Quack - In which Jim is afraid of ducks.

The Quirks of Jim Kirk

Chapter 17

Quack

In which Jim is afraid of ducks.


In Spock's opinion, Wikipedia was a highly outdated page on a highly outdated mode of information. It was also Spock's opinion that his Captain had an illogical fascination with outdated modes of information. He still collected ancient paperback books from the early 21st Century and then tried to debate with Spock about who had the better writing style—Stephenie Meyer or a weird chick called Rori Manning. Spock was inclined to go with the latter, for he did not understand why humans had an obsession with fantasy men that were immortal and sparkled.

Anyway, that debate was fruitless (for though Jim agreed that Rori's work was better, he understood the fad that took over the world for the better part of four years) and beside the point.

The point was, Jim was obsessed with weird things like the Internet. And like most people on the Internet, he discovered early on the wonderful site of Wikipedia.

It was a particularly slow day on the Enterprise and Jim was bored. He had the brilliant idea to look up fears on the Internet because he had recently had a meeting with the big-wigs of Starfleet about respecting crew members' fears. Jim's somewhat logical assumption was that for him to understand the fears, he first had to know what they were. It was understandable, yes, but to all the crew on shift with Jim soon got more than a little annoyed with their Captain and his random spouting off of fears. He would find one that he found interesting—usually concerning sex and Bones and occasionally Spock—he would make an announcement to the rest of the bridge crew. After the one hundredth medical fear that Bones cussed Jim out about, Jim grew bored with Wikipedia and decided to branch out and try Googling some fears.

It was there, in the bridge, amongst his fellow crewmates, that Jim became afraid of ducks.

It was a relatively quiet day on the Enterprise. They were in the middle of space heading toward their next mission. Chekov and Sulu were manning the helm, Uhura was casually checking the communication frequencies in case there was any sudden change in plans, Spock was sitting at his station and playing with all of the bells and whistles there, and even McCoy and Scotty had ventured out of their black holes and were standing around on the bridge, staring off into the black vastness in front of them. And then there was Jim, sitting in the captain's chair and playing on the internet. He had a kid-like look of glee on his face as he tapped in yet another search for 'list of fears'.

"Hey, Bones!" Jim said. "Did you know that you have aviophobia? The fear of flying?"

It seriously would have been more amusing if it hadn't been the six thousandth time Jim had said that (and that was no exaggeration).

"Yes, goddamnit," Bones growled in response. "And did you know that I also have idiotphobia? The fear of idiocy? Especially yours?"

Kirk ignored the jibe and continued scrolling through the list of fears. Suddenly, he went very, very still and very, very quiet.

No one thought anything of it. If asked, they were thankful for the sudden silence. The Captain was beginning to get extremely annoying.

"Oh shit," Jim whispered, his face turning pale.

Everyone turned to look at him. Spock raised an eyebrow.

"Captain, may I inquire as to what has upset you?" he asked.

"Ducks," Jim said in a hoarse voice.

Bones and Scotty exchanged what the hell is going on now looks. Uhura looked annoyed. Chekov and Sulu just looked befuddled.

"Ducks?" Spock asked, his eyebrow rising higher. Someone snickered.

"They're out there," Jim said standing up and clenching his fists. "And they're watching me. You. All of us. With their beady little eyes."

"Captain Kirk, I assure you that there are no ducks to be found anywhere on the Enterprise," Spock said. "However, if this is some form of psychotic break, Doctor McCoy will be more than willing to assist you in any logical manner."

"You damn green blooded hobgoblin," McCoy muttered, making it very clear that he did not like the Vulcan's slight insinuation that McCoy was not a logical being. Which, was true, but that was beside the point.

"You're working with the ducks," Jim whispered, his blue eyes darkening with fear and suspicion. "You're their ring leader. You're the reason why they're..." he gulped before continuing, "watching me."

Spock looked toward McCoy, who glared back in accusation. One would get the sense that Spock and McCoy were Jim's parents and they were trying to figure out who would get the misfortune of trying to talk some sense into the Captain.

It was a very heated staring contest, during which, Jim dropped to his hands and knees, crawling behind the captain's chair, peering out from underneath it and glaring mistrustfully at Spock.

McCoy was the first one to look away, sighing heavily as though a great wound to his pride had been dealt.

"Jim, come along now," he said in a false cheery voice. "We're going to the sick bay now where no duck or Vulcan-duck-ring-leader can find us."

Was it slightly scary that the latter part of that sentence sounded both like a veiled threat and a gleeful chuckle that the Vulcan would be forced to leave McCoy alone?

"No," Jim said, shaking his head wildly. It was a wonder that he didn't bang his head against the chair legs. "They can still watch us there. We must go where it's absolutely safe."

"And where that might be, Jim?" McCoy asked, suddenly looking very, very wary of his best friend.

Jim offered no response. Instead, he crawled out from underneath the captain's chair and stood up, still glaring cagily at Spock. He then proceeded to back out of the bridge, making it very clear that McCoy and only McCoy was to follow.

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Jim's safe place turned out to be the nurses' shower, surprise, surprise. Bones sighed heavily as he followed his friend into one of the stalls.

"Jim, you idiot, what the hell are we doing in the nurses' shower?"

"They won't find us here," Jim stage whispered. "They won't think to look in here."

Bones had to admit that even despite the obvious bout of insanity Jim was currently suffering from, there was some sort of logic to that statement. And that was saying something.

