by Rudy Josephs
Uhura tried not to take that as an insult. He was merely stating a fact. And yet it felt like he was calling her emotional in his own Vulcan way. “Of course I’m invested,” she said. “I knew Cadet Jackson. McCoy is the one that saved Andros. These people are in my life.”
“But you did not really know them, correct?”
He was right, but it was also beside the point. “Don’t you think it’s a little odd that out of all the cadets at Starfleet Medical, McCoy was the one chosen to assist with the autopsy? He didn’t volunteer, right? He was assigned the case?” Uhura asked.
“That is correct.”
“Wouldn’t you say that is a huge coincidence? That the person involved in Cadet Jackson’s death just happened to be the one invited to do the autopsy?”
“A valid argument,” Spock said. “But how did you know that McCoy was brought in on the autopsy? I did not tell you that earlier.”
The words were out of her mouth before she could stop them. “No, McCoy did.” Actually, now that she thought on it, Kirk was the one that had told her. But McCoy hadn’t denied it.
“Do you not see the fallacy of defending someone who cannot be trusted to keep information such as that classified?”
“He didn’t go over every little detail,” Uhura relented, knowing it was a weak argument.
“It is possible I was rash by inviting you into this investigation,” Spock said. “I did not intend for you to get so involved.”
“Well, I am involved,” she said. “So tell me. What was this evidence?”
Spock paused while he considered what she was asking. Uhura kept silent as well. She didn’t want to push him too hard. Logic would win out. It made sense that she should be an equal partner if they were going to use her to get information. “This cannot go—”
“Any further than me,” she finished. “Got it.”
“A piece of advanced technology was used in the surgery on Cadet Jackson,” he explained. “An instrument so rare that Starfleet Medical only has one of them.”
“Let me guess,” she said. “That instrument was found in McCoy’s quarters.”
“No, but it is missing,” Spock said. “McCoy signed it out one month ago. About the time that Jackson would have undergone his surgery.”
Uhura waited for more. It didn’t come.
“That’s it?” she asked. “That’s the evidence? Maybe he used it for some other reason. Maybe someone faked his signature. He could be getting framed.”
“All valid options,” Spock said, “which is why he is being questioned. He is not being charged with anything. Not yet, at least.”
Uhura didn’t like it. The connection seemed flimsy. She worried that the administration was looking for a culprit, and would settle on the first one available. The one that made all the questions stop.
And Uhura was not about to let that happen.
Kirk stormed into Lynne’s quarters, kicking a pair of boots out of his path. The boots slid across the room and under her roommate’s bed. Luckily, the girl was out again. It wasn’t the best impression to make on her, considering she and Lynne were still getting to know each other.
Probably wasn’t a good impression to make on Lynne, either.
“They wouldn’t let me talk to him!” Kirk ranted as he paced the room. He needed to move. To do something. Anything. “I waited for hours. They kept telling me to go to class. Like I would go to class while Bones is in custody or whatever he’s in.” He stopped short of kicking another pair of shoes. “Although it would have felt pretty good to pound on Thanas in combat training.”
“With that attitude, you’re lucky you didn’t do anything to get you expelled.”
Kirk plopped himself onto Lynne’s bed. “Maybe I want to be expelled. I don’t know if this place is right for me. Whatever happened to innocent until proven guilty?”
Lynne joined him on the bed. She started rubbing his neck, returning the favor of the massage he had given her weeks earlier. To Kirk, that seemed like years ago.
“Don’t jump to conclusions,” she said as her hands kneaded his shoulders. “They probably just wanted to ask him some more questions. It’ll turn out to be nothing.”
The massage felt good, but it wasn’t helping to soothe his mood. He got up again and resumed pacing the room. “If it was nothing, they would have let him go. Do they really think he could have performed that surgery?”
“You don’t know that’s what they think,” she said calmly. “You don’t know anything.”
