Captain's Peril

by William Shatner

  “Captain, at the end of the day, why are you even wasting your time asking me about it? Have you talked to Spock?”

  Kirk delayed too long in trying to think of a reasonable answer.

  “Didn’t think so,” Piper said with more satisfaction than Kirk felt was warranted. “Give it a try. He doesn’t bite. Usually.”

  “I’ll do that,” Kirk said, primarily because he couldn’t think of anything else to say, though the last thing he wanted was a one-on-one argument with a Vulcan. How could he ever come out ahead in a situation like that? As far as Kirk was concerned, if he couldn’t be sure of victory, why bother to get into the game in the first place?

  “Anything else?”

  Kirk understood. Piper was dismissing him. More than fifty years in space gave him that privilege. The Piper lineage reached back through the history of space exploration almost as far as Christopher, Cochrane, and Sloane. As a newly christened babe in arms, Mark Piper had bounced on Jack Archer’s knee and he had the autographed holoprint to prove it.

  “That’s it for now,” Kirk said. “Thank you, Doctor.”

  “Anytime, Captain.”

  Kirk nodded, then left Piper’s office, heading for the main doors. The new doctor, whoever he turned out to be, couldn’t come soon enough as far as Kirk was concerned. The next three months would be long ones.

  Just as long as the new doctor wasn’t a Vulcan.

  One of those was quite enough.

  Chapter Five

  U.S.S.ENTERPRISE NCC-1701, STARDATE 1003.6

  “YOU WANTED TO see me, Captain?”

  Kirk blinked as the turbolift doors finished opening, and he stared directly and unexpectedly into the impassive and, he suspected, deliberately unreadable features of his science officer.

  The Vulcan-human hybrid stood alone in the lift, his gold duty shirt hanging from his gaunt frame, hands folded behind his back, one of his oddly shaped eyebrows arched in what Kirk took to be a questioning expression. Then again, given everything he had read about Vulcans, it could just as well be an invitation to dinner, or the prelude to Spock’s announcement that the ship was five seconds from falling into a black hole and all life aboard was doomed.

  Spock made no move to exit the turbolift car. Kirk made no move to enter it.

  A Vulcan standoff, Kirk thought. He had read of those, too. They could last for years.

  “I just spoke to Dr. Piper,” Kirk said, in an attempt to initiate a conversation under some semblance of control.

  “Indeed. Are you well?”

  Kirk studied his science officer, trying to decide if that was some kind of subtle Vulcanian mindgame. Ensign Finnegan, Kirk’s Academy nemesis, had delighted in asking other cadets if they felt well. When a cadet invariably said yes, Finnegan would purse his lips, shrug skeptically, and then condescendingly change the subject. After four or five of Finnegan’s cronies had asked the same victim the same question over the course of a day, the worried cadet would end up on sick call, convinced he had contracted whatever rare disease was being covered in exobiology that week.

  “I mean literally,” Kirk said. “Less than a minute ago.”

  Spock innocently raised both eyebrows, just like Finnegan. “Is the timing of that conversation of some significance?”

  Now Kirk knew Spock was playing a game with him. And since Kirk hadn’t a clue what kind of game this was or what the rules were, he chose full-bore frontal assault.

  “You know very well it’s significant, Mr. Spock. What I want to know is how Piper got through to you so quickly. Or is it standard operating procedure on this ship for officers to coordinate strategies for dealing with their captain?” Take that, Mr. Spock. Kirk enjoyed the sight of his science officer’s eyebrows moving even closer to the laser-sharp line of his monklike fringe of black hair.

  Spock regarded him silently for a moment, then stepped back into the ’lift car so Kirk could enter.

  One for the new captain, Kirk thought victoriously as he stepped into the center of the car and took hold of a control grip. The doors slipped closed behind him.

  “Which deck, Mr. Spock?” In light of Spock’s defeat, Kirk decided it was time for a magnanimous gesture.

