The Autobiography of James T. Kirk (12 page)

“Finney, go with ’em,” Kaplan said. “You’ll be late to your shift, and this’ll be the last time.”

Scott turned quickly and we followed as he took us on a thorough tour fore and aft. It took hours and seemed like we climbed every ladder and opened every hatch on the ship. Through it all, it was hard not to become impressed with Mr. Scott. He had knowledge of engineering far beyond anything either Ben or I had experienced. He showed us repairs and makeshift constructs on everything from the transporters to the lights in the galley, all clearly completed by him. The
Republic
was held together by spit and baling wire, and Assistant Engineer Scott had provided most of the spit.

Five hours later, we had completed the tour and were well into Ben’s shift. Kaplan then had me shadow Ben for his shift, since I’d be alone on gamma shift.

“And I don’t want you waking me up unless the ship’s about to blow up,” Kaplan said again. By the time my first shift was over, I’d been up for almost 24 hours straight. My concern that I wouldn’t be able to sleep under a busy staircase proved to be unfounded.

We left Earth with a cargo of supplies for the Benecia Colony, then we’d head for Starbase 9, Starbase 11, then back to Earth, to start the route again. Those first few weeks I became acquainted with one of the truths of space travel: it can be very dull. All of the major maintenance and repair operations were carried out during alpha shifts, a few minor ones and follow-ups on beta shift; the duty officer on gamma shift (me) worked alone, so it was only monitoring duty. It was crushingly tedious work, but on a ship of this age I recognized that I carried serious responsibility.

Ben, however, seemed like he was on vacation. His off-time corresponded with more of the other crew, so he quickly fell in to a social groove. He made a lot of friends; very soon after we got there it appeared everyone knew who he was. It led to a few personal advantages; he managed to convince a personnel officer to get him an actual bed in an actual stateroom. He was sharing the room with seven other crewmen, but it was better than the staircase.

We would sometimes meet for my breakfast and his dinner (I was just waking up; he was about to go on duty for the afternoon–early evening shift). On one of these occasions, about two months into our service, he asked for my help.

“I’ve convinced Hardy in communications to let me call Earth,” he said. This was quite an accomplishment. Use of the subspace communicator was very restricted.

“Why?”

“It’s Jamie’s third birthday,” he said. “I don’t want to miss it.” I could see for the first time how heartsick Ben was. I remembered my own childhood birthdays, and my mother calling me from Tarsus. It meant a lot to me then, and I eventually grew resentful that she didn’t call more often. Now that I was on a ship and understood the power involved in sending subspace communications, it’s amazing to me that she called as much as she did.

“What do you need me for?”

“Hardy says she’ll only do it at the end of her shift, when she’s finished with the official traffic. It’s also at the end of my shift, but I need you to relieve me a few minutes early so I can get over there.”

“You better hope Kaplan doesn’t catch you,” I said.

“I don’t think I have to worry. Kaplan sleeps through my shift and yours,” he said, and I laughed. We’d both come to the conclusion that Montgomery Scott was the actual chief engineer, and Kaplan wasn’t letting him transfer out because with Scott around, Kaplan didn’t have to do any work.

A few days later, I came on shift ten minutes early. Ben was anxious to get going, and quickly brought me up to speed on the maintenance alpha and beta shifts had performed on the ship’s fusion reactor.
*

After Ben left, I started my routine, which involved studying the engineering consoles and checking the status of the systems. I immediately found a vent circuit to the fusion chamber had been left open. It was contaminating the air in the engine room, and, more important, if the bridge had to shift to fusion power after another five minutes, it could’ve blown up the ship.

I immediately closed the circuit. Kaplan’s words “I don’t want you waking me up unless the ship’s about to blow up” echoed in my head, so, since the ship was no longer in any danger, I decided not to alert him. But regulations stated that I had to log the incident.

I hesitated. This would get Ben in trouble; he should have noticed the open circuit during his watch. My guess was that he’d been too preoccupied about getting to speak with Jamie. I considered leaving it out of the log and just telling Finney privately what had happened. But though Finney had not noticed it being open, it wasn’t necessarily his fault that it had been left open in the first place. If the responsible parties weren’t found, mistakes like it could almost certainly happen again. I felt I had no choice but to log it. Looking back, I might have had a slight bit of resentment that I had had to do Finney’s job for him, that he had put all our lives in danger because of his own personal needs, which may have led to my going to sleep at the end of my shift, rather than trying to find him to tell him what had happened. That was definitely a mistake.

“Wake up, you bastard!”

I’d probably been sleeping for three hours, and before I could fully register the voice that was yelling at me, I was yanked out of my makeshift quarters under the staircase. Shirtless, half-asleep, I stood in the middle of engineering as alpha shift watched in confusion. A furious Ben Finney confronted me.

“What the hell did you do?!”

“Ben, I had no choice …”

He wasn’t interested in listening to me. Kaplan, as he did every morning, reviewed the engineering log from my shift and became furious. I hadn’t calculated that Kaplan would be embarrassed too; the fact that one of his staff had been this negligent reflected poorly on him, and he brought the full weight of discipline down on Finney. Ben had been severely reprimanded and put at the bottom of the promotion list.

“I spent three extra years at the academy teaching idiots like you computers, and now thanks to you I’m going to stay an ensign forever!” I’d never seen him this angry.

“I did what I had to do—”

“You didn’t have to do it. You could’ve looked after me the way I looked after you!”

