46 47

didn’t let Scott interrupt him, he would be done in seconds ….

“Captain,” Scott cried, in the plaintive tone Kirk knew so well—well enough to know that this time, things were seriously critical. Even had Scott not contacted him, he would have known from the feel of the Enterprise’ s shaking—even this new Enterprise’ s shaking—that a major hull breach was imminent. “I don’t know how much longer I can hold her together!”

In the background, he could hear Demora’s voice: “Forty-five seconds to structural collapse!”

Kirk took the critical seconds needed to make the final adjustment, then slammed the wall panel closed with a sense of triumph. “That’s it! Go!”

He heard Scott terminate the intercom link, and rose unsteadily to make his way out into the shuddering corridor. There was no sense in hurrying; they would either be safe now, or die. He had done all that he could do.

Before he had taken more than a dozen steps, the ship’s shaking eased dramatically. He grinned gently; so, his strange premonition of death had proven to be false~ He was glad, of course, for himself and all those aboard the ship—and yet he felt a faint, odd disappointment. It wouldn’t have been such a terrible way to go. Would he ever again get another chance like this to make a difference?

He was in midstride when it came: an explosion so deafening, so teeth-chattering, that it seemed to have erupted from within his own head. He was lifted from the floor, slammed against bulkhead or deck—he could not discern which. In a dazzlingly brilliant millisecond, he saw everything around him dissolve into the violet

white heat of the energy ribbon, felt his own body dissolving, merging with the pulse.

He was, as he had always known he would be, alone. There was no time for reflection or regret in the primal moment of dissolution, only a glimmer of gladness that McCoy and Spock were safe wherever they were, that they would continue without him.

And then there was silence, and the beginning of the ultimate, infinite free fall ….