Disclaimer: Star Trek: The Original Series belongs to CBS, not me.


"Hey, Adora. It's Jim Kirk."

Like Sam Carmichael, Adoración Merlo was a friend at the Academy. Unlike Sam, who tends to be hypercompetitive in all the wrong ways, Adora's just driven. That's why Sam's been stuck on the bridge of a small transport ship for almost ten years now and Adora's already at the head of a short line heading for one of the Enterprise's sister ships.

"Jimmy!" Adora clucks her tongue at me. "Your ears must be burning."

Aside from my mother, there are very few people that I'll let call me Jimmy. Adora's one of them. Accordingly, I raise my eyebrows at her. "Oh?" I laugh. "Why's that?"

"You'll never guess who just called me—not even one hour ago."

Given the situation and the cadets I used to run with at the Academy, it isn't hard to guess. "Sam Carmichael?"

"Sí. What, you read minds now too?" She laughs. "It's so good to see you again! It's been too long. How are you?"

"I'm good. The Enterprise is coming up on the end of its five-year mission, so I'm holding my breath to see if they send us out again. But I think the chances are at least decent right now. How about you?"

"Good, good. They say I could be getting the Opportunity soon."

"That's what I heard. I'd tell you congratulations, but I don't want to jinx anything for you. So what did Sam want? As if I can't guess."

Adora clucks her tongue again, but this time she lowers her tone and the effect is entirely different. "I swear that chica has loose bolts or something. You should have heard the things she said."

"She told you we just bumped into each other?"

"Sí, she told me. She wants your ship."

"She did mention that, yes. But that's actually not why I'm calling."

"No?" She's quiet for a moment or two, then grunts. "Oh, you must have read the report. I'm glad they're sending you."

"Commodore Neilson wasn't."

She clucks again, the same tone she used with Sam. "Just between us, he has loose bolts too." Then her tone shifts again, all business. This is why I've always liked working with Adora. "I guess you want to know about the Romulans."

"Especially the parts that weren't in the report."

"It all happened very fast," she admits. "Most everything went into the report, but, sí, we left out some of our speculations. What do you want to know?"

"Did they see you?"

"We saw them, so I assume they saw us. But if you mean did they see us and run away? I don't think so, no. Especially not the last time—"

"Hold on while I call up the report." I grab my PADD and skim through the text to find her descriptions of the three incidents. … one uncloaked Romulan Bird-of-Prey was seen breaching the Neutral Zone in Sector F-013/02. Two additional Romulan Birds-of-Prey subsequently uncloaked in that same location … "The three ships arrived separately, so the first ship would have had a chance to warn the other two away if they had wanted to."

"Sí, and the first ship arrived several minutes before the other two. Once all three were uncloaked, they stayed another two or three minutes before they went back. What are you reading—braille?"

I nod. "It's better than having the computer read to me. Where were you when you observed all this?"

"The same place we are now: mapping and surveying the Kappa Theta system." I hear the indecision in her voice, and moments later I understand why. "Jimmy, I think they want something in the Foscara system. They were hunting it like hawks. It's only a matter of time before they strike."

"Hence the recommendation to investigate the Foscari culture. Anything else that might be helpful? Could you tell if they were the same ships every time, or if they were always different ships?"

"We were too far away; they were at the very edges of our sensor range. I'm sorry—I wish I had more to tell you."

"No, this is valuable. It's plenty. When you picked up the first incident, I assume that you reported it to Starfleet?"

"Of course. I'm going to sit on the Romulans breaching the Neutral Zone? I reported it right away. But the Romulans had already gone back over the Neutral Zone, and Starfleet said the DaVinci doesn't have enough weapons to chase them off if they come back, so they said don't do anything. I reported every time there was another incident—I thought maybe they would at least send a destroyer—but they ignored us. That's why I made the big report and sent it to directly Starfleet Intelligence, because no one else listened."

"How much longer will you be in the Kappa Theta system?"

"We're almost done here. I thought maybe we should map and survey the Foscara system ourselves next; then we would be close by if you needed backup. We don't have much in the way of weapons, but we're clever with what we have."

"I'd expect nothing less. You always were resourceful." The comm whistles for me, and I figure it must be time for the briefing. "Duty calls, but thank you for the information. I'll be in touch."