Kirk didn’t want to hear it. He leaned against the window frame, looking out at the cadets on the quad. He wondered if any of them were involved. If they knew what was going on. “They’re probably looking for a scapegoat. Pin it on some first-year cadet and then sweep it under the rug.”
“Starfleet wouldn’t do that,” Lynne insisted. “They want to know the truth. Maybe McCoy knows more than he’s letting on. How well do you know the guy, really? How can you be so sure he doesn’t?”
“I just do, all right? He wouldn’t be involved in something like that. He wouldn’t sink that low.”
“Maybe he didn’t think it was that low,” she suggested.
Kirk sat down beside her on the bed again. He figured his nervous energy would have him back on his feet soon enough. At the moment, though, he needed to be close to her—to focus on the slight strawberry scent of her hair, the deep green of her eyes—while he figured out what she was talking about. “You want to explain that?”
“Whatever happened to Jackson was criminal,” she said. “Same with Andros. Even if she pulls out of it. She’s gone from the Academy for good, no doubt. And who knows what kind of permanent damage she did to her body.”
“McCoy wouldn’t do that to them.”
“You’re probably right,” Lynne said. “But this underground clinic you talked about earlier. What if they thought they were doing the cadets a favor? Helping them get through this training. What if McCoy was trying to help? He just did the wrong thing.”
“But—”
Lynne’s hands reached for his, interlocking their fingers together. “Hear me out. I’m not saying McCoy performed the surgery. But maybe he knows something. Maybe he is involved, but he’s the one trying to make it legit.”
“There’s nothing legitimate about messing up your body just to pass a class,” Kirk said.
“Not the way Jackson or Andros did,” Lynne agreed. “But why not some other way? Why not some enhancement that makes someone a little stronger? A little smarter? There are planets in the Federation where people can withstand temperatures that would fry us. Not so long ago on Earth, people could randomly have their bodies pulled and stretched and vacuumed out just for the sake of vanity. Wanting to be the best of the best in Starfleet is, at least, a bit more noble.”
“I don’t see how,” Kirk said. “It’s a slippery slope from getting a bit of an edge to trying to create the perfect race through science. They call that eugenics. It’s the kind of thing that has caused wars in the past.”
She released his hands. Now it was her turn to pace. She circled the room quietly, before finally gathering the courage to say what she was thinking. “Don’t be mad, but I don’t think you see it, because you joined Starfleet on a whim,” she said. “You probably wouldn’t have signed up if you had something better to do that day.”
“That’s not entirely true.”
“I know,” she said, leaning against the window frame. It was like she was following his path, mimicking his movements. Even when they were upset, they were in sync. “What I mean is that I’ve dreamed about being in Starfleet my entire life. I took the entrance exam twice, just to see if I could get a better score. I was packed and ready for the shuttle to pick me up for classes a week before it was scheduled. Maybe McCoy, or whoever, thinks that they’re doing something good. That they’re helping.”
“They didn’t help Jackson,” Kirk reminded her. “Or Andros.”
“No,” she agreed. “No, they
didn’t.”
“What does any of it matter?” he asked. “All my life I’ve heard that the Academy is for the best and the brightest. What if you’re not the best? Not the brightest? What if you’re just good enough? Does that mean there’s no place for you in Starfleet? How good is good enough?”
“I wish I knew,” Lynne said.
Kirk remained silent, but he wished the same thing. He’d come to Lynne, hoping that she would say the right thing. Give him the answers. And she had been a help. Just being around her made him feel better. But it didn’t solve the problem.
It didn’t solve his self-doubt or answer the questions he had about his own ability to make it through. Not that Kirk worried he couldn’t excel. He was more concerned with what the Academy might do to him. How it could change him. Was he really Starfleet officer material? Did he want to be?
Kirk needed to clear his head. The day was getting to him. Suddenly, Lynne’s quarters felt very small. Like he was trapped in a prison cell, a cell where he would spend the next three or four years of his life. Where he’d only be released to serve time in another prison out in the vast emptiness of space.
