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  To Clarence, for help when I needed it.

  I, [name], having been appointed an officer in the United Federation of Planets as indicated in the grade of captain, do solemnly swear to uphold the regulations of the United Federation Starfleet as well as the laws of the United Federation of Planets: to represent the highest ideals for which they stand, to become an ambassador of peace and goodwill, to protect the security of the Federation and its member worlds, and to offer aid to any and all beings that request it.

  —Starfleet Oath of Service

  ENTERPRISE

  2265

  Prologue

  U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701

  And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by . . .

  The words of John Masefield’s poem resonated in James Kirk’s mind as he reached out to touch the Enterprise’s command chair. He stared at it for a while, drinking it in. It wasn’t that different from his chair aboard the Sacagawea, nor was its view of the bridge at whose center it sat. But this chair came with much greater power and responsibility. The power of a Constitution-class vessel, one of Starfleet’s capital ships—the mightiest and most advanced ships of the line. The responsibility for the lives of the 430 people aboard her, and for the security and prestige of the entire United Federation of Planets as he represented it on the vanguard of Starfleet’s exploration of the final frontier.

  Yet in this moment, those concerns receded in his mind. As he gazed at the command chair, all he could think of was the ship. He had developed a deep appreciation for the Constitution class years ago when he had cut his teeth aboard the Farragut, and many of his formative experiences as a junior officer had been aboard other ships of the class. He had always seen great beauty in their clean, elegant proportions. Where others saw nothing but functional straight lines and circles, Kirk saw Pegasus in flight—the skin gleaming white, the dorsal connector evoking the neck of a horse with head held high, the nacelle struts angled like wings poised for a forceful downstroke. But there was something special about the Enterprise, something that made her even more beautiful to behold, more compelling to contemplate. Perhaps it was the fact that she had been one of the first vessels of the class, with greater character than her more standardized successors. Perhaps it was the history of her achievements under captains of the caliber of Robert April and Christopher Pike.

  Or perhaps it was simply that the Enterprise was his now. It had been several hours since he and Chris Pike had stood before the assembled crew in the hangar deck, where Pike had raised his data slate and recited his official orders: “ ‘From Starfleet Headquarters, Office of the Admiralty, to Captain Christopher Pike, commanding officer U.S.S. Enterprise, Stardate 1278.4. You are hereby requested and required to relinquish command of your vessel to Captain James Kirk, commanding officer U.S.S. Sacagawea, as of this date. Signed, Admiral Robert L. Comsol, Starfleet Command.’ ” At which point Kirk had received the ship’s computer command codes from Pike and delivered his brief response: “I relieve you, sir.” With those four small words, he had become captain of the Enterprise, and he knew his life had changed in ways he had not yet begun to discover.

  Pike had disembarked promptly at Starbase 11, saying he didn’t want to get in Kirk’s way on his first day. He had already said what he needed to say to Kirk during their tour of the ship before the ceremony. That tour had included the bridge, of course, but Kirk had not presumed to take the command chair while it still belonged to Pike. In the hours since, Kirk had been too busy familiarizing himself with his new ship and crew and readying the vessel for departure. It wasn’t until now, in the lull before setting out for space, that he had the luxury to contemplate the command chair for a moment before finally taking his seat astride Pegasus.

  No, Kirk told himself. Don’t be pretentious. You’re an officer, not a poet. Just do the job Starfleet has assigned you. It had been his drive and discipline, he reminded himself, that had gotten him to this point. By taking his work seriously, by committing himself passionately to his duties and goals, by setting aside the distractions of a personal life, he had become the youngest person ever to earn a starship command when he had taken over the Sacagawea nearly four years ago. Now he was the youngest person ever to command a Constitution-class starship, and one of a very few to earn one as his second command. He hadn’t accomplished that by indulging his romantic side. He was no mythic hero—just a man with a duty.

  “Is there something wrong with your chair, Captain Kirk?”

  Startled from his reverie, Kirk looked up at Lieutenant Commander Spock, who studied him curiously from his seat at the library computer station at starboard aft. Kirk blushed under the cool scrutiny of the half-Vulcan, half-human science officer, who doubled as his first officer. “Uh, no, Mister Spock. I was just . . . contemplating the moment.”

  Spock quirked one of his sharply slanted eyebrows and examined Kirk like a lab specimen. “I see. The perennial human need to ascribe emotional significance to arbitrary points of transition such as promotions, birthdates, anniversaries, and so forth. Perhaps if you thought of it simply as the mechanical act of lowering your body into a chair—”

  “Thank you, Mister Spock. I think I’ve got it from here.” Having a Vulcan second-in-command was definitely going to take some getting used to.

