Alone in the Light, Part 3
Title: Alone in the Light, Part 3
Author:
j_green_teeth
Universe/Series: reboot
Rating: PG-13
Word count: 5805 of ~41,000
Warnings: Minor/OC Character Death, discussion of Suicide (highlight to view complete warnings)
Characters/Pairings: Kirk/Spock, implied Scotty/Uhura, OC/OC, ensemble, Many OCs
Jim reflected that one of the best parts of being on a long haul through space was the regular schedule with regular lunch breaks. On this particular day Spock had come with him to the mess.
“So what entertainment are you looking forward to? Scotty’s going to give a lecture on advanced hyperspace mechanics.” Spock quirked an eyebrow. “I did veto the hands-on discussion. You should come. We can heckle him from the back row.”
“That would be unnecessarily disrespectful to the other students.”
“Not to Scotty?” Jim wondered if anyone had ever had the balls to heckle Spock when he was teaching.
“Interactions between you and Mr. Scott transcend respectful behavior.” Jim had just taken a bit and so couldn't rebut.“I am planning to attend the concert series as well as Lieutenant Uhura’s lecture on the language of primus zlo.”
“Great. You sure you don’t want to play in the football tournament with me? I hear they’ve got a science team too. You could represent.” Jim thought the intimidation factor alone could win the game. It didn’t hurt that half the players had taken classes from Spock at one point or another.
Spock picked up his fork. “The benefits of playing do not outweigh the drawbacks.”
“That’s too bad.” Maybe Jim could convince Spock to come to the games anyway.
Spock looked unsure. “I have been enlisted to referee for the matches.”
Jim perked up. “Really, how’d they con you into doing that?
“Lieutenant Commander Baal put forth a logical argument that I was the most qualified person on the ship.”
Jim put his elbows on the table and leaned forward. “Go on.”
“He stated that there would be no question of favoritism or intimidation.”
Jim bit his lip. “Even with me playing?”
“Apparently not. Lieutenant Commander Baal did not seem to think you were a favorite of mine.”
“Hey, I'm...” He trailed off when he saw Lieutenant Commander Vick enter the room. She hovered by the door until she caught his eye. She nodded her head towards the corridor. So much for a normal lunch. Another thing Jim had learned to appreciate sandwiches. They were easy to eat on the run. He grabbed his half-finished chicken salad and made for the door.
“Duty calls.”
Spock put down his fork. “I will join you.”
The three of them ducked into a meeting room and engaged the privacy lock.
Lieutenant Commander Vick was the head of Enterprise security and had been since they left Earth. She was also one of the few crew members with more than ten years' space experience under their belt Jim had a bit of a crew crush on her, but to be fair he had one on Uhura, and Spock, and Bones, and really most of his senior staff. They were all so competent and efficient and bad ass.
Vick stood at parade rest. “Captain, Commander. There has been an incident that you need to be informed of.” Jim had a moment to wonder if some of the yeomen had gotten into a fist fight. “One of the crew is dead.”
His jaw dropped. “What? Who?”
“Ensign Bestine was found in her quarters by Lieutenant Moreau half an hour ago, dead. She was late for her shift. Moreau was going to check up on her.”
Jim blinked. “How did it happen?”
“We don’t know yet. My guys just finished cataloging and are taking the body down for autopsy as we speak.” Vick grimaced.
“Lieutenant Commander, what do you know?” Spock interjected.
“Nothing had been disturbed. It looks like she went to sleep and didn’t wake up.” Vick frowned. “It could be a suicide.”
Jim winced at that. “What’s your gut tell you?”
“It looks like a suicide.” The way she stressed the word 'look' conveyed all her doubts.
“Keep me posted. I want a report before the end of alpha shift.” Vick nodded acknowledgment. Then shifted from foot to foot. Jim waved her off.
“Dismissed.”
Jim sighed and looked at Spock. “A death in the black, especially a suicide, is a bad omen.”
Spock looked away from the door. “Ensign Bestine’s death is certainly regrettable but it does not portend anything.”
Jim wanted to agree with Spock, but, to use a literary phrase, his thumbs were pricking.
~*~*~*~
The bridge was quiet for the second half of alpha shift. Chekov was in one of the labs working on sensor enhancements. Ensign Djarc was manning the navigation console with Sulu. Jim had always had the feeling Djarc disapproved of him on a personal level, even at the Academy. So while Djarc was professional, he was not inclined to chat when on the bridge with Jim. Sulu was engrossed in the newest star charts they had received from Headquarters. Scotty was who-knew-where not blowing things up, and Bones was in sickbay. With one of his nurses dead Jim couldn’t imagine anywhere else he would be. Jim felt eyes on the back of his head every so often. Uhura, at the communications console, must have noticed the number of messages going back and forth between security and the other departments. Jim himself was passing the time going through fleet communiqués.
It was only a half hour before the end of alpha shift when Vick sent her preliminary report. Ensign Bestine had been poisoned with cyanide. The autopsy showed no signs of other physical trauma. Security logs didn’t show any unauthorized access to Ensign Bestine’s room in the previous 48 hours.
Jim slumped for a second then straightened and hit the PA button on the panel on his chair.
“Attention, crew. It is my sad duty to inform you that Ensign Malea Bestine passed away this morning. The nature of her death is still under investigation. Details will be released as they become available. A funeral service is being planned. She was a fine officer and a valued member of this crew. She will be missed.”
~*~*~*~
Jim took two dinner trays down to sickbay after his shift. He knew Bones would still be there. Nurse Chapel gave him a knowing look from red-rimmed eyes as he made his way into Bones’ office. “Hey, Bones, how’s it going?”
Bones looked up from his paperwork. He shrugged. “As well as can be expected, I guess. Everyone’s upset. More than a few are angry. But we’ll pull through.” Jim set the trays down and they both started picking at their food. “Damn it,” Bones burst out.
“This is why you shouldn’t get the chicken.”
Bones rolled his eyes. “It feels wrong to be mad at Malea but I am.”
“For dying?” Jim asked softly.
“For making that much harder for the rest of us. For letting it win.” Bones jabbed at his food with his fork.
Jim nodded. “For losing to the death and despair that is space.”
“Yeah,” Bones sighed.
“For not giving you the chance to save her?” He added sympathetically.
Bones lifted his eyes to meet Jim's.“For a pretty boy Captain you’re good at this psychology stuff. Every time someone dies we tell them we’re here. We’re here if you need to talk. If you’re having trouble. Every time we tell the crew to come to us. Malea knew that. She did the announcements and the counseling. But not a damn person knew she was having trouble. She didn’t tell a soul.” He threw down his fork.
“Sometimes its easier to destroy yourself then to ask for help.” That was a lesson Jim had learned a long time ago. “Do you think many of the crew will come for counseling?”
“A couple will probably come in in the next few days.” Bones popped an olive into his mouth and chewed forcefully.
Jim started cutting up his own meal. “Let me know if there’s anyone or anything I should be concerned about.”
“Right,” Bones agreed, staring at his plate.
Jim nudged his tray. “Eat up. We’ve got the first football game tonight. If we get through that without an injury I’ll be amazed.”
“I’ve enough trouble keeping you whole when you aren’t acting like idiots,” Bones scowled, but he got his fork and started on the chicken.
