The Autobiography of James T. Kirk (35 page)

Will was furious, and I couldn’t really blame him. He’d been working for two and a half years as captain of the
Enterprise
, yet had not spent one day in actual command of the ship. All his work had been in rebuilding it, almost from the ground up. And now, hours away from reaping the rewards of his hard work, I was taking it away from him.

“I’m sorry, Will,” I said.

“No, Admiral, I don’t think you’re sorry,” he said. “Not one damn bit.” He knew me better than I thought. He was right; I wasn’t sorry. I was getting exactly what I wanted. I’d given him the impression of being his mentor, that I would look after him. So he dismantled his life to take this job, putting his trust in me, and now I’d betrayed him. Will left, and I got an admonishing look from Scotty.

And then a console blew up.

The transporter system was malfunctioning, right in the middle of a beam-up. Scotty and I ran to the transporter room. Rand was on duty; she was trying to fix the problem, but it was out of her control. The faulty circuit was in engineering. Scotty and I took over the console.

On the transporter pad, two figures started to materialize. And then started to deform. I tried my best to pull them through, but it was too late. The figures on the pad screamed in agony. I recognized one of them; it was Sonak. The images faded from the pad, their screams with them. We would find out shortly that both died as a result.

I then noticed Rand. I hadn’t seen her since she’d received her posting on the ship. This was one of her first days on duty, and these were the
first people she tried to beam up.
And they were dead.

“There was nothing you could’ve done, Rand,” I said. “It wasn’t your fault.” I may not have sounded that comforting, as I was devastated myself. Because I’d been in command for five minutes and already lost two of my crew. The faces of the 55 who’d died when I last commanded this ship started to flood back. Had I done the right thing? Was I really the right man for the job? Doubt crept in.

“That’s all we know about it, except that it is 53.4 hours away from Earth.”

I stood in front of the crew on the recreation deck, who I’d gathered to show the transmission I had received from Epsilon IX. I knew they needed to see that, despite the destructive power of that cloud, I was still confident. In the middle of my laying out our orders to intercept it, we received another communication from Epsilon IX. I had it relayed to the viewscreen, and the crew watched with me as Commander Branch appeared.

It was not a good idea. Commander Branch did his best to hold it together as the cloud, an advanced energy field, attacked his station. We went to an external view, saw the power field engulf it. Then suddenly the station was gone, and all that remained was the cloud.

I looked at the crew. Whatever confidence I had instilled in them was spent; we were going out to face something that would probably kill us. I tried to redirect their focus on their work.

“Prelaunch countdown will commence in 40 minutes,” I said, and then left. I went to my quarters. It was clean and large, much larger than my old quarters on this ship. I changed out of my admiral’s uniform and into one of the captain’s uniforms hanging in the closet. I looked at myself in the mirror. I felt younger, better. And then again I thought of the two dead crewmen, one of them Commander Sonak, whom I’d just spoken to an hour ago. I tried to push the guilt away as I strode from my quarters and headed for the turbolift.

I walked onto the bridge and sat in the command seat. The bridge was different; darker, not as warm as it used to be. But the chair felt good; I’d missed it.

“Transporter personnel reports the navigator, Lieutenant Ilia, is already aboard and en route to the bridge,” Uhura said. This was the last-minute replacement for the navigator who died in the transporter accident. I’d sent word to Nogura to get me someone as soon as possible who could fly this ship, so I assumed this must be the most qualified person available. The name sounded familiar to me, and I suddenly remembered where I’d heard it, as Uhura continued. “She’s a Deltan captain.”

The turbolift doors opened, and a bald woman stepped onto the bridge.

“Lieutenant Ilia, reporting for duty, sir,” she said. She had a heavy Deltan accent. Despite her baldness, or perhaps because of it, she was exquisite.

I welcomed her aboard and saw Will Decker get up from his chair. They exchanged a greeting that immediately told me that this was the Ilia that Decker had left to join me on the
Enterprise
. He’d abandoned a comfortable life with her for the promise of command, which I’d just stolen. I could feel the resentment in both their tones as she realized what had happened.

“Captain Kirk has the utmost confidence in me,” Decker said. Earth was in danger; I would have to live with the sarcasm.

“In simpler language, Captain, they drafted me!” McCoy said, as he stepped off the transporter pad. He’d grown a thick beard and seemed even more cantankerous than I’d remembered. But I was thrilled. I’d seen very little of him over the past few years. He’d gone on a one-man medical teaching crusade, sharing his knowledge of “frontier medicine” with any doctors who’d listen. I’d arranged for Nogura to implement his reserve activation clause, forcing him to join me; McCoy quickly picked up on the fact that I didn’t share his indignation about being brought back against his will.