  “Actually,” Spock answered, “I was on my way to sickbay to update my medical records, but I thought it might be best if we continued this conversation in relative privacy.”

  Kirk sensed a trap. “You did?”

  “Captain Pike felt that any disagreement between command officers should be kept private, so as not to affect crew morale.”

  Damn, Kirk thought. He is going to drag me into an argument. Spock had deliberately given him an easy victory to put him off his guard.

  Kirk decided to switch to defense. Normally, he didn’t play by such a conservative strategy, but until he got a sense of his adversary, it seemed the wiser choice. Let Spock make the next blunder.

  But before he could reply to Spock, the turbolift car began to beep, advising its riders that they had remained in it too long without giving it a destination. Kirk hesitated. He had been intending to go to the bridge, but Spock was correct—this wasn’t the type of conversation for the captain and his exec to have in front of the crew.

  Kirk gave the control grip a twist so its activator light came on, then said, “Hangar bay maintenance.” The shuttlecraft maintenance bay was the farthest the ’lifts ran aft. Spock gave no reaction to Kirk’s choice of destination as the car began to descend, so Kirk restarted their discussion.

  “Exactly what kind of disagreement are we having, Mr. Spock?”

  “Permission to speak freely?”

  Kirk sighed. “Go ahead.”

  “I was hoping you could tell me what the disagreement is, Captain. Frankly, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  Kirk searched Spock’s blank expression for any sign of amusement, while trying to match the Vulcan’s composure. He felt the ’lift car pause for an instant as it passed through a field overlap between two artificial-gravity generators, then begin to move sideways.

  “Did you, or did you not, Mr. Spock, submit a transfer request to personnel?”

  Spock nodded slightly. “I did.”

  The set of Spock’s head matched the complacent tone of his voice.

  Maybe Vulcans did give off clues to their emotional state, Kirk thought. The clues were obviously subtle, but perhaps it would be useful to start paying closer attention to them.

  Kirk decided to press his advantage, using a few questioning techniques taught to him by Areel Shaw, one of Starfleet’s most promising young attorneys—and most beautiful. “And did you, or did you not, just discuss that transfer, and my response to it, with Dr. Piper?”

  “I did not.”

  Another legal truism Areel had taught him: When conducting a cross-examination, never ask a question to which you don’t already know the answer.

  But Kirk knew what the answer to that last question should have been. Spock was lying to him. But then, Vulcans can’t lie, can they? Kirk asked himself, wondering if Spock’s being half-human allowed him to bypass the strange mental conditioning rites to which, Kirk had heard, Vulcans subjected their children. Because Spock had lied. And Kirk would now prove it.

  He raised an accusatory finger as the ’lift car dropped down two levels, before resuming its horizontal route. “Then, Mr. Spock, how did you know that I wanted to speak with you?”

  Kirk allowed himself a triumphant smile. It wasn’t every day that a mere human got the better of a Vulcan, he knew.

  Maddeningly, Spock displayed not even the slightest sign of admitting that Kirk could detect his defeat.

  “I did not know you wanted to speak with me, Captain. I simply surmised as much because such a desire would be your only logical reaction to my transfer request. Dr. Piper, I assure you, had nothing to do with it.”

  Kirk’s jaw tightened. Another trap?

  “Why do you say it’s my only logical conclusion?”

  “I am highly reg
arded within Starfleet,” Spock said without a trace of pride or humility. “The fact that such a notable officer has requested a transfer after serving five months, three days with a new captain, aboard a ship he has previously served upon for eleven years, nine months, fifteen days, might be construed by some as a criticism of you.”

  Damn him, Kirk thought. He knew exactly what he was doing to me with that transfer.

  “And knowing that,” Kirk said, “you did it anyway.” He decided Spock would serve out the rest of his Starfleet career in the Enterprise’s galley, cleaning the recyclers.

