[Rifts in the Boredom of Forced Sick Leave] -- [Open]
Things had gone... interestingly the night of the party. The small memory put a smile to Kirk's face, despite his complete boredom and annoyance at still being trapped in his room. He could leave, he could walk around, but there was nothing he could do. Damn CMO's orders
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"Here is what I am determined to do, if you're interested," he said. "One: Uphold and protect the values of the Federation and Starfleet. Two: Allow the phenomenon of new life to develop and prove itself before acting as jury and executioner--see number one. And three: ensure Spock's safe return. I don't trust the Narada, Jim. I don't blindly believe she's benign. But I do trust that Spock would not willingly enter into immediate danger without a damn good reason. And in my interactions with her, I have come to trust that she is eager to learn that which will help her crew. And she is malleable. She's capable of more than blind obedience, as she's shown. And that makes her both more dangerous and someone with whom it's possible to negotiate. We're out-shielded and out-gunned as it is. And they have Spock. My best weapon has, thus far, been to show her know exactly what we stand for. In the hopes that some of it will rub off."
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He gestured with a hand, scowling, "I care less about her newly gained sentience as I care about her masters. Them I want brought to justice. What I'm saying is that I'm not trying to play jury and executioner on her, but on her masters. Think about it realistically though. If we try to do anything to her masters, what is she going to do? She's going to defend them, which means people on our side could die. I don't see how they can be dealt with without her defending them and needing to be taken care of to. By taken care of, I don't necessarily mean destroying her, but it would stop any chance of her being benign. If we could do this somehow where Nero and Ayel are dealt with and the Narada remained alive and not trying to hunt us down? Then I'm all for it."
He licked his lips, anger bubbling in him, "I'm not going to spare them because of her, Jim. I love how you, and Spock, see to value her existence over everything else that's happened." He held up a finger sharply, "Even if you don't, you have no idea how much you're portraying that to me."
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He fidgeted, rising.
"What will you tell Starfleet? Are you prepared for the investigation? Can you defend your actions on a purely unemotional level? You say I'm valuing her existence over your situation. You're wrong. What I'm valuing is my conviction that you're not a murderer. That your need for revenge isn't going to dictate your actions."
There. He'd said it. The gulf spread between them, but it was not one Jim was willing to scale. He had killed. He had made these calls himself. But always in the immediate interests of protection. Never as a summary judgment. That was for the Federation--and specifically the people of Vulcan--to work through.
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"I think we are thinking two entirely different situations, Jim." Kirk said calmly, more calmly then he even expected of himself. "You weren't there. You haven't seen it. Your Spock didn't feel it. You have no connection to it at all. For you, your universe that you'll return to has Vulcan, has no scars left behind by Nero. Your Federation and Starfleet didn't suffer what ours has. You might say you feel it, understand it, but you never will. You didn't live through it, and for you it could have all the same feeling as watching an old history vid or reading it from a padd. You can distance yourself from it because you have no intimate connection with it."
It was turning into a speech, and he knew it, "I would care more about the Narada, and what it represents, if it wasn't harboring someone who murdered more then six billion people. Jim, are you even LISTENING to that? Six. Billion. People. A PLANET. Six of our ships and seven thousand officers, cadets not even graduated yet, and thousands of crew. All I'm hearing from you is about this ship. Hurrah. I care about the man who is weilding that ship as a weapon, who not only has the possibility to do more damage, but has the will to do it."
Kirk dragged his fingers over the markings over his arm. "You don't pet a mad dog and give it a bone after its torn up a child. You take it out back and put it out of its misery before it hurts someone else. He's mad. Completely and utterly mad."
Kirk lifted his head and focused on Jim, "Why do you care about one sentient life form that is not completely innocent over the lives of all those people... and all the people he could still, and would still, harm? Have you lost your perspective that much, that you can't see the big picture instead of a single piece of the puzzle?"
