On the scale of things Captain Adelard Nassir would have been happy to avoid for the rest of his life, being harangued by Captain James T. Kirk of the Enterprise ranked somewhere just below a near-fatal bout of Rigelian dysentery and just above being used to incubate a brood of Denebian slime devils. It didn’t help Nassir’s mood that Kirk was so many things Nassir most pointedly was not: young, suave, athletic, and entrusted with command of a capital starship.
Kirk’s face filled the viewscreen on the bridge of the Sagittarius. The compartment was so cramped in every dimension that it made Kirk’s enlarged face appear far more imposing than it really was. Nassir was sure he could count the human man’s eyebrow hairs as Kirk bellowed, “I just want to know what you and your ship are doing in this system!”
Nassir spread his arms, palms upraised, in a conciliatory gesture. “As I’ve already said, Captain, I’m not at liberty to share that information at this time.” Cool air from the overhead ventilation ducts kissed the sweat from the crown of Nassir’s bald head. It reminded him of the soothing autumn breezes he had so loved during his youth on Delta IV—unlike Kirk’s repetitive tirade, which for Nassir evoked the septennial firestorms of Bersallis III.
“At the very least,” Kirk continued, “show me the courtesy of telling me what your orders are.” The human seemed at least to be trying to rein in his temper. He was failing, but Nassir gave him credit for making the effort. “And don’t tell me they’re—”
“Classified? I’m afraid so, Captain.”
Veins along Kirk’s temples and jaw began to throb with great intensity. Nassir wondered how long it had been since Kirk’s last physical exam. What a terrible shame, to suffer from high blood pressure at his age. He needs to learn to relax.
“On whose authority are you in this system? At least tell me that.”
“What’s that? You want me to set myself up for an Article 32 hearing and a general court-martial? No, thank you.” Around him, Nassir heard his bridge officers doing their best not to laugh as he made sport of tweaking Kirk’s infamous temper.
The young captain, however, was clearly losing patience with Nassir’s aloof repartee. “Captain, I know your ship is part of Starbase 47’s action group. Since you’re here, and this planet technically falls within the boundaries of the Taurus Reach, I have to assume your presence has something to do with Operation Vanguard. Would that something happen to be a missing Ardanan scientist by the name of Doctor Johron Verdo?”
Nassir glanced at his first officer, Commander Clark Terrell. The human man stood in front of one of the starboard duty stations. Tall, lean, and muscular, Terrell had the physique of a fighter, the mind of a scientist, and the soul of a poet. His sepia-brown skin was a shade lighter than his umber-brown eyes, and he wore his crown of tightly curled black hair short and neat. When he noticed Nassir’s inquisitive look, all he could offer in reply was a shrug.
Nassir looked Kirk in the eye and said with all the sincerity he could muster, “I’m sorry, Captain, but I can neither confirm nor deny the existence of any initiative known as ‘Operation Vanguard,’ nor the association of any individual with such a program.”
“You do know this is a secure channel, yes?”
“The strength of our comm encryption isn’t really the issue—but I suspect you already know that. Do you have any other questions I can fail to answer for you?”
Kirk’s frustration darkened into anger, and for a moment Nassir really had to wonder whether Kirk was the sort of man who would order his crew to fire on a fellow Starfleet vessel.
I certainly hope we don’t need to find out.
Another muffled snort of laughter arose behind Nassir. Based on its direction alone, he knew it had come from tactical officer Lieutenant Faro Dastin, one of the ship’s recent transfers, a replacement for Lieutenant Commander Bridget McLellan, who had accepted a transfer to a new assignment no one could speak of, which meant she was now with Starfleet Intelligence.
Dastin, a charming, dark-haired Trill man in his thirties, pressed the side of his fist against his mouth to stifle any further sounds of amusement. Nassir could only hope that the other troublemaker of his bridge crew—Martian-born human science officer Lieutenant Vanessa Theriault—could hold her mirth in check until he finished this conversation with Kirk. For good measure, Nassir shot a look of preemptive warning at the petite but spirited young redhead, who pursed her lips and mimed locking them with a key that she then tossed away.
