CyberDreams 2OUT OF PRINT
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SENSATE
FOCUS by Lyrastar
MISSING IN ACTION by Rae Trail
IDOL by
J S Cavalcante
CHRISTMAS GIFTS…OR BLUE SEDUCTION by kira-nerys
ARROWS
by Dread Nought
TARGETS
by Dread Nought
RHAPSODY IN RAIN by Arachnethe2
IN CHECK by
K’Sal
THE
CHESS GAME by Islaofhope
THE MERRY MONTH OF…MISTLETOE? by Liz Ellington
MIMOR VI
by Jesmihr
From Sensate Focus by Lyrastar
Captain’s Log Stardate 3383.5: Enterprise is arriving at the Altair system a full twenty-two hours late for the inauguration proper, but just in time for President Wyddick’s formal victory banquet. Mr. Spock and I will attend in a show of additional Federation support, and in hopes of smoothing over any difficulties our unavoidable delay may have caused.
Straightening his dress uniform, Spock wavered in front of the hatch. On one hand, he was expected; last week, last month, even last year he would not have deemed it necessary to buzz. But things had changed, and it now seemed prudent to restrict some liberties of interpersonal contact. There was no logic to such a decision; it would change nothing between them, but there was very little logic in this situation to begin with.
In the end he pressed the buzzer.
“Come.”
Jim sat on the bunk, giving his boots a final shine. He was in between uniforms, wearing only his trousers. The gold shirt was off, the dress jacket still draped over a chair, waiting for the earned ribbons to be attached. The muscles of his chest and upper body rippled with every movement of hand over boot.
Jim glanced at the chronometer. “You’re early. We there already?”
“Negative, Captain. ETA seventeen point four two minutes. I am here in hopes of making use of your computer; I have some command level changes to make.” Totally illogical—he could have done so from the Bridge. Reducing the informalities had been easy. Staying away from the man had not.
With a wave of a wrist, Jim granted assent. “Yours still not fixed yet? If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were stalling on purpose; you don’t need an excuse to come visit, you know.” He gave a quick wink as he set down the boot, stood and turned to the small mirror.
Taking the seat behind the computer, Spock reflected that sometimes it seemed that he was not the only one aboard who could read minds. He applied his disciplines to suppressing any outward reaction discernible to a human—to this human. Instead he called up the safe, old banter.
“I will endeavor to remember that in the future.” Jim chuckled through his nose, and Spock allowed himself to relax his guard just a bit.
One by one, Jim secured the many ribbons to the front, each in its assigned position. When the only spot left was that for his Medal of Honor, he crouched down beside the desk to retrieve it from the safe.
The little space was tight enough, and as Jim reached beside the desk, his bare arm brushed against Spock’s trousers. At the touch, Spock pulled his leg away—politely, not too hastily, he hoped. Before this week he had scarcely noticed these casual contacts that had sprung up between them; now it seemed that he was evading them continually.
The medal attached, Jim donned the tunic and checked himself in the mirror. “Now where did I put the presentation plaque?”
“Other side, second shelf,” said Spock, without looking up.
Jim turned the revolving unit; there it was in shiny oxylite and brass: “To the First Republic Administration of Altair VI and the Unified Altair Concordance, From the United Federation of Planets….” Jim wondered how in the hell Spock had remembered that. His mother used to do things like that and his father always swore that she was psychic. Jim had always figured otherwise; she was just looking out for her man. She knew what he needed.
Jim tucked it under his arm. “Thanks. Now, if I can just make it through the presentation.” He could ad lib any speech with the best of them, but the Altairian names were a mouthful.
Jim sank into the chair on the outer side of the desk and keyed up his speech on a padd one last time. As he adjusted his legs under the desk, Spock turned slightly in his chair, keeping their knees from bumping—a considerate move, genteel even, so why did it have the feel of a rebuff?
Spock had been distancing himself a lot since the stop on Vulcan. At first Jim had passed it off as recuperation, but now he was starting to feel the emptiness of places his friend ordinarily would have occupied. It had been over two years since he had known the lonely hours of command burdens borne alone and had, through some unvoiced accord, come to believe that he never would again.