  Kirk felt his science officer studying him as closely as he had been studied in turn. But the charged moment of scrutiny was interrupted as the turbolift car came to a stop and the doors swept open to reveal Chief Engineer Montgomery Scott and the ship’s ever-curious physicist, Hikaru Sulu. The two men were each laden with a variety of diagnostic tools which even Kirk could tell had been heavily modified, two of which he didn’t recognize. Behind them, Kirk saw the shuttlecraft, Galileo, apparently in the process of being disassembled.

  “Good morning, Cap’n,” Scott said uncertainly. “Are ye getting out, then?”

  “Missed our floor,” Kirk said tersely. “Next car.” Then he twisted the control grip and said, “Bridge,” making an effort to smile politely as the doors slid shut on the puzzled engineer and physicist.

  Spock began again as if there had been no interruption. “Captain, if I may continue to speak freely, I would like to point out that I said, ‘might be construed.’ No criticism of you was intended, and none will be inferred by command, if that is your concern.”

  For more than five months, Kirk had sat across from his Vulcan science officer at staff meetings. He and Spock had worked side by side on the bridge, beamed down to established colonies and alien worlds, successfully engaged in an unexpected first contact mission with the Trelorians, and spent two days trapped in the Galileo when Piper feared an outbreak of s’rellian drypox was spreading through the ship and had placed the two of them in quarantine.

  And I still don’t know the first thing about him, Kirk thought. Not as a man.

  Spock broke the relative silence of the moving car first. “Is that your concern, Captain? That you believe my transfer request is intended as a criticism of your command?”

  Kirk realized this might be a key moment in his relationship with his science officer, one with the potential to influence the entire five-year mission, even to become a turning point in his personal career aboard the Enterprise.

  All dependent upon what he said next to Mr. Spock.

  Kirk’s instinct, as always, told him not to show indecision, especially not in a situation involving a subordinate. When he was in the center chair, he had to be the unshakeable center of his ship. For the crew of the Enterprise to do their duty, even in the face of certain death, all of them had to have absolute faith in their captain and his ability to make the right decision at the right time.

  With the single exception of Dr. Piper, Kirk had never permitted a single member of his crew—not even his closest friend, Gary Mitchell—to witness a moment’s hesitation. No matter his own personal doubts, and he had had many these past five months, Kirk was certain he had never let those doubts show.

  To stay true to that tenet of command, he should do exactly what Piper had counseled him to do: Sign Spock’s transfer request, and move on.

  After all, Kirk was a starship captain. During the course of his five-year mission, he knew there would be many times when he would inevitably take his ship out past the boundaries of Federation space, and beyond the reach of realtime subspace contact with command. He had been selected to be part of an elite cadre of only eleven other captains for a role in which he would make decisions that could lead to peace or war for the entire Federation. The fate of worlds was literally in his hands. How could the transfer request of one crew member ever threaten such a man, such a career?

  The truth was, it couldn’t.

  Kirk’s training had prepared him for this decision. Dr. Piper obviously had seen this situation a thousand times before in his years in space and advised him accordingly. Kirk’s instincts had never failed him in matters of command.

  But still, in this moment, he couldn’t shake the feeling that he was missing a crucial part of the puzzle.

  So, since the conditions for victory were unknown, there was only one thing left to do.

  Kirk made his own rules.

  He set aside his training, ignored his chief medical officer’s advice, and resisted following his instincts.

  Instead, he gambled everything on a strategy he had never tried before, but a strategy that feltright.

  As the turbolift car paused for a moment, before beginning its final ascent to the bridge, Kirk, for the first time, addressed Spock as an equal.

  “Yes, Mr. Spock,” he said, no longer a captain speaking to his exec, “I am concerned that your request for transfer will be interpreted by command as a personal criticism.”

  The barest flicker in Spock’s expression gave Kirk the definite impression that what Kirk had just said—just confessed—was the last thing the Vulcan had expected to hear.

  Spock cleared his throat, as if he realized he would have to toss away whatever he had been prepared to say.

  “I assure you, Captain, that no criticism was intended, and that no criticism will be inferred.”

