Collision Course

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Collision Course Page 18

by William Shatner


  He opened one eye in time to see a red-shirted security guard in the doorway remove a pair of inductance cuffs from Jim Kirk.

  Spock didn’t even pretend to try to resume his meditative state. With Kirk about to become his cellmate again, what was the point? He doubted even a Kolinahr master could—

  “Hey, Stretch—what’s new?”

  Thud. Kirk was sprawled on the fold-down bench and once again Spock was almost pitched onto the floor.

  Spock sat up, feet flat on the floor, shoulders square, stared straight ahead. “I have been taken back into custody because of your manipulation of the tracking modules.”

  Kirk leaned forward, waved his hand in front of Spock’s eyes to get his attention. “Excuse me? You’re saying it’s my fault?”

  “I did not deactivate mine.”

  “Yeah, but you got out of it, right? That’s what Mallory told me.”

  Spock ignored Kirk with practiced Vulcan indifference.

  Kirk snickered. “I bet you thought those things only sent off alarms when they were broken. You didn’t know just taking them off your wrist would register.”

  The human’s smirk was insufferable. But that was precisely what Spock had assumed, incorrectly as it turned out.

  He composed his riposte calmly. “If there was no way to remove the module without forcing it apart, then for what logical reason would it have an alarm to register that it had been removed without being forced apart?”

  “Maybe they were worried you might gnaw off your own hand, get out of it that way.” Kirk shrugged. “But you can always grow a new one, right?”

  It was difficult to disregard the human’s deeply flawed reasoning, and ignorance, but Spock did his best. “I used a transporter.”

  “Ah, very nice,” Kirk said, with what seemed to be real admiration. Why? Spock thought. The human’s next words were just as puzzling.

  “I just got beamed for the first time,” Kirk said as he leaned nonchalantly back against the wall. “Thought I was going to heave.”

  Spock looked at him blankly.

  “Regurgitate…throw up…vomit—”

  Spock cut him off abruptly. “I am familiar with most of those terms.” He was beginning to feel as if he might be sick himself.

  “What do Vulcans call it?”

  Spock found it hard to believe he was engaged in such dialogue. “Are you not concerned about the situation we are facing?”

  “Of course I am. Why do you think I turned myself in?”

  Spock raised both eyebrows, and just as quickly lowered them. For some reason, he had made the human smile.

  But Kirk took his unspoken question seriously. “It was the logical thing to do—what were the odds of someone like me evading Starfleet? How’d you get here?”

  Spock considered the doorway again, the bars once more in place, the force-field emitters glowing. “I was taken into custody by the protectors. While walking. They brought me here.”

  Kirk straightened up with apparent interest. “You were just walking…. Why’d you take your module off?”

  Spock countered with a question of his own. It was an old tactic: childish, perhaps, but effective. “Why did you remove yours?”

  “So they wouldn’t know where I was.”

  “My reason was the same.”

  “Okay, but you’re a Vulcan. You people don’t lie, cheat, steal, break the law. Where would you be walking that you wouldn’t want anyone to know about it?”

  “Why did you not want Starfleet to know where you were?”

  “I’m trying to do a favor for a friend, and she’d probably get into a lot of trouble if Starfleet knew I was meeting her.”

  “You removed the module not to help yourself, but to help your friend.”

  “You got it,” Kirk said, flopping back against the wall. “Plus, I have to say, it was fun. Outsmarting Starfleet technology. They’re a bunch of losers, and I like reminding them of that.”

  Spock was both fascinated and appalled. Did this young human know nothing about the history of the Starfleet? How it served the Federation’s noblest goals, was a pillar of scientific advancement, interplanetary cultural understanding, and a responsible force for providing security to the Federation’s borders?

  “It would seem you are unaware of what is one of your species’ greatest contributions to interstellar civilization,” Spock said politely.

  “Maybe Starfleet started out that way,” Kirk replied. “But I can tell you, I’ve seen it up close and personal. Oh, they talk a good game, but when it comes to helping people who really need their help, they’re just like everyone else—looking out for themselves, not others.”

