Collision Course

by William Shatner

  Spock didn’t know what kind of reply such a confused question warranted, and so disregarded it. He selected a path that would take the two of them approximately thirty minutes to traverse on their way to the canteen. He looked around and saw that no one was within earshot—at least, not within human earshot.

  “If I understand what you and your brother discussed the other day, then it appears you are withholding evidence of a murder.”

  “You don’t waste time, do you?”

  Spock took a chance. “I believe that we each have information that might have a bearing on the difficulties each of us face. Therefore, logic suggests we should share what we know. Why would you not report a double murder to the authorities?”

  Kirk stared at him for a moment, as if uncomfortable with what he was about to say. “Because I can’t be sure it happened.”

  “Your brother is prone to stating untruths?”

  Kirk’s discomfort seemed to grow greater. “Sam gets confused sometimes. Anxious. And these people he’s dealing with, they know it, and…they play games with him, to rattle him even more.”

  Spock tried to follow the rambling path of reason Kirk implied. “So, you believe there is a chance the murders did not take place as your brother claims?”

  “Honestly, I don’t know. But what gets me worried is that your two agents didn’t show up in court.”

  The words came out of Spock so quickly, he had no chance to hide his regrettably emotional response of shock. “The consular agents? How are they involved with this matter?”

  Kirk stopped walking, looked at Spock. “I thought you heard every word Sam and I said.”

  As much as Spock had enjoyed letting this human believe his auditory ability was indeed superhuman, he knew now he had to confess his limits. Just as he had to work on not enjoying being better than humans.

  “Based on what I heard you whisper,” Spock said, “I believe there were some words you did not voice, specifically when it came to identifying the victims.”

  Kirk thought, nodded. “You’re right. We didn’t say ‘Vulcans’ out loud.”

  Spock’s mind raced as he tried to analyze all the permutations. “You believe the consular agents were the individuals Sam saw ‘disintegrated’?”

  “He said two Vulcans. The agents were always a pair. And they didn’t turn up in court.”

  Spock stood still in thought, finally shaken out of his concentration when Kirk said, “Okay, there’s obviously more going on here than I know about. We have to talk to someone, tell someone. What about Mallory?”

  Spock shook his head. There were still more possibilities he had to work through. “You must answer a question for me first. Your brother mentioned someone’s ‘girlfriend.’ The name he used was Dala. Do you know her?”

  Kirk shook his head, then appeared to see through Spock’s attempt at emotional control. “Do you?” he asked with interest.

  Spock reluctantly said he did. “She is associated with a human called Abel Griffyn.” Now Spock was startled by the effect the name had on Kirk. “I take it you know him.”

  Kirk appeared shaken, almost physically. “I never thought…but Matthew, of course. He’s still working with Griffyn.” He looked at Spock as if he’d been slapped. “How do you know him?”

  Spock wasn’t about to reveal the possibility that criminal activity might be under way at the Vulcan compound. “I know of him,” he said, seeking and finding the line between lying and not telling the complete truth. “His name and Dala’s are connected to what might be attempts to penetrate the security of the Vulcan diplomatic compound.”

  Fortunately, Kirk didn’t press the matter, as if anything involving the Vulcan compound wasn’t worthy of his interest. Instead, he seemed to come to a decision regarding what was of concern to him. “I take it back. Mallory isn’t the person to tell this to. We can’t trust anyone at Starfleet.”

  Now it was Spock’s turn to be startled, though this time he did a better job of hiding his reaction. “Why?”

  “You have to trust me, Stretch,” Kirk said.

  Spock wasn’t inclined to do so, but he detected no obvious physiological sign that the human was speaking anything other than what he believed was the truth.

  “I can’t tell you how I know,” Kirk continued, “but Starfleet claims that Griffyn is dead. That he died three years ago.”

  “If it is the same Griffyn, then Starfleet has made a mistake.”

  “Oh, yeah,” Kirk said, and Spock could sense the young human’s unease transforming into focused anger. “It’s what they do best.” Then, before Spock could object, he added, “Look, you’re right. We have to tell the authorities, except not Starfleet. The thing is, they might be involved. Maybe not all of Starfleet, but some group who should know better.”

