“I’m still retired,” Kirk said. “A one-day activation is not going to pull me back into Starfleet permanently.”
“We could still use officers of your caliber and character, sir,” Harriman said sincerely.
“Thank you, but it’s gotten a little too political for me these days,” Kirk said. He glanced around at the media reporters still on the bridge.
“Don’t I know it,” Harriman said under his breath, something of a faraway look crossing his visage. All at once, Kirk realized that Blackjack must’ve been the one who’d pushed for this publicity outing for the Enterprise and its new captain, as much a self-serving promotion for the admiral as for Starfleet or his son.
Kirk turned toward Harriman. “Don’t let anybody else define you,” he said quietly to him. “This ship is yours, and this crew needs you, the man, not some image you or anybody else wants you to live up to.”
Harriman tilted his head slightly to the side, apparently considering Kirk’s words. Before he could respond, though, the ship heaved once more. Kirk staggered to his right and started to go down, but righted himself beside the navigation console.
“There’s just no way to disrupt a gravimetric field of this magnitude,” Scotty said. Kirk knew that if the engineer could not figure out a means of freeing the Enterprise, then it likely couldn’t be done.
“Hull integrity at eighty-two percent,” reported the tactical officer from his station.
“But,” Scotty said, “I do have a theory.”
“I thought you might,” Kirk said. Secure in his own abilities, he also knew that he’d succeeded as much as he had in his role as starship captain because of the senior staff that had for so long served with him. Certainly Scotty had been an instrumental element of that team.
“An antimatter discharge directly ahead might disrupt the field long enough for us to break away,” Scotty theorized.
An antimatter discharge, Kirk thought. “Photon torpedoes,” he said.
“Aye,” Scotty agreed.
“We’re losing main power,” the science officer said as Kirk moved back around the navigation and helm consoles. As he passed Demora, he tapped the weapons readout at the corner of her display.
“Load torpedo bays,” he ordered. “Prepare to fire at my command.”
As he stopped in front of the command chair, Sulu said, “Captain, we don’t have any torpedoes.”
“Don’t tell me,” Kirk said, peering over at Harriman, who still stood in front of the viewscreen. “Tuesday.” That’s when the young captain had said that the tractor beam and medical staff would arrive on the Enterprise, so why not the torpedoes as well. Harriman opened his mouth as though to respond, but then he closed it and looked away. Kirk saw a flash of anger there and knew that it had been meant for Blackjack or whichever admiral had placed Harriman and his crew in such a predicament.
“Hull integrity at forty percent,” said the tactical officer.
“Captain,” Scotty said, “it may be possible to simulate a torpedo blast using a resonance burst from the main deflector dish.”
A resonance burst, Kirk thought. Deflector systems were constituted in such a way as to avoid resonance, since sympathetic vibrations could disrupt both the deflector generators, other equipment, and even the hull itself. Right now, though, that seemed a small risk to take.
The ship pitched again, sending Kirk flying backward, toward the command chair. Grabbing onto the arm of the chair, he peered back at Sulu. “Where are the deflector relays?” he asked, knowing that they would have to be reconfigured.
“Deck fifteen,” Sulu said, “section fifteen alpha.” Kirk couldn’t tell whether she’d brought up the systems chart that quickly or she’d pulled the information from her memory.
“I’ll go,” Harriman said at once. Looking up at Kirk, he said, “You have the bridge.” He started immediately for the turbolift.
Kirk lowered himself into the command chair. How many years, how much of his life, how much of his soul, had he given to this position? He’d retired from Starfleet, but this…this felt right.
And wrong, he admitted to himself. Not wrong for him, but wrong for this ship and crew. “Wait,” he said as he heard the turbolift doors whisper open. “Your place is on the bridge of your ship. I’ll take care of it.” He stood and wasted no time in changing places with Harriman. As he passed the younger captain, he saw a look of determination on his face. Kirk couldn’t tell for sure, but he thought that, if they survived this situation, Harriman would be all right.
Turning back toward the bridge at the threshold of the lift, he said, “Scotty, keep things together till I get back.”
“I always do,” the engineer said.
Kirk stepped back and let the doors slide closed, a smile sneaking onto his face at Scotty’s easy self-assurance. He specified his destination and the lift began to descend. As it did, Kirk regarded the schematic in the rear bulkhead of the car. He saw where the turbolift would stop and the route he would have to take from there to get to the deflector relays. He would have to open the main deflector control assembly, then access the override panel and reprogram it to allow the resonance burst. The safety, he remembered, thinking back both to his classes at the academy and to the many briefings he’d received over the years about starship systems design. He would have to remove the safety component from the deflector relays and plug it into the override housing in order to authenticate his intentions.
The lift eased to a stop, then began gliding horizontally through the ship, toward the port side. Kirk could sense the strain of the engines as they struggled against the gravimetric distortions caused by the energy vortex. The ship still shuddered in the clutches of the tremendous forces.
Kirk raised a hand to the ship’s schematic and traced a finger along the unfamiliar lines of this Enterprise. This doesn’t feel right, he told himself, just as he had on the bridge, but now he added, Not even for me. He supposed that if he took command of this vessel and ventured out into the galaxy, it would one day become his ship, but right now, it didn’t feel like that. Not like the first day he had set foot aboard the Constitution-class Enterprise twenty-eight years ago, not like the times he had returned to that ship after its refits, and not even like when he’d initially reported to NCC-1701-A, the former Yorktown renamed as a reward to Kirk and his crew for their service after the destruction of their original Enterprise. He would be content to leave this ship to Captain Harriman. As much as he loved command, Kirk needed to explore more than space; he needed to explore his own life.
The lift eased to a halt and when the doors parted, Kirk shot from them like the beam from a phaser.
The Enterprise rocked, and with it, the Archimedes. Kirk sat at the shuttle’s forward console, his feet spread wide to steady himself in his chair. As he studied the sensor readouts, he knew that the time for action had drawn near.
Turning to his right, he checked the placement of the data card on which he’d recorded his message. It sat in an I/O receptacle, and once he’d activated it, it would play after any control on the forward console or on the hatch had been pressed. He then peered into the rear compartment, where he saw half a dozen phasers sitting on the transporter pad. Finally, he checked the programming he’d executed that tied the shuttle’s antigravs and thrusters into its sensors.
All his preparations complete and verified, Kirk waited. According to the chronometer, it had been three minutes since he’d detected the destruction of the second transport vessel, the Lakul, within the energy ribbon. It could not be more than a minute and a half or two minutes before his counterpart enabled the main deflector to emit a resonance burst and break the Enterprise free. When that happened, he would have only seconds to act.