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Kirk smacked his lips, and then peered into his glass for a moment as if pondering the motion of the sloshing fluid within, before setting it down on the small table that stood between them. He looked up at Thelin. “Thank you for coming,” Kirk said. “I wasn’t sure if we were still on good speaking terms.”

“What?” Thelin said incredulously, his eyebrows raised and his antennae turned inward. “For what possible reason would that be so?”

“I took command of your ship,” Kirk replied. “I took your cadets out on an assignment that they weren’t prepared for. A lot of good young officers died.” He picked up his glass again, paused for a moment in thought, then tipped it upright and downed the rest of the drink in a single swallow. “And then…” he said, his voice slightly hoarse from the irritation of the ale, “I gave your ship back to you as a banged-up hunk of wreckage. Both you and the Enterprise deserved better.”

“Jim,” Thelin said, setting his own glass on the table. “First of all, those cadets knew their responsibilities when they took their oaths. Don’t trivialize their sacrifices by blaming their unpreparedness.”

Kirk stared off at the opposite wall. “You’re right, of course. Again, I owe you an apology.”

“Second,” Thelin continued, brushing aside Kirk’s contrition. “You did what was necessary to save the galaxy from the machinations of a madman intent upon getting his hands on a weapon of practically limitless power.”

“You were the one who saved the ship,” Kirk said, pointing at the Andorian.

“Jim, all I did was use the knowledge I had acquired purely by good fortune. You were the one forced to make the difficult decisions. It’s what you’ve always done. I don’t have your gift to always recognize what must be sacrificed to accomplish the ultimate goal.”

“Sacrifice…” Kirk mumbled. He stood, and began slowly pacing the floor. “That’s what the no-win scenario is all about, isn’t it? Knowing when to make the ultimate sacrifice?” He stopped, and his shoulders drooped in dismay. “And in my own vanity, that’s something I was never willing to do. None of us sacrificed anything to stop Khan-not me, not you…only a bunch of wide-eyed kids blindly following orders like good little soldiers. I don’t know if I want to make those…'difficult’ decisions anymore.”

Kirk turned toward the window and looked out at the skyline. The sun had begun to sink below the horizon, its reflected rays shimmering in the waves of the nearby waters and casting an auburn glow over the distant span of the Bay Bridge. “Seeing my son on the Enterprise bridge with us made me realize a lot of things…like the fact that these kids aren’t giving their lives for my personal glory. They’re the future of Starfleet, and David is my own future.” He turned back toward Thelin. “I thought that my life seemed so empty and meaningless because I wanted back my command. Only now do I realize that all my life’s accomplishments mean nothing unless I can pass on a legacy to my son.”

Thelin considered the middle-aged human and the pain of his sudden epiphany regarding the responsibilities of fatherhood. Human society, he knew, was quite varied in its approach to marriage and child-rearing. Unlike Andor, Earth did not provide the same level of education, the same culture of preparation for the duties of parenting. But even on his own homeworld, some had begun to reject the honored traditions of family loyalty-the First Truths-as quaint and archaic. He didn’t entirely understand how a man could choose not to play a role in the life of his son, though he had gained painful firsthand knowledge of just such a tragedy from his own childhood. But neither was he prepared to judge the human for it.

“The child is flesh of your flesh, blood of your blood,” Thelin said to the admiral. “David is your continuation. You are wise to recognize this.”

Kirk softly laughed. “I can’t say that I feel very wise right now. I feel like I’m plotting a course into uncharted territory. And it’s damned frightening.”

Thelin