#Kirk on the other hand was just short of Lawful | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

tabloidtoc · 3 years

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National Enquirer, April 19

You can buy a copy of this issue for your very own at my eBay store: https://www.ebay.com/str/bradentonbooks

Cover

Page 2: Michael Douglas' short-term memory loss and frail frame have wife Catherine Zeta-Jones fearing for her older husband's well-being -- Michael once declared he'd beaten oral cancer, but harsh chemotherapy and radiation treatments have left him a shell of his former self and he has even admitted to suffering memory problems -- he was also affected by the 2020 death of his father Kirk Douglas and he hasn't been the same since his dad died -- this is a guy who cheated death with a horrific cancer ordeal, and he's had other medical issues over the years and some serious domestic dramas that have taken their toll -- Catherine always knew that their age difference would mean her taking care of him one day but she didn't expect it to be so soon

Page 3: Reese Witherspoon has ditched her wedding ring during recent outings, sparking rumors her marriage to Jim Toth is on the ropes but she feels their relationship isn't down for the count and refuses to give up the fight to keep their family together but they may not make it -- the desire to make things work is still there on both sides and they've been able to pull it all together all these years, even with personalities as different as theirs mainly for the sake of their family and they got on each other's nerves while cooped up together during the pandemic, but they don't bicker in public and that's one thing they have going for them

Page 4: Ryan Seacrest creeped out his pals when he gushed over Maria Menounos when she sat in for Kelly Ripa on Live recently -- Ryan thinks Maria is the smartest, most talented and beautiful woman to walk the planet and he can't help but swoon over her but Ryan understands Maria is happily married to TV writer and producer Keven Underago and he'd never cross the line and he doesn't want to date Maria, but he makes no secret he'd be dancing on air to have someone like her, which is kind of creepy, but he can't help it -- Ryan would never make moves on someone else's girl, but he does try to imitate her husband Keven's qualities like how funny and creative and sensible he is and Ryan adores Kelly and thinks she's great but he wouldn't mind if she takes more time off just so he can gaze at Maria

* Miley Cyrus' recent boozy night out with party pals, including British punk rocker Yungblud, has loved ones fearing she's slipping back into dangerous territory -- she was spotted at Hollywood's famous Rainbow Bar & Grill, drinking shots and beer chasers, just months after she admitted to her struggles with addiction and after fellow addiction-challenged singer Demi Lovato announced she was California sober, claiming she was safely able to drink in moderation, Miley didn't see any reason why she couldn't do the same -- her family and sober friends are deeply concerned for Miley's well-being and are begging her to stop drinking now

Page 5: Newly robust Celine Dion has her health back on track following a dangerous few years where she looked like a walking skeleton -- she has beefed up her wraith-like frame by making healthier choices during lockdown -- she went through a rough time of transition after husband Rene Angelil's death and lost a lot of weight, but lockdown has given her a chance to rest and focus on taking care of herself and now she looks 15 to 20 pounds heavier and seems in good spirits and is looking forward to rebooting her Courage World Tour when the pandemic ends

Page 6: Fitness fanatic Tim McGraw is a changed man since he kicked the bottle in 2008, but he's now hooked on working out and sculpting the perfect bod and he's publicly admitted exercise is what gets him flying high but his quest to get ripped to the max is now a 24/7 obsession and he spends hours in the gym and he's already flexing a muscular body most men would die for, but he doesn't want to stop until he's an Adonis and he works out twice or three times a day and packs his diet with energy-boosting smoothies and veggie juices and some might say he's going overboard with the workouts, but Tim craves those feel-good endorphins and he considers his workouts to be fun -- he loves the way he looks and thinks he can do better and he does spend a lot of time in front of the mirror admiring himself and tends to wear tight T-shirts that show off his pecs and six-pack abs, and wife Faith Hill loves the results -- a lot of people say he's traded one addiction for another

Page 7: Nearly six years after their bitter divorce, Miranda Lambert has finally extended an olive branch to ex-husband Blake Shelton, but she's still pretty envious over his professional success with fiancee Gwen Stefani -- last year, Blake and Gwen took home the collaborative video prize at the Country Music Television Awards for their duet Nobody but You, and also scored a Top Ten hit with their single Happy Anywhere and it makes Miranda jealous to see Blake making hay on the charts with Gwen but their success also made Miranda recall Over You, her hit collaboration with Blake, which won Song of the Year at the 2012 Country Music Association Awards and during a recent interview, Miranda affectionately blew kisses toward the camera as she recounted how her ballad with Blake was inspired by his grief over the loss of his older brother; still, Miranda also harbors a competitive streak and said she's angling to transform herself and husband Brendan McLoughlin into entertainment movers and shakers just like Blake and Gwen -- Miranda plans to enroll Brendan in acting school and Miranda wants them to act together and they are looking for scripts to make a television movie and even planning to launch a production company in Nashville and Miranda recognizes the musical chemistry Blake and Gwen share, and she believes she and Brendan can match that success on-screen -- meanwhile, as Blake and Gwen prepare to wed, Miranda is finally in a place where she can wish them well and Miranda carried a lot of animosity toward Blake and Gwen, especially since she suspected they started something before she and Blake split up, but she's very happy with Brendan so maybe all that pain she and Blake went through in ending their marriage was for the best

* Reba McEntire is reaching out to save her friend and former daughter-in-law Kelly Clarkson from suffering through a divorce that eerily mirrors Reba's own breakup -- Kelly split from husband and manager Brandon Blackstock in June 2020, and the divorce battle has them fighting over custody of their two kids as well as Brandon suing her for $1.4 million in unpaid commissions, but Reba has seen this before: Brandon's dad, Narvel Blackstock, dumped her in 2015 after 26 years of marriage, and despite initially agreeing to continue as her manager, dumped her as a client weeks later and Reba knows all too well how petty and conniving Narvel and Brandon can be, and her heart goes out to Kelly -- Kelly admits to Reba there are times when she just wants to run away and hide and Reba tells her to run away to me and it means the world to Kelly to have Reba in her corner -- Narvel and son Brandon head Starstruck Entertainment and are adamant that Kelly owes them big bucks for helping her land both her talk show and a coaching spot on The Voice, but with Reba's help, Kelly is fighting back and Reba learned the hard way the pitfalls of mixing business with family life and she's trying to help Kelly because she hates to see another woman suffer at the hands of a Blackstock

Page 8: Sicko Jeffrey Epstein has been accused of a horrific new litany of abuse by a woman who claims he forced her into unwanted genital surgery, raped her in front of her child and threatened to feed her to alligators -- the woman, identified in court papers as Jane Doe, is suing the late pervert's estate, claiming he and his alleged madam Ghislaine Maxwell, groomed her for their sordid pleasure -- in the suit, she claims Epstein drove her to pick up her 8-year-old son and took them to a lake, where he threatened to feed her to alligators, as had happened to other girls in the past, if she dared to squeal on him -- at the time, the woman said she was 26, but she looked much younger and Epstein told her to say she was 17 and he also arranged for a man with a Russian accent to perform an unnecessary vaginal surgery to pass her off as a virgin to a client and this violent and illegal procedure was botched, leaving her mutilated, in pain, disabled, and permanently sexually dysfunctional

Page 9: Ghislaine Maxwell has been slapped with yet another sex trafficking charge and it's got her former pal Prince Andrew sweating bullets -- the new indictment details how Jeffrey Epstein's alleged madam reportedly groomed a 14-year-old for him, but crucially for Andrew, it expands the time frame of Ghislaine's alleged crimes from 1994 to 2004, a span that includes her meeting the British royal in 1999 and then introducing him to Epstein and that time frame also includes the period in which "sex slave" Virginia Roberts Giuffre claims she slept with Andrew three times, charges he's denied -- the new charge also opens the floodgates on other celebrities, politicians and high-profile figures who were in Epstein's orbit at the time and the new indictment widens the pool for Ghislaine and her defense attorneys because who wouldn't want to bring down all of these fat cats and who wouldn't be that desperate?

Page 10: Hot Shots -- Rumer Willis got to the root of her gardening needs in L.A., Michael B. Jordan and Chante Adams got cozy as they shared a snack while shooting Journal for Jordan in NYC's Central Park, Heidi Klum in L.A., Mario Lopez tossed the ceremonial first dice roll at the opening of the Mohegan Sun Casino in Las Vegas, Christopher Meloni shot his onscreen spouse's funeral scene for Law & Order: Organized Crime

Page 11: Tony Bennett has a secret weapon in his fight against Alzheimer's disease: his close pal and collaborator Lady Gaga -- Susan Crow Benedetto, 54, the wife of the 94-year-old singing legend, has enlisted Gaga to help keep Tony's faculties sharp as he struggles with advancing dementia because Gaga's telephone calls have always helped cheer Tony up and keep him focused and they laugh together, reminisce and sometimes sing and it always puts a smile on Tony's face and it's great therapy -- when asked whether Tony still recognizes the pop star, Susan joked that Gaga is hard to forget -- Gaga has also played a critical role in keeping the aging crooner active and creative by working with him and they plan to release their second album of duets this spring as a follow-up to their 2014 smash hit Cheek to Cheek

* Worried friends feared ailing rock god Ozzy Osbourne is coming unstrung while wife Sharon Osbourne's career goes into a death spiral -- Ozzy has been plagued by crippling illnesses over the years, including Parkinson's disease, and has to walk with the aid of a cane and now he's at wit's end and pushing himself into a danger zone as his wife fights tooth and nail after leaving The Talk amid a racism scandal and Ozzy's been under a great deal of distress over Sharon's problems over at The Talk and he worries and fusses over her and can't focus on anything else and it's left many in his circle very concerned for his health which is fragile enough already -- the bashing Sharon received during the scandal has the aging rocker concerned she may never work again and he'll have to be the breadwinner

Page 12: Straight Shuter -- five years after Angelina Jolie filed for divorce, she's still battling Brad Pitt over custody of their five youngest kids, now she's filed new court documents claiming she has proof of domestic violence against Brad and accusations like these would kill anyone else's career, but not in this case: Hollywood is 100 percent behind Brad and the sense in the industry is Angelina has weaponized the kids against Brad but Brad is very well respected in Hollywood, and most people find these new allegations hard to believe and if anything, Angie is only hurting the children and herself

* Real Housewives stars featured in the upcoming spinoff are cashing in and Bravo will pay Luann de Lesseps, Teresa Giudice and the others a sweet $200,000 for one week's work in Turks and Caicos and that's more than double what the ladies usually get for filming, plus they get a free trip to a tropical island

* American Idol could be on the chopping block because in just seven weeks the show has lost 2 million viewers and it's simple math: Idol cannot survive with its current budget and ABC has two options which are cancel the show or cut costs, which would mean hiring cheaper judges and a cheaper host to replace Ryan Seacrest and both options are being explored

* Britney Spears' beau, personal trainer Sam Asghari, shows off his toned abs in L.A. (picture)

Page 13: Palace insiders fear Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's vendetta against the British monarchy will take a shocking new turn: they'll bankroll a lurid movie about Princess Diana's death and the conspiracy theories that suggest the royal family was involved -- the rights to the movie script are owned by Hollywood producer Ben Browning, who was just hired by Harry and Meghan to run their film company Archewell Productions -- the controversial movie centers on Princess Diana's lover Dodi Fayed's father, former Harrods' boss Mohamed Al-Fayed, investigating his son's death and his belief that Dodi and Diana were murdered because she was pregnant and planning to marry, and The Firm did not want a Muslim in the royal family

Page 14: Crime

Page 15: Alabama Shakes drummer Steve Johnson has been busted on charges of willful torture and abuse of a child and was also charged with cruelly beating or otherwise maltreating a child under the age of 18 -- his arrest came just a year after he was slapped with a one-year suspended sentence and two years' probation after pleading guilty to menacing his ex-wife Whitney Lee, who called him mentally unstable -- Johnson helped the Shakes score three Grammys in 2016 for their album Sound & Color but the band has been on hiatus since singer Brittany Howard started a solo career in 2018 and Steve was lost after that; he went from playing in front of 50,000 people to playing in bars again -- even if the Shakes reunite, it's highly unlikely Steve would be invited back -- Steve remains in county jail awaiting his court date and his attorneys said Mr. Johnson maintains his innocence

* Danny Masterson and his lawyers believe they are victims of anti-Scientology bias and cannot get a fair trial in his Los Angeles rape case -- celebrity attorney Tom Mesereau, who successfully defended Michael Jackson against child molestation charges two decades ago, claimed his client has been treated unfairly because of his ties to the church, and that the police or district attorney's office leaked damaging details of the case -- Danny and his lawyers feel persecuted and that everybody in Hollywood who isn't a Scientologist is after them -- LAPD Robbery and Homicide Division Capt. Jonathan Tippet said his organization is keeping a tight lid on all information surrounding the case to ensure Masterson gets a fair trial

Page 16: Mormon church officials are being accused of corporate greed for using members' charitable donations to secretly create a $100 billion tax-free fund -- James Huntsman, the son of a prominent Mormon family, is suing the church for fraud, claiming donations solicited to finance charity work were actually used to fill church coffers -- the church boasts at least 15 million members worldwide, including celebrities like Gladys Knight, Donny and Marie Osmond, Katherine Heigl, Julianne Hough, Christina Aguilera, Ryan Gosling, Amy Adams and Aaron Eckhart and many could have tithed money that ended up in the tax-free fund

Page 17: Jen Shah of The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City was recently fingered by the feds as the bogus businesswoman behind a multi-state fraud scheme dating back to 2012 -- the Bravo blowhard, known for her extravagant parties, designer outfits and extensive entourage, and her first assistant Stuart Smith were arrested and charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering -- the U.S. Justice Department alleged the Park City resident and Smith of Lehi generated and sold lead lists of innocent individuals for other members of their scheme to repeatedly scam, and claimed the greedy creeps defrauded hundreds of victims -- the terrible twosome targeted older adults and computer illiterate folks by using both telemarketing and in-person sales teams to peddle nonexistent online services and then fight the refund efforts of wronged consumers -- if convicted, Shah and Smith each face up to 50 years behind bars

Page 18: American Life

Page 20: L.A. County Sheriff Alex Villanueva triggered a cover-up scandal when he revealed his investigators determined why Tiger Woods drove off a California cliff, then refused to explain what happened, citing the golf legend's privacy -- Villanueva said the black box in the Genesis SUV that Tiger was driving when he flew off a suburban L.A. highway in the early morning helped determine the cause

* Hollywood Hookups -- Bethenny Frankel and Paul Bernon engaged, Melissa and Joe Gorga appear to have reached the finale of their marriage, Fernanda Flores and professional boxes Noel Mikaelian dating

Page 21: Britney Spears said she broke into tears after seeing bits of the new documentary about how she has been in the grips of a conservatorship for years, saying she was embarrassed by the light they put her in and she cried for two weeks and still cries sometimes

* Generous Hollywood legend Dick Van Dyke put a happy face on job seekers in Malibu when he handed out fistfuls of cash -- Dick was spotted withdrawing bills from a bank before driving to the Malibu Community Labor Exchange, a nonprofit that helps unemployed locals find day jobs and he stayed in his car as he handed out money to masked folks who were lined up to look for work

Page 22: The late Aretha Franklin left behind a royal mess of paperwork, including a newly discovered fourth will that has thrown her $80 million estate into fresh turmoil -- the eight-page document, titled The Will of Aretha Franklin, was apparently drawn up not long before her death in 2018, and was recently found among the files of the singer's onetime attorney Henry Grix along with the paperwork describing the terms of a trust but both items are stamped draft and neither has Aretha's signature but Michigan law changed seven years ago, and it made the admissibility of a document like this more flexible -- currently there's a bitter beef among Aretha's four adult sons over how their mother's assets should be divided

Page 23: The battle over Prince's $300 million fortune rages on, and the late pop star's siblings, and legal heirs, fear there won't be anything left after lawyers, accountants, administrators and the IRS take their cut -- five years after he died from a fatal fentanyl overdose without leaving a will, an avalanche of deals and court hearings have left his massive cash stash in limbo -- sadly Prince's distrust of lawyers and other professionals now means that millions will be spent paying those same people to try to sort out the mess he left behind and this could go on for a decade

Page 26: Weird Body Language -- stars cope with bizarre deformities -- Denzel Washington, Steven Tyler, Ashton Kutcher, Matthew Perry

Page 27: Lily Allen, Mark Wahlberg, Karolina Kurkova, Scar Service -- Tina Fey, Padma Lakshmi, Joaquin Phoenix

Page 32: Health Watch

* Ask the Vet -- Watch out for xylitol

Page 34: Just months after John Travolta's beloved wife, Kelly Preston, passed, the actor has been shattered by another death in the family -- his nephew Sam Travolta's badly decomposed body was found in his Wisconsin apartment last September, weeks after he died from a suspected heart attack -- John has suffered through so much loss and Sam's death was another huge blow but he's strong and has a deep faith in Scientology and the church brings him solace and comfort

Page 36: Shark Tank star Barbara Corcoran has stepped up to get a tenant in one of her buildings back on his feet -- Barbara and building co-owner Alex Rodriguez came under fire after Ryo Nagaoka's possessions were reportedly tossed while he was hospitalized with COVID-19 and when Ryo got home he found only his piano and pet tortoise in his cleaned-out crib -- emptying Ryo's apartment was necessary because it had become a health hazard and had a biocleaning crew scrub it -- Barbara donated $12,000 to a GoFundMe page for him, while A-Rod has seemingly not yet contributed anything and Barbara also said the building's management company has renovated Ryo's apartment

Page 38: Beloved game show host Peter Marshall made a miraculous recovery from COVID-19 to celebrate with friends at his 95th birthday party -- Peter was in and out of the hospital for ten weeks and he was at death's door and doctors didn't give him much of a chance but Peter beat the odds to enjoy a Zoom party attended online by Leslie Uggams, Loni Anderson, Sandy Duncan, Ruta Lee, Karen Valentine, Rich Little, JoAnne Worley, Jack Jones and more

* Accused sex freak Armie Hammer's career is in the crapper and he's beginning to believe that's where it will stay -- the kink king was fired from the thriller Billion Dollar Spy amid sexual assault allegations and the release of social media messages claiming he has dark fetishes including cannibalism -- Armie has already gotten to boot from the movie Shotgun Wedding and the series The Offer, and more trouble may be on the horizon: Armie was accused of sexual assault by a woman called Effie, who alleged the actor violently raped her and Armie's attorneys issued a statement denying the claims, saying Effie's own correspondence with Mr. Hammer undermines and refutes her outrageous allegations -- Armie has been keeping a low profile at a Caribbean resort, but fears his entire career is in trouble

Page 42: Red Carpet -- Carrie Underwood

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mirrorfalls · 3 years

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Lego Liveblogs ST: TOS, part 9 (of who-the-hell-knows-how-many?)

What Are Little Girls Made Of? Let’s just hope it’s more moral stuff than the last boy the Enterprise took onboard...

* I see we’re wasting no time getting the nurse to take over Yeoman Rand’s eyecandy duties. Shame that Barrett’s Number One characterization is a no-go now. * Huh, plot’s shaping up to be a redux on The Man Trap. Not a high bar to clear. * “Beam down alone, just yourself.” Yeah, that’s your cue to pack an extra-sized Phaser, Kirk. * Nice try, girls, but Spock still ain’t turning his head for either of you. * “Whoopsy daisies, almost forgot our sacrificial meat!” ** Wow, even I wasn’t expecting the sacrifice that quick! * That is one Scooby Doo-ass lookin’ villain ** Who’s on a whole shelf away from this assistant guy, which obviously means he’s totally fine and trustworthy! * Aaaaand you two goldbricks are officially on your own. * Does... it really make sense for a species to go underground when their sun’s too cold? I guess they’re supposed to be warmed by the geothermal stuff down there? * Alright, Gene I’m impressed. How’d you get an outfit like this past 1960s censors?! * Well, that escalated quickly. ** I’d wisecrack about Kirk’s choice of “tactic”, but I think I’m more disturbed by the fact he dialed his Phaser straight to “melt stomach” intensity before he knew he was shooting a robot. What happened to Stun Mode? * He breaks necks and does voices! Wotta guy. * Kirk, you gotta start thinking like a sci-fi protag. Who says that’s the real professor? ** Oh, okay, I guess he is the real professor, he’s just completely lost his marbles. * Hum - this seems to be sowing the seeds for Nurse Christine to save the day, and if any actress has that level of pull it’s Barrett, but once can never underestimate the sexism of ‘60s TV... ** Case in point: Andrea, who proves this isn’t just The Man Trap. It’s The Man Trap with Mudd’s Women thrown in for good measure. * Make up your mind, Prof, are you trying to keep this a secret or not? * Don’t be racist, Nurse. * Nah, Prof, if she were logical you would’ve been choking on your own spinal cord ages ago. * Funniest. Cliffhanger. Ever. ** Seriously, Kirk asks one stupid question and smash-cut to him in a Batman ‘66 deathtrap. ** Wait, is that the Piltdown Man? * “Choose, Christine. Which is your captain?” “Do I get a Phaser?” * Oh jeez, I’d heard there was an episode where the crew snagged a fake Kirk because he was being racist toward Spock, but I didn’t know it was because the real Kirk fed that racism into the fake one. * “What he's done may seem wrong...” Nurse, he killed two guys without blinking. It’s a good thing you’re feeding all this to robo-Kirk, because I’m not sure the real one would forgive you. * Okay, even money says robo-Kirk dies by getting force-fed something that makes him short-circuit. Irony at its most delicious. ** Alternatively: why not just ask it to calculate pi? ** And they say Starfleet siblings always come outta nowhere! * Okay, I’ve kicked this episode pretty hard so far, but the central point here is pretty solid sci-fi: can a machine ever be a proper receptacle for a human consciousness, however advanced its programming? On the other hand, should we get so high-and-mighty just because the electric impulses driving us come from meat instead of silicon? ** I also like how the professor isn’t a full-on “ALL emotion is Bad!” type. He’s not even opposed to sentimentality, necessarily - he just thinks you can program away all the negative bits. * Ooh, Godwin’s Royal Flush! That’s pretty rare. * Whoof. Okay, I know people usually like to paint Kirk and Bond as opposites, but this is a move worthy of any 00-agent. Doesn’t just give you a momentary hostage, but makes sure he’s in no position to give complicated orders even after you’ve tossed him. * Give the big guy some credit too - he knows he’s programmatically bound to obey Nurse Christine, so his solution to that is just running the fuck outta earshot. * Ah, the legendary Dong Rock. 50% more dong-y in context! * Heavens to Betsy! How will Kirk save himsel... ** By not saving himself, apparently. Seems the big guy heard Christine after all. * Love Spock’s “Has the Transporter been spewing evil clones again?” face. * So Kirk... logics(?) both the big bruiser and the sultry henchgirl into defying their master. Adherents of the Three Laws are no doubt crying, but personally I think it’s more hit than miss; no matter how airtight the programming, once an AI reaches a certain level of complexity it has to develop some kind of survival instinct. * Holy last-act plot twist! * Prof, maybe you shouldn’t have programmed her with Yandere chips. Just a thought. * But back to the he-was-a-robot-all-along! bit... it’s got a strong base, but I feel it refuses to quit while it’s ahead. The longer Kirk talks, the more his argument starts sounding like “If you’re really human then why don’t we like you? :|” * Aww, a murder-suicide to cap things off. Isn’t it romantic? * “Think up a better excuse than that, Captain, or my next message will be to Starfleet HR.” * Written by... the Psycho guy? That explains a lot.

I’m probably not even the hundredth guy to note this, but this is easily the pulpiest Trek script to come down the pike - the square-jawed hero who ain’t scared to get his hands dirty but really survives by his wits, the swooning damsel who gets to be useful exactly once, the mad doctor wielding Scary Foreign Knowledge that not only perverts every law of God and man but threatens to infiltrate our fair society, his Big Scary Humorless Thug and sultry (but dangerously jealous) henchgirl...

There are parts where the sci-fi port improves things and even broaches legitimately interesting topics, and it’s a damn sight better than either The Man Trap or Mudd’s Women, but on the whole I don’t think I’ll be in a rush to rewatch this one. Without too many standout “What the fuck is this?!” moments, there’s nevertheless a kind of sleaziness to the whole thing...

(Those were some neat overalls, though.)

Next: The first of many Shakespeare-derived shows! Will the Bard be done proud?

#Lego Liveblogs Star Trek #Star Trek: The Original Series

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feverinfeveroutfic · 4 years

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chapter eight | crab society north

Billy was a bigger guy, one who dwarfed not only both Frank and Scott, but Dan and Charlie as well. The kid had shaved his head and put on a raggedy aged shirt that looked as though it was about to fall right off of his heavy body. And yet, the very second he met eyes with Sam as she stepped out of Frank's car once again, his face lit up and he showed her a little grin; he wore that shirt as if the frigid winds from Lake Ontario did not exist and it was just a regular day.