~*~*~*~
Jim made his way down to Sickbay shortly after the beginning of alpha shift. Bones and Lieutenant Commander Vick had apparently been discussing the autopsy results and wanted him to see something. He had asked Spock along to keep him in the loop. They arrived at Bones' office to find the doctor at his desk and Vick leaning against the wall. Vick straightened as they came in. Kirk dropped into one of the chairs opposite Bones. “Hey, what ya got for me?”
Bones and Vick exchanged glances. Vick sighed. “A discrepancy.”
Jim prompted them, “Enough of one to get me down here?”
Bones shuffled through the PADDs on his desk. “The final autopsy results are consistent with the preliminary results. The cause of death was cyanide poisoning. However there was something odd. Malea was prescribed a course of boosters for Terquix flu, since we ran into it on Seririx and she had had it as a child. From the autopsy we can tell she didn’t take her last dose.”
Spock, who had not taken the available seat, said, “Surely not unusual under the circumstances. When she chose to end her life she no longer saw the utility in taking the pills.”
Bones glared. “This stuff has a very specific half-life in the human body. She took every dose but the last one. Of a six week course.”
Jim replied before Spock could start, “Okay, that’s strange, but why’s it important?”
Vick responded, “We can’t find the last pill.”
“Not in her system, not in her stomach.” Bones leaned back so he could look Spock and Vick in the eyes.
“When we did the security sweep we found an empty pill pack in her room and I’ve had Finn and Asher take another look at her quarters. They didn’t find it,” Vick admitted blandly.
Spock looked over Jim's head at Vick. “A single missing pill is not indicative of anything.”
“We’re having some tests run on the pill pack we did find...” Vick let the sentence trail off.
Jim winced. Suddenly it was clear why the CMO and CScO thought he needed to be here for this confab. “You think she may have been murdered?”
Spock huffed. “There are many other plausible explanations as to why the pill is gone. Perhaps she had lost a pill earlier in the course of treatment.”
Bones glared at Spock. “I suppose that’s possible. But procedure is to tell the prescribing physician immediately when any medication is misplaced. Malea knew that.”
Spock wasn't letting his point go. “Had Ensign Bestine been emotionally disordered recently?”
Jim snapped his fingers as a memory came back to him. “She was friends with Lieutenant Quing, wasn’t she?”
Bones nodded. “Lieutenant Quing’s death was hard on her but she was coping.”
“Well, often...” Spock started.
Jim cut him off. “If there was a chance she was poisoned we need to take every precaution. If this was done deliberately other medications may have been tampered with too.”
Bones groaned. “Now that’s a scary thought. All medicine we can’t make ourselves is stasis locked. We would know if someone tampered with it. But the flu boosters are made on ship, by the chemistry department.”
Spock’s hands went behind his back. “That is not entirely accurate. All science personnel with sufficient chemistry background are on the rota to produce compounds requested by the medical department.”
Vick focused on Spock. “So who would have made the boosters?”
“Was the entire dosage delivered six weeks ago?” Bones nodded. “Then Lieutenant Quing would have made it.”
Jim squinted at Vick. “I don’t know what to do with that.”
Vick looked puzzled too. “I think that makes murder less likely, at least from that avenue.”
Spock pointed out, “The raw compounds are delivered to Medical. The doctors are responsible for creating the correct doses and packing them.”
Bones looked like he wanted to throw something. “Now wait a minute. You can’t seriously be suggesting that one of my doctors screwed up enough to put a lethal poison in instead of a vaccine?”
“Is it more likely that one of the science personnel did?” Spock's hands were still tightly clasped behind his back.
“Hell, yeah.” Bones' accent got thicker. “Cyanide has no medical purpose. There is absolutely no reason to have it in sickbay.” He thumped a fist on his desk for emphasis.
Spock's weight shifted and his posture stiffened. “May I remind you that in the scenario you are proposing a single pill was tampered with which indicates an irregularity during packing, not creation.”
Jim spoke over Bones' response to that. “This is all hypothetical until we know if the cyanide was mixed with the pills.”
“I would still like to interview the doctors who packed the pills,” Vick said, looking directly at Bones.
“Fine.” He grabbed one of the PADDs from his desk and started thumbing through records.
“The simplest explanation is still that she took the poison herself.” Jim decided he need to explain to Spock when to let things go.
“No more speculation until Lieutenant Commander Vick has finished her investigation. But I want any ship-made medications remade.” Bones and Vick nodded. Jim looked back at Spock.
Spock nodded. “Every precaution should and will be taken to assure the safety of the crew. No matter how unlikely the threat.”
Jim spoke before Bones could jump in again. “Lieutenant Commander, any idea when you’ll know more?”
She straightened. “I should have more information for you by tomorrow, Sir.” Then, to Bones, “Doctor?”
Bones looked at the PADD. “Says here Dr. Lars made the pills for Malea.”
“And did Malea and Dr. Lars get along?” Vick asked.
Bones chewed his lip.“I think so. Chapel or Moreau would know better.”
The meeting wrapped up then. Jim returned to the bridge. Spock went off to the science labs to coordinate with his staff.
~*~*~*~
Bones looked tired the next morning. Vick looked unflappable, her blond bun as crisp as ever. Spock looked like Spock, clean, fresh and in Jim's opinion lick-able. They were meeting before alpha in another of the Enterprise conference rooms.
Lieutenant Commander Vick started without prompting, “The pill pack did contain traces of cyanide.”
“That’s suggestive. But it doesn't really prove anything.” Jim bounced in his chair. “Have you figured out if any of the other meds were tampered with?”
Bones shook his head. “Not so far. We had our hands full yesterday getting everything back and replaced with new meds. We’ll start testing today.”
Jim turned toward Spock. “Okay. Spock, see who you can spare to help them. Ensign Bestine’s funeral is at 1600 today. I doubt any of the medical officers will be too focused on their work this afternoon.”
“Yes, Captain. Lieutenant Commander Vick, did you have the opportunity to talk to the Doctor who made the pills?” Spock continued.
“Yes.” She took a sip of her coffee.
Jim huffed pointedly. “And?”
She focused on a spot over and beyond his left shoulder. “I’m not sure. He swears up and down there was nothing unusual about those pills or any of the others he did that day.”
“And you think he’s lying?” Jim asked, leaning forward.
“Like I said, Captain, I’m not sure.” She shrugged.
“How not sure? Keep an eye on him not sure or keep him the hell away from my patients not sure?” Bones demanded.
“Just keep an eye on him,” Vick replied. “I also took a look at Lieutenant Quing’s psych evals. No red flags.”
Jim mulled that over. “Could it have been some sort of power game?”
“I don’t follow.” Bones stopped staring at his coffee to squint up at Jim.
“Well, could Lieutenant Quing have poisoned the pill but planned to take it out before it Ensign Bestine took it?” Jim explained.
Bones was obviously wondering where Jim got his ideas. “I suppose anything is possible.”
Vick tapped on the table with her finger. “It might not have been Lieutenant Quing. We only reviewed the forty-eight hours preceding the murder. If someone switched it out after Ensign Bestine picked it up they could have done it any time in the last six weeks.”
Jim nodded, thinking out loud, “It wouldn’t have been hard to get into her quarters.”
Bones shook his head. “I’m sure she had them voice-locked.” Jim and Vick exchanged a glance. “Why the hell do they have locks if they don’t work?”
