A Disquiet Follows my Soul
Chapter 2
"What the hell do you mean, something bad? And what nightmares?" McCoy asked pointedly.
Carol explained.
"The Captain's been having nightmares. About his father," she said.
"Wait a minute. George Kirk? He's dead, Jim, and been dead for a long time," McCoy said. Kirk shook his head.
"No. Not quite. Maybe it's some temporal loophole, or an alternate reality or something, but I can FEEL it," he said, emphasizing his words with gentle banging on the table with his drink. McCoy shook his head.
"Well, it's not like we can just travel back in time and stop this from happening. The event that led to his death created our reality in the first place. We all know that, Spock most of all. I mean, he met his own goddamn mirror image of himself," McCoy finished talking. Kirk still looked forlorn, and Carol just looked concerned. McCoy sighed, then walked out. Carol lingered, then, with a somewhat sad face, she left too. Now alone again, Kirk muttered,
"All of this has happened before, and all of this will happen again."
A few hours later, he walked onto the Bridge, his focus on his new assignment. Simple in theory, very difficult in practice. Mediate a border dispute between the Romulan Star Empire and the Klingon Empire. Surprisingly, both agreed to let the Federation mediate the dispute. Kirk likened it to a progression of relations between all three interstellar powers.
"Alright, Mr. Sulu," Kirk said as he sat down in his chair. "Set a course for Nimbus III. Warp Factor 6." Sulu turned back to face his console.
"Yes, Sir," Sulu said, as he disengaged the external inertial dampener and input the coordinates. He then turned slightly to the left to face the switch to engage the warp drive. He put his hand on it, then pushed it to the designated setting, and the Enterprise warped away in a dazzling streak of light and ambient blue crystals.
Kirk sat in the chair as the ship traveled through subspace at several hundred times the speed of light. The ship was set on course to Nimbus, and was expected to arrive in about 2-3 hours. Kirk decided to relax a bit, and walked off to the bar for a Budweiser.
Kirk walked into the bar, which had about 20 people in it. Kirk looked around, then made a beeline for the bar. Sitting down, he ordered a Budweiser, smiled, then sat down to drink. He was then interrupted when the ship shook, and he was thrown out of his seat.
"Ow," Kirk managed to say, before the stoll fell on him, too. "Ow," he said again, before whipping out his communicator and hailing the Bridge.
"Mr. Spock, what's going on?" he asked.
Spock wasted no time in replying, "We've encountered a thermobaric cloud barrier that was not picked up on sensors, and is not on the star charts. We've sustained only minor damage to three plasma injectors and disrupted the intermix ratio of the matter/antimatter reactor." Kirk was about to ask more when Mr. Scott interrupted him
"Captain, what's going on up there? You blew out three plasma injectors, and I cannae replace them while the warp core is still operational," he said.
"Is that bad?" Kirk asked. He somehow sensed that Scotty was nodding.
"Aye, Captain. The plasma injectors feed plasma directly into the intermix chamber, and without an input of plasma, we cannae get a matter/antimatter reaction out of the reactor, which means that we'll have to run on only two injectors, which brings down our speed to Warp Factor Two."
Kirk frowned. He started walking towards the Bridge. "Is there anything we can do? Don't we have spares?"
Scotty snorted. "We haven't docked at a starbase for over 4 months, and these were the spares. You blew out the original ones three weeks ago, trying to warp around the sun at maximum speed," Scotty said as he walked towards where the blown injectors were. "I warned you, and you still did it. We were left almost adrift for 5 hours, while I was trying to install spares." Kirk cut him off.
"Alright. Where's the nearest starbase?" Kirk asked, referring to Spock, and ending his talk with Scotty.
"The Starbase Deep Space Station K-7 is closest, only 12 light-years from our current position, though it is directly on the opposite side of the thermobaric cloud. Starbase Yorktown is about 18 light-years out, but we are not required to enter the cloud." Kirk considered his choices. K-7 was closer, but they'd have to enter the cloud barrier. Yorktown was farther away, but it was safer to go there. He made his choice.
"Mr. Sulu, set course for Stargaze Yorktown. Maximum possible warp factor." Sulu nodded, and turned to look at Chekov, who also nodded, and input a course for Yorktown. Sulu checked it over, nodded one more time, and gripped the handle. Pushing it forward, he commanded the ship to jump to warp. The Enterprise's warp nacelles lit up, glowed brightly for a moment, then flashed away in a trail of blue crystals.
The Enterprise sailed through space at Warp Factor 2.5, headed for Starbase Yorktown. Kirk sat near a window on the Observation Deck.
"Beautiful view, isn't it, Captain?" a person said, startling Kirk. He turned to face the person behind him. He was a middle-aged man, wearing a strange piece of clothing resembling a robe. He had receding hair and and also a sense of superiority. Kirk had no idea who this person was.
"I'm sorry. Do I know you?" Kirk asked. The man simply smiled.
"You might not know me, but I know everything about you, Captain James Tiberius Kirk," the man said. Kirk had the sudden feeling of apprehension. He stiffened.
"What do you mean?" Kirk asked, as his hand casually went down, to rest by the holster of his phaser. But the man took a completely different approach than Kirk expected.
"Do you know Jean-Luc Picard? No, I don't think you do. You would have never met him in your lifetime," the man said. Kirk unclipped the phaser from the holster, but didn't pull it out. The man didn't notice.
"Now, he and I had an argument about the human race, and the debate was whether the human race had evolved from their previous, savage state. Picard thought otherwise, and we went through a few… tests. When I left, I told him that humanity's trial never ends. Now I'm here, to test that." Kirk pulled the phaser out of his holster. This man's lost it, Kirk thought. The man simply smiled, and the phaser disappeared. Kirk stared at his now empty hand in shock.
"Can't have any of that here. You'll find a surprise about your plasma injectors. Mr. Scott will now explain it to you." At that moment, Kirk pulled out his communicator, and Mr. Scott hailed him right after.
"Captain, I just found a whole shipping crate full of plasma injectors. There's enough in here to last us for the next 20 years. They'll be installed in the next 15 minutes, Scott out." Scotty said as he cut the transmission. Kirk put away the communicator and looked at the man in surprise. The man smiled again.
"As I said, Captain, humanity's trial is never over," the man said as Kirk suddenly felt the ship shake, and his vision swim. The man said one last thing before Kirk went unconscious.
"I haven't told you my name yet, have I? How rude. My name is Q."
