STAR TREK
PHASE ONE
LIFE WILL FIND YOU
The USS ENTERPRISE crew were just two days away from their rendezvous with the Charles/Dennison asteroid. Constant scans were now being performed to decide the best course of action to take.
Several civilian engineers, and geologists, had come along for the mission and were tasked with finding the best way to neutralize the threat the asteroid posed to Earth.
Captain James T Kirk had just handed the bridge over to the night crew. Lt. Commander Chakotay had proven very admirable with his handling of the night crew, and would someday make a fine Captain himself, Kirk concluded. But for the next couple days ahead, Kirk and the primary crew would be put to the test, as the asteroid dilemma was dealt with.
Kirk settled down on to his bed in his quarters, and read again the private Email he had just received from Earth. It was a very special letter sent to him by Carol Marcus.
She was the woman who he had met, thanks to constant shoving by Gary, and who Kirk had got along with quite well. The letter conveyed the news that she was pregnant.
They had both taken precautions for two weeks or so that they had seen each other, intimately, but just as the guy said in that decades old dinosaur movie years ago; life will find a way. But the rest of the letter left Kirk feeling like an outcast.
Carol Marcus, who was an aspiring scientist, was open and frank in the letter. While she loved her time together with Kirk, she was a realist. Kirk's career would take him into deep space, and quite possibly on missions that he might never return from. With a child in her future, Carol had decided to center her career on Earth. And, perhaps selfishly, she didn't want to have to split time with Kirk when it came to caring for a child.
And more to the point, she said in the letter, she didn't want their child, a boy the initial scans showed, to grow up idolizing his father and following him into a career that would take him, just like Kirk, far from home, and possibly to an early death.
The letter concluded with her asking Kirk to please understand her concerns, and do the right thing, and stay away from her and the child. She would never ask for support, in any way. The best thing, Kirk could do, would be to let her raise the child as she saw fit.
"As she sees fit," Kirk whispered to himself.
James Kirk's own childhood had been stressed by the early death of his mother, when Kirk was just nine years old. His father, Joseph, a hot shot pilot as James was now, took young James from base to base all through his childhood. And due to his father being away all the time, James was raised by a constant supply of baby-sitters at first, and then his uncle when James got older.
He never resented his father for subjecting Kirk to that kind of rootless life, but sometimes he wished that he had lived the normal kind of family life. But that was in the past.
Carol was right, Kirk knew. She knew that James was living the dream of a life time. James Kirk could change his career, perhaps become a civilian pilot. But so much of his life had been dedicated to this point, that if he were to leave it, it would be challenge to find another career he would like as much as this one.
He hated to admit it, but Carol was right. She needed a husband, and now a father for her child, not a starship captain, in her and the child's, life.
James Kirk folded the letter up and put it away inside a small box where he kept important letters he had collected through-out his life. In fact, the letter James placed Carol's message on top of was the one informing him that his father's aircraft had been shot down over a warzone.
Another letter was congratulations letter of his being accepted into the Space Program. That letter had come from his old friend Thomas Hooker, who was a friend of his father.
Later, in Ten-Forward, James Kirk sat with Dr. Leonard McCoy at one of the booths toward the back of the bar area. Gary Mitchell had been Kirk's friend for years, but James had found himself bonding with McCoy. The two had only met in the past year, while training for the mission.
McCoy, a white man who came from the south, having been raised by a very wise black woman named Gretchen Bennett and her husband Wilbur, had a subtle charm.
McCoy was twelve years older the Kirk, and had barely qualified for the mission after the intense training. There were rumors that McCoy had a slight drinking problem which cost him his marriage.
In fact, Kirk suspected that Colonel Pike had been the one who swept McCoy's physical training numbers to the side. Pike, another one of Kirk's mentors, had issues with Kirk's friendship with the wild and crazy Gary Mitchell. Pike saw McCoy as a calming force in the young Captain's life.
"What a past couple weeks," Kirk said as he stared down at the bottle of beer in his hand. "First, the destruction of the Mars colony, and now I find out I'm going to be a father to a child I can never see."
"Well," McCoy said, holding his own bottle of beer, "they say when it rains it pours."
Kirk nodded as he downed some of beer. A strange look came over his face, as the beer made its way down his throat. "Whew," Kirk said, "that beer has a pretty good kick."
"She's right," McCoy told Kirk. "And I think you know it Jim."