“Don't see a lot of you 'round a bunch of guys like us,” he remarked in a striking, deep voice.

“Why's that?” she asked him; she held down her dark hair against the cold upstate winds and she shivered a little bit under her coat.

“Not too sure,” he confessed with a squinting of his eyes, “well, and we don't really imagine a bunch of guys like us havin' groupies, either. But anyways—c'mon in. We're all friends here.”

The studio was small and cramped, about the size of someone's living room plus a tiny kitchen that looked to be out of a school cafeteria. A drum kit had been crammed into the far corner of the kitchen; right next to that stood a little amp about the size of a coffee can. Sam and Frank stood on the edge of the room as Charlie, Scott, Dan, and Billy congregated in the kitchen; she shut the door behind them and she caught the sound of a soft click on the inside of the wood.

“If this goes anywhere, we should let Sam I am over here have one of the first copies,” Scott suggested with a flick back of his thick dark hair.

“First copies of a record of a brand new band,” Frank remarked, and he showed her a smile and a twinkle in his dark eyes. “That's like a friendship bracelet of sorts.”

“Or a safe keep of sorts,” she added as she adjusted the strap of her purse. She held her journal underneath her other arm: she still thought about that photograph Frank and Charlie had lent her. She considered drawing it while sitting there on the far edge of the room next to Frank: indeed, there were three small brick red chairs pressed up against the wall. Billy said something from the other room and Charlie scurried into there to tend to something.

“Where's my bass,” Dan muttered.

“It's back here, Danny,” Charlie called out.

“Amazing they can fit a bunch of stuff in here,” Sam commented in a low voice.

“There's a couple of closets back there,” Frank told her with a gesture to the right side of the room. “We've got some instruments stashed in there just in the event of recording. They're kind of crappy, though.”

“Crappy li'l instruments and some cheesy little amps?” she chuckled.

“Exactly! Our label is kind of strapped for cash and other things after all.”

“Do you guys get any other bands through here?”

“Do we ever! You know that one band you kept seeing a couple of times back in Manhattan, Legacy?”

“Oh, yeah.”

“They're an example of one of them who come through here. There's a bunch down in New York City, like Danny's band plus Overkill—and I guess there's a shitload of them over in California, too. Legacy is just one of them.”

She followed his gaze to the wall on the left. There was a little flyer right in the middle of the wall with a line of spiky text reading “METALLICA” in all capital letters. Something about that name caught her attention in particular.

“You lookin' at Metallica?” Frank asked her.

“Yeah.”

“They're badass. All I know about them is they started out with a tape goin' around New York City, called No Life 'Til Leather. I'll have to share it with you at some point—it's pretty rough around the edges but it's powerful, though. They've already got two records out now.”

“Wow, really?” Sam raised her eyebrows at him.

“Yeah, Kill 'Em All and they put out Ride the Lightning just this past summer. They've gone on tour already and everything.”

“Wow!”

“Yeah, they're gonna go places. They're gonna take over the world at some point.”

“And you guys are gonna be right there with them?”

“That's our hope. That's Jon's hope, too. We've started building friendships with them.”

“I hope Aurora and I can get to meet them.”

“They live over in San Francisco so we'd have to—make a few phone calls to those guys. James, Kirk, Lars, and Cliff. There was another guy with them—Dave, Dave... Mustaine, I think is his last name? Scott and Charlie both know more about him than I do. All I know is he got fired.”

“For what?”

“Drinking.”

“Must've been a lot,” she quipped.

“Eh, again, you'll have to ask the two of them about it.” The sound of distortion caught their ears, and thus Frank gestured to the chairs over on the other side of the room.

“Have a seat,” he said to her in kind fashion.

Sam took the one on the left, right underneath the Metallica flyer. He took the one right next to her which left the one on the far right vacant. They were given a view into the kitchen, where Scott and Dan had slung their guitars over their shoulders, and Charlie had disappeared into the far corner of the room to tend to the drums. There was a bit of clicking behind the left side of the doorway.

“You gonna set that thing up to record ourselves on?” Scott asked, flabbergasted.

“Yeah, it's all I can find in here,” Billy said, nonplussed. There was a blowing sound, followed by a soft muttering noise.

And then Sam realized he had found a microphone in there for himself. All she could see from him was his elbow and his right leg below the knee, but she could in fact hear him.

“I am the law! I am the law!” His voice was hoarse but strong at the same time. Nothing like Joey's operatic power, but more like a fierce snarl combined with a violent growl. There was something about his voice that entranced her: it was something different and the complete opposite of the clean lovely vocals that came out from Joey's mouth.

Their songs were strangely short, like only a few seconds: the longest one was about a minute, and they all seemed to bleed into each other.

She shuffled her feet underneath her chair.

“So noisy,” she joked to Frank.

“This is the life we chose!” he proclaimed with glee. Scott tried to say something over his own riffing; Sam could hardly hear his own words, except for a few little snippets of his sentiments.

“By the way—Dan—let me say one thing—this doesn't leave the room—not to talk about Anthrax but...”

“But what?” Dan called out to him once he rested his fingers across the fret board of his bass. Scott held onto the pick with his thumb and his index finger and strummed it all over the strings.

“That!” he declared, which coaxed a laugh out of both Billy and Charlie. Frank looked over at her with a twinkle in his eye and one hand inside of his jacket.

“Want a piece of gum?” he offered her.

“Oh, yes please!”

He took out a small pack of gum that made her think of a pack of cigarettes with its red and white lid; he popped it open and gave her a little piece. Even against the musty smell of the room, she could feel the burn of the spearmint on her nose.

“Holy—” she sputtered and coughed a couple of times.

“Yeah, it's strong,” he said, unfazed; he slipped in a piece and she was met with that fresh aroma of spearmint from him.

“Jesus—” Her eyes even began to water a bit.

“I have a little bit of a problem with halitosis,” he confessed. “I've had it for a long time.”

“Why's that?”

He shook his head. “No idea. Charlie thinks it's from genetics, but who knows, really.”

Meanwhile, every song Storm troopers of Death whipped out into the open went onto something that Billy had set up on the counter top in there. Every so often, he leaned over to adjust the thing.

“So there's Crab Society,” Dan remarked at one point as he held one finger across the second fret of his bass. Charlie twirled the drum stick in his right hand and almost let it fall onto the cymbal next to the wall; he caught it by the skin of his pinky and ring fingers and then gripped onto the bass.

“We've got time, though, Danny,” Scott assured him.

“Time for what?”

“Time to name this—thing.”

“What are they even recording on?” Sam asked Frank; he leaned over to look into the room.

“I don't really know,” he confessed in a low voice.

“We kind of are the Crab Society now,” Dan declared with a clearing of his throat: he tapped on the largest string of the bass with his first two fingers.

“Yeah, but we can't really use that name, though,” Charlie pointed out.

“True. We're—Crab Society—North? Given we're upstate and all.”

“North, south, east, and west,” Scott chuckled.

“Which of us is north, south, east, and west, though?” Charlie asked as he attempted another twirl of the drum stick.

“I'll be east,” Scott volunteered, “Danny'll be west.”

“Guess I'll be south, then,” Billy said with a sniffle and a clearing of his throat.

“Why do you get to be south?” Charlie scoffed.

“'Cause you're from the Bronx, Char,” Billy pointed out.

“So I'm north, then!”

“Exactly!”

Sam looked over at Frank and couldn't help but laugh at what she was hearing several feet away from them.

“Welcome to our world, Sam I Am,” he said with a chuckle and a lopsided smile.

“Just a bunch of guys willing to kick back for a little bit while the real thing gets taken care of,” Scott called out with a raise of those thick dark eyebrows.

There was low thump outside the door.

“There he is,” Frank quipped; he climbed to his feet. Whoever tried to come into the building jiggled the doorknob.

“Guys?” Joey's voice rang through the wood of the door.

“Hang on, Joey,” Frank called out; there was another click in the next room there. He tugged on the doorknob but the door itself wouldn't budge.

“Want some help?” Sam offered.

“Please.”

She stood to her feet and set her journal down on the chair in order to assist him: Frank lifted the doorknob itself while Sam clasped her hands onto the backs of his and gave the knob a good yank. The door flung open and Joey stumbled into the room right then: they were met with bright sunlight but a chilly gust of wind as well. His chest was right in her line of sight, but she pressed herself against the wall behind her to let him in there. He took off his mirrored sunglasses to better look at her with those big brown eyes. Stray strands of his jet black curls sprawled down his brow so she could better look into his eyes. Frank shut the door behind him and the wind settled in the room.

“Oh, hi,” he breathed out at the sight of her.

“Hi,” she returned the favor, and she held the journal up to her chest even though they were a foot apart. “How you feelin'?”

“Better—kinda.”

“Kinda?”

“Yeah, it's—it's gonna be a bit before my body gets back up to right temperature. But I ain't miserable anymore, though.”

“That's good.”

“I had cannoli courtesy of my mom and my grandma,” he said with a shrug of his shoulders and a smirk on his face.

“Sounds good,” she replied as she ran her hands atop the crown of her head.

“Speaking of goodness, you smell good,” he remarked with a look at her chest.

“Thank me for that!” Frank proclaimed.

“Joey!” Scott declared; he strode out of the room without the guitar over his shoulder. “How'd you know we were here?”

“My dad and I were driving past here and I was like, 'hey, there's Frankie's car,'�� Joey replied as he tossed a pocket of his black curls over his shoulder.

“Were you with your dad?” Sam asked him.

“Nah, I was driving behind him. When I pulled over, he pulled over with me and I told him what was going on. I'm a big boy—I can do stuff.” He turned his head for a look over at Scott and Charlie.

“So what'd I miss?” he asked them.

“Kinda doin' our own thing for the remainder of studio time,” Scott replied. “We're callin' it Stormtroopers of Death.”

“Sounds badass and nerdy at the same time. I like it.”

“They were just putting together a demo tape,” Frank told him. “A li'l demo and then maybe something else after that if Jonny gives 'em the green light.”

“And I guess I'm going to get my paws on a first copy of it,” Sam followed up with a tone of excitement.

“Well!” Joey folded his arms across the chest. “Consider it an honor, li'l one.”

“I already do! I hope they go places with the whole thing, too.”

“We're all hard workin' boys,” Charlie declared.

“All workin' hard and then some more,” she added.

“Speaking of more,” he said with a raise of a finger. Charlie doubled back into the kitchen there for something. Billy, who was partially behind the wall, looked over his shoulder at him all the while. Charlie rummaged through the fridge in there, and then he came back with a pair of brown glass bottles of beer, one in each hand.

“Care for a drink?” he offered her, and she hesitated for a second. She was under the drinking age, but it was an offer from him and with a soft look on his round face all the while.

“Thank you,” she said with a little smile and a taking of the bottle in his right hand for herself. The glass was cold and the edges of the cap were sharp against her hand.

“Want a little bit of help?” Frank offered her.

“All I can get.”

“Here—” Charlie handed him his bottle for a second so he could pry off the cap with two fingers. That strong aroma of hops flooded out of there, and made her eyes water more than the spearmint in her piece of gum.

“You want a beer, Joey?” Scott offered.

“You know I do,” Joey chuckled, “I was wantin' Irish coffee this morning when the three of them came to get me, so you know it.”

Sam took out her piece of gum and held it between two fingers. She tipped the bottle back for a sip: the contrast of the spearmint and the hops clashed and she grimaced at the taste.

“That gum, right?” Frank laughed.

“Yeah—” Her stomach turned a bit but she persisted. Indeed, the contrast went away within mere seconds and she was able to take another sip from the mouth.

“Let's go outside for a bit,” Billy suggested.

“Yeah, it's sunny out,” Joey said as he pried off the cap from his bottle. “Kinda windy but at least the clouds've cleared out a li'l bit...” He took a hearty swig from the bottle and followed Billy and Scott out the kitchen. Meanwhile, Frank turned to Sam, who was trying to keep it down but the taste of the beer was so strong and in her face that it was hard to even bring the mouth of the bottle to her lips. He eyed the gum in her fingers.

“You wanna know a little trick?”

“For what?”

“The piece of gum. Kinda roll your fingers a bit so it turns into a little ball. It's a little hard because it's all sticky—” She tried it out regardless, and it stuck to her skin at first. “—keep going, keep going, keep going... there you go. Now put it behind your ear like Violet Beauregarde.”

“Don't forget it's there, either,” Charlie advised her as he took a swig from his bottle. “One of my sisters did that once and my mom had to cut it out with scissors.”

She tossed her hair over her head, and then she stuck the little wad of gum behind her right ear for safe keeping. It stuck to her skin and she knew she could go back to it within time.

“So we wanna go outside?” Frank asked them.

“If you wanna,” Charlie told him, “I'm actually kinda cold right now.”

“Cold, even after pounding away on those drums,” she remarked as she tilted her head to the left to keep her hair off the side of her head.

“I'm pretty sure Charlie was born with drum sticks in hand and without pores in his skin,” Frank joked, which brought an eye roll out of Charlie.

“So d'you draw something?” he asked Sam.

“I haven't been able to,” she confessed as she held the bottle closer to her chest. “I've just been so—enthralled by what was going on in here. You're a natural!”

“Me? Well, I dunno 'bout that...”

“I also don't know what I did with that picture of you guys, either.”

“I think it's out in the car,” Frank recalled, “I'll be right back.” He doubled back to the front door, which had been jammed stuck again. “Help me out here, Charlie.”

Charlie himself met up with him to lift up the door.

“Yet another thing this place needs,” he muttered as he held onto the knob with his free hand, “among other things. It's one thing when Billy gets it open, though.” The door swung open and Frank stepped outside.

Sam meanwhile, caught the sight of something out of the corner of her eye. She stood in the kitchen doorway to find a small cramped space, crammed full with Charlie's drum kit, those dusty guitars and bass, and that microphone the size of her hand, the latter of which Billy had placed on the counter top right next to a walkman. That was what they recorded the demo on. She turned her attention to the door on the other side of the room, which hung open even with the cool upstate winds. She made her way over to it to see the back of Joey's head: he had taken a seat on the back step there.

His hair was lush, and looked even more so there in the hazy afternoon sun. Sam could make out the sight of little glints of gold embedded in the curls at the back of his head. Combined with the darkness of his roots, his hair was thick and swirled like a psychedelic drawing. She imagined it being like a dense forest, a whole stretch of thick shrubs coupled with those tall slender dark trees in the dark earth. She tried to picture it soaking wet following a shower, all sweet smelling and delicate.

Joey gave his hair a toss over his shoulder, which only accentuated the coarsest of curls on his back. Sam thought of vines dangling down from tree branches.

He leaned over his slender thighs and rested his elbows on his narrow knees. She eyed his slim waist from behind there. He was almost delicate, especially since she got a better look at him there: he did not have his microphone in hand that time, and he was at an odd angle to boot.

She hung there in the doorway with her free hand on the edge of the threshold and she kept her eye on the gentle shape of his shoulder and his upper arm. The fingers of his left hand curled around his right elbow and he shivered from the incoming fog. Joey bowed his head a bit and she could make out the shape of the bottle in his hand.

“Sam?” Charlie called out. She returned to the main room to find him with the photograph in hand.

“Ah! Thank you!” She took the photograph for herself and crossed the floor to the chairs. She tucked the photograph into her journal and returned to them.

“Not really the best place for drawing, though, from what I can see,” Frank pointed out.

“Yeah, talk about uncomfortable,” Charlie nodded his head. “By the way, Frankie and I were just talking a little bit out there—if Stormtroopers of Death go anywhere, we oughtta give you something to do, seeing as you sat in with us on the recording process. The whole entire hour and whatnot.”

“Oh, wow, I wouldn't know the first thing of what to do,” she confessed as she took another sip of beer. A little better that time: the hoppy taste wasn't so pungent and in her face, but it still hit her tongue more than the spearmint.

“You could sit in with us on tour dates for Anthrax and Storm troopers.”

“How does one open for themselves?” she asked him.

“You've—got to be on top of it all?” Charlie raised an eyebrow at that. “One state of mind versus the other, I s'pose. Something we'd have to figure out. And it can be something to show your school counselors, too!”

Scott burst out laughing right then and Billy said something.

“Hey, Frankie!” Joey called out from the kitchen doorway.

“What's up?” Frank hurried in there to see what was the matter. Charlie returned to her.

“By the way, Joey was right—it is nice outside. Kinda chilly but not a cloud in the sky now. Wanna take a walk?”

“I'd love to take a walk,” she said, and without another word, the two of them filed out of there into the bright, crisp afternoon: the sun was beginning to hang low over the horizon before them. He walked at a slow pace so they could be side by side on the little dirt pathway along the side of the street. Lucky for her, the wind kept her hair on the side of her head, thus off of the piece of gum behind her ear. Charlie pushed a thick lock of his own hair off of his face in the meantime.

“Can I tell you something?” he asked her at one point.

“Um—sure? Is it important?”

“If you want it to be.”

“Okay.”

He then cleared his throat, but he never said anything after that. They reached a curve in the road, one lined with a series of tall trees that blocked out some of the more intense of the winds.

“Sam, we've only known each other for a little more than a week, but I feel like I've known you for years,” he confessed at a quick clip.

“It's funny, I—feel the same way about you, too.” She turned her head to look at him; the orange light from the late afternoon sun washed over the side of his face.

A gust of cold wind sent a chill down her spine, and he inched closer to her.

“I mean, think about it,” he started again. “We're both artists. Artists look out for each other and stick together. It only makes sense that we officially call ourselves friends for each other.”

Sam had no idea if it was the alcohol talking or the fact that she came to New York with a fresh new slate and it all started happening so fast, but her head began to spin a little bit from the feeling. She even had to stop in her tracks to gather herself.

“You alright?”

“I'm a little bit dizzy—this is all starting to feel like a dream.”

“I assure you it's the real thing.”

She lifted her gaze to his face, partially obscured in shadow courtesy of the sun: the light made it seem as though he had a halo around the crown of his head. She had a friend in Aurora and now, a friend in Charlie.

“Friends forever,” she said with a raise of her bottle.

“Friends forever,” he replied and he brought his bottle to his for a toast. The bottles made a clink noise and they took a drink in unison: she took another sip compared to his hearty swig. “I'm sure Frankie'd wanna join in on that, too. And I think it’s just the heat of the moment, but I really wanna watch you draw now.”

#fever in fever out #fever in fever out fanfic #chapter 8 #fanfic #fanfiction #anthrax fanfic #anthrax #stormtroopers of death #charlie benante #frank bello #scott ian #billy milano #joey belladonna #new chapter #also on ao3 #ao3 fic #writing #text

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jenny-kirk · 4 years

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Story Time with Jenny: Nightmare

(Micah x Jenny- Fluff/Angst. TW: Pregnancy, Nightmares, Panic Attack)

Much like that time a tired Jenny sought to convince Micah to sleep, the roles were at first reversed. Not long before the Blackwater Job, Jenny wonders if maybe, Micah is willing to amend some of his ways...poor naive thing.

The crackling of the dying campfire was barely audible over the snores and shuffles of those sleeping close by it. Swanson, Javier and Lenny nearby, fast asleep. Jenny sat alone by the dying embers having placed an extra log on it to no avail. A steaming cup of coffee doing a better job of warming her, too tired to fix the fire properly.

It was the nightmares again. The ones since her suspicions of a suspected pregnancy was confirmed by the small bump, since the plans for the blackwater job became so real and looming.

Jenny was rarely one to show fear in battle, usually enjoying the chase and adrenaline a job created. Saving someone’s life and mocking them for it the whole day. But for some reason, things felt different about the ferry job, foreboding almost.

Hiding a pregnancy was one thing even though Miss Kirk was damn near positive a few in camp already harboured suspicion. Wearing her shawl all day no matter the weather, a blanket her constant companion, clothes noticeably becoming tighter, it wasn't exactly subtle.

Javier was more attentive than ever, most likely recognising something to be the matter when she declined her favourite pastime; swimming.

Lenny always offering help when her morning sickness struck. “I just ate a bad berry,” was the excuse she had ready but Mr Summers would only shake his head, “like shit you did.”

And of course her regard towards Mr Bell was noticeable enough, sitting on his lap by the fire, reciprocating his attention, the two disappearing without warning, sometimes for days at a time.

It would be pathetic to admit her fear now. Not after how excited she’d been. But what if the nightmares were a warning, the job wasn’t safe, something went wrong with the pregnancy, someone gets injured, caught, or worse...

No that wouldn't do. It was just paranoia! She’d treat it like every other job. Exciting and fun. What’s the worst that could happen?...

The dark liquid trembled, rippling in her hands as Jenny’s breathing searched for regularity, a cold sweat tearing at her forehead.

“It’s a good plan Dutch, you know it. The money-we gotta try.”

“I-I know just, make sure it’s worth the risk. I'm trusting you on this Micah”

The two moustached men spoke quietly as they emerged from Dutch’s tent, the seeming hotspot for blackwater discussions. Up until now, Jenny had been regularly listening in on such conversations, hearing the plan, the take, making her heart race ever faster.

Thankfully as the pair kept their voices low, their contrasting eyes failed to spot Jenny sitting on the dusty ground, leaning tiredly against the log specifically put there to be sat on. Excited as Jenny was for the job, she couldn’t help the dreadful feeling that something was wrong.

At their presence Jenny did her upmost to wipe the sweat from her forehead, taking deeper breaths to calm herself. So focused on this process the girl hardly heard the clomping footsteps so uneven from her side until out the corner of her eyes a mass joined her on the floor with a sigh.

“Y’ain’t tired Missy?”

Shaking her head Jenny managed a small smile Micah’s direction, a witty response to yet again commence a back and forth of banter lost among her thoughts.

“You ain't been givin’ me much reason to be,” her hazel cut eyes shot to pieces, reddened by past tears despite her pathetic attempt to tease.

The blonde’s brows creased, squinting his eyes to observe her. ‘Damn pregnant women always so sensitive’. Something was the matter but that wasn't any of his business, nor did Micah wish it to be.

Contemplating leaving to sharpen his knife or rob a homestead, Micah then devised a cunning plan. This woman was carrying his child after all and if he wished to get any kind of action, it was probably best to keep her happy

“Then you gonna tell ol’ Micah Bell the matter?”

“Ain’t nothing the matter Micah, just needed some air is all”

The blonde pulled a knowing, mockingly agreed face with a nod before sniffing looking about the silent camp.

“That why you’re shakin’ like a leaf is it?”

Noticing he stared directly into the cup within her hand, Jenny quickly placed it to one side. Micah was defiantly the observant type, Jenny was clearly frightened by something, unusual, not only this but that headstrong spark had disappeared into the night, leaving her reserved and quiet, unable to make a move or joke.

With a sigh an arm wrapped around Jenny’s waist drawing her closer to the man, her head resting against his shoulder, suddenly grateful the rest of camp slept, allowing Micah to show such a side he always fought against. A weak side that did nothing but get those you cared about killed.

Remaining silent for a short while, Micah could feel Jenny’s breathing hot and hurried against him, a sniff that turned into a choke prompting his question.

“Y’need a cry?”

Jenny looked up at the man, expecting such a comment to be sarcastic and mocking yet his soft gaze harboured no trace of that. Surprise and hope made the woman’s heart heavy. Was Micah really allowing this? In the middle of camp with no mocking? Maybe this baby really was going to change things...

Feeling her eyes tear up in almost an instant Micah allowed her to sob into his shirt, making it a darker shade of red with her tears, her long brown hair getting tangled in his hand which combed through it, the other keeping her close.

Repositioning herself so as to hide her face away from the world, she knew what a mess she was leaving. Saliva, snot and tears all plastering itself to Micah’s already destroyed red shirt, which, by the way, absolutely stank of all things nasty.

But that didn't matter right now.

Jenny near scrambled to face Micah, clinging to his shirt as if it would somehow make everything better. All her worries cured. About the baby, about the gang, the job and even them.

God how he’d surely mock her for such an emotional moment...A weak moment, as he might say.

But for now, she sat clinging as Micah’s larger hands held her steady, one dropping from her hair to rub and pat circles across her back with a hush.

It went without saying that Micah was not one for comfort or care, leaving him very much at a loss within the predicament.

“It’s alright...I don’t sleep much neither.”

Telling folk sleep was overrated was only half the story. Growing up Micah’s father didn’t leave him or his brother Amos much time to do so. Drilling into their heads that letting your guard down would spell disaster, making him and his brother keep guard so as he might sleep in their place.

