(Surak Award for best zine)
"Tough night," Kirk muttered, not looking at his companion, but still surveying the room.
Spock, too, was watching with interest the other guests as they arrived. "Undoubtedly," he murmured in return. His full attention had been drawn to the opposite side of the room where the President and his party had just entered.
"A good looking man," Kirk whispered under his breath.
"Indeed," Spock agreed.
I've had too much time on my hands lately, Kirk grumbled in his mind. Too much time to dwell on matters that are best not thought about at all. Kirk sighed.
Spock, hearing the soft sound, turned away from his terminal and looked quizzically to Kirk. "Is something wrong, Captain?" he asked, with an almost inaudible note of concern in his otherwise perfectly modulated voice.
Kirk moved through the corridor of deck five, relieved that the Enterprise was making
good time to Altair VI and that he had been able to get a few hours of necessary sleep to recover from his most recent ordeal.
As the party in the main recreation room had shown signs of breaking up, Spock had left his quarters and taken the lift to the observation lounge.
He sat there now, quietly at ease, looking out on the starfield spread before him.
His sensitive hearing caught the sound of a familiar step coming his way.
Spock was slightly taken back by Kirk's testiness and slanted a startled eyebrow. The science officer was the recipient of a Casmarian Citation of Merit award in the Science of Plant Hydrogenetics.
As Kirk lay down and pulled the covers up over his body, he let his mind recall the events of the day. He felt again the overwhelming frustration of being caught in the Melkotian trap, forced, no matter what they had thought of, to replay the fateful fight at the OK Corral.
To begin, as my mother would say, at the beginning, the Enterprise was en route to Beta Cariniae, where Chief Medical Officer Boyce was attending a medical conference. Since we were ahead of schedule, Captain Pike requested and was granted a forty-eight hour R&R for the crew to be spent on Space Station J-3. I must admit that I felt pleased at the prospect of a quiet ship and a deserted science lab. However, when we arrived at the station, Captain Pike requested my company.