Fic: "Crossfire" (8/19)
Title: "Crossfire, Part 8"
Author: Mijan
Series: ST: XI
Character/Pairing(s): Kirk&McCoy, Pike, Scotty
Rating: PG-13
Author’s Notes: This story is part of the Academy-era story arc, which includes “Convergence” and “And All the King’s Men.” “Crossfire” is a direct sequel. Several things in this story will not make sense unless you’ve read AAtKM first.
Summary: Jim Kirk and Leonard McCoy are on top of the world at the academy until it all comes crashing down around them. Trapped in their own mystery of politics, sabotage, and possible murder, it quickly becomes impossible to know who to trust. Worse, Jim might still be a target. With a dangerous criminal on the loose and Academy leadership not doing enough, Jim and Bones have to get their lives back together and find out what happened... before it happens again.
*********
CROSSFIRE, Part 8
It could have been a lot worse, Jim reasoned to himself as he opened his eyes and looked around the room he’d been stuck in for the past week. It was Sunday morning, and they were releasing him.
If, by all rights, he shouldn’t be alive, then a week and a half in a hospital wasn’t the worst thing in the world. Really, he’d spent a lot of time reading and studying, and trying to get ahead in the theoretical portions of his classes. He was already going to be behind in the practicals when he went back to class tomorrow, and would be restricted to limited duty for a while longer, so he needed every advantage he could get. Being stuck in bed certainly helped eliminate distractions when it came time to focus on classwork, but it also gave him too much time to think. Far too much time to think.
And far too much time to loathe the simple fact that he was there in the first place. It was hard not to resent the doctors and nurses who were only trying to help you, for God’s sake, Jim. Jim chuckled humorlessly at the memory of Bones’ voice, chastising him when he’d started to complain... so he’d stopped complaining. And fuck it all, the worst part was just having to lie there and take it. Accepting help... it was uncomfortable and awkward, and even after a week of relying on people - mostly complete strangers, aside from Bones - it still felt like he’d been wearing someone else’s personality just to keep himself sane. And really, he was grateful for the help. That didn’t make him feel any more comfortable with it.
Giving a smile he wasn’t feeling to the empty room, he sighed and rolled gently off the biobed.
At least it was almost over. The simple freedom of being allowed to walk to the bathroom himself, which they’d only granted him on Friday night, still seemed like a big deal. Wearing real pajamas seemed like a big deal, too. And the shower he’d gotten to take yesterday, with real water (after all the sonic showers they’d wheeled him through) had been a small piece of heaven. It was great, until he remembered that he had been able to take those things for granted only two weeks ago.
You’re alive, you asshole, he thought angrily at himself. That’s more than you could say about most people if they’d been through a crash like that. Tambe didn’t make it. Grow up and be grateful that you’re still alive. That you can walk to the fucking bathroom.
The thought didn’t help much, but it took the edge off his self-indulgent bitterness.
He finished relieving himself and walked out of the bathroom to find the room no longer empty. “You’re here early, Bones,” he said lightly, not really surprised. He'd gotten used to Bones showing up unannounced. Not that they had many boundaries to begin with, but most of what had remained had mysteriously disappeared over the past week. Oddly, that was one of the few things that Jim hadn’t really minded. Had come to expect it, and even appreciate its strange but comfortable familiarity. It was something familiar in a world that so incomprehensible and out of his control.
Bones was sprawled in the guest chair, giving him a look of clinical approval as he took a sip from his ever-present coffee canteen. “Well, we’re springing you out of here today,” he said easily. “I figured you’d want to leave as soon as possible.”
“Oh, come on now, Bones - you know I love it here. It’s like a vacation... only not.” He walked around the bed to where his duffel was sitting on the table. “Nothing better than being poked and prodded for a week. And the food in this place is five-star.” He gave a resigned look to let Bones know he wasn’t really protesting. Just whining a little bit... just because he could. And because he knew it would get some sort of amusing retort from his friend.
On cue, Bones snorted. “I’ve smuggled you lo mein, pizza, and even cannelloni from Luigi’s Bistro. I don’t want to hear a damned thing about food. You’ve eaten better in the past four days than I have in months.”
“Well, I had to make up for a week of not eating anything.” He flashed something that felt more like a real smile. Bones grumbling and being sarcastic was familiar and comfortable.
“Kid, the way you eat, you’re going to end up wearing a girdle so you can fit into your dress uniform by the time you make Captain.”
“Thanks, Bones,” he sald flatly, then dropped the sarcasm in favor of sincerity. “But still, I’m still grateful for the extra rations.” He pulled his jeans out of the duffel and looked at them wistfully. The last pair he’d worn had been sliced to ribbons by the nurses. And here he'd always dreamed of women slicing his clothes off... just under better circumstances. At least this pair of jeans wouldn’t meet that same fate. “Thanks for bringing me some more clothes, too.”
“You’re welcome.” Bones sipped his coffee again. “You know, your roommate should be the guy bringing your stuff to you. Technically, that’s policy for cadets here.”
“Yeah, but I’ve spent more time on your couch than in my own dorm room with him anyway. I barely know the guy. We hardly talk, unless I’m asking him engineering questions - and then the guy could talk your ear off. He's kinda obsessed with that stuff. Always in the engineering labs, and when he’s in the dorm room, he’s studying or tinkering with some electronic shit.” He chuckled, grabbing the first t-shirt his fingers found in his bag. “With a name like Sven Hagenbuch, the guy either needed to be a porn star or a nerd.”
“Don’t be so damned judgmental,” Bones said flatly. “Especially seeing as you study more than anyone else I know, and you’ve been hiding that fact from the rest of the damned world.”
“You’ve caught me there, Bones. But if I don’t study hard, how can I make it look easy?” He grinned and started unbuttoning his pajama shirt, mock-suggestively. “And if people knew my dark, nerdy secret, it would ruin my chances at becoming a porn star on the side.”
“I’m sure you’d find a way,” Bones said flatly. He shook his head and stood, depositing his canteen on the table beside him. “Need a hand getting dressed?”
It was Jim’s turn to reply with a derisive snort as he dropped the shirt on the bed. “If I can’t dress myself, I have no business getting discharged. I should be able to handle all my usual stuff, Bones. Just no live training, fitness drills, or sumo wrestling for a week. Huh - I wonder how I'd look in a sumo mawashi.” He pushed down his pajama bottoms and stepped out of them gingerly, leaving them in a pile on the floor. But before he could pick them up, Bones snagged them with a deft swipe of the hand and began folding them.
“That’s a terrifying image. It’s a good thing the Academy doesn’t have a sumo team. And you’re neglecting the fact that your discharge papers release you to the care of a family member," he said flatly. "Which, in this case, is me. Besides,” his tone softened - an odd verbal quirk he’d acquired in the past week, “you’ll need some help getting into the support brace.”
Jim groaned. “Do I really need that?” He knew the answer anyway.
“It’s either that or a wheelchair if you want to go more than a hundred meters or ten minutes upright.” Bones grabbed the pajama top off the bed and began folding that, too. “Not worth the chance of you falling over. Don't give me that look. You’ll have more leeway tomorrow. And besides, kid, the brace is all force fields. It’s invisible, so none of your friends are gonna know. It'll just give you a little extra support, and it’s just for a week. Better than having to come back here because you went too far, too fast.” There was a hint of strain in his eyes on those last words.
Feeling slightly guilty, Jim nodded. “Okay then.”
“You finish getting dressed... and sit down to put your pants on... and I’ll go finalize your discharge orders and get the brace for you.”
Jim tossed him a dismissive mock salute, but as soon as he was out the door, Jim sat down and carefully pulled his pants up over his ankles. He really wasn’t taking any chances this time.
Despite his willingness to cooperate with the medical staff after his... debacle... the desperate need to get out of the hospital hadn’t quite gone away. He just had to resign himself to having an itch he couldn’t scratch for a week. The knowledge that the threat was still out there, somewhere, wandering around unchecked, weighed heavily on his mind. He’d tried not to think about it too much, knowing that he couldn’t do a damned thing about it. He’d also discovered that trying to discuss it with Bones only put him on the receiving end of a brutal eyebrow and a scathing dressing-down. So he’d done his best not to think about it. But now, with freedom just minutes away, the things he’d done his best to ignore all week were stewing - actively boiling - in his mind.
He had to get to the hangar and look for evidence. He had to go to the library and cross-reference Terra Prime with shuttle crashes for patterns. And... shit! He hadn’t even thought of it... but he needed a copy of the flight-recorder feed. Bones would have it. He felt a flash of relief that he’d actually patched that data feed to Bones’ PADD. Otherwise, he’d never get a copy, and the hell if he was going to trust Starfleet to catch everything when they couldn’t even stop a saboteur from getting to the shuttle in the first place.
He was just starting to pull his t-shirt over his head when the door chimed. Huh, Bones was fast. Wonder why he bothered to chime. “Come in. Hey Bones, do you have -”
His head popped out of his shirt, and he saw... Not Bones. Jim pressed his lips together, feeling both confused and slightly violated. He frowned, and kept his voice as neutral as possible. “Romano. What brings you over here?”
Cadet Mario Romano was standing just inside the doorway, arms folded across his chest, but instead of looking defensive or arrogant, he just looked really uneasy. Five centimeters taller than Jim was, with dark hair and an obnoxiously well-chiseled jawline, his nervousness seemed out of place on his normally overconfident features. “Uh... hi, Kirk. I... just heard you were getting out of here today. Okoru told me. Saw her in the library. I... uh...”
