Star Trek: The Original Series: The Shocks of Adversity (21 page)

“You have a true gift for understatement, you know that, Doctor?”

“And I get the feeling that your little chat with Laspas went about as well as my
last half-hour with Deeshal,” McCoy continued.

“He didn’t have the slightest compunction about destroying that ship!” Kirk nearly
shouted, standing up out of his chair. “Or about using my ship to do so. The Goeg
Domain is little more than an empire with a thin veneer of democracy covering it.”
His anger then suddenly spent, Kirk wrapped his fists
around the back of his chair and said, “How could I have misjudged these people so
badly?”

McCoy stood then, so that he and the captain were eye to eye. “It’s hard enough to
be a good judge of people you do know, let alone strangers. Hell, I was married to
my ex-wife for over fifteen years, and I had no idea from one day to the next what
she was capable of. You can hardly be blamed for not knowing what Laspas would do
if we crossed paths with the Taarpi again.”

“Maybe.” Kirk shrugged. “But I assume your divorce didn’t involve the threat of phaser
fire, either.”

McCoy chuckled at that, but before he could either confirm or deny Kirk’s assertion,
they were interrupted by the whistling of the intraship, and Uhura’s voice saying,
“Bridge to Captain Kirk.”

Kirk tabbed the unit on McCoy’s workstation. “Yes, Lieutenant?”

“Captain, there’s a hail incoming from Commander Laspas, asking to speak with you.”

Kirk and McCoy exchanged curious looks. “Pipe it down here to Doctor McCoy’s office,”
he said as he slipped behind the desk and turned the monitor to face him.

“Captain Kirk,”
the Goeg commander said formally as soon as the connection was made.
“Why didn’t you inform me that your ship had saved one of the Taarpi when you were
aboard just now?”

“Because I didn’t know then,” Kirk told him.
“We had tried to save all three, but two didn’t make it, and the third is under the
care of our doctor.”

“You must hand this terrorist over to us,”
Laspas said.
“Even according to your own laws, you’re not to interfere in the internal affairs
of foreign worlds and governments. By holding this criminal, you are doing exactly
that.”

Kirk almost had to laugh at the way Laspas had phrased his argument:
even according to your own laws.
As if the Prime Directive was a minor consideration in comparison to whatever legal
or moral right he had as a member of the Domain. “I disagree,” Kirk told him. “That
vessel fired on the
Enterprise
, the
Enterprise
returned fire and forced the ejection of that lifepod, and it was the
Enterprise
who recovered it and its passengers. From where I stand, it’s the Goeg Domain who
wants to interfere in a Starfleet affair.”

Laspas pressed his leonine face close to the monitor screen.
“By Erhokor, this is not a game!”

“No, it is not,” Kirk agreed, equaling the other man’s intensity. “Your people intended
to kill everyone on board. So you can understand why I might be hesitant to turn the
sole survivor over to you and your tender mercies.”

Laspas glared at him from the monitor for a silent moment.
“James,”
he then said, switching back to using his familiar name again, but not evincing any
of his earlier camaraderie.
“I would like to settle this peacefully. But if forced to, I will employ other methods.”

Kirk’s eyes flicked briefly to McCoy, whose expression was one of indignation mixed
with worry. What “methods” was Laspas threatening? Sending armed soldiers onto the
Enterprise
? Or worse, using their control over the ship’s warp engines and other systems to
do them further damage?

The captain turned his attention back to the monitor and matched the Goeg’s stare.
“Laspas, I have gotten to know you rather well over these last several days. Not well
enough, perhaps, but still, I feel my estimation of you as a good and honorable man
was a correct one. So I believe you when you say you would like to settle this peacefully.”

Laspas smiled.
“Thank you, James.”

“But,” Kirk continued, “this woman will not be turned over until my doctor is ready
to discharge her.
Enterprise
out,” he said, cutting the channel before Laspas could respond.

The captain leaned back in McCoy’s chair and let out a long breath as he considered
the now-blank screen before looking across to the doctor. “Well,” McCoy said, “let’s
hope your estimation of Laspas is right.”

“Amen to that,” Kirk said.