Or perhaps, phrased more precisely, he had come to believe that if Spock had any say in the matter, he never would.
From Missing in Action by Rae Trail
Spock raced through the corridors toward sickbay, Kirk struggling rather feebly in his arms. Blood from the various shrapnel wounds left a slippery trail behind him, red and green mixing into a sickly brown.
“Centre bed, Spock!” McCoy wasted no time with aiming his tricorder, scanning Kirk as Chapel began to cut the tunic and trousers off of him. “What the hell did this?”
“Pipe bomb,” Spock replied, lowering himself to sit on the first bed. He stilled his panic as best he could, unwilling to break down in front of these, of all, humans.
“Barbaric. How badly are you hurt, Spock?”
Fear was almost overwhelming him, but he could not admit that to McCoy. “My injuries are superficial. How is the captain? He was much closer to the explosion than I was.”
McCoy became grim. “He’s worse than he looks. How long was he totally unconscious? Did his head strike the ground? Was he coherent at all after the blast?”
“He was unconscious for approximately fifteen minutes while I carried him to the surface to beam up. He began to move seconds before beam-up. His head struck the ground with considerable force. He has not been coherent.”
“Okay, go get Ionie to fix you up in the next treatment room, Spock. Chris, we need to operate now, oedema is advancing rapidly and we have coup and contra coup site haematomas, extensive tearing, as well as a skull fracture and imbedded shrapnel at the impact site….”
I find these twenty-third century people interesting, but the one among them who intrigues me most is the one they call Spock, a Vulcan. It is a little odd, I think, that I am so drawn to one who is not human, I who have made Earth my exclusive hobby for centuries upon centuries. So I—in my cat form, of course—leap up into the Vulcan’s lap at the first opportunity, and take a little look into his surface thoughts while he is busy petting my silky fur.
Two things I notice at once—first, that he is after all the son of a human mother and only looks fully Vulcan. And two, that his entire being yearns toward the dynamic young human male who is with him in the starship briefing room. It is a most intriguing situation, for Spock believes that this man, his captain, does not know.
Oh, that is interesting. There is not much same-sex fooling around taking place on Vulcan, at least as far as Spock knows. Vulcans betroth their children at a very young age, perhaps to prevent that very thing. Their tendency is to fall in love with another’s mind, regardless of gender, so if not for these betrothals, there might be a lot less procreation than nature had originally ordained. Unlike the humans, who have by Spock’s time made some minor alterations to their planet—climate control and that sort of thing—but none to themselves as a race, the Vulcans have dared make genetic modifications to themselves, and they are not quite in control of the results.
Spock’s quandary is that he cannot justify his desires with his people’s insistence on logic and emotional control. No matter what argument he concocts—and he has, late at night, concocted many—he cannot make such an arrangement seem the logical thing to do. There is, he tells himself, great risk, for if he were to have what he desires, he might easily lose emotional control and possibly hurt Captain Kirk. There is a chance he would not, for Kirk is resilient, but there is one certainty: choosing Kirk would betray Spock’s heart to all and tear down his carefully constructed, properly Vulcan persona.
It is safer to assume that the captain would not even want such a liaison. Surely he has given no such evidence. That is what Spock tells himself.
“What do you make of the cat, Mr. Spock?” the human asks, watching Spock holding me, looking right at us, and yet seeing neither my truth nor Spock’s. But he is giving Spock a bemused smile, enjoying the Vulcan’s pleasure. Is that, I ask myself, the smile of a man who does not love Spock? I decide that Spock is the one who does not see.
From Christmas Gifts…or Blue Seduction by kira-nerys
Kirk followed the path through the woods. The pines were tall and dark around them. Snow hung in the air and he ventured a glance back to watch Spock, who was padding through the deep, sugary snow. The Vulcan looked very human. Kirk grinned at the thought of what Spock would say if he’d heard that particular stray thought. A cap was pulled down snugly over his ears and his eyebrows. The lapels of his jacket were drawn up tightly around his face, despite the thick neck-wrap he was wearing. Kirk caught his chuckle before it spilled over. Spock did not like the cold, that much was obvious, and he would not appreciate Kirk laughing at him. They would reach their destination momentarily, though. It wasn’t too far to the log house and Spock kept moving along silently behind him.
