by Rudy Josephs
“But, sir, I’m the physician on record.”
“Yes, and you’ve done a fine job, McCoy,” he said. “But while this cadet rests off whatever is going on in her body, it would be best for us if another cadet was not involved in the treatment. We need to make sure that she has the best care available.”
McCoy was offended. “But, sir—”
“I’m speaking of the official records,” Griffin quickly added. “For the record, she needs senior level treatment. You and I both know that you’re a good doctor, but there’s no room for screwups here. The administration will not abide a cadet treating such an important case, if this does turn out to be linked to the death of Cadet Jackson.”
McCoy wanted to say something, but he wasn’t sure he could control his tongue. It wasn’t fair to the patient to take him off the case just because of bureaucracy. He was the attending physician. He should be the one to monitor her progress.
“I assure you, the patient is in capable hands,” Griffin said lightly.
“It’s not that,” McCoy said. “It’s just—” But he wasn’t sure what it was. Probably ego. He’d never been taken off a case before. Sure, there were extenuating circumstances, but that didn’t change anything. He was being told he could no longer treat a patient. And there was nothing he could do about it.
“If you’ll excuse me, I need to get to work.”
“Yes, sir,” McCoy said.
He took a final look at the sedated patient. She seemed so peaceful there, at rest. No evidence of the war that raged in her body.
Griffin must have noticed that the cadet had yet to move. “And talk to the nurse,” he added. “Need to make sure nothing about this cadet goes beyond this room.”
“Will do,” McCoy said. Then he added, “Sir.”
Hours later Kirk was still feeling the anger from his combat training run-in with Thanas and Lieutenant Commander Bjorta. The class was all he could think about as he shed his uniform and changed into civilian clothes.
It was bad enough that Lieutenant Commander Bjorta had berated Kirk in front of the whole class, but that smug smile on Thanas’s face during the entire time really pushed him over the edge. What did he have to be so cocky about? He’d been the one writhing on the ground. And he didn’t fare much better in the later rounds. Thanas had been more concerned with grandstanding than fighting.
So much for the winner of the survival course.
Okay, the low blow wasn’t exactly standard Starfleet maneuver, but it got the job done. In a real fight, properly sanctioned moves weren’t important. All that mattered was who was on their feet at the end.
In class, more often than not, the one left standing had been Kirk.
He checked his cocky smile in the mirror and liked what he saw. It was a nice change to be out of the standard cadet uniform and in casual clothes. Felt like it was the first time he’d been out of uniform in weeks. Come to think of it, it was. When he wasn’t in uniform, he was usually in bed. Sometimes he was in bed in uniform. The Academy training was that intense.
Kirk still hadn’t decided whether or not this was the place for him. Maybe his date with Lynne tonight would cinch things. She was the best reason he could think of to stick around. His smile grew with thoughts of her. He turned from his mirror and made for the door to his quarters, nearly smacking into McCoy as he stepped into the hall. “Bones!”
“You planning on calling me that the rest of my life?” McCoy shot back.
Kirk paused for a moment, surprised by the anger from his friend. Bones tended to be on the cantankerous side, but this was different. In the silent beat that followed, Kirk considered McCoy’s question. “I like it, Bones. I think it’ll stick.”
McCoy cracked a smile. “You do realize I’m going to get you back for that someday.”
“As long as it’s not today,” Kirk said. “Don’t know if I want to go up against you in this mood. What’s up?”
McCoy glanced down the hall. It was loaded with cadets heading to and from their late classes, the mess hall, or out for the evening. The campus was a constant buzz of activity. The dorms were no exception. He nodded toward Kirk’s room. “Got a minute?”
Kirk checked the time. He was already running late. “Not really. Walk with me into town?”
McCoy shrugged. “That might help blow off some steam.”
Kirk had never seen his friend this angry before. He stepped out into the hall, and they went toward the lift that would take them down to ground level.
“What’re you all gussied up for?” McCoy asked, obviously avoiding the subject that had put him in a mood until they were out of the building.
Kirk hadn’t considered himself “all gussied up.” In fact, he’d chosen the worn jeans and vintage T-shirt specifically because he wanted to look casual. He also didn’t think the leather bomber jacket would count as gussying up either. Not that that was a term he’d ever use at any rate. “Finally going on that date with Monica.”
“About time,” McCoy said. “Where you taking her?”
“I’m not,” Kirk said. “She’s taking me.”
McCoy raised an eyebrow. “Is she now? Don’t see her picking you up. Isn’t that standard operating procedure for a date? The dater picks up the datee and takes her . . . um . . . him out on the town?”
“Funny,” Kirk said as they exited through the back of the building. “She sent me a message. I’m meeting her someplace on Marina. Wouldn’t tell me what it was.”
“Sounds mysterious.”
“I could use a little mystery in my life,” Kirk said as they crossed the quad. He was looking forward to exploring the city. He’d hardly been off campus since he got there. So much of his life had been spent trapped in Riverside, Iowa, that he’d planned to hit the city as often as he could while he was at the Academy. But with the exception of a few class assignments that took him around town, he’d hardly scratched the surface of what San Francisco had to offer.
