“I took it over his head to the Federation Council,” Morrow said. “They forced him to resign. I’m the new Starfleet commander.”
“Congratulations,” I said, but I wasn’t sure it was good news for Morrow. Nogura had a lot of allies in the Admiralty: Cartwright, Smillie. I wondered how they felt about this. And I still didn’t know what he was doing here.
“I didn’t like what he did to you, Jim,” Morrow said. “You’re one of the best officers in the fleet, if not the best. We need you back.”
The sad thing is, the minute I saw him on the path, this is what I was hoping he’d say.
“Did you really think making me eggs was going to ‘soften the blow’?” She was sitting in bed in an undershirt, her hair up, the breakfast tray in front of her. I’d made Ktarian eggs, her favorite, and brought it up to her. Then I told her I was going back to Starfleet.
“I guess that was kind of stupid,” I said.
“I’m kind of relieved,” she said. “I thought you were going to propose.”
“You didn’t want to marry me?” I was stunned.
“You’re insulted I’d turn down a proposal you had no intention of making?”
“Well … yeah.” We laughed. She often reminded me how “screwed up” I was where women were concerned, and this seemed more confirmation. I told her I was sorry to lose her.
“I’m not sure you ever had me,” she said. “You’re always a bit in outer space.” She kissed me, then offered to share her eggs.
Antonia moved into her studio; I left the house and got an apartment near Starfleet Headquarters. Morrow reinstated me as an admiral; I got a new uniform and began assembling my staff. Angela Martine, now a commander, became my chief of staff. Garrovick and Reilly also joined me; though they weren’t friends necessarily, I felt at ease having old crew around who understood me.
Most of the people I thought of as friends were on the Enterprise, but it was off on a mission, so I threw myself into my work. The politics of the Admiralty were still just as uncomfortable to me, and I found myself going home to an empty apartment at night. The hollow feeling started to return. I began to examine my decision. Had it been too rash? Morrow had asked me to come back, and I’d thrown a happy life away with a beautiful woman for what?
One morning in my office, Martine gave me a tape. It was a project that needed a starship assigned to it for extended duty. I put the tape in the viewer. It was top secret, so I told Martine to leave. The computer scanned my retina as a security precaution, and as the recording began, I literally gasped.
“Project Genesis. A proposal to the Federation,” Carol Marcus said. I hadn’t seen her in over 20 years. I couldn’t even listen to what she was saying, I was so lost in a reverie of memories. She was still so beautiful.
David. What had happened to David? I wanted to talk to her, to call her. She ended the proposal with “Thank you for your attention.” And a little smile. I watched it three times just to see the smile.
I was overcome with a feeling of loss. There she was, everything I could’ve had. I caught my reflection in my glass desktop. For the first time I saw the lines on my face. I was old and alone.
* * *
* EDITOR’S NOTE: Tachyons are particles that move faster than light.
CHAPTER 10
“WELL, MR. SAAVIK, ARE YOU GOING TO STAY WITH THE SINKING SHIP?”
Spock’s trainee crew had made a mess of the Starfleet Academy simulator, which was not at all unusual. As I walked through the replica of the bridge, I remembered doing the same thing 30 years before. I still thought the Kobayashi Maru test was a load of crap, but, like every officer before me, I took perverse pleasure watching young cadets struggle with it.
The young officer Saavik was Vulcan but had more obvious emotional responses than I was used to seeing in her species. She didn’t maintain her composure as confidently. And she complained that the test wasn’t fair. She fell right into the trap I’d fallen into. I went on to tell her that a no-win situation was a possibility every commander might face, which is exactly what Commandant Barnett said to me when I put up a fuss. I actually imitated his condescending arrogance. I then strode out of the simulator, not quite sure what I had accomplished, except perhaps continuing a tradition I didn’t believe in.
