Ship of the Line - Diane Carey [70]
“They did, Doctor,” Spock declared as he came up behind Kirk and McCoy. He seemed unashamedly hostile.
And nobody seemed surprised, either. Did this instant electricity go on all the time?
Picard was suddenly aware of a power play of physical positioning. The captain in his chair, looking forward, thinking about a dozen things at once, the doctor at his side, both hands on the command chair’s arm, and Spock behind them like a haunting conscience.
How poignant, the crackling energy among these three men. The captain let his officers do the arguing, yet he was still the center of attention.
“Once inside, they can claim we did,” McCoy said. “A setup. They want war, we furnish the provocation.”
“We’re still on our side, Captain,” Spock stated.
Kirk didn’t like what he was about to say, but there was no hesitation when he said it.
“Let’s get them while we are. Before we enter the Neutral Zone. Full ahead, Mr. Stiles, maximum warp.”
McCoy now left the captain’s side, and Spock stepped down to replace him. The body language was clear—Spock had prevailed in his relentless belief that aggression was today’s way. Clearly that hadn’t been what McCoy wanted. Spock had prevailed, and now took the coveted place at the captain’s side.
Somehow they all silently just did that, and Picard got the feeling the conversation was still going on in McCoy’s and Spock’s minds. There was lots of dialogue happening on this bridge, most of it without words.
“Phasers stand by,” Kirk said as the warp engines thrummed through the ship.
“Sir, at this distance?” the navigator asked without turning.
“We know their Achilles’s heel, Mr. Stiles. Their weapon takes all their energy. They must become visible in order to launch it.”
“A phaser hit at this distance would be the wildest stroke of luck!”
“I’m aware of that, Mr. Stiles. Are phasers ready?”
“Phasers show ready, sir.”
“Fire.”
Picard stepped forward. “You’re shooting at them? Wouldn’t it be better to attempt heading them off? Notify Starfleet to send assistance?”
“A starship has to assume it won’t have assistance,” Kirk said. “We are the assistance. Besides, contact with the nearest command base requires three hours of communication time. We don’t have it.”
“Oh, yes,” Picard chided himself. “You don’t have warp communications yet, do you?”
“Not until twelve years from now,” Kirk tossed off, just for an instant showing that the holodeck computer wasn’t entirely perfect in its representation of the past.
The little bit of computer intrusion made Picard grin briefly. “There might be more advantage to restraint at this point, don’t you think?”
Stabbing him with a glare, Kirk seemed to take that as a challenge—which, actually, it was. “Rather than risking a definitive action, you want me to show ourselves to be weak? Risking millions of lives instead of hundreds?”
“I’m asking a much more simple question, Captain,” Picard persisted. “Who are you to start a war with the Romulans?”
Blistered by that, Kirk squinted at him without the slightest bit of shame. His lips purposefully tightened. “I’m the captain of the flagship of Starfleet. The line must be drawn here. This ship is here not only as an instrument of defense, but as a symbol of strength. And determination, and integrity. It’s a symbol that we’ll stand that line.”
Picard was at once impressed and amused by Captain Kirk’s unshakable sense of identity. For Picard himself, in life there had been many uncertainties about his own destiny, about how best to spend the small click of years allotted to each human being. Should he be a scientist? Should he go into archaeology? Might he pursue music … the plague of a man with a bit of talent in each of many areas. Everyone who had known him in his life, he recalled, had expected him to do something different than had the others who knew him. Command had been the ironic culmination of a bunch of little accidents and unexpected turns.
Kirk’s next question jolted him out of his self-involvement. “What do you think are the chances the Federation might launch an unprovoked