“Well, I could use a little less mystery,” McCoy muttered softly. He ignored Kirk’s “tell me more” look.
San Francisco had its fair share of Starfleet officers and cadets strolling through the city. It wasn’t like they’d be safe to talk freely without being overheard. But there was something that just felt different about being outside the Academy. A freedom that didn’t exist on the perfectly manicured grounds of the campus. Once they were out on the streets of San Francisco, McCoy finally opened up about what was bothering him. “Some days I wish I’d stayed a country doc.”
“Nothing here could ever be so bad that it would ever get me to miss home.”
McCoy looked over his friend. “That’s ’cause you were made for the adventure of space.”
Kirk thought back to being disciplined in combat training. “I’m not so sure Starfleet understands the concept of adventure.”
McCoy let out a derisive snort. “I think they understand it too much.”
“All these stupid rules and regulations.”
“Are there for a reason,” McCoy said as they started across a major thoroughfare. Rows of hovervehicles lined up beside them, their electric engines humming quietly while the drivers waited for the light to change so they could continue on their way. “And even then, they don’t cover everything a stupid kid will do. Not nearly.”
Kirk suspected they’d touched on the topic at hand. “Is that what your mood is about? The rumors of that cadet who died?”
McCoy stopped short in the crosswalk, clearly surprised. “How’d you hear about that?”
Kirk kept walking. The light was about to change. “You really think news like that wouldn’t spread?”
“Kind of thought it might take a bit longer,” McCoy replied as he fell in beside his friend. “The administration’s working overtime to hush it up.”
“You know what happened?” Kirk asked. He wasn’t one for idle gossip, but he was genuinely curious. If something dangerous was going on at the Academy, it was only right to alert the cadets
. Especially seeing how someone like Thanas was already keeping the student body informed.
“Know more than I want to.” McCoy sighed. “I was assigned to the autopsy.”
That was the last thing Kirk expected to hear. “They let a student in on the autopsy? I thought they’d want to keep tight control on that.”
“I was surprised too, at first. Doubt that they expected us to find what we discovered. Probably didn’t expect what happened this afternoon either.”
Just then Kirk saw an officer strolling in their direction and turned down a side street. McCoy picked up on what was happening and followed. It was quieter off the main drag, so they didn’t have to keep their voices up to compete with traffic. Kirk knew they were being paranoid, but it was best to play it safe. “What happened?” he asked in a low voice.
“You can’t tell anyone,” McCoy said. “Not even your girlfriend.”
“She’s not my girlfriend. Not yet, anyway.”
“Whatever she is, this has to stay between us.”
“No problem,” Kirk said. He never had any issue with keeping things to himself before. Heck, he’d spent most of his life bottling things up inside. Random gossip about some near total stranger wasn’t that big a deal.
“Okay, so, Jackson, he was . . . how shall I say this?” McCoy stalled, like he was trying to figure out the best way to explain it. “Let me keep this simple.”
“I’ve been told I’m kind of a smart guy,” Kirk joked. “Might surprise you what I can figure out.”
“Don’t think they were calling you a smart guy,” McCoy replied. “But I’m not sure I entirely understand what’s going on myself.”
They walked the next half block in silence while McCoy organized his thoughts. Once they turned out of the side street, Kirk saw that they were almost at the address Lynne had given him. It was a tiny shack of a restaurant with a beach theme called Suraya Bay. McCoy had better get talking soon or else they’d have no choice but to share the news with his date.
McCoy stopped when they saw the restaurant a half block away. “Cadet Jackson died from the cumulative wounds he sustained over these first few weeks—maybe months—of training.”
“No wonder they want to keep this quiet,” Kirk said. He’d often thought the training had been a bit on the intense side. Not for himself, but for some of the others. He never imagined the intensity was dangerous, but now that he heard it had taken a life, he wasn’t entirely surprised.
“That’s not the big news,” McCoy said. “Jackson underwent some kind of procedure. An operation that would keep him from feeling pain. We think he did it to perform better in his training.”
“No pain, no gain,” Kirk said lightly. Kirk knew it wasn’t the time for jokes, but it sort of came out on its own. He was glad that McCoy trusted him enough to confide this in him, but he was also worried what would happen if anyone found out what he knew. This kind of thing was a serious breach to the all-important honor code. A code that, so far, Kirk had only known the cadets were forced to follow. It had to be against some code for the administration to keep this kind of information from the student body. That didn’t seem very honorable.
He remembered back to Jackson falling off the cliff face. He’d jumped back up without a wince, yet Kirk had thought at the time that the kid had to be hurting. At least this explained his reaction. He probably did some real damage to his body in that fall.
“That’s the damn problem. Without that pain, he didn’t know how badly his body had been suffering. He didn’t have to die.”
“I get why he might’ve done it, though,” Kirk said.
“Care to explain it to me?”
“This place messes with your head,” Kirk said. “I pulled a sucker punch on a guy in class earlier. I’ll be the first to admit, I’m not above a sucker punch every now and then, but in class? I was showing off. We all do it every day.”
“That would explain the other patient I saw today. They probably didn’t expect what I’d see.”
