As he prowled the hallways in search of Mitchell, Kirk drew stares from cadets and instructors alike. After all, he had at least one obvious and painful bruise developing on his face, and probably a few less noticeable ones to go with it.
Kirk sighed. Why did these things always manage to happen to him? As outstanding as his academic progress had been, as much as he had impressed the commandant with his actions at Axanar, his handling of relationships at the Academy had been a dismal failure.
Every step of the way, he had tried to do what seemed right to him. He had tried to act fairly and responsibly. And what had it earned him? In the case of Ben Finney, the loss of a friend.
And in the case of Finnegan ...
Suddenly, he caught sight of Mitchell. The plebe was leaving the building through one of its several exit doors, which had slid aside already. Determined to speak with him, the lieutenant followed.
Outside, the sky was a deep and unbroken expanse of blue, mirrored in a hundred tiny pools. The exotic mix of shrubs and trees that grew among the ponds bent low under the press of the ocean breezes, only a few of them caught in the shadow of the soaring Academy building.
Though it was the height of summer, the air felt cool and moist on Kirk’s face. It smelled of brine and something sugar-sweet that he had never taken the time to identify.
[82] “Mitchell!” he called, shading his eyes.
The other man stopped and looked back at him, his hair lifting in the wind. He didn’t say anything, but he seemed more than a little surprised.
The lieutenant caught up. “I want to talk to you.”
“Is this round two?” Mitchell gibed, squinting in the glare of the bright Pacific sunlight.
Kirk shook his head. “Nothing like that. Just do me a favor and walk with me a minute. Okay?”
The other man shrugged. “I guess.”
Together, they set out on one of the macadam paths that circumnavigated the pond-dappled garden. It took the lieutenant a moment to gather his thoughts, but Mitchell was patient.
“I owe you an apology,” Kirk said at last.
Mitchell grunted. “I’ll say.”
“I mean it,” the lieutenant told him. It came out a bit too earnestly.
“I know you do,” said the other man. “That talent I have, remember?”
Mitchell was making it hard to forget. “It must have seemed pretty strange when I socked you,” said Kirk.
“Well,” the plebe replied, “I’ll admit it wasn’t exactly what I expected from a superior officer.”
Again, the lieutenant wondered if the younger man was mocking him. But Mitchell was smiling at him, as if to assure his companion that his remark was meant good-naturedly.
“It wasn’t what I expected, either,” Kirk conceded. “But it happened almost every day of my first year at the Academy.”
[83] “Every day ... ?”
The lieutenant winced at the memory. “I guess you haven’t heard about me and Finnegan.”
Mitchell shook his head. “Who was he?”
They passed within the shadow of the Academy building and the air grew chill. The breeze seemed to bite a little deeper there, too.
“My personal demon,” Kirk explained. “An upper-classman who, for some reason I still can’t fathom, just couldn’t stand the sight of me. And he insisted on letting me know it at every opportunity.”
His jaw clenched. How he had hated Finnegan.
“He used to sneak up on me when no one was looking,” said the lieutenant, consciously trying to keep his hands from clenching into fists, “and beat the living daylights out of me. Mind you, I’m not just talking about a shot or two, though lord knows that would have been unreasonable enough. I mean a serious pounding.”
Mitchell looked at him. “Why didn’t you say something?”
Kirk grunted. “Go running to the commandant? I don’t think so.”
“The man deserved to be disciplined,” the plebe argued.
“Maybe so,” the lieutenant conceded. “But where I come from, we didn’t go running to our moms and dads. We fought our own battles. So that’s what I did—I fought back as best I could. Unfortunately, Finnegan was a much better scrapper than I was, so I always got the worst of it.”
[84] They passed the edge of the shadow and emerged into the sun again. It felt good on Kirk’s skin.
“Interesting,” said Mitchell.
“What is?”
“A guy who would squeal on his friend and protect his enemy.”