About ten months before, when the Enterprise had returned from its five-year mission, this time with Spock as captain, I’d had meetings with him and some of the crew. I wanted them to know I would do everything to help them in whatever career path they chose. The Enterprise, which was going to need another refit soon, had become a training vessel for Starfleet Academy, and I was surprised that Spock, Scotty, McCoy, and Uhura wanted to stay with the ship. The lighter duty of training cadets appealed to all of them. Sulu, however, had wanted his own ship for a while, so I put him on the captains’ list. He decided to pursue the new ship Excelsior, which was still on the assembly line, and in the mean time joined his Enterprise friends in teaching as well. This group of cadets who’d just participated in the Kobayashi Maru, and were under Spock’s tutelage, would be going on a training cruise, with support from some of the older officers. Out of a sense of nostalgia, I arranged to conduct the inspection.
As I exited the simulator, I was pleased to run into Spock. In the intervening years he’d become much more comfortable in his own skin; he balanced his human and Vulcan halves with much more ease and conveyed a kind of judicial wisdom. He was a pleasure for me to be around: he was captain to everyone else, but for me he fell right back into being a first officer.
We joked about what his trainees had done to the simulator, and he reminded me the only way I beat the test was by cheating. Before we parted, I took a moment to thank him for the present that he’d left in my office and I’d been carrying all day. A first edition of A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens. I would take great pleasure in reading the book. Its themes of self-sacrifice and rebirth would end up having unique meaning for me. He went back to the ship to prepare for my inspection, and I went home. The ennui that had set in when I returned to Starfleet the previous year had not abated.
It was my 50th birthday. I decided to spend the evening alone, though Bones had other plans. He showed up uninvited, with a bottle of Romulan ale and a pair of reading spectacles to fix farsightedness. He didn’t waste time getting to the crux of my problems. He told me the solution to my depression was getting back my command. I thought about it. I wasn’t sure; I thought that my foray into space had shown me that my day was over. And I felt like I was lost in an endless cycle.
“What do you mean?” McCoy said.
“I go out in space, I get promoted, I give up the promotion and go back to a ship,” I said. “I did that already. I can’t do it again. I’ll look like an idiot.”
McCoy and I talked about the pursuit of happiness, and that some of us just didn’t have the tools to achieve it.
“You’re not going to find contentment outside of yourself,” he said. “It’s got to come from within.” I then wondered why he thought I needed a command to make me happy. He said it was as close as I was going to get. And he was getting tired of taking orders from Spock.
We drank a few more glasses of Romulan ale, and McCoy staggered out. The intoxicating effects were a little hard to shake off the next morning.
“Admiral,” Uhura said. “Are you all right?” She was in uniform, standing over my bed. I had arranged to travel with her, McCoy, and Sulu to the Enterprise. She gave me a warm smile; I wasn’t sure how she’d gotten into my apartment, but when I checked the clock and saw how late it was, I was thankful she had.
We beamed up to the maintenance satellite, where we met Sulu. McCoy joined us, also looking a little worse for wear. Sulu piloted us over to the Enterprise in a travel pod. It was always nice to see my old ship from the outside. It was majestic, comforting.
We docked and entered through the port torpedo room, greeted by Spock, Saavik, and a phalanx of crew and cadets. This wasn’t the first time
I’d seen these trainees, but I still couldn’t get over how young they were. They looked like children. But among the young faces standing at attention, an old one: Scotty, now gray, still with the bloodshot eyes, just like that first day I’d come on board, still enjoying his shore leave too much. I decided to talk with one cadet.
“Midshipman First Class Peter Preston, engineer’s mate, sir!” He looked like he was 12. I couldn’t imagine I was that young when I had served, and then I remembered myself sleeping under a staircase on the Republic, and smiled. Whatever ambivalence I had toward this inspection, it began as a paean to nostalgia. It would soon become a requiem.
“Who the hell even knows about Genesis?” Morrow said. “It’s a top secret project.”
