The review board had not only let me graduate, they’d given me a commendation for original thinking. Only one admiral had opposed: Komack. He stuck to his opinion that I’d violated the spirit of the test, but he’d been overruled. However, Komack had his own avenue for punishment. He was head of the committee in charge of posting cadets to their first assignments. Though I was near the top of my class and requested starship duty, he made sure I was not given an exploratory ship, which were considered the most desired postings. Instead, I was put on a 20-year-old ship that made “milk runs,” delivering personnel, medicine, spare parts, other supplies from Earth to starbases and colonies and back again. I could have complained, but I felt that would be pushing my luck; I decided I was doing penance for the Kobayashi Maru.
I wasn’t too disappointed. I was getting what I wanted: I was an officer aboard a starship. And now, as we approached the ship, I was overcome with excitement. I wish I could’ve said the same of my companion.
The Republic was not at all what Ben Finney wanted. He was hoping for a more glamorous assignment to jump-start a career that he felt had already been unfairly slowed down because he’d been an instructor for so long. However, since he was older than a lot of cadets, he was less attractive to some starship captains who wanted to mold their own kind of junior officers. His only choice was also the Republic. But Ben wasn’t going to be passive; before we even docked, he was making plans to get himself off this ship and onto a better assignment.
The shuttle flew into the hangar, and we all stepped out into the cramped bay; it wasn’t the clean, state-of-the-art facility we’d become used to at the academy. Paneling had been stripped away to make more room for shuttles, so the ship’s superstructure was visible. Overhead the various small crafts were stacked in their docks, making use of all available space. Before we could take it all in, we were greeted by the ship’s chief petty officer, a salt-and-pepper veteran named Tichenor.
“Welcome aboard, sirs,” Tichenor said. Before we could introduce ourselves, he shouted, “Atten-shun!”
We stood at attention with the noncommissioned crew, as our new commanding officer, Captain Stephen Garrovick, entered the bay. He was stoic and imposing: well over six feet, a little gray at his temples, with a stern expression that, only with the gift of hindsight, hinted at a smile underneath. He looked us over with an air of amused disdain.
“Kirk and Finney,” he said. “Chief will get you squared away.” He then turned and walked off. I think I was hoping for more, maybe a “welcome to the team” speech. But we weren’t getting one; we grabbed our duffels and followed Tichenor out.
The CPO led us to our “quarters.” I didn’t expect it to be luxurious; I figured I’d be on a quadruple bunk bed in an eight-by-eight cube, crewmen stacked like those shuttles I saw in the bay. I was overly optimistic.
We were in the primary hull’s engineering deck, a crowded area packed with monitors, piping, and crewmen, many of whom were engaged in loud repair work. Tichenor pointed to a space on the floor underneath a staircase leading to the impulse engines. It had been curtained off.
“Sir, that’s your berth,” he said.
This had to be a joke, a hazing of the new officers. I looked at Tichenor, and then at Finney, who shrugged.
“You have a complaint, sir?” Tichenor had a smile on his face; it looked like he wanted me to complain.
“No, Chief, this’ll be fine,” I said.
“All right, sir, once you’re squared away, regulations require you to report to sickbay for your physical,” he said, then led Finney off, presumably to his makeshift quarters. I looked at the cramped space under the staircase. I wasn’t even sure I could fit lying down. I tossed down my duffel, figured I was “squared away,” and headed toward sickbay.
I was halfway through my physical when Finney joined me.
“They’ve got me sleeping in the photon torpedo bay,” Ben said.
Dr. Piper, the ship’s chief medical officer, stout, affable, and seasoned, chuckled.
“It won’t be forever, gentlemen,” he said. “Officers do their best to get off this ship.”
When the Republic was first commissioned, it was the state of the art in exploration and research vessels. But it was a small design, and upon being superseded by the newer classes of ships, it was reclassified to tasks it wasn’t initially designed for. As a result, it had to devote a large portion of what had been crew quarters to storage. Thus I would spend my first six months in Starfleet sleeping under a staircase and using the common bathroom off the engineering section.
