Ship of the Line - Diane Carey [71]
Picard shook his head. “None.”
“Zero,” Kirk confirmed. “Never happen. Can the same be said for the Romulans?”
Looking at the forward screen, Picard sighed. “Obviously not.”
Satisfied, Kirk kept his eyes on the screen. He seemed always to be prowling his enemy, always thinking, always anticipating, always trying to figure out what maneuver that other captain might make.
“Twenty seconds to Neutral Zone, sir,” Stiles reported.
“It’s not that I disagree,” Picard offered, forgetting for an instant that this was something other than real. “I’d like to know your thought processes … why and when you made up your mind to do what you did. Are you like me? Did you ever wonder whether you were risking your ship for nothing? Should you turn tail and warn the Federation? As alone as you were in deep space in those days, how did you know when to take risks?”
“There is no risk-free maneuver,” Kirk said, as if that were some kind of answer. “I don’t get to choose between a right and a wrong. I have to choose between a wrong and a wrong. That’s my job?
“Yes,” Picard agreed, “but your approach has a certain ruggedness. How are you going to do it?”
“I’ll show you.” Sad resolve spirited the captain’s eyes as he said, “Lieutenant Uhura, inform command base, in my opinion no option … on my responsibility, we are proceeding into the Neutral Zone.”
Chapter 16
Well, there it was.
Picard held back any comment and simply watched. He hadn’t remembered that part of the tale—that Kirk had actually broached the Neutral Zone without authority, without sixteen different possible plans, without mapping out every other option. He’d chosen, he’d acted on that choice.
“Steady as we go, Mr. Sulu,” Kirk quietly said. “Continue firing.”
On the screen, phaser bolts flashed through space on a blanketing pattern. Were they slashing the invisible enemy? Was he being rocked by those bolts? Was he faltering, or was he slightly beyond range? There was no way to tell.
Picard watched James Kirk, empathizing with those questions, those doubts.
“You seem so young to shoulder such burdens,” Picard granted, and was slightly put back by the regret in his voice. In fact, he hadn’t meant to speak aloud at all.
“Motion sensor signal’s stopped,” Spock reported, bent over his sensor hood.
“Cease fire.”
“Debris scattering ahead, sir!” Sulu called. “We’ve hit him!”
“Mr. Spock?”
Spock squinted into the hood. “Vessel wreckage … metal molds, conduit, plastiform … and a body, Captain … however—”
“One body?” Picard spoke up. “Then it’s a trick.”
Kirk stood up abruptly at this sudden humanization of their acts. “However?”
“Insufficient mass, sir,” Spock said.
“What?”
“Simple debris. Not a vessel. A trick.”
“Go to sensor probes.”
“Nothing, sir. No motion out there at all.” Spock twisted to gaze at Kirk in that way they had. “We’ve lost them, Captain.”
The terrible fact sunk in. They knew the enemy wasn’t destroyed, wasn’t even gone, but was hiding.
“All stop, quickly,” Kirk snapped. “Shut down all systems. Rig for silence, all stations. Tell everyone on the lower decks to shut down and sit down. Avoid movement. Don’t touch anything. Nothing’s as important as silence. Go ahead.”
“Aye, sir,” Lieutenant Uhura acknowledged, and turned to relay the odd order.
“Everyone take a deep breath,” Kirk said. “This could take hours.”
“Captain’s log, stardate 1709.6. We are at the Neutral Zone. Have lost contact with the intruder. No reaction on our motion sensors, but believe the Romulan vessel to be somewhere close by, with all engines and systems shut down. The Enterprise is also playing the silent waiting game in hope of regaining contact. Now motionless for nine hours, forty-seven minutes …”
James Kirk sat in his quarters, alone, recording his log entry. His voice was heavy, murmuring, overburdened.
Jean-Luc Picard sat on the opposite side of the compact area, much smaller than his own captain’s quarters had ever been, and watched the young Kirk shift on the edge of his dilemma.
“You doubt your own actions, don’t you?” Picard