"Bueno. Don't be a stranger so long this time."

"I won't. Take care of yourself, Adora."

"You do the same. If there's another incident, I'll call you first."

The comm whistles again: "Briefing room calling Captain Kirk." The voice belongs to Lt. Uhura.

I flip the necessary switch to answer. "Yes, Lieutenant. I'm on my way. Just securing one last bit of information. I'll be right there."

"Yes, sir."

I transfer the message onto a data card, grab my PADD, and hurry to Briefing Room 2. A familiar chaos greets me: voices, bodies shifting in seats, boots circling the table, coffee cups sliding cross the table, PADDs and data cards clattering, the computer acknowledging the push of its buttons. Only the computer terminal represents a fixed sound, but that's enough. Spock will be beside that, and everyone will have left an open seat for me next to him. I head toward the terminal, around the body sitting behind it, and find the empty chair just beyond that.

"Captain."

"Spock."

He leans toward me, lowering his voice. "Captain, regarding Commodore Tucker—"

I nod. "Where is he?"

"Three seats to my left."

The Vulcan notion of IDIC—infinite diversity in infinite combinations—is more nuanced than Vulcans would have the rest of the galaxy believe. There is, to their way of thinking, no logic in adapting an environment that meets the needs of the many for the needs of the few. In practice, that means that Vulcans with serious disabilities wind up secluded from general society. It's taken Spock all of the last five years to come to terms with my vision loss and my attitude toward it, and in his more transparent moments he'll admit that it's still a work-in-progress. The severity of Tucker's disability probably concerns him, especially given that we're headed into a potentially deadly situation. "Go on."

"I merely wished to express my concerns about his stability, in particular on the bridge of a working starship in a potential conflict situation."

"Noted." The person to my right pushes a coffee cup toward me from the center of the table. I hear the cup sliding, smell the coffee, and a signal bounces off of it as soon as it comes to rest. "That you, Bones?" It usually is, but with this many people here I can't be sure.

"Yeah, it's me."

I reach for the coffee and down half the cup in one swallow. It's been a long morning, and the caffeine jolt will do me good right about now. "All right, let's get started." Shifting my coffee cup aside, I reach for the data card reader and drop my card into the slot. "Scotty, will the viewer on my PADD connect to local monitor, or only to the main viewer?"

The answer is a grunt. "Only the main viewer—I hadn't thought about this one—but, aye, I can add the function to connect with local displays throughout the ship. It wouldn't be any trouble. I'd only need to borrow the PADD for less than an hour to update the programming."

"Let's do it. That would be helpful."

"Aye, sir."

The trouble with me presenting anything on the viewer is that until Scotty makes the change, I have no way of knowing for certain that what's displayed is what I meant to display. "Commodore, can you see the viewer from where you're sitting?"

"Yes, and that is the DaVinci's report."

Now that Tucker is on board with my crew, and especially now that I know his history, I'm beginning to understand why I feel so at ease with him. He's used to being someone's first officer, supporting rather than leading. "Thank you."

"Of course. Is everything all right?"

"It's fine." I don't want to get into the topic of Sam right now. "What I have on the screen is a report from Starfleet Intelligence detailing three separate Romulan incursions into Federation space over the past week. All three incidents have been clustered in the vicinity of the Foscara star system and adjacent to the Mennoan star system. All three incidents were observed by the USS DaVinci, a science and research vessel studying the Kappa Theta system. The incursions are brief and—at least so far—have not included any attacks, but each incident includes more birds-of-prey and it struck the captain of the DaVinci as hunting behavior. We've warned the Mennoans of the presence of Romulan activity in their subsector and also of our intent to increase the Federation's presence sector-wide, but we've also been tasked with finding out whether the Foscari are capable of defending themselves against the Romulans. Questions?"

Spock leans back in his seat. "I find it interesting that the Romulans appear to have abandoned their use of Klingon D7 vessels, at least in this instance, and are once again using birds-of-prey, despite their inferior size and capabilities. Has there been any mention of that fact?"

"No, but it struck me as well when I read the report. We'll have to wait and see what significance that has. Any other questions?"