"Well? What are we going to do while we're in here?" Bones asked, resigning himself to playing along with Jim until he could reach his hyposprays and thus sedate Jim until Spock had the opportunity to disable the Internet from the database and Bones had the chance to seek out therapy. For himself.

"We're not going to stay in here," Jim said promptly, losing some of the frightened little kid look. "We are going to rid the Enterprise of ducks."

"I see," Bones said, trying to remember why this guy was his best friend. "And how are we going to do that?"

Jim glanced around suspiciously, nearly jumping out of his skin when footsteps sounded outside.

"They've found us!" he hissed. He grabbed Bones' arm, ignoring the scathing look he received in turn. "Come on, we must find a new safe place. And we must find Chief Engineer Scott."

Bones honestly had no idea what Scotty had to do with any of this. He followed Jim out of the nurses' shower and into the deserted corridor.

"Walk quietly," Jim hissed when Bones bumped into something, swearing loudly. "Or the ducks will find us."

They crept forward cautiously. Rather, Jim crept forward while Bones merely rolled his eyes and trailed behind, muttering obscenities under his breath.

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They had almost made it to the engineering deck when they ran into trouble. Chekov, who apparently had left the bridge for some reason or another, was standing in the middle of his quarters with the door wide open. In his arms, he cradled a baby duck.

Jim screamed. Chekov shrieked and dropped the duckling. Bones cursed. The duckling quacked, looking confused.

Before anyone had a chance to do anything else, Jim took off running down the hallway like a man possessed. The duckling, obviously extremely confused, waddled after Jim, quacking incessantly. If Bones hadn't already been fed up with the entire thing, he might have laughed hysterically at the sight of Jim being chased by a baby duck.

Instead, he turned toward Chekov and raised a threatening eyebrow. The poor Russian genius merely blushed a dark scarlet and muttered something in Russian.

"Ensign Chekov," McCoy said, using his best doctor and in charge voice. "Who gave you permission to keep the duck?"

"Commander Spock, sir," Chekov said promptly.

"He is out of his Vulcan mind," Bones muttered before leaving Chekov to wonder what was going on and proceeded to race after Jim and the baby duckling.

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The annoying quacking. The oh so cute little downy head. The innocent eyes that just kept staring at him.

Jim took all of this in as he sat cross-legged on the observation deck and the baby duckling sat across from him. Staring at him.

"Every single one of your kind is watching me now, aren't they?" he asked in a slightly shaken whisper. "All of them. With their beady eyes."

The duckling quacked once, cocking its head inquiringly at Jim.

"If you tell them to stop, I will let Chekov keep you," Jim said. "You can stay on the ship. Hell, you can probably even get your own quarters if that's what you want. Just tell the rest of your kind to stop staring at me. And Spock. Tell him too."

The duckling quacked again, shuffling a little closer to Jim. Jim shot backward, letting out a little squeak of terror. The duck quacked in alarm and stopped, looking surprised.

"You're not allowed to come closer until you agree to my requests," Jim declared, trying to pretend as though he hadn't completely lost his mind. He was talking to a damn duck. That would not stop. Watching him.

The duck quacked again, this time sounding sad. Jim shook his head. Ducks did not sound sad. All they did was watch and quack and poop and do all sorts duck things.

"I'm sorry if I don't want a hundred of your cousins watching every move I make," Jim said. "It's freaking creepy!"

The duck stared at him, as though proving his point.

"See? There you go again with the watching! Cut it out, will you?"

The duck kept staring. Jim stared right back, suddenly angry. What right did this duck have to stare at him?

"That's it, duckling," he growled, reaching over and picking up the duck. The duck quacked wildly, struggling to get free. "You've done it now."

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Bones found Jim inside the transporter room, fiddling with the controls with a concentrated look on his face. The doctor sighed as he looked toward the pad and saw the baby duckling standing there, looking pathetic.

"Jim, what are you doing with Chekov's duck?" he asked, suddenly feeling very, very old. Again.

"I am sending it to Starfleet," Jim muttered, looking completely serious. The duck quacked.

"Jim," Bones began angrily, trailing off as he got a good look at his friend. Jim's face was red and flushed, a sure sign that he had a fever. Plus, his hands were shaking, another sign that he wasn't doing his absolute best.

"Go 'way, Bones," Jim grumbled as Bones stalked over to him and placed a hand on his head. Jim's head was burning up.

"Damn it, Jim," Bones sighed, right before the captain collapsed, unconscious. The baby duckling quacked once before vanishing in a golden light.

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It turned out that the Captain had been poisoned. It had been Scotty's brilliant deduction that a Klingon had snuck onboard the ship earlier that morning and put a hallucinogen in the Captain's orange juice (Doctor McCoy was the one who figured out the part about the hallucinogen). Exactly how Scotty had figured out that a Klingon had been onboard, no one was quite certain. Nor was anyone certain how a Klingon got onboard undetected in the first place.

It turned out, for the latter at any rate, that duck droppings had ended up in the wiring in the detection program.

"Fascinating," was Spock's response.

Kirk's was to go on a ten minute tirade about how he hadn't been crazy after all. Ducks were really watching them all at all times.

Bones' was to merely hypo Jim.

Two weeks later, when Jim was completely recovered from the effects of the poison, the Enterprise received a missive from Admiral Pike, demanding who the hell had sent him a baby duckling.

You're welcome for the color coding xD took forever-