Jim felt his frown deepen. He and Romano had established a competitive rivalry at the beginning of hand-to-hand combat the previous spring. Romano had already been an assistant instructor, Cadet Second Class at the time, and Jim had been the damned Fourth Class who had shown him a trick or two. And Jim had subsequently been selected as an Assistant Instructor candidate for the following year. Now he and Romano both had their own Basic Hand-to-Hand Combat sections... and to top it all off, Jim had bested the guy on the flight assessment test.
But it was healthy competition, Jim figured. Their goading each other from their respective flight squads had been good motivation. And after their hand-to-hand sections had their bi-weekly sparring matches, the person with the “winning” group typically bought the other a beer as a show of good humor and cooperation.
Jim had gladly dropped the credits for a lot of beers this semester.
Smoothing out his t-shirt, Jim leaned against the side of the biobed. “What gives, Romano?”
The guy sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “I feel like an ass.”
“It’s okay, we’re used to it by now,” Jim said evenly.
That actually pulled a slight laugh. “Heh. Yeah. How’re you feeling?”
Jim shrugged. “Better than a week ago. Pretty good, all things considered.”
“I’m glad.” He unfolded his arms and rubbed his palms against his thighs. “Listen, Kirk... I know we go back and forth a lot... but I want to make sure you knew I was just messing with you last week. I didn’t mean anything by it.”
Jim felt his eyebrows furrow. “By what?” An uneasy sensation started to build in his gut.
“I... shit, you don’t know? You don’t, do you? Maybe...” He made a half-step towards the door. “I should go. I’m sorry to bother you. I’ll see you in class later this -“
A quick step angled Jim between Romano and the door. “Hey, hey - slow down there. What the hell are you talking about?”
Romano swallowed thickly, his throat working visibly as his eyes darted towards the door and back to Jim’s face. “I... damn, I don’t know how to say this.”
“In Federation Standard would be great, but I’ve been studying Andorian this semester.” Patience was rapidly running out, and he narrowed his eyebrows. “Come on, Romano, I’ve known you long enough to know that neither of us dances around words with each other. So spill it.”
He sucked in a deep breath and let it out through pursed lips before locking eyes with Jim. “I ran into Tambe before your training flight. I told her... shit, I told her to tell you that I thought you were going to fuck it up. That you were going to botch the maneuver.” There was a bizarre look of desperation in his eyes, and something almost fearful. “I didn’t mean it like that, Kirk. I... I just need to know that you don’t think I meant it like that.”
Jim’s mouth dropped open, not sure what to make of this. Of Romano’s sudden appearance, or what he was saying. “Why... what the hell, Romano? Why would you be worried about that?”
Romano’s eyes darted to the door again, and he had the look of a man who had said too much, but knew it was too late to take it back now. “There was a rumor... that you’d said it was sabotage. At least, that’s what they’re saying around campus. They’ve interrogated everyone who had access to the hangar in the past month. I needed to make sure you didn’t think it was me.”
Jim forced a laugh, but it sounded rusty to his own ears. “You’re joking, right? No. No. Why the hell would I think that?”
“No idea, Kirk. But there’s a lot of suspicion bouncing around right now. Around the campus. It’s just... kinda crazy around here. It’s enough to keep a guy from sleeping at night.”
“Shit.” Jim cringed inwardly. Romano could be an arrogant prick, but he was alright. “No, man. Stop worrying about it. It wasn’t a cadet. No. I mean, it could have been... but... well, don’t worry about it. It’s not one of us. I’m sure the investigators are just covering all the corners.”
Romano nodded, and his shoulders seemed to loosen up a bit, but he still looked uneasy. “Thanks, Kirk. I just needed to clear the air on that.”
Forcing what he hoped was an encouraging smile, Jim reached out and clapped the guy lightly on the shoulder. “It’s okay. Hey, I’ve got to finish getting ready to get out of this lovely little pleasure resort. I’ll see you in class tomorrow. Okay?”
“Okay,” Romano replied with a smile that looked about fifteen degrees off-center. “See you in class.”
He turned towards the door without a handshake and moved to step through quickly, as if he couldn’t wait to escape the instant it slid open, only to be confronted with the most impressive scowl Jim had ever seen from one Leonard McCoy.
“You Cadet Romano?” His voice was a low and angry growl, and Jim suddenly realized that Bones must have heard the whole conversation through the room’s intercom.
“I... yes, sir.”
The Eyebrow of Doom rose threateningly. “Good to know. I’ll remember that. Now if you’ll pardon me, I need to help Cadet Kirk finish getting ready to leave.” He gave a short tilt of the head indicating for Romano to get out as quickly as possible, but he didn’t move, forcing Romano to actually duck around him. It was almost comical, watching the oversized, combat-trained, swaggering mountain that was Cadet Romano cower and duck away from the peaceful (if occasionally grouchy) doctor. Bones glared over his shoulder as the rapid footsteps faded down the hall, and didn’t look back until they were gone.
Then, with a grunt of satisfaction, Bones stepped through the door, shaking his head and grumbling.
“Bones... what the hell?”
“Just a bad feeling, Jim. Watch out for that guy.”
“What?” Jim shook his head incredulously. “He’s one of the other hand-to-hand assistant instructors. I’ve known the guy since last year.”
Bones took a step closer into Jim’s personal space and looked at him without flinching. “You were the person who was worried about any possible threat. Maybe I’m just trying to watch your back. I’m a doctor, Jim. I read body language.”
“You weren’t even in the room.”
“I was at the nurses’ station, getting the braces. They’ve got room monitor vids. Trust me, I saw enough. That guy doesn’t like you.”
“Well, sure, but... wait - no. We push each other’s buttons, but it’s nothing sinister. It’s competition.”
“It’s more than that, Jim. That guy was nervous as hell that you were going to accuse him.”
“Of course he was nervous! They’re interrogating everyone. Whoever gets caught - sabotage of a Starfleet vessel is an act of treason. Alongside a murder charge, that’s a pretty hefty accusation. You can’t blame the guy for being nervous.”
“I can’t blame him for that, no,” Bones said, his tone unreadable. “But... watch your step, Jim. You’re worried that someone’s out to get you? I don’t know if that’s true or not, but you’d do well to keep your eyes open.”
This was exasperating. Jim looked at Bones incredulously. “Romano’s obnoxious, but he’s Starfleet. His father’s an Admiral! There’s no way he’s working for Terra Prime.”
Something in Bones’ expression darkened for a moment, then broke painfully, before he shook his head. It looked like he was trying to dislodge a thought and failing. Finally, he stopped and held up two small devices. “Pull up your shirt. Let me show you how these work.”
It wasn’t worth pushing the discussion. Not right now. Jim sighed deeply and pulled up his shirt, almost disgusted with himself for how easily he complied with every little order, every intrusion into his personal space. But at least with Bones, it wasn’t so bad. And really, after all they’d been through together, he shouldn’t mind. Bones had never violated his trust.
So Jim let the argument go, and let Bones get to the task of setting up the brace. Jim nodded and asked the right questions as Bones activated the devices, and was actually impressed with the results. The sensation of cushioning support took some of the faint-but-present ache out of his hips and seemed to help steady him without being visible under his clothes. Not bad. Not too bad at all.
And really, none of it was so bad. He could handle it. It was all just another obstacle to overcome while he got back to the real business of the day - looking for answers.
*********
“Bones, this isn’t my dorm. It’s yours.” Jim got out of the Starfleet Medical transport vehicle in front of Bones’ dorm building. “Why are we stopping here?”
“I told you earlier, Jim,” Bones said lightly as he took Jim by the elbow. “They released you to the care of a family member. So you’re staying with me. At least for the week.”
Jim let himself be led up the walkway, almost oblivious to the support of Bones’ hand at his elbow. He was more stunned than anything else. “Wait... with all your complaining about how I drink your coffee and bourbon... and my clothes are back at my dorm room... and the bed -”
Bones chuckled dryly as he waved his ID over the scanner, opening the main door of the building. “No alcohol until you’re off the painkillers, Jim, so - surprise! The room is devoid of booze at the moment. And I had your roommate pack up your stuff and bring it over here.”
“Bones, I can get my own stuff -”
“And,” he spoke directly over him, “you’ve got the bed for the week. The couch is pretty comfortable anyway, as you well know, so I’ll be just fine. Eighteenth floor,” he instructed the turbolift as they stepped inside and the doors slid closed.
For several seconds, Jim stared at Bones, not quite sure what to make of this. “Why, Bones?”
The hand on his elbow tightened, just the tiniest bit. “Because, Jim, I like watching out for you. Because you listed me as family, and that’s what I’m going to do.” His gaze dropped towards the floor, in a contrite look that looked like a religious confession. “And because I... I owe you, Jim.” For a moment, it had sounded like he was going to say something completely different, and a pained grimace twisted his mouth.
“Wait, what? Bones, what the hell are you -”
The turbolift door slid open, and in a heartbeat, the bizarre expression on Bones’ face morphed back into his usually look of bemused exasperation. “Come on, kid. Home sweet home,” he said in a tone that clearly cut off any attempt Jim might have made to get an explanation for his odd comment.
A moment later, they were in the dorm room. Bones busied himself with carrying Jim’s duffel to the bed, and was unpacking it into an empty drawer in the -
“Bones? You emptied out a dresser drawer for me?”
That earned a snort in reply. “It was either that, or risk finding your underwear all over my damned room.”
Jim couldn’t resist a small smile at that. Leave it to Bones to make it sound like doing a favor for a friend was merely to avoid something else he found distasteful. “I could go commando for the week.”