Kirk nodded.
"From what I know about you," McCoy said, "you're that kind of guy who wants to touch the face of God, and then move it out of the way so you can see even more. She knows that too," he added, "and she knows that unless you are out there, pushing the limits of your knowledge, living on the edge of this dream of yours, you would lose that charm we all feel about you."
"Gee," Kirk said with a smile, "you would have made a fine psychologist."
"Well," McCoy said with a slight chuckle, "it would have paid a lot more than this gig, that's for sure. Will you be okay?"
Kirk thought for a moment. "When I read the letter, and got to the point where she said she was pregnant, for a moment or two I was the happiest man alive. And then, when she gave her reasons as to why she wanted to raise the child on her own, I found myself looking at my life and how I projected myself. All that you just said a moment ago," Kirk said to McCoy, "is true. But now I will know, in my heart, a part of me will exist, through my child, and I feel good with that."
"Look," McCoy said with a smile, "who knows what the future will bring. She may decide to tell him someday, and perhaps by that time, the James Kirk I know today, will be open to that kind of new chapter of his life."
"Don't tell Gary," Kirk said to McCoy. "The moment that kid was born, he'd take one of the shuttles and go back to Earth, and kidnap that kid and bring it to me. He'd finally have some at his own maturity level to hang out with."
McCoy chuckled.
Earth...
In a small bar, located near Daytona Beach Florida, Tom Garak sat in the back of the smoke filled dining room, alone. His contact was due to arrive at any moment. Garak sipped on a glass of bourbon, and then saw his contact making his way through the crowd of pool players, and dart throwers.
His contact's name was Benjamin Finney. He had flunked out of the starship Captain program, but was retained as an engineer for other projects of the United Space Agency. But Finney was a flawed man, who blamed his being kicked out of the starship Captain's program on none other than James T Kirk.
During a fire-fighting training session, Finney had tried to move the team he and Kirk were on through an area of the exercise that was deemed contaminated with radiation; when another route was available.
More interested in the time element, fighting a fire that really was not that important than just a test of patience inside of a fire-fighting suit, Finney's move had "cost" several lives, including Kirk's. James Kirk had fought him the entire way, warning Finney that the fire wasn't that dangerous or important to the training.
Eventually Finney was drummed out of the Captain's program for other issues as well, but the fire-fighting exercise stuck in his craw the most.
As Finney approached the table, Garak looked down at the several shots he had already had the bartender send over. As Finney would drink, he would open up about the terrible things he saw wrong at the Space Agency complex.
"You always get here before I do," Finney said as he sat down.
Finney passed Garak an envelope.
"Is this what I think it is?" Garak asked, as he watched Finney dive right in, and started gulping down the shots.
"My daughter works at the med-lab," Finney said with a smile. "Those are the paternity test results on Carol Marco's pregnancy. Jimmy Kirk, no-less superman to the rest of the world, is going to be the father to a bastard child; how ironic, I would laugh if I wasn't so sick of his shit."
"You are to tell no one, neither you nor your daughter," Garak said with an icy tone in his voice. "If you do, and I will know if you did, I'll see to it that the both of you live out the rest of your lives in fear. And trust me;" Garak said with a warm and friendly smile, "I am a man of my word."
Finney gave the impression of a man who was scared. And he was.
The Enterprise…two days later
Two shuttles headed away from the Clark/Dennison asteroid, which the Enterprise had arrived at the previous day. The civilian Geologist who was charged with the effort to eliminate the threat of the asteroid to Earth, a British man named Patrick Merriweather, stood beside Captain Kirk's command chair on the bridge of the USS Enterprise.
Lt. Uhura, in contact with both shuttles, pivoted her chair to face Kirk.
"Captain," Uhura said, "Both teams are reporting success with planting the charges."
"Great," Kirk said, "tell them to get aboard as soon as they can."
Lt. Nadya Chekov calibrated the time devices of the charges with the Enterprise's own internal clock.
"We are in synch with the charges, Captain," Chekov reported.
"Very good," Kirk said to her.
Doctor McCoy, who stood on the opposite side of Kirk's chair from Merriweather, looked over to the famed geologist.
"Doctor Merriweather," McCoy said, "Just how can you be sure that the nuclear charges will not just create a shower of car sized debris, each heading towards Earth, rather than one massive one?"
