“Your open communicator signal in combination with your inability or unwillingness to respond to hails suggested you might be having difficulty.” Spock motioned to D’kar, who lay prostrate a few meters away. “A Klingon?”
Kirk nodded. “One source of my difficulty.”
One of Spock’s brows rose in curiosity. “There is another?”
“Get this one to the brig. I’ll have a word with the other.”
They found Anders just where Michael and Alexandria had said he would be: on a crude, handmade bench in the middle of a cave formed by thicket, draped by what in the spring would be hanging vines plush with leaves and pillared with tall, old trees. Anders said nothing as they approached, and Alexandria kneeled on the mossy carpet so she could look into his eyes.
“Captain?” When he did not respond she whispered his name. “Simon?”
“Bones.” Kirk nodded his head toward Anders, and McCoy used a small hand medical scanner for a moment, then glanced at his tricorder.
“He’s in shock, Jim.”
“Shock from what?” Michael asked, looking from McCoy to Kirk. “I thought you said we were safe now. What did the Klingon do to him?”
“Nothing,” Kirk said. “It’s what I did to him.” Some people had a natural ability to lead. The signs could be seen at an early age. Starfleet took Kirk’s leadership instincts and trained them, honed them, and molded Kirk into the captain he was. Without the training working in conjunction with his innate abilities, he wouldn’t be that captain. Simon Anders had the same abilities. And the man who trained him for leadership, Captain Mendez, had molded Anders into the perfect man to be the leader of these stranded people.
But just as Kirk had not been trained to lead a corporation or a nation, or even a colonial settlement, Anders had not been trained to deal with interstellar politics and alien invasions. That’s what Kirk and D’kar had been to him—an alien invasion. Anders was a leader who could secure his people from a bad winter or a lover’s quarrel, but he’d not been trained to deal with the crisis Kirk had thrust on him.
Anders looked up at Kirk, his expression a mixture of self-loathing, relief, and fear. “I—I told him where to find you. He made me. I—” He began to sob. “I wanted to tell him and wanted him to persuade me.” It was a cathartic admission. Michael looked at Anders with doubt and Alexandra held him in a way that she had probably never done before—as a patient.
Captain’s Log, Supplemental:
Satisfied that we have gotten what information we can from D’kar about the sabotage to the shuttle Copernicus, and because Ensign Kerby is recovering well from his wounds, we have—at the request of Starfleet Command—rendezvoused with Commander Kor’s battle cruiser, to which we have been ordered to deliver our prisoner in accordance with the Organian Peace Treaty.
Kirk thumbed a button on the transporter console, activating the comm. “Kirk to bridge.” D’kar was being escorted from his security cell, and just in case, Kirk had ordered the corridors cleared along the way.
“Uhura here. We have the coordinates, Captain.”
“Transmit them to Mr. Scott, Lieutenant.” Kirk nodded at Scotty, who stood to his left, ready at the controls. McCoy stood by, for reasons Kirk was not sure of, but he was glad to have him close, and Spock was at the auxiliary scanner that linked to the bridge. The science officer kept a tight eye on the energy output of the Klingon cruiser. There might be a treaty that obliged adherence to certain regulations, but no accord could compel trust. Only time would do that.
“Ready, Mr. Scott?”
“Aye, Captain,” the engineer said. “Ready as I can be, beaming Klingons aboard.”
Kirk nodded. He understood the feeling and glanced at the single security guard near the doorway. The crewman had his phaser at the ready.
“Energize.”
The transporter dais came to life; lights flashed and energy hummed through circuitous veins. A mast of sparkle appeared and congealed into flesh, bringing Commander Kor aboard the Enterprise.
Kirk stepped around the main console but only that far. Kor wouldn’t be treated like a visiting dignitary.
“Commander,” he greeted.
Smiling that slithery grin that Kirk couldn’t quite decipher, Kor took two steps down to the main deck and nodded a cordial salute to Kirk. “We meet again, Captain,” he said almost cheerfully, then looked about and found Spock standing across the room. “Ah, Mr. Spock.” Kor bowed respectfully.
