“Not entirely, at least. A deep-space survey conducted by the Delta Vega Mining Consortium discovered a subspace lane last year that gave them a significantly reduced travel time to the southern face of the galactic inner disk, several hundred parsecs away.” Kirk nodded in realization. Of course the actual rim of the galaxy, the first thing he’d thought of, was decades away at top warp, so naturally it had to be one of the much nearer faces of the Milky Way’s flat disk. It embarrassed him that after so many years in space, he was still subject to two-dimensional thinking. “They kept it proprietary at first,” Komack went on, “but the astrometric data their long-range probes gathered was significant enough that they brought it to the Federation Science Council.
“Apparently, there’s a discontinuity in the interstellar medium running roughly parallel to the face of the disk, a plane beyond which the gas density drops off abruptly. Almost as if there’s some sort of filter or barrier there, something that stars can pass through but interstellar gas and dust have a harder time with. Or maybe it’s some sort of soliton wave in the medium, a resonance of some kind that causes the discontinuity. We don’t know how far it spreads, whether it’s a local anomaly of the region within sensor range or a property of the whole disk. The Consortium’s long-range probes can’t detect anything that could be causing it. Maybe a starship observing the phenomenon at point-blank range—or even crossing the boundary and looking back from the outside—could have better luck.”
Kirk furrowed his brow. “That’s . . . an interesting astrophysical mystery, sir. But it hardly seems sufficient reason to send a starship. I’d expected that we’d be assigned to proceed with the five-year general survey tour as planned.”
“And you will be, once this mission is concluded. Believe me, Command is more than satisfied with your work so far. Your recent efforts at Mestiko may not have been as successful as we’d hoped, but you helped prevent a much worse outcome. And your work at Karabos II was exceptional. The Aulacri have already submitted their formal application for Federation membership and invited Federation medical and archaeological teams to work with them on restoring the Karabosi population. Which suggests they expect our relationship to last a very long time.
“But there are other potential benefits to this mission to the edge. This is a rare opportunity to get ‘above’ the mass of the galaxy’s stars and dust clouds and get a more unobstructed look at the core and the far half of the Milky Way—like climbing to the top of a tree to get a peek above the canopy, see the lay of the land. The benefits to our galactic mapping program could be enormous. And observing intergalactic space without the interstellar medium in the way could reveal . . . well, think of x-ray astronomy, all the discoveries that were impossible until we were able to observe space from beyond the Earth’s atmosphere. This could be a comparable breakthrough, if we’re lucky.
“At the very least,” Komack went on, “the subspace lane will be exploited in the decades ahead. Ships will travel to the edge out of curiosity, if nothing else. Eventually there will be trade outposts and colonies along the lane. The Delta Vega Consortium has already set up one of their deep-space automated mining outposts to supply future expeditions. Which might come in handy for the Enterprise while you’re out there.”
“I understand, Admiral,” Kirk said. “It will be a long trip both ways, but it should be worth it.”
He must have sounded unconvinced, for Komack grew wry. “Take my advice, Captain. Learn to appreciate the slow, boring missions when you get them. Out there on the frontier, they can be all too rare. Take the opportunity to get to know your ship and crew better,” the admiral suggested. “You’ll be spending the next five years with them, after all.”
Kirk gave a thought to the new crewmates he’d seen in action over the past weeks—Spock, Kelso, Scott, Sulu, Alden, Uhura. They measured up well to the likes of Mitchell, Egdor, Khorasani, Sherev, McCoy, Adebayo, Diaz, and all the others he’d commanded on the Sacagawea. Kirk had learned a great deal from his crew over his years on that ship, and the accomplishments that had earned him the captaincy of the Enterprise would never have been possible without them. He would always remember his first crew, but he looked forward to finding out what his new crew could teach him, and what they would achieve together over the years to come.
Once Komack had signed off and transmitted the formal orders packet, Kirk loaded the course information onto a data card and headed up to the bridge. Emerging into the domed, circular command center, he took a moment to watch his crew at their work—Scott at engineering, Alden at communications performing a systems check alongside Uhura, Kelso and Mitchell side by side at flight control, Sulu filling in at sciences while Spock sat in the command chair, examining a report that had been handed to him by Yeoman Maynard—and looked forward to getting to know them better on the long trip ahead. (Well, all except Maynard, who had been granted a hardship transfer to care for a dying relative and would be leaving the ship at their next port of call. Kirk had barely gotten used to having a yeoman, and now he’d have to adjust to a new one.)