And so to this day, sleeping was too dangerous a task even for Micah, the amount of enemy’s he had it was too much a risk. That and sleeping reminded Micah too much of his past, dreams could be nasty things.

Miss Kirk’s small bump rested close against Micah’s own potbelly, the warmth of his embrace and uncharacteristic softness calming, already finding her heart-rate slowing in the comfort of his embrace as she coughed and spluttered helplessly into his shirt.

Eyes burning a yawn breaking her from the sobs Jenny began to calm down, remaining buried in Micah’s shirt, his hand grazing through her dark hair, patiently waiting for her to regain herself. It wasn’t like this happened often.

“It’s pathetic,” Jenny admitted with a shake of her head, voice muffled.

Waiting for a ‘Yes, it is. Pull yourself together woman or our kid’s gonna be just as useless.’ Jenny looked up to Micah who merely waited, listened, such attentiveness was lingering on concern.

“Nightmares. Never used to have ‘em...but now...” Some shuffling behind the pair made them look only to see it as Uncle shifting in his sleep against a tree.

“They feel so real. I-I don’t want ‘em to be real Micah.”

With a sigh, not comfortable nor used to comforting another, Micah perpetuated the question, “What kinda nightmares?”

“Oh awful, awful things. That job, somethin’ goes wrong, people get hurt, bad.” Not telling Micah the full extent of her fears while answering his question posed, staring into his cold eyes.

Holding her tight Micah continued. If Miss Kirk was not ordinarily so full of life, so fun and optimistic (or if she was not carrying his child) Micah would have mocked and berated the woman for days over such news.

‘Carin’ for people, that's how you get hurt.’ But no, he was already contradicting his father’s teachings as he himself had learned to care (to an extent) for someone himself.

“Ain’t nothing going wrong. We go there, get the money, n’ we’re far away before the law even find out.”

Jenny merely nodded. It wasn't like Micah would actively put them all in dangers way, right? Having caught her breath, reduced now only to a few odd snivels, Jenny leaned back a little, seeing the state she’d left the older man’s shirt in.

A sheepish look over her as Micah tutted, placing his wide brimmed hat on Jenny’s head lopsidedly making her huff a chuckle as she wiped her eyes with her own sleeve.

“You go on ‘n sleep now, y’hear sugar?”

Unhappy reluctance had Jenny look to her tent.

Placing a kiss on the sniffing woman’s forehead, his moustache which would soon be roaming somewhere very different, prickling lightly against her cold skin, Micah offered a rare gentle smile. Already working on undoing his dampened shirt.

“Come. Reckon I know what helps~”

#story time with jenny #story time #headcanon #headcanons #Jenny's yeetober #day 4 #Micah x Jenny #Micah Bell x Jenny Kirk #Angst #tw: panic attack #Micah Bell #Jenny Kirk

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topshelf2112-blog · 4 years

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It may seem like a fictional character can’t sustain or save you, but here’s a journal entry I wrote in 2018. Thanks, Jamie Farr, and Corporal.

Dear Corporal Klinger,

You may find yourself surprised to appear first in this little volume. After all, there is a whole pantheon of characters that have shaped me (from Bilbo Baggins to Captain Kirk) and I’ve known the majority of them for far longer than we’ve been acquainted. But as I was shaping this project in my mind, polishing the words like stone under flowing water, and choosing to whom I should direct these opening pages, it was easy to settle on you.

You see (and it’s no easy thing for me to admit this in black and white) I’m suffering from a bout of depression. My mind is complicating this unwanted mental adventure by reminding me that I really don’t have any reason to be depressed. I’ve met Holocaust survivors, for heaven’s sake! In my years of teaching I’ve counseled students who have endured rape, assault, prejudice and racism, and watching family members die terrible deaths in front of their eyes. None of those terrible things (praise be!) are happening to me. Therefore, I really shouldn’t be depressed.

Of course, I know depression doesn’t really work that way. I know, logically, that the chemicals in my brain are imbalanced somehow and that this is no more my doing than my height, the color of my eyes, or the dug-in-like-briars patch of psoriasis on my left knee. But have you ever tried to stack logic up against the black surge of emotion? Logic goes down like a wall of sand.

So I thought of you. You were scooped up by a war you didn’t believe in, deposited thousands of miles away from your neighborhood and your loved ones, made to do the physically demanding and emotionally damaging work of moving the bodies of wounded men – and you still managed to create beauty in the midst of it. Maybe you don’t think of it that way. Maybe you just imagine that your late hours sewing were one more stitch in the master plan to get you ejected from the army on a Section 8, but you still brought a smile to the face of those around you with your pleats and your heels and your silk. I imagine you after a shift in the OR, washing blood from your hands, trying to un-see the images of the last few hours, and still stealing moments from sleep to set out matching earrings!

You may not know this, either, but one of depression’s most cunning tricks is its ability to make minor tasks incredibly difficult. Faced with things that other people take completely for granted (and may even do without conscious thought) someone struggling with depression may feel like crying. But this morning, tired as I was from another night of insomnia and wrestling with my damp-kelp hair, I channeled you, corporal. I marched myself into the bathroom and flossed my teeth. I put a mask on my face. (Using a mask always makes me think of that moment in Soap where Mary and her short-lived daughter-in-law put on make-up together. Reading the ingredients of the facemask she’s daubing on, Mary reports that it’s “made of cow placenta!”) I washed and conditioned my hair. I shaved my legs. (I hate shaving. It’s one of those rituals that seem fun and adult when you’re a girl, but then turn out to be a pain in the ass. I don’t think you went as far as shaving your legs. I think I can remember Hawkeye teasing you about them. If you’re considering it, just don’t. Stick to hats adorned with fruit). I put on a matching bra and panty set with a baseball design that I know you’d approve of. I eschewed my usual rock band t-shirts for a shirt with some glitter to it. I’m afraid it’s still not high fashion (I lack your eye for such things and, sadly, you’re probably thinner than me, too!) but it’s something. I braided my hair and rubbed some fancy collagen stuff mom got me on my face (more cow placenta?) I don’t know that my emotional state is radically different, but at least I look like a real, live, adult human!

What did you miss most when you were sent off to fight? Besides being separated from my love, the hardest thing for me to endure would be being separated from my baby cat. Last night he stretched full length beside me and kneaded me as if he was my kitten and I was a great big cat. Sometimes I use my nose and lips to rub against his silky head like a mother cat. He even reached out his paw and wrapped it around my fingers, holding my hand. If you can’t sleep, it’s good to have a furry friend! I sure you endured many sleepless nights – some from fear, listening for sounds of the enemy, some on guard duty, shouldering your weapon and getting very sore feet from your fancy shoes. Did I mention that I truly admire the Klinger Collection? I wish you were here to go through my wardrobe for the new school year!

I wish you were here for another reason, too. An old evil has come rising up from the past. I realize that sounds melodramatic, like something from the voice-over introduction to a fantasy film, but I can’t think of a better way to put it. I have a GoFundMe page to help earn some money for the expensive big cat books I need for my research. It was probably selfish of me to start such a page. Maybe I’m being punished for my book greed? Anyway, it recently received a donation from a man I hoped never to think of again – my mom’s abusive ex-husband. It’s difficult to describe how unnerved I am that he’s out there looking for me on the internet. It’s made my blog (linked to the GoFundMe page) feel tainted. I took some precautions, of course. I alerted campus security and the folks who work in my building, but I’m still afraid. Having you standing guard with your trusty weapon would ease my mind. And maybe your fine clothes would work the way Eddie Izzard suggests when he argues for transvestite paratroopers! Imagining them landing among the enemy, he suggests that said enemy would be so surprised that they wouldn’t fire. “Were you surprised? I was so surprised!” It’s my profound hope (and daily prayer) that nothing comes of this resurgence, but I’m still scared.

My tiredness seems to be catching up with me, because I’ve quite lost my train of thought! I’ll be back to add more later (when my mind is clear). Until then, I think yellow is your best color, kiss Charles for me, and ask Father Mulcahy to keep me in his prayers. I’m not Catholic, but I’ve been finding my way back to (unofficial and unaffiliated) prayer and I’d love to have a spiritual adviser like him.

Wishing you dreams of white satin (and pink, and blue, but never aquamarine!)

#Mash #Jamie Farr #Maxwell Klinger

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lswritingdesk · 4 years

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Chlorophyll

Captain Kirk was leading his away team out of the Tonnang Research Facility on Chikkra when shots began to come out of nowhere. He whirled around in confusion, hand on his phaser, as did several of the security officers. Five figures were running towards them from the main doors that they had just come through, dodging the shots coming from the guard towers at the gates. A hand shot out from one of the figures and grabbed him roughly by the arm, spinning him back round.

“Run,” the person said, and Kirk was being propelled forward towards the gates, which were beginning to close. Others of his team were similarly grabbed by the figures in white, and suddenly the whole party was running pell-mell towards the gates. They skittered through, still avoiding shots from the guard towers, just as the gates shut behind them. Miraculously, everyone had gotten through, but still the figures urged them to keep running. There were shouts from the research facility behind them, and more people poured out in pursuit.

“Kirk to Enterprise, 10, er, 15 to beam out?” Kirk said into his communicator, changing the number at the last second. Hopefully Scotty would be able to grab them all, and hopefully this person gripping him rather painfully by the forearm would have a very, very good explanation for their actions.

The whole group landed forcefully upon the beaming platform as the result of their fleeing the guards that had suddenly poured out of the facility. Kirk finally had a chance to look at the person who had grabbed him and forced him to start running. She collapsed on the platform, eyes glassy as she looked around, counting silently with her mouth open. He saw her count to five, and she released her grip on him at last.

“I beg of you to protect us,” she said, looking up at him with fear in her eyes. She and Captain Kirk alike looked at the red shirt who rushed in and said that someone was hailing them from the surface. Kirk hauled the young woman to her feet.

“You are coming with me. Security, get the rest of these people to medbay.”

The head of the Chikkran research facility that they had just left was on screen when Kirk marched onto the bridge, and he was irate. The moment he saw Kirk, he began to shout.

“You have kidnapped valued workers from our facility! This will not be tolerated!” Kirk side-eyed the young woman, who had pulled the white cap from her hair and was now twisting it in her hands. She was shaking her head furiously, at the screen or at him, he wasn’t sure. “Return the five who you have now, and this will all go away. Otherwise, we will take this as an act of war.”

“Uhura, put him on mute.” Kirk turned to the young woman.

“You better have a really good explanation for this, young lady.”

“We are not workers. We are property,” she said. She was standing on one foot, pulling off a white slipper and a sock. She showed Kirk the bottom of her foot. Property of Tonnang Research Facility. 04064-29456. “My name is Aya. I was sold to the facility when I was six years old for medical research. The others came through similar circumstances. None of us are there willingly.” Kirk frowned.

“We were not informed of any medical research being performed on actual Chikkrans.” Aya scoffed at him coldly.

“As if they’d show outsiders the full facility. Your medbay can confirm that I was experimented on. I am asking for protection.” Kirk made up his mind quickly. He would have to trust the word of this Aya- and the reactions of the Chikkrans when she and the others fled the facility.

“Uhura, unmute the facility director.”

“Director, I will not be returning your...people to you. They have asked for asylum, and I am providing it based on disturbing reports that they have given me.” The director sputtered.

“Consider yourself at war with the Chikkran people, Captain.”

“Mr. Sulu, warp us out of here before they decide to direct any of their planetary defences at us, please.

“Aye, aye, sir.” Kirk turned back to Aya, who had replaced her shoe and her now-wrinkled cap.

“Let’s get you to medbay and confirm this story of yours,” he said, sighing.

Medbay was in chaos when they got there. Dr. McCoy was hurried between biobeds containing Chikkrans, his eyes wide. Aya looked thoroughly nonplussed, but Kirk was concerned. McCoy stopped running about when Kirk walked in.

“Jim, you’re never gonna believe this!”

“Oh, something tells me I will. Aya here has been telling me that she and her friends were the victims of medical research at that facility.” McCoy stopped short and looked Aya over, as if he had x-ray vision that could tell him what kind of experiments had been performed on her.

“This little guy,” he said, pointing at biobed 1, “has implants in his brain and enough scars on his head to make you sick. He said they have been messing with his brain since he was 8 and that he’s been at the facility for at least ten years.”

Aya shrugged at this. “I was six when my family sold my sister and I to the facility. I think I’m about 23 or 24? I don’t know. There’s a big market for children in the biomedical research facilities. They pay families with extra children well. My sister and I were two of seven children, and our parents wanted sons.”

“That’s barbaric,” Kirk said.

“That’s life on Chikkra,” one of the others responded, almost nonchalantly. “Bet they didn’t tell you that in your tour.”

“Jim, each one of these people has been experimented on heavily. You did a good thing getting them out of there.”

“For each one of us, there are a thousand more in the various research facilities,” Aya said dully. Dr. McCoy eyed her.

“So…”

“So what’s up with me?” she asked, looking him in the eye. “My body produces chlorophyll. I’m photosynthetic. Which, umm, leads me to my next question- if you have an on-ship garden, I’ll probably need to sleep there tonight. And every night until you figure out what to do with us.” Kirk and McCoy stared at her. “I need a grow light to photosynthesise? Artificial light does nothing for me. The four of us in the facility who had the same...condition...used to sleep under giant grow lamps, for lack of a better word.”

“I’ll have someone from Engineering set up proper accommodations. Dr. McCoy will want to check you over, first, though. And yes, there is the matter of what we’re going to do with you. You have requested asylum, which we will honour, but we aren’t just going to drop you off at the nearest starbase, not with the chance that the Chikkrans might try to come back and get you.”

“They won’t come for us,” Aya said. “We were all slated for disposal by the end of the month.”

“I’m sorry, disposal?” Kirk asked.

“We had reached the end of our usefulness. Each of our experiments had come to an end. All of the other chlorophylls had already been disposed of. I was the last one. They probably would have studied our bodies, but they won’t send out a ship to come collect us just for that. We’re not that valuable to them.”

McCoy muttered under his breath, and for once, Jim was shocked into silence.

“And people just let this happen on your planet?” McCoy asked angrily. “They just sell their children to these labs, knowing that they’re going to be experimented on and eventually killed to be studied?”

“It is a blessing to be euthanised first and not vivisected,” Ava said quietly. “And as I said, the research facilities pay top dollar, so yes, it is accepted.”

“And there are no laws against it?”

“Not really. Maybe there used to be, but the facilities are too powerful, and the innovations they come out with are too lucrative and too cutting edge to shut them down, not that anyone is willing to try.”

“I’d like to try,” the boy with the implants said.

“As would I,” another one said.

Aya sighed. “Maybe in time our stories can make it out to your- what is it called? Federation? And maybe we can make change. But right now I am just thankful that you saved our lives.” She suddenly looked very tired, and McCoy ordered her into a biobed.

“Until we can get your lamp set up,” he promised. Aya gave him a weak smile. He looked around at the five Chikkrans. “I am not going to hurt any of you. Where I’m from, doctors take an oath to heal, not harm.”

“We will do what we can to set you up with the resources to thrive from here on out,” Kirk added. “Like I said, we’re not just going to abandon you on the next starbase.”

#star trek #star trek tos #star trek aos #jim kirk #james t kirk #james kirk #captain kirk #leonard mccoy #leonard bones mccoy #oc #star trek fanfic #star trek headcanon

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scotianostra · 5 years

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On January 8th 1697 Thomas Aikenhead was executed in Edinburgh.

This is a crackin, if sad tale, and shows you how religious beliefs can be a blight on our history.

So who was oor Thomas, a villain?, a murderer?, a smuggler?, or some enemy of the state? No Thomas's crime was blasphemy who took the lord's name in vain.......this would be comic if it wasn't for the tragic fact that he was executed, unlike the man in Life of Brian, who uttered the words Jehova, Thomas complained that he wished he was warming himself in hell rather than that chilly night walking past the recently built Tron Kirk on Edinburgh's Royal Mile. Well that's the simple story that the tour guides that take you round the Old Town will tell you, there is a bit more to it so I will bore you with a bit more of the detail. Thomas Aikenhead came from a well-to-do family in Edinburgh, his father being listed as a surgeon but more probably an apothecary, a dispenser of herbs and potions. Both his parents were dead by the time he became a student at Edinburgh University at the age of 16 or 17.

His mother had been a daughter of the manse, and you would think that would have made Aikenhead wary of challenging the established religion of the time, namely the all-powerful Church of Scotland, especially while still a student and under the constant gaze of professors, lecturers and, as it turned out, his fellow students.

These were the dying days of a curious period in Scottish history. Aikenhead would have been four when the ‘Wizard of the West Bow’ Major Thomas Weir was executed in 1670. Weir was by day an extreme Calvinist but by night an incestuous Satanist and it takes no great leap of reason to see that an impressionable young boy might well have been affected by the trial and execution of a local celebrity that lived not far from him.

The 1680s was also the ‘killing time’ for the Covenanters when many died because of they worshipped their same god in differing ways!

Thomas was a keen student and an avid reader, he may or may not have known and Edinburgh bookseller, John Frazer, who had been prosecuted after admitting either reading, or being in possession of Charles Blount’s Oracles of Reason a book I know nothing about but gather it relates to Deism, which questioned the existence or more importanyly, non-existence of God or Satan, Frazer had repented ad as it was a first offence was sackclothed and jailed in the old Tolbooth for a number of months.

Anyway, Thomas had a friend, well he thought he had a friend, Murdo Craig, but Murdo, on the sly had been keeping notes on Aitkenhead, and his dalliances with blasphemous ideals, we know that because they formed a large part of the indictment against Aikenhead.

“Nevertheless it is of verity, that you Thomas Aikenhead, shakeing off all fear of God and regaird to his majesties lawes, have now for more than a twelvemoneth by past, and upon severall of the dayes within the said space, and ane or other of the same, made it as it were your endeavour and work in severall compainies to vent your wicked blasphemies against God and our Saviour Jesus Christ, and against the holy Scriptures, and all revealled religione, in soe far as upon ane or other of the dayes forsaid, you said and affirmed, that divinity or the doctrine of theologie was a rapsidie of faigned and ill-invented nonsense, patched up partly of the morall doctrine of philosophers, and pairtly of poeticall fictions and extravagant chimeras, or words to this effect or purpose, with severall other such reproachfull expressions.”

That was just for starters. Sir James Stewart of Goodtrees, the Lord Advocate of the day, had taken a personal interest in the case and he decided to throw the whole lot of Craig’s testimony at Aikenhead who was arrested in November, 1696, and charged under the Blasphemy Act of 1661 which carried the death penalty. He also charged Aikenhead under a more recent act, which made it a criminal offence to ‘deny, impugn or quarrel’ about the existence of God.The prosecution papers go on to record

“You have lykwayes in discourse preferred Mahomet to the blessed Jesus, and you have said that you hoped to see Christianity greatly weakened, and that you are confident that in a short tyme it will be utterly extirpate.”

For Mahomet, read Muhammad, could young Thomas be an Islam convert in 17th century Edinburgh, I very much doubt it, they just needed to make an example of the young student, and he knew by now knew that he was in very great trouble and protested in effect that he was guilty only of the sin of being youthful and had been led astray by the books he had read. He claimed to have repented of his anti-Christian beliefs and was once again a good Presbyterian. In this way he seems to have thrown himself upon the mercy of the court, but there was no mercy. On Christmas Eve, 1696, a jury found him guilty. Sir James Stewart asked for the death penalty and it was granted and “pronounced for doom,” as Scottish judges were still saying well into the 20th century in capital punishment cases. Aikenhead pleaded for his life to the Privy Council emphasising his youth, his dire circumstances, and the fact that he was reconciled to the Protestant religion. There was some support for the death sentence to be commuted from at least two councillors and two Church of Scotland ministers, but the General Assembly of the Kirk intervened, demanding that Aikenhead suffer

“vigorous execution to curb the abounding of impiety and profanity in this land”.

In his last letter to friends, written in the Tolbooth prison in Edinburgh as he awaited execution, Aikenhead at last gave a plausible explanation for his conduct – that he had been a disappointed seeker after truth. He wrote:

“It is a principle innate and co-natural to every man to have an insatiable inclination to the truth and to seek for it as for hid treasure. So I proceeded until the more I thought thereon, the further I was from finding the verity I desired.” In truth, in a repressed society the student had just gone too far in rejecting the doctrines of Christianity calling it “feigned and ill-invented nonsense”

Aikenhead went to his death on January 8, 1697, hanged on the scaffold at Shrubhill between Edinburgh and Leith. It is said that before he died he proclaimed that moral laws were the work of governments and men. In his hand as the noose was plced around his neck was the Holy Bible. The execution angered many people for many years afterwards. The great English historian Thomas Babington Macaulay wrote an account of the hanging and called the execution “a crime such has never since polluted the island.”He continued: “The preachers who were the boy’s murderers crowded round him at the gallows, and, while he was struggling in the last agony, insulted Heaven with prayers more blasphemous than any thing that he had ever uttered.”

There was other evidence of church authorities being present as Aikenhead died. He was the last man in Britain to be hanged for blasphemy.

According to Arthur Herman in his book "How the Scots Invented the Modern World: The True Story of How Western Europe’s Poorest Nation Created Our World and Everything in It", the execution of Aikenhead was “the last hurrah of Scotland’s Calvinist ayatollahs” before the dawning of the age of reason in the Enlightenment.

Now we can all rejoice in The Enlightenment but a full 30 years later in the small town of Dornoch in Sutherland, Janet Horne was put on trial for the “crime” of having a daughter whose feet and hands were misshapen and who had herself given birth to a son with disabilities. She was the last woman in Britain to be burned at the stake for being a witch, her death bringing to an end the “burning time” when perhaps 4000 Scottish women were executed for the crime of witchcraft.

I thought I would add a wee bit more about Shrubhill in Leith, as most of us usually only regard Edinburgh's Old Town, The Tolbooth, and Grassmarket as sites where executions took place. I can't find out why Aikenhead was taken to, at what at the time, was a different town for his executions I did however find records of several taking place at the site, now student accommodation, but the site of Edinburghs tram workshops and powerstation, but beforehand not many know that it was the site of he gibbet known as the Gallow Lee, literally the "field with the gallows",

Bodies were buried at the base of the gallows or their ashes scattered if burnt. The most famous of those that met their end here was perhaps Major Weir, the Wizard of the West Bow.

1570- Two criminals strangled and burned to death.

1570 (4 October)- Rev. John Kelloe minister of Spott, East Lothian (near Dunbar) strangled and burnt for the murder of his wife

1664- Nine witches strangled and burnt

1670- Major Thomas Weir, the self-confessed warlock, strangled and burnt for witchcraft (almost the only self-confessed witch executed).

1678- Five witches strangled and burnt

1680- Part of the body of Covenanter David Hackston was hung in chains after his execution at the mercat cross in Edinburgh for the murder of Archbishop Sharp in 1679.

1681 (10 October)- Covenanters Garnock, Foreman, Russel, Ferrie and Stewart hanged and beheaded. Their headless bodies were buried at the site and their heads placed on the Cowgate Port at the foot of the Pleasance. Friends reburied the bodies in the graveyard of the West Kirk (St. Cuthberts). The heads were retrieved, placed in a box and then buried in garden ground at Lauriston. They lay there until 7 October 1726 when the then owner, Mr Shaw, had them exhumed and reburied near the Martyrs' Monument in Greyfriars Kirkyard.

1697 (8 January)- Thomas Aikenhead, a 19-year-old theology student at Edinburgh University became the last person to be executed under Scotland's blasphemy laws (and the last in Britain to be executed for that crime).

1752 (10 January)- Norman Ross, a footman, hanged for the murder of Lady Baillie, sister of Home, Laird of Wedderburn. The body was left to hang in a gibbet cage "for many a year" and became a local ghoulish tourist attraction.

Post mid 18th Century the Nor’ Loch was drained and the city expanded to the north by the building of the New Town with stone quarried from nearby Craigleith quarry. In such building sand was needed to add to the lime mortar and Gallow Lee proved to be just what was needed. The owner of Gallow Lee charged the builders to cart away the sand, containing the ashes and other remains of thousands of victims. The sandy mound of the Gallow Lee has gone I wonder how many New Town residents are aware that the very fabric of their building is bound together with the remains of these poor women convicted of being witches, covenanters and criminals?

