Chapter Text
Vulcans are famously loyal.
This is how humans put it. Spock, however, feels this description lacks something. It is more proper to say that Vulcans form very strong attachments. Their loyalty cannot be commanded or transferred. It is simply the effect of a bond that has already been formed.
Captain Pike is leaving, and yet Starfleet expects the same loyalty from Spock that it has always received. One of a thousand ways it reveals it has never understood Vulcans.
“I have another item for your list,” says Spock, sitting upright in the chair across from Captain Pike’s desk.
Pike is relaxed, leaning back with one arm flung over the armrest. “Oh yeah? Sure, we can put one more on there. Number, uh—”
“One hundred eight,” supplies Spock. It is a list they have been making together for the last several years: ways in which Starfleet displays a humanocentric view that fails to account for the needs of its non-human members. Spock is uncertain if there is any purpose to the list, if any action will be taken on the items on it, but Pike asked him to mention anything that came to mind and faithfully writes them down on request. “It is the short term of postings, this constant shuffling around of officers. Vulcans do not prefer such rapid change.”
Pike looks blank. “Spock. We’ve served together for eleven years.”
“Yes, Captain. And I find it will be—challenging—to adjust to the difference.”
An easy smile crosses Pike’s face. “I’ll miss you too, Spock.”
Spock consciously blanks his face further. “I do not yet know who the new captain will be,” he continues, trying to sound neutral and not plaintive. “What changes he may make in the ship’s functioning.”
Pike shrugs. “There are lots of good candidates possible. I can’t think of anybody Fleet Command might choose who would really be bad. But yeah, things will change. I know you’re not a fan.”
“I am neither a fanatic for change, nor its enemy.”
Pike does not look convinced, but he chooses to let the statement go. “There will be a new first officer, too,” he goes on. “Since I’m taking Number One with me. It’s very likely the new captain will choose you. I’ve made that recommendation.”
Spock blinks. “Me, sir?”
“You’re far overdue for promotion. And I can’t imagine anybody who will be better at keeping details from falling through the cracks.”
“I have no desire to move to a different position.”
Pike grins. “I know how modest Vulcans can be.”
“Vulcans are never modest,” says Spock. “We are honest. When I say I have no desire to be the first officer, I mean that I am content in my current role as science officer.”
“Needs of the service have to come first, Spock,” says Pike, with a regretful shrug. “If the new captain does choose you, I think you should take it. Starfleet needs the best person at every job. They’ve decided I’ll make a good fleet captain, and so that’s what I have to do. If it thinks the Enterprise is best served with you as first officer, you should listen. Don’t let your—uh—contentment with your current position get in the way of your loyalty to Starfleet, your dedication to its mission.”
Spock is, not for the first time, disappointed to be so poorly understood. There was a time when abstract loyalty to Starfleet was all that held him in his position. But loyalty to an institution can never be the same as loyalty to a person. One cannot bond with an institution.
It is illogical, a throwback to Vulcan’s older days, this loyalty of his. But it is profoundly Vulcan, an attachment any Vulcan could understand and carefully allow for. Humans barely understand the logic of Vulcans. They cannot fathom the deep currents of motivation that lie underneath, the crisscrossing threads of attachment and duty. And Spock does not truly want them to. It is too vulnerable a thing for outworlder ears.
“I will consider what you have said,” says Spock, and lets that statement hang in the air. Human conversational rules require a second statement to soften it, to move the conversation along, but Spock deliberately omits it.
Pike waits, unconsciously expecting that second utterance. When it does not arrive, he eventually sighs. “I’m sorry this is hard for you, Spock. I guess that’s all I had to say. You can go.”
Spock rises from his seat, stands briefly at attention. Suddenly he desperately needs to say something else. It has been good to serve with you. Or, Do not forget me. Or, worst and most humiliating, I wish my father were more like you.
There is, however, a human phrase that will serve. “You will, I hope, keep in touch?” he asks, trying and failing to keep his voice neutral.
Pike’s eyes soften. “Of course I will, Spock. I might not be your captain after next week, but we can be friends.”
Friends. A word humans use for everything, completely without ceremony, commitment, or definition.