  “Involved in what way?” Spock asked.

  Kirk gestured helplessly. “I don’t know. But we’re talking about humans, okay? We’re weak, we’re greedy, we look after ourselves before we look after others.”

  “Not in my experience.”

  Kirk frowned. “You’re really not from around here, are you?”

  In the interest of expediency, Spock conceded the point.

  “Can you get in touch with Vulcan authorities through your embassy?”

  “Certainly.”

  “Then do that,” Kirk said. “Call them. Tell them about Griffyn and Dala. They’re probably operating out of this robotic freighter at the docks. It’s called the Pacific Rome. Got it?”

  Spock listened with a practiced expression of bland indifference, struck by how much Kirk knew. “Yes,” he said.

  “Tell them you heard some prisoner talking in holding about seeing two Vulcans killed. Do your best to keep my brother’s name out of it. I have to make sure he’s somewhere safe before anyone can get word to Griffyn that the authorities are onto him. Otherwise, he’s going to kill Sam.” Kirk blew out a tense breath. “He’ll probably come after me, too.”

  Spock still needed to know the reason for Kirk’s suggested strategy. “Why do you believe it is better for me to tell Vulcan officials than for both of us to tell Starfleet authorities?”

  “I already told you,” Kirk said. “Right now, we don’t know who we can trust in Starfleet. But you can trust your people, right?”

  “Of course,” Spock said, believing no such thing.

  “Then they’re the ones to tell. They can go right to the top. Leave Starfleet out of it and bring in Federation Security. When can you call them?”

  “I believe I can receive permission to make a personal call during the noon meal.”

  “Good. Do that.” Kirk looked off into the distance. “And I know what I have to do.”

  “What?”

  “I have to get evidence. Physical evidence that I can hold in my hands and show to someone other than Mallory so none of this can get covered up.”

  “What kind of evidence?”

  “In the warp lab at the Sloane Complex. Someone installed a device there to jam the security system on the dilithium vault. A couple of days ago, I almost got to it, but Mallory stopped me. That’s why we can’t trust him. He’s stopped me from everything I’ve tried to do to find the real thieves—Griffyn and Matthew and Dala and…their whole gang.”

  Kirk paused, as if a major realization had just come to him. “Mallory’s in on it! That’s the only answer. So it’s up to you, Stretch. You have to tell your people everything!”

  Spock nodded calmly. At any other time, in any other circumstances, he would have guided Kirk through the strained chain of logic he had forged, to reveal the weak links and identify unsupported conclusions in order to arrive at a more robust and realistic approximation of the truth.

  But in this case, at this moment, Spock didn’t dare. Because the human’s logic so closely mirrored his own.

  Jim Kirk felt they could not take what they knew to Starfleet because there was no way to know who in that organization was actually involved with the criminals.<
br />
  For the same reason, Spock knew that he could not possibly reveal any of these details to the security office at the Vulcan compound because to the best of his knowledge, they were already aware and involved.

  It was most troubling that he and Kirk had each had a different piece of the puzzle that could explain the Vulcan Embassy theft ring and Sarek’s involvement with it, and how Griffyn and Dala and Kirk and Kirk’s brother were somehow further connected in what could be the same mystery.

  Fortunately, though, Spock reassured himself, Jim Kirk had told him all that he knew before he had been required to tell Kirk anything. Certainly, then, he could control this situation and handle it himself, though there would definitely be an advantage to having the young human provide help—as long as Kirk didn’t know any more details than absolutely necessary.

  “I’ll contact the embassy,” Spock agreed. “In the meantime, if you believe there will be evidence available for you to find in the Sloane Complex, I can suggest a way for you to find it.”

  Kirk didn’t look hopeful. “Is there anything we can do that fits in with the sacred Daily Routine?”

  “Yes,” Spock said. “There is a simple way for both of us to gain entrance to the lab, with the approval of the STC.”

  Spock knew that was the way to get Kirk’s full attention. When it came right down to it, humans were a simple people, easily distracted.