After our physicals, we reported to our immediate commanding officer, Chief Engineer Howard Kaplan, a balding, flabby man in his fifties. I would soon discover his annoyed expression was his resting state.
“Finney, you get beta shift, Kirk, you’re on gamma shift,” he said. Since Starfleet ships try to duplicate Earth conditions of night and day as closely as possible, gamma shift was midnight to eight. This meant I would be trying to sleep under a staircase during the “daytime” shifts, which were always the busiest.
Kaplan checked a console chronometer.
“Finney, you’re on duty in an hour, Kirk in nine. Use the time, learn the job. I don’t want to be woken up unless the ship’s about to blow up,” he said, then turned to a member of his staff. “Lieutenant Scott! Give ’em the tour.”
A lieutenant, a little older than Ben, came over and put out his hand.
“Montgomery Scott, call me Scotty,” he said. He had a brogue to match his name.
“Finney, go with ’em,” Kaplan said. “You’ll be late to your shift, and this’ll be the last time.”
Scott turned quickly and we followed as he took us on a thorough tour fore and aft. It took hours and seemed like we climbed every ladder and opened every hatch on the ship. Through it all, it was hard not to become impressed with Mr. Scott. He had knowledge of engineering far beyond anything either Ben or I had experienced. He showed us repairs and makeshift constructs on everything from the transporters to the lights in the galley, all clearly completed by him. The Republic was held together by spit and baling wire, and Assistant Engineer Scott had provided most of the spit.
Five hours later, we had completed the tour and were well into Ben’s shift. Kaplan then had me shadow Ben for his shift, since I’d be alone on gamma shift.
“And I don’t want you waking me up unless the ship’s about to blow up,” Kaplan said again. By the time my first shift was over, I’d been up for almost 24 hours straight. My concern that I wouldn’t be able to sleep under a busy staircase proved to be unfounded.
We left Earth with a cargo of supplies for the Benecia Colony, then we’d head for Starbase 9, Starbase 11, then back to Earth, to start the route again. Those first few weeks I became acquainted with one of the truths of space travel: it can be very dull. All of the major maintenance and repair operations were carried out during alpha shifts, a few minor ones and follow-ups on beta shift; the duty officer on gamma shift (me) worked alone, so it was only monitoring duty. It was crushingly tedious work, but on a ship of this age I recognized that I carried serious responsibility.
Ben, however, seemed like he was on vacation. His off-time corresponded with more of the other crew, so he quickly fell in to a social groove. He made a lot of friends; very soon after we got there it appeared everyone knew who he was. It led to a few personal advantages; he managed to convince a personnel officer to get him an actual bed in an actual stateroom. He was sharing the room with seven other crewmen, but it was better than the staircase.
We would sometimes meet for my breakfast and his dinner (I was just waking up; he was about to go on duty for the afternoon–early evening shift). On one of these occasions, about two months into our service, he asked for my help.
“I’ve convinced Hardy in communications to let me call Earth,” he said. This was quite an accomplishment. Use of the subspace communicator was very restricted.
“Why?”
“It
’s Jamie’s third birthday,” he said. “I don’t want to miss it.” I could see for the first time how heartsick Ben was. I remembered my own childhood birthdays, and my mother calling me from Tarsus. It meant a lot to me then, and I eventually grew resentful that she didn’t call more often. Now that I was on a ship and understood the power involved in sending subspace communications, it’s amazing to me that she called as much as she did.
“What do you need me for?”
“Hardy says she’ll only do it at the end of her shift, when she’s finished with the official traffic. It’s also at the end of my shift, but I need you to relieve me a few minutes early so I can get over there.”
“You better hope Kaplan doesn’t catch you,” I said.