“They work. Just for a given value of working.” There was the trademark scowl.
Vick explained. “They are enough to keep people from traipsing through each others quarters but given an hour, half the crew knows enough about engineering to bypass them.”
Bones humphed. “Huh. Well, I’m gonna move the top shelf stuff to my office.”
“Commander Vick, let me know when you find anything out. I still need to figure out what to tell the crew about all this.” Jim grimaced. “For now, I think we should keep this quiet.”
“Good.” Jim was a bit surprised to hear that coming from Bones. “People will get spooked and stop taking their meds if they think they might be poisoned.”
“Right. Back to work, everyone.”
Jim sighed. There was no way this wasn't going to get worse before they figured this out.
~*~*~*~
Ensign Bestine’s funeral was an eerily quiet affair. Over one hundred people came to watch Jim recite the standard ceremony over an empty urn. Malea's body wouldn’t be cremated until the investigation was finished. Jim glanced at the row of security officers standing solemnly along the back wall of the room. Or shelved. Bones got up to say a few words about how Malea was a fine nurse and a good person. Yeoman Cuard and Ensign Patil also gave brief eulogies. The crowd was almost preternaturally silent through their speeches. Even the scrape of a boot sole resounded in the quiet. Jim could only imagine what was going through their minds. Probably a lot like what Bones had felt a bit sad, more angry and a lot helpless. There was a spacers' adage just for this circumstance; one death makes many lives harder. It was the grizzly etiquette in the fleet and out that you didn’t kill yourself on a starship, you waited until you docked. So yes, a lot of the crew was probably feeling mad. Jim wondered how they would take the possibility it was murder. Not well, he thought. Lieutenant Commander Vick needed to figure out what happened and quick.
Most of the attendees dispersed after the final recitations. The mourners lingered, mostly blue but some red and gold as well. Jim stood on the fringes, available but not intruding.
“Hello, Captain.”
Jim started a little at the sudden voice at his elbow. “Lieutenant Umba,” he acknowledged. “Did you know Ensign Bestine?”
“No. Unfortunately I did not.” She said scanning the crowd.
“A friend of a friend?” Jim asked.
She smiled slightly. “No, Captain, I’ve attended all the funerals on the Enterprise. It’s interesting to observe the nuances that change based on the method of death.”
Jim looked back towards the mourners. “I’m sure it is.” In his peripheral vision, he saw Lieutenant Umba tilt head. “Did you know her?”
Jim grimaced. “Not really. Just what Dr. McCoy told me.” He searched until he found Bones in the crowd. He was frowning through a surreptitious conversation with Dr. Evans. “He’s not taking it well.”
“No one is taking it well. An overdose, I expect, makes it worse.” Jim turned back to her. “Oh, women and medical professionals are more likely to intentionally overdose. I doubt doctors like seeing their tools used so by one of their own.”
“I expect not.” He saw Dr. Evans leave and decided that Bones would be better company than Lieutenant Umba. “Excuse me.”
~*~*~*~
He had barely sat down at his desk before there was a chime at his door. Ten-to-one it was Spock. “Come.”
“Good evening, Captain. I assume you are finishing Ensign Bestine’s paperwork.” Spock took his usual two steps into the room.
“What I can. Until we know what happened it will remain open.” Jim poked at the PADD on his desk.
“I am sure Lieutenant Commander Vick will exhaust her avenues of investigation soon.” Spock sounded... well it was impossible to tell what he was thinking.
And on the subject of Vulcan inscrutability... “That reminds me. Why are you so sure this is suicide?”
“It is the most likely cause of death given the available evidence.”
Jim frowned. “What evidence?”
“Exactly,” Spock replied. “There is nothing to show that the missing booster pill has anything to do with the poison. Rather than assume someone contrived to substitute a single pill in forty-two without being discovered and with no discernible motive, it is more logical to assume that Ensign Bestine administered it herself with the purpose of killing herself.”
“So,” Jim drew out the word, “the fact that the poison was on the pill pack doesn’t mean anything? Or the fact she hadn’t made any preparations for her death? I think the best we can say is the evidence is inconclusive.”
Spock opened and closed his mouth. “On Vulcan, suicides outnumber - outnumbered - murders by a factor of ten thousand.”
Jim sat back in his chair so he could concentrate on Spock's face. “I knew Vulcan had a low murder rate but that’s amazing. But why so many suicides?”
“Vulcan culture has several acceptable forms of suicide. Ta'an ma'toi, for example when the quality of life has degraded passed a certain point with no expectation of improvement. There is also pon ma'toi when an individual feels they can no longer contribute to society.” Spock didn't look away, but seemed to be looking through him.
Jim tried to get Spock to look at him.“Ensign Bestine wasn’t sick or unproductive.”
“The degradation can stem from physical, mental or emotional causes.”
Jim blinked. Had Spock just admitted Vulcans had emotions? He’d go back to that later. “And Bones said she had been upset.” Spock nodded. “But that’s not everything is it? You wouldn’t consider losing a dear friend reason for suicide.”
Spock licked his lips. “Perhaps my conclusion was influenced by the taboo Vulcan society places on premeditated murder. It is the most grievous breakdown of social order. Beyond that, if the perpetrator is still on board there is a possibility they will repeat the offense.”
Jim stood up to force Spock to meet his eye. “You’re scared.”
Spock stilled, his usually restrained movement stopping completely. “I will not allow it to affect my judgment again. If you will excuse me.”
And like that he was gone. Jim was left trying to deal with the whiplash from Spock’s speedy exit. That had been unexpected. But maybe it shouldn't have bee. Of all the places he had heard Spock talk about the Enterprise and the destroyed Vulcan were the only ones Spock called home. Vulcan was gone and Spock would take a 'grievous breakdown of social order' hard. He turned back to the paperwork. He would give Spock some time to calm down before talking to him again. Trying to talk to Spock before he was ready just didn't work.
~*~*~*~
At least 'Red River Valley' was playing for movie night tonight. The movie was a classic. Walking through the officers' quarters, Jim decided to see if Spock had recovered himself enough for dinner and a movie. That was something friends did. It wouldn't reflect at all on Jim's desire to ask Spock out. He hit the door chime. The door slid open a moment later and a wave of warm air washed over him. He leaned against the door jamb. “Hey Spock, want to see a movie?”
“I assume you are referring to movie night in rec room A. Yes, I had planned to attend.”
Jim was surprised. It was usually a harder sell to get Spock away from his projects. “Great. Want to get dinner together first?”
“That would be agreeable.” Spock pressed a few keys on his terminal and stood.
Jim grinned. “You’ll like 'Red River Valley'. It's a period piece about the great horror, just before first contact. It follows a family as they travel around the radiation pockets to get to the red river valley. To say any more would give it away. Su Tau Smith’s best film.”
Spock’s lips twitched. “I have seen the film.”
“Err..”
“While I was a cadet, Professor Earnhart frequently tried to improve my ‘cultural literacy’.”
“Oh.” With all his Vulcanness Jim sometimes forgot Spock had spent years on Earth.
“I do appreciate the film. It is well-structured and ambiguous enough to allow for multiple interpretations of the conclusion.” Spock slipped past him into the hallway.
Jim found his feet again. “Right, is the journey Micheal’s ultimate destination or is his journey just a series of destinations?”