  Spock was not sure, but he thought he detected the human emotion of melancholia, one his own mother sometimes exhibited, and which, in his experience, could be corrected with reason. “Your statement is not valid. In fact, you have contradicted it yourself.”

  “Really.”

  Spock felt encouraged and pressed on. “Not everyone looks out for themselves to the detriment of others. You, yourself, told me you knowingly risked punishment by removing your tracking module to help your friend.”

  Kirk’s lack of response suggested he had no counterargument, so Spock continued with his line of reasoning.

  “If you are capable of such altruism, why can you not accept that an organization of like-minded individuals can do the same?”

  “Because they don’t,” Kirk said flatly. “Not Starfleet.”

  “You are mistaken.”

  “You can talk all you want, Stretch, but all the logical arguments in the galaxy can’t beat what I’ve seen with my own eyes.”

  With that, Kirk closed his eyes.

  Whatever emotions were at work in the young human now, Spock was unable to sort them out. What was obvious was that Kirk was attempting to conceal what he truly felt. Like a Vulcan, Spock suddenly thought, surprised. That Amanda, his mother, did so was not remarkable, because she was a student of Vulcan ways. But that other humans might do so for…for other, alien reasons of their own—

  “Well?” Kirk asked, eyes open again. “Do you have something to say, or are you just going to keep staring at me?”

  Somewhat tardily, Spock remembered his cultural briefings. Humans regarded staring as a challenge. “I apologize.” He leaned back against the wall, adopting Kirk’s posture to put him at ease—another lesson from his xenophobia-avoidance studies at the embassy. “But you are still mistaken about Starfleet.”

  “You never give up, do you?”

  “Not when I am right.”

  A broad grin brightened Kirk’s face. It was as if the sun had dispelled dark clouds. Spock felt dizzy just being near such a mercurial being.

  “How ’bout that, Stretch. You’re just like me.”

  Spock closed his eyes, horrified.

  “Prisoners?” Kirk repeated. “I thought we were being held in detention as people of interest.”

  Commander Bearden, a bored-looking Starfleet officer in a gold command shirt, checked a screen on his padd. He and a younger officer, Lieutenant Commander Norse, a plain-looking woman also in command gold, had just entered Kirk’s and Spock’s holding cell. They’d introduced themselves as the legal officers assigned to be the prisoners’ Starfleet-appointed advocates.

  “That’s how you were originally detained,” Bearden confirmed, sounding as disinterested as he looked. “But when you reneged on your release agreement and removed the tracking modules, the charges went from non-judicial offenses to court-martial.”

  Spock cleared his throat and spoke with utmost respect. “May I ask how it is we are to be tried at court-martial without being members of Starfleet?”

  “To begin with,” Lieutenant Commander Norse said, looking at each of them in turn, “by stealing the staff car from a Starfleet facility—that is, the overflow parking lot outside the Academy—you committed an act of property violation that falls under Starfleet jurisdiction. You may well have been able to challe
nge Starfleet’s authority in that matter with a civil hearing, but then, when you signed the release forms presented when you received your tracking modules, you agreed to vacate your right to a civil hearing and submit to Starfleet’s jurisdiction.”

  “We’re minors!”

  Norse, unsmiling, showed Kirk the forms on her padd. “Your father co-signed your form—” She tapped a control, and a form written in Vulcan notational script appeared, which she showed to Spock. “—and your duly appointed guardian co-signed your form.”

  Bearden summarized their situation. “You committed a crime against Starfleet property, you broke an agreement you made with Starfleet, and the result is that you are now subject to Starfleet rules and regulations.”

  “Quite logical,” Spock said.

  Kirk glared at him. “Are you nuts?!” He glared at the officers. “I want a real lawyer!”

  Norse referred to her padd. “The next opportunity you’ll have to argue civil jurisdiction will be if you’re found guilty and appeal.”

  “If?” Kirk repeated angrily.

  Spock followed up for both of them, more diplomatically. “Is there a chance we will not be found guilty of the charges against us?”