The lieutenant felt a gout of anger rise inside him. “Finney’s carelessness could have killed everyone on that ship,” he said tightly. “I didn’t want it to happen again on some other vessel.” He glanced at the plebe. “Besides, I thought you approved of the way I handled that.”
“I do,” Mitchell told him. “In fact, I approve of the way you handled both those guys. I don’t know too many people who would have done what you did in either case.”
“If you’re trying to suck up to your instructor ...”
The underclassman shook his head. “Not my style.”
Kirk believed him. “Anyway,” he said, “when you came up behind me in the corridor, all I could think of was Finnegan sneaking up on me with a maniacal grin on his face. I just ... reacted.”
“Irrationally,” Mitchell suggested.
The lieutenant yielded the point. “Irrationally.”
“Actually,” said the younger man, “a little irrationality’s not a bad thing. If you can make it work for you, that is.”
Kirk chuckled at the notion. “Really.”
Despite his earlier assessment of Mitchell, the guy was actually beginning to grow on him. If they weren’t so different, the lieutenant could almost have seen them becoming friends someday.
[85] “Hey,” said Mitchell, tilting his head appraisingly, “you don’t happen to play racquetball, by any chance?”
“Are you kidding?” Kirk replied. “Racquetball’s my middle name. I went to the county finals in Sioux City a couple of years ago.”
“Pretty impressive,” the underclassman told him. “Since you’re such an expert, maybe I can convince you to give me a few pointers ... say, this evening, after classes?”
The lieutenant was excited by the notion. “I’d be glad to,” he told the younger man. “That is, if it won’t interfere with your studies.”
“My studies?” Mitchell echoed. He didn’t give the lieutenant an answer. He just laughed.
Cadet Gary Mitchell let his superior officer lead the way onto the brightly lit, red and white racquetball court.
“Remember,” said the plebe, watching the door in the back wall slide closed behind them, “you promised to take it easy on me.”
Kirk glanced back at him over his shoulder. “I did?”
“Well, if you didn’t,” Mitchell said in a plaintive tone, “you should have. You went to the county finals, remember? In New York, there were no county finals. Hell, I’m not even sure we had a county.”
The lieutenant chuckled at the remark. “You know, I almost believe you, Mitchell. But not quite.”
“Call me Mitch,” said the cadet. “On the court, at least. That’s what people call me back home.”
[86] Kirk eyed him warily. “Mitch, then. But only when we’re on the court.”
“And what do I call you?” Mitchell asked.
The other man shrugged. “I guess Jim’ll do. Anyway, that’s what people called me back home.”
The underclassman shook his head in mock amazement. “Those zany Iowans. You never know what they’ll do next.”
Taking the comment in the spirit it was intended, the lieutenant bounced his blue rubber ball and gave it a whack. It bounced off the front wall of the court and came back.
“Incidentally,” Kirk observed, “I noticed you paid better attention in class today.”
“Is that so?” asked Mitchell, returning his shot.
“It’s absolutely so,” said Kirk, whacking the ball
back.
“Permission to speak freely?” asked the plebe.
“Permission granted,” the lieutenant told him.
“If I paid better attention today,” Mitchell said honestly, “it’s because your lecture was a touch more interesting.”
Kirk looked at him. “Do me a favor, all right?”
“What would that be?”
“Remind me not to give you permission to speak freely anymore.”
Mitchell laughed. “I’ll try to remember.”
“Ready for a game?” asked the lieutenant.
“As ready as I’ll ever be.”
Kirk flipped Mitchell the ball. “Serve.”
With a smile, Mitchell flipped it back. “You. I insist.”
[87] Smiling, the lieutenant took up a positon at the service line, about halfway between the front wall and the back one. Bending his knees and back, Kirk brought his racquet back with his right hand and bounced the ball low in front of him with his left.
Mitchell watched his opponent carefully, sizing him up. Let’s see, he thought. If this guy’s as serious on the court as he is everywhere else, he’ll be a cut-and-slash kind of player—the kind who puts everything he’s got into each and every shot.
