"What's happening happening? Please-is the baby okay?"
"Heartbeat's dropping." The medtech who was reporting did not address himself to her. "Late variable decelerations, could be umbilical cord compression...."
Reverberating from the bay's speakers, Kirk's voice rose above the general bedlam. "All decks, this is the first officer. Evacuate the ship. This is a general evacuation order. Get to your designated shuttlecraft. I repeat, this is a general evacuation order." "All decks, this is the first officer. Evacuate the ship. This is a general evacuation order. Get to your designated shuttlecraft. I repeat, this is a general evacuation order."
The doctor in charge was already moving, gathering up instruments and what equipment he could shove into a single bag. "Pack it up, we'll deliver in the shuttle!"
Firm, caring hands eased the patient onto a mobile gurney. Moaning, and with techs in attendance, a confused and struggling Winona was hustled out of the disintegrating medical bay.
So many future prospects, Kirk was thinking. So many plans unrealized, so many hopes and dreams unfulfilled. The rest of a life unlived passed before him in seconds. He was frightened. No-he was terrified. But he was also in command, and little of what he was feeling slipped out.
"If we're going down, maybe we can take these bastards with us." He leaned slightly forward. "Mister Pitts, set autopilot. Plot a two-minute intercept course. We know where they've been firing from. Target those weapons systems and let's see if we can buy the shuttles some time."
The lieutenant's voice was tight. "Aye, sir."
"Targeting." As the tactical officer spoke, another tremor ran through the Kelvin' Kelvin's superstructure. She was threatening to break up, Kirk realized. Hopefully she would hold together just long enough.
"Sir," the helmsman reported despondently, "autopilot's off-line. Can't tell if it's internal damage or disruption being beamed from the hostile vessel. We have manual control only."
Manuel control only. Kirk thought back to his time at the Academy, to all the simulations he and his fellow cadets had been forced to run through, over and over and over again. Dull, boring, repetitious, useless simulations-until you needed those skills. He knew what the lieutenant's declaration meant. Everyone still on the bridge knew. Kirk thought back to his time at the Academy, to all the simulations he and his fellow cadets had been forced to run through, over and over and over again. Dull, boring, repetitious, useless simulations-until you needed those skills. He knew what the lieutenant's declaration meant. Everyone still on the bridge knew.
"Transfer manual control to the command chair. All functions: helm, tactical, science-everything." His gaze swept the bridge. "All of you, get to your assigned shuttles. That's an order." That's an order."
Different faces, same expression. Just as none of them wanted this moment to come, none of them wanted to forget it. Assuming they lived to remember it, which none of them would do unless they got moving. As the ship's officers rushed to evacuate the bridge, Kirk slumped back into the captain's chair and tapped the verbal communications link. He spoke slowly and clearly, so that there would be no misunderstanding between man and machine.
"Computer, initiate directive element addendum document, General Order Thirteen. Set auto self-destruct sequence for maximum matter-antimatter yield on two-minute count." He took a deep breath. "Mark." "Mark."
Something pinged. So simple, yet so fraught with significance. He settled himself into the chair. Better to go out with a bang than a ping, he told himself. Every monitor on the bridge now replaced prior information and readouts with a single, simple countdown sequence.
"Kirk to Shuttle Thirty-four pilot." He was more relieved than he could say when a slightly shaken but still confident voice replied.
"Standing by, sir."
"As soon as my wife's on board I'm ordering ordering you to leave. Don't wait for me, you to leave. Don't wait for me, no matter what she says. no matter what she says. Understood?" Understood?"
"Aye-sir." The pilot's tone as well as his words indicated that he definitely did.
As the last of the bridge staff staggered out and the lift doors shut behind them, Kirk found himself alone. A strange calm settled over him now that he had done what was necessary. It was the kind of calm that comes from knowing one's fate-and that he would not have to make any more decisions.
Well, maybe one more.
He had ordered the now absent helmsman to set a course for the hostile ship's weapons center. The kamikaze maneuver might hit there-or it might run into an incoming torpedo. But lower down on the strange vessel, in the direction of its drive components, there would be considerably less chance of that happening. And perhaps an even better chance of saving what remained of the Kelvin' Kelvin's crew. Swiftly he began manually entering the commands necessary to change course.
The doctor was not happy when he and his team arrived at the entrance to the shuttle. Why did Nature always have to be so contrary? He bawled instructions at his technicians.
"Her water broke-this baby's coming now." now."
Eyes wild, head lolling, a dazed and disoriented Winona Kirk tried to focus on surroundings that were changing rapidly around her. "George-where's George?"
She screamed, pushed instinctively, pushed again. Between her spraddled legs the delivery physician and his assistants scrambled to adjust.