“Indeed. Although I find Nathan’s abandonment more telling from a xenocultural prospective.”
The discussion continued all the way down to the mess.
~*~*~*~
The next day Jim was able to distract himself from Bestine and Spock with a review of the botanical department’s latest work on adapting ultra-low-gravity plants to other environments. The problem was that the plants had a tendency to cluster into colonies, which worked fine in their native gravity. But in higher gravity those colonies would implode under their own weight. Algae was interesting enough to keep him from contacting Vick or ogling Spock, not interesting enough to stop him thinking about either but enough to stop him from doing either.
The next day, his day off but when had that mattered, Vick had requested a meeting and Jim was anxious to hear what she had to say. He and Spock were in his office when Vick arrived. Jim could tell from looking at her that she didn’t have any answers. The tension line on her forehead was deeper than it had been three days ago.
“Captain, Commander,” she acknowledged.
“Lieutenant Commander Vick, what do you have to report?” Jim asked.
“I’m sorry to say that the investigation has stalled. Without a clear motive we can’t narrow down the suspect pool enough to focus our efforts.”
Spock was composed as ever. “Surely you have made some progress on determining if it was murder and if so, who did it.”
“Oh, yes, sir,” Vick agreed. “We’ve eliminated two hundred and thirty members of the crew. That just leaves two hundred more.”
“One hundred and sixty,” Spock countered.
“What?” Vick asked, confused.
“The current number of crew members aboard the Enterprise is three hundred and ninety. If you are not counting dead crew members among those eliminated, there are one hundred and sixty suspects,” Spock calmly explained.
Vick shrugged. “Fine. One hundred and sixty. That’s still a lot of people.”
“Technically, one hundred and sixty-seven people,” Jim couldn't help but point out. The pills could have been tampered with any time in the last six weeks.
“Yes, Captain,” Spock agreed.
Vick huffed. “Anyway, I’m not sure there’s a way to narrow that down.”
“Okay. Give me something by next week or I’m going to list this as a suicide. Dismissed.” She left.
Jim dropped his head into his hands. “Forty people. Forty people dead in a year.”
Spock stepped closer to him. “Since the Enterprise began its mission undermanned, the ship’s total is twenty-five. Which is in the upper fifty percent for exploratory missions.”
“I’ve never settled for average.” Jim laughed.
“You are the youngest and least experienced Captain to be given such a command. Logically you could be expected to be in the bottom ten percent, having lost over twenty percent of your crew.”
Jim stared up at him. “Is this the Vulcan version of a pep talk?”
“I am merely drawing your attention to the fact that in context you have an impressively low mortality rate.”
“So that’s a yes.” Jim smiled. Spock inclined his head then headed out the door.
~*~*~*~
Jim lounged against the long table while Scotty tinkered with the two miniature transporters he had brought for the demo in his lecture, ‘Travelin’ by Transporter.’ Scotty must have dug them out of somewhere along with the couple of metal bricks, bowl of fruit and a cage with one of his chirping fuzzball things that also sat on the table. Jim had arrived early to confab with Scotty about the resupply on Plix and what may or may not have been requisitioned for Scotty’s hypothetical still. They had settled it before the first early birds started drifting into the rec-room-come-lecture-hall.
Jim was surprised to see Spock enter exactly five minutes before the lecture was to begin. He made a beeline for the front of the room.
“Hey, Spock, what’s up?”
“I have come to offer my assistance,” Spock replied.
“Really?” Jim couldn't believe that Spock would help him heckle Scotty.
Spock tilted his chin forward. “Not to you, Captain, to Mr. Scott.”
Scotty flapped a hand at him. “Ach, thanks, Commander, but I’ve got my talk all worked out.”
“My assistance in keeping the Captain from interfering,” Spock clarified.
Scotty finally looked up from the unit he was tinkering with. He grinned, looking between the two of them.
“Hey, I’m just a firm believer in the Socratic method.”Jim defended.
“Any assistance you can give would be welcome.” Scotty paused, eyes twinkling. “Think you’re up to it?”
Spock looked Jim up and down. “I have calculated a reasonable chance of success.”
The rec room was starting to fill up now. Jim straightened from his slouch. “Come on. Let’s grab the good seats before they’re gone.” He led them to a couple of open chairs three quarters of the way back on the left side. Spock sat. Jim sprawled.
Scotty clapped his hands together. “Everyone ready? Good, let’s get started.” He launched into his lecture without a pause. “Now, the first transporter was created by Emory Erickson...”
Jim opened his mouth to ask his first question.
“2119,” Spock said in a low tone beside him.
Jim smirked. “You’re sure?”
“Positive.”
“You sure we shouldn’t ask?”
“Absolutely.”
Scotty had continued talking; “...and frankly, it was a piece of crap.” The audience tittered. “So bad, they didn’t even try to transport anything biological. The transporter wasn't consistently able to reassemble complex molecules leading to lost, malformed or dangerous compounds. Now, it wasn’t until about two decades later that we got something like a working one.”
Spock smoothly added, “Due to the efforts of the United Earth Technology consortium.” Jim opened his mouth. “By a team led by Recker Samore.”
“This is where things get interesting, because with the addition of pattern buffers the subatomic structure can be preserved for the microsecond of subspace transport. However these transporters only worked under the best conditions, and even then they had a high error rate,” Scotty explained.
“.000013%,” Spock said.
“And the...” began Jim.
“Between two to eight microseconds.”
“Now, I’ve rigged these little pads to simulate a 2140 transporter.” Scotty grabbed an orange out of the bowl of fruit. “So...” He placed it on the pad at the left end of the table, “we can see..” he picked up a the control box and pressed a couple of buttons, “...what the transport would look like.” Someone’s personal alarm went off at the back of the room. Half the room turned to shush them, which was pretty lucky because the shimmery transport beam flickered on both platforms and there was the odor of fresh squeezed orange juice. An orange mess started dribbling off the right transporter pad.
Jim covered his eyes with his hand. “I don’t think this was what Dr. Evans had in mind to reassure the crew.”
“Ach, sorry about that. Just a wee problem.” Scotty tapped the control again then pushed the orange bits onto the floor. The front row leaned back as he put an apple on the pad. Yeoman Green looked like she wanted to grab the fuzzball, cage and all, off the table and make a run for it. This time the transport went smoothly. Everyone in the room relaxed. “So, that apple might look fine and dandy but without a molecular imaging scanner there’s likely to be all sorts of copy errors. So we add a scanner.”
“Another invention of Recker Samore’s team.”
Why was Spock here? Jim let his mind wander. He couldn’t come up with a logical reason for it other than wanting Jim’s company. That was the problem with logic, so much harder to see from the inside. So did Spock like his company enough to want to join him on something they both acknowledged was a date?
“Forty-two.” Jim looked at Spock and laughed. “You were not going to ask what the standard phase coefficient for the Heisenberg compensator is?”
Jim laughed helplessly.“Not even close.”
“Then what were you going to ask?” Spock raised an eyebrow at him.
Jim turned in his seat to look at Spock. The energy beam of the transporter made shadows dance across his features. He could ask, right now. “I was going to ask...” Chicken. “What the negative inversion was?”
Spock focused on Scotty again. “3,180,251.”
Scotty continued to ramble on about the advancement of transporter technology, finally working his way up to the modern version in which the fuzzball survived intact.