I will never understand how she graduated from Starfleet Academy.
On the viewscreen, Kirk appeared to have mastered his anger. Once more he was calm and professional. “Captain, regardless of what our respective orders and agendas might be, neither of us should proceed with our mission until we know more about each other’s assignments. If we both push ahead lacking such knowledge, we could quickly find ourselves at cross purposes, interfering in each other’s operations. And, as I’m sure you know, that kind of mistake can get people killed out here. Would you agree with that?”
“With every word of it, Captain. It’s in our mutual best interest to avoid potentially fatal miscommunications. Unfortunately, I lack the authority to share the information you need. So what say we kick this upstairs and let the brass hash it out?”
“Sounds good to me.” Kirk nodded at someone off-screen. “We’ll contact Admiral Fitzpatrick at Starfleet Command and bring him up to speed. And if you wouldn’t mind, tell Admiral Nogura that I said ‘Hello.’ ”
Nassir felt his confidence abandon him in a rush that left his back awash in cold sweat. “You know Admiral Nogura?”
“He’s an old friend of my parents—and he sponsored my application to the Academy.” Kirk waved away his quasi-familial connection to the admiral as if it were nothing and put on a smug expression. “At any rate, just tell the Old Man that Jimmy T sends his best. Kirk out.”
Kirk closed the channel, and the viewscreen reverted to an image of the Enterprise looming like some sort of mythical colossus above the Sagittarius.
Nassir clenched his jaw. Of course Kirk knows Nogura. He anticipated what likely would come of this clash of flag-officer titans, and he sighed. We never catch a break, do we?
More than one person through the years had described the temper of Admiral Heihachiro Nogura as “volcanic.” It was an apt metaphor. Nogura was the sort of person whose anger dwelled deep beneath his surface. His countenance had often been called stonelike, his voice like a tiger’s purr filtered through fresh-broken gravel. Had he been the sort of man who indulged in such pastimes as playing cards, he might have proved a formidable opponent across a poker table. If he was known for one quality in particular, it was his cool and steady demeanor.
Which made his rare eruptions of raw fury all the more intimidating.
Today his deep-throated roar shook the bulkheads of his office on the operations level of the command dome of Starbase Vanguard. “And you just thought it would be a good idea to send a goddamned Constitution-class heavy cruiser into my theater of operations, on a search-and-rescue for three civilians? Without even giving me the courtesy of a heads-up? Where the hell did you learn fleet ops, Ted? Was your textbook the kind you color with crayons?”
Glowering on the other end of the real-time subspace comm was Vice Admiral Fitzpatrick, whose pasty face was turning scarlet with rage and embarrassment. “These aren’t just any three civilians, Chiro. They’re three of the—”
“Don’t call me ‘Chiro,’ you feckless wonder. And I know damned well who you’re looking for. Odds are my team and I knew about them long before you did. And if you or any of those cretins you call a staff had the brains the universe gave an amoeba, you might have dug deep enough into Verdo’s file to figure out why he took a research team into the Taurus Reach!”
Fitzpatrick started shaking, as if he might cry or soil himself at any moment. “It’s not our fault their files were redacted. We had no way of knowing he was affiliated with Vanguard.”
“But it is your fault that two Starfleet ships were sent to the same star system in the Neutral Zone at the same damned time. One ship in the Neutral Zone can claim it suffered a navigational malfunction, or was hijacked, or got spit through some kind of anomaly. Give the Klingons some pretext to hang a hat on and let our people leave without starting a war. But two ships in the same system? Good luck explaining that, you beef-witted twit.”
Fitzpatrick sat up and lifted his chin in a fair simulacrum of pride. “I’ve had just about enough out of you! Might I remind you that I outrank you, Rear Admiral Nogura?”