Shore leave on Earth. Finally. And finally he could get to spend some time in the log cabin he had bought years ago. How had he survived not being on Earth for so long? The best part, though, was the fact that he would be spending this time with someone for whom he cared deeply.
“I sincerely hope that we will arrive shortly,” Spock said, stopping and looking up at the skies. “The clouds overhead look threatening.”
That was as close to a complaint Spock had come during their walk through the woods. They could have beamed over, but since he had asked to hike through the woods, Spock had acquiesced, even though he suspected the Vulcan had regretted it several times over the past two hours. After all, he had uttered those exact words repeatedly. Kirk supposed he might be getting cold by now. To him, though, this was a mild winter’s day. Apparently, Spock didn’t agree.
“We’ll arrive at the cabin in only about five minutes more,” Kirk said.
“If I remember correctly, and I am certain that I do, you uttered the same reassurance fifteen minutes ago.”
“This time, I mean it.”
Kirk stopped and turned around to let his friend catch up. He put his hand on Spock’s shoulder and patted him comfortingly on the back. If Spock had been human, he would have scowled. As it was, he didn’t, but Kirk still felt a twinge of worry and a bit of guilt. The mere fact that he was falling behind was fairly unusual.
“Spock,” he said. “Are you all right?”
“I am quite all right, Captain. But I shall certainly enjoy the cabin’s warmth when we arrive.”
I’m failing now, and it’s a good thing I’ve lost my pursuers because I don’t think I can take another step. A sizeable tree supports my back as I examine the small, crude arrows—darts really. Two of them: one near the knee and one in the top of the thigh, both in the right leg. I dial the phaser to its lowest setting and burn the shafts down to just above the flesh to reduce the chance of disturbing them. The risk of bleeding is too high to remove them. It’ll have to wait.
With great care I lower myself to the ground and pull up the collar on my field coat to protect my neck. I hate waiting for rescue. I hate being rescued.
It is much colder now and the wind has picked up. Guess there isn’t going to be a rescue. All right, I admit, not being rescued is worse than being rescued. My legs are incredibly stiff; I try to stand and my right leg fails to hold any weight. A crutch would help and I look around for something suitable. Although one might call these things “trees,” it really isn’t an accurate description. They are all rock-hard trunk and fleshy branch, not cane or crutch material.
I hop on my good leg a few trees in the direction I believe is correct. The pain is incredible. Gasping, I’m forced to stop, but I don’t want to return to waiting. I despise the thought. I am trying to gather enough guts to really try the right leg when I hear footsteps ahead. I lower my phaser when a blessedly familiar figure steps out of the spreading gloom.
“Spock.”
In response to the captain’s summons I present myself at his door.
“Come in, Spock,” he invites in a friendly tone.
He appears to be calm, convivial even. I wonder at this. For myself I feel as if I have lost my frame of reference, as though I am a moored boat that has been tethered too loosely in unexpectedly high waves.
“Well, Fleet should be happy about the results of negotiations,” he says.
“Indeed, Captain.”
I realize that I am uncertain what the captain expects of me. I am unaccustomed to uncertainty of any kind, especially personal uncertainty.
He stands, making judicious use of the desktop. As I move forward to assist, he waves me off and grasps a cane propped against the desk. He steps forward with it braced against his hip.
“Perhaps I should go to the lab and assist with finding an antidote…” I say, disturbed by his difficulty.
“No, no. Stay here. Bones said they’d have something by tomorrow afternoon at the latest.” He steps around to the bed chamber. “I want to talk to you a bit.” After sitting heavily on the bed, he hangs the cane in one of the room divider’s gaps. He then sighs as he considers his feet. “I didn’t call you here for this, but could you pull off my left boot?”
I obey without thought, stooping to carefully remove his footwear.
“Sorry, Commander. A bit above and beyond,” he apologizes as he slides backward with an apparent twinge of pain.