As it turned out, the assessment was right.
Kirk’s serve was a wicked blur of a line drive. It started out about six inches high, banged off the front wall and dropped as it neared the back wall. Worse, the serve was to Mitchell’s left. He was forced to address it with his backhand, which wasn’t half as good as his forehand.
No sooner had the ball hit the front wall again than Kirk pounced on it, plunking it into the crease where wall met floor. It didn’t bounce out of there, either. It rolled out, giving Mitchell no chance at all to keep the volley going.
Score one for the upperclassman, he thought. But now that his theory about Kirk had been confirmed, it would be a different game. After all, Mitchell knew how to play the cut-and-slash type.
When Kirk served again, the plebe didn’t try to slam the ball as his opponent had. He merely redirected it, using the force of Kirk’s shot to bounce the ball off the ceiling.
The ball angled off the front wall, hit the floor, and bounded high in the air—so high, in fact, that Kirk [88] had no choice but to try to race it to its ultimate destination. And that, Mitchell knew, was the rear, left-hand corner of the court.
To Kirk’s credit, he beat the ball to its destination. But when he got there, he found he didn’t have room to take a proper swing. As a result, the ball dropped and died, leaving the upperclassman nothing but perspiration for his trouble.
Mitchell retrieved the ball. “Lucky shot,” he said, balancing it on the face of his racquet. “It won’t happen again in a million years.”
Kirk looked skeptical, but he didn’t say anything. He just retreated to the backcourt and crouched in readiness.
As Mitchell stepped up to the service line, he cast a glance back at Kirk. The upperclassman was twirling his racquet in his hand, eagerly awaiting his adversary’s serve.
This’ll be easy, Mitchell thought. No doubt, Kirk was expecting the kind of beamlike serve he himself had launched. But Mitchell was going to give him something else entirely.
Because this game, like so many others, wasn’t about how much sweat you put into it. It was about making adjustments. It was about going where your instincts led you. And at that moment, Mitchell’s instincts were telling him to lob his serve into the corner—the same one that had been so good to him a few moments earlier.
He did just that. His ball hit high on the front wall and sailed back into the left-hand corner. What’s [89] more, it stayed out of Kirk’s reach until the very last fraction of a second.
And then it dropped like a stone.
Perfect, Mitchell thought.
Unfortunately for him, Kirk had made an adjustment, too. Instead of charging into the corner, he stopped just short of it and waited for the ball to come down. Then, with a quick, economical flick of his racquet, Kirk sent the ball skimming back along the side wall.
The ball hit high on the front wall and came back to the same spot Mitchell had selected for it. Except this time, it was his turn to dig it out. Kirk’s return having caught him by surprise, the younger man didn’t move fast enough. The ball fell into the corner and didn’t come out again.
Mitchell shook his head. He had been outfoxed. He didn’t much like being outfoxed.
“Lucky shot,” said Kirk.
The underclassman grunted. “Just serve.”
It went on like that for some time, Mitchell’s lobs against Kirk’s rockets. Then the lieutenant began to diversify his game and the plebe responded in kind. Before Mitchell knew it, it was he who was hitting line drives and Kirk who was serving up lobs.
But no matter what tactics they adopted, no matter what tricks they pulled, they came out evenly matched. After an entire hour, they hadn’t finished a single game.
“Had enough?” asked Kirk, his standard-issue gray T-shirt thoroughly soaked with sweat.
[90] Mitchell grinned through his fatigue. “Funny, I was just going to ask you the same question.”
“Good thing I’m taking it easy on you,” said the upperclassman.
“You did go to the county finals,” his opponent reminded him.
“Nobody in the county played the way you do.”
“That’s okay,” said Mitchell, wiping perspiration from his brow with the back of his hand. “Nobody in the city played the way I do, either.”
A moment later, realization dawned in Kirk’s face. “Gary Mitchell, for crying out loud. Of course.” He hit his forehead with the heel of his hand. “How could I be so dumb?”
