And what they faced wasn’t a large, central viewscreen—there were three of them, side by side on the sharply inward-angled forward wall. The rightmost screen displayed an engineering schematic of the Calypso—little more than a blunt-nosed, cylindrical main module about the same size as a single nacelle from an old Ambassador-class ship, with a slight, tapered bulge at the rear of the ventral hull, and two swept-back, outboard warp nacelles, also cylindrical, suggesting technology that was decades removed from state-of-the-art.
A dozen other smaller displays angled down from the ceiling of the bridge, and a handful more were arranged in what seemed to be a random fashion on the port and starboard bulkheads. Brightly colored conduits threaded among stark switching boxes made the rest of the exposed bulkheads resemble the outside of a Borg cube. Behind Kirk, also on the upper level, was a small room with a deck-to-overhead transparent wall. Inside the room was a wide black desk, apparently bolted to the deck, covered with scattered padds, and ringed by more displays on the bulkheads and overhead, all angled so they could be seen only by whoever sat behind the station.
And the air had a damp and musty smell, as if the ship recently had been used to transport livestock and the ventilation system had yet to be purged.
Kirk wondered what Spock would say when he told him about this sad excuse for a starship.
And then he remembered.
The shock of loss was just as strong as it had been the first time he knew Spock was dead. Just as strong as it had been every other time these past ten days when he had realized he would never again be able to share anything with his friend.
“Not quite Starfleet specs, is it, Captain?” Admiral Janeway smiled warmly at Kirk as she approached him from the lower level.
Kirk almost gasped. He had been so discomfited by his thoughts of Spock, so bothered by the bridge’s layout and condition that he hadn’t even noticed Janeway’s presence among the other technicians on the bridge. The fact that she wore a drab civilian outfit of tan jacket and gray trousers didn’t help. All the technicians were civilian, as well: three humans, two Bynars, and a Tellarite with a bad cough. They all seemed to be working on the same disassembled control console, arguing over which circuits to tear out next and throw onto the deck with the others.
Kirk tried to ignore the unprofessional chaos, held out his hand to shake Janeway’s as she came up the steps. “Admiral.” He looked around again. There were scrapes on every pale green wall, gouges and nicks on every piece of equipment. He could picture the way Spock’s eyebrow would rise at the sight of such disrepair. “She is spaceworthy, is she?”
Janeway’s smile grew wider, as if she had no sense of what Kirk was feeling, what he was hiding. “Mister Scott and Commander La Forge are in the engine room, determining that even now. But I don’t think they’ll find anything surprising.” She gestured to the room behind the transparent wall. “Care to join me in your office?”
“Office?” Kirk repeated.
Janeway waved her hand past a sensor patch and a section of the wall slid to the side. “After you,” she said.
Kirk took a breath, stepped into the room, and knew he would be damned before he would ever call it his office.
“When Captain Riker told me Starfleet would be providing a ship…” Kirk began.
“You expected a Starfleet vessel,” Janeway concluded for him. She still hadn’t lost that all-knowing smile, and she waved her hand again to close the sliding door.
“I expected a ship.” Kirk was determined to make Janeway understand this wasn’t a training run he had agreed to. A man was dead. A great man. And his unknown killers lived. “One worthy of the mission.”
With those words, Janeway finally seemed to sense what lay behind the steel in Kirk’s tone. Her smile faded. “I understand. And your expectations have been met. This is a Starfleet vessel.”
Kirk frowned. “Admiral, the noncertified shuttlecraft that first-year engineering students take apart and reassemble at the Academy are in better shape than this…barge.”
“Which is what makes it perfect for espionage missions.”
That stopped Kirk. “Espionage?”
Janeway paused, as if mentally testing different replies before committing to speak one aloud. At last, she chose her approach.
“Captain, I will not presume to say I can understand what you feel at the loss of your friend. But I do hope you understand that more than a friend was lost. Ambassador Spock was a powerful force for peace, whose influence extended far beyond the Federation’s boundaries. As an arm of the Federation, Starfleet has been given the mission to determine if the people who killed Spock did so as a strike specifically against the reunification of Romulans and Vulcans, or if there was a larger purpose, one directed against the Federation itself.”
