“Have a seat,” the captain told her. Then he went to the food slot. “What can I get you?” he asked.
“I’m not very hungry,” she said, her eyes big and black and just as appealing as ever. “Maybe just a bowl of urrl soup with kaizis sprouts. Oh, and some corn on the cob.”
He glanced at her, feeling a rush of memory. “Corn?”
The commander smiled, momentarily transformed into the cadet he had known fourteen years earlier. “Remember how much I used to hate getting it stuck between my teeth?”
Kirk nodded. “Now that you mention it, yes.” The first time he had offered her a cob, he had regretted it almost immediately.
She shrugged, the smile fading. “I guess I’ve gotten used to it.”
“I guess you have,” he said.
He programmed the food slot to deliver what [104] Phelana had asked for, along with a glass of tomato juice. After all, she had liked tomato juice a great deal when they were on the Republic.
Then he requested a chicken salad sandwich with some sliced pickles and a cup of black coffee for himself. It all came out on a tray complete with the appropriate silverware, which he brought to the black foldaway table in the center of his anteroom.
“Smells good,” the Andorian said, closing her eyes and sampling the aroma of the urrl soup.
“I’ll pass your compliments on to the chef,” the captain jested.
She opened her eyes, but she didn’t respond to his jest. She just removed her food and her accoutrements from the tray and began to eat.
For a minute or two, neither Kirk nor his guest said a word. Then the captain’s curiosity got the better of him and he asked, “So how did you wind up working with Admiral Mangione?”
Phelana scooped out the last of the urrl soup and savored it. Then she pushed her empty bowl aside and looked up at her host.
“A couple of years ago,” she said, “I was serving on the Hood as second officer. We docked at Starbase Twenty for some shore leave. But after a few hours, I was called back to the ship.”
Her eyes seemed to glaze over for a moment. “When I entered the briefing room,” the Andorian continued, “I found the admiral and Commander Rodianos waiting for me inside. They asked me if I was happy on the Hood. I told them I was. The admiral said that was a pity because I would be leaving the ship in just a few hours.”
[105] Kirk grunted. “Rather abrupt, wasn’t it?”
“Very much so,” the Andorian confirmed. “From then on, I was part of her team—along with Rodianos, Tarsch, and sometimes Brown.”
“And what does this team do, exactly?” asked the captain.
Phelana met his gaze. “I can’t tell you,” she said. “I think you knew that before you asked.”
He conceded the point with a smile. “I suspected.”
She glanced at his cup. “Your coffee’s getting cold.”
Kirk looked down and saw the pitiful wisp of steam struggling up from it. “So it is.”
He took another sip and discovered it was actually hotter than it looked. In the meantime, his guest took advantage of the respite to begin munching on her corn, in which she took obvious pleasure.
The captain imagined he would have a hard time getting the Andorian to talk about her job any further. It was pretty clear that she had changed the subject for a reason.
So he was surprised when she put her corn down suddenly, looked into his eyes, and said, “I want you to know something.”
“What’s that?” he asked.
Her antennae curled forward, signaling sincerity. “I don’t like the idea of withholding information from you.”
“Oh?” said Kirk.
“It’s just that Starfleet demands it of me,” she told him, her eyes sparkling like liquid obsidian.
He tried to ignore them. “Whatever you say.”
[106] Phelana sighed. “I know what you’re thinking—that I still go strictly by the book. That I don’t like to take chances any more than I used to. But that’s not true, Jim. I’ve learned to take chances when I have to. I’ve learned to bend the rules.”
The captain didn’t know how to respond to that. “I’ll take your word for it,” he said at last.
“But Starfleet’s asked me to keep my mouth shut about this mission,” the Andorian went on. “And as long as they do that, I’ve got to go along with it.” She tilted her head. “You understand that, don’t you?”
“You have your orders,” Kirk acknowledged. But it wasn’t without a hint of unintended bitterness in his voice.