"He's stuck," the doctor muttered grimly. "I need to free his shoulder. Push on her abdomen."
Glancing back at a monitor that showed the continuing countdown, an agitated tech spoke through clenched teeth. "Doctor, we have to leave." leave."
The physician ignored the warning. He was busy. "Winona, I'm going to use my hand to free his shoulder. Bear down and push." Bear down and push."
"Everyone get ready," the pilot told them from his position forward. "We can't wait any longer. I'm initiating departure sequence."
Struggling through the pain and confusion, Winona managed to raise her head slightly. "George, the shuttle's leaving! Where are you? No! I'm not leaving without my husband!"
Swallowing hard, the pilot concentrated on his instrumentation and the task at hand. "I have my orders, ma'am. I'm sorry."
"Winona!" The doctor strove to command her attention. "I need you to push." push."
Her convulsing body overriding her thoughts, she screamed again as she pressed her head back into the gurney's cushion and contracted the muscles in her abdomen.
It was almost as if she were pushing the shuttle clear of the Kelvin. Kelvin. Clamps snapped back and the medivac craft found itself expelled from the starship. Impulse engines sprang to life as the small vessel dropped away from the flickering, mortally damaged mother ship. The pilot concentrated on adjusting course so that the shuttle moved to join up with the other escape shuttles. Clustering in loose formation, they accelerated away from the Clamps snapped back and the medivac craft found itself expelled from the starship. Impulse engines sprang to life as the small vessel dropped away from the flickering, mortally damaged mother ship. The pilot concentrated on adjusting course so that the shuttle moved to join up with the other escape shuttles. Clustering in loose formation, they accelerated away from the Kelvin Kelvin and the gargantuan vessel looming before it. Everyone on the fleeing craft knew that phasers mounted on the multilimbed malignity could sweep them from the star field in an instant. and the gargantuan vessel looming before it. Everyone on the fleeing craft knew that phasers mounted on the multilimbed malignity could sweep them from the star field in an instant.
Unless...
Winona screamed yet again-only this time there was an echo. Softer, filled with life instead of pain. Rising above both voices were the triumphant words of the relieved doctor.
"That's it, he's out! Winona, you did it! You did it!"
The pain was already starting to fade, to be replaced by joy and thankfulness as she reached for the newborn that was being cleaned and treated by the tech team. Weakly but with increasing determination, she stretched out her arms toward her child-her son.
As the wounded Kelvin Kelvin picked up speed and the countdown on the monitors shrank toward zero, a voice sounded over the speakers on the bridge. Thin and distorted by static though it was, he still recognized it instantly. picked up speed and the countdown on the monitors shrank toward zero, a voice sounded over the speakers on the bridge. Thin and distorted by static though it was, he still recognized it instantly.
"George? George!"
He could not cry. He could not spare the time. "Right here, sweetheart. So what is it?"
"It's a boy."
"It's a boy? Yeah! Tell me-tell me about him. Please."
His wife was sobbing, but this time not in pain. "He's beautiful, he's so beautiful. He looks like you. George-you should be here." "He's beautiful, he's so beautiful. He looks like you. George-you should be here."
Don't cry, dammit, he told himself. he told himself. Hold together. Hold together. He had only seconds left, and it was vital that anything he said be understood. He had only seconds left, and it was vital that anything he said be understood.
"I know..."
"You have to get out of there! George, listen to me-get off that ship right now!"
"Winona-I can't. This is-there's no other way. I'm sorry-I'm so sorry. Tell me-tell me what he looks like." Directly ahead and shutting out the star field now, shutting out everything else, was the mass of the alien monster that had brought him to this moment. An engineer might have thought the view beautiful. George Kirk did not.
"Brown eyes." She struggled to remain coherent, realizing now that nothing could change what had been set in motion. Nothing could roll back time or circumstance. She struggled to remain coherent, realizing now that nothing could change what had been set in motion. Nothing could roll back time or circumstance. "God, they're your eyes." "God, they're your eyes."
He swallowed. "So what should we call him, huh?"
She blinked. "Name-we have to name him. What about-after your father, Tiberius?" "Name-we have to name him. What about-after your father, Tiberius?"
He would have laughed except that he might have choked. "Tiberius? Are you kidding me? That's no name for a kid. We'll name him after your father-Jim."
On board the shuttle, and in spite of everything, the new mother smiled. "Jim. Jim it is." "Jim. Jim it is."
"Sweetheart? Sweetheart, can you hear me?"
"Yes. Yes, I hear you."