I stand. “It is quite all right, Captain.” I find myself wishing for another concrete task.
He slips off his uniform shirt and pulls the covers over himself. He relaxes, gaze fixed beyond the ceiling. I have not been dismissed.
“Have a seat,” he says.
There is no chair. He shifts to make room beside himself on the bed. With unaccustomed trepidation I follow this unspoken instruction. He smiles gently at me. In the past I have observed his use of charm to influence others. I have also noted that he resists using it on me, as if he realizes I am just as susceptible to it even though I am certain I have given no indication of this.
“Spock….”
From Rhapsody in Rain by Arachnethe2
The rain. Falling down from the sky, it played a rhapsody in its own characteristic rhythms on the stones in the streets. Kirk gave in, while listening to the lulling melody, forgetting for a moment the stifling heat, the strange white sun that shone on a planet of red deserts. He found it satisfying to sit here and remember all those things that told him that he was still alive: like the feeling of cold spring air and the rain gently dropping onto his hair, his face, his hands.
Nothing had happened, T’Pau had said. Nothing had happened was his slogan, with which Kirk continued his daily routine after he got out of sickbay. Until he retired into his quarters at the end of that day, until he went to bed, until his mind started to return to that place.
Again he had seen the ring-shaped arena, the fire, the old matriarch and her silent, jet-black, dangerous guardian. He heard her voice, demanding nothing less than obedience and he, the great captain, who was feared along the whole Neutral Zone, surrendered to her power. As Spock had, helplessly drowning in the heat of his own fever and madness, when he attacked his commanding officer and best friend.
Spock. Kirk felt suddenly the pain on his chest where Spock’s lirpa had marked him. And although the wound had been healed immediately after he was taken to sickbay, a sickle-shaped scar remained like a momento, that even Spock, the only sure source of safety in the universe, could seriously attack him with the purpose to kill him.
Perhaps this horrible knowledge was the main reason that Kirk had started to avoid him. On duty they were still the perfect team: the human captain and the Vulcan first officer, presenting to the whole ship the picture of two acting as one. But the talks, the gentle verbal sparrings, the chess matches, the meetings in Kirk’s quarters had stopped.
His glass was already empty.
He looked again out into the darkness, where the rain penetrated the lighted cones of the street lamps. A night black like the eyes of a Vulcan, which followed Kirk the whole time, during their bridge shift. They were clear now, free from the madness, but distant and unreadable too. Spock was aware of Kirk’s dilemma but did nothing while his captain encapsulated himself even more, seeking his refuge in his job.
McCoy was the only person who had tried to help him. They were already near the Earth when he had called him into his office.
“I’m fine, Bones,” Kirk answered McCoy’s unspoken question.
“Dammit, Jim, I was there and I’ve read something about psychology, so make an ass of yourself and not me!”
“I told you I’m fine!”
“Ah, to hell with you and your stubborn mind!”
And he did. He went. But not to hell, because he had been there already, and there in the heat of the red sand he had almost been killed by a mad Vulcan who had once lulled him into belief in the most peaceful race in the whole Federation.
“Kiss me,” Kirk said again. He crossed his arms, cocked his head, and smiled calmly into Spock’s eyes. Spock felt the illogical urge to blink, but restrained it—both the man sitting across the chessboard and the restful reddish lighting in Spock’s quarters were as they had been a few minutes ago. The discontinuity was not visual, nor was there a problem with Spock’s hearing.
Spock eyed his commanding officer in wary disbelief. Being subjected to Kirk’s improbable psychological tactics was not new to him—but this appeared to exceed acceptable limits.
“That appears to be something of a non-sequitur, Captain. We were discussing the Melkotians, and our liaison mission to recover the missing Vulcan vessel.”
Kirk responded with illogical, very human arrogance. “No, we weren’t discussing the Melkotians. We weren’t discussing the fact that the Enterprise, as the only ship to make successful contact with the Melkotians, was requested to negotiate for the return of the cruiser—after the Vulcans failed. We weren’t discussing the fifteen Vulcans trapped down there—presumed dead but, according to the Melkotians, still alive. We weren’t discussing your irritation that I beamed down to negotiate—alone. Even though it was extremely logical, Spock. The Vulcans had already failed, so why not try a human?