#scotland #scottish #history #blasphemy #execution #zealots #religious history #leith

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ancientbooshartifacts · 5 years

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White Wedding

Author: Beansidhe_Baby

Year: 2008

Rating: PG-13

Pairing: Howard/Vince; Rudi/Spider; Anthrax/Ebola; Neon/Ultra; Naboo/Bollo; Saboo/Tony Harrison; onesided Old Gregg/Howard; Mr Susan/Sandstorm; the Hitcher/Old Gregg

Vince was having a minor make up crisis, there was a smear of mascara on his upper eyelid, on top of several layers of carefully blended eyeshadow. He sighed in exasperation and wiped his right eye clean and started again. This was supposed to be the best day of his life and the bloody eye makeup let him down at the last gasp. There was a soft knock at the door and Naboo came in without waiting for him to open the door. “I was sure I locked that,” Vince said, looking over his shoulder at Naboo. “I'm a powerful shaman, Vince. And there's a spare key on a hook out there,” he said flatly, “How's it going?” “I'm going to look like a slapper in my wedding photos, but, other than that, fan-bloody-tastic,” Vince muttered murderously at his own reflection. “We all think you're lovely,” said Naboo, in a rare moment of flattery. “Well I look like a lovely slag. Howard's parents are going to think he's gotten me pregnant or something...” “You're a man, Vince,” Naboo reminded him helpfully. “Oh yeah. Men still don't have babies, then?” “No.” ~-~-~-~-~-~- “Is this straight?” Howard asked anxiously, tugging at his bow tie. “No,” said Bollo without looking up from his magazine, “Vince a man.” “The tie, Bollo. Is the tie on straight?” Howard asked again. “Nobody look at you. Precious Vince radiant bride. Groom. Radiant bridegroom.” Bollo said off handedly, flipping through his magazine. “I don't want to let the side down. If this goes on crooked I'll have to look at Vince wincing at the photos every anniversary for the rest of my life.” “If Vince love you when you look like that, he won't care about ties” Bollo sighed, closed his mag and got up to fix Howard's bow tie for him. “Thanks Bollo,” Howard smiled nervously. “Break his heart and I'll kill you.” “Yes sir.” ~-~-~-~-~-~- “Bridegroom or groom?” Lester asked an empty patch of air next to the guest. “I'll find my own seat, squire,” the mysterious green gentleman said, brushing past the blind man. He meandered around the pews before sitting himself down beside a tall man with a large afro who was staring at a man with an equally strange hair style “relieving” himself in the vestry. “Which of the grooms are you with?” the green man asked him. Rudi turned around and seemed to see the other man for the first time. “I'm sorry,” he said quietly, “My mind was elsewhere.” “What's up with the dress then, son?” the Hitcher, for it was of course the manwitch himself, asked. “Actually, that's a common misconception, this is not a dress, it's the robe of th-” Rudi started to correct him before he was interrupted again. “So you a nonce then?” the Hitcher cut across him, with an ever decreasing amount of tact “I am above base sexual desires,” he sniffed. “Oh so he won't let you then?” “I'm sure I don't know what you're talking about.” “Mexican bloke? Uglier than a sack of pigs anuses? He's here with you isn't he?” “Excuse me, I have to go and speak to... anyone else.” ~-~-~-~-~-~- “I don't trust them, they're stealing our look.” “They look nothing like us!” “Look at her with her bloody milky lens. She's wearing your face! Doesn't that get you pissed off at all?” “Getting me a bit randy actually.” “If you're unfaithful to me I'll kill her and make you eat her heart.” “Christ, you're hot when you're jealous.” ~-~-~-~-~-~- “Are they still staring?” “...no” “They are still staring, aren't they?” “...maybe” “Why are we here again?” “We promised Naboo.” “Bloody Naboo.” “Play nice, darling” “One double date with them and we're part of this bloody extended family of theirs.” “Free champagne at the reception though. And besides, everyone knows that sex after a wedding is the best. Except for the poor sods getting married obviously.” “Those electro girls are freaking me out. The little one keeps making stabby hand gestures.” “Little? She's the same height as you!” “Shut your mouth!” ~-~-~-~-~-~- Bryan Ferry was waiting to walk Vince up the aisle. He peeked around the corner at the crowded room. It seemed to be largely made up of scene kids looking fashionably bored, slightly nervous jazz fans and a much bigger selection of various monstrous beasts. In the corner a man made out of sandpaper was discretely chatting up a man made of chamois leathers and jay cloths. He was feeling nervous. He wanted to be back in the forest with trees surrounding him on all sides. He'd sniffed his son's mother-in-law to be, on the neck, and it had all gotten considerably awkward. That would be interesting at the brunch for the close family tomorrow morning. ~-~-~-~-~-~- Vince walked straight forward and all of a sudden, everything else fell away. He forgot about guest-lists and flower arrangements and his hair, and all he could fit into his world view was Howard waiting for him at the end of that long walk. He hadn't seen what Howard would be wearing, they'd decided that they'd already had three lifetimes share of bad luck resulting from broken traditions. He had actually worn a suit. He'd been threatening to wear a Hawaiian shirt and shorts and Vince had been only just sure that he was joking. Vince himself was wearing an elaborate lacy tunic over a pair of knee length leggings. He hadn't felt comfortable in either a morning suit or the white dress so he'd settled for some kind of a mix of the two. He wasn't sure if the result was genius or just bizarre. The way Howard was looking at him, he didn't think it mattered anymore. ~-~-~-~-~-~- “You may now kiss the bride...groom,” Dennis said finally and looked eagerly at the blushing newly-weds. Howard shyly kissed Vince on the lips and Vince threw his arms around his neck. A plaintive cry went through the church and they broke apart to see Old Gregg sobbing onto the Hitcher's shoulder. “Don't worry about him,” Vince whispered, seeing Howard's slightly guilty expression, “He'll get some cock afterwards. Everyone loves the broken hearted ex-girlfriend at a wedding.” “We never actually went out per se, Vince. He kidnapped me,” Howard replied quietly, into his husband's hair. “You look beautiful,” he said, cupping Vince's face in both hands. “You're not so bad, yourself,” Vince giggled, “Not as good as me, obviously, but I think Gregg won't be the only jealous bitch wishing me dead by the end of the night.” “Get in me wheelbarrow, you cheeky vixen.” “I was always in your wheelbarrow, Howard. I was just waiting for you to bloody notice.” They kissed again. ~-~-~-~-~-~- Naboo was dancing by himself in the middle of the floor, pulling focus from everyone else, including Bob Fossil (who no one could quite remember inviting). He was intermittently accosted by small groups of girls who would whisper in his ear. Each time he would shake his head and they'd walk off, looking deeply disappointed. He was off his tits on free champagne (which wasn't all that free, considering that he was paying for the bulk of this wedding) and a couple of twelve skins he'd smoked in the jacks. He noticed Howard and Vince cuddling, or possibly even canoodling, in the corner and suddenly thought that going over to them would be a fantastic idea. “Howard! Vince! You got married,” he smiled widely and hugged them both enthusiastically. “Why aren't you dancing, it's brilliant! All these girls keep asking me if I want to have a good time, but I'm already having a good time, what're they like? Hey, hey guys whose name are you taking? Or are you going to double bar it? Like Noir-Moon or Moon-Noir. Bollo doesn't have a last name, you know.” Vince was looking around desperately for the aforementioned ape to get Naboo to go and have a little lie down somewhere and Howard was looking at Naboo with concern. “Hey Howard,” Naboo leaned in conspiratorially, “I always liked you. You're a good man-thing-horse. Thing.” Howard patted him on the shoulder and he staggered over to one side. “How come the room's moving? Am I paying for a moving room?” he said before falling backwards into his familiar's arms. He looked up and giggled. Vince smiled at Bollo, who grunted shortly and led Naboo over to one of the couches around the periphery of the room. He lay him down gently and when he tried to leave, Naboo pulled him back, almost on top of him. ~-~-~-~-~-~- “Look at that idiot making a complete arse of himself. I tell you Saboo, it's an outrage!” “The only outrage here is that I was talking to a number of lovely ladies and then you insinuated yourself into the conversation and told them all that I was here with you!” “You are here with me. You're the designated driver, you're here with all of us. If you go off with some bird, who's going to get us back? Kirk? He's worse than Naboo! And I haven't exactly been on orange juice all night either.” “Are you trying to imply that you could operate an automobile if you hadn't been drinking yourself into oblivion? I would pay good money to see you even shift gears.” “What? This is an outrage! Who are you? Jeremy Clarkson?” “You had no right to let those girls think that I was shagging a testicle shaped balloon animal.” “As if, you couldn't have me even if you weren't a prize tit” “I could too, have you. You're aching for me.” “Somebody's dreaming.” “I COULD HAVE YOU TWELVE WAYS FROM SUNDAY, YOU KNOB!” ~-~-~-~-~-~- “Alright, I'm going to toss the flowers!” Vince called out before a tide of womenfolk materialised around him. In the front, jostling for position, the goth girls and electro girls were trying to look casual and unbothered by it. Neon and Anthrax were glaring at each other while Ultra and Ebola conveyed their exasperation to each other with a shrug and a wink. Beside them, Mrs. Gideon was preening and smoothing her hair. Somewhere in the middle of the sea of girls, Eleanor, was managing to make every single man in the room anxiously down drinks and pray. Howard looked at the throng of women treading on each other's toes and jabbing elbows into ribs, with horror. This looked like a riot in the making. Decades of feminism and “doing it for themselves”, whatever "it" was, went out the window in the face of a bride(groom) throwing a bunch of flowers. It was absurd! He thought he saw Old Gregg in there somewhere.... The bouquet arced through the air, over the heads of the crowd, and the room was filled with the sound of fifty women (or close approximations) breathing in sharply. The flowers landed, with a soft rustle, in a pair of small hands. Naboo looked down at the flowers in his hands and back up at the murderous glares of the disappointed women. His cheeks turned red and he looked down again before thrusting the flowers towards Bollo. “'Sfor you,” he muttered. Bollo starting to eat an orchid before looking at the shaman's shining eyes looking up at him. Oh. He swallowed nervously and the Orchis saccifera caught in his throat. Naboo patted him on the back until his familiar stopped choking and shyly took his hand. The crowd of females looked less inclined to riot and some were blowing their noses and dabbing their eyes genteelly. ~-~-~-~-~-~- In the back of the hired limo, Howard and Vince necked like teenagers after a dance. Or, like two people who had just gotten married. “Made it,” Vince sighed and nibbled Howard's ear lobe, sending a gust of warm air into his husband's ear. “Just about,” Howard agreed, kissing the inside of Vince's wrist. “I still think we should have eloped and gotten married by Bowie,” Vince said against Howard's throat. “Naboo would have killed me if I took you away and robbed him of organizing the party.” “Cheeky little jack of clubs. D'ya think he had that planned with the flowers?” “He looked pretty surprised. I think it might have been a happy accident.” “I didn't think much of those wedding cake dollies. I looked hideous!” “Well, don't say anything to Leroy or you'll hurt his feelings.” “Oh alright. Howard?” “Yes, little man?” “I love you.” “I love you too.” “Pity Bono had that other party to go to...” “Vince?” “Yes?” “Shut your face.”

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abysswhiskey11 · 5 years

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Fallin’ For You. [Jim Kirk x Reader]

Pairing: Jim Kirk x Reader.

Summary: Jim and you were high-school sweethearts. You two went through it all together. His rebellious phase, life’s ups and downs at the time. But, one day, you abruptly left. Leaving Jim. What happens when the two of you meet years later? Will you both stay or will you both leave?

Warning: Maybe, language? Does s*** count? angst, but fluff too!

A/N: The fic’s based on a song, called Fallin’ For You by Colbie Caillat! Also, i haven’t edited it so, i’m sorry for any errors in advance!

I don't know

But I think I may be fallin' for you

Dropping so quickly

Maybe I should keep this to myself

Waiting 'til I know you better

You and Jim had met in highschool. It was just as cheesy as anyone would imagine. Sweet, first love.

You had walked in just in time for your first day. Swearing, you climbed off of your motorcycle. Rushing in, you bumped into someone and fell flat on your rear.

“Whoa, there. You okay?”

Your breath hitched the moment you eyes connected with his gorgeous blue ones. They were full of concern and curiosity. That’s when you noticed his extended hand.

You took his hand, got up, dusted yourself and spoke, “Yeah, sorry, i’m almost late. It’s the first day.”

Jim’s heart was thundering, as he took in your beauty.

He shrugged, “I’m always late.”

You chuckled, “Let’s try not to add another one to streak then, shall we?”

I am trying, not to tell you

But I want to,

I'm scared of what you'll say

And so I'm hiding what I'm feeling

But I'm tired of holding this inside my head

You sighed at the state of Jim as he opened the door. He just rolled in eyes and let you in. You gently touched his face, tilting it to see the cuts.

You mumbled, “Please, let me patch you up.”

He softly swatted your hand away, “Why are you here, Y/N. Just go.”

Your lip twitched, “For you.”

“Oh, not on behalf of your father?”

“I can’t help that my dad’s the Police Chief. Come on, those look bad.”

He reluctantly nodded, “Under the sink.”

You fetched the supplies and started dabbing at the wounds.

“Won’t you ask me why I did it? Why I do it?”

You just shook you head and started bandaging the cuts. You felt him stop you. Looking into his bright blue eyes, you felt your heart break for Jim. All you could see was pain, anger and...fear.

“I always get in trouble with the law, Y/N. You’re telling me you don’t wanna know why?”

You smiled sadly, “No. All I care about is you.”

Jim’s lips came crashing down on yours. He could feel you reassuring him, it just made him want more.

I've been spending all my time

Just thinking about ya

I don't know what to do

I think I'm fallin' for you

I've been waiting all my life

And now I found ya

I don't know what to do

I think I'm fallin' for you

I'm fallin' for you

You pulled up to the school and pulled your key out of the ignition. You looked around and spotted him. His messy blonde hair was hard to miss. Jim was joking around with his tight knit group of friends, smirking and laughing once in a while. He must have felt your gaze on him, as he turned around to see you. You would never forget the way his face lit up. And Jim would never forget the smile growing in your face.

You held up the coffee cups as he made his way to you. His lip twitched up, as he took it from you.

“Thank you, starlight.”

“Oh, you’re welcome, astronaut.”

You spent the few minutes you had talking, laughing and flirting. It had been 2 years since you both became official. Time had gone so fast, yet you remembered every small detail.

You gasped, “Penguins deserve the world! They are sweetest, cutest and the most badass when provoked!”

Jim laughed, “You just described yourself!” But soon, his eyes went wide, “Okay, okay, but have you seen Flamingos? I mean, they have so much to unbox! Their neck, their legs, their absolutely ridiculous colour!”

Nodding, you put a finger to you chin, “The only thing these two have in common is-!” And, you faltered, “....Oh my god, they have nothing in common.”

Jim and you burst laughing so hard you couldn’t breathe. Jim snorted, which made you laugh even more. As things, calmed down, you wrapped your hands around his neck. Jim’s snaked around your waist. Yet, you could see him holding back his laughter.

“I love you, Y/N. You really are my starlight.”

“I love you too, Jim. Happy 2 year anniversary.”

As I'm standing here

And you hold my hand

Pull me towards you

And we start to dance

All around us

I see nobody

The tears were flowing freely on your face. You clenched you jaw, willing them to stop but they never did. You let out a strangled cry. You knew you couldn’t ride like this and shakily pulled up. The minute you got off, you collapsed to your knees. Your head pounded, and you heart felt like it had been ripped out. Full of guilt, you took deep breaths, trying your best to compose yourself. Your phone ringed.

“Hey, Dad. Yeah, I’m out of town. I’m reaching the airport in 5. Yeah, yeah, i’m fine.”

Meanwhile, Jim raised his hand to knock on your door. But then, the huge padlock caught his eyes. His breath halted. Shaking, he ghosted his fingers above it. He ran to your neighbour, banging on the door. An old lady, opened the door, smiling sweetly at Kirk. Her smile fell when she saw him clench his jaw, clearly holding back tears.

“The Y/L/Ns. There’s a-a padlock on their door. Whe-Where did they- Y/N- What..?”

She smiled sadly, “You must be the Jim Y/N talked about. Sweetie, they just moved away. Like 30 minutes ago, they packed their bags and went off to the airport. Didn’t say the reason.”

Jim knew he was hyperventilating by now. He just couldn’t understand it. He could register the old lady reach for something behind the door.

“She asked me to give these to you.”

He looked down and felt his heart breaking more. If that was possible. He slowly plucked the photographs of the two of you from her hands. She smiled sadly at him and said something but, all Jim could focus on was you. You had left.

He walked away briskly, running a hand through his lock. He just didn’t make it far before he let out a strangled scream. He took out his anger on the printed memories of you two. Tearing, and ripping. But then, his emotions hit him like a train. He loved you, and you were gone, just like any other person in his life.

Here in silence

It's just you and me

I am trying not to tell you

But I want to

You rested your head against the window, staring at the clouds outside. Your mind was a mess. Just like your heart. You clenched your fists, and shut your eyes tightly, as memories flooded you. The first time you two said the three words.

“You are the last person I expected a lecture from!”

“This isn’t a lecture, Jim! I’m just trying to help.”

He yelled again, “That’s what everyone says! You’re just trying to fix me when I’m not even broken!”

You pleaded, reaching out for him, “I’m not, Jim! I just want you to follow what your heart wants! And I know you well enough to know this isn’t it.”

He scoffed, “You do not know me! I know you’re tired of all this you have to put up with! So why don’t you just leave!”

“I won’t leave because I love you!” Your voice soon turned into a whisper, “I love you, and I’m fighting for you! For us! So please, Jim, fight for yourself, too...”

You sniffed, shaking your head and clutching your jacket. Jim took huge strides towards you. He couldn’t believe that someone like you loved someone like you. He caressed your cheek and ran his hand through your hair. You stroke his bicep and looked up at him.

Jim squeaked, “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean any of it. I’m scared. I’m scared because I’m in love with you, too.”

You kissed his forehead, and ran your hands through his hair, “Then, we’ll get through this together.”

I'm scared of what you'll say

And so I'm hiding what I'm feeling

But I'm tired of holding this inside my head

The club was packed. So many people were on the dance floor, just grinding into each other. Jim was one of them. His hands were on the waist of some alien girl as they swayed. It had been months since you left, and yet, Jim couldn’t let you go. You were a constant at the back of his mind. He tried to bury it. And, here he was, a playboy, someone who just wants to have sex. He wouldn’t accept it but he knew.

He was trying to find you in other women.

He also knew he wouldn’t get you.

It didn’t stop him. He just never got attached or developed feelings. He hated you. Or that’s what he said to himself.

I've been spending all my time

Just thinking about ya

I don't know what to do

I think I'm fallin' for you

I've been waiting all my life

And now I found ya

I don't know what to do

Jim pushed the glass door open and stepped into the office, “Sir, can I know why me and my crew are docked right now? And, about this classified mission?”

The Admiral smiled softly, “Ofcourse, Captain Kirk. You’ll be working with MACO. Specifically, a Major. As soon as she arrives-“

You growled, entering, “Admiral, I might torpedo someone. My team and I-“

Jim’s heart stopped.

No. It couldn’t be her. That voice still haunted me in my dreams. I whipped around and instantly regretted it. It really was her. She stood there just as surprised as me.

You felt like you were a deer caught in headlights. All the memories of the past that you tried to push under the carpet bubbled up. You heart screamed in pain. Those electric blue eyes. They were burning holes in you. Yet, you cleared your throat, and walked up to the Admiral.

You felt your throat constrict as you shut your eyes tightly, willing yourself to focus, till you could no longer feel his eyes. You walked towards the table.

The Admiral motioned to you, with his eyes on Jim, “Captain Kirk, this is Major Y/N Y/L/N. Military Assault Command Operations. MACO for short.”

This time he looked at you, “Major, this is Captain Jim Kirk of the U.S.S. Enterprise. A science vessel.”

You deadpanned, “Captain.”

He growled, “Major.”

You spoke, “Sir, why are making two ends meet? Military and Science?”

He sighed, “We need you to infiltrate a rebel base. But, they have something that belongs to Starfleet. That’s where the Enterprise comes in. You, Y/L/N, need to help secure the base and the rebels. Arrest them. And Captain, you need to secure the various experiments. The official briefing is in an hour. Gather your crew.”

briefing is in an hour. Gather your crew.”

Jim started, “With due respect, sir-“

His cut-throat tone made you gulp, “I don’t care what personal history you have with each other. I need this job done. And done by the best of the departments. So, talk it out.”

You nodded, “Affirmative, sir.”

He walked away, leaving the two of you behind.

You cleared your throat and asked, “How have you been?”

He replied, “Major, we have work-“

You sighed, rubbing your forehead, “We both need to focus on this mission, Kirk. The only way is to-“

He cut in, “-Ignore it. Alright? I don’t care.”

Sighing, you nodded, “Alright, Captain. See you then.”

I think I'm fallin' for you

I'm fallin' for you

Oh, I just can't take it

Jim moved through the crowds and you tagged along. There was tension between the two of you. Anyone passing by could see that easily. Suddenly, you arrived at the Bridge.

Jim cleared his throat, “This is Commander Spock. My second-in-command.”

The Vulcan shook your hand politely, “Hello, Major Y/L/N. Good Afternoon.”

You chuckled “I just smacked myself in the face picking up my comm. It really is a good afternoon.”

Spock rose his eyebrow, but smirked.

Kirk spoke, “We’ll head to the Medbay then.”

You could feel it. The tension. In the turbolift, whenever you walked together. Every time, and your guilt just got worse and worse. After what seemed like eternities, you arrived at your destination.

Once again, Jim introduced you to a blue shirt, “Bones. This is Major Y/N Y/L/N. Major, this is CMO Leonard McCoy.”

“Call me Bones, love. Everyone does.”

You drew out the word, “Okay.” Suddenly your eyes fell on the ball of fluff sitting on the table, “Oh my god, awe!”

Bones gaze floated to what caught your attention, “A tribble? Their only two purposes in life appear to be to eat and to reproduce.”

“Just like humans.”

He chuckled and turned to Jim, “I like her.”

“We should get going. Gonna hit warp in 10.”

You grimaced at Jim’s tone, “Alright, Captain. I’ll be at the bridge in 20.”

At this point, Leonard knew something was wrong. He stopped his best friend and grabbed his shoulder, “Hey, Jim-“

Jim’s voice was full of irritation. And hurt. “Can this wait, Bones?”

Hesitantly, he nodded, “Okay. Yeah.”

The same day, Jim spilled all the secrets to his best friend. Bones.

My heart is racing

The emotions keep spilling out

I've been spending all my time

Just thinking about ya

A few days later.

Jim sighed, “Can i just...undo that?”

Bones deadpanned, “Nope.”

“Oh man, cause that was embarrassing as hell.”

“Yep.”

Spock walked in on the two. Raising his eyebrow, he questioned, “You’re not sober, are you?”

Bones groaned, “I’m reasonably functional.”

The Captain spoke, “That’s a no.”

soon, the two broke into a laughing fit as The Vulcan’s gaze rose to you.

You were currently sitting on top of the counter Jim and Bones were leaning against. He could see amusement dancing in your eyes.

He gave you a pointed look, “Aren’t you gonna do something?”

“I’m paid to protect y’all from various aliens and abuse from any and everyone, not your own stupidity.”

Jim giggled, poking your side, “You’re the best bodyguard ever.”

Spock rolled his eyes and went out the door. You almost saw him smile at you lot.

Bones grinned, “This is gonna be controversial and debatable, but that went well.”

Now the three of you were laughing and wheezing.

The next morning, you expected the two men to be much, much more hungover than you. The reason being that you could hold your alcohol. Striding inside the Medbay, you were ready to pick on Jim and Bones for their killer headaches but, you instead found them chatting. Normally, may you add. You could hear supplies being one of the topics.

Apparently, the two had noticed your shock filled expression as the realisation dawned on them.

Jim smirked at you then turned back to Bones and spoke loud, so that you could hear, “She thought she’s special just cause she can hold her alcohol.”

Coming up beside him, you smacked his shoulder. Bones smiled and shook his head. He had to accept the fact that he had grown close to you. He saw you as his little sister. A little sister who could kick any and everyone’s ass. Jim had told him the history between the two of you on the first day. Hence, he had been sceptical about you. But, slowly and steadily, he grew to admire and respect you.

The way you would coo to a tribble. All little things added up. And he could see in Jim’s eyes, that he could see them too. Just from a different perspective.

He could see the love and hurt flashing in his eyes. Battling and debating. Bones just hoped Jim would figure it out. For both of your sake.

You hummed, “In my defence, we finished an entire bottle of whiskey.”

You were glad that things were working out on the Enterprise. For you, and for everyone. The first few days were bumpy but soon, you grew warm towards all the members of Jim’s crew. And by a miracle, even Jim himself. You knew he had not forgotten and he hadn’t forgiven. But, right now, all you both wanted to do was to push the elephant away. As far away and for long.