"I love you. I love you. I lov-"
For one moment an isolated corner of space flared with a light more brilliant than that of the surrounding stars. Matter and antimatter came together in a fiery outburst that would have delighted physicists, had any of those in the immediate vicinity been in a state of mind to carry out standard scientific observations. At the moment, however, they were more concerned with surviving the expanding shock wave that blasted outward from the point of disruption as the Kelvin Kelvin smashed into the underside of the enormous alien craft and detonated its drive. smashed into the underside of the enormous alien craft and detonated its drive.
Every one of the fleeing shuttles was kicked forward and shaken by the concussion as a tsunami of ravaged particulates slammed into them from behind. The disruption did not last long. One by one, the small craft soon steadied. Rearward-facing monitors showed an intense glow fading rapidly behind them. Of the gigantic, hostile alien vessel and the Federation starship that had crashed into it, there was no sign.
On board one shuttle a new mother cradled her son. He was as quiet and peaceful as she was devastated. No matter, No matter, she thought. she thought.
She would cry for both of them.
III
The learning center was full. The room itself was dark, the better to allow the participants to concentrate on the work at hand. Each student stood alone in one of multiple concave depressions in the floor, the sides of each individual bowl forming a single continuous screen upon which was projected an uninterrupted stream of information. While questions were asked, multiple images relevant to the respective queries were projected on the sloping interior of the hollow. It was therefore possible for a budding scholar to be answering one question while the data that underlined several others was already appearing. A learner's objective was to absorb an avalanche of information as rapidly as possible. A wrong answer would cause the encircling information stream to run backward, freeze, or, worst of all, draw the attention of a supervising teacher. To prevent this from happening too frequently, the flow of information could be slowed or accelerated according to the abilities of each individual student.
One junior scholar in a particular learning concavity drew more than usual attention from the instructors. Sometimes they would even gather in pairs to look in on him. Not to criticize or correct but to admire. The occupant of the bowl was progressing so rapidly that some discussion had begun among his tutors as to whether or not it might be judicious to advance him to another level of instruction entirely. There were also instances when their attention was required elsewhere.
It was on such occasions that the eleven-year-old Spock's tormentors gathered.
"What is the square root of two million, three hundred and ninety-six thousand, three hundred and four?" the learning bowl asked.
Facing the continuously changing encircling screen, Spock replied with his usual lack of hesitation. "One thousand five hundred forty-eight."
"Correct. What is the central assumption of quantum cosmology?"
"Everything that can happen does happen, in equal and parallel universes."
A few notes of music momentarily filled the aural boundaries of the concavity.
"Correct. Identify the twentieth-century Earth composers of the following musical progression."
"John Lennon and Paul McCartney."
"Correct. What is the...?"
Question, answer, question, answer-on and on in steady unending procession until the learning period was over.
"Your score is one hundred percent. Congratulations, Spock."
Gathering up his personal effects, the young student quietly emerged from the instructional concavity. As he started to leave, a trio of classmates came up behind him. All three were older and bigger. Unable to avoid them, he confronted them with the sullen air of every child who has ever been picked on by bullies and knows what is forthcoming: living proof that at least a small portion of the future can, indeed, be predicted.
"I presume," he declared resignedly, "that you've prepared new insults for today?"
The first adolescent spoke up without hesitation. "Your mother is a human whore."
The subject of this unimaginative but nonetheless stinging imprecation simply nodded. "I have no such information."
The second lump of insensitive bipedal protein tried another tack. "You are neither human nor Vulcan, and therefore have no place in the universe. You should be expunged."
The younger boy patiently filed the second insult alongside the first. "This is your thirty-fifth attempt to elicit an emotional response from me. Logic dictates you would realize the futility of your efforts and would cease by now."
It was hard to tell which was more infuriating to his tormentors: their prey's calm indifference to their efforts or the realization that he was right. At least one of them was not willing to give up.
"Look," one of the older boys sneered, "he has human eyes. They look sad, don't they?"
"Perhaps an emotional response requires physical stimuli," commented another of the boys. "Consider this attempt thirty-six."
Before the eleven-year-old could dodge, the bigger youth gave him a hard shove that nearly sent him toppling backward into the instruction bowl.
"It still doesn't react," observed the third bully. "Perhaps stimulus of a different kind is required." He loomed over the smaller boy. "He's a traitor, you know. Your father. For marrying her. That human whore."
His eyes widened as the younger boy suddenly slammed into him. Caught off balance, the bigger boy tumbled down into the education bowl with Spock on top of him. As they both struggled to their feet the older youth tried to execute a nerve pinch. Avoiding the clumsy attempt, Spock flipped his tormentor over his shoulder and slammed him to the ground. On top once more, he began flailing away with both fists.
Green blood appeared, and it was not his.