He stepped forward, placing a hand on Mitchell’s shoulder. “Keep pressing the attack. Meet their aggression in kind, no backing down.”
The bridge trembled under the Vrot’s fire and its console lights flickered. “Sure, Captain, if you don’t mind a bloody nose,” Mitchell replied.
“Under the circumstances, no, I don’t.” He leaned forward, gesturing at the navigation display. “There. Vector to 109 mark 27. Drive them toward the fifth planet.”
“The fifth . . . Oh!” Mitchell grinned up at Kirk. “Got it, sir.”
The deck convulsed under Kirk’s feet, and he almost fell. As Kirk returned to the command chair, Egdor clung to its back and leaned closer. “Taking such an aggressive tack is exposing us to a lot of damage, Captain. In my opinion, this is a reckless move.”
Kirk smiled confidently. “Let’s hope Grnar shares that opinion.”
Soon, the two ships drew near enough to the fifth planet that its gravity began to affect their courses. Nonetheless, Kirk had his crew continue their head-on attack with no adjustment of their strategy. Egdor furrowed his pale, craggy brow, but this time he kept his counsel even as the Vrot dove nearer the planet and used its lower pseudo-orbit to pull ahead of the Sacagawea. Once it had gained enough of a lead, it would no doubt thrust on a tangent, raising its orbit until it had the high-ground advantage in a head-on approach. Khorasani looked back at Kirk, concern in her eyes. “Sir? Your orders?”
“Wait for it,” he said.
Moments later, the Vrot began its tangential thrust toward a higher orbit.
Moments after that, it was struck by a phaser barrage from a new direction. The Beowulf swept into view around the curve of the planet, keeping the Klingon cruiser in its field of fire and pressing the attack. “Resume fire,” Kirk ordered. “Pincer maneuver.”
Mitchell and Khorasani followed through on the order, and in moments the combined assault had overwhelmed the Vrot’s shields. Split-second conflagrations of escaping atmosphere bloomed from multiple hull breaches before dissipating in the vacuum, and the ship began to tumble.
Egdor’s eyes widened in realization. “You kept track of the other ships. You knew Wesley would be there.”
“It was just a matter of luring Grnar there without him noticing,” Kirk replied.
“That’s why you made it personal. You let him think you were angry, that you were as monomaniacally fixated on avenging an insult as a Klingon would be.”
“And since he didn’t think I was paying attention to anything but him, he forgot to pay attention to anything but me.”
Now Wesley’s voice came over the comms in a general hail. “This is Captain Robert Wesley to the Klingon vessel. We are prepared to beam your survivors over for medical—”
“Captain!” Elena Yu spoke up. “They’ve initiated a warp core overload.”
“Khorasani, veer off!” Kirk barked. “Aft shields to maximum! Kirk to Captain Wesley—”
The blinding flash was gone in an eyeblink, the reaction so powerful that it devoured or dispersed all the matter and antimatter within the Vrot with ravenous speed. But the radiation burst and the subspace shock wave both struck the Sacagawea with enough intensity to rock the ship and overload consoles. Kirk barely stayed in his command chair as the lights went out—and he hoped that power was all that had been lost.
Shinohara’s World
Kirk stood by Robert Wesley’s side, gazing out at the swath of wreckage that had been carved through the colony’s industrial district. “Despite our best efforts,” Wesley said, “one ship got through. Before the Hannibal caught up and drove them away, they managed to pillage half the colony’s most valuable materiel and equipment, devastate the rest, and kill thirty-four people. It looks like they may have abducted up to two dozen more, no doubt as slave labor.”
Kirk clenched his fists, letting himself feel the burden of every loss. “With respect, sir . . . if we let that happen, then this wasn’t our best effort.”
Wesley met his gaze sternly. “No, Jim, it wasn’t. And I’m afraid that’s largely on you.”