“Commander Kor,” Spock responded dryly with a slight nod.
“How is the kevas trade this season?” Kor asked the Vulcan, mocking his cover story from their joint Organian adventure.
“Up an average of one point seven-six-five Federation credits in the major trade markets,” Spock said, and Kirk couldn’t help but allow himself a smirk.
Turning back to Kirk, Kor kept his positive façade. “You have D’kar.”
“Security is bringing him here directly,” Kirk said.
“If my blood has been mistreated,” Kor said, “I will see to it your ship is dismantled by my disruptor banks, treaty or no.” Even when he threatened your life, Kor maintained some semblance of a smile under his Fu Manchu mustache.
“Your blood engaged in terrorist acts against a Federation vessel,” Kirk said. “That treaty is the only thing keeping him out of a Starfleet brig.”
McCoy took one step forward. “He wouldn’t allow me to treat him,” he said. “He has a temporary cast for a number of broken bones in his right arm.”
Kor had turned, listened, then looked back to Kirk. “His arm was broken in interrogation or battle?”
“Battle.”
As Kor nodded his acceptance of that fact, the doors to the transporter room parted and D’kar entered, flanked by two security guards.
Immediately, D’kar’s expression changed from prisoner to champion.
“qab yon Da’agh. QablIj yon yI’aghHa’ ’aghHa’pa’ ’etlhwIj.” Kor snapped. Without the universal translator, Kirk made out the words “satisfied face” and “blade,” and considering the smug look that had evaporated off D’kar so quickly, Kirk imagined there was something in there about Kor scraping it off with his knife.
D’kar began to respond but Kor cut him off. “BIjatlh ‘e’ yImev, DI’qar! You will speak when spoken to.”
Kirk hadn’t had a great deal of interaction with Kor, but that was the first flash of genuine anger he’d ever seen.
“It was to restore your honor—” D’kar spoke in Klingon, but Kirk understood that much.
“chobelHa’moH, DI’qar. SajlIj ‘oHbe’ quvwIj’e’.” Kirk mostly understood that as well. Kor had said he was displeased, and that his honor was not D’kar’s plaything.
The Klingon commander pointed to one of the transporter pads, and D’kar sullenly marched to that exact position. The Klingon family was an interesting dynamic, to be sure. On Organia, when Kor mandated the wanton slaughter of hundreds, Kirk had tried to imagine the kind of man who could give such an order. He’d wondered what such a person would do if his own child were about to be murdered. Still, seeing father and son together, Kirk wasn’t sure.
“My son’s actions were not known to me, Kirk,” Kor said.
“I know that.”
“Good.” No apology. That would have been too human. And what he had said was as close as a Klingon would get to such a thing.
Kor nodded once, and with Scotty’s facilitation he and his son were on the Klingon vessel.
Kirk nodded once at his engineer, who relinquished the transporter console to the normal duty crewman. Scotty exchanged some comment with McCoy—Kirk didn’t hear what exactly—then exited toward engineering.
McCoy waited for Kirk and Spock, and they entered the corridor together. “Well,” McCoy began, “it’s small consolation, but at least it looks like Kor will exact some punishment for D’kar’s actions. I wonder what ‘grounded’ translates to for Klingons.”
“I suspect there is more shame inv
olved,” Spock said. “Klingon culture is concerned with particular honor rites and taboos that D’kar seems to have misunderstood, and therefore broken.”
McCoy nodded thoughtfully rather than replying, and in silence they gathered into the turbolift. Kirk grasped the control handle and manually selected the bridge.
“You seem awfully quiet, Jim,” McCoy finally prodded gently.
“I’m thinking about Captain Anders,” Kirk said. As the lift doors parted, he led the others onto the bridge. “That’s who’s been truly punished in all this. He had the respect of those people, and now they doubt him, and he doubts himself.” The captain stepped down to the command deck and swiveled the center seat around. He slid down easily into what had become his most familiar home.
