Mudd in Your Eye

by Jerry Oltion

  He had no idea, but he had to do something and he had to do it now. So he cleared his throat and spoke loudly to the Nevisian people around him: "Now that I've got your attention, there's something I think you should know."

  What? What could he tell them that would make any difference? Kirk had never thought so fast in his life. To buy some time, he bent down and helped the Stella android to her feet. She stood beside him, blinking and turning her head from side to side. Her clothing was ripped, her nearly indestructible "skin" was smudged and scraped, and half of her red hair had pulled free of its bun and had fallen into her eyes. She looked as bad as Kirk felt, but she actually seemed more responsive than before.

  Her disheveled appearance gave him an idea, though. He said to the crowd, "You fight for honor, but there's no honor in hitting a lady." The idea of calling Stella Mudd a lady nearly made him laugh. It would never have occurred to him if she hadn't called herself that when he'd first grabbed her. If the real Stella was anything like the replica that Harry had made then she was anything but, and right now the android looked more like a homeless waif than a genteel woman, but that was exactly the image Kirk needed.

  The Nevisians didn't seem to care much about the difference between men and women, at least not in battle, so Kirk said, "There's no honor in attacking anyone who isn't part of your fight." Punctuating his sentences with short pauses to let his words sink in, he said, "This woman came here, unarmed, to help you, and how do you repay her? With confusion and mayhem. And when she tried to leave, you callously—and completely without honor—prevented her from going. You killed her bodyguards and you nearly killed her as well. Is this what passes for honor around here?"

  He didn't wait for response. "If it is, then I spit on your honor." That caused a stir. Kirk wondered if he had gone too far, but he knew he couldn't back down. To apologize to a crowd was to invite attack. It would be better to challenge them than to appear weak—especially if what Mudd had said about apologies around here was true.

  And with that thought, Kirk realized he had his weapon. He had had it all along. Puffing out his chest to look as belligerent as possible, he said, "I spit on your honor and I demand an apology. You have offended—worse, you have insulted—an innocent bystander with your petty conflict, and as her protector I demand an apology from each and every one of you."

  Silence filled the street for a heartbeat, two heartbeats; then one of the Prastorians holstered his disruptor and began to clap. For a few seconds only he applauded, but he kept it up and pretty soon his neighbors holstered their weapons and joined him. The applause spread outward like ripples on a pond until everyone was doing it, and the street that only a minute earlier had echoed with the clash of battle now roared with their approval.

  At least that's what Kirk assumed it was. He noticed that no apology had been offered yet, but if they kept clapping long enough for him and the android to cross the street and get out from under the energy shield he really didn't care.

  "Come on," he said. He took Stella's arm and led her into the press of people. They parted for him, then closed up behind, still applauding.

  Two more Distrellians shimmered into existence just as Kirk and Stella reached the far side of the street. They appeared with weapons drawn and ready to fire, but the applause stayed their hands. They both leaned close to another Distrellian who had already been there, no doubt asking what was going on, and when she told them they nodded and joined in as well.

  Kirk breathed a sigh of relief as he and Stella neared the site where the Distrellians had arrived. This had to be the edge of the shield. The Enterprise would beam them up any moment now, and they would be out of this insane mess. Without Chekov, Sulu, or Scotty, but it was too late to do anything for them.

  Kirk turned around after he had passed through the entire crowd. He nodded sternly at the people in front, accepting their gesture without approving of it, expecting at any moment to find himself back on board the ship.

  But without his communicator to lock on to, the Enterprise must have been having difficulty zeroing in on him, because he and the android remained on the street long enough for the applause to die down and an embarrassed silence to descend.

  "Thank you," Kirk said, thinking that might trigger another round of applause, but it didn't.

  One of the Distrellians in the front of the crowd shouted loudly, "Let's send him to Arnhall!"

  "Yes, Arnhall!" a Prastorian answered, and then more voices took up the cry. "Arnhall, Arnhall!"

  And everyone drew their disruptors.