Next: Part 4
Author:
j_green_teeth
Universe/Series: reboot
Rating: PG-13
Word count: 5805 of ~41,000
Warnings: Minor/OC Character Death, discussion of Suicide (highlight to view complete warnings)
Characters/Pairings: Kirk/Spock, implied Scotty/Uhura, OC/OC, ensemble, Many OCs
Jim reflected that one of the best parts of being on a long haul through space was the regular schedule with regular lunch breaks. On this particular day Spock had come with him to the mess.
“So what entertainment are you looking forward to? Scotty’s going to give a lecture on advanced hyperspace mechanics.” Spock quirked an eyebrow. “I did veto the hands-on discussion. You should come. We can heckle him from the back row.”
“That would be unnecessarily disrespectful to the other students.”
“Not to Scotty?” Jim wondered if anyone had ever had the balls to heckle Spock when he was teaching.
“Interactions between you and Mr. Scott transcend respectful behavior.” Jim had just taken a bit and so couldn't rebut.“I am planning to attend the concert series as well as Lieutenant Uhura’s lecture on the language of primus zlo.”
“Great. You sure you don’t want to play in the football tournament with me? I hear they’ve got a science team too. You could represent.” Jim thought the intimidation factor alone could win the game. It didn’t hurt that half the players had taken classes from Spock at one point or another.
Spock picked up his fork. “The benefits of playing do not outweigh the drawbacks.”
“That’s too bad.” Maybe Jim could convince Spock to come to the games anyway.
Spock looked unsure. “I have been enlisted to referee for the matches.”
Jim perked up. “Really, how’d they con you into doing that?
“Lieutenant Commander Baal put forth a logical argument that I was the most qualified person on the ship.”
Jim put his elbows on the table and leaned forward. “Go on.”
“He stated that there would be no question of favoritism or intimidation.”
Jim bit his lip. “Even with me playing?”
“Apparently not. Lieutenant Commander Baal did not seem to think you were a favorite of mine.”
“Hey, I'm...” He trailed off when he saw Lieutenant Commander Vick enter the room. She hovered by the door until she caught his eye. She nodded her head towards the corridor. So much for a normal lunch. Another thing Jim had learned to appreciate sandwiches. They were easy to eat on the run. He grabbed his half-finished chicken salad and made for the door.
“Duty calls.”
Spock put down his fork. “I will join you.”
The three of them ducked into a meeting room and engaged the privacy lock.
Lieutenant Commander Vick was the head of Enterprise security and had been since they left Earth. She was also one of the few crew members with more than ten years' space experience under their belt Jim had a bit of a crew crush on her, but to be fair he had one on Uhura, and Spock, and Bones, and really most of his senior staff. They were all so competent and efficient and bad ass.
Vick stood at parade rest. “Captain, Commander. There has been an incident that you need to be informed of.” Jim had a moment to wonder if some of the yeomen had gotten into a fist fight. “One of the crew is dead.”
His jaw dropped. “What? Who?”
“Ensign Bestine was found in her quarters by Lieutenant Moreau half an hour ago, dead. She was late for her shift. Moreau was going to check up on her.”
Jim blinked. “How did it happen?”
“We don’t know yet. My guys just finished cataloging and are taking the body down for autopsy as we speak.” Vick grimaced.
“Lieutenant Commander, what do you know?” Spock interjected.
“Nothing had been disturbed. It looks like she went to sleep and didn’t wake up.” Vick frowned. “It could be a suicide.”
Jim winced at that. “What’s your gut tell you?”
“It looks like a suicide.” The way she stressed the word 'look' conveyed all her doubts.
“Keep me posted. I want a report before the end of alpha shift.” Vick nodded acknowledgment. Then shifted from foot to foot. Jim waved her off.
“Dismissed.”
Jim sighed and looked at Spock. “A death in the black, especially a suicide, is a bad omen.”
Spock looked away from the door. “Ensign Bestine’s death is certainly regrettable but it does not portend anything.”
Jim wanted to agree with Spock, but, to use a literary phrase, his thumbs were pricking.
~*~*~*~
The bridge was quiet for the second half of alpha shift. Chekov was in one of the labs working on sensor enhancements. Ensign Djarc was manning the navigation console with Sulu. Jim had always had the feeling Djarc disapproved of him on a personal level, even at the Academy. So while Djarc was professional, he was not inclined to chat when on the bridge with Jim. Sulu was engrossed in the newest star charts they had received from Headquarters. Scotty was who-knew-where not blowing things up, and Bones was in sickbay. With one of his nurses dead Jim couldn’t imagine anywhere else he would be. Jim felt eyes on the back of his head every so often. Uhura, at the communications console, must have noticed the number of messages going back and forth between security and the other departments. Jim himself was passing the time going through fleet communiqués.
It was only a half hour before the end of alpha shift when Vick sent her preliminary report. Ensign Bestine had been poisoned with cyanide. The autopsy showed no signs of other physical trauma. Security logs didn’t show any unauthorized access to Ensign Bestine’s room in the previous 48 hours.
Jim slumped for a second then straightened and hit the PA button on the panel on his chair.
“Attention, crew. It is my sad duty to inform you that Ensign Malea Bestine passed away this morning. The nature of her death is still under investigation. Details will be released as they become available. A funeral service is being planned. She was a fine officer and a valued member of this crew. She will be missed.”
~*~*~*~
Jim took two dinner trays down to sickbay after his shift. He knew Bones would still be there. Nurse Chapel gave him a knowing look from red-rimmed eyes as he made his way into Bones’ office. “Hey, Bones, how’s it going?”
Bones looked up from his paperwork. He shrugged. “As well as can be expected, I guess. Everyone’s upset. More than a few are angry. But we’ll pull through.” Jim set the trays down and they both started picking at their food. “Damn it,” Bones burst out.
“This is why you shouldn’t get the chicken.”
Bones rolled his eyes. “It feels wrong to be mad at Malea but I am.”
“For dying?” Jim asked softly.
“For making that much harder for the rest of us. For letting it win.” Bones jabbed at his food with his fork.
Jim nodded. “For losing to the death and despair that is space.”
“Yeah,” Bones sighed.
“For not giving you the chance to save her?” He added sympathetically.
Bones lifted his eyes to meet Jim's.“For a pretty boy Captain you’re good at this psychology stuff. Every time someone dies we tell them we’re here. We’re here if you need to talk. If you’re having trouble. Every time we tell the crew to come to us. Malea knew that. She did the announcements and the counseling. But not a damn person knew she was having trouble. She didn’t tell a soul.” He threw down his fork.
“Sometimes its easier to destroy yourself then to ask for help.” That was a lesson Jim had learned a long time ago. “Do you think many of the crew will come for counseling?”
“A couple will probably come in in the next few days.” Bones popped an olive into his mouth and chewed forcefully.
Jim started cutting up his own meal. “Let me know if there’s anyone or anything I should be concerned about.”
“Right,” Bones agreed, staring at his plate.
Jim nudged his tray. “Eat up. We’ve got the first football game tonight. If we get through that without an injury I’ll be amazed.”
“I’ve enough trouble keeping you whole when you aren’t acting like idiots,” Bones scowled, but he got his fork and started on the chicken.