“Not in my bed, you irrepressible brat.”
“Then how am I going to film the porn holovids while you’re working clinic?”
Bones slammed the dresser drawer shut with a snap, glaring across the room at Jim. “Seriously, Jim? A couple of weeks without sex, and you’re this fixated? Give it a rest already!”
“I’ve been giving it a rest for almost two weeks. That’s the problem.”
Bones groaned. “Then save it for your own dorm. Maybe you can get Sven to help.”
The banter was starting to feel more comfortable. More like home. Jim grinned mischievously as he sat down on the couch and leaned back, giving Bones an appraising look. “But you’re more attractive than Sven. Maybe you could - ”
“And that will be quite enough, Jim.”
“I’ve got enough, if that’s what you’d like.” He waggled his eyebrows for good measure.
Bones rolled his eyes. “Why I put up with you, I don’t even know -“
Jim grinned to himself as Bones launched into one of his milder rants, which merged into a list of do’s and don’t’s around the dorm room for the week. It was comfortable and familiar - this back-and-forth banter. Even though Bones had visited him every day over the past week, and had helped with the physical therapy and rehab exercises, he’d been just a tiny bit distant... as if he was walking the line between friend and doctor. Maybe it was appropriate for him to be Doctor Leonard McCoy while he was working at Starfleet Medical, but to be blunt, Jim missed Bones. And it was nice to have him back.
“... so while I’m gone, you can relax, watch a holovid - not porn, you juvenile delinquent - catch up on some homework -”
Jim blinked, only then catching up with what Bones was saying. “Wait... wait, you’re leaving?”
Bones gave him an incredulous look. “Were you listening to a damned thing I said?”
“Yes! Well, mostly. Okay, so I missed most of it.” Jim frowned at himself. “But I promise... I’m not going to mess up your stuff, dig through your drawers, throw a party, or eat your leftover Chinese - except maybe the lo mein, but you know you can’t keep that stuff safe from me, so don’t even try. But I’m not going to do any of that other stuff.”
“Or leave.”
“What?”
Bones sighed and leaned against the small kitchenette table. “Jim, do I need to remind you that you just left the damned hospital? You’re on limited duty, and you can go back to class tomorrow. But for today, unless there are extenuating circumstances, please hang out here and rest until I get back.”
Jim stared at Bones for about three seconds longer before he dropped his head back heavily against the couch and groaned at the brief flash of pain that lanced through his skull. Ugh, it still aches when I do that. Regardless, headache or no, he wasn’t too keen on sitting in an empty dorm room when he’d just been turned loose. “I’ve been doing nothing but resting for a week!” He waved his hands as if grasping for something he couldn’t find. “I was going to go to the library.” He thought determinedly of the hangar, which Okoru had said was reopened for cadet access. “Or... well, I was hoping to -”
“You’re not going back to the hangar.”
Jim looked back up sharply - okay, that aches more - frowning. “Why the hell not? I mean, come on, Bones. Don’t they say that when you fall off a horse, you should get right back on?”
“Sure, Jim, if nothing’s broken, you get back on the horse and keep riding. However, if the rider gets injured, the rider needs to finish healing before attempting to ride again.” With his arms folded across his chest, and a piercing gaze leveled unflinchingly at Jim, there was no way to argue.
“Fine. Just... fine. Okay. But where are you going?”
Bones gave him an odd look. “I told you - I have clinic duty tonight.”
“They’re gonna get sick of seeing you at Starfleet Medical.”
“Yeah. You’d think,” he said in a hollow tone. He just shook his head to himself, turned, and hit the button on the coffee brewer. He spoke without turning around. “It’s a standard shift. Eight hours. There’s food in the fridge, if you get hungry. I’ll be back in time for supper, and we can order delivery if you want, or I can just grab something from the mess hall on the way back.” He glanced back over his shoulder, and his eyes looked distantly haunted. “Comm me if you need anything, okay?”
“I will, Bones.” He couldn’t do anything but agree.
“Promise me you won’t do anything stupid. I won’t find you unconscious somewhere, right?”
“I promise,” he said, as sincerely as he could, despite the surge of annoyance at the lack of trust. Sure, Bones had a reason for being overprotective, but that didn’t make him feel any less frustrated. Still, there was something a little bit broken in his best friend’s eyes, and he knew his own idiocy was the reason for that, and the guilt was sickening. “I swear, I’ll be fine.”
Bones nodded and turned back to the coffee brewer. A moment later, it beeped, and he pulled his canteen away from the dispenser, taking a sip before he snapped the lid closed. A bit of the tension seemed to ease from his shoulders, and he finally turned back to face Jim. “I’ve gotta go now,” he said, grabbing his messenger bag. “You take care of yourself, okay?”
“Will do.”
With a brief squeeze of Jim’s shoulder, Bones hurried past him and out the door, and Jim sat there, wondering what the fuck had just happened. For several minutes, he stared out the window on the far wall - too high to really see anything but the top of the nearby dorm building from where Jim was sitting - and tried to make sense of it. For a few minutes, Bones had been joking and teasing, and it had felt like they were back to their own selves, but then it was gone. No matter what other shit was going on in his life, Bones was always there, like a grouchy, grumbling anchor, keeping Jim sane and grounded. If something wasn’t right with Bones... if he’d come loose from his own center of gravity... Jim didn’t know what to do.
And he’d forgotten to ask Bones about the flight recorder feed. He sighed and shook his head. I’ll ask for it when he gets back. For now, Jim grabbed his own PADD from his small messenger bag and settled back against the sofa cushions. If nothing else, he could do some studying... but then his PADD buzzed, signaling an incoming live communiqué.
Frowning, Jim tabbed up the comm screen, only to freeze at the name headlining the hail.
“Commander Winona Kirk”
He could ignore it. They hadn’t talked in three years... since she’d left for a deep space mission, and long before he’d considered joining the Academy. He’d sent her a few text communiqués, and received short but seemingly heartfelt replies, but they hadn’t talked. He was fine with that. Since he’d arrived at the Academy, he’d set himself to the task of building his new life from scratch - a new future, a new purpose, and a new family.
He loved his mother, really, but it was a vestige of his past. She, like his brother, seemed to feel the same way. It was as if staying too close to each other kept the mistakes, problems, memories, and baggage even closer. So they’d each gone on with their lives with the unspoken understanding that this was best for all of them. If she was comming him now, it meant she knew what had happened. Someone had told her, despite the fact that he’d intentionally left her off his contact list.
He’d find out later who had told her. For now, he had to deal with the problem in front of him.
Taking an unsteady breath, he tapped the screen. “Hi, Mom.”
*********
Leonard hadn’t lied - not really. Not much, anyway. He did have a clinic shift. However, it was just a six-hour shift. Before that, he had a meeting.
It wasn’t that he needed to keep this a secret from Jim. In fact, as soon as he and Lieutenant Scott came to any solid conclusions, he promised himself he’d tell Jim everything. But for now, it felt like he needed to protect the kid. A horrendous physical ordeal combined with the impact of losing a teammate was more than enough trauma for anyone. Jim didn’t need the added stress. He needed to rest.
And Leonard needed answers.
The hangar loomed in front of him as he scanned his badge at the main security gate. The entire hangar complex had remained restricted until just two days ago, and it was his first chance to get back into the practical engineering lab with Lieutenant Scott. He hadn’t received any communiqués from the man, but this was his usual tutoring session that they had planned, and they’d agreed to meet as usual each week. In fact, not meeting would arouse more suspicion, they reasoned.
And if nothing else, Leonard still needed to pass the goddamned class.
The hangar was surprisingly busy for a Sunday night as Leonard hurried through it to walkway across to the Practical Engineering facility. It was quicker to go through, he reasoned, but he also wanted to take a peek around. Wanted to take a look at security measures. Wondered how easy it was to move around in there unnoticed. And really, with all the activity - Wonder what the hell is going on? - he was sure that almost anyone with badge access could get away with almost anything unnoticed.
Probably just all the folks who didn’t get to do their work for the past week and a half, he reasoned. It made sense. The exact same reason he was there - getting access to the facility for the first time in a week. He had studying to do. Had to catch up on his work for class. Meet with his instructor as usual. That’s all.
At least, that’s all anyone else had to know.
The door opened to the walkway between the hangar and engineering facility. The transparent aluminum arch over the walkway made him feel like a fish in a bowl, or a specimen under a bizarre lens, and he tried to hold his nerves in check as officers and cadets passed by him, acknowledging them appropriately. Finally, he entered the Practical Engineering facility, hurried through the atrium, and took the turbolift to the teaching lab on the third floor.
He walked up to the door of the lab, expecting it to open as always, but barely managed to avoid a collsion as the door stayed firmly shut. Frowning, Leonard took a step towards the door again, with no more luck this time. “Computer - is this lab designated for cadet use at this time?”
“Teaching Laboratory 307 may only be used by cadets under the supervision of a faculty member.”
Leonard scowled at the computer panel. Apparently, there were a few increased security measures around the hangar complex. “Okay… so I’m supposed to be meeting my instructor here. Hasn’t Lieutenant Scott reserved the room? Isn’t he in there?” Maybe I’m early. Maybe he’s…
“Lieutenant Mongomery Scott is not in the building. Teaching Laboratory 307 has not been reserved for supplemental instruction at this time.”
“Maybe he’s late,” Leonard mused to himself.
“Conjecture. Unable to compute.”
“I wasn’t talking to you.” Leonard groaned, walked to the bench a little ways down the hall, and sank slowly onto the too-firm seat cushions.
