Crucible: Kirk Read Free Page A

been horribly mutilated when during an inspection tour of an old cadet vessel, a baffle plate had ruptured. Pike had saved numerous lives, hauling one young officer after another from the delta rays inundating the affected area, but in the process had condemned himself to life in an automated wheelchair, unable to do anything but move slowly about and signal “yes” and “no” in response to questions. But then Spock had taken his old captain back to the forbidden world of Talos IV, where the powerful mental abilities of the small population there had then allowed Pike to live an illusory life of the mind, apparently happily. Why couldn’t Kirk do the same here in the nexus? Why shouldn’t he?
    Kirk directed Tom Telegraph into a moderately wooded area. Amid trees and bushes, he pushed the horse toward the hill, and before it, to the ravine. They picked up speed as they approached the meters-wide chasm. Kirk loosened the reins, leaned forward out of the saddle, and grabbed hold of Tom Telegraph’s mane.
    At the ravine, the horse leaped up and forward. He crossed the gap in the earth and landed in stride. Up ahead the hill rose to its crown—
    Something’s wrong, Kirk thought. He swung the horse around and to a halt, peering back at the ravine. Tom Telegraph had cleared the dangerous natural obstacle with no trouble, with apparent ease, even. Kirk hadn’t been concerned for a second.
    But I should’ve been, he thought.
    Kirk spurred the horse on again, back toward the ravine. Again he prepared for the jump, and again Tom Telegraph soared into the air and across the open space. They landed, and once more Kirk stopped the horse and faced back in the direction of the chasm.
    Behind him, he heard the approach of hoofbeats. He waited as Picard rode up, coming to a halt a few meters to his left. Kirk looked over at him, then pointed toward the ravine. “I must’ve jumped that fifty times,” he said. “Scared the hell out of me each time.” And then he revealed the uncomfortable truth: “Except this time. Because it isn’t real.”
    Kirk fell silent, the superficiality of this faux existence weighing heavily on him. In the distance, a horse whinnied, and he looked up to the hilltop for which he’d been headed. “Antonia,” Picard said.
    Antonia, Kirk thought as he saw her sitting tall astride her own horse. Romeo, Kirk recalled the beast’s name, and then: Not Romeo. And not Antonia. “She isn’t real either, is she?” he said. “Nothing here is. Nothing here matters.”
    Kirk walked Tom Telegraph toward Picard and his horse and started to circle around them. “You know, maybe this isn’t about an empty house,” he said, even as he knew that it was. But he couldn’t do anything about that, could he? He had cleared out his house by choice, for the good of the many. He could not undo that. On the other hand, he could help Picard attempt to save millions of lives. “Maybe it’s about that empty chair on the bridge of the Enterprise. Ever since I left Starfleet, I haven’t made a difference.” Kirk finished going around Picard, coming to a stop a couple of meters to his side.
    He thought for a moment. He had left Starfleet for several reasons, but largely because of that empty house. If he couldn’t fill it, if he couldn’t change his life in the way that he wanted to change it—and his time away from the space service suggested that he couldn’t—then didn’t he have a responsibility, to himself as much as to others, to return to the duty and obligation of which he and Picard had spoken?
    Slowly, he stepped Tom Telegraph to the side, until he stood next to Picard’s horse. “Captain of the Enterprise?” Kirk asked.
    â€œThat’s right,” Picard said.
    â€œClose to retirement?”
    â€œI’m not planning on it,” Picard said.
    â€œLet me