Phelana gazed at him sympathetically. “I know how you feel. I felt that way myself once, remember? Back on the Republic? Cheated, in a way. Left out. It seemed to me that Starfleet was pulling the ... what’s that expression you have? Pulling the wool ... ?”
“Over your eyes?” he suggested.
“Yes. That’s the phrase,” she confirmed. “I know how terribly frustrating that can be.”
The captain nodded. “I appreciate your candor.”
He also appreciated the sensual fullness of her lips, and the long, gentle curve of her neck, and the intoxicating smell of her. He appreciated the way the light glinted off her hair and the deep darkness of her eyes. But he refrained from mentioning any of that.
After all, it had been a long time since the days and nights they had spent together on the Republic. If Kirk diverged from the “old friends” tone of their [107] conversation, if he suggested something of a more intimate nature between them, he might only succeed in making his guest uncomfortable ... and he didn’t want that.
“So,” the commander said in another obvious effort to change the subject, “have you kept in touch with your friends from the Academy? Other than Mr. Mitchell, I mean?”
The captain shrugged. “A few. Do you remember Karl-Willem Brandhorst—Gary’s roommate his first year?”
Phelana thought for a moment. Suddenly, her eyes brightened. “Yes,” she replied. “He was the tall fellow with the red hair?”
“That’s the one,” Kirk told her. “He’s the chief science officer on the Potemkin now. And he’s doing good work, from what I hear.”
She nodded. “That’s good.” Her delicate brow creased ever so slightly. “What about ... what was his name again? The one who became angry with you after you pointed out his oversight?”
The captain knew just whom she meant. “Ben Finney.”
“Yes ... Finney,” said the Andorian, sampling her kaizis sprouts. “Do you know what became of him?”
“As a matter of fact,” Kirk told her happily, “he forgave me a few years after I graduated and we became friends again. Good friends, I might add. He even named his daughter after me.”
She smiled. “Really?”
“Uh huh. He’s the records officer on the Excalibur these days,” said the captain, “but I’m hoping to get [108] him transferred to the Enterprise. It’d be nice to have him around.”
“No doubt,” Phelana replied, returning her attention to her kaizis sprouts. “It’s always good to see old friends again ... even if you only knew them for a short while.”
Kirk couldn’t be sure, but it sounded as if she were talking about him. After all, their affair had been a painfully short one, though it was wonderful while it lasted.
“And you?” he asked, watching her features, trying to divine her intentions. “Do you see anyone?”
She shook her head, making her antennae bob. “I’m ... unattached,” she told him plainly.
The captain felt a rush of embarrassment. “No,” he said gently, wishing he had phrased his question a little more carefully. “I meant ... do you see anyone with whom we attended the Academy?”
Phelana turned a darker shade of blue. “I see.” She paused to gather herself. “Actually, I don’t. See anyone from the Academy, that is. At least, I don’t think I do. I don’t have a good memory for faces.”
Kirk grunted. “Some people are like that.”
Neither of them said anything for a moment
. However, the captain was all too aware of the nearness of her ... the way she smelled, the way her nostrils flared when she spoke.
The Andorian hadn’t changed at all, he reflected. She was just as beautiful, just as desirable as the day he said goodbye to her.
“Funny,” she said, echoing his thoughts. “It’s been fourteen years and it seems like it all happened yesterday.”
[109] “Yes,” he agreed. “It does.”
Phelana winced as if at some invisible injury. “Do you remember when we were on that rooftop on Heir’tzan?” she asked. “And we saw those kidnappers making off with one of the telepaths?”
Kirk remembered it only too well.
The Heir’och and the Heir’tza, who had originally grown up as one people, had come to a point where they wished to reconcile their differences. Unfortunately, they had spilled so much of each other’s blood, they no longer trusted each other.
That’s where their telepaths came in. With one representing the Heir’tza and the other the Heir’och, they could agree to peace and simultaneously vouch for each other’s honesty in the matter.