~*~*~*~
Jim made his way down to Sickbay shortly after the beginning of alpha shift. Bones and Lieutenant Commander Vick had apparently been discussing the autopsy results and wanted him to see something. He had asked Spock along to keep him in the loop. They arrived at Bones' office to find the doctor at his desk and Vick leaning against the wall. Vick straightened as they came in. Kirk dropped into one of the chairs opposite Bones. “Hey, what ya got for me?”
Bones and Vick exchanged glances. Vick sighed. “A discrepancy.”
Jim prompted them, “Enough of one to get me down here?”
Bones shuffled through the PADDs on his desk. “The final autopsy results are consistent with the preliminary results. The cause of death was cyanide poisoning. However there was something odd. Malea was prescribed a course of boosters for Terquix flu, since we ran into it on Seririx and she had had it as a child. From the autopsy we can tell she didn’t take her last dose.”
Spock, who had not taken the available seat, said, “Surely not unusual under the circumstances. When she chose to end her life she no longer saw the utility in taking the pills.”
Bones glared. “This stuff has a very specific half-life in the human body. She took every dose but the last one. Of a six week course.”
Jim replied before Spock could start, “Okay, that’s strange, but why’s it important?”
Vick responded, “We can’t find the last pill.”
“Not in her system, not in her stomach.” Bones leaned back so he could look Spock and Vick in the eyes.
“When we did the security sweep we found an empty pill pack in her room and I’ve had Finn and Asher take another look at her quarters. They didn’t find it,” Vick admitted blandly.
Spock looked over Jim's head at Vick. “A single missing pill is not indicative of anything.”
“We’re having some tests run on the pill pack we did find...” Vick let the sentence trail off.
Jim winced. Suddenly it was clear why the CMO and CScO thought he needed to be here for this confab. “You think she may have been murdered?”
Spock huffed. “There are many other plausible explanations as to why the pill is gone. Perhaps she had lost a pill earlier in the course of treatment.”
Bones glared at Spock. “I suppose that’s possible. But procedure is to tell the prescribing physician immediately when any medication is misplaced. Malea knew that.”
Spock wasn't letting his point go. “Had Ensign Bestine been emotionally disordered recently?”
Jim snapped his fingers as a memory came back to him. “She was friends with Lieutenant Quing, wasn’t she?”
Bones nodded. “Lieutenant Quing’s death was hard on her but she was coping.”
“Well, often...” Spock started.
Jim cut him off. “If there was a chance she was poisoned we need to take every precaution. If this was done deliberately other medications may have been tampered with too.”
Bones groaned. “Now that’s a scary thought. All medicine we can’t make ourselves is stasis locked. We would know if someone tampered with it. But the flu boosters are made on ship, by the chemistry department.”
Spock’s hands went behind his back. “That is not entirely accurate. All science personnel with sufficient chemistry background are on the rota to produce compounds requested by the medical department.”
Vick focused on Spock. “So who would have made the boosters?”
“Was the entire dosage delivered six weeks ago?” Bones nodded. “Then Lieutenant Quing would have made it.”
Jim squinted at Vick. “I don’t know what to do with that.”
Vick looked puzzled too. “I think that makes murder less likely, at least from that avenue.”
Spock pointed out, “The raw compounds are delivered to Medical. The doctors are responsible for creating the correct doses and packing them.”
Bones looked like he wanted to throw something. “Now wait a minute. You can’t seriously be suggesting that one of my doctors screwed up enough to put a lethal poison in instead of a vaccine?”
“Is it more likely that one of the science personnel did?” Spock's hands were still tightly clasped behind his back.
“Hell, yeah.” Bones' accent got thicker. “Cyanide has no medical purpose. There is absolutely no reason to have it in sickbay.” He thumped a fist on his desk for emphasis.
Spock's weight shifted and his posture stiffened. “May I remind you that in the scenario you are proposing a single pill was tampered with which indicates an irregularity during packing, not creation.”
Jim spoke over Bones' response to that. “This is all hypothetical until we know if the cyanide was mixed with the pills.”
“I would still like to interview the doctors who packed the pills,” Vick said, looking directly at Bones.
“Fine.” He grabbed one of the PADDs from his desk and started thumbing through records.
“The simplest explanation is still that she took the poison herself.” Jim decided he need to explain to Spock when to let things go.
“No more speculation until Lieutenant Commander Vick has finished her investigation. But I want any ship-made medications remade.” Bones and Vick nodded. Jim looked back at Spock.
Spock nodded. “Every precaution should and will be taken to assure the safety of the crew. No matter how unlikely the threat.”
Jim spoke before Bones could jump in again. “Lieutenant Commander, any idea when you’ll know more?”
She straightened. “I should have more information for you by tomorrow, Sir.” Then, to Bones, “Doctor?”
Bones looked at the PADD. “Says here Dr. Lars made the pills for Malea.”
“And did Malea and Dr. Lars get along?” Vick asked.
Bones chewed his lip.“I think so. Chapel or Moreau would know better.”
The meeting wrapped up then. Jim returned to the bridge. Spock went off to the science labs to coordinate with his staff.
~*~*~*~
Bones looked tired the next morning. Vick looked unflappable, her blond bun as crisp as ever. Spock looked like Spock, clean, fresh and in Jim's opinion lick-able. They were meeting before alpha in another of the Enterprise conference rooms.
Lieutenant Commander Vick started without prompting, “The pill pack did contain traces of cyanide.”
“That’s suggestive. But it doesn't really prove anything.” Jim bounced in his chair. “Have you figured out if any of the other meds were tampered with?”
Bones shook his head. “Not so far. We had our hands full yesterday getting everything back and replaced with new meds. We’ll start testing today.”
Jim turned toward Spock. “Okay. Spock, see who you can spare to help them. Ensign Bestine’s funeral is at 1600 today. I doubt any of the medical officers will be too focused on their work this afternoon.”
“Yes, Captain. Lieutenant Commander Vick, did you have the opportunity to talk to the Doctor who made the pills?” Spock continued.
“Yes.” She took a sip of her coffee.
Jim huffed pointedly. “And?”
She focused on a spot over and beyond his left shoulder. “I’m not sure. He swears up and down there was nothing unusual about those pills or any of the others he did that day.”
“And you think he’s lying?” Jim asked, leaning forward.
“Like I said, Captain, I’m not sure.” She shrugged.
“How not sure? Keep an eye on him not sure or keep him the hell away from my patients not sure?” Bones demanded.
“Just keep an eye on him,” Vick replied. “I also took a look at Lieutenant Quing’s psych evals. No red flags.”
Jim mulled that over. “Could it have been some sort of power game?”
“I don’t follow.” Bones stopped staring at his coffee to squint up at Jim.
“Well, could Lieutenant Quing have poisoned the pill but planned to take it out before it Ensign Bestine took it?” Jim explained.
Bones was obviously wondering where Jim got his ideas. “I suppose anything is possible.”
Vick tapped on the table with her finger. “It might not have been Lieutenant Quing. We only reviewed the forty-eight hours preceding the murder. If someone switched it out after Ensign Bestine picked it up they could have done it any time in the last six weeks.”
Jim nodded, thinking out loud, “It wouldn’t have been hard to get into her quarters.”
Bones shook his head. “I’m sure she had them voice-locked.” Jim and Vick exchanged a glance. “Why the hell do they have locks if they don’t work?”
