Ship of the Line - Diane Carey [92]
Somehow he felt as if he really weighed less. The loss of the ship had been mortally chilling, and somehow to let himself take that loss personally actually helped. And it helped to look at Kirk, to see this young man bearing the same burdens, yet never being paralyzed by them.
“Computer,” Picard said suddenly, and surprised himself with the quick change, “I want to speak to the other Kirk.”
Instantly the scene blurred and changed to the lower decks, Main Engineering. Very quiet …
He was alone. No one else was here. These muted blue-gray walls were somehow more comforting than the briefing room, perhaps because there were so many shadows, and red-painted accents and partitions. A dozen steps away, the main engineering control panels were slick black, offset by a wide poppy-red trunk base. Ceiling-high circuit trunks created a forest of obstacles and shadows, and the faint throb of matter/antimatter power made the place eerie.
Picard stood in a shadow, and watched for a moment. Had the holoprogram made a mistake? Was he alone here?
A scrape behind him answered that question, and he spun around.
“Dear God, there’s the fire!” he blurted.
Yes, there it was. A pair of eyes like an angry cat’s—an angry tiger’s. In spite of himself, Picard flinched at the power of those eyes, and the phaser in the young captain’s grip.
No—it wasn’t a counterpart. This was the real James Kirk, not a fake, not an imposter, not even a duplicate. It was—a portion, like a cross-section or a diagram. This was the untempered critical-mass core of James Kirk.
Here, here before him, crouched and ready to pounce, phaser forward and eyes aflame, was all the severity, all the dash and spirit, the mettle and grit that history remembered about James T. Kirk. This creature forgot the other Kirk entirely, left the studious authority behind, drowned in the raw energy. This young man’s face was pasted with sweat, his teeth gritted, his eyes cups of rage. This was pure gale-force Kirk.
“My goodness,” Picard murmured in bizarre admiration. “What a remarkable creature you are!”
“I’m the captain!” the counterpart said. “That other one’s telling lies. He’s not the captain. I am!”
Even beneath the animalistic fury, the voice was undoubtedly James Kirk’s. It carried the same positivity, each word an uppercut. Dauntless, yet somehow threatened, this Kirk stalked the engineering deck, knowing he was being hunted.
And he was good at this too—he kept his back to cover, put one shoulder down, kept his weapon up.
“You know what happened, don’t you?” Picard began, seeking for a line of common awareness.
“Transporter malfunction.” Kirk leaned back against a pylon, and peeked out into the main deck area. “That other one’s looking for me. He’s telling the crew lies about me. I have to get him first.”
Slowly, Picard stepped toward him. “But he’s part of you. You can’t survive this way. You’ll have to be put in a—”
“Back off!” Kirk snapped.
Wrenching the phaser around to Picard, Kirk sucked the breath back in between his gritted teeth, as if he were a wolverine trapped in a hole. His turbulent eyes, like arrowheads, were ringed with wet dark lashes.
“I don’t need him. I’m better now. I’m stronger. I’m more decisive. I take what I want. This ship is mine. No one will ever take her away from me. She’s mine.”
“If you’re stronger,” Picard challenged, “what are you going to do about those men on the planet’s surface?”
The angry Kirk seemed to have forgotten about those men. Reminded now, he simply said, “They knew the risks. He’s coming!”
Bending his knees, Kirk ducked sideways, then moved out.
Picard lagged back and watched.
In an office area, the other James Kirk, the one in the green shirt—the mild one, the worried one—slowly moved through with a phaser. Probably set to stun, Picard realized, and at once noticed that this Kirk, the one in gold, had his phaser set on full power. He fully intended to kill if he fired it.
Would he fire it? How much intellect was left in him? Did he understand that two