“I don’t think I have to worry. Kaplan sleeps through my shift and yours,” he said, and I laughed. We’d both come to the conclusion that Montgomery Scott was the actual chief engineer, and Kaplan wasn’t letting him transfer out because with Scott around, Kaplan didn’t have to do any work.
A few days later, I came on shift ten minutes early. Ben was anxious to get going, and quickly brought me up to speed on the maintenance alpha and beta shifts had performed on the ship’s fusion reactor.*
After Ben left, I started my routine, which involved studying the engineering consoles and checking the status of the systems. I immediately found a vent circuit to the fusion chamber had been left open. It was contaminating the air in the engine room, and, more important, if the bridge had to shift to fusion power after another five minutes, it could’ve blown up the ship.
I immediately closed the circuit. Kaplan’s words “I don’t want you waking me up unless the ship’s about to blow up” echoed in my head, so, since the ship was no longer in any danger, I decided not to alert him. But regulations stated that I had to log the incident.
I hesitated. This would get Ben in trouble; he should have noticed the open circuit during his watch. My guess was that he’d been too preoccupied about getting to speak with Jamie. I considered leaving it out of the log and just telling Finney privately what had happened. But though Finney had not noticed it being open, it wasn’t necessarily his fault that it had been left open in the first place. If the responsible parties weren’t found, mistakes like it could almost certainly happen again. I felt I had no choice but to log it. Looking back, I might have had a slight bit of resentment that I had had to do Finney’s job for him, that he had put all our lives in danger because of his own personal needs, which may have led to my going to sleep at the end of my shift, rather than trying to find him to tell him what had happened. That was definitely a mistake.
“Wake up, you bastard!”
I’d probably been sleeping for three hours, and before I could fully register the voice that was yelling at me, I was yanked out of my makeshift quarters under the staircase. Shirtless, half-asleep, I stood in the middle of engineering as alpha shift watched in confusion. A furious Ben Finney confronted me.
“What the hell did you do?!”
“Ben, I had no choice …”
He wasn’t interested in listening to me. Kaplan, as he did every morning, reviewed the engineering log from my shift and became furious. I hadn’t calculated that Kaplan would be embarrassed too; the fact that one of his staff had been this negligent reflected poorly on him, and he brought the full weight of discipline down on Finney. Ben had been severely reprimanded and put at the bottom of the promotion list.
“I spent three extra years at the academy teaching idiots like you computers, and now thanks to you I’m going to stay an ensign forever!” I’d never seen him this angry.
“I did what I had to do—”
“You didn’t have to do it. You could’ve looked after me the way I looked after you!”
“I’m sorry …”
“You’re not sorry. You’ve been competing with me since the day we came on board, and now you’ve taken me down! Congratulations! Does it feel good?” He was ranting; it sounded almost paranoid. Everything I tried to say made him angrier, so I just stood quietly as he continued to yell at me. Finally, he stormed off.
I tried to process what had happened. I assumed that once some time passed, Ben would calm down and understand that, had he been in my position, he would’ve done the same thing. But I was wrong. In the days to come, when I would relieve him on engineering duty, he would give me a by-the-book rundown of the engineering situation. I tried on several occasions to engage him in conversation, but he wasn’t interested. To make matters worse, Ben was poisoning my reputation with the rest of the crew. I never got the full story of what he said about me, but it was clear he was making a case among the other officers that the open circuit was my mistake, not his, and that I had conspired to place the blame on him. However, since no one would talk openly to me about it, there was no way for me to air my side of it.
The next few months were exceedingly lonely and depressing. The officers kept their distance from me; when I went for meals or to the few recreation areas of the ship, I could feel the coolness from the other crewmen. On top of that, Chief Engineer Kaplan wanted to make my life hell; my action had made him look bad to the captain, and though he could do nothing to reprimand me since I’d acted properly, it was also clear he wasn’t going to take me off gamma shift.