After signing the report and handing it back to Maynard, Spock turned to face Kirk. “Captain.”
“I relieve you,” Kirk said, stepping down in the command well as Spock vacated the chair.
“I stand relieved.”
“Ship’s status?”
“All systems functioning normally. The deflector grid recalibrations are performing well within expected parameters, and Commander Scott has already proposed several enhancements. Ship’s stores are fully restocked, and all personnel stand ready.”
“Very good, Mister Spock. Because we have our next assignment—and it’s a doozy.”
The Vulcan furrowed his brows. “I am not familiar with that mission designation, sir.”
Kirk smiled. “Don’t worry, you’ll have plenty of time to figure it out.” He stepped over to Gary Mitchell, putting a hand on the back of his seat. “Navigator, set course for Aldebaran III. Mister Kelso, engage at warp factor four when ready.”
Mitchell looked up at him. “Aldebaran? That doesn’t sound like a doozy.”
“That’s just our starting point. We’ll be picking up personnel and equipment there. Once that’s done, you’re to enter this course.” He handed Mitchell the data card and winked. “Trust me, Gary, you’re gonna love it.”
“Captain,” Spock asked, “what is the purpose of the new personnel and equipment?”
“They’re to assist us in a scientific survey, Mister Spock.”
“What manner of survey, Captain?” Spock asked, trying but failing to avoid sounding intrigued.
Kirk smiled. “The kind this ship was made for, Commander. We’re going to fulfill Starfleet’s motto quite literally.”
“Starfleet’s motto, sir?”
“You know the one, Spock. ‘To boldly go . . .’ ”
THE BEGINNING
Acknowledgments
My goal in this book was to show the events that shaped Captain Kirk into the man we met in the first season of Star Trek: The Original Series, a Kirk who was more disciplined, serious, and emotionally detached than he became later on (as, for instance, in “Mudd’s Women,” where Kirk was the only human male on the ship unaffected by the title characters’ allure). My portrait of Kirk may challenge some readers’ expectations about the character, but that was essentially my intent—to refute the popular myths and perceptions that have grown up around James T. Kirk and paint a portrait more closely rooted in the textual evidence from TOS. This is my homage to the Kirk I met forty-five years ago, before most of the mythology had formed around the character, and my attempt to fill in the largely unexplored gap in his pre-Enterprise biography, much as I did for Jean-Luc Picard in Star Trek: The Next Generation—The Buried Age a dozen years ago.
As a result, I’ve drawn on information from numerous canonical and related sources, particularly The Making of Star Trek by Stephen E. Whitfield and Gene Roddenberry, the only source we have about Kirk’s first com
mand (described therein as the equivalent of a destroyer-sized vessel) besides a throwaway line in the second pilot. For once, I’ll try to keep my acknowledgments brief; I’ll no doubt provide more detail in my online annotations. The screenwriters whose characters and concepts I’ve utilized in this book include Stanley Adams, Margaret Armen, Harve Bennett, Rick Berman, Kenneth Biller, Robert Bloch, Brannon Braga, Steven W. Carabatsos, Lawrence V. Conley, Gene L. Coon, Oliver Crawford, James Crocker, Robert Doherty, D.C. Fontana, David Gerrold, Robert Hamner, David P. Harmon, Maurice Hurley, Don Ingalls, Robert Lewin, David Loughery, Don M. Mankiewicz, Joe Menosky, Samuel L. Peeples, Gene Roddenberry, Sam Rolfe, Paul Schneider, George F. Slavin, Jack B. Sowards, Jeri Taylor, Art Wallace, Shimon Wincelberg, and Laurence N. Wolfe. Novel and comics authors whose works I’ve done my best to stay consistent with include Margaret Wander Bonanno, Keith R.A. DeCandido, Kevin Dilmore, Julia Ecklar, David R. George III, David Mack, Steve Mollmann, S.D. Perry, Michael Schuster, Scott & David Tipton, Dayton Ward, Howard Weinstein, and Phaedra M. Weldon. Other authors and artists whose fiction, reference works, or other creations I’ve borrowed from, homaged, or paraphrased include Mike W. Barr, John Byrne, Paula Crist, Doug Drexler, Lora Johnson, Geoffrey Mandel, Masao Okazaki, Michael Okuda, Eileen Palestine, Franz Joseph Schnaubelt, and the unknown author of the “Captain James T. Kirk: Psycho-File” featurette in Gold Key Comics’ 1976 Star Trek: The Enterprise Logs, Volume 1. The poem “Sea-Fever” was published by John Masefield in 1902. The “Earth poet” Kirk paraphrases in Chapter Seven is Stephen Crane, specifically his 1899 poem “A Man Said to the Universe.”
