(no subject)
Division
Being a lieutenant in Starfleet wasn’t much of an accomplishment. Not everyone could do it, but a large enough percentage passed the tests and had the proper attitude that the rank meant next to nothing. “You’re a lieutenant? That’s nice. I know this admiral, and she’s got the nicest legs you ever did see…”
Second Lieutenant Shane Kelly got that a lot. Most of the time he didn’t mind. Being in Starfleet meant he wasn’t serving ten to fifteen for homicide on whatever godforsaken planet the old US of A was extraditing prisoners to these days. Being a lieutenant meant he got to carry knives beyond the wimpy little things HQ called standard issue. Being a lieutenant under Captain Pike meant life was just grand.
On paper, he was assigned to weapons detail. Kelly was good at it, too. It wasn’t like back home, a broken city fifty miles north of Louisiana were the guns still had lead bullets, but the difference was minimal. The weapons changed but the intention was always the same-hurt, kill, stop. Sometimes he went onto the planets the Enterprise paused at. Most of the time, Pike kept him on the ship.
In reality, Lt. Kelly was one of Starfleet’s better interrogators. Oh, they didn’t call him that. No, that would be admitting that they valued what he did. High Command didn’t acknowledge his existence at all.
Weapons detail wasn’t important. Second lieutenants were expendable, and there were always fifty odd recruits signing up for training whenever they stopped long enough to pick up trainees. On paper, Kelly was no one. An Irish name and thin, unmemorable face on a personnel file.
Unimportant. Expendable.
The truth was slightly darker. He liked the irony.
Interrogators were important, perhaps much more so because Starfleet’s mission involved peace. There was always violence when the intention was to stop it. Interrogators were necessary. Every ship had one. Some even had two.
The Enterprise had Lt. Kelly. There had been a cadet he’d taken a shine to, a skinny little Egyptian navigator who’d shown some promise, but she’d gotten her skull crushed in the first skirmish with the Romulans and so Kelly remained the one. It didn’t bother him. Death never had.
Probably the reason why he was here.
“Lieutenant!”
Cadet Jayren ran after the much taller lieutenant. On a good day, Jayren weighed a hundred pounds soaking wet. His hair was the sickly green color of a bad hangover with pink eyes to match. There were six gold hoops in each ear. “You can’t go in there!”
“Oh, I think I can,” Kelly returned calmly. “Is there a protocol saying otherwise?”
“Well-”
“Rhetorical, Jayren.”
“But, sir-”
“Still rhetorical.”
Cadet Jayren got the idea and shut up. Kelly didn’t smile as he stalked over to the bridge to inquire just what the fuck had just happened. The few mechanics and glum crewmen making repairs moved out of his way. The only ones who didn’t know Kelly were the recruits, and they learned quickly to get out of his way.
Acting-Captain Spock had apparently resigned. That was obviously bullshit. Kelly didn’t like Commander Spock anymore than the Vulcan liked him, but they were both soldiers who knew their trade. They had several things in common. Brutal ambition was one of them.
Spock wouldn’t reigned command of the Enterprise at a time like this. Not for any good reason. Pike had put him in charge. That meant something, and Vulcans tended to respect the decisions of their elders.
Granted, Captain Pike wasn’t the sanest guy in the wide, wide universe. Playing the hostage game with an enemy with much bigger guns and a nasty disposition wasn’t exactly a strategic plan.
Still, Pike was a good solider. Kelly knew the man well enough. Probably better than Pike wanted him to. They had talked extensively, on interrogation methods, anti-interrogation methods, and classical music. Sometimes Kelly offered advice. Pike had taken it once and swore he regretted it.
Despite it, Kelly was still here. The captain had a use for him, no matter what was said, or not said, in the ship’s logs. Christopher Pike was practical to the extreme, a soldier to the end.
Fun times. Kelly was too aware that he’d gotten nine transfers in ten years of service, and that was slowly becoming a point of reference. It was good to stay under the radar. People didn’t care what he did if it didn’t blow up in their faces.
Pike wasn’t gung-ho about what Kelly did, but he recognized the importance of having interrogators. Kelly had been on the Enterprise for a year, the longest time he’d served under the same captain in all his years in Starfleet. For the first time in a long time, his cabin almost felt like home. He knew people. He had a solid place on the ship.
Sometimes, he imagined he had friends. Sometimes it didn’t even feel like a lie.
The prospect of losing all that to a self-righteous acting-captain didn’t sit well with Lt. Kelly. He had never heard of James T. Kirk before the message was broadcasted on the comm.
Hell, the prospect of serving an acting-captain who had been a cadet until a few hours ago didn’t sit well with him. In fact, the prospect was doing something that a great many clueless cadets and bad alcohol had failed to do lately-it was making him crabby.
Jayren kept trying. Why, Kelly didn’t know. Intelligence was usually required in cadets. “Sir, Captain Pike said you’re not supposed to-”
“Pike’s not here,” Kelly snapped, dodging around a linguistics officer who was apparently blind as well as clueless, having barely managed to make it around the corner without crashing. “And I really don’t give a-touch me again and I will hurt you.”
Having failed to achieve success with negotiation, Jayren had attempted to use more direct methods. Grapping Kelly’s arm might have been effective if the lieutenant wasn’t a good two feet taller. Defying gravity and common sense all at once, Jayren didn’t let go. He had to stand on his heels to look Kelly in the eye. “You can’t barge in on the acting-captain. Not now.”
“I could shove you out the nearest airlock and deny everything,” Kelly informed him.
Jayren didn’t let go.
Kelly punched him in the gut. The cadet let go. He made an odd groaning sound. It must have hurt. Kelly wasn’t sympathetic at all. “You’re not all that bright, are you?”
“You can’t go in there!” Jayren snarled. Or tried to snarl, anyways. It came out in a wheeze.
They had delicate bones where he came from, apparently. Kelly took the information and rolled it up into his head, where he would remember it. Pink eyes, green hair, and delicate bones. There were possibilities there.
Now was not the time to explore them, no matter how much Kelly was tempted to. “If I hit you again, will you shut up?”
“If you hit me again, I’ll call security.”
“Not if I knock you out.”
That was truth. Jayren attempted to argue against it anyways. It seemed like cadets got stupider each year. The Egyptian navigator had been the only decent one of the bunch. A shame she was dead. He liked intelligent conversation.
“Because this is not an emergency situation in which we may all die horribly, humor me. Why can’t I question the acting captain?” Kelly’s eyebrows rose up as high as they went, hidden under his thick bangs, red like his Irish name.
Apparently they didn’t teach sarcasm at Starfleet academy these days. “Because-”
“Rhetorical, Jayren. I don’t actually give a damn.”
“I do, lieutenant.”
“That’s nice. Were you going to do something about it?”
“Yes.”
Kelly paused. “Such as…?”
It was at this time that Jayren proved that short and skinny also equaled fast and kicked him in the throat. Standard issue boots had hard soles-they packed a strong punch and Kelly went down like a rock. “Security!”
“You little shit.”
“I’m sorry, lieutenant.”
“Not yet you’re not.”
Kelly didn’t like being the one on the ground wheezing. He didn’t like the way the security team was smirking, either. Red uniforms against red faces, and they were all big-taller than Kelly, which was taller than he liked-and used to bossing people around.
That was Kelly’s job. Pike had made it so.
Pike wasn’t here.
He glared at the cadet through watering eyes. “I’m going to kill you.”
Jayren didn’t believe him. The security team had been in the service longer and did. They hauled him up by the arms and Jayren watched them go. Acting Captain Kirk, soon to be Captain Kirk, knew of none of it.
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5/24/09