Disclaimer:
All hail ParaBorg, cause they own them and I don’t. I do, however,
own the creative content of this story. Thanks to my betas Islaofhope, PernFancy, and
T'Thelaih. For sharp eyes, and sharp minds, I am in your debt. For the background of Yeoman Janice Rand, I have, ahem, appropriated
Vonda McIntyre’s Enterprise: The First Adventure…without
permission, though hopefully without offense.
This
story was prompted by a sighting of Extremely!Sexist!Spock in “The
Enemy Within,” where he implies that Yeoman Rand had asked
for/encouraged her attempted rape. Those who own a copy of the
episode may wish to refer to it.
Summary:
From “The Enemy Within.” Spock learns the power of words, among
other things. Told from Uhura’s viewpoint in the first and last
sections, and Spock's in the second section.
Rating:
PG, TOS
Intermission 5: Sticks and Stones
“The
impostor did have several…interesting characteristics, wouldn’t
you agree, Yeoman?”
The
words fall like stones in my cabin. Janice is setting on the bed,
recounting her ordeal at the hands of the impostor. It doesn’t help
that she, like many other women on board, has a crush on Jim Kirk.
Nor does it help that his alter ego, the wolf Kirk, tried to rape
her. But the final blow came with Spock’s words, and now she sits,
sobbing on my bed.
Janice
is little more than a child herself. After surviving a series of
disasters, a fortunate miscalculation of her actual age allowed her
to enter Starfleet. Though by all rights she should be in her early
twenties, she’s actually only eighteen. She’s too young for what
happened, too young to blow off Spock’s words as anything more than
an insensitive error on his part. And she’s far too young to
realize that nothing she did caused the attempted rape.
Finally,
her sobs quiet. “I…I kept wondering if I’d encouraged him. I
mean, he is the captain after all…” Her words trail off, and I
hear what she doesn’t say. She’s in love with Jim, the first man
who ever treated her as an equal, and the way he came to her must
surely be the cruelest blow of all.
“Janice,”
I say. “It wasn’t your fault. None of this was your fault.”
It’s hard to say the words, to speak of the captain as if he were
an animal. But that is the face the wolf-Kirk showed Janice, and
although Jim offered to stand for court-martial, I don’t know if
the image of the wolf-Kirk, leering and savage, will ever completely
leave her mind.
The
lights have dimmed slightly, in deference to the lateness of the
hour. “Do you want me to stay with you?”
Janice
shakes her head, looking much younger than her actual age. “I’ll
be fine, Nyota.” She smiles at me slightly through her tears. “And
thank you.”
I
nod, respecting her choice. As I walk down the hallway, I know that I
have to talk to Spock about this. I have to make him see the effects
of his words.
-----////----
The
next chance I have to talk to him comes during our weekly harp
lesson. He has been teaching me to play the ka’athera for some time
now. Tonight, we are supposed to work our way through the end of a
suite, and a phrase in the first movement stops me repeatedly. It’s
not the notes that are difficult, but the meter, and I watch as Spock
puts his own harp down to show me how to play the notes in the
correct rhythm by using an alternate technique which can make the
rhythm smoother.
I
often wonder just how strong a telepath he is. He stops four inches
away from my hands to look at me curiously. “Is something bothering
you, Nyota?”
Yes,
I want to say. I want to ask him how someone who is half-human can
ask the question he asked Janice, implying that she had encouraged
the rape attempt. I know that neither the captain nor the doctor know
what he said to her; Janice decided not to include it in her report
of the incident. And I seriously doubt she mentioned it in her
mandatory counseling after the incident. So in all likelihood, unless
I talk to him about this, the probability is that no one will.
I
look at him, Vulcan-serious and not, for all his logical demeanor,
completely insensitive. I place the ka’athera back on its stand. “I
need to speak with you about something that happened when Captain
Kirk’s alter ego…escaped.”
He
tilts his head a little in a gesture that always reminds me of an
alert bird. “Specify.”
Ah,
there it is, the tone of Vulcan logic and impassivity. I need to get
past that, I need to find some way to make him understand how he made
her feel. “Janice Rand’s attempted assault.”
One
eyebrow lifts. “I understand that she has declined to file charges
against the captain.”
I
shake my head. “That’s not what I’m talking about. I’m
referring to a comment you made to Yeoman Rand.”
“I
do not understand. To what are you referring?” He raises one
eyebrow at me, and I am suddenly at a loss for words. But though
words have failed me, the necessity of action has not. In the
twentieth century, they called this "sensitivity training,"
but all I can think now is, gods, I hope he'll forgive me for this.
