Title: Spock's Logs 11
Author: Istannor 
Series: TOS
Part: 1/1
Rating: [PG13]
Codes: 
Summary: We give our thanks to Ambassador Spock's
estate for
allowing us to view these records. It allows us an unusual
insight into the process by which the most famous Command
team in Starfleet history became a team. This details
Spock's initial reaction to the detainment of the landing
party on Charon.

Disclaimer: These are the characters of Paramount and
Viacom. They own them; I only check 'em out from the
library. I promise to bring 'em back.
Spock's Logs 11


Stardate: 2021.6

My Captain is down on the planet Charon, being held in
confinement secondary to the indiscretions of Leonard
McCoy. Dr. McCoy has shown himself to be a fool and a
person who has little control over his verbal outbursts, even
when they endanger the lives of his fellow crewmembers. I
realize that Jim will find a way to resolve this issue; I do not
doubt his abilities in the slightest. However, I can only hope
that the cost of the compromise will not be too great. If it was
my choice, I would offer McCoy's services as an indentured
servant for a period of a month in order to give them their due
recompense. That would serve as a useful lesson for the
Doctor to close his mouth, and it would be appropriate
revenge on the people of Charon. Perhaps my response is
illogical, but I would be remiss if I did not state my true
reaction to these events.

I admit to a feeling of unease despite the reassurances of the
Federation Envoy that the Captain and his party are in good
health and being well-treated. I can not identify the source of
this concern, yet it exists. I have notified Starfleet and they
have ordered me to remain in orbit and to not interfere under
any circumstances. I will obey my orders.

If they harm Jim, I will be displeased. I have 10.3 minutes until
the Charon Attaché will be available for discourse. I will use
the time to review some issues that have come to the fore,
recently.

We have continued to settle into our friendship over the last
3.2 months since PSI 2000. I have begun to tell him stories of
early Vulcan history and we have found ourselves in long
discussions of comparative Vulcan and Terran military
tactics. Those are subjects on which Jim excels. He has
asked me about my early experiences at Starfleet. I have
never shared those stories with anyone and when I told Jim
that I preferred to not discuss those times with him, he smiled
and changed to another subject.

I have many tales from my early days at the academy. For
some unfathomable reason, I have not yet told him of the first
time I saw him while he was still at Starfleet Academy. I am
two years older than Jim and he entered the Academy at age
15. I entered at age19 which was a more typical age.
Therefore, we were actually two years apart at the Academy.
He was an upperclassman and already famous at the time I
first matriculated. He left the next year for his first deep space
mission at the age of 18.

I was walking across the Academy Lawn late one night, on
my way to my quarters from my studies in the science labs. I
was alone, as was the norm in those days. I must pause here
to state that I have only recently come to the realization that I
am no longer normally alone. I have company at any time that
I choose to do so at this point in my life. I find that to be
agreeable.

I digress.

I heard a muffled scream from over behind a side building
that lay 147.8 meters to my left, the astrophysics labs. If I had
not been Vulcan, the sound would have gone unnoted. I
crossed quickly and silently to ascertain if anyone was in
serious danger. At the time, hazing, and harassment of the
Plebes was routine and unfathomable to me. No, that is a
misstatement. The hazing reminded me of home, but I had
not expected it to take place at Starfleet Academy.

I admit, I stood quietly in the shadows as a young plebe by
the name of Subodh Bisla, was pushed down onto the
ground, and forced to lick the mud off of the boots of a
particularly ill-tempered upperclassman by the name of
Vashti Salieri. Salieri was in the company of four other young
men who were known to be equally offensive in their
behavior. I was undecided as to what I should do and could
not logically deduce what the correct human response would
be.

As I stood frozen in place, I heard a command barked out
from the darkness that stretched out on the other side of the
building. James Kirk stepped into view in the company of
another young man that I would learn later was Gary Mitchell.
Kirk was already famous on the campus and I had seen his
picture several times in association with various awards and
honors. "Attention." His voice made even me stand straighter
in the darkness where I stood. " What the heck do you think
you are doing," he asked them softly.