*   *   *

Even though the mess hall was just as full and active as usual for the alpha to beta
shift change, it felt oddly subdued now to Uhura, with so many of the
814
crew gone. She certainly couldn’t fault Captain Kirk for the new restrictions, allowing
only engineers and technicians who had legitimate work to do on the
Enterprise
aboard—he was merely adopting the same policy Commander Laspas had put in place on
his ship. But it was terribly sad that what had started out as a way of exploring
and celebrating new and exciting cultures had been cut short.

There were only three Goeg present, whom Uhura recognized as engineers. They were
seated together at a single table, apart from the rest of the
Enterprise
crew, eating quickly and talking in low whispers among themselves. The lieutenant
found herself repeatedly glancing their way as her dinner companions, all from the
astrophysics lab, discussed their department’s ongoing nystromite research. Their
excited conversation about ionic lattice properties and electron band structure and
other characteristics of the alien crystals for the most part sailed far over Uhura’s
head.

The near entrance to the mess opened, and Uhura looked over to see First Lieutenant
Fexil entering. Their eyes met briefly, and Uhura offered her a smile. But though
the Abesian engineer clearly noticed her, she made no gesture of recognition or greeting,
and instead headed directly to the food slots. Uhura sighed silently, regretting that
what had promised to be a rewarding cross-cultural learning experience had come to
such a premature
end. She continued to watch as Fexil collected her tray from the open food slot and
carried it across the room to where her colleagues were seated. But as she took an
empty seat, the other three abruptly stood and, without a single word, walked away
and filed out of the room, leaving their half-eaten meals behind. Fexil behaved as
if she hadn’t even noticed, lowering her head and methodically shoveling her food
into her mouth as fast as she safely could.

Uhura, shocked by what she’d just witnessed, excused herself from her tablemates and
crossed the mess. “Mind if I join you?” she asked Fexil in a soft, sympathetic tone.

Fexil glanced up at her, then back down quickly to her food. “We’re no longer allowed
to fraternize with Starfleet crew any more than is necessary to perform our duties.”

“Well,” Uhura said, as she pulled out one of the recently abandoned chairs, “as one
of the senior Starfleet officers aboard this ship, I think it necessary that we engage
in a little fraternization.” She sat, and faced the Abesian directly. “What just happened?”

Fexil kept her eyes down on the tray in front of her. “I don’t know what you mean.”

The lieutenant took one of the forks that had been left behind by the others, reached
across the table to tap the edge of Fexil’s plate, then lifted it, pulling the other
woman’s gaze up to her own face. “I’m pretty sure you do know what I mean.”

“Nyota . . .” Fexil looked at her miserably. “I know you’re trying to be a friend . . .”

“Oh, this isn’t friendly,” Uhura said, fixing her with her most serious look. “I’m
a senior officer. If I witness something that I think may potentially put the ship
at risk, such as an interpersonal rift that may compromise team performance, I am
obligated to look into it, and report it if need be.”

Fexil’s eyes went wide, and the green coloration leached from her face. “Oh, please
don’t . . .”

Uhura put a reassuring hand on the other woman’s forearm. “Then talk to me. What just
happened?”

Fexil dropped her head again. “It’s the Taarpi you took on board.”

“What about her?” Uhura prompted.

“She’s an Abesian.”

Uhura nodded, and waited for Fexil to say more. “And?”

Fexil scowled at her. “Do I need to spell it out?”

Uhura’s mouth fell open in disbelief. “You mean that because she’s an Abesian, and
you’re an Abesian, your crew would treat you that way?”

“It’s nothing I’m not used to,” she muttered as she started poking at her food again.
“Abesians aren’t that well regarded by the Goeg to begin with.”

“Why wouldn’t they be?” Uhura asked.

Fexil shrugged. “It’s just how things are. Abes was not technologically advanced when
the Goeg
first discovered our world, and there’s still the general perception that Abesians
are kind of backward, intellectually inferior . . .”

“That’s terrible!” Uhura said. “But surely, you’re living proof those kinds of stereotypes
just aren’t true: an intelligent and talented engineer serving as a first lieutenant
on a Defense Corps starvessel.”