And yet, it is better than nothing. “I hope so, Captain,” says Spock, and leaves the room.
Pike’s promotion to Fleet Captain is a formal affair, as humans understand formality, but it still lacks structure in places. For instance, the cocktail hour. There is no defined place to stand, no guideline for conversation, and nothing to do with one’s hands but hold a glass. Spock stands at Pike’s elbow, holding his flute of Altair water and watching officers come to shake Pike’s hand. Possibly he should not be here, monopolizing the guest of honor, but he is uncertain where else to stand.
“Congratulations, Fleet Captain,” says yet another officer in dress green. He is on the stocky side, hair a dark blond like tarnished gold, hazel eyes. “Jim Kirk,” the man supplies, as he shakes hands with Pike. “Of the Farragut.”
“Of course,” says Pike. “I’ve wanted to meet you.”
There follows a moment of mutual flattery, for at least the fourteenth time this evening. Every time two officers meet, it seems they feel the need to list off one another’s accomplishments to prove that they have been paying attention to one another. Pike is very familiar with this man’s record, an impressive one for his age.
Pike turns to Spock. “May I present my science officer, Commander Spock. He’s the brains behind the operation, let me tell you.”
Kirk grins and extends a hand. Spock pauses an instant. He has been holding his glass in his right hand to avoid such overtures. But he does not want to appear rude, so he switches his glass, reinforces his telepathic shields to avoid any touch of the man’s emotions, and accepts the shake. Kirk looks directly into his eyes, smiling broadly, and Spock releases his hand uncomfortably, a moment too soon. Even for a human, this man is forward.
“Commander Spock,” says Kirk cheerfully. “I’ve heard of you.”
“Most people have,” replies Spock.
There is a dead silence. The human has probably taken this as a boast. It is not. Spock is not known for his excellent science abilities or his expertise with warp formulas. He is known for his genetic pedigree. But it is not possible to clarify at this point. He ought to make some other statement, but he has never heard of Kirk before and cannot respond with the usual flattery.
Pike breaks the silence with, “I see Noguta waving me over. You two, carry on.” And Spock is left with the stranger.
“Is it true,” says Kirk, “that you pulled the Enterprise out of a subspace rift by creating a resonance in the warp field?”
Spock finds himself surprised. So he is known for something other than his parentage. He had not expected to find himself subject to the mutual flattery of the evening. “The theory had already been explained in a paper by Shen and T’Ress. I simply applied the recommendations in that paper.”
“Not exactly, though, did you? I read your writeup of it in the Journal of Warp Theory. If you hadn’t reversed the polarity and boosted the gain on the spot, the ship would have been lost.”
Spock blinks. “Are you a regular reader of that journal?”
“Have to be. If you hadn’t read Shen’s article, the Enterprise would have been a smear across half a quadrant. This stuff is life or death.”
“I do not find that many command track officers have the time for that amount of study.”
“Amazing what you have time for when you drink enough coffee and don’t sleep,” says Kirk. “I’ve got it in my head to be a captain, and I don’t want to wait till I’m fifty. So I cram in whatever I can.”
Spock cannot relate to his ambition. But warp theory is a conversation topic which he can sustain for as many hours as necessary. “Have you read Blik’ta’s paper in the latest issue?” he ventures. “I found her insights on intermix ratios to be potentially groundbreaking.”
Kirk’s eyes light up. “Aren’t they? The implication is that warp engines could start cold if only the formula was right.”
“I hope to write a response to it in the next several months,” Spock says. Then he remembers that Pike has recommended him for first officer. His peaceful hours in the lab may soon be at an end. “If I have time,” he adds, regretfully.
When Pike’s successor is announced, Spock realizes instantly what Pike had been doing at the party. Surely, if he had had a better understanding of human interactions, he would have noticed at the time. Pike was far too knowledgeable about Kirk for him to be a random first officer. And he had manipulated the situation to force Spock to converse with Kirk at length.
A human might say he had been “set up.”
Spock’s loyalty will not so easily be shuffled over from one man to another. He will do his duty to his new captain. He will not endeavor to be anything else to him. Not this time.