  “Very unlikely,” the lieutenant commander said. “Actually, there’s little hope at all that you won’t be found guilty of something.”

  “The whole system’s rigged,” Kirk complained. “Someone’s probably already denied our appeal—before we’ve even made it!”

  “There is another option,” Norse suggested. “You are minors. Spock has no record of any kind, on Earth, Vulcan, or any of the worlds he’s lived on. You…well…so far there’s nothing in your record that goes to a pattern of intentional criminal behavior.”

  Spock looked at Kirk.

  “Moving on,” Kirk said.

  “Upon review of the charges and your records,” Bearden said, “we strongly suggest you plead guilty to all offenses. As minors, first-time offenders, with no indication of criminal intent underlying your actions, the Starfleet judge will give you both suspended sentences, most likely a year in which you’ll have to be on your best behavior, and then, when you each turn twenty, the records will be sealed.”

  “Huh,” Kirk said, considering. He turned to Spock. “Works for me. What about you?”

  “There is only one problem with that solution,” Spock said. “I did not steal the staff car.”

  Kirk stared at him in disgust.

  Norse looked almost apologetic. “Mr. Spock, I understand your concern. I am bound to do what you direct me to do, and if it is your wish to have me defend you, I will do so to the best of my ability. But if you are then found guilty of the car theft, the judge will not contemplate suspending your sentence. You will serve time in a Starfleet penal colony.” She paused for emphasis. “And keep in mind that even if I present a successful defense of your role in the car theft, it’s unlikely any defense will work to find you not guilty of destroying the tracking module and reneging on your signed agreement with Starfleet. Even if you avoid being convicted of the car theft, the judge will still insist on your serving time for the secondary offenses.”

  “What did I tell you?” Kirk muttered to Spock. “Starfleet’s true colors.”

  Bearden looked as if he were in a hurry to conclude the visit. “It’s up to you, now,” he said crisply. “Plead guilty, and you’re both on your way home tomorrow afternoon. Plead not guilty, you’ll be held for trial, say another month in here, and then end up in a penal colony.”

  “Come on, Stretch,” Kirk urged. “You know what the logical choice is.”

  “Yes,” Spock agreed, “but in this case, the logical choice is also the wrong choice.”

  “Let me put it this way,” Kirk said. “You really want to have me for a cellmate for a year?”

  And with that, for Spock, the correct and only solution became clear.

  28

  “Guilty, Judge. All counts.”

  Starfleet Judge Mahina Otago was a small, stern woman with admiral’s stripes on her dress shirt. She didn’t seem surprised by the plea. “Both defendants?”

  Commander Bearden nodded at Kirk and Spock. Both teenagers stood with him at their table, flanked by Lieutenant Commander Norse. A yeoman in red operated a court recorder by the judge’s bench of polished golden oak. The whole courtroom was paneled in golden oak. Kirk felt he was in a museum. Starfleet was that old and out of touch.

  But he tried hard not to look as uncooperative as he felt, even though the Starfleet flag behind the judge’s bench was enough to knot his stomach. Instead, he ignored it long enough to say what he’d been told to say, “Yes, Judge.”

  Spock repeated the same words beside him. Kirk couldn’t believe how calm the Vulcan seemed to be.

  The judge entered some notes on her padd. “Very well.” She looked up. “Anyone have anything to add before the court pronounces sentence?”

  Kirk balled his hands into fists, using all the self-control he possessed not to blurt out something that would only get him into more trouble. Beside him, Spock didn’t move or change expression, which only annoyed Kirk more. He glanced back into the gallery and saw his father, jaw tight, face implacable. He also glimpsed the two Vulcan consular agents he’d seen outside the Garden of Venus the night he and Spock had been taken into custody.

  No one disturbed the oppressive silence in the court.

  Kirk felt Bearden nudge him and he turned back to face the bench.

  “Judge,” the commander said, “my colleague and I wish to remind you of our clients’ youth, their exemplary records, and their sincere regret for their immature prank.”