As cadets serving on the Republic, Kirk, Phelana, and Gary were part of a landing party assigned to Heir’tzan. Their assignment was to lend a Federation presence to the Heir’tza security force overseeing the ceremony—not to do any real security work themselves. But when they saw one of the telepaths being kidnapped by terrorists, they realized they had to intervene.
As it happened, they were standing on a roof forty feet off the ground when they witnessed the abduction. Kirk and Gary had resolved to make the jump. But when Kirk turned to Phelana, he could see the hesitation in her eyes.
Not out of fear that she might be hurt, though that was a very real concern. The Andorian had hesitated because their orders had been to remain where they were.
Kirk and Gary had jumped. Phelana hadn’t.
[110] Until that moment, she and Kirk had appeared to have a future together. But afterwards, he hadn’t been able to see her in quite the same light, despite her outward beauty.
“I remember,” he told her.
The Andorian smiled a sad smile. “You know, I have only two regrets in life,” she told him.
“Two?” the captain asked.
“I wish I had jumped,” she said.
He wished she had jumped, too, but he declined to say so for the sake of her feelings. “And your other regret?” he wondered.
Phelana looked at him for a moment. A long moment. Finally, she shrugged. “Never mind. It’s nothing, really.”
Kirk couldn’t help feeling that he had been on the brink of a secret as great and mysterious in its own way as Admiral Mangione’s. He felt he should press the matter, get his guest to tell him what that other regret was.
But it wouldn’t be fair to her. After all, if she did tell him, he wasn’t sure what he would do in response.
“I ought to go,” the Andorian said, pushing back from the table. “I have preparations to make.”
“Of course,” he answered.
The captain would have given a great deal to know what kind of preparations they might be. But Phelana had already told him she couldn’t divulge anything about their mission, and he didn’t believe it was likely the woman would change her mind.
Phelana rose from the table, leaving her tomato juice untouched. Perhaps she didn’t like it as much [111] as she used to, Kirk thought. Or had it been a faulty recollection that she had liked it at all?
“I guess I’ll see you later,” the Andorian said.
Her host rose to be polite. “Later,” he agreed.
Then Phelana departed his quarters, leaving the captain of the Enterprise with a great deal to think about.
Chapter Nine
FOR MORE THAN a week, Mitchell refined the Enterprises course by day and contrived to bump into members of Mangione’s team by night.
It wasn’t easy. The admiral convened meeting after meeting, commandeering the briefing room four and sometimes five times a day. The navigator wasn’t sure if Mangione’s people really had that much to say to each other or if she simply wanted to keep them apart from Kirk’s crew.
Maybe the admiral had learned about Commander Yudrin’s lunch with Mitchell’s friend Jim. And then again, maybe not, considering no one but the captain, the Andorian, and the navigator knew anything about it ... and Kirk had made Mitchell swear not to say anything.
In any case, Mitchell remained determined to corner one of the officers with whom Mangione had [113] arrived. Finally, the night before they were to reach their destination, he got his wish.
“Hey,” he said, catching sight of Hogan Brown in the corridor outside engineering. The man must have been comparing notes on something with Mr. Scott. “Wait up, Commander.”
The engineer glanced back at the navigator and stopped. “Mr. Mitchell. I had a feeling I would be running into you a little sooner.”
“And why’s that?” the navigator inquired, smiling the most charming smile he could manage as he caught up with the man.
Brown shrugged. “Oh, I don’t know. It’s just that, as I recall, you seemed pretty eager to find out what was going on back on the Republic. I guess I just assumed you’d still be pretty eager.”
“And if I were?” Mitchell asked.
The engineer grinned back at him, putting the navigator’s smile to shame. “It would be understandable, I suppose. Nobody likes to be left out of anything important, Commander—least of all a naturally inquisitive young man like yourself.”
“You sympathize, then,” said the navigator.
“Completely,” Brown replied. He took Mitchell’s arm. “Come, let’s walk.”