In other circumstances, Kirk might have taken umbrage. But he already felt too guilty to question the senior captain’s judgment. It was a familiar feeling—one he had been living with ever since the Farragut disaster four years before. In the wake of that incident, First Officer Cheng had refused to hold Kirk accountable, instead calling him “a fine young officer who performed with uncommon bravery.” But Cheng hadn’t been there in the moment, peering through the sights at the mysterious attacker. He hadn’t felt Kirk’s doubt and disbelief that a mere cloud of vapor could pose a mortal threat to a mighty starship. What his superiors had forgiven as a young officer’s understandable hesitation in the face of the unknown, Kirk knew to be the result of his arrogance and overconfidence. That arrogance had gotten Captain Garrovick and two hundred others killed. And now, despite Kirk’s best efforts to outgrow it or at least tame it, his arrogance had claimed even more lives.
“What should I have done differently, sir?” he asked with humility.
Wesley sighed. “It was a good plan as far as it went. Looking three moves ahead, luring the Vrot to where you and I could take it out together. Unfortunately, Klingons have their own version of chess, and whoever commanded that fleet was planning five moves ahead.
“Jim, you counted on a Klingon believing that you’d act just like them—that you’d place personal honor and retribution for an insult above the mission. And maybe the late Captain Grnar fell for it. But smart Klingon leaders, those who’ve fought us and studied us before, know that Starfleet doesn’t train its captains to act that way. They know we’re trained to place the defense of others above all else. They may find that contemptible, but they understand it’s how we operate. When the fleet commander saw you acting out of character, he must’ve deduced the trap you were setting for Grnar, and he positioned his other ships to take advantage of the opening your maneuver created. He may have ordered Grnar to sacrifice himself so that we’d be too damaged to come to the colony’s aid in time, with the Hannibal and the Sau Lan Wu not being enough to stop them.”
Wesley’s mien grew more solemn. “Once I saw what you were trying to do, Jim, I also saw the opening it gave the Klingons. But you left me no choice but to come to your rescue. You gambled the safety of your ship to move the Vrot into position, and you forced me to gamble the safety of the colony to make sure your gamble succeeded. As a result, I lost my bet.” He turned back to face the devastation. “And the colonists paid for it.”
Kirk absorbed Wesley’s words for a long, painful moment. Finally he spoke. “Captain . . . I’m sorry I put you in that position. It was unfair.”
Wesley shook his head. “It was necessary. Against a lesser commander, your plan probably would’ve worked. But you won’t always have other captains to rely on, Jim. If you hope to command an explorer ship one day, you’ll have to be able to solve any problem you encounter with only your own ship and crew. You won’t be able to rely on anyone else’s help.
“Being a starship captain is the most coveted job in Starfleet,” Wesley finished. “But it’s also the loneliest.”
U.S.S. Sacagawea
“We need to be better,” Kirk said to Mehran Egdor.
“ ‘We,’ sir?” The Rigelian stood alongside the desk in the small ready room that this class of ship had just off its bridge. Kirk paced the room’s tight confines; he had never felt comfortable behind a desk.
“I thought I had every variable calculated,” the captain went on. “And so I didn’t give enough consideration to your cautions, Commander. That was my mistake, and I apologize.”
Egdor blinked, surprised by what he heard. He cleared his throat. “I . . . appreciate that, Captain. But . . . if I’m being honest, sir . . . I underestimated you. I didn’t even see the variables you recognized.”
“Even so, it’s your job to challenge me, to make me think twice. If I had listened, I might have taken a closer look at my ass
umptions and seen what I was missing.” Kirk noted a hint of a grimace that Egdor quickly suppressed. “Something troubles you, Commander?”
“It’s nothing, sir.”
“Whatever it is, Mister Egdor, it’s been interfering with our professional relationship for two months now. You have my permission to speak freely.”
The Rigelian sighed. “I just find it typical of human arrogance that you assume you can always master every problem, triumph over every adversary, if you try hard enough.”
Kirk stared, finding the suggestion bewildering. “I’ve never seen the advantage in thinking otherwise. If you assume ahead of time that you’re facing a no-win scenario—”
“I don’t mean ahead of time. I mean how you react after a defeat. You humans always act as though you’re entitled to victory by default, and you take it as an affront whenever someone else comes out ahead. The fact is, you’re intrinsically no better or more capable than the rest of us. You don’t always get to be the winners.”
