2293 Old Earth Date

ONE

In the captain’s quarters aboard the Enterprise-A the nautical clock chimed, breaking the silence to softly mark the passage of time. James Kirk paused over the suitcase open on his bunk, neatly folded civilian tunic in hand, and straightened to listen. As he did, a second clock—an antique mantelpiece, cased in polished dark cherry and wound for the first time in years, specially for this occasion—began to strike the hour.

Nineteen hundred hours. Spock and McCoy would be arriving soon to accompany him on the long gauntlet of traditional firewatch parties—the crew’s celebration of the last night aboard a vessel at the end of a long mission.

Nineteen hundred hours, the sound of time moving inexorably onward. The night had already begun and would move all too swiftly to its inevitable conclusion.

Kirk dropped the tunic inside the suitcase and moved over to the bulkhead to press a control, key in a code. A panel slid up, and he retrieved a handful of small cases, each of which hid a medal. He did not stop to examine them, but placed them carefully in the suitcase, just as he

had done a handful of times before in his life, when he had taken leave of the captain’s quarters in the very same fashion and wondered whether it might be his last.

He had wondered a lifetime ago, when he was still young and the first starship named Enterprise had returned to spacedock at the end of her five-year mission. He had been angry then at the realization that Admiral Nogura was determined to force him into accepting a promotion to the admiralty, and a desk job. Now there was no anger, no frustration—only sadness and an overwhelming sense of loss. And a faint stirring of pride at the memory of when, all those years ago, he had fought to get his ship back—had taken on Heihachiro Nogura, the head of Starfleet himself, and won.

This time, Kirk did not wonder whether this would be the last night he would stand aboard the Enterprise as her captain. There could be no doubt that it was. He and the ship were both to be decommissioned, along with the senior bridge crew: Spock, McCoy, Uhura—even Scot-ty, who had chosen to take retirement rather than remain in Starfleet without the opportunity to serve with this particular crew.

There could be no more gambits, no more ploys to get his ship back, to stave off the inevitable. He had exhausted them all; and now he himself was exhausted after fighting so many years to keep his command. He absently massaged an aching muscle in his back, recently injured while working in the mines on the Klingon penal colony of Rura Penthe. He had not been able to bring himself to trouble McCoy about it; it would have been an admission of the truthmthat he was getting too old to withstand the rigors of the captaincy.

He looked about for something else to pack, reached for a holo on the dresser, and gazed into the smiling countenance of his and Carol’s son, David. David, too, had fallen prey to time some years before, when he died at Klingon hands. Kirk gently set the picture back down, beside the mantel clock and antique paper book set aside for the occasion. David’s holo was always the first thing he set in a cabin to make it his own, the last thing he packed before leaving. It would stay on his dresser until morning, when he packed it along with his captain’s uniform.

The intercom whistled; he winced at the twinge of pain in his back as he wheeled abruptly to punch the toggle and respond. “Kirk here.”

A familiar feminine voice filtered through the grid. “Uhura, Captain. I—”

He interrupted, “I thought you were supposed to be on your way to a firewatch party, Commander.”

“I am, sir.” He could hear her smile. “But I had a few minutes left, and I wanted to spend them on duty.”

“Understood,” Kirk said softly.

“Sir, the subspace interference has eased. I was finally able to clear a channel to Starbase Twenty-three. I can even get you that visual now—but I’m warning you, the reception isn’t that great.”

“Uhura, you’re a marvel.”

“I know, sir.”

“Patch it through to my quarters.” Aware of the sudden rapidity of his heartbeat, he strode over to the viewer and watched a burst of visual static on the screen. It resolved itself into the greenish and slightly fritzed image of Carol Marcus, against a setting Jim recognized as her hospital bed on the starbase. He had visited her