I don't know what to do

I think I'm fallin' for you

I've been waiting all my life

And now I found ya

Jim muttered to himself, refreshing his padd over and over again, “What the hell?”

When he realised what was actually happening, he sprinted off towards your room.

Meanwhile, you were packing your uniforms and belongings in a suitcase. Folding and stuffing repeatedly. You felt a sick feeling at the bottom of your stomach. You didn’t want to leave. Suddenly, your doors opened. And in walked the gorgeously blue-eyed man.

“Hey, J-“

He stated coldly, “You’re leaving.”

You took in a deep breathe, “My job’s done. I have-“

His voice raised, as he scoffed, “There you go again with the same crap to justify your shitty actions!”

You gaped at him, “Where is this coming from?”

He snorted, “Oh, ofcourse you’re gonna play dumb about it. Just like you have all these days!”

This time, you yelled, “You don’t understand Jim! You never will!”

“You didn’t even help me try to, Y/N! You don’t get to blame me!”

Instantly the anger vanished, “I’m not-“

“Neither do you have the right to be jealous when I flirt with someone else!”

You stared at him like a deer in the headlights.

He just scoffed to your reaction, “Yeah, I’ve seen it. You don’t have the right to, after all this time!”

He ran a shaky hand through his hair and pointed to you, “You don’t have the right to stroll up to me and my crew and pretend we’re friends! Cause let me make you clear we aren’t! We are far from friends or more!”

You were in the verge of tears by now, “I’m not pretending! I’m trying to make amends! I’m try to make amends for leaving! For abandoning you! I am trying to get out of this web of lies I’ve spun!” You sighed in frustration and turned away from him, “Till this day, I regret what I did! I loved you, Jim! I had to choose between us and my goddamn life!”

Jim froze at that. All his rage vanished, as the realisation slowly started creeping in, “What do you mean your life?”

You just growled at your helplessness in the situation, “I am sorry.” Leaning on your wall, you back was towards him. Your voice broke, “I know it won’t help but i broke just as much as you did, when I left.”

Suddenly, he turned cold again, “You wouldn’t know anything about that.”

You scoffed at him in disbelief. Tears were steaming down your face freely now but you didn’t care. Yet again, your voice rose, “You tell me what I was supposed to do after witnessing a murder! You think Witness Protection was my idea?! That maniac almost killed me and my family! I went for MACO because that’s the only reason I could live my life freely and protect my family! You weren’t there when I called your home, Jim! You had left for Starfleet! I wasn’t gonna take that away from you!”

The pair of you went rigid at your confession.

Million thoughts were running around your head. You didn’t want this to happen. God, no. You wanted, you needed to protect him. Yet, here you were, you secret out. Shaking your head, you composed yourself and sniffed, “I need to go. The shuttle’s waiting.”

He watched you go. The doors shut. That’s when it all dawned on him. The reality of the situation. The hurt, the pain, the anger of it. Once again, he ran. He ran towards you. He ran towards the woman he loved and will always love. He ran to get you back.

Jim caught your wrists and turned you around, not letting go of your hands, “I don’t want you to go. I don’t want to let you go. I never stopped loving you, Y/N. I never will. You’re my first and last, Y/L/N. Don’t let go.”

Never before had you even considered this happening. But, it was happening.

Jim didn’t hate you. Not at all. The reality was the exact opposite of what you had been thinking.

Gasping, you tore his your hands away from his and pressed them against his cheeks. Pulling him towards you, you connected your lips with his.

Nothing about the kiss had changed.

You still felt the exact same fireworks. You still felt the exact same love. So did Jim.

Pulling away, your whispered to him, afraid it wasn’t real, “I still love you too. God, I do. Last time, I didn’t have a choice, but this time I do. And, I choose you, Jim Kirk. I’ll choose you over and over and over.”

You never left after that. Not the Enterprise, not Jim, not your crew.

I don't know what to do

I think I'm fallin' for you

I'm fallin' for you

I think I'm fallin' for you

I can't stop thinking about it

I want you all around me

And now I just can't hide it

I think I'm fallin' for you

I can't stop thinking about it

I want you all around me

And now I just can't hide it

I think I'm fallin' for you

I'm fallin' for you

Oh no no

Oh, I'm fallin' for ya

#jim kirk #jim kirk x reader #star trek #star trek aos #jim kirk aos #chris pine #bones mccoy #spock #james tiberius kirk

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semicolonthefifth · 5 years

Text

CROSS Ch7 - La Artilleria

Jason and Charlie drove up north along the Black Road, passing by the vast stretches of open red dirt plains and the rolling horizon of endless mountains. For the past 40 minutes they have driven, speedily going down the Road as Jason kept his focus on the road, whereas Charlie looked to the scrolling environment. Thoughts ran through the young man’s head as he watched the red mountains against vibrant blue skies.

His excitement of Aurora was explicit for all to see, especially as he took in the sights beyond the Black Road. Charlie watched, with an eager grin and an ever-attentive watch. Far off he could see several villages that dotted the landscape, with small cars moving out in between them or toward the Road. The setting was largely vacant, without any other landmarks to stand out within the wasteland.

However his attention soon turns towards Jason Cross, as Charlie relaxes into his seat some more before thinking of something to say to better fill the time. Topics run through his mind, and he feels unsure of where exactly to start - until eventually settled on one and asked politely,

“Excuse me, Jason. If I may ask: how much of this world did you travel when you were part of the Crimson Crosses?”

Jason gives a quick glance over, lazily leaning back as he keeps a hand rested on the wheel. He then answers, a little interested, “Not much, to be honest. We stayed mainly in what the Deltans call Krossim - which is the stretch of open crossing through the mountains here. Up further North, past the Calberi landing station is a giant desert called Conq-Wey-Lay; then South is Taar, where the city of Moreatta is. Of course we’ve only gotten into the tips of either region, never gotten any deeper. Ain’t had no reason to.”

“So you’ve never been to Moresatta?”

“Nope. Again, no reason. I heard it’s nice, safer than life here on the Road apparently. I just don’t have the money or need to ever live in a place like that.”

“I see. You mentioned the Deltans just before; you think we’ll ever see one? Have you seen one?” Charlie seemed particularly excited about that topic, as heard in his brighter tone of voice.

Jason paused for a moment, stuck in thought before finally giving an answer. “Not really. My dad met some in his time, even befriended a couple. Still, the natives don’t much like coming close to the Road, so don’t expect to see one anytime soon.”

“Why’s that? They still have problems with the road?”

“It ain’t comfortable for them. Whole lotta craziness and badness happened for them here, especially on the Road. Been a long time since the wars, longer for us - but for them it still hurts fresh. Many have gotten over it, but the Road is not a place they want to be living near - it’s too different than what they want. In all my time in the Crosses, I’ve barely seen a Deltan walk anywhere close to the Road.”

“Speaking of the Crosses.” Charlie starts, really getting into the talk with Jason. “You mentioned your father a moment ago. Was he in the Crimson Crosses too?”

That got Jason smiling, as he was even more comfortable now while memories of his father came up. He said happily to the young passenger, “Of course! The Crimson Crosses have been a thing since about the War here. My dad served in it, his too, and so on and so forth - right down to Jeremiah Cross and his trusted cavalry. They started out as a pretty good unit working under your government, but when they saw how bad things were turning after the war, they split off and vowed to keep the people safe. They’d ride across the Road, helping villages out and overall giving everybody a gun to feel safe under. Before us my dad, Magnus Cross, probably worked his whole life doing the same thing - even teaching us to take his place when his aim weren’t any good. He kept working, even after our mom died - and he kept raising us good especially after that.”

Charlie, said with some uncertainty after that reveal, “Sorry to hear about that.”

Jason tsk’d, “It’s fine. We uh… didn’t know much about her anyways, other than she had family elsewhere in the wastes. It was when Fred and I were small, but my dad still did a fine job when she went away. He raised us to survive on our own, and in how to aim and shoot like a proper Cross should. We studied the Code that ol’ Jeremia wrote, and we’d go on missions right when Fred and I just turned about 14 years old. Did a lot of things, but most importantly we did our best to capture raiders and brought them before the law. Lotta memories.”

Charlie smiled some, casually looking back at the scrolling landscapes as he said softly, “No kidding. You know, your reports got a lot of attention back home at Tyrell. Radio stations got hold of some of the news that came from here, and they’d relay them as stories for us.”

“You uh…” Jason whispered a bit, amused and curious as he put off a toothy grin, “You saying I’m something of a celebrity back home?”

“Only to a small audience.” Charlie state matter-a-factly, causing Jason to huff out a curse. The young man then continued, “They got popular enough to prompt some collections and archives, but there’s no beating the old stuff. Still, it got me grabbing so much in order to get an idea of what it was like here. There were some favorites: the Black Road Chase; the 8-Man shootout; The Butcher of Red Peaks.”

“Ha!” Jason hollered, his grin fully restored. “The Butcher. Son-of-a-bitch ol’ Hetfield.”

“A favorite of yours too?”

“Oh, Kirk Hetfield? Yeah, a favorite between me and Fred as well. We fought on several occasions, and each time the crazed bastard came back wanting to get back at us. Every time he came around, coming in all red and blood covered and each time we came and slogged a good couple punches his way. Almost became fucking routine, the maniac. Some days we’d just wait by the property, and we’d know that somewhere he was up to his usual business, and then we’d get the call. We became so good we managed to catch him right at the act of his first kill of that very day.”

“Didn’t he carve people up for their fat and meat? We heard he was a cannibal.”

Jason frowned and was taken aback - looking absolutely insulted, “God’s sakes no! Damn assholes in Tyrell making up stories… the man wasn’t a cannibal, not in the slightest. He was just some crazed farmer who just got angry at the government one day, and thought the best way to get under their skin was to start killing farm animals. He only hurt one guy, and that was mostly in self-defence when someone caught him drawin’ and quartering a cow! Absolute fucking head-case! But, you know… he was just troubled, is all. Always under stress; had a lot of hate in his body, and he didn’t know what to do with it most days. My father tried setting him straight once - didn’t work. It wasn't until after several attempts from my brother and I did we finally get to him. I think he’s still out there, and probably way too old to do much harm.”

Charlie was completely silent afterwards, and kept staring on towards the horizon. His face was just blank - still and only ever blinking as his eyes trailed left and right for a moment or two. A long minute passes before he eventually asks,

“How do you draw and quarter a cow?”

“I’d tell ya, but I don’t want to remember. Let’s just say the farmer who owned that cow sold his entire life away for a one-way trip off the planet after that ordeal.”

“Never heard stories like that…”

“You live here long enough and you’ll see all sorts of insanity. Speaking of… we’re about close to where we’re heading.”

Jason begins to swerve onto the dirt, with the sudden shift from smooth sailing to rough riding hitting Charlie the hardest. His gaze to the then scrolling horizon gets shaken up every which way, and all the man could do was hold on for dear life. It takes a moment for him to gather his wits before he asks the million cred question, “Where are we going, exactly?”

“A place to get some answers… and some guns.” Jason replies, pointing straight ahead. Charlie squinted his eyes, getting a good look of what appeared to be… a box.

A lone vertically rectangular box, sitting calmly in the middle of nothing but dirt and the stray rock. The box, from Charlie’s best guess, stood at approximately 6 feet wide around and 12 feet tall, and was entirely constructed from concrete. It was painted in a pure white color, but that didn’t stop the layers of red dirt to add some warmth to its blocky canvas. It also looked like the occasional would-be artist also took their turn at the desert box - even from afar (and closing) - Charlie could make out the blurry, faded traces of graffiti. Aside from the pictures of middle-fingers proudly erect and smiling bullets, there was a tremendous lexicon of slurs and curses painted over each other. Layers upon layers of expletives, especially towards mothers, fathers, and their children born out of wedlock. Much of it had been scrubbed away, either naturally through time or out of the efforts of the box’s owner. Rapidly soon, Charlie could almost make out the most faded out words - and realized that Jason’s car was speeding right towards it.

Charlie nearly screamed and recoiled before Jason made a sharp swerve and came to a sudden stop right before he could hit the box. He was holding onto his seat like a cat, his fingers deep into the leather alike claws. Meanwhile, Jason casually reached into the glovebox and pulled out from it: a gaudy-looking handgun… and a claw hammer. He shoves the gun to his pocket, while keeping the hammer ready in hand.

The two men came then out from the car, though Charlie mostly crawled onto the ground - silently praying that it was there to greet him.

After a couple short breaths, Charlie slowly began to get up and weakly asked, “What was that for?”

“Oh, that?” Jason calmly asked, inspecting the hammer closely, “It’s just how we greet each other here.”

“Who’s ‘we’?” He breathlessly inquired.

“Me and Buddy. We’re good friends.” With that Jason comes over to Charlie, helping him up a bit before slowly making his way around the box.

As the pair came around, Charlie could almost make out some muffled music coming from inside the box - it sounded to be a mix of rap and a language he was unfamiliar with.

Right when Jason and Charlie came to a corner, Jason stops and points at the ground. Confused but too unsure to question what’s going on, Charlie stays where he’s at - all the while peeking out the corner to see what was at the other side.

At the ‘front’ face of the box was another wall, but with a cutout for a window. In the window were several metal bars running vertically, with the hole itself being too small to crawl inside even if there were no bars present.

Meanwhile Jason slowly rounds the corner, sticking to the walls beside the window but never sticking himself out in front of it. Holding the hammer in hand, Jason takes a couple breaths before signaling to Charlie again - this time with a finger wedged into his ear. Charlie does the same for both ears, all the while watching intensely before Jason proceeds to calmly say towards the window,

“Hey Buddy.”

For a split second a gasp is heard, then a record scratch, followed by--

BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!

A flurry of gunshots sound out from the window! Bullets fly as a skeletal, pale hand sticks out from the barred window and unleashes more bullets.

Charlie jumps back away, hard enough that he manages to throw his full weight against the ground. Jason flinchest, yet is otherwise appearing to be lacking in shock.

Eventually the gunshots give way to the sound of clicking, and almost immediately Jason grabs at the hand and pulls. With it comes an equally pale, skinny arm - attached to a grotesquely bony, pale man whose body is slammed against the bars. He pants wildly, his body writhing like a cockroach trying to free itself from its trapped limb. The man lets out a loud series of groans and whines, all with hissing and spitting. The creature keeps pulling, as if at any point the arm would give away completely - all the while Jason, with his hammer in hand, holds it at the ready as he struggles and yells with a mixture of happiness and fury, “Hey Buddy! Been a while hasn’t it?!”

‘Buddy’ starts to laugh (and cry) hysterically, still writhing in panic as he keeps pulling for his arm to be free. Eventually the man stops laughing and instead lets out some dry, wheezy breaths before speaking in a moist, high-pitched voice, “J-Jason?! Oh God, I didn’t think it be you, ol’ friend! J-just got a bit scared is all! Not’in bad about that, right?!”

“Scared?” Jason asks with mocking concern, “Of what?” Now why would you be scared of me when you’ve been so good up to this point. I mean, you haven’t been messing with me in any way, right? Haven’t tried a little something that would send me to a rager?”

“Honest no! Pos’tively, abs’lutely no! I didn- AAAARGH! AAAAAAAH!” Buddy then screams, as Jason starts pelting the man’s arm with the blunt end of the hammer.

“Better learn to stop fucking lying, Buddy!” Jason angrily replies, “One of these days it’s going to get you killed. Now… try again!”

“Nnnnnngh! Fuckin’!” Buddy growls and hisses, shaking fiercely from the pain. “F-F-Fine! I sorta, maybe, kinda tweaked somethin’ in that rifle a’yours back last week! I knew you were gunnin’ for a bounty up West, but I didn’t want ya killin’ one of my best buyers this month! I swears, I thought you’ve give up an’ go! Not chase ‘em over! No harm meant, honest!”

By this point Charlie had risen back up off the floor, and asks nervously, “So this is a ‘good friend’ of yours?”

Jason explains while gripping tighter at Buddy’s exposed arm, “Oh, it’s just how it is with this guy. Buddy’s just been a very bad guy and he needs to understand that setting your customer’s rifles to explode isn’t what makes for a healthy business. Now that that has been brought up…”

He turns the hammer and presses the pointed claw end against Buddy’s forearm - digging but not piercing the skin. This finally causes Buddy to drop the gun onto the floor, as his own grip weakens against Jason’s. Once it’s been dropped, Jason finally lets go of Buddy’s limb, letting the pathetic creature quickly slink back into the box. All Charlie could hear was whimpering from within the box, as Jason picks the gun from the floor and casually wipes the dirt off from it. As he cleans it, he takes a gander and comments, “Recent trade Buddy? I thought they stopped making this model about a year ago. Can’t remember how far back it’s been since I last saw one.”

Charlie slowly comes from the corner to peer into the window more, and some where he can get the full picture of what exactly was inside the box.

Inside he could see an emaciated, pale-skinned man - and behind him, walls filled to the brim with guns. A ton of guns. A whole arsenal with enough firepower to riddle a village to nothing three times over, and with enough ammo to spare afterwards once the dust was cleared. It was a mad mechanic’s wonderland dedicated to the gun, as all sorts hund and lay every possible inch. On strings and on hooks, wall to wall were firearms of varying levels of deconstruction. Rifle butts stuck out from a crate, and disassembled handguns lay across an entire surface of a table wedged and cut to fit in such tight quarters. There were several boxes of gun cleaning kits, alongside a portable welder and engraving machine. All around he could see at least 49 handguns, 20 semi-automatic rifles, 18 shotguns, 4 small machine guns, 6 heavy machine guns, and a library of ammunition ranging from those that can tear flesh like a blender, and those that’ll explode and rittle you with more holes than a grater.

The man named Buddy was another sight, but for different reasons. Looking to be in his twenties, he was a bony, hunched over man with a sickly pale complexion with very little pink in areas. His fat was practically nonexistent, and from head to two he was covered in grease and oil - making Charlie wonder how the hell Jason could’ve kept a tight hold on such a slipper vermin. His face was crooked in all sorts of ways. His nose slanted downward; his teeth were long and pointy, with deepening shades of yellow with no white in sight; his hair was greyed and as about as sickly looking as his body, with it clumping up due to the oil - made worse by the prominent bald-spot encompassing much of his cranium. Tightly strapped around his head were a set of circular goggles, which dug around his eye-sockets and had an orange-ish tint, either by design or dirty circumstance. The only attire he had on him was a set of underwear and socks, neither one Charlie could safely call clean.

Buddy panted and eventually recovered from his brush with Jason’s hammer, before replying with a scowl and a forcibly casual tone, “Y-yeah. Some b-bastard raider came ‘round and traded it in. Said he got it off some former lawman or something.”

He then casted a glare at Charlie, who promptly stepped back with a slight shock and joined closely with Jason.

Jason, meanwhile, brought the gun back to Buddy. All the while he proceeded his conversation as if the beatings he just delivered never happened, “Right, right. Look, Buddy, we’re just here for two things. Try doing us a favor and at least do one of them right, ok?”

“Hrmph!” Buddy groaned, scratching his belly with his left hand while his right was moving to grab a part far off up the shelves. It was then that Charlie could see the other visible detail of Buddy: his long and disfigured arm. It was jointed wrongly, and two areas before the wrist. It twisted and bent in ways no normal arm should, with the shoulder itself having something of a growth or hump. It acted almost independently from Buddy, with it casually grabbing things off the shelves and walls with its three digits. Aside from a thumb, the hand possessed only two fingers, with them being just as thick as the thumb. The way it squirmed and jittered almost brought Charlie to vomit.

Jason notices, proceeding then on with a late introduction. “Oh right. Charlie, this is Buddy. Buddy, this fine lad here is Charlie: he needs a gun.”

Charlie almost reflexively turns at Jason with a face of pure shock, wordlessly shouting ‘what?!’ while Buddy brings his malformed hand back down and takes a glance at the boy. Jason continues to be casual, explaining to Charlie, “Buddy here is a gunsmith, about the best one here for miles. You won’t find any other gun seller willing to sell you a good gun for a cheap price - especially when he’s playing for no side. He’s also a raging jackass who’ll just as sell you a gun as he would have it fall apart before use.”

“Not my fault it’s the winning strategy.” Buddy gleefully points out as he gives a wheezy chuckle. “Can’t let cheap buyers kill my best customers.”

“Won’t work if whoever survives your pranks decides to come back and burn you and the whole damn shop to the ground!” Jason snaps, before resuming his calmer conversation with Charlie. “Anyways, he’s your best guy for a gun out here if you don’t have a lot to spend. They’re quicker and easier to get around here than anywhere else on the Road.”

Charlie, however, brings up a point of much concern before Jason. “Jason… I have no clue where you got the impression, but I’ve never wielded a firearm. I don’t even have a license; shouldn’t I first get one before we…”

He trailed off a bit upon seeing Jason’s face, and the budding laughter he was trying his damndest to restrain. Eventually it breaks through and erupts, as Jason breathes harshly with every sharp laugh that escapes from him. Charlie gets blushed from the embarrassment before Jason calms down and explains,

“Come on man, there ain’t no license to get on Aurora! You come here, you’re just as free as any man or woman to grab a gun. Hell, there ain’t even a license for a car!”

Charlie ponders aloud, looking a bit worried, “That explains many of the things I’ve seen so far since coming here.”

“Look Charlie, just trust me. You’ll need a gun while you’re out here. I’ll give you a quick lesson once we get the chance, but for now just know I won’t be sitting you with anything too strong for ya.” Jason states, turning from Charlie to Buddy as he then starts on the trade, “So how about it? Can we get some guns?”

Buddy cracks his own neck with a twitch before leaning back and keeping away from the window. He snarls and replies, “Alright�� what ya want?”

Jason lists off, “Two UR-5 Wakeman handguns, along with 3 full clips each. An extra box of rounds. One UR-7 Rangers rifle, a--”

Suddenly Buddy starts cackling, taking a sharp breath before exclaiming, “You got some balls if ya thinkin’ of making a buy like that! I know you don’t got the creds for it Jason, so don’t be asking for a rifle you can’t be affordin’!”

“I can afford a Ranger just fine, Buddy!” Jason shouts. “Every farmer and their mother’s got one!”

“Aye, but the price just went up! Sale’s been booming, and supply’s short! Unless you wanting to be as armed as every ‘Farma and his mom’, then you better come back with 850 creds!”

Jason quiets up a bit, eyes widening at the price before he tries to be a little more polite. “Listen, Buddy. I can get the money. The job I’m going on will pay me big-time, and there will be a lot of guns to bring back once I’m done. Just think of it as paying forward on an investment.”

“Fat. Fucking. Chance!” Buddy spits, “I let you off, then everyone will be coming for my neck. If you ain’t got the money for it, you ain’t getting the rifle. Simple.”

Groaning, Jason grabs the pistol he nabbed off Sid and held it over to Buddy. “What about this? This has to be good enough for a trade, right?”

Buddy leans close, eyeing it. Jason holds the pistol in such a way that the grip stays still against the rest of the gun, but a slight twitch lets off a subtle crackle that Buddy is just able to pick up. He rapidly moves back, grimacing with disgust.

“I ain’t taking that hunk of junk! You thinkin’ you can hide trash like that from me? Put that gun here, and I might blast my own nuts off! No deal!”

Jason is just about to start yelling again, even holding Sid’s gun up in the air - ready to throw it down onto the floor. Right then though Charlie interrupts, grabbing Jason’s arm before chiming in with a calm and cool, “I’ll pay for it.”

Things go quiet and calm as Jason looks down at Charlie. His ears perk, and he wonders if he heard Charlie right. The young man looks back at Jason, and as if reading his mind nods and confirms what he heard was true. He then looks at Buddy, as best he could considering the sight, and repeats,

“I’ll pay for it.”

Jason almost suggests Charlie not to do it, but Charlie remains firm and repeats his statement a third time, then adding, “If we need it, then I’m willing to pay for it.”

Charlie is quick to pull out his wallet, and sighing a bit Jason does the same. Buddy grins at them both, giving a full price for both Charlie and Jason to pay off: with the considerable amount paid off by Charlie’s creds, and the last remaining bit by Jason’s. After which Buddy pocketed every bit of it with his normal hand, while the disfigured one automatically slithered up and down the box interior to grab what was ordered. Buddy didn’t even need to look, as the arm felt every gun briefly before finding the right ones to lay at the table - this while he finishes putting the creds away and grabbing the ammunition with his normal hand. After all was collected, Buddy slid out what they bought:

2 sleek handguns with only a bit of grime on them. The guns were fully metallic, with an angular build and box-like slide and muzzle. They both looked a bit heavy.

A semi-automatic rifle, with a scope on top. It was a mix of a wooden body and metal workings, and it had an almost Old Earth Western feel with its curvature and sling. Out of all the weapons, this one was the cleanest.

