprise, and I shall do everything in my power against you.”

McCoy wants to believe Spock, thinks that if he doesn’t believe Spock he might very well make one of the worst mistakes of his life. Yet Starfleet Headquarters will need facts, and the doctor is heavily dismayed by the lack of evidence to support Spock’s accusations against the Captain. Only McCoy’s gut instinct agrees whole-heartedly with the First Officer and repeats faithfully to Leonard that Kirk is not stable, is not the Jim he knows.

When Scotty approaches him, the grim look on the Chief Engineer’s face is a mirror of McCoy’s feelings. The Scotsman sums up the situation too well. He tells Leonard, “I’ve seen the Captain feverish, sick, drunk, delirious, terrified, overjoyed, boiling mad… but up to now, I have never seen him red-faced with hysteria.”

Their quiet talk (which leaves a sick knot in Leonard’s stomach) results in Captain Kirk calling them both out on mutiny charges alongside Spock; thus all three senior officers are to be summarily executed.

He closes his eyes in that moment, finally knowing the truth and his doubts swept away. The man that Leonard understands better than himself, loves more than himself, would never demand such a heavy, irreversible price. Not in haste, and certainly not out of personal fear.

No, this emotionally frenzied man is not the Enterprise’s Captain Kirk. He is not Leonard’s Jim.

McCoy does not fight the Security officers who gingerly escort him to the brig. He stands there, staring first at Scotty, then Spock, and finally Janice Lester. She meets his gaze with an emotion that Leonard has seen too often on Jim’s face, when they are captured by the enemy: regret that his friends are suffering.

Doctor McCoy gently breaks eye contact with Lester to watch Kirk taunting them from the other side of the cell’s force field. He hopes, with all his being, that there is still time to fix a situation which is spiraling so madly out of control.

Footnotes:
1. Fourth scene is a fictional extension of the episode Turnabout Intruder.
2. Kirk’s obsession/McCoy’s past confrontation with Kirk – reference to the episode Obsession.

Down to two parts!

Next Part

Related Posts:

• What We Feel (12/12) – from April 2, 2011
• What We Feel (11/12) – from April 2, 2011
• What We Feel (9/?) – from March 26, 2011
• What We Feel (8/?) – from March 23, 2011
• What We Feel (7/?) – from March 20, 2011