Kirk had been out of Starfleet too long. He was tired of admirals and their long-winded justifications for everything they did. He missed Komack and Morrow and Bennett, the bold leaders of his day, who simply took action when it was required, and left the explanations to the junior staff responsible for filing reports. He started to interrupt, but Janeway wouldn’t let him.
“I know that’s not what you care about right now,” she said. “I don’t blame you. You’ve done more for the Federation than we could ever ask of anyone. You deserve your own life. You deserve time with your child.”
“What I deserve,” Kirk said without waiting for Janeway to give him an opening, “is you getting to the point.”
A flicker of a smile played over Janeway’s lips, as if she appreciated Kirk’s blunt approach. “All right. In the matter of Spock’s murder, Starfleet has a mission, and you have a mission. Those missions overlap.” She gestured to include the battered bridge before them. “So Starfleet is making one of its most valuable Q-ships available to you, so you can—”
“Throw myself on the barbed wire in advance of the main force,” Kirk said coldly. He had known what was expected of him since the unusual briefing with Riker, Troi, and Worf on the Titan. He understood exactly what Janeway meant.
But she didn’t understand him. “Barbed wire? Something to do with…horses?”
“Combat,” Kirk said. “Centuries ago, barbed wire was strung across battlefields and beaches to slow invading forces. The first soldiers to reach the barbed-wire fences would throw themselves down on it, so those behind could run over them without slowing.”
This time, Janeway didn’t fight her smile. “Don’t worry, Captain. Starfleet will give you time to get out of the way.”
Kirk stared out at the bridge, and from this vantage point he immediately saw the purpose of its design: The flow of information went in only one direction—to the commander. From this room, looking through the transparent wall, the captain of the Calypso could see every display screen his crew worked at, even though each of those crew members could see only his or her own. Data therefore filtered up to this…office, and whatever information flowed out was limited to what the captain chose to share.
But on a Starfleet vessel, the mission came before the man, and all information was freely available to everyone cleared for bridge duty. That was the only way something as complex as a starship could be managed—with complete trust in all personnel. No secrets. No doubts. No delays.
Three conditions which Janeway now refused to meet.
“You look like there’s something else you need to say,” Janeway prompted.
Kirk wondered what the point would be. But he tried anyway.
“Captain Riker made my position clear. I’m to be the point man. I lead the investigation. I distract and annoy the Romulan authorities. But in the end, I’m not to think it’s anything but a Starfleet operation.”
Janeway gave Kirk a measuring look. “Captain Riker may have said more than he was authorized to say.”
Kirk was equally tired of the formality of Starfleet’s chain of command. He was sick to death of protocol. “Riker didn’t say anything he wasn’t supposed to. I said: He made my pos
ition clear.”
Janeway raised her eyebrows, silently asking for clarification.
Kirk gave it to her. “Trust me, Admiral, I was in Starfleet before you were…” Kirk couldn’t bring himself to finish that particular thought. In truth, he had been in Starfleet before virtually anyone else in Starfleet today had been born. And he was tired of being reminded of that too. “I know how Starfleet operates,” he continued instead. “I know what you can say, what you can’t, and I don’t care anymore. I’ll carry out my mission, and Picard, I’m sure, will be your eyes and ears to be certain Starfleet’s interests are protected.”
Kirk was surprised by the sudden icy glare that came to Janeway. She leaned back on the desktop, kept her eyes locked on Kirk as if he were a cadet and she his Academy instructor. “I’ll only say this once. You’re going to Romulus as part of a team. A Starfleet team. You and Jean-Luc. Doctor McCoy, Mister Scott, Commander La Forge, and Doctor Crusher.”
“And Joseph.” Kirk matched Janeway icy glare for icy glare.
Janeway nodded, conceding the point. “And your child.”
“Who is no more part of Starfleet than I am.”