  Kirk didn't like the looks of that. "Hurry up, Spock," he muttered.

  But he didn't beam out. He watched, horrified, as everyone in the crowd—at least all those with a clear shot—leveled their disruptors at him…and fired.

  Spock, in the transporter room now, worked furiously to lock on to the captain, but with hundreds of others in the Prastorian street below, singling out one man was nearly impossible. It would have been simple if he still carried his communicator, but Spock had wasted precious moments zeroing in on its signal only to discover that no one nearby matched the captain's transporter trace. Now he had set the computer to scan through the entire crowd, but it was having difficulty keeping track of everyone. Individual traces moved back and forth, and others beamed in or away, complicating the scene almost beyond even the computer's ability to sort through it.

  At least the disruptor fire had stopped. The energy fluctuations from the battle had made scanning unreliable at best. Spock assumed that the captain had had something to do with its halt, but he would have to wait until the captain was on board to learn what he had done.

  Whatever it was, it was a short-lived phenomenon. Just as the computer announced in its quiet female voice, "Matching signal discovered outside shield perimeter—initiating transporter sequence," a concentrated burst of disruptor fire swept through the target area and the computer said, "Signal lost."

  Spock felt a brief surge of telepathic anguish. He turned toward Ensign Vagle, the transporter operator, and said, "Do not despair, Ensign. We found him once; we will find him again."

  "Yes, sir," Vagle said. He seemed surprised at Spock's statement. Spock wondered if he had misjudged the man's emotional state, and would have asked him if that was the case if the moment were not filled with other pressing business.

  "Computer, scan the captain's last known position."

  "Scanning," the computer replied. "No matching trace found."

  Either the disruptor fire was still interfering, or the captain had moved. "Search for the android," Spock said. To Vagle he added, "The android is a much more unique target, and therefore theoretically easier to locate. And the probability is high that if we find the android, the captain will not be far away."

  The computer immediately said, "Matching signal discovered. Initiating transporter sequence."

  Spock considered ordering it to wait until they found the captain, but he realized there was no reason for that. In fact, it was better this way. They knew where the android had been, and if it was still functional they could simply ask it where Kirk was.

  The black-clad, red-haired form of Stella Mudd shimmered into existence on the forward transporter plate. She staggered sideways when the confinement beam released her, and Spock immediately rushed to assist her down from the platform.

  "Where is Captain Kirk?" he asked her.

  She looked at him with a face devoid of expression, blank as only an android could manage. Her voice was equally toneless as she said, "Dead. Dead… dead…dead."

  She was clearly damaged. But was she talking about Harry Mudd or Captain Kirk? And could Spock trust her assessment in any case?

  "Where was he standing in relation to you?" he asked.

  She blinked, then jerked her head to the right in a motion too fast and too extreme for a human to survive. "He…was…here," she said, raising her right arm to indicate the space just beside her.

  "Ensign, scan that region."


  "Scanning," Vagle replied. "No one there. Sir, that spot was the focus of the disruptor burst we just saw."

  Spock didn't like the sound of that. He asked the android, "Was the captain shot? Is he injured?"

  "Dead," the android replied again. Then she seemed to recognize Spock for the first time and her face took on some animation. "Spock," she said, her voice lowering at least an octave and taking on a male timbre. In fact, it was the captain's voice. Mimicking it almost perfectly, the android said, "Tell Spock…he has the helm. Godspeed."

  It was eerie to hear the captain's voice issue from a woman's throat. Even Spock felt a shiver run down his spine at the sound of it, and the content of the message didn't help, either. That sounded like the last words of a dying man.

  "Ignore life signs and search for a body," Spock ordered the ensign. They might still be able to revive him if they could get him to sickbay soon enough. Dr. McCoy was standing by to treat anyone who was injured.

  "I can't find anything there," Vagle answered.

  Spock left the android to stand on her own and rushed back to the control console to try the search himself, but he was no more successful than Vagle.

  "He…vanished," said the android. "They shot him…he fell… he said, 'Spock. Tell Spock…he has the helm. Godspeed.' Then he vanished." Again, her eerie mimicry left no doubt that she was talking about Kirk.