"I am curious as to why Starfleet allowed an entire Earth week to pass before responding."

"Good question, but there's no answer to that either. The DaVinci's captain reported each incident separately, was ignored, and eventually prepared the cumulative report that you see here and sent it to Starfleet Intelligence. That said, the DaVinci has plans to start mapping and surveying the Foscara system as soon as she finishes in Kappa Theta. That will put her on hand and at our disposal if and when she's needed."

"Excellent. The DaVinci is a Class One research vessel with powerful sensors and a modest defensive armament, and her captain has the reputation of being a steady leader. She may prove a valuable ally."

"I'm counting on it. I was at the Academy with Captain Merlo, and she's very good at improvising. That modest supply of weapons will go a long way in her hands, if it comes to that."

"Captain," Chekov says, "I'm familiar with the Mennoans, of course, but not the Foscari."

"That's because we know almost nothing about them, beyond the basic fact that Foscara Six is inhabited by a sentient humanoid species. Spock, what do we know about the Foscara system?"

He leans out to push a data card into the slot nearest him. "It is a binary star system with two K2 main-sequence stars and a total of fourteen planets, two of which are habitable. Long-range sensors indicate that the entire system is rich in dilithium and many other high-value commodities that would make it a prime target. That is, however, the extent of our records regarding this system. The most recent long-range scans were recorded 24.87 years ago."

"A quarter-century ago. Nothing more recent than that?"

"Negative. This sector has been largely unexplored due to the ongoing challenge of diplomacy with the Mennoans."

I turn my head in Tucker's direction, and he grunts. "It's possible that the Daniel Boone's data wasn't logged properly. Remember me telling you that the ship was old and her equipment was always breaking? Memory was also an issue, and every so often someone would clear one of the working memory banks without remembering to log it first. The crew was mostly young—a lot of them fresh out of the Academy—so when I was on duty I always reminded them to log each memory bank before clearing it, but the captain wasn't always as careful."

"Thank you, Commodore. Perhaps you could explain your history to the crew, so that we're all on the same page?"

"Of course. I was first officer on a scout ship, the Daniel Boone, that was assigned to survey the Foscara system twelve years ago. That's where I was injured. In fact, if I had to make a guess, my injury is probably the reason our scan and survey data wasn't logged properly."

Spock shifts, turning to look more squarely at Tucker. "With all due respect, Commodore, I fail to understand why an injury to the first officer should cause the data from an entire assignment to be lost. On a starship, there are procedures that are followed and a full command structure to offer support in the event of an emergency."

"I agree with you, Commander—It shouldn't have. But the reality of our situation was that we had a captain who was distracted and whose head was already partway into retirement, and our second officer had only been out of the Academy for a little over a year and had no command experience. I had informed Starfleet of the situation several times, but because the ship's doctor wouldn't back me up nothing was done."

"When you were injured, was the captain not in command?"

"He was at the time I was injured, but my understanding of what happened after that is hazy. I was in surgery for 6 hours and sedated for another 12 hours after that. By the time I came-to, we had already broken orbit from Foscara Ten and set a course for Starbase 13, the captain had resigned his commission, and the second officer had assumed command."

"You have to be joking." McCoy sits up a little straighter, leading forward over the table. "With an injury as severe as yours, they should have had you sedated for the rest of the trip to the starbase. You mean to tell me you were awake for almost the whole trip?"

"Dr. Travers wanted to put me back under, but we were in a bad spot. Our second officer was too young and too green to have to assume command like he did—he panicked—and there was nothing wrong with my mind, so Dr. Travers agreed not to sedate me again. I spent the rest of the trip to the starbase coaching Lt. Marlow through maintaining the ship's day-to-day operations."

Based on the picture Tucker has painted of conditions on the Daniel Boone and of his role on the ship, I ask a hopeful question. "Commodore, how much of that lost data do you remember?"

He doesn't disappoint. "I can't quote you too many numbers at this point, but I can still paint you a pretty clear picture of Foscara Six."

"That'll be good enough for our purposes."