  So Spock told Kirk his plan.

  36

  At 1700 hours, Kirk gazed blankly at the supposedly inspirational display screens in the waiting area outside the office of Command Master Chief Alun Fifield, the senior noncom in charge of all STC recruits. Master Chief Gianni had taken pleasure in ordering Kirk to appear here at this time. Then she had taken even more pleasure in wishing him good luck in New Zealand.

  Spock, however, had briefed Kirk well. For an alien, Kirk had to admit Spock had come up with a good plan, firmly based in the indoctrination papers Kirk had not had time to read. The Vulcan had not only read them, he remembered them, and had discovered loopholes, inconsistencies, and reason for hope.

  Before the office chronometer had rolled over to 1701, the screen on the desk of the young yeoman serving as Fifield’s clerk clicked on. Kirk heard a brusque voice order, “Send him in.” Fifield had not bothered to ask if Kirk was present, and Kirk understood what that indicated about the man’s character: He was just like Joe Kirk. So Kirk walked into Fifield’s office with all the dread of a young boy about to be disciplined by his father. He was seventeen, but he still hadn’t rid himself of that echo of apprehension from childhood.

  As instructed by Gianni on the first day, when she had described the required procedure for reporting up the chain of command, Kirk snapped to attention before Fifield’s desk. The CMC was raw-boned, with leathery skin, and appeared not to have smiled for the past decade. His hair, to no great surprise for Kirk, was trimmed to a crisp crew cut, again like Kirk’s father.

  “Recruit Kirk reporting as ordered, Command Master Chief,” Kirk said. He kept his eyes locked dead ahead, looking over the CMC’s seated form at a large painting on the office wall. It showed four figures in old-fashioned, bronze-colored environmental suits working inside a section of ripped-open hull plating on a Starfleet vessel. In the background, indistinct Romulan drone-ships took on a squadron of MACO fighters, all of space on fire with phase-cannon blasts and atomic detonations that dramatically lit the suited figures in the foreground.

  Kirk recognized the event: the Battle of Upsilon Andromedae, one of the costliest of the Romulan War. The Coalition of Planets, precursor to the Federation, won that battle only because of the sacrifice of four engineers who reconnected a damaged power conduit on the U.S.S. Columbia by hand, all four then instantly perishing when the power surge brought their ship back to life to turn the tide of battle. Kirk even knew the names of the engineers—he’d had their pictures on his bedroom wall when he was a child. They had been his heroes then. Not now.

  “You like that painting, Recruit?” Fifield barked.

  “Yes, Command Master Chief.”

  “You know the story?”

  Kirk wanted to get this over with. “No, Command Master Chief.”

  Fifield gave a snort of disgust. “At ease, Recruit.”

  Kirk stood at parade rest, hands behind his back.

  “Do you know how many young men and women apply for Starfleet service each year?”

  Kirk felt another lecture coming on. What was it about Starfleet personnel that made them want to turn everything into a lesson? Why couldn’t they just get on with things? “No, Command Master Chief.”

  “In this system alone, forty thousand. Including the colonies, close to one hundred thousand.”

  Kirk had not been asked a question, and so he did not respond—another of Master Chief Gianni’s first-day instructions.

  “At the STC, we can take in a thousand a month. At the SCTC on New Montana, we can take seven hundred a month. Do the math, Recruit. That means Starfleet can accept fewer than twenty percent of the people who want to serve. But for reasons that are still not clear to me, I ended up with you.”

  Kirk remained silent. He would not give this typically overbearing Starfleet puppet an excuse to chew him out.

  Fifield dropped a black, wedge-shaped padd on his desk. “I have a report from your team leader. Less than twenty-four hours at this center and you broke procedure. An unexplained absence. Do you know the punishment for that, Recruit?”

  Spock had told him. “The recruit found to have left his barracks without permission and with no acceptable reason after lights-out is subject to five demerits and loss of liberty, Command Master Chief.”

  For a moment, Fifield paused, as if trying to reconcile the defiant recruit described in the report with the perfectly behaved recruit standing before him.

