Miyko Tarsch, the Vobilite who had served as the Republic’s medical officer, was a different story. With his yellowing thicket of white scalp spines, the tusked, red-skinned doctor had seemed old to the captain a long time ago. Now he seemed positively ancient.
Hogan Brown was standing behind Tarsch. Like Rodianos, the former chief engineer of the Republic hadn’t changed a great deal. Currently the chief engineer of another starship, he had a few gray hairs in his bushy black beard, but his smile was still dazzling.
It didn’t surprise Kirk to see any of these people. After all, the mystery had begun with the Republic—it was only natural that her former officers would remain involved with it.
But the fifth member of Mangione’s party was anything but expected. As the captain of the [91] Enterprise gazed into her large, black eyes, a flood of memories came back to him.
Intimate memories, at that.
Phelana, he thought. Phelana Yudrin—the platinum-haired Andorian beauty with whom he had carried on a brief but ardent and finally disappointing love affair on the Republic.
Kirk had lost track of her after they graduated and went their separate ways. But judging by the uniform she was wearing and the gold bars on her sleeve, Phelana had done all right for herself.
Gary grunted and spoke under his breath. “Looks like it’s old home week, all right.”
“So it does,” the captain whispered.
“Captain Kirk,” said Mangione, stepping forward.
The captain regarded her and grasped the hand she held out to him. “Admiral,” he replied. He turned to the Vulcan. “May I introduce Mr. Spock, my first officer?”
Mangione acknowledged him. “Mr. Spock.”
“Admiral,” said the Vulcan.
She gazed at Gary next. “And I already know Commander Mitchell. I was pleased to learn he was serving on the Enterprise as well.”
Gary smiled. “It’s been a long time, Admiral.”
“So it seems,” she said. Mangione gestured to indicate her companions. “You remember Dr. Tarsch, I trust?”
“Of course,” Kirk replied. “How are you, Doctor?”
“Well enough,” said Tarsch, his Vobilite tusks slurring his speech just the way the captain remembered.
[92] “And Mr. Brown?” asked Mangione.
“Good to see you, sir,” Kirk remarked warmly, though he had come to outrank the engineer.
“Same here,” said Brown, grinning his patented wide grin.
Rodianos didn’t wait for an introduction. He held his hands out to indicate the entirety of the ship. “You’ve come a long way from the helm of the Constitution, Mr. Kirk.”
The captain smiled. “As have you, sir,” he said.
Finally, he turned to Phelana. Her antennae bent forward, an Andorian demonstration of respect.
“Do you know Commander Yudrin?” the admiral asked Kirk and Gary. “As I recall, you were on the Republic at the same time she was.”
“That’s correct,” the captain responded. “In fact, we were assigned to the same security location on Heir’tzan during the meeting of the telepaths in the world capital.”
“Ah, yes,” said Mangione, her eyes lighting up with the recollection. “Then I needn’t make any introductions?”
“No, Admiral,” Phelana assured her.
Mangione turned to Kirk again. “Thanks for being prompt, Captain. Now, if you have no objections, I’d like to retire to my quarters. I haven’t gotten much sleep the last couple of days.”
The captain nodded. “Of course. Mr. Spock will show you all to your quarters.” He hesitated. “Did you have a particular course in mind at this time, Admiral?”
Mangione smiled a thin smile. “I think we both know what course I have in mind,” she said.
[93] Kirk could feel Gary’s eyes burning a hole in his skull. What’s more, he knew why.
“But that can wait until we’re settled in,” the admiral continued. She turned to the Vulcan. “Well, Mr. Spock?”
With a deferential glance at Kirk, the first officer led the way out of the transporter room. As the doors opened for him, the admiral, Rodianos, Brown, and Tarsch followed in his wake.
Only Phelana hesitated for a moment, as if she wanted to say something to the captain. Then she seemed to think better of it, because she fell in line with the others and departed.
Gary turned to him and spoke low enough so Kyle couldn’t hear him at his transporter console. “She still wants you, Jim.”
Kirk scowled, remembering the softness of her blue skin under his fingertips. “What happened between us ... that was almost fifteen years ago, Mitch. I doubt I made that big of an impression on her.”
“You don’t give yourself enough credit,” said his friend.
“And you give me too much,” the captain responded. He glanced at the transporter technician. “Thank you, Mr. Kyle.”
Kyle smiled. “You’re welcome, sir.”
With a gesture to Gary, Kirk headed for the doors. His navigator was right on his heels. But neither of them said another word until they emerged into the corridor.
“So, to recap,” Gary said, “we’ve got four former officers from the Republic, where the mystery first started, and a former cadet who was there with us as [94] well. And Admiral Mangione as much as admitted where we’re going with that remark about your knowing what course she had in mind.”
The captain nodded. “It sure looks that way.”
“But that doesn’t mean we’ll be privy to what’s going on,” the navigator reminded him. “After all, Augenthaler was left in the dark. And maybe Bannock too, for all we know.”
Kirk looked at him. “Maybe we’ll get lucky this time.”