“We weren’t discussing the fact that the Melkotians informed me that the Vulcans on the surface were alive during our mental dialogue, but that they were still ‘fixing’ them. We weren’t discussing the Melkotian promise to return the Vulcans in approximately two planetary rotations. We weren’t discussing the fact that the Enterprise and the ShiKahr are stuck here for the next week, waiting. We weren’t discussing what use we should make of this unexpected layover.
“We weren’t discussing anything at all, Spock! You were insisting,” Kirk aimed a stubborn glare at Spock, “insisting that I mind meld with you so you could see for yourself what happened down there.”
“I do not see what an invitation to inappropriate personal familiarities has to do with my logical request.” Spock sat back in his chair, crossed his arms and prepared to stare down his human opponent. Perhaps the posture would adequately convey Spock’s lack of susceptibility to psychological manipulation.
“A mind meld isn’t familiar?” Kirk’s tone was incredulous.
From The Chess Game by Islaofhope
The first thing that Spock planned to do when he arrived home was find additional sweaters. It was January in San Francisco and, while it was certainly not as cold as he knew that Iowa was in this month, the temperature and humidity were quite uncomfortable for someone who had not left Vulcan in fifteen standard months. Nine point three minutes before he reached the front door, the “humidity” in the air turned into rain that soaked through his completely inadequate robe.
Notwithstanding the interesting morning that he had spent in Berkeley, he experienced some regret that he’d left behind his warm, dry office at the Vulcan Science Academy for this ill-conceived trip to Earth. His last trip to San Francisco had been in September, and the temperature had been bearable. It was difficult to believe that he had lived in this city for several years, but he had been younger then and less sensitive to the cold and damp.
He wondered if Jim would insist that they go out into this very uncomfortable weather. One of the major drawbacks of being bonded to a Terran was that they did not feel the cold as severely as did a Vulcan. Because Jim had been very patient with Spock’s neglect of him during the time that Spock had been busy at the Vulcan Science Academy, he wished to show Jim his appreciation. However, this afternoon, he found it difficult to suppress his irritation at being uncomfortably cold and wet.
When he walked into the house, he heard the sound of the shower being activated in their shared bathroom. He decided that a shower would be most satisfactory.
He keyed the privacy lock behind him as he walked into their bedroom. He noted without emotion that Jim had strewn exercise clothes on the chair beside the bed and left muddy running shoes on the floor, but he nodded with approval when he saw a small blaze kindled in the fireplace. Spock added in an additional synthetic birch log to cause the flame to burn hotter.
From The Merry Month of…Mistletoe? by Liz Ellington
Jim was pushing work around on his desk when his door chimed. Happy for any distraction, he called out, “Come,” and shoved himself up from his chair to get some coffee. He was out of uniform—he’d kicked off his boots and discarded his tunic when he went off duty, but the only people who came to his door at this time of the evening were Spock and McCoy.
His caller was Spock.
“What’s up?” Jim asked him, the usual rhetorical human question.
They had gotten beyond Vulcan reactions to such remarks by now. If Spock gave any indication that he thought a comment illogical, it was seldom more than a momentarily tilted eyebrow. Tonight he didn’t even bother with that.
“I have a question,” he said, stepping into the room. “If you are not too busy for a brief conversation….”
“No, not too busy at all. Have some tea?”
Spock shook his head. “No, thank you.” He paused for an instant. “My question concerns a practice which appears to be almost universal amongst humans, but which is virtually never spoken of or discussed. This seems illogical to me.”
He stopped, though the statement was rather less specific than usual for him..
Jim said, “Mm hm?” as he retrieved his coffee from the wall and sipped it cautiously. It was the perfect temperature for once. Food Service dealt imperfectly with the constant squabble over how hot the hot beverages should be; in the absence of consensus or compromise, the temperature swung in unpredictable peaks and dips. Jim preferred it hot, and tonight it was just right. He tipped the cup for more.
