has served as a key negotiator in many of the discussions the Romulans have had with the Federation. The Romulans do prefer soldiers to diplomats.”
“Jean-Luc, I’m going to be blunt. Have you lied to me about your mission?”
Picard kept his eyes locked on Kirk’s. “No.”
“Have you been instructed to lie to me?”
“Janeway would know better than that.”
“Have you?”
“No, Jim.”
Kirk suddenly went from displaying the demeanor of a stern officer, to that of a nervous parent hiding nothing.
“Because I could take it, Jean-Luc. I could understand. But when it comes to my child…my son…if he’s put in danger by whatever Janeway alluded to, then…friendship aside, you’re going to have to watch your back.”
Picard wanted to admit everything, bring Kirk into the total mission, but like Kirk, Picard had a clear dividing line between friendship and the one thing that was more important. To Kirk, it was Joseph. To Picard, it was his duty.
“I understand, Jim. And your concerns won’t be necessary.”
“Okay,” Kirk said. “Okay. I said what I needed to say.”
“And I accept it.”
Kirk stood up, held out his hand. “I liked it better when we were on vacation.”
Picard ignored Kirk’s hand, pulled his friend close for a hug of support. “I didn’t. I still have nightmares.”
“About orbital skydiving?”
“About you being eaten by a Bajoran sea monster.”
Kirk’s expression told Picard he was just filling time, now. He had gotten the information he required, or at least had concluded he had gotten all the information Picard was going to make available right now.
“See you on the bridge in an hour?” Kirk asked. “Should be interesting.”
“I’ll be there.”
Kirk nodded, at once eager to leave, reluctant to go. “Thank you, Jean-Luc.”
Picard patted his friend’s shoulder as Kirk left. Then he closed the door, latched it, and waited in case Kirk had one last question to ask.
Picard gave him a minute.
Nothing.
He went back to the upper bunk, pulled his civilian communicator out from under the pillow, held his thumb to the battery slot till he heard an inner mechanism click, then twisted the back off the device and pried out the smaller, triangular-shaped object within.
He put the object on the deck, sat back on his bunk.
“He’s gone,” Picard said.
The small object leapt into the air and then locked into a fixed position, apparently floating unsupported less than two meters off the deck.
A moment later, the air shimmered as the circuitry in the tiny holoemitter came online. A moment after that, the holographic doctor, late of the Starship Voyager, took solid form, absolutely indistinguishable from reality.
“You heard what we discussed?” Picard asked.
The Doctor had the surprising decency to look uncomfortable. “Yes.”
“I don’t like it,” Picard said.
The Doctor snorted. “Would you rather spend a week locked up in the back of a communicator?”
“As I understand it, you have the capacity to create virtual environments at will. You are your own holodeck.”
“It still leaves me talking to myself. Not that I’m not fascinating company.”
“What are we going to do?”
“About Kirk?”
“He obviously suspects something.”
“Captain Picard, I’ve read his service record. The man distrusts anything that wears a Starfleet uniform. His best friend is dead. Murdered. He’s concerned for his son. I heard nothing he said, detected no untoward tension that is not completely understandable in terms of the stress he’s enduring. Don’t worry about him. He trusts you.”
“And I am betraying that trust.”
“No, Captain, you are not. You are showing respect by not troubling him with…petty details.”
“Interplanetary war is not what I would characterize as a ‘petty detail.’ “
“It can be,” the Doctor said with unexpected compassion. “If you’ve lost your best friend. If you’re concerned for your child.”
“Is there a reason he should be concerned for his child?”
The Doctor’s expression became unreadable. “We both know there is no reason at all to be concerned. And we know that Kirk will realize that in…I’d say forty-seven minutes. That’s when we’re scheduled to leave the Neutral Zone.”
“And enter a war zone,” Picard said bitterly.
“Only if we fail our missions,” the Doctor said. “All four of us.”
9
S.S. CALYPSO, STARDATE 57483.4
Even on this sorry excuse for a bridge, Kirk could feel the excitement and the challenge of how moments like this once played out on his Enterprise.
On one of the three forward screens, the familiar contours of the Neutral Zone glowed, with a small blue dot of color almost touching the once inviolable boundary, indicating the Calypso’s current position.
On the far side of the boundary, four green triangles—the best this ship’s navigational computers could do in terms of representation—moved toward that same boundary, on what was clearly an intercept course. The triangles represented Romulan vessels. One lone bird-of-prey acting as scout, a few light-hours ahead of three warbirds traveling in attack formation.
Kirk stood on the raised deck at the aft of the bridge, back to the commander’s office, feeling the adrenaline rise. Scotty and Bones were with him on the main level of the bridge below, ready to face whatever challenge would unfold in the next few minutes, the next few seconds. If he closed his eyes, he could see them all, miss them all: Chekov and Sulu, Uhura, even Spock watching the main screen with the pale blue glow of his science viewer washing up over him.
Then Kirk opened his eyes, and instead of the past, he was immersed in his new and unexpected present. Geordi La Forge manned the engineering stations with Scotty. Beverly Crusher sat at communications, with McCoy beside her at life-support. Jean-Luc Picard had his hands resting on the navigation console, whose glowing panels and switchplates hid the controls for the Calypso’s disguised weaponry. And at Kirk’s side, his son, his child, Joseph, watching everything with his own unique combination of wide-eyed wonder and calculation beyond his years.
“And we are through the Zone,” Picard announced. “Entering Romulan space.”
Kirk became aware of Joseph looking up at him. “Dad, I didn’t feel anything.” Joseph seemed puzzled, as if he had expected the ship to shudder as it had passed through a physical barrier.
“It’s just a line on a map,” Kirk said. To himself he added, One that’s cost thousands of lives over the centuries since it was first drawn.
Then the bridge speakers hissed as the Calypso’s communications system prepared to relay a transmission. Kirk had no doubt what the source of that transmission was.