“It’s not about humans winning, Commander. Not to me, certainly. My only interest is the success of Starfleet, of the Federation. That’s as much about Rigelians, Vulcans, Andorians . . .”
“Is it really, Captain?” Egdor asked. “Look around you, at your fellow Starfleet officers. Oh, yes, it’s a diverse lot, with several dozen species represented. But look at the captains and most of them are human. Look at the admirals and it’s even more so. Can you deny that?”
Kirk thought it over. He couldn’t deny that of the current task force, only one captain out of four was nonhuman, and the ratio for the starbase’s overall ship complement was little better. “I admit, I can’t. But—”
“Yes, I’ve heard the usual rationalization. That space exploration is simply more central to humanity’s historical role in the Federation, to its sense of identity and heritage, than it is to most other member races. That humans are simply drawn to Starfleet service in larger numbers as a result. But Rigelians have a long history with exploration as well, with contact and cooperation with the sister worlds in our own star system. It was my people, the Jelna, who first made contact with the Zami and Chelon peoples and built the interplanetary accord and trading network that would one day make us an interstellar power.”
Egdor took a step closer to Kirk. “Yet here I am, still a lieutenant commander after nearly two decades in the service, while you have made captain in less than one.” He caught himself, stepping back. “I don’t mean to imply you don’t deserve it. I know your reputation, the things you achieved as first officer of the Eagle, the discoveries you made on the Vulcanian Expedition. I’m aware that the entire Baezian civilization would be extinct now if you hadn’t stayed behind to defuse that doomsday weapon. You’ve achieved a great deal in a remarkably short time, easily enough to earn a starship command. However . . .”
Kirk tilted his head. “However, you think it’s possible that my path to command was smoother than yours by virtue of the privilege I was born with. That I may have been given more opportunities for achievement than you have.”
“That is a fair way of putting it,” Egdor said, holding his gaze unwaveringly.
Kirk was silent for a long moment. “I can’t deny that possibility,” he finally said, surprising Egdor. “I don’t want to believe that Starfleet is governed by such unfair attitudes, and I don’t believe anyone consciously intends it to be . . . but those who are born to privilege often fail to recognize the imbalances it creates. There are certainly enough examples of that in the history of my own nation on Earth. It takes a conscious effort to recognize those imbalances, and not meaning to be part of a problem doesn’t entitle us to deny that it exists. So I’m not going to reject your concern out of hand. We don’t become better people by patting ourselves on the back at how enlightened we are. We do it by remaining aware of our own potential to make mistakes, since that’s the only way to do better in the future.” He closed his eyes, still seeing the image of the devastated colony below—and the image of more than two hundred coffins lined up in the Farragut’s hangar bay.
“I . . . genuinely appreciate that, Captain,” Egdor said. “I was wrong to call you arrogant. And . . . I’ve been wrong to resent your captaincy. You are worthy of it—by your judgment, and by your leadership.”
Kirk shook his head. “I’m still learning. I’m still capable of mistakes—and of oversights. That’s why I need a first officer I can trust to be a backstop on my judgment. To see the things I don’t see, and to say the things I need to hear. If you promise to continue doing that, then I promise I’ll do my best to listen.”
He extended his hand to Egdor. The older man clasped it warmly.
Three
A sharp knife is nothing without a sharp eye.
—Koloth, Son of Lasshar
Starbase 24, Moonbeam Club
Janet Miller laughed breathlessly as she and Jim Kirk sat back down at their table, tired from an extended and acrobatic stint on the Moonbeam Club’s dance floor. “Oh, Jim. This really has been the perfect evening.”
“Only because you’ve put everything you could into making it perfect,” Kirk replied. He clasped Janet’s hands. “And I think it’s time you let me in on whatever it is you’ve been trying to get me in the right mood to hear.”
She sighed. “I should’ve known I couldn’t get anything past you.”
He gave a small shrug. “That is essentially my job.”
Janet chuckled nervously, then said, “You know I’ve been working with Doctor Wallace on Aldebaran.”