The navigator accompanied the engineer down the hall. “You know what I want to know, don’t you?”
The engineer chuckled. “I’d be some kind of fool if I didn’t.”
Mitchell looked at him. “And what would you say are my chances?”
[114] “Of finding out something about this mission?” Brown asked. He shook his head. “Not good, I’m afraid. Not good at all.”
“So what’s the purpose of this stroll?” the navigator asked.
“We’re going down to the rec lounge,” the other man told him. “For a game of three-dimensional chess. You see, I’ve gotten to be quite an aficionado of the game in my old age, and I’ve heard you’re quite the player.”
“Then you heard wrong,” said Mitchell.
Brown’s eyes narrowed. “I beg your pardon?”
“I’m not the three-dee chess fanatic on the ship,” the navigator told him. “That would be Captain Kirk.”
The engineer looked at him for a moment. Then he smiled a big, sad smile. “In that case, Commander, I’ll see you in the morning.”
And he continued along the corridor on his own.
Kirk leaned back in his captain’s chair. It was time. “Slow to impulse,” he told his helmsman.
“Slowing to impulse,” Kelso responded.
His console chirped and the Enterprise dropped out of warp. On the bridge’s forward viewscreen, converging trails of multicolored starlight shortened and were transformed into tiny pinpricks of illumination.
“Magnify—factor five,” the captain ordered.
“Factor five,” Gary confirmed from his seat at the navigation console.
Suddenly, a bright red world seemed to appear in front of them. The outermost planet in a [115] three-planet star system, it looked exactly the same as the captain remembered—and he remembered it quite vividly.
“Class-M,” said the navigator.
But then, he was only confirming what Kirk already knew. After all, both he and Gary had seen this world before.
For that matter, so had Admiral Mangione, who was standing behind the captain’s center seat like a ghost, observing without speaking. The woman had come out onto the bridge several minutes earlier—no doubt, in anticipation of this very moment.
Out of the corner of his eye, the captain saw Spoc
k look up from his science monitors, his lean features caught in their red orange glare. He turned to the Vulcan.
“Sir,” Spock announced, “sensors indicate an ion trail in the vicinity of the planet.”
An ion trail meant that a ship had been there. Or possibly that it was still there, albeit hidden from view on the planet’s other side.
The captain glanced over his shoulder at Mangione, but the admiral remained silent. “Helm,” he said, “swing us out to starboard. Let’s get a different perspective on the situation.”
“Aye, sir,” Kelso replied.
His console beeped and the class-M world began to revolve—or appear to. Actually, it was the ship that was moving, revealing more and more of the planet’s surface with each passing moment. After a minute or so, Kirk thought he noticed something near the horizon line.
[116] “A ship,” he said out loud. “Magnify again—factor seven.”
“Factor seven,” Gary echoed.
The vessel seemed to jump closer to them. It was recognizable now, easy to identify for what it was.
“My god,” breathed Kelso.
The captain reminded himself that his helmsman hadn’t been present on the bridge of the starship Constitution seven years earlier. Therefore, when Kelso peered at the angular, blue Klingon battle cruiser that was filling their viewscreen at that very moment, its nacelles extended like the wings of some monstrous avian predator, it was understandable that he would be more surprised than Kirk was.
But surprised or not, the captain had a crew to protect. “Go to red alert,” he barked, the muscles working in his jaw. “Raise shields and power up the weapons array.”
In his mind, he could hear Captain Augenthaler uttering the very same commands, his voice booming throughout the bridge of the Constitution. He could see his own fingers flying over the helm controls as the very air seemed to turn the color of blood. He could feel the tension all around him like something palpable.
“Shields up,” Spock confirmed back in the here and now. “Weapons batteries approaching full strength.”
“You won’t need them,” Mangione said with calm assurance.
The captain whirled in his chair to regard her. “You knew we’d find this, didn’t you?”
STAR TREK: TOS #87 - My Brother's Keeper, Book Three - Enterprise Page 9