Then finally the additional ammunition - enough for the job, as Jason hopes.

Jason spent several minutes inspecting each one, checking for any flaws or tamperings. Buddy watched, occasionally twitching in fright whenever Jason sharply turned the guns in any way. After some time, to both Jason and Buddy’s relief, the inspection found all guns to be in good shape - minus some dirt and oil. Jason handed a handgun to Charlie - who looked at it one moment with amazement in finally holding on is his hands for the very first time. It made his heart beat more strongly when he inspected it, and over the initial surprise came in a great weight of responsibility. He dares not to hold it in a way that would seem aggressive - keeping it pointed downward as waits on Jason to finish any remaining business.

“Last thing before we leave, Buddy.” Jason began. “We’re hunting down some gang causing trouble down the Road, and I’m sure you’ve probably sold guns to them at some point. I’m gonna need some directions to where they could be hiding, and so I hope that maybe you’ve seen something of theirs.” He reaches into his pockets, producing the patch he had gotten earlier. Holding it by the window, Buddy is able to get a good look.

After a brief examination, Buddy leans back and says with a grin. “Stone Groove Aces, eh? Bit too small a problem now, don’t ya think?”

“They’re gunning for me, Buddy. Better I deal with them while they’re making it personal.”

“Bah! Who isn’t gunnin’ for you these days Jason.” Buddy coughs, chuckling a bit to himself as he picks a disassembled pistol off a rack and starts to give it a check over. He talks as he works, saying, “Don’t like ‘em though. Bastards, all of them. Get drunk near my shop and start scaring off the good payin’ customers. Their money was alright, but they wanted me to be their sole supplier. Big balls if they thinkin’ of pulling that shit! They ain’t Tarantulas or Jackals, those bastards all new and thinkin’ they big. Heard they got plans or something, making them think they so high and big-time. Only ever met a couple at a time, but I got a good idea where they’re hidin’.”

With his deformed hand casually going under the table, he later brings up a folded piece of paper and hands it over to Jason. He adds, “They’re hiding West, near the Syore Mountains. Go South down the Road till you spot a fort, turn Westward soon as you see it over a hill. If ya’ near the archway, you’re closing in on the right spot. Keep heading towards the mountains till you find a place to walk in through - after that you can use this map here to get a better idea on where they hidin’. It’s all on you though to put in the legwork.”

Jason takes it, inspecting that as well before storing it into his pocket. He begins making his leave, with Charlie following after. On the way out Jason says aloud, “Thank you for your service Buddy. There'll be a lot of guns coming your way once this is over.”

Buddy merely waves them off, all the while grinning to himself. His deformed arm moves up and starts to slide some guns to the side - making room for some future stock.

As Jason and Charlie make their way to the car, Charlie asks worriedly of Jason. “How’re you sure you can trust that guy? He looks and sounds as shifty as you can get.”

“I don’t.” Jason answers.

Charlie gets into the car, confused. Before long Jason too gets in, explaining further,

“Either he’s lying and I come back to kick his ass again - or, he’s honest and he makes a profit off my work. Out of those two options, at the end of the day, he’d rather have the second.”

Partially satisfied, Charlie gives no response to Jason.

After Jason stores the guns safely into his car, and with everything all settled and done, Jason stars the car and turns southward - back onto the Road once more.

#original writing #original work #CROSS #KRONOS #science fiction #western #writing #story #eyeofsemicolon #the5thsemicolon #semicolonthefifth #my writing

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per-ineptia-ad-astra · 5 years

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Star Trek Episode 1.20: Court Martial

AKA: Photoshop Is Nine-Tenths of the Law

Our episode begins with a captain’s log telling us that the Enterprise has been through a severe ion storm, which wrecked up the ship and caused one fatality. Bummer. Evidently the damage was so considerable that for once Scotty can’t just fix it on his own, so Kirk’s ordered an unscheduled layover at Starbase 11 for repairs. Aw man, unscheduled layovers are the worst. Hopefully Starbase 11 at least has a good food court.

Kirk also adds that “a full report of damages was made to the commanding officer of Starbase 11—Commodore Stone.” Sure enough, we see Kirk and this Stone guy hanging out in what I presume is Stone’s office, which looks like some pretty sweet digs. Stone calls up the Starbase 11 pit crew and tells them to switch from working on the Intrepid to working on the Enterprise, because the Enterprise is priority one. I dunno what the Intrepid is in for, but I guess her crew will just be forced to chill out at the Starbase for a while longer, which I’m sure they’ll be real broken up over. Meanwhile, Kirk is looking over some papers. That’s right, actual papers, a whole sheaf of them attached to a clipboard. I think this is the first time on the show we’ve seen anyone doing paperwork with real paper. Maybe Stone just likes the aesthetic.

Stone asks if there’s some kind of problem with Kirk’s deposition, because Kirk has reread it three times now. There’s not; Kirk’s just still brooding over losing a crewmember, and from the look of it he’s been fixating on that report more than a little bit, presumably ruminating over whether there could have been a better outcome if he’d done things differently. But, shockingly, obsessively rereading the report doesn’t seem to be helping anything, so Kirk finally hands it over to Stone. Apparently Stone doesn’t run an entirely paper-based office, though, because he also wants the extract from the Enterprise computer log that confirms Kirk’s deposition.

Said computer log is apparently supposed to be in Kirk’s possession by now, but is not, so Kirk pulls out his communicator and calls Uhura to ask where the heck is Spock, who’s supposed to be delivering the thing. Uhura, puzzled, says that Spock should have been there ten minutes ago. That’s a bit concerning, since after all this is Spock we’re talking about. He’s not exactly prone to getting easily distracted. Maybe McCoy flagged him down to have an argument over something.

While they wait for Spock to show up, Stone passes the time by saying that the whole incident is a pity because the service can’t afford to lose men like Lieutenant Commander Finney. I don’t know what was so special about this Finney guy, but the service loses people all the dang time and they seem to be managing okay. Speaking of which, do they have to go through this every time a ‘shirt dies? Imagine how much time that adds up to in-between episodes. Not to mention the time someone died and then came back—I don’t even want to think about the paperwork for that incident.

Anyway Kirk agrees with Stone about Finney and says that he waited until the last possible moment, but eventually the ion storm got too bad and he was forced to jettison the pod that Finney was in. The whole cheerful conversation is interrupted by Spock finally showing up, via a little two-pad transporter platform tucked away in a little alcove in the wall. Man, I guess you really know you’ve made it when you’ve got a personal transporter platform installed directly into your office. Although personally I think I’d prefer an office that people couldn’t teleport directly into.

Spock’s got the computer log on a floppy disc with him, but he’s looking kinda nervous about something. Kirk asks what took him so long and Spock starts to respond, but before he can Stone grabs the floppy right out of his hand and puts it in his computer, which, uh, rude. Then Spock’s immediately cut off again as the door opens and a woman wearing some truly inexplicable clothes comes marching in.

[ID: A young white woman with brown hair partially tied up, walking through a doorway, wearing what looks like a white tank top under a pale blue gauze shirt with bright blue cuffs and bright blue lapels that come down into a kind of bow and a metallic blue skirt split into rectangular strips, over white tights.]

The woman is in a right mood, which, I would be too if I was wearing that outfit, but she’s obviously got something else entirely on her mind. She marches right up to Kirk and angrily declares that “I just wanted one more look at you—the man who killed my father! Prepare to die!” Wait, no. Not that last part. Sorry, force of habit.

Kirk tries to talk the woman—Jame, he calls her (pronounced ‘Jamie’)—down, saying that Finney was his friend and Kirk did not in fact kill him intentionally, but Jame yells back that Kirk did so kill Finney intentionally because he hated Finney all his life, the MURDERER. Look, lady, just because someone died on the Enterprise doesn’t mean they were Kirk’s personal enemy. No one has that many enemies, c’mon.

But Jame’s too worked up to hear it and all this shouting about murder is making things real awkward for everyone, so Stone asks Spock to kindly remove her from the room. Well, actually, he just says, “Spock, please...” which is a sentence that can end a lot of ways, really. “Spock, please, remove this unsightly woman from my presence. Her tears bore me.”

As Spock gently ushers Jame out of the room, Stone asks Kirk, hey, you did say that you jettisoned the pod after the red alert, right? Kirk says that he did, yes, as he, y’know, stated in the deposition that Stone is literally holding right now. “Then, captain,” Stone says ominously, “I must presume that you have committed willful perjury!” DUHN DUHN DUHN.

Yes, it seems that the computer log that Stone is looking at shows that Kirk actually jettisoned the pod before going to red alert, quite the opposite of what he said. While Kirk stands there looking completely stunned, Stone tells him that he’s now confined to the base, pending an inquiry as to whether a full court martial is in order. Gee, I wonder if the episode titled Court Martial will involve a court martial? I’m on the edge of my seat.

After the titles, we get a captain’s log telling us that the Enterprise is still in orbit, being repaired, while Kirk is standing by until the inquiry happens—but he’s confident of the outcome. So confident, he’s going to casually stroll into the starbase bar to get a drink while he waits for them to clear his name and apologize.

But when Kirk, accompanied by McCoy, walks up to a guy he knows and cheerfully remarks “haven’t seen you since the Vulcanian expedition,” he gets the cold shoulder. (As for what ‘the Vulcanian expedition’ was, your guess is as good as mine.) No one else Kirk tries to talk to seems to be in a friendly mood either. One of them says, “I understand you’re laying over for repairs. Big job?” but this seemingly innocuous conversation starter turns out to be a trap. When Kirk replies that they’ll be there for a couple of days, the guy asks if they’ll be moving out after that. Why ask? Oh, he just wondered how long it would take Kirk to get a new records officer.

Ah. I see how it is. So does Kirk. “You can talk plainer than that,” he tells the guy, and the guy sneers that he could, but, “I think the point’s been made. Ben was a friend of ours.” Meanwhile, somewhere in this exchange McCoy, who knows shit about to go down when he sees it, has acquired a drink to better fortify himself for this nonsense. He tries to pull Kirk away from the brewing fight, but Kirk won’t budge. “No, go on, finish,” he says. “Ben was a friend of yours, and...”

McCoy breaks in with a stern “Jim” and hey, if McCoy is telling you an argument has gone too far you know it has really gone too far. Completely ignoring this, Kirk snaps that he’s waiting to hear the rest. Fortunately, McCoy’s other services don’t end up being required; when the guy says, “Why don’t you tell us?” Kirk stops rising to the bait and says there would be no point because they’ve already made up their minds, then turns on his heel and leaves.

Man, word travels fast around this starbase. You wouldn’t think Starfleet would exactly be loose-lipped about an inquiry into possible murder to begin with, but either they were or these guys heard that Finney had died and immediately assumed that Kirk was responsible all on their own. Then again, Kirk mentions that they were all in the Academy together, and Kirk is the only one wearing captain’s stripes; one wonders if there might have been enough resentment there already to make them a bit eager for blood.

As Kirk leaves the bar he bumps into a guy, catching the attention of a woman coming in, who stops and looks at him in surprise. A woman who apparently is just so comfortable and at home at Starbase 11 that she doesn’t feel the need to wear shoes.

[ID: A white woman with short blonde hair pausing and looking around as she enters a crowded room. She’s wearing a kind of open dress/robe that is green and yellow with tie-dye-like splotches, yellow tights, and no shoes.]

McCoy zeroes in on her with remarkable speed. “If you have any doubt, that was indeed Captain James Kirk of the Enterprise,” he says, which is a hell of a way to start a conversation. The woman replies that yes, she knows, and then asks if McCoy is a friend of Kirk’s. ‘Nemesis’ might be a more accurate term, but sure, ‘friend’ will do. Hearing this, the woman introduces herself as Areel Shaw, also a Friend of Kirk.

“All my old friends look like doctors. All of his look like you,” McCoy comments. There’s...there’s a lot going on in that sentence.

Anyway, McCoy and Shaw go off to have a drink and, presumably, commiserate over how much of a pain in the ass it is to be Kirk’s friend. Elsewhere—and later, presumably, since I’m assuming the starbase legal offices aren’t right next to the bar, but hey, who knows—Kirk and Stone meet to begin the inquiry.

After establishing for the record that this is an inquiry to determine whether Kirk is up for a general court-martial, Stone starts out by asking about Kirk’s relationship with Finney. Kirk says Finney was an instructor at the Academy when Kirk was a midshipman, but that “didn’t stand in the way of [them] beginning a close friendship.” Apparently Kirk and Finney wound up becoming so close that Finney even named his daughter Jame, after Kirk, which seems like a rather unfair thing to do to the poor kid. He could have at least spelled it Jamie and spared her what I’m sure has been a lifetime of mispronunciations. Hopefully this was at least after Finney stopped being Kirk’s instructor, because once you’ve named your kid after a student of yours you’ve probably lost the ability to be real objective about their grades.

But alas, this, uh, heartwarming friendship was not to last. Finney and Kirk didn’t just stop being friends, they stopped being friends so hard that Stone says it’s “common knowledge” that they had a falling out. Dang, and after Finney named his kid after Kirk and everything. That’s even worse than breaking up with someone after getting a tattoo of their name.

Kirk explains what happened: the two of them were assigned to the same ship, and one fateful night he came to relieve Finney on watch only to discover “a circuit open to the atomic matter piles that should’ve been closed. Another five minutes, it could’ve blown up the ship.” Dang, and here I had Finney pegged as a paragon of good judgment. Kirk fixed the problem and then, like a responsible crewmember, logged the incident—which of course brought Finney in for a hefty reprimand, and got him kicked to the bottom of the promotion list. Finney dealt with all this reasonably and rationally, by blaming it all on Kirk. It seems Finney already had some issues, because Kirk says that he had been at the Academy as an instructor an unusually long time before being assigned to a starship, and he felt that the delay looked bad on his record. Well, look on the bright side, man—I’m sure no one paid attention to that part of your record after ‘almost accidentally blew up the whole ship’ got on there.

This is the second time we’ve heard something about Academy students or recent graduates being instructors—remember Mitchell talking about Kirk being an instructor back in Where No Man Has Gone Before. The way Kirk talks about Finney spending a “longer than usual” time doing this at the Academy would seem to indicate that it’s normal for you to hang out at the Academy before starting active duty on a ship, but we don’t really get any more information on it than that, and if that reflects any real-life military academy practice I couldn’t find anything about it.

Anyway, Finney’s been resenting Kirk over this ever since. How he wound up assigned to the Enterprise I don’t know, but watching Kirk become captain of one of the most prestigious ships in the fleet and then having to serve under him day after day while Finney was stuck well below on the rank ladder himself presumably ground a steady supply of salt into that open wound. But enough about Finney’s hangups. Backstory established, the inquiry moves on to the matter at hand: how exactly Finney wound up getting ejected into space. Kirk explains that their scan indicated an ion storm up ahead, so Kirk ordered Finney to go man the pod. Stone asks why Kirk picked Finney and Kirk says he didn’t; Finney just happened to be at the top of the duty roster. It was his turn to man the pod, nothing more to it than that. You know what would be really helpful at this point is if anyone would explain what the heck this pod is or why someone needs to be in it during ion storms.

Once they hit the storm, Kirk went to yellow alert, as per procedure. Things weren’t too bad at first, but the storm eventually grew bad enough that he had to go to red alert, and apparently part of red alert involves ejecting this mysterious pod, whether or not there’s someone in it at the time. Finney knew he had only a few seconds to get out of there, Kirk says, and he gave Finney all the time he possibly could...but evidently, it wasn’t enough.

So, why, then, Stone asks, does the computer log show that Kirk ejected the pod while the ship was still at yellow alert—i.e., before ejecting it was necessary, and before Finney would have had time to get out of it. Kirk doesn’t have an answer for him. Stone asks if the computer could be wrong, which seems like something he should have looked up on his own time, and Kirk says that Spock is running a survey at that very moment, but the odds are “next to impossible.”

At this point, Stone stops the recording, comes around the desk to get all up in Kirk’s space, and starts talking about how being a starship captain is a really hard job. Enormous pressure, all the time, far more than any reasonable person could really be expected to take. A man under all that pressure could easily crack, fumble, make a mistake. That’s what happened to Kirk. No malice, no intentional murder, he’s just starting to slip. At least, that’s what Stone will say...if Kirk cooperates. Yeah, I’ll give you three guesses as to whether Kirk’s going to cooperate, and the first two don’t count.

But Stone persists, really laying the pressure on thick. No starship captain has ever stood trial before, he says, and he doesn’t want Kirk to have to be the first. Really? You guys have been doing this boldly going thing for how long and no captain has ever had to stand trial? Surely someone has fucked up in all that time. It kinda makes me wonder just what lengths Starfleet has gone to to avoid putting any captains on trial before this, especially with all the emphasis Stone puts on how he’s concerned for the reputation of Starfleet as a whole and doesn’t want to see it smeared. Kirk demands to know just what Stone thinks Starfleet is going to be smeared by here, and Stone fires back that okay, if you’re really gonna press that, what he’s seeing is a perjurer trying to cover up either bad judgment, cowardice, or something worse. What, you mean like, murder? It’s cool, you can say ‘murder’ on this show. It’s just sex you’re not allowed to talk about.

Kirk insists that he knows damn well what happened, it was the right call, and he’s not stepping down. Stone gives him one more chance, telling Kirk to accept a permanent ground assignment where he can fade away in safe obscurity—otherwise Starfleet’s gonna bring the whole hammer down on him. Which is quite the tactical error, since presumably ‘permanent ground assignment’ was meant to be the more palatable option. But this is Kirk we’re talking about here. Being permanently grounded is pretty much a fate worse than death for him. Stone might as well have said “you can either stand trial or be thrown out the airlock.”

So obviously, Kirk says he’s going to fight. “Then you draw a general court,” Stone warns. “Draw it?” Kirk yells. “I demand it, and right now, Commodore Stone, right now!”

I get the impression Kirk is just as offended by the idea of Starfleet trying to cover all this up as he is at being accused of this whole thing. He didn’t do this, but if he had done this, he’d damn well expect Starfleet to punish him properly for it. What if there was some much less scrupulous captain in this position, who really did screw up and lie to cover his ass—or worse, intentionally offed one of his own crew over a petty grudge? Would Starfleet give them a quiet out instead of bringing them to justice? You wouldn’t like to think so, would you? That said, while I admire Kirk’s enthusiasm, I don’t think they can hold a general court-martial right now. We gotta at least find an empty room first.

After the break, Kirk gives us a captain’s log saying that the officers who will make up the court-martial board are on their way to Starbase 11. The last court-martial board we saw was comprised of a guy who could only say ‘yes’ and ‘no,’ a guy with the biggest conflict of interest ever, and a guy who didn’t exist, so for Kirk’s sake let’s hope this one is a step up. Meanwhile, repairs on the Enterprise are almost complete. What’s a man to do while he waits for his fate to be decided? Well, I hear there’s quite a popular option involving sorrows and the drowning thereof. Back to the starbase bar it is!

Luckily for Kirk, this time he is greeted not by a posse of passive-aggressiveness but by Areel Shaw, a much better conversational partner. They take a little table by the wall and Kirk, of course, immediately lays on the charm. Though, judging by the concerningly specific answer Shaw gives to his question of “how long has it been?” he’s already done quite a bit of charming there already. He says she hasn’t changed a bit, but she remarks that she can’t say the same for him, presumably meaning that in the sense that Kirk was not up on charges of criminal neglect and possible manslaughter when they last met four years ago. Presumably. I don’t know what they got up to four years ago.

Shaw knows about Kirk’s difficulties because—well, because it’s apparently all over the starbase, for one thing, but more specifically she knows because she’s a lawyer in the judge advocate’s office. Kirk would rather forget about his troubles for the time being and get down to some flirting, but Shaw isn’t easily put off. She comments that Kirk is taking all of this real dang lightly. “The confidence of an innocent man,” he replies breezily. It must be nice to have that much faith in your justice system.

Despite Shaw’s attempts to keep the conversation on track, Kirk is still quite distracted by Shaw herself, while meanwhile I’m distracted by trying to figure out what the hell Shaw is drinking.

[ID: An over-the-shoulder shot of Shaw talking to Kirk, with a drink sitting on the table near the edge of shot, containing an umbrella, a skewer with several brightly-colored cubes stuck on it, and various bits of greenery.]

How was there even room left for the drink in that?

She insists on giving Kirk some advice. The prosecution, she says, is going to build its case on the basis of Kirk vs the computer, and if his attorney tries to defend him on that basis, they won’t have a chance. That’s why he needs a good attorney. Oh, he needs a good attorney? Wow, that is good legal advice. I never would have thought of that. Kirk asks if Shaw herself is game for it and she stumbles a bit and awkwardly says she can’t, she’s busy. Then she reminds him that he really needs to take this whole thing more seriously; his rank is going to have Starfleet looking to come down really hard on him to preserve the reputation of the service. Finally, she gets around to recommending a lawyer: one Samuel T. Cogley. “If anyone can save you, he can,” she says. “He’ll be paying you a visit.” That sounds a wee bit ominous.

Shaw then gets up to go, but Kirk stops her and says she still hasn’t told him how she knows exactly what the prosecution is going to do. She looks at him very sadly and says, “Because, Jim Kirk, my dear old love...I am the prosecution. And I have to do my very best to have you slapped down hard, broken out of the service, in disgrace.” With that she turns and walks out, leaving Kirk to sit there in stunned disbelief that this day actually somehow managed to get worse.

Oof, that’s real rough. Also real conflict-of-interesty. The American Bar Association has a thing or two to say about that, back here in the dark ages of 2019:

The prosecutor should know and abide by the ethical rules regarding conflicts of interest that apply in the jurisdiction, and be sensitive to facts that may raise conflict issues. When a conflict requiring recusal exists and is non-waivable, or informed consent has not been obtained, the prosecutor should recuse from further participation in the matter. The office should not go forward until a non-conflicted prosecutor, or an adequate waiver, is in place.

…

The prosecutor should not participate in a matter in which the prosecutor previously participated, personally and substantially, as a non-prosecutor, unless the appropriate government office, and when necessary a former client, gives informed consent confirmed in writing.

Oh, and:

The prosecutor should not recommend the services of particular defense counsel to accused persons or witnesses in cases being handled by the prosecutor’s office.

But of course, we’re not in America, we’re in SPACE. And who knows how space law works? Maybe conflict of interest regulations were just one of those things we needed to outgrow as a species, like keyboards and amusement parks.

Speaking of things from the past, we then cut to a man sitting in a room, surrounded by old-fashioned, hardbound, made-with-real-paper books. Seriously, he’s got a lot of books in there. Kirk walks into the room and despondently pours himself a drink from one of TOS’s iconic Weirdly Shaped Liquor Bottles. Presumably this is his room, then, and he’s not just wandering around stealing booze from random people. Again. He completely fails to notice that a man with a small library has occupied his quarters until the guy says, “You Kirk?”

[ID: Kirk looking down at a middle-aged white man with receding brown hair, who is sitting in a chair surrounded by stacks of books strewn all over the furniture.]

Kirk wanders over to look over the whole scene with the kind of mild befuddlement of someone who can’t be bothered to be more than mildly befuddled because they’ve had such a long day already that what the hell, this might as well be happening too. “What’s all this?” he asks. “I figured we’d be spending some time together, so I moved in,” the guy replies casually. Wow, sure is easy to just move yourself and an entire small library into a stranger’s room on this starbase. Did we just lose all our door-locking technology at some point in the future? Has mankind just forgotten how to lock things at the same time we forgot how to recuse yourself?

All Kirk has to say about it is a dry, “I hope I’m not crowding you.” The guy asks if Kirk doesn’t like books and Kirk says he likes them just fine, but a computer takes up less space, not realizing that he’s just hit a major conversational tripwire with this dude. He immediately launches into a rant about how he has a computer in his office but never uses it, because he has his own system: “Books, young man, books, thousands of them! This is where the law is. Not in that homogenized, pasteurized, synthesized—do you want to know the law, the ancient concepts in their own language, learn the intent of the men who wrote them, from Moses to the Tribunal of Alpha 3? Books.”

I’m sure this came off differently when it was written, but even by 2019 someone with this attitude would be moving out of “eccentrically but charmingly old-fashioned” and into “straight up bizarre.” Someone in the twenty-third century having this attitude towards computers, outside of some kind of specific religious standpoint or something...it’s difficult to even imagine.