They tried to explain how they were just having a little fun
playing with a plebe and Jim continued to march straight
ahead  until he stood directly in front of all of them. He
reached down and pulled Bisla up and waited for the young
man to gather himself into some semblance of order and
then he quietly told him to leave, which the boy did with
alacrity. Then he turned to the offenders. Gary Mitchell had
taken up a lazy stance against the side of the building and
had a half smile on his face that I was only able to interpret
years later. It meant that Jim Kirk was mad, Gary knew it and
was settling in for the show.

Jim outranked them all, but he pulled off his shirt and folded it
quietly and handed it to Gary. "I told you to leave the plebes
alone, Salieri. You don't play with them, you are trying to
humiliate them to make your dick hard. No-one can
command a crew of men and women who have had their
egos destroyed. Since you do not understand reason,
obviously you need to go to a different type of school." Salieri
was 8.6 centimeters  taller and 10 kilograms heavier than
James Kirk, who was a small 17 year old facing a 21 year
old. I thought that I should leave and go get a professor, but I
stayed rooted to the spot.

The fight lasted 5.6 minutes. James Kirk rendered the young
man unconscious and then turned to the rest of the group. "I
have a new task for each and every one of you. You will
personally see to the welfare of the plebes. If any of them get
hurt, or humiliated, I will come looking for you five, not the
ones that did it. We need men and women in space that will
believe and have each other's best interest at heart. I will not
let you ruin any of them. Do you understand me?" They
screamed their assent. "Get out of here and take him with
you."

I was astonished. What he did was aggressive, violent,
effective, and somehow kind at the same time. I could not
leave; I was compelled to watch him. Gary Mitchell leaned off
of the building and strolled leisurely towards Jim and handed
him his shirt. " You know Jim, one day you are going to get
tired of tilting at windmills. They are assholes and they will die
in space from stupidity. Why waste any blood and sweat on
them?"

Jim answered him with a phrase I came to know as his own.
"If they die in space, they may take us both with them. I
personally don't want their stupidity to kill someone I care
about. You know I don't believe in a no-win scenario, Gary.
There's always a chance that I can reach them. Look at you,
you're still here."

"That's because I knew a good deal when I saw it and latched
onto your coat-tails, Jim-Boy. Anyway, you know as long as I
can read your mind, I can pass any test. Come on, let's go
meet our dates. I want to get laid and they won't give me the
time of day unless you're along. You fighting and being a
knight in shining armor always makes me horny."

"You can't read my mind, Gary. You intuit the answers from
my body language and you are too good of a navigator to
lose. Shoot, you can see the constellations in your head.
Watch, you'll be my navigator when I get my ship. One day
maybe you'll see physics, history, philosophy, and the rest of
the stuff too. And Gary, don't blame me for your frustrations, a
breeze makes you horny."

"Sure you're right, Jimboy. I don't read your mind to get the
answers. You don't let me so I won't flunk out, and I'll be your
navigator and probably get us lost on the first day out from
spacedock. By the way, don't knock breezes, they are
wunnerful things. Bring your ass on; I told you I want to get
laid, not talked to death. " Gary laughed, ducked the blow that
just missed his head, and they walked slowly off across the
quads together.

I do not know why that story came to mind, but I will tell Jim
about it when he returns to the ship. When Jim talked to me
on the beach of Antares about his childhood failure to act on
the behalf of the boy who was being beaten in the cornfields
of Iowa, I remembered the episode at the Academy. I did not
tell him of it, because I would have had to admit that I had
stood in the shadows myself, and refused to be part of the
solution. I did not want him to think less of me for my
reticence, even if it transpired 17 standard years prior to our
conversation. I have come to value his opinion of me and I do
not think that is against the teachings of Surak.

Now, I will go and speak with the Federation envoy again. If I
do not hear from my Captain in 24hours, I believe I can make
an argument for an emergency beam-out based on the
defense that I was concerned that they had been illegally
kidnapped by a subversive element of the Charon political
underworld. If they were held without the consent of the
Charon government and there was no proof that the people
with whom I spoke were not being coerced, then my actions
could be construed as rational and legal. It is fortunate that
Vulcans are incapable of lying, unfortunately we can be
mistaken, and my conviction that they were kidnapped may
be mistaken. I will learn to live with the chagrin of having been
proven to have been...misled. I am sure Surak would
understand.

End Log