  And the telepathic burst that Spock had felt—that must have been Kirk's death cry.

  Spock felt a surge of remorse wash through him. The human part of him was reacting to the situation in its usual emotional fashion, but he also felt a different kind of remorse, a more sinister kind, that came from his Vulcan heritage. He clamped down on both of them and concentrated on the business at hand.

  "What about the others?" he asked. He already knew Chekov's and Sulu's fate, and he could guess Mr. Scott's as well, but he needed confirmation before he abandoned the search for their bodies.

  "Dead. All of them…dead. Even my…beloved Harry. What am I… to do?"

  "I do not know," Spock said. What indeed? He faced a similar question himself. Even though Starfleet procedures were quite explicit in such cases—the first officer was to assume command of the Enterprise, report the situation to Starfleet Command, and await further orders—Spock felt that more was required of him. But he couldn't recover the bodies if they had all been vaporized, and nothing he could say to the Nevisians would change anything either.

  Ensign Vagle's stunned expression reminded him that the crew would need time to grieve. Humans required a long period of adjustment before they could accept tragic news. And they often needed someone to blame for it. Even a scapegoat would do, if the actual guilty party was not available. He suspected that in this case he would fill that need for them, and unpleasant as he found the prospect, he vowed to perform the duty to the best of his ability.

  And Stella? Perhaps she could serve in that same capacity. As an android she would excel at it, for even more than a Vulcan, she had no feelings of her own to interfere with the process.

  There was no need for her to remain damaged no matter what function she served. Spock went to the intercom and said, "Security to transporter room one."

  "What are…you doing?" she asked as she took a hesitant step forward.

  He held out his hand to help stabilize her. "Calling you an escort to engineering," he said. "They will repair your damage, and then we will see what you are best suited for now that your guardian duties are over."

  "Over," Stella echoed. "Dead."

  When the two security officers arrived, she let them lead her away without protest. Spock looked at Vagle and said, "There seems little point in continuing to scan for survivors, but you may do so if you wish."

  "Yes, sir," Vagle said, and from the tone in his voice Spock knew that he would be at it for hours. He made a mental note to order the man to cease and go to bed if he was still there by ship's midnight.

  He left the transporter room, but was immediately faced with a choice. Should he take the turbolift back to the bridge and announce the captain's and the others' deaths to the entire crew, or should he take the few steps across the hallway into sickbay and deal with Dr. McCoy's inevitable wrath?

  Do the toughest job first, he decided, turning toward sickbay. And besides, as illogical as it seemed, he discovered that he needed the doctor's presence in his own hour of grief.

  Chapter Thirteen

  "WHAT DO YOU MEAN you can't locate the bodies?"

  McCoy stood in the middle of his emergency room, where he had been preparing his diagnostic equipment and biobeds for incoming wounded, and glowered at Spock. First he had the temerity to march in here and announce in his matter-of-fact fashion that Jim was dead, and now this.

  "I mean just that," Spock said, standing as stiff-backed and poker-faced as ever. "They appear to have been vaporized by disruptor fire, except in the case of Mr. Scott, who was vaporized by phaser overload while attempting to counteract the energy barrier that prevented us from beaming them to safety."

  His emotionless tone of voice while delivering such news was more than McCoy could bear. "Dammit, Spock," he said, "don't you care? Doesn't anything crack that Vulcan calm of yours? We've lost four of our finest officers, including the best friend either of us has ever had, and you stand there and talk about it like it was some kind of simulation that we all failed."

  Spock's face grew a shade greener than usual, but that was his only visible reaction to McCoy's words. When he spoke, however, his voice was even softer than normal, and his words shocked McCoy to the core.