Thanks are due to Jim Johnson for recruiting me to write for the Star Trek Adventures role-playing game, since several of this novel’s major story threads started out as potential game ideas. The frame storyline was also inspired by the article “In Sudan, Rediscovering Ancient Nubia Before It’s Too Late” by Amy Maxmen, Undark 2/19/2018. A couple of other ideas herein were sparked by discussions with Keith R.A. DeCandido and the commenters in his Star Trek rewatch threads at Tor.com. A suggestion from “jayrath” on the TrekBBS helped me figure out why the Enterprise has no ready room.
My initial inspiration for the idea of life using a sulfuric acid solvent came from Science Fiction Writing Series: World-Building by Stephen L. Gillett (Writer’s Digest Books, 1996); however, that book suggests it in the context of silicon-based life, which Starfleet does not encounter until a couple of years after this novel. The alternative of carbon-carbon covalent bonds in sulfuric acid comes from Chapter 6 of National Research Council 2007, The Limits of Organic Life in Planetary Systems, Washington, DC: The National Academies Press, https://doi.org/10.17226/11919. Information on the potential for bacterial life in the upper atmosphere of a Venus-type world comes from “Could Dark Streaks in Venus’ Clouds Be Microbial Life?” by Keith Cooper, Astrobiology at NASA, Feb. 1, 2017, and from the web page “Life on Venus?” at http://www.solstation.com/life/ven-life.htm.
Finally, a particular thanks to the fans who came through for me with their generous donations at a point when my financial situation was desperate. My deep gratitude to Vasilios Arabatzis II, Byron Bailey, Matthew Buck, Scott Crick, Adam Czarnecki, Michael Evans, Shawn Fox, David Gian-Cursio, Justin Hilyard, Mari Johnson, Ronald Mallory, Cody Lee Martin, Daniel Nicholls, Bernd Perplies, Troy Rodgers, Johanna Schliemann, Clive Viagas, Christian Zenker, Mark Zieba, and everyone else who helped.
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About the Author
Christopher L. Bennett is a lifelong resident of Cincinnati, Ohio, with bachelor’s degrees in physics and history from the University of Cincinnati. He has written such critically acclaimed Star Trek novels as Ex Machina and The Buried Age; the Star Trek: Titan novels Orion’s Hounds and Over a Torrent Sea; the Department of Temporal Investigations series, including the novels Watching the Clock and Forgotten History; and the Star Trek: Enterprise—Rise of the Federation series. His shorter works include stories in the anniversary anthologies Constellations, The Sky’s the Limit, Prophecy and Change, and Distant Shores. Beyond Star Trek, he has penned the novels X-Men: Watchers on the Walls and Spider-Man: Drowned in Thunder. His original work includes the hard science fiction superhero novel Only Superhuman and various works of short fiction in Analog and other magazines, most of which have been collected in the volumes Among the Wild Cybers: Tales Beyond the Superhuman, Hub Space: Tales from the Greater Galaxy, and Crimes of the Hub. More information, ordering links, annotations, and the author’s blog can be found at christopherlbennett.wordpress.com.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Bennett, Christopher L., author.
Title: Star Trek: the original series : The captain’s oath / Christopher L. Bennett.
Other titles: Captain’s oath
Description: First Gallery Books trade paperback edition. | New York : Gallery Books, 2019. | “Based on Star Trek created by Gene Roddenberry.” | Identifiers: LCCN 2018055862 (print) | LCCN 2018059210 (ebook) | ISBN 9781982113308 (ebook) | ISBN 9781982113292 | ISBN 9781982113292 (trade paperback) | ISBN 9781982113308 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Interplanetary voyages—Fiction. | Extraterrestrial beings— Fiction. | Space warfare—Fiction. | Star Trek fiction.
Classification: LCC PS3602.E66447 (ebook) | LCC PS3602.E66447 C37 2019 (print) | DDC 813/.6—dc23
LC record available at https://lc
cn.loc.gov/2018055862
ISBN 978-1-9821-1329-2
ISBN 978-1-9821-1330-8 (ebook)
The Captain's Oath Page 34