“They work. Just for a given value of working.” There was the trademark scowl.
Vick explained. “They are enough to keep people from traipsing through each others quarters but given an hour, half the crew knows enough about engineering to bypass them.”
Bones humphed. “Huh. Well, I’m gonna move the top shelf stuff to my office.”
“Commander Vick, let me know when you find anything out. I still need to figure out what to tell the crew about all this.” Jim grimaced. “For now, I think we should keep this quiet.”
“Good.” Jim was a bit surprised to hear that coming from Bones. “People will get spooked and stop taking their meds if they think they might be poisoned.”
“Right. Back to work, everyone.”
Jim sighed. There was no way this wasn't going to get worse before they figured this out.
~*~*~*~
Ensign Bestine’s funeral was an eerily quiet affair. Over one hundred people came to watch Jim recite the standard ceremony over an empty urn. Malea's body wouldn’t be cremated until the investigation was finished. Jim glanced at the row of security officers standing solemnly along the back wall of the room. Or shelved. Bones got up to say a few words about how Malea was a fine nurse and a good person. Yeoman Cuard and Ensign Patil also gave brief eulogies. The crowd was almost preternaturally silent through their speeches. Even the scrape of a boot sole resounded in the quiet. Jim could only imagine what was going through their minds. Probably a lot like what Bones had felt a bit sad, more angry and a lot helpless. There was a spacers' adage just for this circumstance; one death makes many lives harder. It was the grizzly etiquette in the fleet and out that you didn’t kill yourself on a starship, you waited until you docked. So yes, a lot of the crew was probably feeling mad. Jim wondered how they would take the possibility it was murder. Not well, he thought. Lieutenant Commander Vick needed to figure out what happened and quick.
Most of the attendees dispersed after the final recitations. The mourners lingered, mostly blue but some red and gold as well. Jim stood on the fringes, available but not intruding.
“Hello, Captain.”
Jim started a little at the sudden voice at his elbow. “Lieutenant Umba,” he acknowledged. “Did you know Ensign Bestine?”
“No. Unfortunately I did not.” She said scanning the crowd.
“A friend of a friend?” Jim asked.
She smiled slightly. “No, Captain, I’ve attended all the funerals on the Enterprise. It’s interesting to observe the nuances that change based on the method of death.”
Jim looked back towards the mourners. “I’m sure it is.” In his peripheral vision, he saw Lieutenant Umba tilt head. “Did you know her?”
Jim grimaced. “Not really. Just what Dr. McCoy told me.” He searched until he found Bones in the crowd. He was frowning through a surreptitious conversation with Dr. Evans. “He’s not taking it well.”
“No one is taking it well. An overdose, I expect, makes it worse.” Jim turned back to her. “Oh, women and medical professionals are more likely to intentionally overdose. I doubt doctors like seeing their tools used so by one of their own.”
“I expect not.” He saw Dr. Evans leave and decided that Bones would be better company than Lieutenant Umba. “Excuse me.”
~*~*~*~
He had barely sat down at his desk before there was a chime at his door. Ten-to-one it was Spock. “Come.”
“Good evening, Captain. I assume you are finishing Ensign Bestine’s paperwork.” Spock took his usual two steps into the room.
“What I can. Until we know what happened it will remain open.” Jim poked at the PADD on his desk.
“I am sure Lieutenant Commander Vick will exhaust her avenues of investigation soon.” Spock sounded... well it was impossible to tell what he was thinking.
And on the subject of Vulcan inscrutability... “That reminds me. Why are you so sure this is suicide?”
“It is the most likely cause of death given the available evidence.”
Jim frowned. “What evidence?”
“Exactly,” Spock replied. “There is nothing to show that the missing booster pill has anything to do with the poison. Rather than assume someone contrived to substitute a single pill in forty-two without being discovered and with no discernible motive, it is more logical to assume that Ensign Bestine administered it herself with the purpose of killing herself.”
“So,” Jim drew out the word, “the fact that the poison was on the pill pack doesn’t mean anything? Or the fact she hadn’t made any preparations for her death? I think the best we can say is the evidence is inconclusive.”
Spock opened and closed his mouth. “On Vulcan, suicides outnumber - outnumbered - murders by a factor of ten thousand.”
Jim sat back in his chair so he could concentrate on Spock's face. “I knew Vulcan had a low murder rate but that’s amazing. But why so many suicides?”
“Vulcan culture has several acceptable forms of suicide. Ta'an ma'toi, for example when the quality of life has degraded passed a certain point with no expectation of improvement. There is also pon ma'toi when an individual feels they can no longer contribute to society.” Spock didn't look away, but seemed to be looking through him.
Jim tried to get Spock to look at him.“Ensign Bestine wasn’t sick or unproductive.”
“The degradation can stem from physical, mental or emotional causes.”
Jim blinked. Had Spock just admitted Vulcans had emotions? He’d go back to that later. “And Bones said she had been upset.” Spock nodded. “But that’s not everything is it? You wouldn’t consider losing a dear friend reason for suicide.”
Spock licked his lips. “Perhaps my conclusion was influenced by the taboo Vulcan society places on premeditated murder. It is the most grievous breakdown of social order. Beyond that, if the perpetrator is still on board there is a possibility they will repeat the offense.”
Jim stood up to force Spock to meet his eye. “You’re scared.”
Spock stilled, his usually restrained movement stopping completely. “I will not allow it to affect my judgment again. If you will excuse me.”
And like that he was gone. Jim was left trying to deal with the whiplash from Spock’s speedy exit. That had been unexpected. But maybe it shouldn't have bee. Of all the places he had heard Spock talk about the Enterprise and the destroyed Vulcan were the only ones Spock called home. Vulcan was gone and Spock would take a 'grievous breakdown of social order' hard. He turned back to the paperwork. He would give Spock some time to calm down before talking to him again. Trying to talk to Spock before he was ready just didn't work.
~*~*~*~
At least 'Red River Valley' was playing for movie night tonight. The movie was a classic. Walking through the officers' quarters, Jim decided to see if Spock had recovered himself enough for dinner and a movie. That was something friends did. It wouldn't reflect at all on Jim's desire to ask Spock out. He hit the door chime. The door slid open a moment later and a wave of warm air washed over him. He leaned against the door jamb. “Hey Spock, want to see a movie?”
“I assume you are referring to movie night in rec room A. Yes, I had planned to attend.”
Jim was surprised. It was usually a harder sell to get Spock away from his projects. “Great. Want to get dinner together first?”
“That would be agreeable.” Spock pressed a few keys on his terminal and stood.
Jim grinned. “You’ll like 'Red River Valley'. It's a period piece about the great horror, just before first contact. It follows a family as they travel around the radiation pockets to get to the red river valley. To say any more would give it away. Su Tau Smith’s best film.”
Spock’s lips twitched. “I have seen the film.”
“Err..”
“While I was a cadet, Professor Earnhart frequently tried to improve my ‘cultural literacy’.”
“Oh.” With all his Vulcanness Jim sometimes forgot Spock had spent years on Earth.
“I do appreciate the film. It is well-structured and ambiguous enough to allow for multiple interpretations of the conclusion.” Spock slipped past him into the hallway.
Jim found his feet again. “Right, is the journey Micheal’s ultimate destination or is his journey just a series of destinations?”