I told him I needed him. He stared at me, surprised at the vulnerability I was showing. But I was alone; I’d forced my way back onto the ship, convinced everybody I was the person for the job, and I’d already presided over the death of two crewmen. The ship itself wasn’t dependable, had a lot of new, untested equipment, and my first officer hated me. I needed the pieces of the
Enterprise
that I knew I could depend on, like my old crew. And now I needed the emotional support of a friend who I could count on to be honest, to tell me when I was wrong. I threw my hand out, silently begging McCoy to take it; it was a lifeline, not for him, but for me. He took it and smiled.

“Wormhole! Get us back on impulse, full reverse!” I had pushed Scotty and the crew to get the warp engines operational too quickly; as a result, an imbalance had thrown us into an artificially created wormhole. Now we were spinning through a tunnel in the fabric of space, out of control, headed toward an asteroid. There was no way to stop, and at our speed if we hit it, we’d literally disintegrate.

I ordered Chekov to destroy it with phasers, but Decker countermanded me. We had no time, so I couldn’t stop to have an argument with Decker; he had to have his reason for belaying my order. He helped Chekov fire a photon torpedo, which vaporized the asteroid before we hit it. We were soon out of the wormhole, a fair distance from where we started.

I was embarrassed; it was my fault that we’d just gone through that ordeal. On top of that, Decker had made it worse by countermanding my order. I asked to see him in my quarters and found out just how badly I screwed up. Engine power had been cut off when we entered the wormhole, and the phasers with it. If Decker hadn’t intervened, the ship would’ve been destroyed. I suddenly started to doubt the confidence that had gotten me here. Decker left me alone with McCoy, who decided he’d had enough.

“You rammed getting this command down Starfleet’s throat. You’ve used this emergency to get the
Enterprise
back.” I was aware of this before, but only when McCoy brought it up did the plan come to the surface of my conscious mind. I intended to keep her. That’s why I wanted my old crew in their old jobs; I had always planned on getting her back and keeping her.

I went back to the bridge. I felt disconnected, self-conscious, and scared. I was now fully doubting myself. In the interim, Mr. Chekov had informed me that a warp-drive shuttlecraft had wanted to rendezvous with us, but I was so lost in my own emotional state that I’d forgotten about it.

So I was shocked when, like magic, Spock walked onto the bridge.

He was dressed in black robes and looked as severe as I’d ever seen him. The shuttlecraft had delivered him from Vulcan. He was back, just when I needed him most.

He stated that he’d been monitoring our communications, and thought he could help with the engines. I immediately reinstated him as science officer. I watched as several of his old comrades reached out to him, welcoming him back, but he gave them nothing. He was different. I was initially touched upon seeing him; now I was confused.

But his help was invaluable; in no time at all, the ship was at warp. I remembered what his mother had told me about the
Kolinahr
; it was a lifelong discipline. That meant he broke it to join the
Enterprise
on this mission.

I had Spock join me and McCoy in the officers’ lounge to find out what was going on. For a brief moment, it felt like old times, thanks to McCoy.

“Spock, you haven’t changed a bit,” McCoy said, obviously looking to restart their old relationship. “You’re just as warm and sociable as ever.” In falling back into old patterns, Spock obliged him.

“Nor have you, Doctor, as your continued predilection for irrelevancy demonstrates.”

I pressed Spock on why he was there.

“On Vulcan I began to sense a consciousness from a source more powerful than any I had ever encountered,” Spock said. It was remarkable; he had been in telepathic contact with whatever was in that cloud. He would be an amazing resource. But Spock made it clear that he was looking for personal answers, and, for the first time, I wondered if I could trust him to look after the ship’s needs over his own.

I was disappointed, maybe a little hurt. Spock hadn’t come back to participate in the mission and walk down memory lane with me. He had entered the
Kolinahr
discipline to purge his emotions, yet he broke that discipline to use the
Enterprise
to pursue his own self-centered goals. It was uncharacteristically
human.

Despite my disappointment, I couldn’t blame him. I was doing the same thing.

We were able to intercept the cloud a full day before it reached the Solar System. It filled the viewscreen; its deep blue plumes of energy were arresting, incomprehensible in size and power. Spock theorized that there was an object in the heart of it generating the field, so I ordered a course to take us inside. Decker objected, but I dismissed him out of hand. I had something to prove, that I could take on whatever was in that cloud and stop it. It was rash and bold decision making, which I felt were what I brought to the table as a captain.

We soon found a spaceship in the heart of the cloud, more massive than anything any of us had ever seen. It launched a probe that entered the bridge, a column of plasma energy. It attacked Ilia. She screamed, then disappeared. And then the probe was gone.

I could feel Decker’s anger, but I couldn’t meet his gaze. I’d just lost another crewman, and still knew nothing about how to stop this thing that was undoubtedly on its way to destroy Earth. My “rash and bold” decision making was causing deaths. I was failing, and for the first time I wondered if the mission would’ve gone better if I’d just left it to Decker.