****
Her
hand brushes my collar. For an instant, I cannot fathom what she is
doing. Nyota is one of the few people besides Jim to touch me
casually, but the way she is touching me is not like those other
times. This touch is strangely intimate, not at all like the brushing
of her hands against mine when we repair cracked circuit boards, or
the touch of her hands under mine during one of our harp lessons.
I
fight the urge to flinch away from that strangely invasive touch. One
cool human hand rests against the back of my neck. "What's the
matter?" she asks softly, and the tone is one I have never heard
her use. It is rough with an emotion that none has used to me, but I
have heard it often enough from the mouths of human couples during my
years at the Academy. Desire, and lust, barely restrained.
I
tighten my shields against the insistency of her touch, even as my
mind argues for the very implausibility of this situation. Nyota
Uhura, one of my first human friends, behaving in such a fashion? I
try to regain some control over the situation. "Lieutenant,
perhaps we should continue this lesson at another time." The
sense of dull panic rises sharp in my throat.
"Oh,
come on. You know you want me to."
I
pull back and stare at her. "I know no such thing."
One
of her hands brushes lightly against one of the meld points on my
face in a manner that is far more suggestive than she perhaps
realizes. It falls under the category of things protected under
Privacy, but this touch is the beginning of foreplay among Vulcans.
How she knows of it, I have no idea, but I do not desire such contact
with her. But I do not know if I can stop her without causing some
serious physical damage. I try once again to reason with her. "Nyota,
I do not desire this contact.”
She
laughs lightly, a sound that is nothing like her usual laugh. The
sound of a hunter, capturing the prey. "That’s not how it’ll
look. I'm in *your* cabin, at *your* request. And you outrank me."
The threat is clear as if she had spoken it aloud. The regulations
against fraternization between individuals in the same chain of
command are clear and enforced.
Nyota
steps behind me and begins massaging my shoulders. "You're so
tense, you can't wait, can you?" I close my eyes against a
renewed feeling of panic; I do not want to experience her emotions,
but it will soon become impossible to block them. When one of her
hands moves to unseal the fastening of my shirt, I bolt straight up
and grab her hands in a grip I know must be bruising her. The anger
makes my vision green, and I am appalled to realize that I no longer
care whether I hurt her or not. "Stop. I do not want you like
this."
She
sits down heavily in the chair I have vacated. "Now, do you
see?"
***
As
I watch, his coloring fades from its usual pale green color. He looks
as though he were about to be ill. Small wonder. Spock, my friend,
who I have just assaulted. I rub my wrists; I will have some nasty
bruising there come morning, but it's nothing the uniform sleeves
won't hide.
"That's
how you made Janice feel. Like she was being assaulted all over
again." Right now I want nothing more than to run away to my
cabin and wash the residue of what I have done to him off my hands,
but I have to make sure he understands.
The
eyes opposite mine are dark with emotion, emotions he is profoundly
ill-equipped to deal with. "One suspects it might have been just
as effective if you had just said so."
I
shake my head. "Would you have understood, if I had? Some
things, you have to experience to understand why you need to
empathize."
Spock
makes a valiant attempt to return his voice to its normal
impassivity. "I see. I was insensitive.”
I
nod. "You are second-in-command of a ship where the majority of
personnel are human. From a human perspective, then, you did not
handle the situation in a manner which was appropriate. She had
narrowly escaped being raped by a man she trusted, and you implied
that she had actively encouraged the assault."
"I
was in error," he says simply. "I am unused to dealing with
such incidents, and I was not thinking clearly.”
I
can tell he’s embarrassed by this admission, but I know it must
have been difficult for him to deal with the fact that Jim’s alter
ego had attempted to rape someone. Our captain is many things to
Spock, but first of all, Jim is his friend. And I know enough of
Spock’s life before Jim Kirk to realize how much that means to him.
He
walks over to the cabin door, the Vulcan mask firmly in place. "I
will apologize to Yeoman Rand immediately, of course. " The face
is blank, but the message in his eyes is clear: he understands, and
does not blame me for the understanding. I leave with him, and the
silence between us is once again that of friends.
The
next day, Janice comes into my cabin for our weekly poker game. She's
still pretty shaken up, but there's a new lightness in her eyes.
"Spock came and apologized to me today."
I
continue shuffling the cards. "Oh, really? What did he have to
say?"
Janice
smiles a little, a girl barely on the edge of adulthood. "Just
that he now understands how much his words must have hurt me, and
that he did not mean to imply anything." Her face grows serious.
"I wonder why he apologized. From what I've heard of Mr Spock,
he never apologizes for anything."
I
begin dealing the cards. "Maybe he apologized because it was the
logical thing to do. Aces high, deuces wild…"
The
End.
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