“Which was?”
“First-year cadet,” McCoy explained. “Came in unconscious. Result of a high metabolism. Uhura brought her in.”
“Really? That’s interesting, but what’s it got to do with Jackson?”
“I’m getting to it,” McCoy said. “She was taking something to elevate her metabolism. Probably to keep her body weight down. Bring her energy level up. Help her get through training.”
“Is she . . . ?”
“Alive,” McCoy said. “But sedated last I heard. She won’t be talking for a while. Got to give her body a chance to adjust.”
“Sounds like an epidemic.”
“Two does not make an epidemic,” McCoy said. “Not usually. But there’s something about this. Yeah. I don’t think this thing is contained.”
“What’s the administration doing about it?”
“They’ve got some hot-shot captain on it,” McCoy said. “Warde. Asks all kinds of questions. Mostly good questions, but that’s not the problem. Once I diagnosed the second cadet this afternoon, I was shut out completely. She’s my patient. I said as much when Warde came to see me later for more questions.”
“Bet she didn’t care.”
“Not one iota,” he said. “Claimed it was standard procedure. But I think something funny’s going on. I may be wrong, but I think the Academy will try to cover this thing up too.”
Spock did not relish a return to the cadet dorms. He had suffered the indignity of shared living space with hundreds of other young students during his earlier years at the Academy. When he’d enrolled at Starfleet Academy, he hadn’t anticipated how difficult it would be to reside among a mix of emotional races all day and night.
It was one thing to attend classes with the other students. It was quite another to live among them as they had their secretive parties and emotional mood swings. His first-year roommate had been a particularly obnoxious human, more concerned with celebrating the fact that he was accepted to the Academy than focusing on what it meant to be a student. He washed out midway through the first year.
Spock had found that a surprising number of cadets had not yet reached the maturity level to be Starfleet officers, which was the point of the Academy training program. Spock much preferred the faculty living quarters. That situation was not perfect either, but it was preferable to the environment in which he currently found himself.
A pair of young human males, dripping wet from the showers and dressed in nothing but towels, bumped into him as they rushed past. The half-hearted apologies they offered as they continued down the hall did not make up for getting water all over the unfolded boxes he was carrying. Spock considered calling them back, but he shuddered to think how they might offer to dry the boxes. He merely wiped the surface of the box that had gotten the most wet with his sleeve.
Spock was pleased when he finally reached his destination. He no longer had to navigate the halls—at least not until his departure.
“What?” a voice yelled out when the door chimed, announcing Spock’s presence. It was not the standard expected reply when one was at the door. He could very easily have been a senior officer waiting for admittance. Even a lower grade officer like himself was due more respect than a holler.
Spock did not reply to the yelled question. It was unseemly to shout through a door, particularly since the occupant would surely open it upon hearing the sound of a second chime.
His assumption was correct. The door opened a moment later. Spock registered the expression on the Andorian cadet’s face as annoyance. He suspected it had something to do with the young woman seated on the edge of the cadet’s bed. They were both in full uniform, signifying that Spock had not interrupted anything. At least, not yet.
“Cadet Thanas.” Spock nodded in greeting. They had never met previously, but Spock recognized the cadet from the image in his file.
“Yeah?” The cadet’s body language suggested that Spock had little time to gain entrance to his quarters. He took one st
ep forward, blocking the door sensor to ensure that it would not suddenly shut.
“Please allow me to express my regrets for your loss,” Spock said. He’d learned that opening on a personal level usually help set an emotional race at ease.
“Loss?” Thanas asked. He looked back at the young woman on his bed, who was casually going through the things on his nightstand. “Oh, you mean Jackie. We weren’t exactly close. Not so much the loss of a roommate as the gain of a single suite. Know what I’m saying?”
Apparently emotional concerns were not the case with this particular individual. The way he’d taken Jackson’s name and turned it into a juvenile moniker also spoke volumes.
Spock moved on, taking another step into the doorway. He had now situated himself inside the room. Thanas looked as though he wanted to say something, but knew enough not to challenge a superior. “I’ve been asked to collect Cadet Jackson’s personal effects to return to his family.”
“Now?”
Spock leaned the unfolded boxes against the interior wall as a statement of his intent to proceed. Captain Warde had suggested this subterfuge as a means of getting Spock “in the door,” as she had said. She had meant it figuratively, but it worked equally as well in the literal sense.
Thanas leaned uncomfortably close to Spock and whispered, “I’m kind of in the middle of something.”
Spock had seen non-Vulcans grieve before. It was, occasionally, a messy affair. Oftentimes outsiders would dismiss the Vulcan grieving process for being uncaring, but that could not be further from the truth. Vulcans grieved deeply, though they worked to ensure that the emotions did not show. This was the first time Spock ever witnessed someone who clearly experienced no remorse for the loss of a person with whom he had been living for months.
“I am certain you understand that Cadet Jackson’s family is in pain,” Spock said. “Having their son’s belongings around them might ease their suffering.” That was another one of Captain Warde’s suggestions. Spock could not fathom how any person could take solace from inanimate objects.