But Janeway shook her head, patted the desk. “As I said, this is a Starfleet vessel. It goes where obvious Starfleet vessels can’t go. Half the time, its supposed owners rent it out for legitimate private cruises. Geological mapping of non-M-class planets. University research expeditions. The other half of the time, Starfleet officers, in civilian clothes, with carefully constructed false identities, sit behind this desk and carry out missions Starfleet can’t be seen to be involved in.
“The only difference between those missions and this one is that we don’t have to create a false identity for you. You have a reason for going to Romulus. That’s all anyone needs to know.” She stood up again, spoke the next words almost as if they were a threat. “Even you, Captain.”
“That’s ‘mister.’ I’m retired.”
“I mean it as a form of respect.”
To Kirk, it felt as if the temperature in the “office” had dropped by fifty degrees. He couldn’t be certain of the reason for Janeway’s hostility toward him, but the very fact it existed was enough to kindle the same kind of obstinacy in himself.
“There’s a better way to show respect,” Kirk said.
Janeway waited for him to explain.
“Tell me the truth about this mission.”
“I have.”
“The whole truth.”
Janeway tapped her finger against the desktop, then shrugged. “Even I don’t know that.”
Kirk was momentarily distracted by a flash of sparks that jumped up from the open console surrounded by technicians, down on the bridge proper. “So I have a mission. Picard has a mission. And then…there’s a third mission?”
Janeway wasn’t going to give up anything more. “Maybe even a fourth or a fifth,” she said, almost as if she deliberately meant to taunt him. “This has all been arranged by Starfleet Intelligence. I’ve been told what I need to know. And now you’ve been told, too.”
Kirk studied Janeway carefully. He didn’t know her well, but he had read of her astonishing voyage through the Delta Quadrant. He had been impressed that against impossible odds, she had brought her crew and her ship back from certain death, like a modern-day Shackleton. And he had met her Mirror Universe duplicate, held her in his arms and fought at her side, and from that experience knew firsthand the inner strength and force of will that was common to both reflections of the woman.
But he hated the fact that she stood before him now not as a legendary starship captain, but merely as a Starfleet functionary. Somehow, he doubted that she would be entirely comfortable with that role. He decided to find out.
“Admiral,” Kirk asked her, “when did you stop being a captain?”
He saw her eyes narrow, knew she understood the criticism he intended. But to Kirk’s disappointment, she held herself in check, revealed nothing of what she might really be feeling. “We’re on the same side, Captain Kirk.”
But Kirk shook his head. “No, we’re not. Unless—and until—you tell me what the real purpose of this mission is, you’re just noise in the signal.”
Janeway forced a smile. “Then get used to the static.”
Part of Kirk appreciated the fact that Janeway wouldn’t back down, that for all that she made a point of showing him respect, she treated him as an equal. He hoped she felt the same about the way he treated her.
But if there was anything more to be said between them, that conversation would have to wait, because suddenly the office door slid open again, and Joseph skipped in, clutching his much-too-large duffel bag to his chest.
“Hi Dad!” His voice was bright, full of energy, full of promise. Kirk, as always, was astounded at the effect his child had on him, as if some of that energy miraculously flowed into him, recharging, reinvigorating. Suddenly, Janeway and her Starfleet machinations weren’t that annoying, or important.
“Hi Joseph.” Kirk reached out to rub his hand over Joseph’s ridged, bald scalp.
“Hello…Admiral,” Joseph said to Janeway.
Kirk was surprised. He didn’t think Joseph and Janeway had met. He glanced at the admiral, but she wasn’t looking at Joseph in acknowledgment. Instead, she was looking at something past him.
Kirk followed her gaze, expecting to see something more going on on the bridge. Instead, he saw the sensor patch that controlled the sliding door.
“Joseph,” Kirk asked, “have you met Admiral Janeway?”
“No, sir.”
Kirk hadn’t expected that answer. “Then how did you know who she is?”
“Uncle Scotty said she was here.”
Janeway held out her hand to shake Joseph’s. “I’m very pleased to meet you, Joseph.”
