William Shatner: Captain's Blood

But McCoy was there for him, standing with his battered Reman cane.

“We knew it couldn’t last forever, Jim. That we three couldn’t last.”

“That doesn’t make it any easier,” Kirk said.

McCoy smiled at him then, and to Kirk, it was as if he looked back in time, to the first day a young Leonard McCoy had walked onto the bridge of his Enterprise, with that same wry smile.

“It’s not supposed to be easy,” McCoy said. He touched his hand to his heart. “That’s what lets us know how much we had, and how much we should treasure what’s left.”

Kirk looked back to the screen. Only the distant stars remained, now.

Then a turbolift arrived and Kirk’s heart lifted as he saw Joseph with Beverly Crusher and the Doctor.

Joseph took Kirk’s hand and leaned against him, instead of giving him one of his usual hugs. He was subdued and Kirk knew why. Whatever had happened to Spock on Remus, it was as if he had died before the child’s eyes, and that was something Joseph could not forget. Nor could his father.

The Doctor shook Kirk’s free hand.

“Hi, Dad,” the hologram said.

Kirk looked at the holoemitter on the doctor’s arm. “Good as new?”

“Better.”

Doctor Crusher asked if she could speak to Kirk alone, and Joseph went with the hologram to see the bridge stations. Will Riker commanded the center chair, and had none of his mentor’s nervousness about having children on his bridge.

As soon as they’d gone, Crusher showed Kirk three medical instruments that resembled hyposprays, but weren’t.

“I think you should take these,” she said.

“What are they?” Kirk asked.

“Genetic comparison modules. When we were on Remus with the Doctor disguised as Joseph, a Romulan physician wanted to use these on what he thought was your son.”

“I don’t understand the significance.”

“I brought them back with me because I thought they might contain the genotypes of Joseph’s relatives. I thought that was why they wanted him on Remus. To trace his line-age.”

“What did they contain?”

“Are you familiar with the work of Doctor Richard Galen?”

Kirk knew the name well. “Jean-Luc was one of his students. He helped complete Galen’s identification of what could be the Progenitor species, the ones who may have seeded this galaxy with life.”

Crusher nodded, pointed to the modules. “That’s the genotype in these devices. The reconstructed hypothetical Progenitor genotype.”

Kirk was perplexed. “Why would anyone want to compare Joseph’s genotype to…that?”

Crusher had no answers. “I don’t know. But I’ve given all my research to Doctor McCoy, and…well, I think you should look into it.” She glanced over at Joseph where he sat at an engineering station. “He is…a unique child.”

“That’s one way of putting it.” Kirk put the modules in his jacket pocket. “Thank you.”

Worf and Picard arrived next. Worf carried a carefully wrapped package for Joseph that was obviously a d’k tahg knife. “With your approval, of course,” Worf told Kirk.

“Only if you teach him how to use it properly,” Kirk answered.

Worf smiled with a soft snarl and went to join Joseph at the engineering station.

Picard remained with Kirk, both men watching the knot of personnel that had gathered around Joseph.

“Quite a charming lad,” Picard said.

“That’s another way of putting it,” Kirk replied.

Picard didn’t understand the comment, but had another topic to bring up.

“I spoke with Admiral Janeway. She sends her regards, and her regrets.”

“I should probably speak with her, too,” Kirk said. “Give her the full report about Norinda.”

“She mentioned that,” Picard said. “And she also mentioned that she had a proposition for you.”

Kirk forced a smile. “I like her, Jean-Luc, but she outranks me.”

“You’re incorrigible, Jim. Her proposition involves the Calypso.”

“What about the Calypso?”

“If you want her, she’s yours.”

“It’s a scow.”

“It can be modified.”

“A new bridge?”

“Anything’s possible.”

“What’re the conditions?”

Kirk could see that Picard knew more than he was revealing. “Reasonable.”

Kirk knew what a Starfleet admiral’s definition of “reasonable” would be—anything but.

“The Calypso is a Q-ship,” Kirk said. “Which means Starfleet and Admiral Janeway would expect me to carry out covert missions.”

“From time to time,” Picard agreed. “But the rest of the time, she’s your ship, your crew. Your home.” He patted Kirk’s shoulder. “Think about it?”

“I will.”

“And sooner, rather than later,” Picard suggested.

“Something I should know about?” Kirk asked.

“Talk to the Admiral,” Picard said. Then he left to speak to Riker.

For a few moments, Kirk stood alone on the bridge, surrounded by activity, but not sharing in it.

He lasted two minutes.

Then he tracked down a communicator, to contact Janeway.

What good was a captain without a ship?

What good was a ship without a mission?

STARBASE 499, STARDATE 57503.1

“The signal took almost two years to reach us,” Commander Soren said. She was Vulcan, chief science officer of the starbase, a specialist in communications. But unlike her audience, she already had seen the final transmission from the U.S.S. Monitor. And she was frightened.

From his place at the head of the long, black conference table, Admiral Meugniot objected. “From three hundred and fifty thousand light-years? Impossible.” His frown of disapproval was like a slash of paint on a ceremonial mask, its shape distorted in the shadow thrown up by the reading lamps on the table, for now the only source of light in the spacious briefing room.

Soren stood beside the main viewscreen, hands held behind her back. “Subspace radio travels at a pseudo velocity of warp factor nine-point-nine-nine-nine-nine.” Her voice was flat, lost in the quiet of the sound-deadened room.

“Within the galactic network,” Meugniot said, not bothering to hide his scorn. “With relay stations to boost the signal, keep it bound.” He made a show of impatiently scrolling through the text of the large, classified padd on the table before him. “But this signal, you claim, originated from outside the galaxy. One-sixth of the way to Andromeda.” He shook his head. “It’s a hoax, Commander. That’s the only explanation. I hear the Tal Shiar are back in business on Romulus, and this is exactly the kind of false intelligence they’d develop to have us switch our defense priorities.”

Soren waited for the whispered discussion among the others at the table to end. In addition to Meugniot, there were six admirals in attendance, along with four starship captains, their science officers, and three civilians—two men, one woman—who had pointedly not been introduced. Soren did not need her logic to know that meant the civilians were likely senior officers in Starfleet Intelligence. But at least their presence suggested someone at Command understood the serious nature of the Monitor transmission. Perhaps, Soren hoped, that person at Command was also frightened.

“There is a full engineering report included as a supplement to the main document,” Soren said, her voice betraying nothing of her true feelings. “Recall that the Monitor was a testbed for captured Borg technology, with many novel subsystems. Furthermore, Captain Lewinski and the surviving crew had three years to refine the onboard technology. In the end, anticipating their destruction, they reconfigured their forward sensor array to emit a single, five-second subspace pulse, drawing one hundred percent of the power output of the ship’s warp core.”