One night, I was sitting alone in one of the rec rooms, a few minutes before my shift, eating dinner. Lieutenant Scott came in. I generally didn’t see much of him; he was an all-work-and-no-play kind of officer, and on his off hours he spent his free time reading technical journals. He got his food from one of the dispensers and came over to me.
“Mind if I join you, Ensign?” he said.
“Not at all, sir.” He sat down and immediately started eating. We both ate in silence for a moment, then he spoke.
“It might interest you to know, I told the chief engineer you might be better off in another department,” he said.
“Really?” I had no idea what this was about.
“Feel free to tell me I’m wrong,” he said. “I just don’t know if engineering is your passion.” This came as a shock to me. Scott and I hadn’t spent that much time together; I wondered why he was forming this impression. I assumed it was because he bought into Ben’s version of events and didn’t want me around.
“I did what I had to do,” I said.
“What are you talking about?” Scott said.
“When I put Ben on report,” I said, “I know what the rumors are …”
“We’re not having the same conversation,” Scott said, and he looked legitimately bewildered.
“Well, I’ve done my work, I don’t know why you’d want me transferred—”
“I don’t want you transferred, lad. I’m thinking what’s best for you. You do your work, sure,” he said. “But an engineer doesn’t stop there. He’s always fixing, building … you’re on a warp-driven starship, one o’ the best workshops you could ever ask for. And now I hear you’re sittin’ around worrying about what people are saying about you.” I looked at the man in awe.
“You’re right, sir,” I said.
“I told you the first day you got here,” he said. “Call me Scotty.”
It was a little better after that. During my free shifts, I decided to spend time with Scotty, helping him with repairs and upgrades. I learned more about the limits of a warp-driven ship during those months, knowledge that would come in handy in the years to come.
But the rest of the crew was still pretty unfriendly to me, and as we completed a leg of our run to Starbase 9, I was shaken awake by CPO Tichenor.
“Sir, Captain needs to see you in his quarters,” Tichenor said.
I got dressed as quick as I could, and Tichenor led me to Garrovick’s quarters. He was at his desk, writing something on a PADD. He dismissed Tichenor and looked up at me. I was very nervous. Except for a few brief hellos in the corridor, the only time the captain had spoken to me in the last six months was when I came on board, and this was the first time we’d
ever been alone.
“Ensign Kirk,” Garrovick said, “sorry we haven’t had time to get to know each other, but I’m transferring you off the Republic.”
So, even the captain wasn’t immune to the rumor mill.
“Is there something you want to say, Ensign?” I felt some judgment in the question, but I wasn’t going to let myself get caught up in it. If this captain had no use for my honesty, then I had no use for him.
“No sir,” I said.
“All right,” he said. “We’ll be at Starbase 9 in a couple of hours. Be ready to leave as soon as we dock. I’ll have your orders for you then. You’re dismissed.” He couldn’t wait to be rid of me, I thought.
“Thank you, sir,” I said.
I went back to my cubby and packed my things. As I did, I started to wonder, could I have been this wrong about Starfleet? I had done my duty, with honor as it was defined for me, and it had led to this. Maybe I had made a mistake.
Once I finished packing, I still had over an hour, so I thought I’d find Scotty and say goodbye. He at least had been a bright spot. I found him in the Jefferies tube leading to the port nacelle.
“You’re leaving me? Who’s gonna carry my toolbox?” he said with a smile.
“Thank you for all your help,” I said.
“I should be thanking you,” he said. “It’s been a pleasure. Kind of funny, you and the captain leaving at the same time.”
“The captain’s leaving?” Not having many friends on the ship, I missed out on a lot of gossip.
“That’s the word,” he said. “Anyway, good luck to you, lad. Hope we can serve together again.”
Now I was really confused. Why was the captain bothering to get rid of me if he was leaving? It didn’t make any sense.
Shortly after we docked at Starbase 9, the crew was called to the shuttle bay. Garrovick was there with another captain, who I didn’t recognize. I had brought my duffel with me and had it at my feet.
The Autobiography of James T. Kirk Page 8