“The practice,” said Spock, “is masturbation.”
Jim rolled the snifter in his hand, contemplating the undulation of the warm chestnut-honey liquid. He was not inclined to drink it: just the sight of the brandy rhythmically sloshing in the glass was enough to deepen his already contemplative mood. Alcohol, he knew from experience, could easily turn that mood into melancholy, and that he did not want to risk. Not tonight, when he suspected that icy blue surgeon’s eyes were scrutinizing his every movement. Carefully keeping his head bent over the brandy, he risked a surreptitious glance across the desk. Sure enough: McCoy was studying him with just as much dedication as if he were a particularly challenging pathogen. Damn. Kirk braced himself for his CMO’s opening volley.
“You gonna drink that, or put it in a frame so you can admire it?”
Kirk sighed and put the glass on the desk. “Sorry. It just doesn’t appeal tonight, for some reason.”
“Hmmm,” McCoy said in his best open-your-mouth-and-say-ah tone. For a little while, there was silence, silence that went on long enough that Jim almost started to relax.
“That damn Vulcan drives me up a wall, but I gotta admit—the ship is quiet without him. Too quiet.”
Jim leaned back in his chair and tried hard to mask his dismay. How the hell did Bones invariably know exactly where to stab his scalpel so that it cut straight at the heart? “Yeah,” he said noncommittally. “It is.”
McCoy took a small sip from his snifter and then set it down on the desk, adjusting it several times until he apparently got it right where he wanted it to be. Interlacing his fingers, he stared down at his hands briefly before skewering Kirk with another piercing gaze. “In fact, I never thought I’d say this, but it’ll be good to see him, even if it is just for a couple of hours.”
Kirk pushed at the base of his glass with one finger, causing the brandy to dance and flash. “What he’s doing is important,” he finally said. “I’m sure he thinks it’s worth the time away from the mission.”
McCoy’s eyebrow rose. “I’m not so certain about that. If I’m recalling correctly, he didn’t want to participate at all at first—not until one of his friends talked him into it, telling him what an honor it was to be chosen and how he was the perfect person for the job, how the project might benefit mankind in lots of great and wonderful ways.”
“All of which is true,” Kirk said a little sharply.
“Yeah, maybe. I just don’t think Spock was all that taken with the idea, that’s all.” McCoy picked up his glass again. “And it’s kind of ironic, too.”
Jim clearly was expected to ask, so he did, even though he knew McCoy was setting him up. “What’s ironic?”
“That the same friend who talked him into going has been moping around like a lovesick puppy ever since he left.”
It was a good thing that Jim had set his glass down before, because he surely would have dropped it. “I beg your pardon,” he managed to gasp. “Like a—a—what did you say?”
“You heard me. Like a lovesick puppy. By ‘puppy,’ mind you, I mean more of the cocker spaniel variety than any of the larger breeds—the kind that has that perpetually woeful expression and those oversized brown eyes that make you want to say ‘Awwww’ every time you look into them. The sort that manages to look homeless and left out in the rain even when he’s lounging on a velvet cushion.” Apparently pleased with his analysis, McCoy took a good-sized swallow of brandy and sat back to observe Kirk’s reaction.
“You’re psychotic,” was all Jim could manage, right before the blush set in.
“Maybe. But there’s medication for that. Lovesick, on the other hand—that there’s no pill for.”
Kirk didn’t know whether to laugh or glare, so he did a little of both. “Look, you may be a good psychologist, but that doesn’t mean that—”
“That doesn’t mean that I could ever presume to figure out the inner workings of James T. Kirk, full time captain of the U.S.S. Enterprise and part time demigod,” McCoy finished for him. He sighed and put his feet up on the desk. “Look, Jim, the fact of the matter is that it doesn’t take a rocket scientist—or even a trained psychologist—to see that you’ve got a thing for a certain Vulcan science officer. The real question is: what are you going to do about it?”
Kirk decided he needed a drink after all. After two quick swallows and a long, thorough study of the glass, he said slowly, “And let’s say—just for the sake of argument—that you’re right. What would my psychologist suggest I do about it?”