Lieutenant Scott was never late. In fact, he’d always been early, usually working enthusiastically on some theoretical model on one of the classroom computers. The man has an unhealthy set of fixations on transporter technology and warp engine design, Leonard firmly believed. But either way… he was never late.
Leonard watched the chrono on the wall. Ten anxious minutes ticked past… twenty. The feeling of surrender finally caught up with him. Pulling out his PADD, he thought for a moment, then typed in a quick communiqué to Scott that shouldn’t arouse suspicion, but should be enough to get some sort of response from the man.
Lieutenant Scott,
In lieu of tutoring this week, would you be willing to recommend additional study techniques or reading material to cover the unit on propulsion systems?
Thank you,
Cadet McCoy
He sent the message, only to feel another surge of anxiety at the confirmation that the communiqué had been sent successfully. Why the hell wasn’t Scott there? Sure, there were dozens of possible reasons. With all of the activity in the newly reopened hangar facility, he might be caught up in something related to that. He could be stuck on the crash investigation. He could have forgotten with everything else going on.
Or maybe we got caught.
It had been a possibility from the beginning, but Leonard had pushed the thought out of his mind. He didn’t need to nurse his own case of paranoia. Jim’s was enough. However, he was starting to wonder if perhaps the fear was justified.
Trying not to look like a man with too much on his mind, he let himself back out of the building, through the tunnel, across the wide main floor of the hangar, and back outside. It felt as though the wind had picked up a bit, or maybe the chill was his imagination. He still had an hour and a half before his clinic shift. Although guilt made him feel as though he should go back to his dorm room, that would mean that Jim would catch him in his partial lie.
He walked through the gate of East Campus and out onto Crissy Field. A thick bank of fog completely covered Starfleet Headquarters and Starfleet Medical on the north side of the bay, and for a moment, Leonard got the flash of an illusion that the waters of the bay stretched on forever, leaving him lost and alone on an island. It was an odd sensation, and he wondered what it meant.
Despite not actually aiming for it, he found himself at the door of the Warming Hut, and it seemed as fair a place as any to kill an hour and grab a decent lunch. Whenever he neglected to eat before a clinic shift, he inevitably was too busy to eat again until the shift was over. Distracted or not, skipping lunch would be a bad idea.
A few minutes later, with a toasted chicken sandwich and a refilled canteen of coffee, Leonard had ensconced himself in a seat in the corner of the cafe. He glanced around. The cafe filled with the usual sort of crowd - a combination of civilian tourists, locals, and Starfleet. On the far side of the room, a small group of civilians who looked like tourists were talking animatedly, gesturing and laughing. A young woman with two children was trying to keep them from spilling hot chocolate on their clothes, and two cadets seemed to be having a mid-day date. In another corner, an older Starfleet officer was chatting with a couple of civilians in business suits, tucked into a booth. Yeah - pretty typical crowd. He could just hide in the corner... and resume his hunt for evidence even without Lieutenant Scott, before he went stir-crazy.
Leonard reached into his bag, pulled out his PADD and settled it on his knees, leaning the screen against the edge of the table. He grabbed his earphones and popped them into his ears - he didn’t need other people around the café hearing this. He hadn’t looked at the flight recorder data since the day he’d shown it to Scott. Simple enough reason - the content was damned unnerving, especially with Jim still in the hospital. But now, Jim was well on his way to physical recovery, Scott wasn’t around to discuss the matter, and Leonard was ready to go stir-crazy without answers. Anything.
After a couple of bites of his sandwich and a few calming breaths, he pulled up the flight recorder holovid and started the playback.
The café around him faded away, and the only thing that existed was the holovid playing out on his PADD in front of him.
As before, the holovid started with the shuttlecraft still in orbit. Jim and Cadet Tambe were chatting, going through normal pre-flight procedures. Everything seemed fine. Tambe teased Jim about being able to see out the viewports without a pillow to sit on, and Leonard couldn't help but smile. Then, something caught his attention. Frowning, he reset the playback by a minute and listened again.
"Romano thinks you're going to botch the maneuver, by the way." "Cadet Romano doesn't think they should have let me test out of half the second-year courses. So let him. He just can't handle the fact that my assessment for flight training was higher than his current standing, and he's graduating in May." "Well, let's show Cadet Romano..."
Leonard paused the holovid and sat back slowly. He thought about the conversation he’d heard between Jim and Cadet Romano that morning in Jim’s hospital room. Sure, he’d based his response to Romano on body language and gut instinct, but now, he had to admit that maybe it was more than just instinct alone. He’d heard the name before, and now, it had clicked.
But he hadn’t seriously thought that Romano was a threat. He just hadn’t liked the guy, who’d happened to be in Jim’s hospital room at that moment, making Jim visibly uneasy. But… a Starfleet cadet? No. As competitive as cadets were, that just seemed... too far-fetched. Insane, really. Sure, Jim was really damned competitive, set the bar so high that most people couldn't reach it (much less jump over it), and made it all look effortless, but for another cadet to do this to him?
Not wanting to consider it, but unwilling to miss any scrap of evidence, Leonard listened to it one more time, filed away the tid-bit of information, then let the playback continue.
Jim piloted around the moon, noted the problem with the engine efficiency, and had some unique idea for fixing it. His quick fix only seemed to make the problem worse. Tambe argued with him about ignoring it, but then worked on it herself when things started fluctuating again.
Leonard felt as if his body was sinking back and away from him as he stared at the screen, needing to see everything, and simultaneously wishing he could look away. Jim’s frantic desperation became more and more intense, and Leonard had to remind himself to breathe.
As the shuttle's orbit around Mars began to degrade rapidly, Jim seemed to make one last ditch effort - Dammit, why does the flight recorder feed only show the front half of the shuttle and the viewscreen? - and Leonard could hear his shocked exclamation, 'What the fuck is tha-' just before there was another lurch and trajectory shift, and Jim barely got himself strapped in again, begging for the rescue that never came, just moments before the shuttle’s violent descent towards the surface of Mars came to a shocking end.
By the time the holovid ended, the two cadets and the woman with the two young kids were gone. The gaggle of civilians were picking up their cups and putting them in the recycler, and the old Starfleet officer was standing and shaking hands with the men in business suits. Leonard's sandwich was cold. It didn't matter - lunch was over, and he'd lost his appetite anyway.
Groaning to himself, he wrapped up the remains of his sandwich and tucked it into his bag. Maybe he'd find his appetite later. It wouldn't help anyone if he didn't eat. He reached up onto the table for his PADD, but as he deactivated it, he caught the old officer looking at him oddly from across the room. With a start, he realized the man was an Admiral, and a familiar one at that. He was of just taller-than-average height, with a thick neck, moustache, red face, and a critical scowl. Leonard had only seen this man once before… in Jim’s hospital room. And that encounter… well, Leonard was probably lucky that he hadn't been kicked out of the Academy.
Spurred to his feet by a surge of fear, and trying desperately to maintain calm façade, Leonard shoved his PADD into his bag. "Sir?"
The Admiral didn't look away, but he didn't approach Leonard either. He narrowed his eyes, made a deep noise in his throat, and without a word, hurried out the door.
For a long time, Leonard stood perfectly still, staring at the door, waiting for his heart to stop pounding. This was the asshole who had interrogated Jim. He was part of the investigation. With rapidly compounding anxiety, Leonard wondered if there was any way the man could have figured out what he’d been watching on his PADD. He had been sitting against the wall with the screen facing away from everyone else, and had been using the earphones.
Then he frowned. He tapped the earphone in his left ear once… and heard the faint chime as it activated… which meant he hadn’t activated them in the first place.
His stomach dropped and his breath caught in his throat. Oh fuck. The volume hadn’t been loud, but chances were that the Admiral had heard enough to know what he’d been watching.
In a rush, Leonard sat back down at the table and began deleting every trace of the file, his own notes, and anything related to the crash from his PADD. Normally, there was no need for a cadet’s PADD to be accessed by officers, and usually it was only the stuff on their Assignment Folder… things that were meant for the instructors to see. Jim had fed the datastream directly into Leonard’s personal data folder, but it still wasn’t truly safe from the prying eyes of a Priority One investigation.
Finally, knowing that there was no way fix this now, Leonard grabbed his canteen, looped his bag over his shoulder, and made his way back to the transport shuttle pad to the medical campus. He still had a goddamned clinic shift to work.
*********
Jim had stared at the wall for a solid half hour after closing the comm channel with his mother. The conversation had been awkward. Blatant concern and worry - she was a mother, after all - strung together with pained questions of why didn’t you tell me and why am I not your next-of-kin. Those had been hard to answer. Harder to justify. At least, harder than when he’d justified them to himself.
After the incident the previous year with Terra Prime, he’d realized how lucky he’d been that he was awake and lucid when they got him back to Starfleet Medical. He’d been able to tell them not to notify his mother or brother. The very notion had made him feel awkward and exposed, and it was sobering to realize that he didn’t feel as close to his own family as much as he’d come to trust and care for the cranky old doctor who’d almost died alongside him. So when he’d updated his personal information shortly thereafter, he’d removed all mention of his blood relatives from his next-of-kin list, and had filled that blank spot in the form with Bones’ name.
But somebody must have gone over his head. Someone had violated his privacy. Somebody had commed his mother from halfway across the quadrant, getting her special access to rapid-feed subspace communications channels so she could crash back into his life when he wasn’t ready for it.
Jim’s comm beeped.
And somebody was replying to his meeting request.
Feeling somewhat bitter and oddly detached, Jim picked up the comm and flipped it open. “Captain Pike.”