“I sympathize with his dilemma, Captain,” Spock said, falling into place to the captain’s right as McCoy joined them on Kirk’s left. “But he chose his path based on the subjective feeling that he was losing his ‘command’ to you. You did not threaten his authority, if I read your report correctly.”
Kirk tilted his head a moment and half shrugged. “I didn’t threaten his authority, but it was threatened, Spock. Those people needed him to lead them because they depended on his skills for their survival. Our presence negated that need. In a week’s time that planetoid will have advisors, engineers, maybe even new settlers—all there to help build up the accidental colony they began. And transports will come to take off-world those who wish to go.”
“We changed his world.” McCoy understood.
“For the better, in many ways,” Spock added.
“Except for Anders.” Kirk let his hand touch the leather arm of his command chair and he ran his hand along its length. “He’s lost his purpose, his self-respect, and…he’s a good man who felt helpless as everything he had—everything he was—collapsed around him.” The captain shrugged and realized he might be sounding a bit too sentimental, a bit too maudlin, for the bridge of a starship. To his mind, however, he looked at Anders and felt “there but for the grace of God go I.”
“Interesting,” Spock said after a moment of almost awkward silence. “Both Captain Anders and D’kar made certain subjective presumptions that led to vast misunderstandings on which they chose improper courses.”
“Here it comes,” McCoy murmured to Kirk.
“Here what comes, Doctor?” Spock asked coyly.
McCoy took the bait. “Here’s where you lecture us that logic is the only way to make moral choices, and if only we were all pointy-eared Vulcans, then the universe would be filled with the muted joy of countless unemotional, cookie-cutter, stone-faced, walking computer banks.”
One brow jutting above the other, which Kirk often believed was the Vulcan’s version of an ironic smirk, Spock was deadpan: “On the contrary, Doctor. Nothing gives me more ‘muted joy’ than knowing you and I are so radically different.”
Kirk smiled, McCoy fumed, and Spock lithely turned and strode to the science station.
Unlike Simon Anders, Jim Kirk’s command—his world—was very intact. In that there was great comfort. All things change eventually, and while that fact brought tacit and minute anxiety, it was greatly calmed by the familiarity of duty and purpose he had for the foreseeable future.
The captain leaned back comfortably in his command chair. “Mr. Sulu,” he said. “Ahead, warp factor one.”
Ambition
William Leisner
William Leisner
William Leisner began writing at age six, scripting and drawing comic strips that featured his younger siblings, their animate stuffed animals, and lots of potty humor. Not long afterward, he discovered Star Trek through its syndicated reruns, though it would be almost twenty years before it would occur to him to combine these two interests.
His first professionally published story was “Gods, Fate, and Fractals” in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds II. This was followed by “Black Hats” in Strange New Worlds IV, and “The Trouble with Borg Tribbles,” the third-place winner in Strange New Worlds V. Most recently, he’s penned Star Trek: Starfleet Corps of Engineers #57: Out of the Cocoon. He also has to his credit a pair of award-winning teleplays for the student-run TV station at his alma mater, Ithaca College, and a story concept sale to Star Trek: Voyager.
A native of Rochester, New York, he now lives in Minneapolis.
Sulu’s first reaction to Uhura’s urgent report was to wonder why Captain Kirk so often chose to leave his ship without its commander or first officer.
Not that there had been any reason Mr. Spock should have remained on the Enterprise on this particular occasion: They were in orbit above Pentam V, a planet comfortably within Federation-controlled space. Though, on the other hand, there seemed to be no compelling reason the first officer had to join the captain for this conference with the Pentamians. It seemed a capricious decision—not that it would have occurred to Sulu to question it. Truth be told, even more than a year after his transfer to helmsman, he still felt a jolt of excitement whenever the two senior officers absented themselves and the captain declared, “You have the conn, Mr. Sulu.”
He hadn’t expected any further jolts during this fairly routine mission, but Uhura had certainly just provided one: “Mr. Sulu! We’re receiving a distress call, priority channel.”
Sulu collected himself immediately and cleared the steps to the bridge’s raised perimeter with a single stride, stopping beside the communications officer. “What is it?”
