Chapter Five

Kirk strode through Starfleet Headquarters to the main orbital transporter, trying to keep elation off his face. He knew that he had taken shameless advantage of Heihachiro Nogura’s decency. But he was satisfied that it was for good reason. He was not thinking of Nogura’s final words: If you are convinced that you are the right man, Jim, then go! If you are not, then for God’s sake don’t!

Had McCoy been present, he would have been concerned. This was not the Kirk of the Enterprise logs, not completely at any rate. Something was gone, some edge had been blunted, and at this moment there was no way to know whether it could be repaired again or not. This Kirk’s mind was on the Enterprise, and only secondarily on the “cloud” Intruder headed toward Earth. McCoy might have warned him that while the love of man for a vessel and the love for a woman will rarely bear more than poetic comparison, they do both share a similar passion for possession—and also a similar blindness toward the responsibilities which this entails.

Kirk stepped onto the transporter platform. “Navy yards. Centroplex, area seven. Energize.”

The transporter deposited Kirk in an engineering arm of the enormous Centroplex which housed administration and most of the other central needs of the vast, sprawling orbital dockyard. It was Starfleet’s largest ship construction and repair facility this side of Antares. It was here almost nine years ago that a younger Captain James Kirk had first taken command of the Enterprise.

Chief Engineer Montgomery Scott saw Kirk and with a look of pleased surprise he broke away from a group at an engineering computer. Scott’s dark eyes and firm mouth behind the new moustache flashed a quick acknowledgment of past years together, but his expression still reflected worried concern.

“Admiral, these departure orders. Starfleet cannot be serious.”

“Why aren’t the Enterprise transporters operating, Mr. Scott?”

“A temporary problem, sir.” Then quickly, getting his point in, “Admiral, we’ve just been through eighteen months of redesigning and refitting. We might have launched in twenty hours. But who the hell’s idea was it to suddenly have her ready in twelve hours?”

Kirk could see that his meeting with Scotty was being watched curiously. The place must be crawling with rumors and his arrival up here would no doubt start an eddy of new ones, some of these possibly accurate. He motioned to Scott, moving him toward the circular pneumatic doors leading to a travel pod attached to the outside of the Centroplex.

Scott’s eyes narrowed. He had spent too many years with this man not to be aware that something was up. Then he recognized the look; he had seen this expression on Kirk’s features a few times before. Scott’s former Captain was readying himself to face trouble with someone, but it was a fight he was determined to win. The Chief Engineer began treading carefully, but not dropping the subject which worried him. “She needs more work, a shakedown . . . ”

“Let’s go,” Kirk said flatly.

Scott blinked in surprise, uncertain for a moment what he was being asked to do. But Kirk was entering the travel pod, and Scott realized he had just been directed to take Kirk over to the Enterprise. It had been no request; it was an order.

“Aye, sir.” Scott moved quickly to the travel pod controls, where he punched in his identity number and their destination. Behind them, both the Centroplex seal and the travel pod doors snapped shut and the hydraulic bolts clanged shut.

Kirk moved up to the front of the pod with Scott. The green disengage light—then the slightest jar as the travel pod was released from the huge Centroplex. They were floating free now, Scott playing its thruster controls like a three-finger exercise as he took them out into the half-light over the orbital dockyards. Earth was above and to one side of them, its enormous bulk backlit by the sun, which was disappearing across the vast, smooth expanse of the Pacific.

Kirk spoke rapidly, filling Scott in on the pertinent details of the command alert—he described the luminescent “cloud” and Starfleet’s belief that it might actually be a powerfield effect being produced by some incredible energy source at the heart of the “cloud.” Scott looked up sharply at Kirk’s description of the new Klingon cruisers; then his eyes flashed a signal of mixed satisfaction and concern as Kirk sketched the Klingon destruction. The two men’s eyes met; it was satisfying to know that the most powerful vessels in the Klingon fleet were destructible, but this left hanging the unanswered (and presently unanswerable) question of whether the redesigned Enterprise could weather an attack from the Intruder any better.

“The Klingons had definitely attacked it first,” Kirk said. “The Enterprise won’t make that mistake, of course . . . ”

“There is no guaranteeing what the Enterprise will do,” interrupted Scott. “No one’s even sure what she’s capable of doing. The engines, the deflectors, weapons and defense systems—it’s all new. Not even a shakedown cruise, much less any battle tests! And the engines, Admiral, they’re yet to be even tested at warp power. Add to that an inexperienced captain . . . ”

Kirk interrupted. “Two and a half years in Starfleet operations may have made me a little stale, Mr. Scott, but I wouldn’t exactly consider myself ‘inexperienced.’ ”

It took Scott a moment to comprehend—then a long, sharp look at Kirk’s expression to make doubly certain. Flag officers did not normally return to single-vessel command.

“They gave her back to me, Scotty.”

Scott peered at him, comprehending some and guessing the rest. “ ‘Gave’ her back, sir? I doubt it was that easy.” Scott had no doubts but that it was Kirk himself who had pulled this off. “Any man who could manage such a feat, I wouldn’t dare disappoint,” continued Scott. “She’ll launch on time, sir. I’ll get her ready somehow.”

Kirk simply nodded. He expected that much and would be satisfied with nothing less. Meanwhile, his eyes had begun scanning out to the side in the direction in which the orbital travel pod was moving. He realized that Scott had purposely been keeping a part of the dockyards out of sight during the past conversation.

Kirk’s expression softened; he could see a look of pride coming on to Scott’s face. There was a touch of pleasure there, too, as the engineer touched a lateral thruster control.

“There she is, sir!”