We meet Miss Piper in Menagerie, part one. She works with Commodore Mendez at the starbase there. We learn next to nothing about Miss Piper herself, but we do learn that she and Kirk have a mutual friend (whom we only hear about, but never meet).
When introduced to Kirk by Mendez, this interesting tidbit follows:
Miss Piper (brightly): "I recognized the Captain immediately. A mutual friend described you, sir, Lieutenant Helen Johansson?"
Kirk (uneasy): "Helen... described...?"
Miss Piper (reassuringly): "She merely mentioned she knew you, sir."
Kirk (smiles): "Oh."
What may we derive from this? Well, it seems that Kirk and Piper have a mutual friend, the unseen Helen Johansson. Johansson described what Kirk looked like to Piper so well that Piper recognized Kirk instantly on sight, although she had never before met him.
Kirk calls Johansson "Helen", which implies that they were indeed friends, and not mere acquaintances or co-workers.
Kirk's reaction shows that Johansson may be privy to some sensitive information about Kirk, and Kirk is a wee bit concerned that Helen may have been talking about him too much. Piper OBVIOUSLY was told more than that Johansson knows Kirk, or else she wouldn't have been able to recognize him on sight. Oh, yeah. The girls talked about Kirk A LOT. But Piper has the good sense to clam up about it.
Why is Kirk uneasy about what Johansson might be saying? Are they in the same ballet class, or something like that? No, it's that they are both in the same A.A. support group. No, no, it's that Spock and Kirk got really stoned on cough syrup together one time... and performed a strip-tease a deux in the middle of Main street to the tune of "THUS SPAKE ZARATHUSTRA"... and she's got the pictures.
Actually, nobody really knows why that is, or what it really means.
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