“You hardly talk about anything else lately.” He smiled to soften it.
“Well . . . we’ve reached a point where subspace correspondence is no longer enough. He needs me there on the scene, working with him directly.”
Kirk nodded, more to himself than to her. “And you’ve accepted.”
“Jim, it’s a career-making opportunity. Not just to study the extradimensional life, but to work with a man like Theodore Wallace . . . I could learn so much as his protégée. He’s the most brilliant man I’ve ever met.”
Kirk suppressed a twinge of jealousy. He’d be a fool to mistake her professional admiration of a much older man for something romantic. Still, he couldn’t shake the feeling that she’d chosen Wallace over him. For all his determination to keep their romance casual and friendly, the prospect of losing her stung. It had always been his way to fall hard and fast for a woman, and now that he was about to lose Jan, he realized he’d been fooling himself into thinking he’d succeeded at resisting that tendency this time.
So he put his cards on the table. “Jan . . . I don’t want to lose you. What we have . . . it’s important to me. I can’t just . . . turn it off.”
“Oh, Jim. I can’t either. This was a hard decision, one I’ve been struggling with for days while you were out on patrol. I’m sorry it has to be so much more abrupt for you. Hurting you is the last thing I want. But this is my work, Jim. This is a chance for me to make a real difference in my field.”
“I know your career is important, Jan, but there has to be some way we can work it out.”
“How? Would you be willing to give up starship command and take a desk job on Aldebaran Colony?”
He lowered his gaze, knowing she was right. “No. You know I wouldn’t.”
“Of course not. Work is an overriding passion for us both.” She gave a wistful sigh. “And I’m afraid it doesn’t leave us much room for anything more.”
He gazed into her eyes, appreciating her honesty and wisdom more than ever. “If only one of us weren’t quite so dedicated.”
“Then the other wouldn’t have cared as deeply. Being so much alike is what made this work—but it’s also what made it brief by necessity.”
Kirk rose from his seat and took her hand, guiding her to her feet. “Then I suggest we go to my quarters and make the most of the time we have left.”
Jan’s smile was as brilliant and beautiful as he’d ever seen it. “Once again, dear friend,
we think alike.”
Starbase 24, Commander’s Office
“Captain Kirk? Have you been listening?”
Commodore Lam’s sharp question broke Kirk out of his momentary reverie. He turned back to face the mature, gray-haired woman across the desk, embarrassed that he was still brooding like a schoolboy over Jan’s departure nearly two weeks before. Luckily, his mind had better discipline than his heart. “Yes, Commodore. The Klingons are arming several of Acamar III’s largest clans to intensify their blood feuds with their hereditary enemies.”
Hong Ngoc Lam nodded, reassured that Kirk had been paying attention. “And thereby scuttle the peace process that many of the Acamarian clans are attempting to push forward. After millennia of senseless violence, the Acamarians are finally growing weary of the cycle of revenge and searching for a better way forward. They’ve even requested Federation assistance to mediate the peace talks. But the Klingons benefit if that process fails and Acamar continues to be ruled by the sword.”
“A sword provided by the Klingons,” Kirk extrapolated, “in exchange for which the Acamarians grant them an alliance and a strategic foothold on our border. It’s the same thing they attempted on Shad and Mobita.”
“But it only works if the peace talks break down. That’s the outcome the Klingons are trying to engineer—and it’s what you need to prevent.”
Kirk furrowed his brow. “If I may ask, Commodore . . . why send the Sacagawea? Surely Captain Wesley—”
“Recommended that I send you.”
He blinked. “Commodore, I’m a soldier, not a diplomat.”
“You’re a Starfleet captain, which means you’re both of those when you need to be—preferably the latter whenever possible.”
“Of course, Commodore. I just meant that my experience—”
“Your past experience confronting Klingon infiltration is part of the reason for this assignment, Captain. The other reason is that a starship captain needs to gain experience at more than just patrolling a border. That’s the baseline of what we do here, not the limit of it. Just because you’ve reached the center seat, that doesn’t mean your learning process is over. On the contrary—it means it’s just begun.”
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