The Operative (A Star Trek novel)

Chapter Five

Flynn practices kata, something that always clears his mind. The formal motion and rhythm, the non-analytic concentration are soothing. It is balm for a mind troubled by too much scheming, too many memories, too many ghosts—and more than he would like on his conscience.

He kicks an imaginary opponent, smoothly withdraws his leg into the next movement, caught up in the flow of form. His gi snaps as he moves, a crisp, popping sound.

The "gym" is really a section of the main shuttle bay that has been cleared and marked off for recreation. Blue mats cover this section, the section given over to gymnastics, martial arts, and the like. Elsewhere, a very real-seeming wooden floor has replaced the featureless plasteel of the hangar deck to form a ball court. Tricks with nanotechnology, another technology that was only fantasy in his youth. Only this section of the hangar is lit, and that from high above, giving the space something of the feel of a cathedral.

A few people are milling around the gym, watching. He is good, but he knows it's not appreciation for his skill that draws them. Even a large ship such as this one is still a small community. People pick up nuances in others' behavior, hear things through the grapevine that every ship has.

Probably none of the crew apart from the handful of officers he has met actually know exactly what it is he has done, but that doesn't mean that they don't all know that somehow he is persona non grata as far as those officers are concerned. He can feel the dislike as a palpable thing hanging in the gym's air.

He went back to his quarters yesterday after the fiasco in sickbay to mull over what had happened. Later, he went to the officers' mess for dinner, only to find himself the only one at his table—even though there had been three other people there when he had sat down. They had pointedly gotten to their feet and moved to other tables.

Today, he has taken his meals in his quarters.

With an effort, he dismisses the watching crew from his mind, concentrating instead on not concentrating, on the tranquility to be had in the silent poetry of motion. An old haiku he heard during training, so many years ago, by a master (unfortunately of martial arts, not poetry) now bubbles to his consciousness:

        Mantis in summer/sits so still, so calm;/deadly peacefulness!

The master was trying to get him to fight without thinking, both untriggered and—especially—triggered.

A mantis, he thinks. As if a mantis ever fights. No, she just lurks, hidden in plain sight, then lunges to kill, even the ones she loves.

How like a spy.

❖

"Commodore Flynn!" someone shouts from the door to the locker rooms, drawing him back reluctantly into the gym's reality from the inner space where he had been floating. 

It is Kirk, wearing maroon sweatpants and a matching baggy sweatshirt, with a towel around his neck. 

"You look like a man in need of a sparring partner."

Flynn feels himself tense, tries to maintain the rhythm, but it is futile, and he knows it.

"No thank you, Captain," he says, hoping he is not rejecting what could be a peace offering.

He knows he got off to a bad enough start with Kirk, even before that business with Jean. Since then, Kirk has studiously avoided him. For his part, he has not sought out companionship, nor has he attempted to explain himself further to Kirk. Over the long years, he has grown used to solitude, even in the midst of a crowded starship.

He moves into the next stance.

"Come on, it'll do you good," Kirk insists.

Is there a note of brittleness beneath Kirk's banter?