  Kirk could feel the car begin to slow, knew he didn’t want to feed the ship’s rumor mill with tales of the captain and the science officer riding a turbolift as if it were the Flying Dutchman. He twisted the control grip to neutral. “Stop here,” he instructed the ’lift.

  The bright lights of the deck indicators ceased flashing past the screened viewport.

  Again, Spock did not react to their change of travel plans.

  “How can you make that assurance?” Kirk asked.

  “I am a Vulcan,” Spock answered, as if those four words explained everything.

  Kirk decided to stay with his unorthodox strategy. He smiled at Spock, hoping the Vulcan had spent enough time around humans to understand that that smile indicated he meant no insult by what he said next. “Sorry…now I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  There, Kirk thought, that flicker in his eyes. Again. Spock must have seen the irony in his own words being turned back on him.

  But Spock’s dry response offered no such confirmation.

  “Captain Kirk, if I, as a Starfleet officer, concluded that you were acting in a manner that was detrimental to the ship’s mission or crew, I would file a report through the proper channels. I would not, however, request a transfer, because, under those conditions, the ship might very well be endangered by my absence.”

  Kirk rapidly sorted through the ramifications of what Spock had just said.

  Then he laughed. Spock had turned Kirk’s own actions back on him.

  “In other words, the fact that you’re requesting a transfer off the Enterprise five months into the mission is actually a vote of confidence in me?”

  “Starfleet is not a democracy.”

  Now, that definitely was a joke, Kirk thought. No one could be that literal.

  “You know what I mean, Mr. Spock. You’re saying that command will interpret your transfer request as a sign you believe the Enterprise is in competent hands.”

  Spock shrugged. “No other logical conclusion is possible.”

  “You’re certain of that?” Kirk disliked absolutes intensely.

  Spock paused for a moment before answering. “Admittedly, there are always possibilities that emerge from unsuspected conditions and chaotic interference from—”

  Kirk also disliked long explanations. He held up a hand to stop Spock in midsentence. “Let’s just leave it at, ‘There are always possibilities.’”

  Spock had no objection. “That would be more efficient.”

  Kirk decided to go for broke. “So…do you believe the Enterprise is in competent hands?”
/>
  This time Spock didn’t hesitate. “Without question. I reviewed your record when Captain Pike informed me you would be the ship’s new commander, and saw that you fit perfectly the new selection criteria for Starfleet’s expanded program of starship exploration.

  “Since you took over as commanding officer of the ship’s refit, and during the five months, three days, we have been underway, the time I have served with you has been productive, professionally challenging, and rewarding. It also has resulted in important new scientific findings, and—in the case of our first contact with the Trelorians—strengthened the Federation.

  “I have served with humans long enough to understand that you face, and are obviously frustrated by, the purely emotional confrontation you perceive in what you would term, ‘Living up to the example of Captain Pike.’ However, I have also noted the crew’s attitude toward you changing as they have come to know you and your style of command, and I believe it is inevitable that they will soon regard you with the same level of personal respect with which they regarded Captain Pike…”

  Kirk struggled to keep the shocked amazement off his face in response to Spock’s description of him. If his science officer had been an Orion pirate trying to talk his way out of a Starfleet interdiction, he couldn’t have done a better job of slathering on the obsequious praise.

  Then Kirk was reminded that Spock was, indeed, a Vulcan, because of the way he chose to end his fulsome monologue.

  “…provided that you live that long.”

  Kirk leaned forward. “I beg your pardon?”

  Spock raised an eyebrow. “We are still speaking freely?”

  Kirk suppressed a smile. “Somehow, Mr. Spock, I suspect that after this, we always will.”

  “If I could offer one criticism…” Spock paused, as if waiting to see if Kirk would permit him that liberty. When Kirk said nothing, Spock continued, “…you do take an inordinate number of risks in the course of your duty.”

  Kirk no longer suppressed his smile, but gave it free expression as he remembered one of his father’s favorite sayings. “Risk is our business, Mr. Spock.”