  "It is a myth, Doctor, that a Vulcan feels nothing. Even were I not half human, I would sense a deep and powerful anger building in me as well. An anger that, if left unchecked, would lead me to pursue the captain's killers and remove them from the universe. Not only the killers themselves, but their offspring and all their relations until I had eradicated their very genetic code. Without the iron self-control that we Vulcans have developed to keep this type of rage in check, I could easily become an avenging monster capable of sterilizing both of the planets in this star system in retaliation for my captain's—my friend's—death. Would you prefer that to my… inhumanly calm reaction?"

  McCoy shivered despite himself. "No," he said quietly. "No, that wouldn't help anything."

  "I agree. Unfortunately, Vulcans have no middle ground to occupy in such conditions as these. We either accept what has happened and go on with our lives, or we allow our emotions to overwhelm us completely. History has proved the latter option to be unacceptable."

  McCoy nodded, grudgingly accepting Spock's statement at face value. "All right, I can understand that, but speaking as a doctor, that's not healthy. Your human half, at least, needs to go through some distinct stages before you can integrate what's happened into your life."

  "And what phases are those?" Spock asked.

  "Shock. Denial. Anger. Bargaining. Depression. And finally, only after you've worked through everything else, acceptance."

  "I see." Spock sat down on the end of one of the biobeds. "Since I cannot allow that to happen, especially now that I am captain of the Enterprise, what repercussions can I expect?"

  He was serious. He really had no intention of allowing the grief process to proceed normally. Lots of people tried to deny it, but it nearly always happened to them anyway. Spock, on the other hand, would probably succeed in suppressing it—but there would indeed be a cost. "Physically, you'll probably lose stamina," McCoy told him. "Your immune system will become depressed—no pun intended—so you'll probably catch just about any cold or flu that's going around. And you won't sleep normally, which will in turn make you lose stamina and depress your immune system even more."

  "And mentally?" asked Spock.

  "Your judgment will suffer. A human would get irritable. During the denial phase, you could become delusional. You'll probably—" The silliness of what he was saying suddenly struck him. "Dammit, Spock, this is ridiculous. You've
got to grieve properly or before long you'll be unfit for duty."

  "I see." Spock stood again, still rigid as a post, and said, "I will take your thoughts under advisement." He took a few steps toward the door, then turned back to McCoy. "What of you?" he asked. "Will you be proceeding through the same phases you outlined for me?"

  McCoy felt a flash of unreasonable fury at the mocking tone in Spock's voice, but a second later it faded as he realized the Vulcan had meant no mockery. He really didn't understand human nature.

  McCoy's reaction to his innocent question was answer enough. That and the almost crippling regret he felt over all his angry outbursts at Kirk over the years. He knew it was irrational—they had been close friends—but right now the harsh words they had exchanged were all McCoy could remember. "Yes," he said to Spock. "And you'd better get used to it. Everybody on board but you is going to go through the same process."

  "I suspected as much." Spock nodded, as if confirming an earlier decision. "Thank you, Doctor. I must go now and make the shipwide announcement. Please take whatever precautionary measures you believe necessary."

  He turned away and walked out of sickbay, leaving McCoy standing there in the middle of his emergency room, wondering what precautions he could take. How do you prepare a body for the news that its head has just been cut off?

  The bridge seemed like an alien place to Uhura. She had sat in this same chair before the same control board for her entire tour as communications officer, but now with Spock in command and new faces at the navigation, helm, and science stations, the place seemed utterly foreign. She was still reeling from the news that Spock had just broadcast on the intercom, even though she had already known her friends were dead. She had monitored their signals from the moment they beamed down to the moment they had died, wincing as each communicator's homing signal—and each person carrying it—winked out in turn.

  Now another signal from the planet caught her attention. A cluster of signals, actually. Tight-beam radio transmissions between moving targets. She wouldn't normally have detected them, but the scanners were still set on maximum sensitivity after their search for the captain. Uhura tuned to the signals' frequency and heard a voice saying, "—two big cylinders in back are probably the engines; orange squadron aim for those. If you can't destroy the engines directly, try to cut them loose—those supports look like a weak point. Yellow squadron, aim for the center of the disk, try to open it to space, and red squad, take the lower cylinder. Watch out for—"