He said none of those things. Instead, he told her simply, “I’m sorry it has to be like this.”
“You should be,” Antonia said quietly, seeming to deflate before his eyes. Then she turned, took two steps, and started down the stairs. Kirk listened to her footfalls, then heard the front door open and close.
He felt terrible for what he had done, but there had been no choice in the matter. His mistake hadn’t been in returning to Starfleet, but in getting involved so seriously with Antonia in the first place. He had lost sight of the fact that true love had already passed him by and that it would not come his way again. For that, Antonia had paid a hard price.
Kirk never saw her again.
THIRTEEN
2293
Even as the airpod skimmed evenly past fields that looked as though they had until recently been filled with wheat, Scotty sat at an auxiliary panel, checking engine performance. Habits become nature, Jim Kirk thought, recollecting the old Chinese proverb. As though he needed additional proof of the maxim, Chekov sat to his right at the forward console, working the navigational controls. “I thought you were waiting for an exec position to open up,” Kirk said, looking at Pavel. Then he pointed over at Scotty and added, “And I thought you retired from engineering.”
“Ach,” Scotty scoffed in his Gaelic way. “I retired from Starfleet. I’ll always be an engineer.”
“What was I thinking?” Kirk said with a smile. It surprised him how good it felt to be with his two old friends. When he’d made the decision to leave the space service, he’d believed that the time had been right. The Enterprise had been decommissioned, many of his command crew had been ready to go their separate ways, and politics had more than ever insinuated itself into his job, but he’d also felt that he’d needed, in some regard, to get on with his life.
That hadn’t been the first time that Kirk had reached such a point. He’d stepped away from Starfleet once before, retreated to his property in Idaho, and ended up becoming involved with Antonia for two years. He hadn’t found whatever he’d needed at that time, but neither had he found it when he’d gone back to the service.
And so Kirk had decided to try again. After retiring this second time, he’d begun filling his days and nights with many of the activities that he hadn’t had the opportunity to pursue over the years. Doing so had entailed journeying to various unique locations throughout the quadrant, and doing so as a civilian had proven different and interesting in and of itself.
Kirk had enjoyed all that he’d done during the past months, and he fully expected to feel the same about orbital skydiving today. After he’d learned that Scotty and Chekov would be joining him for the Enterprise-B launch tomorrow, he’d decided to invite them along today for his unusual exploit. They’d agreed to survey the landing site this morning, and they would greet him there later in the day for his touchdown.
Their presence in the airpod right now, and the satisfaction Kirk found in simply being with them, underscored how much time he’d spent alone since he’d begun his retirement. He had stayed by himself intentionally, believing that he needed to separate from his old life in order to determine how best to move on from here. But lost amid his frenetic schedule and the solitude he’d sought for self-reflection, he hadn’t realized how much he missed his old friends.
He did now.
Kirk turned and peered out through the forward viewport. In the early morning light, a dirt path passed below the airpod, with freshly reaped fields slipping by on either side of the small craft. Ahead, he saw a slight rise, and atop it, a pair of tall stone markers. “Is that it?” he asked Chekov.
“I think so,” Pavel said, consulting a readout on his panel. “Yes, that should be the western perimeter of the landing zone.”
“Excellent,” Kirk said as the airpod began up the gentle slope. Chekov slowed the craft as they approached the markers, bringing it to a floating stop once they arrived there. “How large is it?” Kirk asked.
“Approximately two kilometers square,” Chekov read from his instruments.
Kirk nodded. “Why don’t you take us to the center of the area?” Chekov operated his controls, and a short time later, he once more brought the craft to a stop, this time setting it down in the panic grass. Kirk stood up, leaned on the console, and peered out left, center, and right. “Doesn’t really look like much, does it?” he said.
“I don’t suppose it has to,” Chekov said, standing up beside him and gazing out.
“It wouldn’t make a bit of difference if this field was made out of Kerlovian foam or cast rodinium,” Scotty said, suddenly appearing between Kirk and Chekov. “If you don’t execute reentry just right, either one would leave you a puddle of flesh.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” Kirk said. “Now I know how you motivated your engineering teams all these years.”
“Don’t blame me,” Scotty said. “You’re the one running a bloody decathlon across the galaxy.”
“‘A ship in harbor is safe,’” Kirk quoted, “‘but that is not what ships are built for.’” He paused, then dryly asked, “Are you sure you don’t want to make a jump yourself?”
“The only jump I plan on making,” Scotty said, “is into my boat once I reach the Norpin Colony.”
“He says that now,” Chekov cracked, “but I bet less than a week after he arrives there, he’ll be working on the colony’s generators or power grid or transporters.”
Scotty looked at Pavel with an expression that seemed to indicate that he’d taken offense at the comment, but then he said, “Only if the equipment needs it.” Without waiting for a response, he turned and opened the airpod’s hatch. Kirk glanced over at Chekov, who smiled in obvious amusement at Scotty’s remark.
After the engineer had exited, Chekov and then Kirk followed him outside. The clean, slightly sweet scent of wheat filled the air, the aroma at once calling to mind his childhood. He didn’t fight to suppress the memories, as he so often did, but let them settle within him. “When I was a boy,” he said, “the air in certain areas around town would smell like this.” He breathed in deeply, and the three men stood quietly for a few seconds, taking in their surroundings. Finally, Chekov pointed off to one side.
“There,” he said. He walked ten meters, then squatted and waved away some of the panic grass, uncovering a squat cylinder that rose about half a meter from the ground. “This is your homing beacon.”
Kirk walked over and examined the device, which appeared well anchored in the ground. He strolled around it, then leaned down when he saw a small access panel on one side. He pushed it and it glided open, revealing a thumbprint scanner, a single control, and a small display. Kirk placed his thumb on the pad and a ray of light immediately shined across it. Almost at once, the words
ORBITAL SKYDIVER
-
IDENTITY CONFIRMED appeared on the display, and the control came to life with a red glow. As he’d been instructed when he’d signed up for his jump, Kirk pressed the button. The readout blinked and read
PERFORMING DIAGNOSTIC
. He waited until the color of the control changed from red to green, indicating the functional status of the homing beacon. The display also confirmed the successful completion of the diagnostic.
“All set,” he said, swinging the access plate closed and standing back up. Chekov rose as well.