“Right on target!” he told his friends excitedly. “I jump out over the Arabian Peninsula and I end up here, a quarter of a world away, right on the mark.”
“Actually, your precise target was thirty-five meters in that direction,” Chekov said with a smirk, pointing. He and Scotty handed the condensed fabric of the parachute to Kirk, who hugged it to his chest.
“Thanks for mentioning that, Pavel,” Kirk said. “I’ve come twelve thousand lateral kilometers, so I think I’ll call this a bull’s-eye anyway.”
“Oh, well, twelve thousand kilometers,” Chekov said. “That’s even wider than Russia.”
Kirk looked to Scotty, who rolled his eyes at Pavel’s comment. “So how was it?” the engineer asked him.
“Amazing,” Kirk said. “Absolutely amazing. Let’s go get that dinner and I’ll tell you all about it.”
“Perfect,” Scotty said.
A few minutes later, they had reached the airpod and Kirk had stowed his chute. By the time they reached Wichita, he’d slipped out of his dive suit and donned civilian clothes. The three men found a restaurant to their liking that overlooked the Arkansas River, and they sat and talked into the night.
On a day when Jim Kirk had jumped from orbit and traveled back down to Earth, it seemed appropriate that he felt as though he had suddenly reentered his own life.
Kirk stepped out of the turbolift and onto the bridge of the Enterprise-B. In the command chair, a young man-presumably Ensign Rousseau, the current officer of the deck-peered casually over his shoulder, but when he saw Kirk, he stood up and virtually snapped to attention. “Captain on the bridge,” he said.
Glancing around, Kirk had to suppress a laugh, even given the gravity of the situation that had brought him aboard this new Enterprise. Other than the young officer and himself, he saw only one other person on the bridge, a technician lying on her back, partially hidden beneath the combined helm and navigation stations that stood forward of the command chair. As Kirk looked on, she rolled out from under the console and rose to her feet.
“As you were,” Kirk told the two crewmembers.
“Yes, sir,” said the officer beside the command chair, though he did not move. Slight of stature, he had cropped blond hair and light blue eyes. The technician, dark haired and with a serious expression that seemed to reflect concentration on her work, immediately lowered herself back to the floor and resumed what she’d been doing.
Kirk gazed around the command center of this new Enterprise. Larger than the bridge of any of the vessels he had captained, it now sat largely dark, as did much of the ship. He had asked Admiral Sinclair-Alexander to allow him to come aboard so that he could tour the Enterprise-B, and he had so far done just that, visiting main engineering, sickbay, one of the mess halls, one of the gymnasia, and various other areas. In several places, technicians had been working busily, but in others, Kirk had found himself alone. He’d been sure to be seen by those present, though he’d avoided engaging in conversation with any of them. Though he recalled having very little contact with the Enterprise crew during the brief tour of the ship he’d taken with Scotty, Chekov, and members of the press during the launch, he did not want to risk one of them feeling comfortable enough to approach him and say something like, “Nice to see you again, Captain.”
Peering around the empty bridge, Kirk felt a sense of nostalgia for the command center of his first command, the Constitution-class Enterprise. In those days, nearly three decades ago, his bridge had physically been a brighter, more intimate place. Although he’d found a connection with each of the vessels he’d commanded and with each of his crews, he held a special fondness within him for that old Enterprise and the days of the five-year mission.
Kirk began slowly along the raised periphery of the bridge. He walked between the primary systems display-one of the few screens currently active here-and the tactical console, then past the communications station, past sciences. At a mission operations panel situated beside the dark main viewscreen, he turned and stepped down to the lower, central portion of the bridge. As he moved over to the helm and navigation stations, he noted that the young officer still stood beside the command chair.
“Ensign Rousseau, I assume,” Kirk said. When he’d beamed aboard from Starfleet Headquarters, he had heard the transporter operator inform Rousseau, the officer of the deck, of his arrival. Traditionally stationed on the bridge while in port, the officer of the deck functioned as a representative of the captain and bore responsibility for the security of the ship. Aboard a Starfleet vessel in Earth dry dock and that had yet to launch, the requirements for such a task would amount to little more than keeping track of who embarked and disembarked.
“Sir, yes, sir,” the ensign said. His attentiveness and eager responses likely betrayed an anxiety born of inexperience, Kirk thought. He guessed that Rousseau hadn’t been long out of the academy. The young officer seemed as though he might jump out of his own skin at any moment.
“At ease, Ensign,” Kirk said.
“Yes, sir,” Rousseau said. He relaxed his posture, but almost imperceptibly so. Kirk noticed the gray hue of the division bands circling the left wrist of the ensign’s crimson uniform jacket and sitting atop its right shoulder. The color indicated the scientific nature of Rousseau’s regular duties, meaning that he would be able to provide Kirk with the information he needed.
“Will this be your first deep space assignment?” Kirk asked.
“Yes, it will be, sir,” Rousseau replied.
Kirk nodded. “I envy you, mister,” he said, attempting to put the ensign truly at ease. “Your first time out exploring the universe, meeting the unknown head-on, making new discoveries. This will be an exciting time for you.”
“Yes, I think so, sir,” Rousseau said. “I’m looking forward to it.”
“What’s your position, Ensign?” Kirk asked.
“I’m an assistant science officer, sir,” Rousseau said. “I have a specialty in geology.”
“A science officer and a geologist,” Kirk said appreciatively as he moved past the command chair and mounted the steps back up to the outer ring of the bridge. “Then you’ll be getting a lot of landing party assignments,” he said, looking back at Rousseau, who remained standing by the command chair.
“Yes, sir,” the ensign said, a small smile stealing onto his face. “I hope so.”
Kirk walked over to the main ship display at the rear of the bridge, which showed lateral and dorsal cutaway views of the Enterprise and detailed its primary systems. He studied it for a moment, then raised his hand and traced a finger along the underside of the saucer section to the phaser emitters. “Is phaser power no longer channeled through the warp engines?” he asked. He could actually see the redesign and the answer to his question, but he did not want the information he really needed to stand out when he inquired about it.
Rousseau climbed the steps and joined Kirk at the display. “The phasers are still augmented by being routed through the main engines,” the ensign said, pointing to a location on the diagram, “but they can now also be fed through the impulse drive. That way, in the event of a warp power shutdown, there’s still a means of increasing phaser strength.”
“I see,” Kirk said. He stared at the display for a few seconds, then asked another question, and another, and then several more. At some point while the ensign answered all of his queries, the technician who’d been working at the helm and navigation console reported to Rousseau that she’d completed her work and would be returning to main engineering. After acknowledging the captain, she left the bridge.
Once Kirk had finished at the main systems display, he turned his attention to the tactical console. He activated it, asked a few more questions of Rousseau, then shut it down again. He did the same thing at the communications station before finally arriving at the primary sciences panel. “Care to walk me through your neck of the woods, Ensign?” Kirk asked.