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"This has nothing to do with the ship, aside from the possibility that she might be turned to our way of thinking and thereby solve our problems without bloodshed. This has everything to do with you. And your willingness to commit murder in cold blood, to abandon the legal and medical process, to let your anger guide you. To ignore the right of what's left of Vulcan to be part of that process, if at all possible. To determine the situation as it stands now."
Jim looked open and stricken, thinking about Kodos, thinking about what he'd wanted to do and counseling Kevin away from doing it. Kodos hadn't deserved the life he'd built for himself. But he hadn't deserved anyone's summary judgment.
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Kirk stood up, walking away from Jim and to the large window. He stared out unhappily, scowling, body light and dark in the stark light. "I'm willing to kill someone, but this isn't murder. What he did was murder. He took billions of innocent lives. Killing him would be a justice... preventing future pain. He escaped a prison planet run by Klingons, Jim. Throwing him in a prison won't help. Putting him on trial? Do you realize the kind of havoc that would break loose? Starfleet lost so much and Vulcan even more. They'll tear him to pieces."
He let out a slow breath, "I don't think you have the guts to do what is humane. You're offering mercy, and it feels like you just want to pull the wool over your eyes and let everything he did not mean anything. A trial... legal. Medical." He shook his head slowly, leaning his forearm on the glass and his forehead on his forearm.
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"I've lost perspective, Jim? I'm not the one who thinks he's bigger than Starfleet, who thinks it's his duty and right to decide. I'm not asking for anything but for Spock not to be blown up. That, and the opportunity to see what we're up against. We don't know what the Narada is capable of. What we do know is that already, the two beings closest to Nero have more or less betrayed him. Do they deserve to die so that you can dispose of him before he's conscious again? Damn it, Jim, the fact that you can accuse me of cowardice and deliberate blindness to the situation and the hurt he's caused..."
He consciously unclenched his fist. It was hurting his hand.
"You can believe whatever you want." It hurt more than he would have guessed, knowing exactly how they differed. "You have no reason to grant my position any more credence that a stranger on the street. But I couldn't do what you're contemplating. Though I've contemplated it myself. And decided that I'm only one man. I'm not the one who gets to decide who lives or dies. Even if it might be more convenient. If that changed, I'd be a different person. I'd be Kodos. I'd be Nero."
He moved towards the door, his expression stony, anticipating being thrown out. The argument could go nowhere. He was rapidly losing focus, becoming emotional himself. He was too close--not to the problem, not like Kirk was, but to Kirk himself.
He was still convinced he was right.
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"Tarsus IV." He whispered, so quiet, yet it carried in the clear silence between them, even across the gulf dividing them.
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"Jim, no," he said quietly, as if Kirk would now tell him he was wrong, that he hadn't been there too, that they didn't share that.
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The universes were closer together then Kirk ever, ever wanted them to be. He looked down, unable to take that look that Jim was giving him. He rarely even ever had nightmares about then, none the less try to actively think about it.
It hadn't stopped him from having a small hoard of food in the dorms during his time at the academy.
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"Jim, I'm sorry," he said nonsensically. He hadn't sent Kirk there. He couldn't have stopped it. But somehow it seemed unfair that they'd both had to share that. Of all things.
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But he had lived through this well, another mass suicide, another man he had been powerless to stop.
He stared downwards before whispering, "I don't want to lose a friend, but just like you... I can't back down from what I believe in."
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"I'm not asking you to back down from what you believe in. I'm asking you to think it over. To make sure you have perspective. No one would blame you for having to find it again. The Jim Kirk I know believes in due process and altering one's options to fit the situation. The situation's changed. That's all I came here to say. I... met him again. Kodos. Years later. I'm not ignorant of your situation."
His arm dropped, and he took a step back.
"I've overstayed my welcome," he said. "You know where to find me." Doing nothing.
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Due process. Starfleet would have Nero executed or thrown into jail. The latter.. what good would it do? He could escape again. There was so much that could happen.
Maybe I should talk with Pike about this.
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This was different. This was him, only now he doubted how true that was. What that connection meant. Jim had seen himself mirrored so many times. And as much as he believed in himself, none of those views had been flattering.
Had he lost that?
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