I mean, look, don’t get me wrong, I love books. And I love physical books. Proportionate to the amount of total things that I own, I have a lot of physical books, and they’re dear to me, and I would be very sad at the idea of them becoming obsolete. But the idea that they possess any kind of special magic that makes something any more real or true if it’s written in a physical book versus the same text entered into a computer? No. Of course not. Practically speaking, a computer allows you to access exponentially more information more easily, and a lawyer who chooses to disregard any advantage that big in favor of a personal philosophical preference is not a lawyer I’d trust with my career, any more than I’d trust an ambulance driver who showed up in a horse-drawn cart. Not to mention the practicality of not having to cart so many books around with you everywhere; seriously, if there’s one thing I learned from moving in and out of dorm rooms, it’s how quickly even a small amount of books can become an enormous pain to move back and forth. Heck, I’m amazed that Cogley was able to get so many in here so quickly on his own. Teach me your secrets Cogley.

Of course, at the time of writing, the idea of ebooks and generally accessing information via computers as easily as we do now wasn’t exactly a thing. One could forgive the writers for assuming that Cogley could have a salient point about books being able to store information better than computers—not that he ever makes such a point, or expresses any specific reason why books are better other than that they just are, okay. But it is a bit odd because by this point TOS had already shown us people using the Enterprise computer to read texts (in Where No Man Has Gone Before) or to look up information (in The Conscience of the King) without any problems or limitations with that information being described, unless you count the eye-bleedingly tiny text poor Mitchell was having to deal with. It all adds up to make Cogley seem less like someone whose outlook is unusual but potentially puts him in a position to have insights that others wouldn’t, and more like someone who just hates technology for no real reason.

Also, don’t pasteurize your computer. Bad idea.

Kirk muses that this guy must be either “[insert prejorative term for a mentally ill person here] or Samuel T. Cogley, attorney at law.” “Right on both counts,” Cogley says. “Need a lawyer?” “I’m afraid so.”

They shake hands. Kirk doesn’t look terribly optimistic. But hey, at least they can bond over their middle initials.

With the preliminary shenanigans out of the way, it’s finally time to get this trial started. We cut to Stone hitting a bell with a stick (but like, a ceremonial stick). Along with him, there are three old guys on the board, two in green and one in blue. Stone introduces them as Space Command Representative Lindstrom and starship captains Krasnovsky and Chondra. I don’t know what Space Command is, but it sounds cool.

Stone then tells Kirk that he has the right to ask for substitute officers if he has any objection to the board members, Stone being the president, or Shaw being the prosecutor. This sounds like a great time for Kirk to mention that he and Shaw have personal history and he’d rather she not be the prosecutor, which I’m sure would be a relief to her as much as to him, but of course, he doesn’t, so the trial proceeds.

Everyone sits down, and the computer is turned on to read out the list of charges, because the more things we can have the computer read out for us, the less Throat Coat everyone has to buy afterward. While that’s happening, we see the gallery, such as it is: there’s just some chairs against the back wall where Spock, McCoy, a redshirt woman, and Jame are all sitting. Jame’s still wearing her Sailor Moon getup. Maybe she was in such a hurry to get here and yell at Kirk that she didn’t pack any extra clothes.

The computer asks for the plea and Kirk, of course, says not guilty. For some reason this is followed by a big dramatic chord, even though that’s exactly what we expected him to say. Shaw (who’s wearing a red uniform, which confuses me—is being a prosecuting attorney considered part of Operations?) gets going by calling Spock to the stand. In Starfleet court, the stand is a chair with a glowy circle that you have to put your hand on.

[ID: Spock, in his dress uniform, sitting in a chair and putting his hand on a glowing circle connected to a nearby stand.]

Spock hands over a floppy disc, which I guess is his personal ID floppy, because once it’s put in the computer it reads out all his service info, including all the cool medals he’s received. Shaw then begins the questioning by asking, “As a first officer, you know a great deal about computers, don’t you?” Is that...is that a requirement for being a first officer?

“I know all about them,” Spock replies, a rather sweeping claim to make, but Shaw doesn’t push it. Instead she asks, “It is possible for a computer to malfunction, is it not?”

Okay, I guess Shaw is going to use the tried and true legal strategy of Asking Witnesses To Confirm The Bloody Obvious. While you’ve got him here, why not ask him a few more things, just to be sure? “Is it possible for things to catch on fire if they’re really hot? Can people bleed if you poke them with sharp things? THE COURT NEEDS TO KNOW, MR. SPOCK.”

Once Spock has called upon his extensive expertise with computers to assure us all that yes, they can malfunction, Shaw asks if he knows of any malfunction that’s caused an inaccuracy in the Enterprise computer. Spock says no. You know, aside from last week when we couldn’t get it to stop flirting with people. But when Shaw tries to move on, Spock interrupts to say, “The computer is inaccurate, nevertheless.” Asked to clarify, he says that what the computer is reporting—that Kirk reacted to non-existent emergency—is impossible. He admits that he didn’t see Kirk actually press the button himself since he was occupied at the time. So how, Shaw asks him, can he dispute what the computer says? “I do not dispute it,” Spock says. “I merely state that it is wrong.”

[ID: A screenshot of Merriam-Webster’s definition of the word ‘dispute’. ‘Dispute, verb, disputed, disputing. Definition of dispute (Entry 1 of 2): intransitive verb: to engage in argument: debate. Especially: to argue irritably or with irritating persistence. Transitive verb: 1 a: to make the subject of verbal controversy or disputation//Legislators hotly disputed the bill. 1 b: to call into question or cast doubt upon. //Her honest was never disputed. The witness disputed the defendant’s claim. 2 a: to struggle against: OPPOSE. //disputed the advance of the invaders. 2 b: to contend over// disputing ownership of the land.]

Sure buddy.

Shaw asks where the heck he’s getting this conclusion from, then, and Spock says he knows Kirk. At that point she cuts him off with a request to Stone that the witness be told not to speculate. “I am Vulcanian,” Spock says coolly. “Vulcanians do not speculate.” They can’t decide on what their species is called, but dammit, they don’t speculate!

To prove how logical and detached he is about all this, Spock goes on to give a metaphor about how if you drop a hammer on a planet with gravity you don’t need to see it fall to know that it did, and likewise he doesn’t need to have seen Kirk act to know what he did. “It is impossible to Captain Kirk to act out of panic or malice,” he says. “It is not in his nature.” Debatable.

“In your opinion,” Shaw says. Very, very grudgingly, Spock has to say, “Yes...in my opinion.”

Spock, you enormous dork. Look at him, passionately defending his friend while insisting with so much seriousness that he’s just being logical and this is all a totally scientific, objective viewpoint, because he’s a Vulcan(ian) so he would never speak up for someone just because they’re his friend and he likes and trusts them! Obviously!! God bless you, you incredibly transparent doofus.

Shaw yields the questioning to Cogley, but he says he has no questions, so Spock steps down and Shaw calls the next witness: the redshirt. Turns out she’s the personnel officer for the Enterprise. We aren’t given her name, only her rank—ensign, which seems like kind of a low rank for that position, but who knows how ranks work in Starfleet, honestly. I mean, apparently being the first officer makes you an expert at computers.

Still, I gotta give our nameless ensign this: she’s got some great eyeshadow going on.

[ID: A shot of a young Asian woman in a red uniform with her hair tied up, wearing pale blue and white eyeshadow.]

After confirming that the personnel officer is familiar with the records of everyone on the ship as per her job, Shaw asks her if Finney’s record mentioned a disciplinary action over that whole ‘almost blew up a ship’ thing. Ensign Eyeshadow says yes, and when asked who reported Finney for that, she confirms it was Kirk. That’s right, the same Kirk currently sitting in this very courtroom! Gasp!

With no further questions, Shaw again concedes to Cogley, who again has no questions. On to the next witness: McCoy. Oh man, here we go.

McCoy also hands over his card (these things are completely unmarked—can you imagine the chaos that would ensue if someone dropped a bunch of them?) and the computer identifies him as the ship surgeon, an occasional appellation of TOS’s that never made sense to me. I mean, he is a surgeon, but being the Chief Medical Officer is a bit more than that. It’s like calling Scotty the ship mechanic.

Anyway, whatever his title is, McCoy also has quite a list of commendations read out, so that’s nice. But what Shaw’s interested in isn’t his surgery skills. She wants to talk about psychology, specifically space psychology, which is like regular psychology but in space. No, really—she defines it as the study of what happens when you stick a bunch of people together in the tight confines of a starship for long periods. Unfortunately we don’t have a lot of data on it because our space psychologists keep turning into gods and dying.

Shaw asks McCoy to confirm that he is, in fact, an expert in space psychology. “I know something about it,” McCoy says dryly. Oh, stop, you.

“So you just heard the testimony of your own personnel officer that it was an action of the then-ensign Kirk which placed an un-erasable blot on the record of the then-lieutenant Finney,” Shaw says, “Psychologically, doctor, is it possible that Lieutenant Finney blamed Kirk for the incident?” Do you...need to be an expert in psychology to figure that one out? What class is “can people blame other people for things” covered under in psychology school? Seems odd to me, but a minute ago she had a computer expert up there just to testify that computers can malfunction sometimes, so maybe this is just how space law works.

McCoy’s like “uh, yeah, I guess??” because what else are you supposed to say in that situation? Then Shaw asks him, “Is it normal to return affection for hatred?” to which he replies that, well, no, not generally? In other words, Shaw says, once we learn that someone hates us we tend to hate them back, right? You know, just, hypothetically speaking. McCoy’s a bit confused by that one, since his usual reaction to someone hating him is more like “Oh yeah? Well I hated you first. Now shut up while I save your life, possibly at the expense of my own.” But he admits that sure, that other thing could happen too.

So, Shaw says, moving in for the kill, it’s therefore possible that once Kirk realized that Finney had started hating him, he started hating Finney back? At that point McCoy is like NOPE NOPE NOPE, hold the damn phone right there, that is not how Kirk rolls.

“Any normal human, doctor, is it possible?” Shaw presses. “But he’s not that kind of man!” McCoy protests. “Is it theoretically possible, doctor?”

What is going on in this courtroom? This is such an incredibly bizarre line of questioning. “Is it theoretically possible for the defendant to behave in this way?” I mean fuck man, I guess it is, because any permutation of human behavior is theoretically possible! Spontaneously declaring yourself Emperor of the United States and issuing your own currency is a possible human behavior, but that doesn’t make it relevant to the current situation! You could make someone sound guilty of anything if you’re going with that tack. She could get up there and ask if it’s a theoretically possible for any given human to commit murder, arson, tax fraud, any crime you want to pick, and McCoy would have to say yes because, well, it is! And ultimately he has to say—with a great deal of reluctance and frustration—that yes, it is theoretically possible that Kirk hated Finney in return. Cue dramatic musical sting, as if that statement actually meant anything at all.

Once again Cogley says he has no questions, so McCoy steps down, obviously fuming but managing to restrain himself from starting a fight on the witness stand. At this point Stone interjects to ask Cogley what his deal is, since he’s listened to three witnesses by now and not bothered to question any of them. “I’ve been holding back until we get this preliminary business out of the way,” Cogley replies casually. “I’d like to call Captain Kirk to the stand.” Can he...can he do that? I thought it was still the prosecution’s turn to be calling people. Space law is so confusing.

Apparently Cogley can do that, because Kirk goes on up to the chair, hands over his ID floppy, and puts his hand on the Glowing Circle of Truth. Like the other witnesses, the computer reads out his name, rank, ID number, and commendations...all his commendations. And there are a lot of them. Palm Leaf of Axinar Peace Mission, Grand Kite Order of Tactics, Class of Excellence, Frenterus Ribbon of Commendation...it just keeps going and going, while everyone sits there awkwardly.

Eventually Shaw interrupts to say, look, I don’t wish to imply that Captain Kirk is not super great and has the medals to prove it, but now that we’ve established that could we maybe, y’know, skip to the end? Stone asks Cogley about it, since after all it’s his witness, and Cogley says, “Oh, I wouldn’t want to slow the wheels of progress any...” then waits for Shaw to start drawing a sigh of relief before continuing, “BUT I also wouldn’t want them to run over my client!” So they have to sit and listen to more awards. My favorite is the Starfleet Citation for Conspicuous Gallantry, which makes me wonder just how conspicuous your gallantry has to be for you to get cited for it.

Cogley finally allows them to stop, saying he “wouldn’t want to slow things up too much.” I mean, who knows how long it might take for that list to be fully read out? We could be here all week! Ha ha! Super illustrious career there. Amazing. Totally irrelevant of course, but wow—what a guy, right?

Anyway, onto the actual questioning (finally). Cogley asks if there really was a red alert before Kirk jettisoned the pod, and Kirk says there was, so Cogley asks him to tell them all about it. Kirk starts out talking about the ion storm, but then gets rather sidetracked from giving the actual details to talking about how, despite the charges, there was no malice involved and Finney was treated the same as any member of Kirk’s crew. And no, Kirk did not panic and jettison the pod prematurely either, looking at you up there Stone. This was far from his first crisis and he handled it the same way he handled all the other crises he’s been through: he relied on experience and training and did everything that should have been done when it should have been done. Cool, thanks. That gave us almost no information whatsoever.

Cogley says that Kirk did the right thing...but would he do it again? Kirk says that yes, under those same circumstances, he would, because what he did was necessary to save his ship. “And nothing is more important than my ship,” he adds, which is a line that sure could be misused if taken out of context.

Despite getting a remarkable lack of anything useful out of that testimony, Cogley then cedes the witness to Shaw. Instead of questioning Kirk, though, Shaw opts to show some evidence. About time someone did. I was starting to wonder if this trial was going to consist entirely of vague philosophical arguments.

Specifically, Shaw is presenting the thing that started this whole debacle to being with: the incriminating computer log from the Enterprise. The episode thus far has been rather vague as to the exact nature of this computer log, so you could easily imagine that it was, y’know, an actual log made by the computer of everything that went through it during that particular interval. Nah. Of course not. It’s just footage of the bridge during the incident, because I guess the Enterprise is equipped with security cameras everywhere.

The recording shows us an overhead view of the bridge as Uhura reports an ion storm upcoming. Kirk says they’ll need someone in the pod for recordings. I’m still in the weeds about what exactly the pod is and why someone needs to be in it, but no one feels like explaining. Spock says that Finney is at the top of the duty roster, so Uhura has him report to the pod for “reading of ion slates” which really didn’t clear up my confusion any.

They continue to approach the ion storm, getting increasingly jostled about the closer they get. At this point, Shaw has the video reversed and paused, then magnified to show the panel on Kirk’s chair. That’s some pretty damn impressive magnification, considering that not only did it retain perfect image quality as it zoomed in, it also changed the camera angle.

[ID: 1. A computer screen showing an overhead shot of the bridge, as Shaw says, “Stop.” 2. Shaw saying, “Go forward with the magnification on the panel.” 3. The computer screen again, showing the panel of Kirk’s chair from behind, with five buttons on it; the first three are a yellow one labeled Alert, a red one labeled Alert, a green one labeled Jettison Pod, and the last two are white and unlabeled.]

But more importantly, now that we have a good shot of the panel we can see that not only can Kirk toggle red and yellow alerts directly from it, the ‘jettison pod’ button is RIGHT THERE. Who put that there?! Why? Why would the captain need direct access to that of all possible buttons, and for the love of God, why would you put it somewhere where it could so easily be pressed accidentally?? All it would take is one slip of the thumb and there goes your pod! I’m amazed Starfleet isn’t having more court martials about people being prematurely jettisoned if that’s where you put the button! This is the worst UI ever!

Remarkably, though, Shaw didn’t pause the video just to show us Starfleet’s incredibly bad design policies; she just wanted to point out that Kirk was pressing the yellow alert button, which she carefully describes in case anyone in the courtroom couldn’t figure out that that’s what pressing the yellow button marked ‘alert’ does. Then the log resumes, switching to another camera angle in the process. It sure is nice of the computer to dramatically edit its own footage for us.

Uhura says that there’s a call coming in from the pod, which is just Finney confirming that readings are in progress. Kirk tells Finney to make it fast, because they may have to go to red alert. On cue, the bridge shakes again. Not enough that anyone has to throw themselves across the set, but it’s clearly getting worse. Hanson, at the helm (hey, remember him?), reports that they’re getting “natural vibrations of force two” and then “force three.” That sounds bad. I guess.

Kirk tells engineering to give them more thrust, then calls Finney and tells him to get ready to get out of there because things are looking bad. The shaking gets worse and worse until Hanson is reporting force five. Then, suddenly, we cut back to the chair panel to see Kirk pressing the ‘jettison pod’ button, despite the light still showing only yellow alert. Wow, how convenient that the recording switched camera angles right at that critical moment. I’m sure there’s nothing significant about that.

Shaw freezes the footage there and, as Kirk and Cogley stare in shock, points out to everyone that the ship is clearly not at red alert there. In other words, Kirk jettisoned Finney because of an emergency that didn’t even exist at the time.

All Kirk can do is stare at the frozen image and helplessly whisper, “But that’s not the way it happened.” I dunno, man, that’s what the computer says. Are you saying the computer could be wrong? I don’t see how that could happen.

After the break, we get a nice shot of Starbase Eleven, which contrary to what you may have been imagining is actually on a planet, or at least, some of it is. A very purple planet it is, too.

[ID: A matte painting of a rocky planet with a purple sky and a dim pinkish-purple sun halfway up the horizon, with several tall futuristic buildings in the foreground and a few more scattered across the open plain.]

Visit scenic Starbase Eleven! The premiere place to develop Seasonal Affective Disorder!

Kirk gives us a short, dour captain’s log: “The evidence presented by the visual playback to my general court-martial was damning. I suspect even my attorney has begun to doubt me.”

Cogley is indeed looking pretty grim as he sits in his office/Kirk’s room, playing with a stylus while Kirk paces around the place. “Computers don’t lie,” he says. Boy, for someone who is apparently ready to go into a screed about the inferiority of computers at all times, you’re sure quick to immediately accept their unimpeachable accuracy there, Cogley. Computers, of course, do lie, because computers do whatever you tell them to. Or, to quote another famous sci-fi franchise, “The problem with computers is that they’re very sophisticated idiots.”

“Are you suggesting I did?” Kirk snaps. Cogley hedges that he doesn’t think Kirk lied, but maybe Kirk did have a lapse and make an error. For a moment, Kirk falls into doubt, musing that two days ago he was confident enough in his own judgment to stake anything on it—which is unlikely to be hyperbole since he did indeed put his whole career on the line. But now he’s beginning to be less sure. Is it possible that when the moment came, he really did make that fatal error…?

But Kirk only allows himself to consider that for a moment before shaking away the doubts. No, he says, he knows what he did and he’s standing by it. He tells Cogley that he can back out now if he wants to, but Cogley just shrugs and says there’s nowhere to go except back to the courtroom to hear the verdict.

Shaw made such a big deal about how Cogley was the only person who could win a case against computer evidence, but so far we sure haven’t seen any sign of him living up to that claim. His entire strategy seems to have been to have Kirk testify about his confidence that he didn’t make a mistake, and as soon as the computer log was played—the computer log, need I remind you, that should not have been a surprise to anyone because the fact that it makes Kirk look guilty is the entire reason we’re having this trial in the first place—he’s like “welp, nuthin I can do about that.” I’m kinda thinking it might have been more helpful to get a lawyer who actually knew something about computers other than “they suck and I hate them.”

Kirk’s communicator beeps just then; it’s Spock, calling to say that he’s run “a complete megalyte survey on the computer.” (I’m sorry, megalyte?) “I’ll tell you what you found—nothing, right?” Kirk says.

“...You sound bitter, captain,” Spock replies, and only the public broadcasting standards of 1967 prevent Kirk from saying “no SHIT, Sher-Spock.” But after a moment he says that he’s not bitter enough to forget to thank Spock for all his efforts. “It’s not all bad, Mr. Spock,” he adds. “Who knows? Maybe you’ll be able to beat your next captain at chess.”

Kirk’s attempt at levity falls flat, and not only because he’s talking to Spock; he just can’t muster enough of his usual confidence to make it sound light-hearted instead of tired and, well, bitter. But that joke didn’t die in vain. After Kirk hangs up, we see Spock sitting at his station on the bridge, looking suddenly thoughtful. “Chess,” he says to himself, and then suddenly gets up and leaves.

Unaware that Spock’s having a dramatic revelation, Kirk is all set to get back to moping when Jame bursts into the room. Starting to think that bursting in dramatically is the only way Jame knows how to enter a room. She’s not here to accuse Kirk again, though: instead she makes a beeline for Cogley, ignoring Kirk’s attempt to introduce them, and says, “We’ve got to stop this. Make him take a ground assignment. I realize it wasn’t his fault. I won’t make any trouble. Make him change his plea.”

Well, that’s...quite a turn-around. Kirk gently tells her that it’s too late for that, but he’s glad that at least she doesn’t blame him anymore. She tells him that she’s sorry and that she was so upset at first that she wasn’t thinking when she lashed out at him. She didn’t realize just how close Kirk and Finney were until she was going through his papers and read some letters he had written to her and her mother. And I hope you’re not on the edge of your seat to find out more about Jame’s mom and if she’s alive or dead or divorced or what, because that is the one and only mention of her that we’re going to get for this entire episode.

Anyway, Jame says that she now realizes that the idea of Kirk betraying Finney like she at first believed is ridiculous, and besides, ruining Kirk’s life and career isn’t going to change what happened. Cogley notes that “no use crying over spilled milk” is a bit of an unusual outlook to take towards the guy that, according to all current evidence, probably killed your dad. Kirk shrugs it off completely and says he has to go change since the trial’s resuming soon. “You ready?” he asks Cogley, who presumably feels no such need since he’s been wearing the same clothes for the whole episode.

“No,” Cogley says thoughtfully. “But I may be getting ready...”

Meanwhile, up on the ship, Spock is hanging out in one of the Enterprise’s miscellaneous rooms, playing chess with the computer. Not playing chess on the computer; he’s just sitting with a physical board with the computer reading out its moves to him. You’d think by the 23rd century we’d have better chess programs, but maybe Spock just likes the retro feel.

If Spock was hoping to have a quiet and uninterrupted game of chess, though, he didn’t do a great job picking his spot, because McCoy comes bursting in with a pre-emptive head of steam all built up. He takes one look at Spock and the chessboard and declares, “Well I had to see it to believe it...they’re about to lop off the captain’s professional head and you’re sitting here playing chess with the computer!”

I like the implication here that someone has told on Spock to McCoy. “OMG doctor you’ll never believe what I just saw Mr. Spock doing!” “SPILL THE TEA ENSIGN.”

When Spock doesn’t particularly react to this accusation, McCoy tells him that “you’re the most cold-blooded man I ever met,” which Spock accepts as a compliment. Then, as McCoy is turning to leave—I guess this was just a drive-by call-out—Spock calmly announces that he’s about to win his fourth game. McCoy pauses at the door and says that that’s impossible, but Spock demonstrates his claim by putting the computer into checkmate.

McCoy’s look of open, stunned confusion tells us two things: one, that this is a big deal and shouldn’t be happening (unless Spock is using cheat codes or something) and two, McCoy has a surprisingly thorough understanding of the limitations of the Enterprise chess computer given that we’ve never seen him show any interest in chess whatsoever. Either McCoy plays chess against the computer without telling anyone about it, or Spock talked his ear off about it at some point.

Spock elucidates for us that mechanically, the computer is flawless, so therefore its record of Kirk’s guilt must also be flawless—but, being the super logical and detached person that he is, he just couldn’t accept the reality of that guilt. “So you tested the program bank,” McCoy muses. Exactly, Spock says—he programmed it himself, so he knows that the best he should possibly have been able to achieve was a draw.

So someone tampered with the Enterprise computer log in a way that left no evidence that anything was wrong or out of place with the log, but did make a totally unrelated program malfunction. Sure, that makes sense. You know, the weirdest part about all this to me isn’t even that, it’s that for all everyone talks about the computer log and how the computer doesn’t make mistakes, the computer log in question is, as we’ve discussed, a visual recording. It’s not some kind of hard data entry on what the operations the computer was doing at a certain point, it’s a recording made by a camera! Which means everyone in this episode of a television show is just going around saying “well there’s no possible way to alter an image if that image was recorded onto a computer so I guess that has to be true.” Yes, I realize it was 1967 and they weren’t exactly making this in Final Cut Pro, but that doesn’t make it any easier to take seriously.

McCoy takes a moment to stand there and let this revelation sink in, before redirecting his outrage into demanding to know why Spock is just sitting around with this information. Spock doesn’t deign to answer that, instead calling the transporter room and telling them “Stand by, we’re beaming down.” Note the ‘we’; Spock knows damn well McCoy is coming along whether Spock wants him to or not.

Back on the Starbase, Stone is ringing the ceremonial bell with the ceremonial stick to resume the trial. He announces that “the board will entertain motions before delivering its verdict.” Wow, they really are gonna wrap this whole thing up in all of two sessions, huh. That sure was a quick trial. Then again, I guess there’s not all that much you can do when the defense folded after the first piece of evidence got shown.