Uhura looked past him, concentrating on the signals coming through the remote amplifier she held to her right ear. “It’s from Thraz Outpost, an Andorian scientific base. It’s an automated message—no details, just a request for emergency assistance.”
Sulu turned forward. “Chekov?”
The navigator was already pulling information up from his database. “Aye, sir, Thraz Outpost. Two-point-four hours from our current position at warp five. No other Federation ships are reported in the vicinity.”
Sulu nodded as he moved to the captain’s chair and toggled open a channel to the surface. “Enterprise to Captain Kirk.” Several seconds passed without a response from the planet, each one seeming to stretch longer than the previous one. “Enterprise to Spock, come in,” Sulu said. More slow seconds stretched by.
Then at last: “Enterprise, Spock here.” The first officer’s voice was low and sounded as if he was cupping his communicator in both hands, right up against his mouth.
“Is everything all right down there, Mr. Spock?” Sulu asked. “Where’s the captain?”
“All is well, Mr. Sulu. The captain is at the podium, making his opening statement to the Pentamian Assembly.”
“Opening statement?” Sulu took a quick glance at the chronometer on the helm/navigation console. “The talks were supposed to have started almost four hours ago.”
“Indeed. The first three hours and twenty-three minutes were taken up by opening statements by all thirteen members of the Assembly leadership. We are now obligated, it seems, to make a similarly lengthy monologue.” Vulcan or no, it wasn’t hard to hear the frustration underneath Spock’s flat tone.
“Sir, we’ve received an automated distress call from a nearby Andorian colony. They need immediate assistance, and we’re the closest ship in range.”
“Stand by, Mr. Sulu.”
He heard the snick of the hinged cover closing over the communicator’s audio pickup. An almost subaudible hum was the only indication that the connection had not been lost. Sulu turned back to Uhura. “Have you been able to raise Thraz? Any more information?”
“Negative. And their signal is weakening; they may be drawing down their emergency power reserves.”
Sulu’s next question was cut off by the captain’s voice. “Enterprise, Kirk here.”
“Sulu here, Captain. We’ve received a distress—”
“Yes, Mr. Spock filled me in before taking the podium for me. Unfortunately, per Pentamian protocols, neither of us can leave the chambers before our negot
iations are completed without forfeiting our bid for mining rights.” Sulu frowned at that. He knew the Federation couldn’t afford to let this dilithium-rich world slip away from them like that. Again he wondered why the captain made the choices he did, but his thoughts were broken by the one that followed. “Kirk to Scott.”
From engineering, a third voice joined the conversation. “Scott here, Captain.”
“Scotty, I’m putting you in temporary command of the Enterprise. Set course for Thraz Outpost, maximum warp. Mr. Sulu will brief you on the emergency there.”
“Acknowledged, sir.”
“Godspeed, gentlemen. Bring her back in one piece. Kirk out.”
The captain’s communicator cut off, while the intraship channel remained open. “Scott to bridge.”
“Bridge, Mr. Scott,” Sulu answered, already back at his regular position and punching up coordinates. “Course laid in and ready.”
“Break orbit, Mr. Sulu, and engage warp drive once we’re clear. I’m on my way up to the bridge.”
The channel closed, and the bridge fell quiet but for the ambient chirps and beeps, and the rising hum of impulse engines pushing them out of planetary orbit. As Pentam V fell away on the main viewer, Chekov leaned over from his seat at the navigation console. “Well…that was a slap in the face.”
Sulu’s eyes flicked right, eyebrows raised. “What?”
“The captain relieving you of command, and tapping Mr. Scott instead.”
Sulu shook his head as he turned his attention to his board again. “Lieutenant Commander Scott is the senior officer aboard, Ensign.”
“I mean no disrespect to him, of course,” Chekov said quickly. “But a starship bridge has its own command structure.”
“Theoretically,” Sulu said. On most Starfleet ships, that was indeed the case. Yet another example of James Kirk’s peculiar command style.
Chekov continued. “You’re senior bridge officer, and you’re on a command track. You do want your own command someday, da?”
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