*********
(To Part Nine...)
Author: Mijan
Series: ST: XI
Character/Pairing(s): Kirk&McCoy, Pike, Scotty
Rating: PG-13
Author’s Notes: This story is part of the Academy-era story arc, which includes “Convergence” and “And All the King’s Men.” “Crossfire” is a direct sequel. Several things in this story will not make sense unless you’ve read AAtKM first.
Summary: Jim Kirk and Leonard McCoy are on top of the world at the academy until it all comes crashing down around them. Trapped in their own mystery of politics, sabotage, and possible murder, it quickly becomes impossible to know who to trust. Worse, Jim might still be a target. With a dangerous criminal on the loose and Academy leadership not doing enough, Jim and Bones have to get their lives back together and find out what happened... before it happens again.
*********
CROSSFIRE, Part 8
It could have been a lot worse, Jim reasoned to himself as he opened his eyes and looked around the room he’d been stuck in for the past week. It was Sunday morning, and they were releasing him.
If, by all rights, he shouldn’t be alive, then a week and a half in a hospital wasn’t the worst thing in the world. Really, he’d spent a lot of time reading and studying, and trying to get ahead in the theoretical portions of his classes. He was already going to be behind in the practicals when he went back to class tomorrow, and would be restricted to limited duty for a while longer, so he needed every advantage he could get. Being stuck in bed certainly helped eliminate distractions when it came time to focus on classwork, but it also gave him too much time to think. Far too much time to think.
And far too much time to loathe the simple fact that he was there in the first place. It was hard not to resent the doctors and nurses who were only trying to help you, for God’s sake, Jim. Jim chuckled humorlessly at the memory of Bones’ voice, chastising him when he’d started to complain... so he’d stopped complaining. And fuck it all, the worst part was just having to lie there and take it. Accepting help... it was uncomfortable and awkward, and even after a week of relying on people - mostly complete strangers, aside from Bones - it still felt like he’d been wearing someone else’s personality just to keep himself sane. And really, he was grateful for the help. That didn’t make him feel any more comfortable with it.
Giving a smile he wasn’t feeling to the empty room, he sighed and rolled gently off the biobed.
At least it was almost over. The simple freedom of being allowed to walk to the bathroom himself, which they’d only granted him on Friday night, still seemed like a big deal. Wearing real pajamas seemed like a big deal, too. And the shower he’d gotten to take yesterday, with real water (after all the sonic showers they’d wheeled him through) had been a small piece of heaven. It was great, until he remembered that he had been able to take those things for granted only two weeks ago.
You’re alive, you asshole, he thought angrily at himself. That’s more than you could say about most people if they’d been through a crash like that. Tambe didn’t make it. Grow up and be grateful that you’re still alive. That you can walk to the fucking bathroom.
The thought didn’t help much, but it took the edge off his self-indulgent bitterness.
He finished relieving himself and walked out of the bathroom to find the room no longer empty. “You’re here early, Bones,” he said lightly, not really surprised. He'd gotten used to Bones showing up unannounced. Not that they had many boundaries to begin with, but most of what had remained had mysteriously disappeared over the past week. Oddly, that was one of the few things that Jim hadn’t really minded. Had come to expect it, and even appreciate its strange but comfortable familiarity. It was something familiar in a world that so incomprehensible and out of his control.
Bones was sprawled in the guest chair, giving him a look of clinical approval as he took a sip from his ever-present coffee canteen. “Well, we’re springing you out of here today,” he said easily. “I figured you’d want to leave as soon as possible.”
“Oh, come on now, Bones - you know I love it here. It’s like a vacation... only not.” He walked around the bed to where his duffel was sitting on the table. “Nothing better than being poked and prodded for a week. And the food in this place is five-star.” He gave a resigned look to let Bones know he wasn’t really protesting. Just whining a little bit... just because he could. And because he knew it would get some sort of amusing retort from his friend.
On cue, Bones snorted. “I’ve smuggled you lo mein, pizza, and even cannelloni from Luigi’s Bistro. I don’t want to hear a damned thing about food. You’ve eaten better in the past four days than I have in months.”
“Well, I had to make up for a week of not eating anything.” He flashed something that felt more like a real smile. Bones grumbling and being sarcastic was familiar and comfortable.
“Kid, the way you eat, you’re going to end up wearing a girdle so you can fit into your dress uniform by the time you make Captain.”
“Thanks, Bones,” he sald flatly, then dropped the sarcasm in favor of sincerity. “But still, I’m still grateful for the extra rations.” He pulled his jeans out of the duffel and looked at them wistfully. The last pair he’d worn had been sliced to ribbons by the nurses. And here he'd always dreamed of women slicing his clothes off... just under better circumstances. At least this pair of jeans wouldn’t meet that same fate. “Thanks for bringing me some more clothes, too.”
“You’re welcome.” Bones sipped his coffee again. “You know, your roommate should be the guy bringing your stuff to you. Technically, that’s policy for cadets here.”
“Yeah, but I’ve spent more time on your couch than in my own dorm room with him anyway. I barely know the guy. We hardly talk, unless I’m asking him engineering questions - and then the guy could talk your ear off. He's kinda obsessed with that stuff. Always in the engineering labs, and when he’s in the dorm room, he’s studying or tinkering with some electronic shit.” He chuckled, grabbing the first t-shirt his fingers found in his bag. “With a name like Sven Hagenbuch, the guy either needed to be a porn star or a nerd.”
“Don’t be so damned judgmental,” Bones said flatly. “Especially seeing as you study more than anyone else I know, and you’ve been hiding that fact from the rest of the damned world.”
“You’ve caught me there, Bones. But if I don’t study hard, how can I make it look easy?” He grinned and started unbuttoning his pajama shirt, mock-suggestively. “And if people knew my dark, nerdy secret, it would ruin my chances at becoming a porn star on the side.”
“I’m sure you’d find a way,” Bones said flatly. He shook his head and stood, depositing his canteen on the table beside him. “Need a hand getting dressed?”
It was Jim’s turn to reply with a derisive snort as he dropped the shirt on the bed. “If I can’t dress myself, I have no business getting discharged. I should be able to handle all my usual stuff, Bones. Just no live training, fitness drills, or sumo wrestling for a week. Huh - I wonder how I'd look in a sumo mawashi.” He pushed down his pajama bottoms and stepped out of them gingerly, leaving them in a pile on the floor. But before he could pick them up, Bones snagged them with a deft swipe of the hand and began folding them.
“That’s a terrifying image. It’s a good thing the Academy doesn’t have a sumo team. And you’re neglecting the fact that your discharge papers release you to the care of a family member," he said flatly. "Which, in this case, is me. Besides,” his tone softened - an odd verbal quirk he’d acquired in the past week, “you’ll need some help getting into the support brace.”
Jim groaned. “Do I really need that?” He knew the answer anyway.
“It’s either that or a wheelchair if you want to go more than a hundred meters or ten minutes upright.” Bones grabbed the pajama top off the bed and began folding that, too. “Not worth the chance of you falling over. Don't give me that look. You’ll have more leeway tomorrow. And besides, kid, the brace is all force fields. It’s invisible, so none of your friends are gonna know. It'll just give you a little extra support, and it’s just for a week. Better than having to come back here because you went too far, too fast.” There was a hint of strain in his eyes on those last words.
Feeling slightly guilty, Jim nodded. “Okay then.”
“You finish getting dressed... and sit down to put your pants on... and I’ll go finalize your discharge orders and get the brace for you.”
Jim tossed him a dismissive mock salute, but as soon as he was out the door, Jim sat down and carefully pulled his pants up over his ankles. He really wasn’t taking any chances this time.
Despite his willingness to cooperate with the medical staff after his... debacle... the desperate need to get out of the hospital hadn’t quite gone away. He just had to resign himself to having an itch he couldn’t scratch for a week. The knowledge that the threat was still out there, somewhere, wandering around unchecked, weighed heavily on his mind. He’d tried not to think about it too much, knowing that he couldn’t do a damned thing about it. He’d also discovered that trying to discuss it with Bones only put him on the receiving end of a brutal eyebrow and a scathing dressing-down. So he’d done his best not to think about it. But now, with freedom just minutes away, the things he’d done his best to ignore all week were stewing - actively boiling - in his mind.
He had to get to the hangar and look for evidence. He had to go to the library and cross-reference Terra Prime with shuttle crashes for patterns. And... shit! He hadn’t even thought of it... but he needed a copy of the flight-recorder feed. Bones would have it. He felt a flash of relief that he’d actually patched that data feed to Bones’ PADD. Otherwise, he’d never get a copy, and the hell if he was going to trust Starfleet to catch everything when they couldn’t even stop a saboteur from getting to the shuttle in the first place.
He was just starting to pull his t-shirt over his head when the door chimed. Huh, Bones was fast. Wonder why he bothered to chime. “Come in. Hey Bones, do you have -”
His head popped out of his shirt, and he saw... Not Bones. Jim pressed his lips together, feeling both confused and slightly violated. He frowned, and kept his voice as neutral as possible. “Romano. What brings you over here?”
Cadet Mario Romano was standing just inside the doorway, arms folded across his chest, but instead of looking defensive or arrogant, he just looked really uneasy. Five centimeters taller than Jim was, with dark hair and an obnoxiously well-chiseled jawline, his nervousness seemed out of place on his normally overconfident features. “Uh... hi, Kirk. I... just heard you were getting out of here today. Okoru told me. Saw her in the library. I... uh...”