Shaw says that the prosecution rests, apparently not even seeing the need to make a closing argument. Cogley stands up next. He tries to come up with something, but all he can manage is to shrug and say, “The defense rests.” Thanks man, you’re a real help. That vague-but-dramatic remark about “I might be getting ready” didn’t come to much, did it?

[ID: Cogley, who is wearing a dark brown corduroy shirt with shiny light brown rounded lapels, two large pockets on either side, and one smaller pocket in the middle of the shirt, standing up at a table and saying, “Sir...”]

“I OBJECT!” “On what grounds?” “I couldn’t think of anything else to say.”

You know, I’ve been giving Jame grief for the Sailor Moon clothes, but I’d really be remiss to not take a moment here to take Cogley to task for what he’s wearing. We’ve got, like, a turtleneck that just didn’t feel like making an effort that day, over some thing that I’m sure was meant to invoke an eccentric academic tweed-jacket-with-patches-on-the-elbows kind of look, but why does it have one pocket positioned directly over the center of the stomach? And what does he have in it? Is that a nail file? What’s going on here? Tim Gunn would never stand for this, I’ll tell you that.

Well, I guess that’s it for our hero. The trial is over. Kirk is guilty--

[ID: A gif from an Ace Attorney game of someone shouting “HOLD IT!” in large bubble red letters over a white starbust.]

WHAT’S THIS?? Two new witnesses have just run into the courtroom! Spock and McCoy have arrived with crucial information just in the nick of time! What a close call. They couldn’t get there any earlier, of course, because they had to stop and change into their dress shirts first. If you’re gonna dramatically barge into a courtroom, you have to look your best.

McCoy starts talking to Kirk while Spock talks to Cogley. Well, I say ‘talk.’ The scene is clearly aiming for ‘frantic whispering’ but they overshot that a little bit; Spock and McCoy are just moving their mouths while making literally no sound. If there wasn’t other sound going on at the same time I would have thought that my cat had ruined my earbuds. Again.

That other source of sound is Stone, yelling at Cogley, who is not the one causing the disturbance but makes a better target I guess. Cogley quickly breaks off the non-conversation to run up and address the board, saying that some new evidence has just been brought to his attention. HOLD IT! Shaw protests—Cogley’s already rested his case! Thanks Shaw. I bet you were that kid who’d remind the teacher that they hadn’t assigned the homework five minutes before class ends.

Stone asks Cogley what the nature of this evidence is and Cogley says that he can’t tell them, he has to show them. Really? I think you could tell them pretty easily. Here, I’ll give it a shot: “Mr. Spock’s discovered a flaw in the computer that indicates it was tampered with after all.” There, sorted.

Shaw protests that “Mr. Cogley is well known for his theatrics.” “Is saving an innocent man’s career a theatric?!” Cogley demands (theatrically). It’s probably not, mostly because I don’t think you can have just one theatric.

Stone tells the lawyers to stop bickering among themselves and that if they’ve got something to say they can say it to the whole class. Cogley is all too eager to do just that now that he “finally has something to talk about.” By ‘something to talk about’ he does not, of course, mean this new evidence and its significance. Rather, he wants to talk about “Rights, sir, human rights, the Bible, the Code of Hammurabi, and of Justinian, Magna Carta, the Constitution of the United States, fundamental declarations of the Martian Colonies, the statutes of Alpha 3—gentlemen, these documents all speak of rights.”

Yes, yes, nice use of “let me remind you that we’re in the future by listing a bunch of real things along with a couple fictional ones” but WHAT are you TALKING about? You just listed a bunch of things that have laws in them! What does that have to do with anything? Are you just trying to prove that you are so a real lawyer? This is no way to win a court case!

It’s not just me who’s confused, either—look at Spock’s face while all this is happening.

[ID: Spock, wearing his dress uniform, looking off at an angle and frowning in puzzlement.]

Cogley starts talking about the various rights these documents speak of, because all of them definitely cover the same ground, sure, that seems right. Eventually he comes around to some kind of point, which is that these documents all speak of the right for the accused to be confronted by the witnesses against them. Well...the Constitution sure does. The Bible says “I answered them that it was not the custom of the Romans to give up anyone before the accused met the accusers face to face and had opportunity to make his defense concerning the charge laid against him.” so I guess that counts. The Magna Carta, on the other hand, basically only says that people (meaning men, of course) have the right to a lawful trial. And the Code of Hammurabi says “If any one bring an accusation against a man, and the accused go to the river and leap into the river, if he sink in the river his accuser shall take possession of his house. But if the river prove that the accused is not guilty, and he escape unhurt, then he who had brought the accusation shall be put to death, while he who leaped into the river shall take possession of the house that had belonged to his accuser,” so I’m not sure how we should go about applying that one here.

But more importantly, you might note that at no point in all this has he mentioned any actual specific current laws of the society they’re in. All he’s said is that some people, at some times, have said that that was a law. You can’t just go around invoking all the laws that anyone’s ever made! It’d be chaos! Alcohol would be simultaneously legal and illegal! Society would collapse!

But before anyone gets the chance to point this out, Cogley barrels right on ahead, declaring that this right—the right to be confronted with the witnesses against him—is a right to which his client has been! DENIED! Shaw jumps up and says that this is ridiculous, which, I mean, yes, for a lot of reasons, but specifically she points out that all the witnesses were produced in court and Cogley had the chance to cross-examine all of them, a chance he didn’t take. Well...technically speaking, everyone Shaw brought to the stand was there to give an expert opinion on something, not because they witnessed the crime. There were no witnesses to the crime, per se. Except for, as Cogley points out...the computer.

“The most devastating witness against my client is not a human being,” he says. “It’s a machine, an information system—the computer log of the Enterprise. And I ask this court adjourn and reconvene aboard that vessel.” Whoa wait what hang on now

Shaw protests this sudden turn of events—not objects, just protests—which makes Cogley start going on about rights again. Kirk has the right to face his accuser, he insists—again, at no point has he cited an actual current legal basis for this right—and if the court doesn’t grant that right, “[they]have brought us down to the level of the machine. Indeed, you have elevated that machine above us. I ask that my motion be granted, and more than that, gentlemen, in the name of humanity, fading in the shadow of the machine, I demand it. I demand it!”

“If you don’t run this trial the way I want humanity is doomed” is a rather bold stance to take, but surprisingly the court seems willing to go for it, because after the break Kirk gives a log to tell us “After due consideration, the general court-martial has reconvened on board the Enterprise.” Specifically, it’s reconvened in the briefing room, or maybe one of the briefing rooms, I’m not quite sure how many there actually are. And evidently Kirk, Spock and McCoy took the time to change along the way, since they’re all back to their regular non-dress shirts.

Cogley asks Spock how many games of chess he won against the computer and Spock says “five in all.” That number’s gone up somehow; earlier he told McCoy it was four. Cogley then asks if this is unusual and Spock says yes, because he programmed the computer himself and gave it an understanding of chess equal to his own. Thanks Spock, that was real considerate of you. Did you add any other difficulty levels in there, just in case there’s anyone on the ship who doesn’t want to play on Deity all the time?

“The computer cannot make an error, and assuming that I do not either, the best that could normally be hoped for would be stalemate after stalemate, and yet I beat the machine five times,” Spock goes on. “Someone, either accidentally or deliberately, adjusted the programming, and therefore the memory banks of that computer.” This is so not how computers work. I’m not even sure that’s how chess works.

Could that have an effect on the visual playback, then? Cogley asks. Shaw objects, saying that “the witness would be making a conclusion.” Is that...not something witnesses are allowed to do? What’s the point of having someone testify about their expert knowledge if they can’t make so much as a simple ‘if→ then’ statement? I don’t know, but I guess Stone does, because he sustains the objection, forcing Cogley to switch tacks.

Hypothetically, Cogley says—you can ask anything if you just put ‘hypothetically’ in front of it—hypothetically, if something like this had been done, it would be beyond the capabilities of most people, right? Spock confirms this, so Cogley asks who, aboard this ship, would that not be beyond the capabilities of? That would be Spock, himself, Spock says, the captain, and the records officer. Hang on, the captain? Since when does Kirk have that much knowledge of computers? And do we really not have any other computer experts on this ship? We’ve got a whole engineering department down there to make sure all the components of the ship are working correctly, but if the computer controlling all those components fails, you’ve got all of three people skilled enough to fix it? None of whom even has a position dedicated to that? Wow, what could go wrong here.

Actually, as Cogley points out, at the moment it’s not even three people—it’s two, because they don’t currently have a records officer. The last one died in a tragic accident involving an ion storm and a pod, you may have heard something about it. Cogley then turns to Kirk and asks him to describe the steps he took to find Finney after the storm. Kirk says he instituted a phase one search, which he describes as “a painstaking thorough attempt in and around a ship to find a man who’s presumably injured and unable to respond.” Of course, since the man they were looking for had been ejected from the ship straight into an ion storm, this search unsurprisingly did not turn anything up.

But...what if he wasn’t? This search, Cogley says, “presupposes, does it not, that a man wishes to be found?” Kirk stares back at him blankly, so Cogley has to elaborate—well, when you’re doing this search, you assume the person isn’t deliberately hiding, don’t you? What if they were? On a ship this size, how well could someone evade a search, if they really wanted to?

The penny finally drops. It’s clear from Kirk’s stunned expression that he never once considered this. He really does tend to think the best of people, Kirk does—even knowing how much Finney had hated him, the idea that he might be trying to get revenge on Kirk, that all this could be anything more than a tragic accident, never even crossed Kirk’s mind. Bless.

“Possibly,” he says grimly. Cogley turns triumphantly to the board and says, “Gentlemen, I submit to you that Lieutenant Commander Ben Finney is NOT DEAD!” Oh, the drama of it all!

We then cut—via a screenwipe, unusually for TOS—to the bridge, where the whole group is now camped out, along with Uhura and two helm officers, all of whom are probably feeling pretty dang confused right now. Stone says they’re waiting for proof of what Cogley said in the briefing room. Cogley says that they’ll have their proof, but first he needs the cooperation of the court in conducting an experiment. He then defers to Kirk, who he’s apparently had a conversation with at some point in-between scenes, because Kirk is able to fill in the next steps of the plan: it requires everyone onboard except the command crew and the trial members to leave the ship. So he’s ordering them all to report to the transporter room. Everyone. All 424 of them. And the transporter moves six people at a time. This is gonna take a while.

Oh, and Cogley’s also leaving; he says he has “an errand ashore of vital importance to the purpose of this court, and [he] will return.” The board is remarkably okay with the counsel for the defense up and strolling off in the middle of the trial with essentially no explanation for where he’s going or why, not something I would recommend trying in a real courtroom.

They are, however, a little concerned about this whole “everybody off the ship” business. Stone asks Kirk if he’s at least leaving an engine crew aboard but Kirk says no: the impulse engines have been shut down, and they’re going to maintain orbit purely via momentum. “And when the orbit begins to decay?” one of the board members said, which incidentally is the only line of dialogue any of them besides Stone have for the whole episode. Kirk just says they hope to be finished long before that happens. Seriously, you couldn’t come up with a way to do all this that doesn’t involve just hoping you won’t wind up crashing into a planet? And how many people did it take you to drag Scotty out of Engineering once you told him this plan? Because there’s no way he went willingly.

Sometime later (we’re not told how long that took, but if we generously assume it takes one minute to transport six people, it had to be at least 70 minutes) with just about everyone now off the ship, Kirk begins explaining to the board that the computer has an auditory sensor. “It can, in effect, hear sounds,” he adds, in case they can’t figure out what that means. “By installing a booster, we can increase that capability on the order of one to the fourth power. The computer should be able to bring us every sound occurring on the ship.” One to the fourth power? You mean...one?

Just then, the transporter operator calls in to say that all personnel have left the ship, except for him obviously. Kirk gives Spock the go-ahead, and Spock pushes a button. Suddenly an extremely loud, distorted heartbeat sound fills the bridge. Oh shit. Okay, who murdered a dude and stashed his body under the floorboards? Own up.

Kirk explains—after telling Spock to turn the sound down before eardrums start blowing out-- that the sound is the computer picking up the heartbeats of everyone on the ship. Just their heartbeats, not any other autonomic noises like breathing or digestion, or the sounds of any of the systems still running on the Enterprise. Just heartbeats. That is one selective auditory sensor you’ve got there. He then says that McCoy is going to use a “white sound device,” aka a microphone with a rubber band around it, “to mask out each person’s heartbeat so that it will be eliminated from the sounds we’re hearing” because that’s definitely a thing that makes sense.

McCoy goes around the bridge pointing the microphone at everyone’s chests (including Spock, whose heart would later be revealed to be somewhere else altogether), which causes their heartbeats to go away one by one. Finally McCoy uses the device on himself, leaving only the sound of the transporter operator’s heartbeat. “Mr. Spock, eliminate his heartbeat,” Kirk says. Whoa now, hey, what do you have against the transporter operator—oh. Oh, I see what you meant.

Spock flips a switch (and they said we’d never need an Eliminate Transporter Operator’s Heartbeat switch on the bridge!). Everyone should now be accounted for...but there’s still the sound of a heartbeat coming from somewhere. Stone very slowly gets up, walks across the bridge to find the most dramatic vantage point to stand in, and says, “...Finney.”

Yep, it looks like Finney is still alive and hiding out somewhere on the ship. Either that, or the Enterprise is haunted. 50/50. Kirk tells Spock to localize the sound and Spock says it’s coming from B deck, in or near Engineering. So Kirk has him seal that area of the deck off, and then heads for the lift, but stops because Stone is still standing there.

“So Finney is alive,” he says. Yes, thank you, Commodore Obvious.

“Commodore, this is my problem,” Kirk says. “I would appreciate it if no one left the bridge.” He hops in the lift, and I guess Stone at this point has completely given up on any attempt to exert control over the trial, because he makes no attempt to stop Kirk waltzing off the bridge. But hey, he’s just going off, completely alone, to confront a man so desperately and irrationally vengeful that he faked his own death to set Kirk up for murder—what could possibly go wrong?

So Kirk goes stalking off down the empty corridors, narrating—not giving a log, just narrating-- to us that “Sam Cogley had gone ashore to bring Jame Finney onboard. We both felt that Jame’s presence would make Finney easier to handle in the event Finney really were alive.” Oh, that sounds like a handy thing for Cogley to do. Sure would be nice if there was any sign of that happening right about now. Any...any time now.

Back on the bridge, everyone is listening to Kirk wander around shouting “BEN!” when one of the helm guys says that he’s “encountering variants.” Spock tells him to compensate. Shaw asks what this means, and Stone says it means their orbit is beginning to decay. Well, that was fast. So much for hoping that wouldn’t be an issue!

Kirk is still walking around Engineering yelling for Finney when suddenly he hears a reply: “Hello, captain...nothing to say, captain?” It’s presumably Finney, but there’s still no sign of anyone, no clue as to where the voice is coming from, so we still can’t rule out the “the Enterprise is haunted” angle just yet.

Apparently Kirk is not a proponent of that theory, because he calls back, “I’m glad you’re alive.” “You mean you’re relieved because you think your career is saved,” Finney sneers back. “Well you’re wrong!” He seems nice.

Kirk squeezes through a gap that’s in the wall for some reason and comes out in another part of Engineering, calling to Finney that it’s not too late, they can help him. “Like you helped me all along, kept me down, robbed me of my own command?” Finney says. “I’m a good officer. As good as you. I’ve watched you for years. The great Captain Kirk!”

Then, as Kirk passes along the wall, an arm suddenly comes out of a gap and sticks a phaser in Kirk’s back. Good news, you found Finney! Bad news, well, just one little minor detail, I’m sure we can sort that out.

“They told you to do it to me,” Finney says as he emerges the rest of the wall from his hiding place. I had figured he was talking into an intercom or something, but apparently he just has really good projection. “You all conspired against me, ruined me! But you won’t do it anymore!” Then he takes Kirk’s phaser and throws it away somewhere. I am shocked, shocked, I tell you, that this man would be so careless about gun safety.

Kirk, still looking unperturbed about all this, calmly tells Finney to put the phaser down. Finney says he wouldn’t kill Kirk—oh, no. Kirk’s own death would mean too little to him, which, well, yeah, it’s hard to care about very much after you’re dead. But Kirk’s ship…

[ID: Finney, a white man with graying brown hair, raising one eyebrow in a demented expression and saying, “Oh, I wouldn’t kill you, captain.”]

If you ever find yourself making this expression during an argument, it’s a good sign you may no longer be the more reasonable party.

“What about my ship?” Kirk immediately demands, doing an excellent job of confirming to Finney that he was right on the money with that one. Finney gleefully says that the ship is dead, he killed it. Specifically, he did something to the primary energy circuits. Huh, maybe emptying the entire ship so that the man we suspected to have an irrational grudge so big he would fake his own death over it could have the run of the place wasn’t a great idea.

Kirk runs over to a comm and asks Spock what their orbit status is. Spock and the helm guy confirm that their orbit is decaying fast, much faster than it should, even with the dodgy orbital mechanics in TOS. They’re out of power, Finney says—he knows this ship too, because it should have been his, would have been if Kirk hadn’t kept him from it. Oh, grow up and go to therapy like the rest of us.

Why kill innocent people? Kirk asks Finney. Finney—who started sweating buckets in-between shots—laughs and says there’s no innocents here, just officers and gentlemen, captains all, “except for Finney and his one mistake, a long time ago...but they don’t forget!” And, you know, the transporter officer, communications officer, two helm officers, the first officer and a doctor. Plus everyone on the starbase below, which was probably not built to survive an enormous starship crashing into the planet. But I’m sure Finney’s worked out some way in which they’re all responsible for his misfortunes as well. Kirk tries to take the bullet, telling Finney to place all the blame on him, but Finney says no, everyone’s to blame! Everyone but him! He was a good officer! He loved the service! He’s a completely reasonable, rational man with great judgment, and that’s why an enormous conspiracy involving all of Starfleet is the only possible reason why he hasn’t been promoted any farther yet! Then he starts crying. Great.

Meanwhile on the bridge, Spock and the helm guy are trying to fix their orbit but having no success, so Spock tells everyone they need to get to the transporter room pronto. But Stone cuts in and says, “Mr. Spock, the court has not yet reached a verdict. We’ll hear this witness out.” DUDE. PRIORITIES.

Kirk is still trying to talk Finney down, saying that it’s not too late for him to be helped, but it will be if he kills all these people. Finney insists that it’s only fair because “they killed [him]” which is either the world’s most over the top figure of speech, or he’s forgotten that he’s only pretending to be dead.

But then Kirk finally gets Finney’s attention by asking if Jame’s included in that deal. Finney, horrified, asks what he means by that, and Kirk says she’s onboard by now. Of course, he has no evidence of this, but Finney believes him anyway. “Why did you do that?” he wails. “WHY DID YOU BRING HER HERE?”

Kirk takes advantage of his distraction to rush him. That’s right, it’s FIGHT SCENE TIME. More specifically, it’s Fight Scene With The World’s Most Obvious Stunt Doubles Time. Seriously, it’s amazing.

[ID: Two shots of a pair of men fighting in Engineering. They are very clearly not the original actors.]

After a lot of general thrashing around, Finney gets his hands on a wrench. Not, like, a futuristic space wrench or anything. Just a regular old wrench, which is sitting on its own little wrench pedestal for some reason, like a museum exhibit.

[ID: Finney grabbing a wrench that’s sitting on a gray block built into the wall.]

Finney grabs it and starts going full Bioshock, swinging wildly at Kirk, but Kirk manages to dodge his way out of a serious head injury. Or at least, his stunt double does.

And yes, Kirk gets his shirt ripped.

[ID: Kirk with the front of his shirt ripped completely off his right sleeve, bracing himself as Finney takes a swing at him.]

Eventually, Kirk manages to get Finney up against a wall and clobber him on the jaw a few times, putting him down for the count. Then Kirk resumes his narration, telling us that, “Beaten and sobbing, Finney told me where he had sabotaged the prime energy circuits. The damage he had caused was considerable, but not irreparable. With luck, I would be able to effect repairs before our orbit decayed completely.”

The reason we’re getting this narration is that originally, there would have been a scene actually showing Jame entering Engineering and Finney’s reaction, which was actually shot but cut for time. Without that scene, the question of whether Jame was ever actually on the ship is kind of left open. Cogley says he was going to go get her, but obviously they haven’t returned by the time the whole heartbeat-test thing goes on, we never hear any word from the transporter operator about them coming up after that, and presumably no one would beam them up once they realized the ship was currently crashing. Kirk telling Finney that Jame is onboard “by now” is clearly a shot in the dark, but since Finney accepts this anyway, the whole venture becomes kind of a moot point.

While he’s narrating, we see Kirk climbing up a Jeffries tube, because, sure, he’s an engineer now, why not. His repair job seems to consist entirely of pulling wires out of the wall with his bare hands, but evidently it works because after a bit of shaking back and forth, the helmsman reports that power is returning. They’re able to activate the impulse engines again and stabilize their orbit. You hear that, Scotty? It’s all good. Put the phaser down.

Stone turns to Shaw and says, “Unless the prosecution has an objection, I rule this court to be dismissed.” Shaw says she has absolutely no objection. Stone doesn’t ask the rest of the board, but they don’t seem to have opinions on anything so it’s probably for the best.

Some time later, after everyone’s come back onboard and, presumably, Finney’s been led away to a quiet room somewhere, Kirk is on the bridge having a little soft focus moment with Shaw. She asks when she’ll see him again, and he says that depends on the stars. Poetic. Then she says that Cogley asked her to give Kirk something—a book. “Not a first edition or anything, just a book. Sam says that makes it special, though.” Yeah, well, he would.

Kirk says he didn’t have much chance to thank Cogley, since he just kind of walked off camera and never came back. Shaw says he’s busy on a case: defending Finney, and he says he’ll win, too. Oh yeah, sure. He did such a great job with Kirk’s trial, after all. I’m sure it’ll be a piece of cake defending the guy whom several witnesses heard confessing to his intent to crash a starship and everyone on it into a planet.

“Do you think it would cause a complete breakdown of discipline if a lowly lieutenant kissed a starship captain on the bridge of his ship?” Shaw asks. Oh lord, have you heard the kind of things that go on aboard this ship? A shirtless crewman bursting onto the bridge with a rapier is just another day in the life around here. Making out with the captain doesn’t even rank.

Sure enough, they kiss, and no one takes any notice. Shaw says goodbye, and Kirk wishes her better luck next time. “I had pretty good luck this time,” she replies. “I lost, didn’t I?”

She leaves, and Kirk takes a moment to put his best serious face on, then goes to sit down in his chair.

[ID: 1. Kirk sitting in his chair on the bridge, flanked by Spock and McCoy. Kirk is saying, “She’s a very good lawyer.” 2. Spock replies, “Obviously.” 3. McCoy adds, “Indeed she is.”]

Court Martial is kind of a...scattered episode. It doesn’t seem to know quite what to do with itself. We’ve got all this stuff about the computer, and about the nature of the computer as a witness, which seems to be building up to some big philosophical point. But in the end it all has nothing to do with anything. The computer log is just a piece of evidence which was tampered with, and there’s really nothing deeper to it than that. All of Cogley’s rants about the computer and elevating it above mankind etc etc all have nothing to do with anything, his attitude never gives him any helpful insight, and in the end the computer is used to help prove Kirk innocent without anyone batting an eyelid at the irony. Meanwhile, the whole story about Finney and his years-long grudge has to share time with this, but the themes of those two story threads don’t really have anything in common, so instead of complementing each other they mostly just take focus away from each other.

There was another scene in here that was cut, although I don’t think that one ever got filmed—originally, it was going to be mentioned at some point that while Jame was going through those letters she mentioned, some things her dad said made her realize it was likely he might try something like this, hence her abrupt turn-around towards Kirk halfway through. But we didn’t get that, and we didn’t get her appearing at the end. I think it would have made the story stronger if we had gotten those scenes instead of people talking about the computer so much. Or they could have gone the other way, and focused more on the drama about the computer instead of having Jame show up periodically for ultimately no payoff. Neither of those stories are inherently bad, it’s just that the focus is too divided to do either one justice. It’s not a bad episode, but I think it could have been better.

Trek Trope Tally: The climactic battle with Finney brings our Uniforms Unformed tally up by one, for a total of 5 counts so far. Next time, everything’s gonna be just :) in The Return of the Archons.

#star trek #star trek TOS #star trek season one #recap tag #star trek TOS recaps #1.20 Court Martial #1.20 Court Martial recap

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