The child squirmed with his duffel until Kirk lifted it from him. Joseph eagerly started to reach out his hand to take Janeway’s, then stopped, looked at his palm, then quickly wiped it against his red coveralls.
“Sorry. I was in the mess.” Apparently convinced his hand was clean, Joseph earnestly shook Janeway’s hand. Kirk hid his smile as Janeway surreptitiously wiped her own hand against her slacks.
“So what do you think about this ship?” Janeway asked.
Joseph looked up at Kirk. “Permission to speak freely?”
Kirk saw Janeway smile at that phrase, but Kirk was pleased that Joseph remembered proper etiquette for talking with adults.
“Permission granted,” Kirk said.
“Well, it’s sort of messy,” Joseph said. “But Uncle Scotty says the engines are outstanding! Under the dirt. He doesn’t like the dirt. But Geordi says they can’t clean it off.” Joseph screwed up his face. “How come?”
Janeway looked at Kirk, passing the question on to him.
Kirk was already uncomfortable with having Joseph on this mission, even though no one expected danger. The worst that could happen was that the Romulans would prevent the Calypso from entering their system. But Kirk had always insisted on complete honesty from his son, and the only way he could expect Joseph to keep that commitment to his father was to be completely honest in return.
“Remember how we’ve talked about operational security?” Kirk asked. He ignored Janeway’s flicker of puzzlement.
“Top secret. Need to know,” Joseph said gravely.
“Very good,” Kirk confirmed. “The answer to your question is top secret, so you can never tell anyone else about it. Understood.”
“Is the admiral cleared?” Joseph asked.
Janeway put her hand over her mouth and coughed.
But Kirk had had a great deal more experience in not laughing at Joseph’s unexpectedly adult pronouncements, and kept a serious expression. “She’s in charge.”
“Understood,” Joseph said.
Kirk looked to Janeway. “Admiral…if you’d care to, uh, brief Joseph.”
Janeway shrugged, clearly amused. “Very well, Captain.” She took on an ex
tremely serious demeanor as well, and turned to Joseph. “The Calypso is what we call a Q-ship. It’s a Starfleet vessel, but it’s in disguise. From the outside, it looks like a slow-moving civilian ship. But on the inside, it has Starfleet’s best engines and shields.”
Joseph’s eyes widened. “Oh, oh! So if…if Orion pirates board the vessel, and they go into the engine room, they’ll see all the dirt and think the engines are junk!”
“Exactly,” Janeway said. “But for the disguise to work, you can’t ever tell anyone about it.”
“Yes, sir!”
Janeway gave Kirk an inquiring look. “And what year of the Academy is Joseph in now?”
Joseph laughed. “I’m not in the Academy!”
Janeway played along. “You’re certain? You’re behaving exactly like a proper cadet. I’m very impressed.”
Joseph looked at Kirk, and Kirk could see his son, only five, going on ten most days, going on seventeen from time to time, had no idea what to say. Kirk helped him out. “Admiral Janeway has just paid you a compliment.”
Joseph remembered his etiquette again. He actually stood at attention. “Thank you, Admiral.”
“You’re very welcome.” Janeway turned her attention back to Kirk. “I think we’re finished here, Captain Kirk. Jean-Luc will be able to fill you in on any details we’ve missed.”
“Uncle Jean-Luc?” Joseph asked excitedly. “Is he here?” And then Joseph tensed as he realized his mistake, and added, “I apologize for interrupting.”
“Not necessary,” Janeway said gracefully. “And, uh…Uncle Jean-Luc should be arriving within the hour.” She nodded at Kirk. “And I should be getting back to the Titan.”
Janeway started for the closed door.
“Will you be staying on the Titan?” Kirk asked.
Janeway paused by the transparent door. “No. Between you, Jean-Luc, and Captain Riker, we’re in good hands.” She tapped the door. It didn’t move. Then she waved her hand over the sensor patch, and the door opened. She looked back at Kirk. “You should have your engineers check the lock on this door. It’s supposed to be keyed to command staff only.” She smiled professionally at Kirk, then looked at Joseph. “A pleasure to meet you, Cadet.”
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