“Indeed. Although I find Nathan’s abandonment more telling from a xenocultural prospective.”
The discussion continued all the way down to the mess.
~*~*~*~
The next day Jim was able to distract himself from Bestine and Spock with a review of the botanical department’s latest work on adapting ultra-low-gravity plants to other environments. The problem was that the plants had a tendency to cluster into colonies, which worked fine in their native gravity. But in higher gravity those colonies would implode under their own weight. Algae was interesting enough to keep him from contacting Vick or ogling Spock, not interesting enough to stop him thinking about either but enough to stop him from doing either.
The next day, his day off but when had that mattered, Vick had requested a meeting and Jim was anxious to hear what she had to say. He and Spock were in his office when Vick arrived. Jim could tell from looking at her that she didn’t have any answers. The tension line on her forehead was deeper than it had been three days ago.
“Captain, Commander,” she acknowledged.
“Lieutenant Commander Vick, what do you have to report?” Jim asked.
“I’m sorry to say that the investigation has stalled. Without a clear motive we can’t narrow down the suspect pool enough to focus our efforts.”
Spock was composed as ever. “Surely you have made some progress on determining if it was murder and if so, who did it.”
“Oh, yes, sir,” Vick agreed. “We’ve eliminated two hundred and thirty members of the crew. That just leaves two hundred more.”
“One hundred and sixty,” Spock countered.
“What?” Vick asked, confused.
“The current number of crew members aboard the Enterprise is three hundred and ninety. If you are not counting dead crew members among those eliminated, there are one hundred and sixty suspects,” Spock calmly explained.
Vick shrugged. “Fine. One hundred and sixty. That’s still a lot of people.”
“Technically, one hundred and sixty-seven people,” Jim couldn't help but point out. The pills could have been tampered with any time in the last six weeks.
“Yes, Captain,” Spock agreed.
Vick huffed. “Anyway, I’m not sure there’s a way to narrow that down.”
“Okay. Give me something by next week or I’m going to list this as a suicide. Dismissed.” She left.
Jim dropped his head into his hands. “Forty people. Forty people dead in a year.”
Spock stepped closer to him. “Since the Enterprise began its mission undermanned, the ship’s total is twenty-five. Which is in the upper fifty percent for exploratory missions.”
“I’ve never settled for average.” Jim laughed.
“You are the youngest and least experienced Captain to be given such a command. Logically you could be expected to be in the bottom ten percent, having lost over twenty percent of your crew.”
Jim stared up at him. “Is this the Vulcan version of a pep talk?”
“I am merely drawing your attention to the fact that in context you have an impressively low mortality rate.”
“So that’s a yes.” Jim smiled. Spock inclined his head then headed out the door.
~*~*~*~
Jim lounged against the long table while Scotty tinkered with the two miniature transporters he had brought for the demo in his lecture, ‘Travelin’ by Transporter.’ Scotty must have dug them out of somewhere along with the couple of metal bricks, bowl of fruit and a cage with one of his chirping fuzzball things that also sat on the table. Jim had arrived early to confab with Scotty about the resupply on Plix and what may or may not have been requisitioned for Scotty’s hypothetical still. They had settled it before the first early birds started drifting into the rec-room-come-lecture-hall.
Jim was surprised to see Spock enter exactly five minutes before the lecture was to begin. He made a beeline for the front of the room.
“Hey, Spock, what’s up?”
“I have come to offer my assistance,” Spock replied.
“Really?” Jim couldn't believe that Spock would help him heckle Scotty.
Spock tilted his chin forward. “Not to you, Captain, to Mr. Scott.”
Scotty flapped a hand at him. “Ach, thanks, Commander, but I’ve got my talk all worked out.”
“My assistance in keeping the Captain from interfering,” Spock clarified.
Scotty finally looked up from the unit he was tinkering with. He grinned, looking between the two of them.
“Hey, I’m just a firm believer in the Socratic method.”Jim defended.
“Any assistance you can give would be welcome.” Scotty paused, eyes twinkling. “Think you’re up to it?”
Spock looked Jim up and down. “I have calculated a reasonable chance of success.”
The rec room was starting to fill up now. Jim straightened from his slouch. “Come on. Let’s grab the good seats before they’re gone.” He led them to a couple of open chairs three quarters of the way back on the left side. Spock sat. Jim sprawled.
Scotty clapped his hands together. “Everyone ready? Good, let’s get started.” He launched into his lecture without a pause. “Now, the first transporter was created by Emory Erickson...”
Jim opened his mouth to ask his first question.
“2119,” Spock said in a low tone beside him.
Jim smirked. “You’re sure?”
“Positive.”
“You sure we shouldn’t ask?”
“Absolutely.”
Scotty had continued talking; “...and frankly, it was a piece of crap.” The audience tittered. “So bad, they didn’t even try to transport anything biological. The transporter wasn't consistently able to reassemble complex molecules leading to lost, malformed or dangerous compounds. Now, it wasn’t until about two decades later that we got something like a working one.”
Spock smoothly added, “Due to the efforts of the United Earth Technology consortium.” Jim opened his mouth. “By a team led by Recker Samore.”
“This is where things get interesting, because with the addition of pattern buffers the subatomic structure can be preserved for the microsecond of subspace transport. However these transporters only worked under the best conditions, and even then they had a high error rate,” Scotty explained.
“.000013%,” Spock said.
“And the...” began Jim.
“Between two to eight microseconds.”
“Now, I’ve rigged these little pads to simulate a 2140 transporter.” Scotty grabbed an orange out of the bowl of fruit. “So...” He placed it on the pad at the left end of the table, “we can see..” he picked up a the control box and pressed a couple of buttons, “...what the transport would look like.” Someone’s personal alarm went off at the back of the room. Half the room turned to shush them, which was pretty lucky because the shimmery transport beam flickered on both platforms and there was the odor of fresh squeezed orange juice. An orange mess started dribbling off the right transporter pad.
Jim covered his eyes with his hand. “I don’t think this was what Dr. Evans had in mind to reassure the crew.”
“Ach, sorry about that. Just a wee problem.” Scotty tapped the control again then pushed the orange bits onto the floor. The front row leaned back as he put an apple on the pad. Yeoman Green looked like she wanted to grab the fuzzball, cage and all, off the table and make a run for it. This time the transport went smoothly. Everyone in the room relaxed. “So, that apple might look fine and dandy but without a molecular imaging scanner there’s likely to be all sorts of copy errors. So we add a scanner.”
“Another invention of Recker Samore’s team.”
Why was Spock here? Jim let his mind wander. He couldn’t come up with a logical reason for it other than wanting Jim’s company. That was the problem with logic, so much harder to see from the inside. So did Spock like his company enough to want to join him on something they both acknowledged was a date?
“Forty-two.” Jim looked at Spock and laughed. “You were not going to ask what the standard phase coefficient for the Heisenberg compensator is?”
Jim laughed helplessly.“Not even close.”
“Then what were you going to ask?” Spock raised an eyebrow at him.
Jim turned in his seat to look at Spock. The energy beam of the transporter made shadows dance across his features. He could ask, right now. “I was going to ask...” Chicken. “What the negative inversion was?”
Spock focused on Scotty again. “3,180,251.”
Scotty continued to ramble on about the advancement of transporter technology, finally working his way up to the modern version in which the fuzzball survived intact.
Next: Part 4