Jim felt his frown deepen. He and Romano had established a competitive rivalry at the beginning of hand-to-hand combat the previous spring. Romano had already been an assistant instructor, Cadet Second Class at the time, and Jim had been the damned Fourth Class who had shown him a trick or two. And Jim had subsequently been selected as an Assistant Instructor candidate for the following year. Now he and Romano both had their own Basic Hand-to-Hand Combat sections... and to top it all off, Jim had bested the guy on the flight assessment test.
But it was healthy competition, Jim figured. Their goading each other from their respective flight squads had been good motivation. And after their hand-to-hand sections had their bi-weekly sparring matches, the person with the “winning” group typically bought the other a beer as a show of good humor and cooperation.
Jim had gladly dropped the credits for a lot of beers this semester.
Smoothing out his t-shirt, Jim leaned against the side of the biobed. “What gives, Romano?”
The guy sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “I feel like an ass.”
“It’s okay, we’re used to it by now,” Jim said evenly.
That actually pulled a slight laugh. “Heh. Yeah. How’re you feeling?”
Jim shrugged. “Better than a week ago. Pretty good, all things considered.”
“I’m glad.” He unfolded his arms and rubbed his palms against his thighs. “Listen, Kirk... I know we go back and forth a lot... but I want to make sure you knew I was just messing with you last week. I didn’t mean anything by it.”
Jim felt his eyebrows furrow. “By what?” An uneasy sensation started to build in his gut.
“I... shit, you don’t know? You don’t, do you? Maybe...” He made a half-step towards the door. “I should go. I’m sorry to bother you. I’ll see you in class later this -“
A quick step angled Jim between Romano and the door. “Hey, hey - slow down there. What the hell are you talking about?”
Romano swallowed thickly, his throat working visibly as his eyes darted towards the door and back to Jim’s face. “I... damn, I don’t know how to say this.”
“In Federation Standard would be great, but I’ve been studying Andorian this semester.” Patience was rapidly running out, and he narrowed his eyebrows. “Come on, Romano, I’ve known you long enough to know that neither of us dances around words with each other. So spill it.”
He sucked in a deep breath and let it out through pursed lips before locking eyes with Jim. “I ran into Tambe before your training flight. I told her... shit, I told her to tell you that I thought you were going to fuck it up. That you were going to botch the maneuver.” There was a bizarre look of desperation in his eyes, and something almost fearful. “I didn’t mean it like that, Kirk. I... I just need to know that you don’t think I meant it like that.”
Jim’s mouth dropped open, not sure what to make of this. Of Romano’s sudden appearance, or what he was saying. “Why... what the hell, Romano? Why would you be worried about that?”
Romano’s eyes darted to the door again, and he had the look of a man who had said too much, but knew it was too late to take it back now. “There was a rumor... that you’d said it was sabotage. At least, that’s what they’re saying around campus. They’ve interrogated everyone who had access to the hangar in the past month. I needed to make sure you didn’t think it was me.”
Jim forced a laugh, but it sounded rusty to his own ears. “You’re joking, right? No. No. Why the hell would I think that?”
“No idea, Kirk. But there’s a lot of suspicion bouncing around right now. Around the campus. It’s just... kinda crazy around here. It’s enough to keep a guy from sleeping at night.”
“Shit.” Jim cringed inwardly. Romano could be an arrogant prick, but he was alright. “No, man. Stop worrying about it. It wasn’t a cadet. No. I mean, it could have been... but... well, don’t worry about it. It’s not one of us. I’m sure the investigators are just covering all the corners.”
Romano nodded, and his shoulders seemed to loosen up a bit, but he still looked uneasy. “Thanks, Kirk. I just needed to clear the air on that.”
Forcing what he hoped was an encouraging smile, Jim reached out and clapped the guy lightly on the shoulder. “It’s okay. Hey, I’ve got to finish getting ready to get out of this lovely little pleasure resort. I’ll see you in class tomorrow. Okay?”
“Okay,” Romano replied with a smile that looked about fifteen degrees off-center. “See you in class.”
He turned towards the door without a handshake and moved to step through quickly, as if he couldn’t wait to escape the instant it slid open, only to be confronted with the most impressive scowl Jim had ever seen from one Leonard McCoy.
“You Cadet Romano?” His voice was a low and angry growl, and Jim suddenly realized that Bones must have heard the whole conversation through the room’s intercom.
“I... yes, sir.”
The Eyebrow of Doom rose threateningly. “Good to know. I’ll remember that. Now if you’ll pardon me, I need to help Cadet Kirk finish getting ready to leave.” He gave a short tilt of the head indicating for Romano to get out as quickly as possible, but he didn’t move, forcing Romano to actually duck around him. It was almost comical, watching the oversized, combat-trained, swaggering mountain that was Cadet Romano cower and duck away from the peaceful (if occasionally grouchy) doctor. Bones glared over his shoulder as the rapid footsteps faded down the hall, and didn’t look back until they were gone.
Then, with a grunt of satisfaction, Bones stepped through the door, shaking his head and grumbling.
“Bones... what the hell?”
“Just a bad feeling, Jim. Watch out for that guy.”
“What?” Jim shook his head incredulously. “He’s one of the other hand-to-hand assistant instructors. I’ve known the guy since last year.”
Bones took a step closer into Jim’s personal space and looked at him without flinching. “You were the person who was worried about any possible threat. Maybe I’m just trying to watch your back. I’m a doctor, Jim. I read body language.”
“You weren’t even in the room.”
“I was at the nurses’ station, getting the braces. They’ve got room monitor vids. Trust me, I saw enough. That guy doesn’t like you.”
“Well, sure, but... wait - no. We push each other’s buttons, but it’s nothing sinister. It’s competition.”
“It’s more than that, Jim. That guy was nervous as hell that you were going to accuse him.”
“Of course he was nervous! They’re interrogating everyone. Whoever gets caught - sabotage of a Starfleet vessel is an act of treason. Alongside a murder charge, that’s a pretty hefty accusation. You can’t blame the guy for being nervous.”
“I can’t blame him for that, no,” Bones said, his tone unreadable. “But... watch your step, Jim. You’re worried that someone’s out to get you? I don’t know if that’s true or not, but you’d do well to keep your eyes open.”
This was exasperating. Jim looked at Bones incredulously. “Romano’s obnoxious, but he’s Starfleet. His father’s an Admiral! There’s no way he’s working for Terra Prime.”
Something in Bones’ expression darkened for a moment, then broke painfully, before he shook his head. It looked like he was trying to dislodge a thought and failing. Finally, he stopped and held up two small devices. “Pull up your shirt. Let me show you how these work.”
It wasn’t worth pushing the discussion. Not right now. Jim sighed deeply and pulled up his shirt, almost disgusted with himself for how easily he complied with every little order, every intrusion into his personal space. But at least with Bones, it wasn’t so bad. And really, after all they’d been through together, he shouldn’t mind. Bones had never violated his trust.
So Jim let the argument go, and let Bones get to the task of setting up the brace. Jim nodded and asked the right questions as Bones activated the devices, and was actually impressed with the results. The sensation of cushioning support took some of the faint-but-present ache out of his hips and seemed to help steady him without being visible under his clothes. Not bad. Not too bad at all.
And really, none of it was so bad. He could handle it. It was all just another obstacle to overcome while he got back to the real business of the day - looking for answers.
*********
“Bones, this isn’t my dorm. It’s yours.” Jim got out of the Starfleet Medical transport vehicle in front of Bones’ dorm building. “Why are we stopping here?”
“I told you earlier, Jim,” Bones said lightly as he took Jim by the elbow. “They released you to the care of a family member. So you’re staying with me. At least for the week.”
Jim let himself be led up the walkway, almost oblivious to the support of Bones’ hand at his elbow. He was more stunned than anything else. “Wait... with all your complaining about how I drink your coffee and bourbon... and my clothes are back at my dorm room... and the bed -”
Bones chuckled dryly as he waved his ID over the scanner, opening the main door of the building. “No alcohol until you’re off the painkillers, Jim, so - surprise! The room is devoid of booze at the moment. And I had your roommate pack up your stuff and bring it over here.”
“Bones, I can get my own stuff -”
“And,” he spoke directly over him, “you’ve got the bed for the week. The couch is pretty comfortable anyway, as you well know, so I’ll be just fine. Eighteenth floor,” he instructed the turbolift as they stepped inside and the doors slid closed.
For several seconds, Jim stared at Bones, not quite sure what to make of this. “Why, Bones?”
The hand on his elbow tightened, just the tiniest bit. “Because, Jim, I like watching out for you. Because you listed me as family, and that’s what I’m going to do.” His gaze dropped towards the floor, in a contrite look that looked like a religious confession. “And because I... I owe you, Jim.” For a moment, it had sounded like he was going to say something completely different, and a pained grimace twisted his mouth.
“Wait, what? Bones, what the hell are you -”
The turbolift door slid open, and in a heartbeat, the bizarre expression on Bones’ face morphed back into his usually look of bemused exasperation. “Come on, kid. Home sweet home,” he said in a tone that clearly cut off any attempt Jim might have made to get an explanation for his odd comment.
A moment later, they were in the dorm room. Bones busied himself with carrying Jim’s duffel to the bed, and was unpacking it into an empty drawer in the -
“Bones? You emptied out a dresser drawer for me?”
That earned a snort in reply. “It was either that, or risk finding your underwear all over my damned room.”
Jim couldn’t resist a small smile at that. Leave it to Bones to make it sound like doing a favor for a friend was merely to avoid something else he found distasteful. “I could go commando for the week.”
“Not in my bed, you irrepressible brat.”