That was the trigger that elevated Nogura’s rant from a normal eruption to a Krakatoa-level event. “Did you just try to pull rank on me? My ears must be deceiving me, because I know that can’t be right. Even you, toadying weasel that you are, wouldn’t be that foolish.”
“Heihachiro, I—”
“Shut up, I’m not done yet. You’ve been around long enough to know the measure of authority is more than the stripes on your cuff or the fruit salad on your chest. It’s about respect, a quality with which I imagine you have very little experience.
“In case you didn’t get the memo, Ted, with the exceptions of the Starfleet C-in-C and designated members of the civilian government of the United Federation of Planets, I answer to absolutely no one on matters pertaining to Operation Vanguard, or on any mission that transpires within my sphere of authority, which encompasses every last cubic meter of the Taurus Reach. There’s a battalion’s worth of admirals at Starfleet Command who technically outrank me—but except for you, not one dumb enough to pull rank on me.”
“I wasn’t pulling rank, I was just asking for the same degree of respect that—”
“What makes you think you’ve earned my respect? What have you ever done that merits even an ounce of my regard?”
“You know as well as I do that you salute the rank, not the man.”
“We’re in Starfleet, you prattling vonce. We don’t salute at all. So I ask you again: What the hell have you ever done that deserves even a passing display of esteem? Enlighten me.”
The demand left Fitzpatrick flustered and stammering. “I was a flag officer when you were still a midshipman! While you were earning your stripes, I was writing the book, the literal book, on Starfleet regulations and—”
“I’ve read that book, Ted. It’s not exactly a page-turner.”
“You insolent sonofa—”
“Save it for someone who’s scared of you—but I’m guessing that’s a short list. Maybe a couple of first-year cadets and a very small dog you like to kick when you take walks along the Presidio.” Nogura inserted a red data card into the slot beside his desk’s computer terminal. As he continued, he transmitted a file on the encrypted subspace channel’s data subfrequency. “I’m sending you a copy of my new orders for the Enterprise, because unlike you, I have enough common courtesy to tell others in the chain of command what the hell I’m doing.”
Fitzpatrick was perplexed. “What are you talking about? What new orders?”
There was no point couching the matter in euphemisms, Nogura reasoned. “I’m officially invoking my authority under the command charter for Operation Vanguard, and assuming oversight of the Starship Enterprise for the duration of its mission to Kolasi III. My team and I will coordinate with Captain Kirk and his crew from this point forward, and any results or findings produced by this mission are hereby classified top secret.”
Enraged almost to the point of tears, the vice admiral pounded his fist on his desk. “You can’t just take the Enterprise out from under my command!”
“I just did.”
Fitzpatrick squinted at Nogura, as if he were trying to perceive him from a great distance, or through a thick fog. “Who in blazes do you think you are, Nogura?”
“Who am I? I’m the one telling you how it is. Men like you have held us back for too long. Our rivals move quickly. We need to be faster. Smarter. We need to be ready to do what they think we can’t do, or won’t do. It’s a time for men of action, Ted. A time for men like me.”
“You want action, Nogura? I’ll give you a goddamned court-martial.”
“No you won’t. You don’t have the stones for it. You’re a swaggering phony, Ted, and you always have been. You’ve never commanded anything larger than a goddamned bathtub, and you’ve never been farther from home than the quad at Starfleet Academy. You’re a paper pusher, a career bureaucrat, a politician playing Starfleet dress-up. If you really want to do Starfleet a favor, hand in your resignation and leave fleet ops to those who know what they’re doing. If you’re quick about it, you can muster out and be back in San Francisco for a long three-gimlet lunch at L’enclume before anyone gives a damn you’re gone. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go finish straightening out your latest mess. Nogura out.”
As he closed the channel, Nogura savored the gutted, dumbstruck look on Fitzpatrick’s jowly, dough-colored face. Fitz has been throwing his useless weight around long enough. It was time someone put his unearned pride into check.
As a younger man, Nogura might have felt a twinge of guilt for having taken the older man’s knees out from under him with such spite, but those days were gone.
Sorry, Ted, but karma’s a bitch.