“And then there are the malcontents like the one in your sickbay,” Fexil answered,
with a low hiss of frustration, “who instead of working and struggling to make a better
life for themselves, think they deserve to have all that handed to them, and attack
the Domain when they don’t get it. It doesn’t matter what any of the rest of us do;
we all end up tainted by them.”

Uhura was stunned by what she was hearing. Whatever else she might have thought of
the Goeg Domain, she couldn’t believe that an advanced interplanetary society could
still harbor such prejudicial attitudes toward their fellow citizens. “I’ve seen you
and your teams in action, though,” she told Fexil. “Your people certainly seemed to
respect you.”

“They respect the rank, and they take the work seriously. But they have their more
subtle ways, while we’re on duty, of reminding me that I’m not as good as they are,”
the Abesian woman said pitifully.

“You can’t believe that, though,” Uhura told her vehemently. It was almost impossible
to think that this accomplished young woman could actually
accept the negative self-image forced on her by others. “If you weren’t good enough,
would Chief N’Mi have put you in charge of the integrated warp operations team?”

“But she’s not Goeg, either,” she answered ruefully.

“I don’t understand.”

Fexil finally looked up from her plate at Uhura and said, “No, I wouldn’t expect you
to.” She then pushed away from the table, her food unfinished, and left Uhura to stare
silently after her.

*   *   *

Pock-pock.

Chris Chapel closed her eyes and pressed the palm of her hand against their lowered
lids.

Pock-pock.

The xenopharmacology text she was trying to read was difficult enough to plow through
all on its own. The added distraction—

Pock-pock.

—only made matters that much worse. She really needed to get this down, if she had
any hope of finishing the required academic work for her doctorate in any kind of
reasonable timeframe.

Pock-pock.

She opened her eyes again and concentrated on the data slate lying on the desk in
front of her. She just needed to focus and not to let—

Pock-pock.

Chapel bolted up out of her chair, marched from the anteroom into the near-empty main
ward where Lieutenant Joe D’Abruzzo was still laid up, and snatched the hollow, palm-sized
rubber ball he had been bouncing off the near bulkhead and deck for the last hour
out of midair.

“Forgive me, Joe,” she said when she saw the pitiful, disappointed look he gave her.
“I know how bored you are, cooped up in here for so long . . .”

“I really don’t think you do, Nurse,” he said. “It’s been over a week now. I’m this
close to going completely buggy in here.”

“Soon,” she assured him. “Doctor McCoy still needs to monitor how your arm is healing.”

“You mean how it isn’t healing,” he said, his head falling back onto his pillow.

Chapel stepped over beside him and placed a hand lightly on his wrapped left arm.
“You took a lot of damage. You can’t expect an injury like yours to heal overnight.
You just have to stay positive.”

“Please,” D’Abruzzo said, staring at the biosensor array overhead. “With all of the
sugar-coating you and McCoy have been feeding me, I think I’m getting cavities. If
it was going to get any better than it has so far, you would have seen it by now,
wouldn’t you?” He waited for Chapel to answer, and when she didn’t, he lifted his
head and asked her directly, “Please just give it to me straight: I’m not going to
get full use of my arm back, am I?”

“No, you won’t.”

Chapel whirled in her chair to see Deeshal standing in the doorway to the ward. “I
had hoped we could save more of your muscle tissue before it necrotized, but I’m afraid
I failed in that regard. But with the proper physical therapy regimen, there should
be no reason you cannot regain some degree of functionality.”

“Thank you, Doctor, for being honest with me,” D’Abruzzo said, looking satisfied if
not happy. He lay his head back down, and Chapel stood up to leave him alone with
his thoughts, making sure to place the ball back in his open palm.

She then turned on Deeshal, and once they were back out of the ward and out of earshot
of the patient, she told him, “Doctor McCoy is not going to appreciate your doing
that.”

“It seems to me I’m not likely to get any appreciation from anyone here, whatever
I do,” he answered.

“You’re right about that,” Chapel said as she brushed past him.

“Christine, wait,” Deeshal said, trailing in her wake. “Can’t we talk?”