Star Trek: The Original Series: The Face of the Unknown by Christopher L. Bennett

Author:Christopher L. Bennett
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pocket Books

Ten

Kirk’s fellow prisoner had not been very neighborly so far. The Dassik soldier had given up little beyond his name, Koust. He seemed youthful to Kirk, despite his cadaverous features and booming voice. His intense energy and pent-up rage reminded Kirk somewhat of the young David Bailey—not to mention the young Jim Kirk. But that rage had been an effective barrier to communication in this case. Koust had pegged Kirk as an enemy, the commander of the ship that his pack hunted, and the fact that they were both prisoners did not affect that perception. “You are Federation,” he had insisted, unimpressed by Kirk’s attempts to clarify the difference between First and United. “I am not a fool. You will not win my confidence. I will not tell you anything to pass along to your treacherous masters!” Stimulating conversation with a fellow prisoner was off the table, then.

Still, for the most part, this was one of the most clean and humane prisons Kirk had ever been thrown into. The accommodations were comfortable, there were reading and viewing materials available, the meals were adequate and healthy, and he was beamed to an exercise yard daily—although it had quickly become evident, in his first visit to the yard, that the rest of the prison’s population blamed him for the destruction of Fiilestii and would gladly take his punishment into their own hands. Thus, it had been necessary to keep Kirk in protective isolation. The prison warden, a purple-eyed Kisaja male named Mure, clearly held Kirk in the same contempt as the inmates did, judging from the willies Kirk felt when Mure’s gaze transfixed him for even a moment. But the warden followed the letter of his responsibilities and took the necessary steps to ensure Kirk’s safety, though he made it clear enough that he did so grudgingly. Kirk assumed the same was true for Koust, given that he and the Dassik were the only two inmates in the isolation wing. But their shared pariah status had not led to bonding.

This was not in itself an intolerable state of affairs. Though Kirk was gregarious by nature, he had schooled himself to discipline over his long years in Starfleet. There was a part of him that valued solitude and quiet contemplation, and he had nurtured that side of his character during his time at the Academy, enabling him to excel in his studies at the cost of being perceived as a humorless bookworm. Perhaps he had taken it a bit too far, but he had deemed it necessary to keep his more passionate and unruly side in check. In time, friends like Gary Mitchell and lovers like Carol Marcus had helped him to open up once more and find a healthy balance between the sides of his character. But his quiet, studious side still served him well in the solitary role of a starship commander, and it aided in coping with the solitude of his imprisonment now.

Still, there were more lives at stake than his own.

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