Was that what he’d signed up for?
The remnants of a young life lay scattered on the desk, half packed in the box that Spock had left behind. Random school supplies, a candle, a framed printout of the Starfleet Academy acceptance letter, and a box of retro candy Uhura remembered from her childhood. That was the sum total of Cadet Jackson’s life. At least, as much as anyone would learn of him from the desk in his quarters.
Uhura felt like a snoop going through Jackson’s things. He wasn’t really even her friend. Their paths had crossed only on a few occasions in the past month. In the library. The mess hall. When she was trying to avoid Thanas. Even though she was doing the thoughtful thing by packing his belongings for his family, she was doing it for the wrong reasons.
“You sure you don’t want to take a break?” Thanas asked.
She carefully scooped up the items and placed them in the box one at a time. “We’ve been at this for only five minutes.” And you, Thanas, had been whining the whole time.
Jackson’s roommate hadn’t packed a single item before Uhura had come to the room, even though Spock had left several boxes behind almost a full day ago. It was no surprise, really. She hadn’t expected Thanas to be that generous a person, but she thought he’d at least get Jackson’s stuff out of the way so he could claim the entire room for himself.
“I was thinking we could go out for a bit,” Thanas suggested. He stood next to an empty box on Jackson’s bed. A pile of clothing sat beside it. The clothing hadn’t made it into the box yet. “Come back and do this later. There’s, uh, something going on tonight. Kind of a party. For a select group of cadets. I think you’d have fun.”
“I promised I’d get this done tonight.”
“We’ll get it done.” Thanas picked up a few pieces of clothing and dropped them into the box. “I’m tired of looking at Jackson’s underwear.”
Uhura closed her eyes and breathed deeply. What any women saw in Thanas was beyond her comprehension. She suspected it had a lot to do with the mere fact that he was an alien. They didn’t get many Andorians on Earth.
The same could be said of Vulcans. Uhura wondered if that was the reason her mind kept going back to Spock. It was true that he wasn’t like any other guy she’d ever met. But was that because of who he was as a person or as a Vulcan?
These were questions for another time. She had more important things to ask Thanas. “I guess you’ve been getting a lot of questions about Jackson,” she ventured, “since you were his roommate and all.”
“Yeah,” Thanas said with resentment in his voice. “I’ve suddenly become very popular with the faculty. For all the wrong reasons.”
She abandoned the desk to help Thanas with the clothing. Once she was beside him, he stopped what he was doing entirely and sat on the bed. Uhura continued putting Jackson’s civilian clothes away. “They don’t think you know anything, do they?” she asked.
Thanas leaned back on the bed and watched her work. “Who knows what they think? How would I know anything, anyway? We weren’t exactly friends.”
“Yeah, but you lived in the same room,” she reminded him. “I already know more about my roommate than I want to. Guess it’s different with guys.”
All of Jackson’s uniforms went into a separate box. She would let someone else decide where those would go. She wondered if he’d be dressed in uniform for his funeral. Would that be what the family wanted, considering the Academy was a contributing factor in his death?
“Mind if we don’t talk about Jackson for a while?” he asked. “I’m getting a little tired of it. The guy is gone and all. And that’s a shame. But everyone keeps asking me about him, like I knew him. We shared a room. A room that we were assigned. I’m tired of everyone coming up to me like we were friends.”
“You never seemed to mind attention before.”
“When the attention was for things I’ve done,” Thanas spat out. “Not for being the guy with the dead roommate.”
Uhura couldn’t blame him. She wouldn’t have wanted that, either. She moved back to the desk, taking a whiff of the sweet-smelling candy. It reminded her of home.
Thanas got up and moved into her personal space. He didn’t quite touch her, but he was close enough to make her uncomfortable. Usually, she’d say something biting and then push him away, but that would run counter to her goal. Instead, she let him put his hands on her shoulders. “Now, I don’t mind the attention from the ladies, but everyone else is getting on my nerves.”