  “Not quite,” Fifield said. “For any other recruit, you’d be right. But you aren’t any recruit.” He held up a smaller, sleeker padd. “This order transferring you from the custody of Starfleet Security to this center has an interesting condition. Any breech of the rules of the STC that would normally result in demerits automatically transfers you to the custody of Starfleet Justice for immediate transport to the New Zealand penal colony.”

  Kirk said nothing. That was exactly what he had been prepared for the CMC to say.

  “Is there any reason why I should not inform Starfleet Justice that you are now ready for transport?”

  Kirk prepared to deliver his lines. “I have an acceptable reason for being out of my barracks, Command Master Chief. Therefore, I am not subject to demerits, and therefore I am not subject to being transferred to the custody of Starfleet Justice.” Stuff that up your impulse port, Kirk thought.

  Fifield took on an icy edge in his reply. “There is no mention of an acceptable reason in Master Chief Gianni’s report.”

  “Master Chief Gianni did not ask me if I had a reason, Command Master Chief.”

  Just as Spock had predicted, Fifield had been backed into a corner. Gianni had erred in not asking Kirk to explain his actions. Now, Fifield had to. And he did.

  Kirk poured it on just as Spock had instructed. Because of the unusual nature of his enlistment in Starfleet, he had been denied the opportunity to fully read the documents presented to him when he arrived at the STC. Thus, he had not been made aware of information necessary for him to make informed decisions about his service. In order not to interfere with the smooth operation of the Gold Team barracks, Kirk had waited until all activities for the day had been concluded. Then he had left the barracks and gone to the Aldrin Engineering Hall to read the newest course postings that, regrettably, were not included in the version of the Starfleet Recruits’ Manual downloaded in his personal reading padd. Upon reading the course postings, he had immediately returned to his barracks.

  “Command Master Chief,” Kirk concluded crisply.

  Fifield tapped a skeptical finger against his desk. “Aldrin Hall closes at 2200. How c
ould you read any course postings?”

  “They are listed on a display screen visible from the main doors, Command Master Chief.” Kirk was sure of his answer—he and Spock had checked.

  The finger tapped faster, as if the CMC knew he was being played, but couldn’t find any evidence.

  “What courses did you see listed that were of interest?”

  Kirk named six courses all connected to warp engineering, only two of which were included in the latest Manual.

  “Your school records don’t show any advanced courses in multiphysics, Recruit.”

  “It’s a personal interest, Command Master Chief.”

  “Personal.” It was obvious Fifield didn’t believe a word Kirk had said, and was ready to pounce. “What’s the difference between a power transfer conduit and a power transfer grid?”

  Kirk cleared his throat, buying a few seconds’ time. Spock hadn’t said the interview would get into details. Then again, starship technology had been a personal interest for Kirk, a long time ago, and he dredged his memory.

  “Recruit?” Fifield asked with the pleasant tone of someone who had just won a large pot in a hand of poker.

  “In a warp-capable vehicle, the power transfer conduit channels warp plasma from the warp core to the drive nacelles. In a typical dual-bubble Cochrane configuration, a single conduit runs from the core to an arbitrary division point where it undergoes a magnetically modulated bifurcation before the plasma stream is then physically split to follow two separate conduits to the appropriate nacelles.” Kirk took a breath, as amazed at what had come out of him as, apparently, Fifield was. “To the best of my knowledge, a power transfer grid is not unique to warp technology but describes a generalized power distribution system that is used to direct power to various systems on demand in a vehicle, building, or even a city as needed, Command Master Chief.”

  Fifield stopped tapping. “Have you always been such a smartass, Recruit?”

  Spock hadn’t coached Kirk on that particular question, either. “I don’t understand the question, Command Master Chief.”

  “The hell you don’t,” Fifield muttered. He jabbed a finger against a control on the wedge-shaped padd, and Kirk saw the screen wink out, as if Gianni’s report had been erased. “Tomorrow morning, I will have the results of your vocational tests. If they bear out this ‘personal interest’ you have in warp engineering, I’ll recommend you for the Warp Field Qualification Tests, and if those results show merit, then you’ll be eligible for advanced specialist training.