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“So much for maintaining our schedule of exploration in this sector,” Kirk said. He turned to face McCoy. “Well, Doctor, I hear you saved my ship.”

McCoy grinned, pleased with himself despite all that had happened. “Well, Lieutenant Sulu did the heavy lifting, but yes. How’s that for an irrational, emotional ship’s surgeon, Mister Spock?”

Spock’s eyebrow went up. “Quite exemplary, I must admit, Doctor.”

“Well, there you go, Mister Spock. Sometimes I—”

Spock cut him off. “Only once you abandoned emotional thinking and performed a dispassionate, logical analysis did you devise a solution to the crisis. I had no idea that you had progressed so far under my tutelage.”

“Your—your tutelage?” McCoy sputtered.

Spock’s face was as impassive as ever. “I have been maneuvering your thought processes towards a more enlightened, and logical, worldview. It seems that I have exceeded beyond my expectations.”

McCoy looked to Jim for support, but the captain was smiling. “I think he’s got you, Bones.”

Of all the—! “You green-blooded computer! I save this ship, and you still can’t let me have the last word?”

“Doctor, I offer you my congratulations.” If McCoy hadn’t known better, he’d have called Spock’s expression downright smug.

Kirk laughed, slapping McCoy on the back. “Gentlemen, let’s get to auxiliary control. We’ve got a ship to run.” He walked out of the room, and they hurried after him. McCoy fell in behind Kirk to the right, Spock to the left.

For a moment, McCoy felt that he was being followed. Turning around quickly, he saw only an empty corridor. There was nothing there. He breathed out in relief.

“Something the matter, Bones?” Kirk asked.

“No,” he said, “I’m just getting older.”

Spock raised an eyebrow at McCoy as they followed the captain.

“You’re not thinking of retiring, are you?” asked Kirk in mock surprise.

McCoy restrained a smile. “And leave all four hundred of you with no one to look at your tonsils? Jim, you couldn’t get me off this ship if my life depended on it.”

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

When Steve was in high school, he coerced six of his friends into joining him in a Star Trek e-mail RPG affectionately known as “the sim,” which lasted a few years before sputtering out—fellow participants are listed in the novel’s dedication. But he would be remiss if he did not note that that RPG eventually spawned a series of amateur audio drama adaptations, one of which contained the seeds of this very story. Those audio dramas would have not gotten very far without the patience and assistance of a great many people, whom he would like to thank here: Josh Donaman, Nicholas Frey, Geoffrey Hamell, Adam Johnson, Lori Kinney, Bradley Knipper, Todd Kogutt, Timothy Moeller, Catherine Mollmann, Grady Owens, David Poon, Stephen Poon, Georg Rudorff, Harrison Sand, James Sand, Benjamin Stevens, Christopher Tracy, and Laura Waiss, not to mention Steve’s parents, who put up with a dozen teenagers stomping into the house to use the microphone time and again.

Without DeForest Kelley’s fantastic performance, Doctor Leonard McCoy would have been a much lesser character—and this novel would have had much less to go on. Credit must be given to Kelley for creating such a fun, irascible, enduring character. We should also acknowledge the many other actors, from big stars to background performers, who played the various other characters who populate this novel: Jeanne Bal (Nancy Crater), Majel Barrett (Christine Chapel), Michael Barrier (Lieutenant DeSalle), Booker Bradshaw (Doctor M’Benga), Richard Carlyle (Karl Jaeger), Frank da Vinci (Lieutenant Brent), James Doohan (Montgomery Scott), Victoria George (Jana Haines), Jim Goodwin (John Farrell), Deirdre L. Imershein (Lieutenant Watley), Walter Koenig (Pavel Chekov), Perry Lopez (Esteban Rodriguez), Cindy Lou (Zainab Odhiambo), Blaisdell Makee (Lieutenant Singh), Patricia McNulty (Tina Lawton), Sean Morgan (Ensign Harper), Nichelle Nichols (Lieutenant Uhura), Leonard Nimoy (Commander Spock), Eddie Paskey (Lieutenant Leslie),