She couldn’t believe he was using the event of Jackson’s death to come on to her. That pushed her too far. She spun on him, breaking free of his grasp. “What is it with you? Your roommate just died, and you’re coming on to me?”
He shrugged her off. “What can I say? I’m socially awkward. It’s part of my charm. Would you rather talk about all the other people pumping me for information like you are now?”
“I’m not pumping you for information,” Uhura said, perhaps a bit too quickly.
Thanas rolled his eyes. “Oh, please. You’ve never come to my room before. In fact, you made it perfectly clear that you were never going to visit me. Yet here you are. Just one of a steady stream of unexpected guests, like that Captain Warde, the Vulcan, and that doctor.”
“What doctor?” she asked. “McCoy?”
“No,” he said. “The old guy. That senior officer. The one with a name like one of your planet’s mythical creature. Pegasus?”
“Griffin?”
“Yeah, that’s him,” Thanas said. “Found him in my room the other day before Warde got here to search the place.”
“And you didn’t tell Captain Warde this?”
“Why would I?” he asked. “Figured the doctor was in on the investigation. Wouldn’t Warde already know?”
It was possible that Warde did know. But it was equally possible that Uhura had just stumbled upon a major clue. Why would Dr. Griffin need to examine the room? That wasn’t his part in the investigation. He wasn’t a security officer. Like how Warde wasn’t a doctor and didn’t conduct the autopsy on the body.
“Look, that party I was telling you about,” Thanas said. “It’s starting soon. You want to go or not?”
“You go,” Uhura said. “I need to finish up here.”
“Your loss.” Thanas grabbed his uniform jacket and left without another word. Uhura figured that he’d finally written her off as a lost cause.
At least something good came out of this.
She pulled out her communicator and used it to contact Spock. “Meet me at the observation deck,” she said. “I think I have some news.”
Uhura severed contact, wanting to leave him a little curious. It was a thin lead, but a lead nonetheless. She didn’t want him to dismiss it over the comm before she had the chance to make her case.
She took one last look at the framed
Academy acceptance letter and then left it in the desk drawer. Uhura figured Jackson’s parents didn’t need to be reminded of the offer that eventually ended their son’s life.
Kirk’s mind was loaded with random thoughts. He wondered what was going on with McCoy at that moment. What kind of evidence could they have on his friend? How could he help? Was he just overreacting to everything?
But it was the other deeper question that gnawed at him. Would he have said no if someone offered him the chance to take the easy road on his training?
That’s what it came down to for Kirk. As bad a decision as it was on Jackson’s part, Kirk worried that he would have made a similar one. Well, not exactly a similar one, but where would he draw that line?
Kirk had thought about quitting several times since he started at the Academy. Ever since the race that only had one winner. Where it didn’t matter who came in second. It wasn’t that he didn’t think he could get through. He just wasn’t sure he wanted to graduate into a life of Starfleet rules and regulations. What would be the point? To prove himself to a father he would never—could never—meet?
To prove something to himself?
But this was not the time for some pointless exploration of his personal issues. Kirk’s friend was in trouble. This was the time to act.
After he’d left Lynne’s room he went for a walk off campus, hoping to clear some of those thoughts from his mind. It didn’t work. But it did provide focus. With so many questions, what he needed were answers. He was halfway to the marina district when he realized he might know the place to get some.
Kirk doubled back, making his way to the outskirts of the Presidio, where the Golden Gate Bridge stretched across the bay. Thanas had been pushing him since the day before about going to that secret meeting on the bridge. Something to prove who was the better cadet. If Thanas was involved with what was happening, this was the way to find out. And if he wasn’t, this was as good a place as any to find out what was going on. If other students went to this mystery clinic, the odds were good they were the type to go for an extreme event like this. Kirk hoped to find out as he stepped onto the pedestrian walkway and made his way across the bridge.