  Still, Spock had a point—no pun intended, Kirk thought as he glanced at the first officer’s gracefully tapered ears. It was high time to stop milking the moment and just get on with it. With a decisive casualness, Kirk turned, took hold of the command chair’s wide, boxy arms, and sat down. It was almost too comfortable, somehow, and it felt strange compared to his old chair aboard the Sacagawea, but maybe he just needed time to break it in—

  Never mind. The chair was simply a station from which to do his job. Time to get to work.

  He looked around the circle of the bridge, taking in the crew at their stations: Spock at sciences, Lieutenant Philip Alden at communications, Ensign Sarah Lopez at bridge engineering. Lieutenant Lee Kelso manned the portside helm station of the freestanding pilots’ console, while Lieutenant Nyota Uhura, a junior communications officer, filled in at navigation thanks to her cross-training. It was a mild annoyance to Kirk that his command crew was incomplete. His chief engineer, Montgomery Scott, had been diverted to Starbase 10 at the last minute to assist in an emergency, and thus would be several days late to take his post. His chief navigator and second officer, Gary Mitchell—who had served the same role for Kirk aboard the Sacagawea—was late for a less constructive reason; he had been on an extended shore leave binge on Wrigley’s Pleasure Planet when Kirk’s transfer orders to the Enterprise
had come through, and Mitchell’s transport to Starbase 11, the Nehru, had been delayed by an ion storm. As for his chief medical officer, Dr. Mark Piper had put in for retirement on the day Captain Pike had accepted promotion to fleet captain, and had only grudgingly agreed to postpone his departure until Kirk could secure a permanent CMO—a task he was still working on, since he had someone specific in mind.

  Well, it’ll do for now, he thought. Settling into his chair, he took a breath, stabbed at the intercom button, and missed. Clearly the chair wasn’t exactly like his old one. Clearing his throat, he said, “Lieutenant Alden, address intercraft.”

  Alden worked the control. “Intercraft open, sir.”

  Another breath. He’d already made his introductory speech to the crew after the change-of-command ceremony, so now it was time to get down to business—a milk run to deliver medical supplies to the Draxis II colony, but a good opportunity for Kirk to familiarize himself with his new ship and crew. “All hands, this is Captain Kirk. Ready all stations and prepare for departure.” He thought for a moment. “I look forward to serving with you in the weeks and months ahead. Kirk out.”

  After several moments of overlapping comm chatter from the decks below, Spock stood. “All stations report ready, Captain.”

  Kirk nodded and faced forward. “Lieutenant Uhura, set course for Draxis II.”

  Elegant hands worked the navigation controls, and the lieutenant spoke in a melodious voice. “Course computed and on the board, sir.”

  “Mister Kelso, take us out of orbit, full impulse.”

  The blond helmsman seemed slightly slow to react, but after a split second, he engaged the helm controls. “Full impulse, aye.”

  The deck rumbled beneath Kirk’s feet as the impulse engines at the rear of the saucer engaged. Kirk’s fingers tightened around his chair arms. The engines were tangibly more powerful than the Sacagawea’s, necessary to propel a mass twice as great. He couldn’t wait to feel the ship go to warp.

  Still, he felt a moment’s regret that he had no friends by his side as he experienced these firsts. At least the Nehru would rendezvous with them en route, delivering Gary Mitchell at last. But there was still one more old friend Kirk was hoping to bring aboard.

  * * *

  “I don’t know, Jim,” Leonard McCoy said over the display in Kirk’s quarters. “I’ve had my fill of starship duty.”

  “As a junior medical officer, or CMO aboard a scout ship,” Kirk countered. “This is a major step up. A front-line capital ship, Bones, and you’d run the whole medical department.”

  “Jim, do you think I want to look at four hundred people’s tonsils?” the craggy-faced physician fired back. “You know me—I’m just a country doctor.”

  “That’s what you said when you left the Sacagawea for that relief program of yours. And I just know you’ve spent the whole time complaining about the lack of decent climate control and mint juleps.”

  McCoy had spent the past year on assignment to Starfleet Medical, providing care and health education to preindustrial civilizations that were already aware of alien life—usually because they had been contacted before the Prime Directive was established, or by some other civilization that had no Prime Directive. That put them in a gray area where noninterference was concerned, and the heads of the program at Starfleet Medical had convinced Command that offering them humanitarian aid and health assistance was not only a moral duty, but a pragmatic choice to avoid earning the resentment of cultures who knew of the Federation’s advancement and would wonder why it did nothing to help their people. After all, many of those species had been contacted first by the Klingons or other hostiles, powers that would wish to take advantage of any bad blood that might develop between them and the Federation. So it was strategically as well as ethically appropriate to stay in those societies’ good graces.

  Not that any of that mattered to Leonard McCoy, of course. All he cared about was the good of his patients. “It’s been very rewarding work. We’re helping a lot of people out here.” McCoy fidgeted. “Still . . . it can be frustrating dealing with the local attitudes sometimes. My last stint was on Capella IV—a fine people in their way, proud and honorable, but incredibly stubborn when it came to accepting even the most basic medical care. We spent months butting heads with them, helping where we could, until we finally decided it was a lost cause and just left.”

