@firstofficerhobgoblin
Come on, Jim. You’ve got this.
With one last glance at his First Officer, Kirk bit the bullet, walked across the stage, and took his place at the podium.
The crowd was dead silent. Good god! A group of Vulcan Ambassadors would have more pep than this.
The Captain looked down at his notes, and shakily read off the first prepared joke.
“You know- the uh… last time I set foot on this stage, it was because I’d graduated by the skin of my teeth! They couldn’t wait to get me out the door! ”
Aside from a smattering of stifled laughs coming from the back of the crowd, the place was as lifeless as ever.
Oh boy.
Kirk looked down to his speech notes- full of harmless little anecdotes and quips. And quickly, without thinking, he crumpled them up, and tossed them over his shoulder.
“Alright, look. I’m– no Abraham Lincoln. I’ve…. never had much of a knack for these types canned presentations. But I understand that many of you, if you’re anything like me, long to be out there- seeing the stars. Exploring– learning.”
“There’s… so much more out there than this. Earth, the Academy, your lives at home. Wherever you’ve come from, whatever you’ve known– multiply it by…. a thousand. No- a hundred thousand! That’s how many different cultures, ways of living, are out there.”
Jim pulled the mic from his stand and abandoned the podium all together, opting to sit on the front of the stage with his legs dangling down into the first row.
“I… know I’m kind of going against precedent here, but instead of giving a speech, you know, I’d really– uh, like to take your questions. Outside of information that’s classified by the ‘fleet, I’m an open book.”
Glancing to the side of the stage, Kirk was hit by an immediate thought. “Oh! And Spock- Spock if you could come out here. We— we, uh don’t need the slides anymore.”
“My First Officer, Commander Spock is here today as well. First Vulcan in the fleet. A… wickedly intelligent guy. Spock, if you wouldn’t mind answering some student questions, I think you’d have a really good perspective to share as well.”
Spock reluctantly stepped away from the projector. He reluctantly made his way out from behind the curtains, and reluctantly stepped into the light, walking quickly to the edge of the stage and stopping half a step behind his captain, who had for some reason elected to sit on the edge of the stage, dangling his legs like a youth and grinning. Spock would have been much more perturbed by the entire unplanned, unexpected situation had it not been for the full force of that open grin turning towards him the moment he stepped into the light.
Jim gestured to him again, and he nodded to the crowd slowly, raising a brief ta'al.
To his surprise, in the dim light of the auditorium, he saw the shadow of four hands raised in return. A further examination revealed four heads of sleek, black hair. Four pairs of slanted brows sitting heavily atop four sets of inky black eyes that stared back at him, shining with a subtle pride it would take a Vulcan, or Jim, to read. Spock mentally updated his identity to include these four young things in their crisp student uniforms; he was the first Vulcan in the fleet, but it seemed he was no longer the only.
Pride was a human emotion and a human fault that he certainly did not feel in that moment. It was not pride to be struck with the sudden awareness of how your actions had affected other lives.
While he was still examining the four, hands started to shoot up, in the far back of the auditorium, where the youngest students sat. Eager hands waved. Some bounced in their seats, all glad to go above the heads of the frowning brass in the front rows.
With acknowledgement from the Captain, the questions began to pour in. Tactical questions of course, and questions about specific missions, but among them come more esoteric, personal inquiries. The kind of questions that burned in the young students minds, but that textbooks had no answers for:
"What were you not prepared for?"
"Does anything still surprise you?"
"Isn't that a lot of people to be responsible for?"
"Don't you get scared?"
"Don't you get lonely?"
"Once you've been out there how can you ever stand to come back?"
A few questions trickled in for Spock as well, mostly easily answered factual ones from a knot of science students. One particular one from an older student raised his brow.
"With everything out there, doesn't your 'science' ever fail you?" Asked the young man, a blatant and slightly malicious challenge in his voice. He had a hard face, and clear blue eyes. In many ways he could have been a young Kirk, for they shared that classical handsome face, but there was no kindness written in this youth's body language. He was likely one of those military types that still believed deep down that they'd be better off killing alien races than studying alongside them.
Spock saw Kirk stiffen and open his mouth to correct the young man's behavior, so he spoke before Kirk had the chance.
"No." He stated simply, letting it hang for a moment before continuing. "I have encountered things that defy our current systems of measurement and classification. Things that nearly defy conscious understanding. Current methodology almost never fully encompasses the needs of new life forms. But in all that, science has never failed me. Science, despite what many may see of it, is not numbers and instruments and records and theories. Those are merely the trappings and tools of science. Those frequently fail, and there is no higher distinction a scientist can accheive than to prove one of our extant theories wrong and obsolete, so expanding our collective knowledge of the possible. But that is not a failure of science, that is a victory. Science is a set of unbiased processes that we as thinking beings use to understand the functions of the universe. And that way of thinking can only fail if it is actively defied for a more closed minded and fearful approach to the new."
It seemed his response had settled some kind of interdepartmental debate, for the young man sat down looking rather put out, as the entire knot of science students in the middle of the hall burst into applause and cheers, on or two of them even jeering at the asker. His young Vulcans, seated among this knot, did not applaud in the human way. Their hands, instead, tapped against their uniformed chests softly, the fabric of their uniforms sparing their hands the blunt striking force of applause. And this behavior seemed, he was glad to see, to be perfectly acceptable to their peers.
Much had changed from his own academy years.
And so on went the presentation, Jim answering direct student questions, no matter how bizzare, to the visible discomfort of the front rows of brass, and giving special attention to the young and curious. At some point, someone had brought out two chairs for them. Spock gladly folded himself neatly into his, Jim, however, kept to pacing the stage and sitting on the edge, ignoring the chair altogether.