“It’s not the first time that’s happened, Harry,” I said. I knew the Klingons and Romulans had extensive spy networks. And they’d all love to have it. The Genesis Project was a device that could theoretically reorganize inanimate matter on a subatomic level to create life on a planetary scale. It was Carol’s project. I was very worried because she had just called me from her lab on the space station Regula I. We hadn’t spoken in years, and she was angry. She was accusing me of “taking Genesis away.” I didn’t know what she was talking about, and the communication was quickly cut off. Someone was jamming it; she was in danger. I was worried, and I could see Morrow was worried too. The Genesis Project would be a powerful weapon; it would destroy all life on a world to make room for the new life it created.
“You’ve got to get a ship to Regula I right away,” I said.
“Okay, get going,” he said.
I hadn’t meant me. I wanted to go; I was concerned about Carol, but I didn’t have the support I needed. This ship and crew weren’t cut out for it.
“You have to make do,” Morrow said. “Except for some freighters and a science vessel, you’re the only ship in the quadrant.”
“But I’m going to spend the whole trip changing diapers.” Morrow laughed, but he didn’t care.
“Report progress. Morrow out.”
I went to see Spock. I told him the situation and my concern that his crew would crumble at the first sign of trouble. They were kids. Spock, however, had faith in them. And he instinctually knew what I needed.
He gave me back the Enterprise. He could see that I wanted to take control of the situation, that I didn’t want to be second-guessing him or anyone else. He made the right decision for me; I’m not sure it was the right decision for everybody else.
We soon ran into the Reliant. It cut into us with full phasers.
Reliant was the ship I’d assigned to assist Carol and her team in the search for a lifeless planet to test the Genesis Device. The last I’d heard it was several hundred light-years away; now it was intercepting us. That should have been my first clue that something was wrong; Morrow said the Enterprise was the only ship in the quadrant. If Reliant had been reassigned, it had come from the direction of Regula I. Morrow would’ve assigned it to investigate.
I had trouble believing a Federation starship would be an enemy, especially one where Chekov was the first officer. That was my mistake. They knocked out our shield generators and warp drive with their first shots. The impulse engines came next. I hadn’t been in a battle in years, and my instincts were slow. My crew consisted of a few adults trying to manage a screaming, crying nursery. A lot of people died in that attack; I felt responsible, and that was even before I saw who was firing at us.
The Reliant called for our surrender, and I had no choice. On the screen, a face I hadn’t seen in 15 years. Long gray hair where it was jet black before, strange clothing, but it was him.
“Khan.”
I couldn’t believe it. I’d left Khan a hundred light-years away, but somehow he’d hijacked the Reliant. He said he wanted vengeance on me. At first I didn’t know why. But I didn’t see McGivers with him. I soon found out his wife was dead. He blamed me. And now everyone on the Enterprise was at risk. I offered myself in exchange for the crew.
“I’ll agree to your terms if …” he said. “If in addition to yourself, you hand over all data and materials regarding the project called Genesis.” Oh my god, how did he know about it? That weapon, in his hands. Had he already been to Regula I? Had he hurt Carol? David?
This was all my fault. I’d let this murderer live. I had to get us out of this. I remembered Garth at Axanar taking remote control of his enemy’s weapons consoles. Federation ships had combination codes, but Khan might not know about it. It was all I had.
It worked; I lowered Khan’s shields and damaged his ship so he had to withdraw. But I’d done nothing clever; my only advantage was I knew more about our ships than he did. As I watched the young cadet Peter Preston, whom I’d met only a couple of days before, die in sickbay, I realized it was no victory, and it would only get worse.
We limped to Regula I, a lonely space station around a desolate asteroid. It was a chamber of horrors: bloody corpses hanging from the rafters; Carol’s team had been tortured to death. Chekov and his commanding officer were locked up in a storage cabinet. They were not quite themselves after having been abused and forced to do Khan’s bidding. More suffering caused by my hubris.
I had left Khan alive, and now he was leaving a trail of devastation across the Galaxy. I had to find Carol and David.
McCoy, Saavik, and I had beamed down into the Regulan asteroid with Terrell and Chekov. We found constructed tunnels, and we also found the Genesis Device. Carol had hidden it from Khan.