"The sixth planet is roughly the size of Earth—a little smaller, but I don't remember exactly how much—with a population just shy of 5 billion at the time. Primarily oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere, huge dilithium and tritanium deposits, varied topography with freshwater oceans and eight major land masses. Almost all of the low-lying areas were built-up with complex artificial structures, but the atmosphere was pristine. We detected audio subspace communications but no signs of extra-planetary development or travel. Our universal translator was broken and we couldn't get it repaired before the attack, so we never discovered the nature of the communications, but I remember hearing the language itself. It struck me almost like music—there was a rhythmic, lyrical quality to it. Very beautiful to listen to."

I wonder if the Committee knew about Tucker's history with the Foscara system when they decided to send us on this particular assignment. Someone on the Committee must have had some inkling that he might prove valuable to us. How else can I explain the fact that the only man with unreported knowledge of the Foscari happens to be sitting at my briefing table at just the right moment?

Another thought follows that one. Assuming that I'm right, Sam's comment about me having friends on the Committee bothers me. I don't want the deck being stacked in my favor. I want to earn the Committee's approval through my own merits, not through favoritism.

"Commodore, you have a remarkable memory," Uhura says. "To remember all of that after twelve years, given everything you went through afterwards, is absolutely amazing."

"Thank you, Lieutenant, but I come by it honestly. My mother was a painter and my father was a storyteller. Numbers I tend to forget, but if I can convert it into either a story or a picture I can remember just about anything."

Sulu clears his throat. "Captain, when we—"

Before he can finish his question, the comm whistles and Lt. Grace, Uhura's replacement at communications, says, "Bridge to Captain Kirk."

"Go ahead."

"Captain, we're being hailed by the DaVinci."

"Put it through down here." I wait for the connection to go through. "Adora?"

"There's another incident in progress," she says. "Three birds-of-prey just breached the Neutral Zone 0.73 AU from the edge of the Foscara system, uncloaked, and now they're just sitting there."

"How long have they been there?"

"How long did it take me to call you? That's how long they've been there. How far away are you?"

"Another 18 hours at warp six, but if we increase to maximum warp that should get us there in—"

"—13.5 hours, sir, give or take a few minutes," Sulu says.

"Adora, can you send us your sensor readings? And the sensor readings from the last three incidents? I'd like to let my science officer have a look."

"Sí, Jimmy—of course—but if you're wanting to know if it's the same three ships, it's like I told you before. We're too far away to compare readings."

"For the DaVinci's computer that may be true," Spock says, "but the Enterprise's computer may be able to extract additional data. Science Officer Spock speaking, Captain."

"Sí, okay. Then it's done." I catch a rush of voices somewhere distant from her, a rising pitch in the foreground. Then Adora: "They're heading back toward the Neutral Zone. Cloaks going up. We're losing them again."

"That's all right. The sensor readings will still be valuable, and we're on our way. If they follow pattern, we should have a couple of days before they come back."

"It doesn't matter," she says. "I don't like it. Get there fast, Jimmy."

"We will. We'll increase to maximum warp, and we'll be in touch when we arrive. If anything else happens—"

"Sí, you'll be my first call."

The connection ends and I call up to the helm to tell them to increase to maximum warp. And then the briefing room settles into an odd quiet.

McCoy breaks it first. "Jimmy?" His amusement is on open display, barely concealing an outright laugh.

"Adora has special privileges. She's a good friend."

"Apparently so."

"Indeed." I seem to associate that tone of Spock's voice with him raising an eyebrow—right one only, I think—but I've lost the visual for it. It's nothing more than a vague impression now, and I'm not sure if it's accurate.

"Not like that, you two. It's strictly platonic."

McCoy scoffs.

"We share a birthday; she's like a sister."

"Sure, Captain." The sarcasm is so thick in McCoy's voice that I could swear I hear my signals bouncing off of it. "We believe you. Don't we, Spock?"

"Of course, Doctor. I see nothing in the captain's history to suggest that we ought to believe otherwise."

"Spock, you've got to get off this ship more—you're picking up bad habits from McCoy. Sarcasm doesn't suit you." I turn from the table and gesture toward the door, aiming to get everyone out of the briefing room while I still have some shard of dignity left. "Check the facts, gentlemen. Adora and I share a birthday. We're friends—nothing more. Now, it's late and morning is likely to come early, so I would suggest that everyone here get food and rest. Meeting dismissed."