  The judge looked at her padd. “It says here a Starfleet vehicle is still missing. That’s more than a prank.”

  “With respect, Judge, if you will note the custodial officers’ report, my clients were charged with taking the car from Starfleet property, but not with its actual loss, which occurred after my clients had abandoned it.”

  “Hair-splitting, but duly noted.” The judge wrote again on her padd.

  Kirk felt his chest tighten as if her deliberate slowness was actually suffocating him. Yet he knew he was powerless to bring this ordeal to a faster end.

  “Anyone else?” the judge asked perfunctorily. After a few moments, she continued. “This isn’t the kind of case I usually see. I think one of the reasons for that is because of the high regard people have for Starfleet.”

  Kirk dug his fingernails into his palms. She was going to give them a lecture before she passed sentence. He wasn’t sure he could last through it.

  “And so I have to ask myself,” the judge continued, “why it is that you two boys don’t share that same regard. Why you thought that taking a Starfleet vehicle was a good idea. And why you thought that you could enter into a legal agreement with Starfleet, and then ignore it.”

  Kirk gave Bearden a quick look. Was the judge expecting him to say something? Bearden shook his head once, then nodded to get Kirk to pay respectful attention to the judge again.

  “Because,” the judge said, “those actions aren’t youthful indiscretions. And at your ages, I’m not convinced that writing these incidents off as such will be what’s best for you. If you have such disdain and indifference for authority today, who knows what you’ll be capable of a few years from now?”

  As the judge droned on, Kirk began to feel his anxiety diminish. He knew exactly what she was doing now. He’d had his share of lectures from self-righteous authority figures. The judge was amplifying her threats, so he and Spock would be pathetically grateful when she announced that their punishment would be less severe than it could have been. The old hammer and feather, Kirk thought scornfully.

  “But it would be wrong of me to simply send you to a penal colony.”

  Kirk was impressed. This judge was really laying it on.

  “I don’t think simple punishment as such is in your best interests—or in Starfleet’s. What I believe is in your best interests, a
nd Starfleet’s, is for the two of you to learn the value of respecting authority—”

  Kirk adopted an expression of deep contrition, letting the judge know how seriously he took this, and how right she was. He waited, impatient, for whatever petty atonement she required of him.

  “—and the value of Starfleet itself.” The judge lifted her wooden gavel. “Therefore, I am willing to let you both take the first step in what I hope will be your new path toward adult responsibility, by offering you each a choice of sentence.”

  Kirk blinked. Sentence?

  “James Kirk,” the judge said formally, “and…” She appeared to check Spock’s first name on the padd, thought better of trying to say it. “…Mr. Spock, it is the order of this court-martial that you serve a sentence of two years in service to Starfleet, either as prisoners at the Starfleet penal colony in New Zealand, or as enlisted personnel in Starfleet itself.”

  “What the—” Kirk couldn’t complete what he was about to say because Commander Bearden clamped a hand over his mouth.

  “I’ll give you a day to reflect on your decisions. We’ll reconvene here at eleven hundred hours tomorrow morning.”

  The judge lightly tapped the gavel on its stand.

  “This court-martial stands adjourned.”

  Admiral Otago entered her office, closed the heavy wooden door behind her, and shook her head in disgust. “That was a travesty.”

  Her visitor didn’t contradict her assessment. How could he? “I agree,” Mallory said.

  Otago dropped her padd on her desk, letting the sharp smack it made reflect the frustration she felt. “Then why force me to do that, Eugene? They are just kids. So one of them’s a bit of a hellraiser. Show me any Starfleet brat who isn’t. But a Vulcan? Found guilty? I’m going to be up before a review panel so fast I’ll be my own warp engine.”

  Mallory laughed. “I’ll handle the review panel.”

  Otago regarded him sourly. “Six admirals and you’ll ‘handle’ them.”

  “I told you this was big.”

  “And this…well, let’s call it what it is: an illegal manipulation of Starfleet’s Uniform Code of Justice, has been signed off on by your oversight committee?”

 

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