“Then how am I going to film the porn holovids while you’re working clinic?”
Bones slammed the dresser drawer shut with a snap, glaring across the room at Jim. “Seriously, Jim? A couple of weeks without sex, and you’re this fixated? Give it a rest already!”
“I’ve been giving it a rest for almost two weeks. That’s the problem.”
Bones groaned. “Then save it for your own dorm. Maybe you can get Sven to help.”
The banter was starting to feel more comfortable. More like home. Jim grinned mischievously as he sat down on the couch and leaned back, giving Bones an appraising look. “But you’re more attractive than Sven. Maybe you could - ”
“And that will be quite enough, Jim.”
“I’ve got enough, if that’s what you’d like.” He waggled his eyebrows for good measure.
Bones rolled his eyes. “Why I put up with you, I don’t even know -“
Jim grinned to himself as Bones launched into one of his milder rants, which merged into a list of do’s and don’t’s around the dorm room for the week. It was comfortable and familiar - this back-and-forth banter. Even though Bones had visited him every day over the past week, and had helped with the physical therapy and rehab exercises, he’d been just a tiny bit distant... as if he was walking the line between friend and doctor. Maybe it was appropriate for him to be Doctor Leonard McCoy while he was working at Starfleet Medical, but to be blunt, Jim missed Bones. And it was nice to have him back.
“... so while I’m gone, you can relax, watch a holovid - not porn, you juvenile delinquent - catch up on some homework -”
Jim blinked, only then catching up with what Bones was saying. “Wait... wait, you’re leaving?”
Bones gave him an incredulous look. “Were you listening to a damned thing I said?”
“Yes! Well, mostly. Okay, so I missed most of it.” Jim frowned at himself. “But I promise... I’m not going to mess up your stuff, dig through your drawers, throw a party, or eat your leftover Chinese - except maybe the lo mein, but you know you can’t keep that stuff safe from me, so don’t even try. But I’m not going to do any of that other stuff.”
“Or leave.”
“What?”
Bones sighed and leaned against the small kitchenette table. “Jim, do I need to remind you that you just left the damned hospital? You’re on limited duty, and you can go back to class tomorrow. But for today, unless there are extenuating circumstances, please hang out here and rest until I get back.”
Jim stared at Bones for about three seconds longer before he dropped his head back heavily against the couch and groaned at the brief flash of pain that lanced through his skull. Ugh, it still aches when I do that. Regardless, headache or no, he wasn’t too keen on sitting in an empty dorm room when he’d just been turned loose. “I’ve been doing nothing but resting for a week!” He waved his hands as if grasping for something he couldn’t find. “I was going to go to the library.” He thought determinedly of the hangar, which Okoru had said was reopened for cadet access. “Or... well, I was hoping to -”
“You’re not going back to the hangar.”
Jim looked back up sharply - okay, that aches more - frowning. “Why the hell not? I mean, come on, Bones. Don’t they say that when you fall off a horse, you should get right back on?”
“Sure, Jim, if nothing’s broken, you get back on the horse and keep riding. However, if the rider gets injured, the rider needs to finish healing before attempting to ride again.” With his arms folded across his chest, and a piercing gaze leveled unflinchingly at Jim, there was no way to argue.
“Fine. Just... fine. Okay. But where are you going?”
Bones gave him an odd look. “I told you - I have clinic duty tonight.”
“They’re gonna get sick of seeing you at Starfleet Medical.”
“Yeah. You’d think,” he said in a hollow tone. He just shook his head to himself, turned, and hit the button on the coffee brewer. He spoke without turning around. “It’s a standard shift. Eight hours. There’s food in the fridge, if you get hungry. I’ll be back in time for supper, and we can order delivery if you want, or I can just grab something from the mess hall on the way back.” He glanced back over his shoulder, and his eyes looked distantly haunted. “Comm me if you need anything, okay?”
“I will, Bones.” He couldn’t do anything but agree.
“Promise me you won’t do anything stupid. I won’t find you unconscious somewhere, right?”
“I promise,” he said, as sincerely as he could, despite the surge of annoyance at the lack of trust. Sure, Bones had a reason for being overprotective, but that didn’t make him feel any less frustrated. Still, there was something a little bit broken in his best friend’s eyes, and he knew his own idiocy was the reason for that, and the guilt was sickening. “I swear, I’ll be fine.”
Bones nodded and turned back to the coffee brewer. A moment later, it beeped, and he pulled his canteen away from the dispenser, taking a sip before he snapped the lid closed. A bit of the tension seemed to ease from his shoulders, and he finally turned back to face Jim. “I’ve gotta go now,” he said, grabbing his messenger bag. “You take care of yourself, okay?”
“Will do.”
With a brief squeeze of Jim’s shoulder, Bones hurried past him and out the door, and Jim sat there, wondering what the fuck had just happened. For several minutes, he stared out the window on the far wall - too high to really see anything but the top of the nearby dorm building from where Jim was sitting - and tried to make sense of it. For a few minutes, Bones had been joking and teasing, and it had felt like they were back to their own selves, but then it was gone. No matter what other shit was going on in his life, Bones was always there, like a grouchy, grumbling anchor, keeping Jim sane and grounded. If something wasn’t right with Bones... if he’d come loose from his own center of gravity... Jim didn’t know what to do.
And he’d forgotten to ask Bones about the flight recorder feed. He sighed and shook his head. I’ll ask for it when he gets back. For now, Jim grabbed his own PADD from his small messenger bag and settled back against the sofa cushions. If nothing else, he could do some studying... but then his PADD buzzed, signaling an incoming live communiqué.
Frowning, Jim tabbed up the comm screen, only to freeze at the name headlining the hail.
“Commander Winona Kirk”
He could ignore it. They hadn’t talked in three years... since she’d left for a deep space mission, and long before he’d considered joining the Academy. He’d sent her a few text communiqués, and received short but seemingly heartfelt replies, but they hadn’t talked. He was fine with that. Since he’d arrived at the Academy, he’d set himself to the task of building his new life from scratch - a new future, a new purpose, and a new family.
He loved his mother, really, but it was a vestige of his past. She, like his brother, seemed to feel the same way. It was as if staying too close to each other kept the mistakes, problems, memories, and baggage even closer. So they’d each gone on with their lives with the unspoken understanding that this was best for all of them. If she was comming him now, it meant she knew what had happened. Someone had told her, despite the fact that he’d intentionally left her off his contact list.
He’d find out later who had told her. For now, he had to deal with the problem in front of him.
Taking an unsteady breath, he tapped the screen. “Hi, Mom.”
*********
Leonard hadn’t lied - not really. Not much, anyway. He did have a clinic shift. However, it was just a six-hour shift. Before that, he had a meeting.
It wasn’t that he needed to keep this a secret from Jim. In fact, as soon as he and Lieutenant Scott came to any solid conclusions, he promised himself he’d tell Jim everything. But for now, it felt like he needed to protect the kid. A horrendous physical ordeal combined with the impact of losing a teammate was more than enough trauma for anyone. Jim didn’t need the added stress. He needed to rest.
And Leonard needed answers.
The hangar loomed in front of him as he scanned his badge at the main security gate. The entire hangar complex had remained restricted until just two days ago, and it was his first chance to get back into the practical engineering lab with Lieutenant Scott. He hadn’t received any communiqués from the man, but this was his usual tutoring session that they had planned, and they’d agreed to meet as usual each week. In fact, not meeting would arouse more suspicion, they reasoned.
And if nothing else, Leonard still needed to pass the goddamned class.
The hangar was surprisingly busy for a Sunday night as Leonard hurried through it to walkway across to the Practical Engineering facility. It was quicker to go through, he reasoned, but he also wanted to take a peek around. Wanted to take a look at security measures. Wondered how easy it was to move around in there unnoticed. And really, with all the activity - Wonder what the hell is going on? - he was sure that almost anyone with badge access could get away with almost anything unnoticed.
Probably just all the folks who didn’t get to do their work for the past week and a half, he reasoned. It made sense. The exact same reason he was there - getting access to the facility for the first time in a week. He had studying to do. Had to catch up on his work for class. Meet with his instructor as usual. That’s all.
At least, that’s all anyone else had to know.
The door opened to the walkway between the hangar and engineering facility. The transparent aluminum arch over the walkway made him feel like a fish in a bowl, or a specimen under a bizarre lens, and he tried to hold his nerves in check as officers and cadets passed by him, acknowledging them appropriately. Finally, he entered the Practical Engineering facility, hurried through the atrium, and took the turbolift to the teaching lab on the third floor.
He walked up to the door of the lab, expecting it to open as always, but barely managed to avoid a collsion as the door stayed firmly shut. Frowning, Leonard took a step towards the door again, with no more luck this time. “Computer - is this lab designated for cadet use at this time?”
“Teaching Laboratory 307 may only be used by cadets under the supervision of a faculty member.”
Leonard scowled at the computer panel. Apparently, there were a few increased security measures around the hangar complex. “Okay… so I’m supposed to be meeting my instructor here. Hasn’t Lieutenant Scott reserved the room? Isn’t he in there?” Maybe I’m early. Maybe he’s…
“Lieutenant Mongomery Scott is not in the building. Teaching Laboratory 307 has not been reserved for supplemental instruction at this time.”
“Maybe he’s late,” Leonard mused to himself.
“Conjecture. Unable to compute.”
“I wasn’t talking to you.” Leonard groaned, walked to the bench a little ways down the hall, and sank slowly onto the too-firm seat cushions.