  “Then it sounds like you could use a change of pace. Take the job, Bones. Gary’s here too—it’ll be like old times.”

  “Not entirely,” McCoy replied. “Not since Rhen retired.”

  “She had to retire. You’re still a long way from that.”

  “You never know. A starship on the frontier isn’t exactly the safest place.”

  “Which is exactly why I need a doctor I know is an expert in treating the kinds of injuries and illnesses my crew might sustain. And . . . why I need a friend I can rely on when things get tough out here.” He leaned forward. “Bones—I need you.”

  The doctor’s frown intensified, but Kirk could tell he was softening. “Well . . . I’ll think it over. But it’s not like you’re in any rush, is it?”

  “. . . No. Doctor Piper’s agreed to stay on for a few more months.”

  “Then I’ll consider it. And if you haven’t found a better candidate by then . . . well, I’ll consider it.”

  “There’s no one else I trust the same way.”

  McCoy grunted. “You know how I feel about flattery, Jim.”

  “You eat it up.”

  “From an attractive young lady, sure. From you? I know better.”

  “Come on, Bones, this is the big time. This is what Gary and I have been working toward our whole career. I want you to be a part of that too, my friend.”

  The doctor studied him. “Well, you sure aren’t lacking for confidence. I guess that’s what comes of having a ship that big given to you at your age.” He shook his head. “Quite a change from the man I met three years ago . . .”

  VEGA COLONY

  2262

  One

  The only greater mystery than why the ancient Vegans destroyed themselves in a war so mighty that it shattered entire dwarf planets is why they decided in the first place to terraform worlds around a star as young, hot, and inhospitable as Alpha Lyrae. But perhaps both are manifestations of the same blend of great power and stubborn ambition, a determination to bend worlds to their will instead of learning to compromise with reality. Let this be an object lesson to humanity as we contend with new worlds and new cosmic neighbors.

  —Zhi Nu Palmer

  Starfleet Medical Research Hospital, Orpheus City, Vega IX

  “Don’t you ever go home?”

  The gruff voice startled Jim Kirk back to full wakefulness. He realized he must have dozed off in his chair at Elena Yu’s bedside. He’d been visiting the young lieutenant, telling her about his day’s work overseeing the Starfleet archaeological station in Eagle’s Landing, supervising its researchers’ efforts to tease out the secrets of the long-extinct Vegan civilization. As exciting as that hidden history was, the work of uncovering it was slow and tedious, and he must have bored himself to sleep while narrating it to his former science officer. Perhaps it wasn’t the wisest choice of subjects for keeping a coma patient’s mind stimulated.

  He turned toward the speaker, wincing at the stiffness in his neck—a new pain to provide companionship for the headache he’d been nursing all day. “I’m sorry, Doctor, ah, McCoy.” It took him a moment to place the sour-faced, blue-eyed Earthman; he had tried to get to know all the doctors who were caring for the wounded from the Sacagawea, but there were just so many of them. “Is it past visiting hours again?”

  Leonard McCoy harrumphed. “The operative word being ‘again,’ Captain Kirk. You’re in here so often that the staff sometimes forgets you’re not a fixture of the place. And look what it’s doing to you. You look exhausted, overstressed. You’re in here every evening after work, talking to the patients, worrying over
people you can’t help, like Elena here, when you should be at home getting some sleep—or out on the town having some fun. With a name like Orpheus, you better believe this city has a fine music scene. I know some good cabarets I could recommend.”

  A noisy club was the last thing that would help Kirk’s headache right now. “Maybe some other time, Doctor. I appreciate your concern, but surely you can understand my own concern for my crew.”

  “Except they aren’t your crew anymore. Your crew, as I understand it, is the archaeology team over in Eagle’s Landing. Your responsibility to these men and women ended when you left the Sacajawea.”

  “The Sacagawea will be repaired,” Kirk replied, implicitly correcting McCoy’s pronunciation by stressing the second syllable and the hard g. “I’m hoping that I and many of my crew will be back aboard her once she’s ready.”

  McCoy looked him over skeptically. “So that’s the only reason you took a ground post instead of accepting another starship command? So you could be with your crew while they recovered?”

  “Is there a better reason?”

  The doctor narrowed his eyes. “Maybe not, but I can think of a few worse ones. The Sack—Sacagawea was your first starship command. You’re the youngest person ever to achieve that posting in Starfleet history. And less than a year later, your ship is crippled and more than half its crew is either hospitalized or—”

  “I don’t appreciate what you’re insinuating, Doctor.”

  McCoy raised his hands. “Not insinuating—just wondering if you’re trying to punish yourself for something nobody’s blaming you for.”

  Kirk’s irritation with this man was worsening. “Are you a surgeon or a psychiatrist?”

  “I’m whatever my patients need me to be, sir.”