“If you’re determined to feed me straight lines,” the younger man replied, “I’m eventually going to have to take advantage of them.”
“You won the New York State singles championship last year.”
Mitchell shook his head ruefully. “Lost it, actually. But—” He held up his hand, his thumb and forefinger spaced less than half an inch apart. “—I came this close.”
Kirk smiled ruefully. “I should’ve known.”
Suddenly, Mitchell heard a tapping on the back wall, which had a transparent window built into it. A woman’s face was peering in at them.
She was an attractive woman, too—a Mediterranean type, with long, dark hair bound up in a sizable braid. She was making a T shape with her hands, signifying a time-out.
The cadet moved to the door in the wall. It slid [91] aside at his approach, revealing not one woman, but two. Both human, both cadets, both tall, slender, and good-looking. And their appearances were accentuated by the skimpiness of their racquetball gear.
“What can I do for you?” the plebe asked pleasantly.
“Time’s up,” said the Mediterranean type.
Mitchell was disappointed to hear it. He had really been enjoying himself. “Fair’s fair,” he responded nonetheless. “And,” he added on an impulse, “you ladies are as fair as they come.”
The women smiled and looked at one another. “Well,” said the second one, a fiery, freckled redhead, “aren’t you the flatterer.”
“It’s only flattery if it’s not true,” the cadet pointed out. “And in your cases, I’d say it’s eminently true.”
The darker woman grinned. “You’ve certainly made my day. But I have to tell you ... we still want the court.”
Mitchell nodded gallantly. “And you shall have it.” Without looking at Kirk, he waved for the lieutenant to come along. “Come on, Jim. We know when we’re not wanted.”
“Say,” said the redhead, stopping the underclassman in his tracks. She turned to her friend. “I have a better idea. Why don’t we challenge these guys to a game of doubles? The losers can buy dinner.”
The Mediterranean type thought about it for a moment, then nodded. “Could be fun, I suppose.” She glanced at Mitchell, a playful look in her eyes. “That is, if they’re not too tired from all the
ir running around.”
[92] Mitchell smiled. He hadn’t heard a better invitation since he arrived at the Academy. “I believe I can dredge up the strength for a game or two. Can’t you, Jim?”
He turned to Kirk hopefully. But the lieutenant’s expression had changed. It took Mitchell a moment to realize the man was blushing.
“Jim?” the cadet repeated.
Kirk cleared his throat. “I think I’d better call it a day.”
Mitchell was aghast. The guy had to be kidding, right? He had to be pulling his friend’s leg.
“Come on, now,” the plebe said. “We’ve been challenged, Jim. You wouldn’t want to turn down a challenge, would you?”
The lieutenant swallowed. “I’ve got to go,” he said. Nodding stiffly to the women, he walked by them and left the court.
A crazy man, thought Mitchell, stunned by what he had seen. I’ve decided to befriend a crazy man.
“Oh, well,” said the redhead, an undercurrent of genuine disappointment in her voice.
“I’ll take a rain check,” Mitchell told her. “A definite rain check. We’ll do it another time, I promise.” Then he took off after Kirk.
He found the upperclassman in the nearby locker room, where he had begun to strip off his sweat-darkened athletic shirt. Kirk glanced at him, but didn’t say anything.
Seeing that they were alone in the room, Mitchell approached him. “With all due respect, Lieutenant ... are you out of your corn-picking mind? Those [93] two women were clearly interested in getting to know us better, and you ... you walked right out on them!”
The other man shrugged and pulled his locker open. “I just didn’t think it was appropriate.”
“To play racquetball with them?” asked Mitchell, bewildered.
Kirk nodded as he pulled out a towel. “They’re cadets.”
“You played racquetball with me,” the plebe reminded him.
“That’s different,” Kirk told him.
“How is it different?” the underclassman pressed.
The lieutenant shot him a tortured look. “I believe you know how.”
STAR TREK: TOS #85 - My Brother's Keeper, Book One - Republic Page 7