“How could I refuse?” Kirk said with a lightness he did not entirely feel. “So what is it?”
“Jim, we’re launching a new Excelsior-class vessel next week, with a new captain and a young crew,” she said. “We’ll be sending it out on a mission of deep space exploration, and we’re calling it the Enterprise.”
Kirk felt a moment’s indignation at the prospect before a sense of pride rose within him. “I’m glad that the name’s being perpetuated.”
“I thought you might be,” Sinclair-Alexander said. “Because of the name, it’s been suggested that perhaps you would be willing to don your uniform one last time and be a guest of honor at the launch. You could christen the ship, perhaps even board it for a quick jaunt around the solar system.”
“Madge,” Kirk said. Though she hadn’t entreated him to return to the space service, he still felt uncomfortable with the idea of becoming involved again even on the level she had suggested.
“I know, I know,” Sinclair-Alexander said, holding her hands up in front of her as though surrendering to his reluctance. “If it were up to me, Jim, I wouldn’t even be asking. But you know as well as I do that Starfleet’s image suffered a great deal when some of our own conspired to kill Chancellor Gorkon and President Raghoratreii, to incite hostilities between us and the Klingons.” She shook her head as though in disbelief. Kirk understood. Much as he’d fostered an irrational hatred of the Klingons after the death of his son, even he hadn’t acted to foment war with the Empire. “It’s believed that Starfleet could really use the positive publicity it would bring to have you attend the launch of this new Enterprise. With your record, you’re well known not only here on Earth, but throughout the Federation.”
“That’s another reason I left Starfleet,” Kirk said. “Peace and quiet and anonymity.”
“I know this is an imposition,” Sinclair-Alexander said. “But I’m getting a lot of pressure to get you to sign on for this.” Kirk wondered who could possibly be applying that pressure. It didn’t sound like something Commander in Chief Smillie would do, and few other admirals would have the power to bully Sinclair-Alexander. “Frankly, I could handle the pressure,” she went on, “but for one thing: I think they’re right. I think this really would help the public’s view of Starfleet right now.”
“I don’t know,” Kirk said. He felt a natural inclination to acquiesce for Sinclair-Alexander, but he really didn’t want to do what she’d asked of him.
“If it helps,” she said, “I’ve already recruited two of your old crewmates to come along: Captain Scott and Commander Chekov.”
“You got Scotty to agree to attend?” Kirk said, surprised. “I thought he’d headed for the Norpin Colony. Is he coming all the way back to Earth?”
“No. He’s booked passage to Norpin, but he hasn’t departed yet,” Sinclair-Alexander said. “He’s consented to doing this first.”
Now Kirk shook his head. “I can’t believe neither one of them told me about this.” He hadn’t seen Scotty or Chekov in months, but they still could’ve contacted him to let him know.
“Don’t blame them for that,” Sinclair-Alexander said. “I swore them both to secrecy. Actually, in Commander Chekov’s case, since he’s still in Starfleet, I simply ordered him not to say anything. As for Mister Scott, I suggested that if he mentioned anything to you, then I might have to point the right authorities in the direction of his new boat, just to make sure that nobody had effected any illegal modifications to the engine.”
“Spoken like somebody who’s dealt with chief engineers for most of her career,” Kirk noted.
“The ceremony and the launch are next Thursday,” Sinclair-Alexander said. “We would activate you and Mister Scott for the day, transport you from here up to dry dock, and then somebody would hand you a bottle of Dom Perignon.”
Kirk looked at her, searching for a graceful way to turn down the admiral. He couldn’t find one. “Just a quick trip around the system?” he said.
“And perhaps a tour of the ship,” she said.
To his dismay, Kirk actually thought that he would enjoy that. “All right,” he said.
“Thank you, Jim,” Sinclair-Alexander said. “I appreciate it and so does all of Starfleet Command.”
Kirk stood up, and the admiral then did so as well. “Make sure they all know that this is a singular occasion,” he said. “The last thing I want to do is become the public face of Starfleet.”
“One time,” Sinclair-Alexander confirmed. “I completely understand. I’ll have my assistant send an itinerary early next week.”
“All right,” Kirk said. “I’m only doing this because I want that dinner.”
“And you’ll get it,” Sinclair-Alexander said with a smile. “I’ll contact you after the launch and we’ll set something up.”
“Absolutely,” Kirk said, but then he realized something. “You’re not going to be at the ceremony?” he asked.
“Me?” Sinclair-Alexander said with a smile. “No, I’ve got more important things to do.”
“That’s why they made you an admiral,” Kirk said with a laugh.
“I guess so,” Sinclair-Alexander said. “I’ll have people there to guide you through the ceremony, but you, Captain Scott, and Commander Chekov will be the stars of the show.”
Kirk raised his hands, and the admiral took them. “That dinner had better be good,” he said. He gave her hands a squeeze again, then headed for the door. On his way back down to the atrium, he remembered that he had scheduled an appointment for next Wednesday to go orbital skydiving. He would be propelled from a platform in orbit somewhere over the Arabian Peninsula and alight in the middle of North America.
With any luck at all, Kirk thought wryly, I won’t survive ‘til Thursday.
Kirk’s left foot landed softly on the pavement, as though he’d just effortlessly jumped a stream out on his property in Idaho rather than leaping across hundreds of trillions of kilometers and five billion years of history. Despite having previously experienced the superficially simple transition, he still marveled at a journey that seemed as though it should’ve been impossible. As on the other occasions he had traveled through the Guardian of Forever, he felt no disorientation from the actual passage through space and time, though it did seem strange to bound from the barren surface of the Guardian’s world to the modern civilization on Earth.
Finding himself in daylight, Kirk quickly looked about, surveying his surroundings. He stood on a wide pedestrian walkway, along which he saw several individuals in Starfleet uniforms, though none of them appeared to have taken any notice of his unusual arrival. Although he still wore his own uniform, sans jacket, he thought that he should probably-Kirk saw himself. Clad in brown slacks and a jade-colored shirt, the Jim Kirk from this time period strolled away from him along the gray paving stones. Beyond him, in the distance, stood the main administration building on the San Francisco campus of Starfleet Headquarters.
At once, Kirk knew that he needed to avoid being seen by the other, earlier version of himself, that to do otherwise would be to risk altering the timeline. He turned quickly away from his counterpart and nearly tripped over a low bench sitting against the wall of a building. He scuffled for a second, but then righted himself and fled around the corner.
Kirk ran for only a few paces, then slowed to a walk, wanting to avoid drawing any attention to himself. He didn’t need somebody happening to notice two Jim Kirks on the grounds of Starfleet Headquarters. Keeping his head down, he made his way from the campus and onto the streets of San Francisco proper.
As he strode along, Kirk determined the day on which he had arrived. Although he had by one measure spent seventy-eight years within the nexus, no time had seemed to pass for him during that period, at least subjectively. Consequently, he remembered well the last week prior to his being lost aboard the Enterprise-B. During those days, he had returned to Starfleet’s Presidio campus twice: on the day he’d met with Admiral Margaret Sinclair-Alexander, when she’d recruited him for the Enterprise-B launch ceremony, and then on the day of the actual launch. If today is when the Enterprise encounters the energy ribbon, he thought, then I’m too late. But then he realized that his alter ego had been wearing civilian clothes and not a uniform, indicating that he’d been on his way merely to meet with the admiral.