Lieutenant Scott was never late. In fact, he’d always been early, usually working enthusiastically on some theoretical model on one of the classroom computers. The man has an unhealthy set of fixations on transporter technology and warp engine design, Leonard firmly believed. But either way… he was never late.
Leonard watched the chrono on the wall. Ten anxious minutes ticked past… twenty. The feeling of surrender finally caught up with him. Pulling out his PADD, he thought for a moment, then typed in a quick communiqué to Scott that shouldn’t arouse suspicion, but should be enough to get some sort of response from the man.
Lieutenant Scott,
In lieu of tutoring this week, would you be willing to recommend additional study techniques or reading material to cover the unit on propulsion systems?
Thank you,
Cadet McCoy
He sent the message, only to feel another surge of anxiety at the confirmation that the communiqué had been sent successfully. Why the hell wasn’t Scott there? Sure, there were dozens of possible reasons. With all of the activity in the newly reopened hangar facility, he might be caught up in something related to that. He could be stuck on the crash investigation. He could have forgotten with everything else going on.
Or maybe we got caught.
It had been a possibility from the beginning, but Leonard had pushed the thought out of his mind. He didn’t need to nurse his own case of paranoia. Jim’s was enough. However, he was starting to wonder if perhaps the fear was justified.
Trying not to look like a man with too much on his mind, he let himself back out of the building, through the tunnel, across the wide main floor of the hangar, and back outside. It felt as though the wind had picked up a bit, or maybe the chill was his imagination. He still had an hour and a half before his clinic shift. Although guilt made him feel as though he should go back to his dorm room, that would mean that Jim would catch him in his partial lie.
He walked through the gate of East Campus and out onto Crissy Field. A thick bank of fog completely covered Starfleet Headquarters and Starfleet Medical on the north side of the bay, and for a moment, Leonard got the flash of an illusion that the waters of the bay stretched on forever, leaving him lost and alone on an island. It was an odd sensation, and he wondered what it meant.
Despite not actually aiming for it, he found himself at the door of the Warming Hut, and it seemed as fair a place as any to kill an hour and grab a decent lunch. Whenever he neglected to eat before a clinic shift, he inevitably was too busy to eat again until the shift was over. Distracted or not, skipping lunch would be a bad idea.
A few minutes later, with a toasted chicken sandwich and a refilled canteen of coffee, Leonard had ensconced himself in a seat in the corner of the cafe. He glanced around. The cafe filled with the usual sort of crowd - a combination of civilian tourists, locals, and Starfleet. On the far side of the room, a small group of civilians who looked like tourists were talking animatedly, gesturing and laughing. A young woman with two children was trying to keep them from spilling hot chocolate on their clothes, and two cadets seemed to be having a mid-day date. In another corner, an older Starfleet officer was chatting with a couple of civilians in business suits, tucked into a booth. Yeah - pretty typical crowd. He could just hide in the corner... and resume his hunt for evidence even without Lieutenant Scott, before he went stir-crazy.
Leonard reached into his bag, pulled out his PADD and settled it on his knees, leaning the screen against the edge of the table. He grabbed his earphones and popped them into his ears - he didn’t need other people around the café hearing this. He hadn’t looked at the flight recorder data since the day he’d shown it to Scott. Simple enough reason - the content was damned unnerving, especially with Jim still in the hospital. But now, Jim was well on his way to physical recovery, Scott wasn’t around to discuss the matter, and Leonard was ready to go stir-crazy without answers. Anything.
After a couple of bites of his sandwich and a few calming breaths, he pulled up the flight recorder holovid and started the playback.
The café around him faded away, and the only thing that existed was the holovid playing out on his PADD in front of him.
As before, the holovid started with the shuttlecraft still in orbit. Jim and Cadet Tambe were chatting, going through normal pre-flight procedures. Everything seemed fine. Tambe teased Jim about being able to see out the viewports without a pillow to sit on, and Leonard couldn't help but smile. Then, something caught his attention. Frowning, he reset the playback by a minute and listened again.
"Romano thinks you're going to botch the maneuver, by the way." "Cadet Romano doesn't think they should have let me test out of half the second-year courses. So let him. He just can't handle the fact that my assessment for flight training was higher than his current standing, and he's graduating in May." "Well, let's show Cadet Romano..."
Leonard paused the holovid and sat back slowly. He thought about the conversation he’d heard between Jim and Cadet Romano that morning in Jim’s hospital room. Sure, he’d based his response to Romano on body language and gut instinct, but now, he had to admit that maybe it was more than just instinct alone. He’d heard the name before, and now, it had clicked.
But he hadn’t seriously thought that Romano was a threat. He just hadn’t liked the guy, who’d happened to be in Jim’s hospital room at that moment, making Jim visibly uneasy. But… a Starfleet cadet? No. As competitive as cadets were, that just seemed... too far-fetched. Insane, really. Sure, Jim was really damned competitive, set the bar so high that most people couldn't reach it (much less jump over it), and made it all look effortless, but for another cadet to do this to him?
Not wanting to consider it, but unwilling to miss any scrap of evidence, Leonard listened to it one more time, filed away the tid-bit of information, then let the playback continue.
Jim piloted around the moon, noted the problem with the engine efficiency, and had some unique idea for fixing it. His quick fix only seemed to make the problem worse. Tambe argued with him about ignoring it, but then worked on it herself when things started fluctuating again.
Leonard felt as if his body was sinking back and away from him as he stared at the screen, needing to see everything, and simultaneously wishing he could look away. Jim’s frantic desperation became more and more intense, and Leonard had to remind himself to breathe.
As the shuttle's orbit around Mars began to degrade rapidly, Jim seemed to make one last ditch effort - Dammit, why does the flight recorder feed only show the front half of the shuttle and the viewscreen? - and Leonard could hear his shocked exclamation, 'What the fuck is tha-' just before there was another lurch and trajectory shift, and Jim barely got himself strapped in again, begging for the rescue that never came, just moments before the shuttle’s violent descent towards the surface of Mars came to a shocking end.
By the time the holovid ended, the two cadets and the woman with the two young kids were gone. The gaggle of civilians were picking up their cups and putting them in the recycler, and the old Starfleet officer was standing and shaking hands with the men in business suits. Leonard's sandwich was cold. It didn't matter - lunch was over, and he'd lost his appetite anyway.
Groaning to himself, he wrapped up the remains of his sandwich and tucked it into his bag. Maybe he'd find his appetite later. It wouldn't help anyone if he didn't eat. He reached up onto the table for his PADD, but as he deactivated it, he caught the old officer looking at him oddly from across the room. With a start, he realized the man was an Admiral, and a familiar one at that. He was of just taller-than-average height, with a thick neck, moustache, red face, and a critical scowl. Leonard had only seen this man once before… in Jim’s hospital room. And that encounter… well, Leonard was probably lucky that he hadn't been kicked out of the Academy.
Spurred to his feet by a surge of fear, and trying desperately to maintain calm façade, Leonard shoved his PADD into his bag. "Sir?"
The Admiral didn't look away, but he didn't approach Leonard either. He narrowed his eyes, made a deep noise in his throat, and without a word, hurried out the door.
For a long time, Leonard stood perfectly still, staring at the door, waiting for his heart to stop pounding. This was the asshole who had interrogated Jim. He was part of the investigation. With rapidly compounding anxiety, Leonard wondered if there was any way the man could have figured out what he’d been watching on his PADD. He had been sitting against the wall with the screen facing away from everyone else, and had been using the earphones.
Then he frowned. He tapped the earphone in his left ear once… and heard the faint chime as it activated… which meant he hadn’t activated them in the first place.
His stomach dropped and his breath caught in his throat. Oh fuck. The volume hadn’t been loud, but chances were that the Admiral had heard enough to know what he’d been watching.
In a rush, Leonard sat back down at the table and began deleting every trace of the file, his own notes, and anything related to the crash from his PADD. Normally, there was no need for a cadet’s PADD to be accessed by officers, and usually it was only the stuff on their Assignment Folder… things that were meant for the instructors to see. Jim had fed the datastream directly into Leonard’s personal data folder, but it still wasn’t truly safe from the prying eyes of a Priority One investigation.
Finally, knowing that there was no way fix this now, Leonard grabbed his canteen, looped his bag over his shoulder, and made his way back to the transport shuttle pad to the medical campus. He still had a goddamned clinic shift to work.
*********
Jim had stared at the wall for a solid half hour after closing the comm channel with his mother. The conversation had been awkward. Blatant concern and worry - she was a mother, after all - strung together with pained questions of why didn’t you tell me and why am I not your next-of-kin. Those had been hard to answer. Harder to justify. At least, harder than when he’d justified them to himself.
After the incident the previous year with Terra Prime, he’d realized how lucky he’d been that he was awake and lucid when they got him back to Starfleet Medical. He’d been able to tell them not to notify his mother or brother. The very notion had made him feel awkward and exposed, and it was sobering to realize that he didn’t feel as close to his own family as much as he’d come to trust and care for the cranky old doctor who’d almost died alongside him. So when he’d updated his personal information shortly thereafter, he’d removed all mention of his blood relatives from his next-of-kin list, and had filled that blank spot in the form with Bones’ name.
But somebody must have gone over his head. Someone had violated his privacy. Somebody had commed his mother from halfway across the quadrant, getting her special access to rapid-feed subspace communications channels so she could crash back into his life when he wasn’t ready for it.
Jim’s comm beeped.
And somebody was replying to his meeting request.
Feeling somewhat bitter and oddly detached, Jim picked up the comm and flipped it open. “Captain Pike.”
*********
(To Part Nine...)