“Men make their own luck,” Gary pointed out. “We’re not going to find out what’s going on unless we—”
He stopped himself. A moment later, a couple of female ensigns came around a bend in the hallway up ahead. The captain and his friend nodded to them as they passed each other and the ensigns nodded back. Then the women continued on their way.
“—unless we take some action,” the navigator finished, having made sure the ensigns were no longer in earshot.
Kirk frowned. “Where have I heard this advice before? And why do I feel a court-martial coming on?”
“I’m not talking about hacking into the sensor logs,” Gary told him. “I’m talking about ... well, maybe I don’t know what I’m talking about. But this may be our last chance to get to the bottom of this.”
The captain sighed. “I know. I thought the same thing myself.” He glanced at his friend. “I’ll see what I can do, all right?”
The navigator shrugged. “I guess it’ll have to be.”
Chapter Eight
KIRK HAD BARELY returned to the bridge when the admiral contacted him via the ship’s intercom system.
“Captain Kirk,” she said, “this is Admiral Mangione. I’d like to meet with you in your briefing room as soon as possible.”
The captain didn’t dare turn down the invitation—nor did he have any desire to do so. He was eager to learn whatever it was Mangione intended to impart to him.
“On my way,” he responded.
Gary turned to look at Kirk over his shoulder. He seemed to be saying, Give ’er hell, Jim. The captain met his friend’s gaze squarely, as if to say, I’ll do my best.
Turning the bridge over to Spock, he made his way to the turbolift. At his approach, the doors [96] whispered open to admit him. When they closed again, he programmed the lift to take him to the briefing room.
As he listened to the turbolift’s increasingly high-pitched hum, Kirk couldn’t help but tingle a little with anticipation. What if the admiral just flat out told him what he wanted to know, without his even asking? It was possible, wasn’t it?
Sure, he thought. But then, it was also possible to break warp nine, though he didn’t think anyone would be doing that anytime soon.
A moment later, the lift’s hum decreased in pitch,
the compartment stopped moving and the doors opened. Exiting, the captain turned left and headed down the corridor. The briefing room, he knew, was situated just a couple of meters before the next junction.
He was almost there when he saw Mangione approaching from the other direction. Right on time, Kirk thought.
“Captain,” she said.
“Admiral,” he replied.
The doors to the briefing room parted for her and she went inside. The captain followed. As the doors closed behind him, they took their seats and swiveled to face one another.
“I have a set of coordinates for you,” Mangione said without preamble. Then she told him what they were.
Kirk recognized them immediately. After all, they were the same coordinates to which the Constitution had been dispatched seven years earlier—the [97] location of a class-M planet in an unaligned sector of space.
But what attraction it held for Starfleet since his days as a cadet ... that part had yet to be explained, the captain mused. And that was the part that interested him the most.
“We’ll need to be there as soon as possible,” the admiral noted. “I recommend warp six.”
Kirk didn’t like being told how to operate his ship. Still, he had to acknowledge it was Mangione’s right to do so.
“Does this planet have a name?” he asked.
“Only a designation,” she told him.
“And you’ll be discharging some important duty when we get there,” he speculated. “You and the personnel you brought with you.”
“Clearly,” the admiral responded.
The captain managed a smile. “But you’re not going to tell me what it is you’ll be doing.”
“That’s correct,” Mangione confirmed.
Kirk leaned back in his chair and eyed her across the briefing room table. “This is my ship, Admiral. My crew. I think I have a right to know.”
Mangione seemed intrigued by his declaration. “You know,” she said, “it’s funny. Captain Augenthaler thought he had a right to know also, as I recall.”
The captain would have expected no less of the man.
“But in the end,” the admiral continued, “he accepted the necessity of carrying out his mission without knowing.” The wrinkled skin around her eyes seemed to go taut for a moment. “I wish I could [98] share the details with you, Captain, just as I wished I could share them with Captain Augenthaler. Unfortunately, that’s just not possible.”
Kirk wasn’t satisfied with the woman’s response. “I don’t like the idea of going into a situation with blinders on.”
“Nor would I, in your place,” the admiral conceded. “And as you know,” Mangione went on, “I’ve been in your place. Nonetheless, that’s the way it’ll have to be.”
The captain felt no animosity toward the woman; she was only following orders, after all. But he hated the idea of being manipulated, even when it was Starfleet who was doing the manipulating.
“What’s more,” she said, “I want you to swear your bridge crew to secrecy in this matter, the same way you were sworn to secrecy when you served on the Constitution. None of them is to speak of this mission or refer to it in any way ... ever.”
Kirk bit the inside of his cheek. He wanted to protest the admiral’s stance. He wanted to demand an explanation from her. However, he was only a captain. He didn’t have those options at his disposal.
“As you wish,” he told Mangione stiffly.
The admiral nodded. “Thank you, Captain. And now, I’d like to return to my quarters. It’s been a long day.”
“Of course,” said Kirk.
To all of it, unfortunately.
Gary Mitchell had never wanted to be a starship captain. His ambition had never gone further than the navigator’s console.
[99] But for once, he found himself wishing he were the commanding officer of the Enterprise. That way, he reflected as he ran a routine diagnostic at his navigation console, it would be him in that briefing room with Admiral Mangione instead of his friend.