"Good question," Merriweather said to McCoy. "The blasts, seven in all, should be enough to smash the asteroid into, as you say, car sized chucks of rock. But we are far enough from Earth that the orbits of these smaller pieces of the asteroid will be slightly altered enough, that most of them will miss Earth."
"This time, at least," Gary said from his post. "Won't they pose a threat to Earth on subsequent orbits around the sun?" As Gary asked his question, he noticed that Chekov was looking at him, with a look of awe on her face.
It was just what Gary wanted; to look smart in front of the sexy Russian Navigator. Though, to be sure, Sulu had written the question on a small index card, which Gary then memorized over the past three previous days.
"Again, that is a good question," said with a real smile. "Captain Kirk, I must say, you're crew is surprisingly knowledgeable in this area."
Kirk eyed Gary for a moment. "Yeah," Kirk said as he noticed the index card sitting on Gary's controls, "you and me both."
"Well," Merriweather said to them all, "Mr. Mitchell is quite correct. However, most of the rock debris will have their course, and time, adjusted enough that ninety percent of it will pass by Earth. The other ten percent will pose a threat, but Starfleet has been given permission by the UN to use the antiquated Star Wars missile defense system to target some of the more, bigger, pieces while far enough out into space to cause no harm. The other six percent of the asteroid is deemed not a true concern, and will provide quite a meteor shower for two nights."
"What about the rest of the Asteroid debris," Sulu asked. "Won't it pose a threat some other time?"
"The next time that debris will be anywhere near Earth, fifty-thousand years would have passed. If our world hasn't advanced enough by that time to stop it, then we're out of luck."
"Putting things off for future generations to pay for?" McCoy asked. "Isn't that what they did with the economy? And look where that got us."
"Sir," Uhura cut in, "the shuttles are aboard."
Kirk looked at the digital clock, which was above the main screen, as it counted down the time until the charges would be detonated. And if all went according as planned, in just ten hours, Charles/Dennison would be exploded, and the Enterprise would then head back to Earth.
Earth...United Space Command (don't worry fans..."Star Fleet" will be used down the line...just hang in there)
Colonel Pike looked at the latest photographs taken of the Mars Colony compound. The Graviton Laser, high in Mars orbit, had managed to destroy most of the structures. There was no sign of life, but the pictures were limited in that they had been taken from one of the orbiting satellites. It was doubtful anyone had survived. But there was something just as important to Pike. Just who had countermanded the Space Agency's control of the Graviton Laser, and then used it to kill Commander Khan and his fellow colonists?
With that question foremost on his mind, Pike ordered a complete diagnostic done on all the systems. If the Space Agency had been compromised, and obviously it had been, Pike wanted to know by whom, and why.
Earth…John Gill's secret lair off the coast of Australia
John Gill sat silently alone, and depressed, in his office, inside the massive lair built inside an island off the cost of Australia. He had given Section-31, usually an adversary, permission to destroy Khan, who was Gill's number-one operative planted in the Space Agency.
Now that Khan, and seven other operatives were dead, Gill would have to go about selecting a new DNA enhanced clone to train and prepare to follow in Khan's place.
But then, as he started to consider a new course of action, the dedicated frequency, scrambled so that only Gill could receive, began to beep. Only one person had access to the dedicated frequency other than Gill, and it was none other than Khan Noonian Singh.
Could it be; was Khan still alive?
The Enterprise…
Gary Mitchell was on his bed in his quarters. Kirk had ordered him, and the other Primary Bridge officers, to take a two hour rest, at the behest of Doctor McCoy. The stimulants McCoy had been pumping them with were beginning to lose their effectiveness so sleep was an order.
And so Gary had come to his quarters. As he sat on his bed, he thought about his life, and where he was, and how he loved his career.
His friends were tolerable of his antics, even knowing that he could be an ass at times. But then there were times, alone, when he was scared of himself. And, as he sat in his bed, he was scared; it was one of those times.
Gary Mitchell had taken on a new habit, and it was one that worried him and kept to himself. He could take a deck of cards, as he had just done, shuffle them, and then one by one flip them over. That alone was no great task. But being able to know what the cards were before they were revealed?
"Ace of Hearts….ten of spaces…four of diamond…two of clubs…jack of hearts…" and on and on Gary went. And, as he had accomplished a few nights earlier; he got them all right. Gary knew he was changing...and whatever he was becoming terrified him.
Continued…