And then someone hit me in the back. He then jabbed a knife at me, but I easily disarmed him.
“Where’s Dr. Marcus?” I asked. He was at least 30 years younger than I was, but he couldn’t fight. I was going to hit him again, when he spoke:
“I’m Dr. Marcus!” I looked at him. Oh my god. He was a little baby the last time I saw him.
“Jim!” Carol came running into the tunnel. It was my family reunion. And I’d just greeted my son with a punch to the gut.
There was no time to catch up.
As I watched, Khan beamed Genesis up to his ship. The most evil man I ever met now had the greatest weapon man had ever created.
“It’s the Genesis wave,” David said. Khan had set it off, and if we didn’t get out of range, we’d be caught inside it, our lives wiped away by its life-creating effect.
We were on the bridge of the Enterprise. We’d defeated the Reliant in ship-to-ship combat in the Mutara Nebula. I had noticed that David came onto the bridge during the battle, and had allowed myself a moment of pride that my son was getting to see me in action. But it was short-lived. David was the one who recognized that the Genesis Device was going to detonate. He said we had only four minutes. We couldn’t get away; we didn’t have warp drive. We were going to die.
I don’t know how I lost track of what happened next. We were only a few thousand kilometers away from Reliant, and then suddenly the cadet at the engineering station said we had warp power. I ordered Sulu to take us to light-speed, a second before the Genesis Device exploded.
We watched an amazing metamorphosis as it condensed all the matter in the Mutara Nebula into a new world. Khan was dead. I thought I’d won and cheated death for myself and the Enterprise once more.
I didn’t know how Scotty had fixed the engines. Then McCoy called me from engineering. And then I noticed Spock wasn’t in his chair.
I flew down there. I saw him in the reactor room, cut off from the rest of the engineering section, flooded with radiation. He was the reason we’d gotten our warp drive when we needed it. He had literally opened the warp reactor and repaired it by hand.
I hadn’t cheated death, I was looking at it. The first officer who’d looked after me for so many years, my partner in so many adventures. He defined me with his friendship and loyalty; he taught me with his knowledge, honor, and dignity. And he sacrificed himself so that we, so that I, could survive.
He said goodbye, and I watched him die.
We had a
funeral, and I put his body in a torpedo casing. My best friend was dead, and I couldn’t save him. I had experienced loss before. Gary, Edith, Sam, but this one seemed worse. He had been a part of my adult life like no one else. He himself had escaped death many times, and I assumed he would be immortal.
When I fired his coffin out to land on the new Genesis Planet, I cried, feeling selfish at what I’d lost.
The battle had wrecked the Enterprise, so while Scotty led the trainees in the needed repairs to get us home, I mourned. I finished the book Spock gave me. I read as the main character sacrificed himself for the greater good. It was as if Spock were speaking to me from the grave.
David came to see me. I was sad, but my son was reaching out to me. He was a brilliant young man, a little headstrong, certain in his point of view. Carol said he was a lot like me, but I didn’t see it; I saw a man, whose life I hadn’t been a part of, but who was welcoming me into it now. Maybe we could become friends. We spoke about Khan, who he was. David was a smart man; he seemed to understand Khan’s ambition. I remembered when I was in school, talking to my professor John Gill about Khan, about how I admired him. And that conversation was a straight line to Spock’s death; I admired Khan, and because of that he survived to try to kill us all. I’d been a fool; we so often hold up as heroes men who achieve great things, ignoring the sacrifices they force others to make in order to succeed.
David took what I said personally; he thought Genesis wasn’t that kind of achievement. I smiled and nodded, and decided I wouldn’t point out that we all almost died for it.
Scotty got us up and running, and we set out for Ceti Alpha V, where Khan had marooned the crew of the Reliant. It was an interesting voyage. Saavik and David started some kind of relationship, though the rest of us could only guess at exactly what was going on. McCoy went into seclusion; I’d wondered if the death of Spock had hit him harder than he wanted to let on.
The Autobiography of James T. Kirk Page 26