Not that he didn’t think Kirk would do his best to wring every last drop of information from the admiral. After all, the captain wanted to know what was going on every bit as much as the navigator did.
But Mitchell would have been less concerned about breaking the rules. He would have pressed Mangione a little harder perhaps, thrown caution to the proverbial winds ...
The navigator stopped himself and sighed. And that, he mused, is precisely why you’ll never be in that briefing room. You take too many chances for anyone to put you in charge of four hundred sentient lives.
Give your friend a chance, he told himself. Let Jim do what he can in his own way. If it’s possible to pry anything out of the admiral—
Suddenly, his thoughts were interrupted by the whoosh of the turbolift doors sliding open. Swiveling in his chair, Mitchell saw Kirk emerge from the compartment and make his way down to his center seat.
The navigator continued to stare at the captain, knowing he would eventually catch his friend’s eye. It took a while, but Kirk eventually met his gaze. For a moment, his face was a blank slate.
Come on, thought Mitchell, what did you find out?
The captain didn’t say anything. He just frowned—an admission of failure, as clear to the [100] navigator as any words Kirk might have said out loud.
Damn, thought Mitchell, his spirits sinking. Even now, they’re determined to keep us in the dark. Even now.
Kirk had barely sat down in his center seat, his disappointment hovering over him like a dark cloud, when he saw his yeoman approach him with a padd in her hand.
“Captain,” she said.
He nodded to her. “Jones.”
The woman frowned. “Smith, sir.”
The captain looked at her. “Smith?” he repeated, wondering what she meant by that.
“That’s my name, sir,” the yeoman explained with an air of resignation. “You called me Jones.”
Kirk felt himself flush with embarrassment. Of course her name was Smith. And if he hadn’t been so distracted by what Mangione had told him in the briefing room—or rather, what she had neglected to tell him—he would never have made so ridiculous a mistake.
He could see Spock studying him from the bridge’s science station. Clearly, thought the captain, the Vulcan was less than impressed with his superior’s mental capabilities. Kirk turned back to the yeoman.
“My apologies,” he told her.
She smiled understanding. “That’s all right, sir.”
But it wasn’t all right and the captain knew it. He [101] resolved to remember Smith’s name the next time he addressed her.
As he accepted the padd from the yeoman, he glanced at his friend Gary again. The navigator had turned around to face the viewscreen, but Kirk could feel the man’s frustration. It radiated from him the way heat and light radiate from a sun.
The captain wished he could have brought back better news from his joust with the admiral—or at least have held out the hope of something promising on the horizon. However, he didn’t believe Mangione would become any more forthcoming as they delved deeper into their mission. She had made it pretty clear that Kirk simply wasn’t in the loop.
Sighing, he applied himself to the bureaucratic odds and ends with which his yeoman had presented him—fuel consumption reports, cargo manifests and the like. It took the captain the better part of half an hour to go over them, during which time he found his mind wandering over and over again—and always in the same direction.
He wished he had never met Mangione. He wished he had never been to the coordinates she had given him. And most of all, he wished he had never seen that Klingon ship in Federation space.
But he had done all those things. And having done them, it was difficult as hell to concentrate on anything else.
Finally, Kirk finished with the last item on the yeoman’s padd. Turning to her, he handed the device back and smiled.
“Thanks for being patient,” he told her.
/> Jones ... no, Smith smiled back at him. “No [102] problem, sir.” Then she left him and made her way to the turbolift.
Smith, the captain told himself. The woman’s name is Smith. Why am I having so much trouble with this?
The rest of Kirk’s morning passed slowly, laboriously. When his shift was finally over, he turned control of the bridge over to Spock again, entered the turbolift, and considered his destination.
Most days, the captain would have preferred to go to the rec lounge to share a meal with Scotty or Piper. This particular afternoon, he didn’t imagine he would be very good company. He decided to eat his lunch in his quarters instead.
In less than a minute, the lift doors opened on the appropriate deck and Kirk stepped out. He was halfway down the corridor when he heard a feminine voice call out his name.
Turning, he saw who it was. She was standing there, illuminated by the passageway’s overhead lighting, looking every bit as breathtaking as the first time the captain had seen her in the Republic’s lounge.
He could feel the pull of his old longing for her. With a considerable effort, he stifled it.
“Commander Yudrin,” Kirk said.
The Andorian frowned at the use of her official title. “Do you have a moment?” she asked him.
The captain shrugged. “I was just about to have some lunch in my quarters. You’re welcome to join me.”
Phelana nodded. “I’d like that. It will give us a chance to talk.”
[103] He looked at her for a moment, wondering what it was she wanted to talk about. Then he gestured in the direction of his quarters.
“This way,” he told her.
When they got to the door, Kirk tapped in his personal code and it slid aside. The Andorian peered at the place with her large, black eyes, scanning it for a moment—perhaps comparing it to whatever preconception she had held in her mind.
“Please,” he said, “come in.”
“Thank you,” Phelana replied, her antennae lying back against her platinum-colored hair in an Andorian expression of gratitude. The door slid closed behind her with a whisper of air.
STAR TREK: TOS #87 - My Brother's Keeper, Book Three - Enterprise Page 8