“I’m sorry …”

“You’re not sorry. You’ve been competing with me since the day we came on board, and now you’ve taken me down! Congratulations! Does it feel good?” He was ranting; it sounded almost paranoid. Everything I tried to say made him angrier, so I just stood quietly as he continued to yell at me. Finally, he stormed off.

I tried to process what had happened. I assumed that once some time passed, Ben would calm down and understand that, had he been in my position, he would’ve done the same thing. But I was wrong. In the days to come, when I would relieve him on engineering duty, he would give me a by-the-book rundown of the engineering situation. I tried on several occasions to engage him in conversation, but he wasn’t interested. To make matters worse, Ben was poisoning my reputation with the rest of the crew. I never got the full story of what he said about me, but it was clear he was making a case among the other officers that the open circuit was my mistake, not his, and that I had conspired to place the blame on him. However, since no one would talk openly to me about it, there was no way for me to air my side of it.

The next few months were exceedingly lonely and depressing. The officers kept their distance from me; when I went for meals or to the few recreation areas of the ship, I could feel the coolness from the other crewmen. On top of that, Chief Engineer Kaplan wanted to make my life hell; my action had made him look bad to the captain, and though he could do nothing to reprimand me since I’d acted properly, it was also clear he wasn’t going to take me off gamma shift.

One night, I was sitting alone in one of the rec rooms, a few minutes before my shift, eating dinner. Lieutenant Scott came in. I generally didn’t see much of him; he was an all-work-and-no-play kind of officer, and on his off hours he spent his free time reading technical journals. He got his food from one of the dispensers and came over to me.

“Mind if I join you, Ensign?” he said.

“Not at all, sir.” He sat down and immediately started eating. We both ate in silence for a moment, then he spoke.

“It might interest you to know, I told the chief engineer you might be better off in another department,” he said.

“Really?” I had no idea what this was about.

“Feel free to tell me I’m wrong,” he said. “I just don’t know if engineering is your passion.” This came as a shock to me. Scott and I hadn’t spent that much time together; I wondered why he was forming this impression. I assumed it was because he bought into Ben’s version of events and didn’t want me around.

“I did what I had to do,” I said.

“What are you talking about?” Scott said.

“When I put Ben on report,” I said, “I know what the rumors are …”

“We’re not having the same conversation,” Scott said, and he looked legitimately bewildered.

“Well, I’ve done my work, I don’t know why you’d want me transferred—”

“I don’t
want
you transferred, lad. I’m thinking what’s best for you. You do your work, sure,” he said. “But an engineer doesn’t stop there. He’s always fixing, building … you’re on a warp-driven starship, one o’ the best workshops you could ever ask for. And now I hear you’re sittin’ around worrying about what people are saying about you.” I looked at the man in awe.

“You’re right, sir,” I said.

“I told you the first day you got here,” he said. “Call me Scotty.”

It was a little better after that. During my free shifts, I decided to spend time with Scotty, helping him with repairs and upgrades. I learned more about the limits of a warp-driven ship during those months, knowledge that would come in handy in the years to come.

But the rest of the crew was still pretty unfriendly to me, and as we completed a leg of our run to Starbase 9, I was shaken awake by CPO Tichenor.

“Sir, Captain needs to see you in his quarters,” Tichenor said.

I got dressed as quick as I could, and Tichenor led me to Garrovick’s quarters. He was at his desk, writing something on a PADD. He dismissed Tichenor and looked up at me. I was very nervous. Except for a few brief hellos in the corridor, the only time the captain had spoken to me in the last six months was when I came on board, and this was the first time we’d ever been alone.

“Ensign Kirk,” Garrovick said, “sorry we haven’t had time to get to know each other, but I’m transferring you off the
Republic
.”

So, even the captain wasn’t immune to the rumor mill.

“Is there something you want to say, Ensign?” I felt some judgment in the question, but I wasn’t going to let myself get caught up in it. If this captain had no use for my honesty, then I had no use for him.

“No sir,” I said.

“All right,” he said. “We’ll be at Starbase 9 in a couple of hours. Be ready to leave as soon as we dock. I’ll have your orders for you then. You’re dismissed.” He couldn’t wait to be rid of me, I thought.

“Thank you, sir,” I said.

I went back to my cubby and packed my things. As I did, I started to wonder, could I have been this wrong about Starfleet? I had done my duty, with honor as it was defined for me, and it had led to this. Maybe I had made a mistake.

Once I finished packing, I still had over an hour, so I thought I’d find Scotty and say goodbye. He at least had been a bright spot. I found him in the Jefferies tube leading to the port nacelle.

“You’re leaving me? Who’s gonna carry my toolbox?” he said with a smile.

“Thank you for all your help,” I said.

“I should be thanking you,” he said. “It’s been a pleasure. Kind of funny, you and the captain leaving at the same time.”

“The captain’s leaving?” Not having many friends on the ship, I missed out on a lot of gossip.

“That’s the word,” he said. “Anyway, good luck to you, lad. Hope we can serve together again.”

Now I was really confused. Why was the captain bothering to get rid of me if he was leaving? It didn’t make any sense.

Shortly after we docked at Starbase 9, the crew was called to the shuttle bay. Garrovick was there with another captain, who I didn’t recognize. I had brought my duffel with me and had it at my feet.

“Attention to orders!” Tichenor shouted, and we all stood at attention. He then handed a PADD to Captain Garrovick, who read from it.

“To Captain Stephen Garrovick, commander,
U.S.S. Republic
, you are hereby requested and required to relinquish command to Captain Ronald Tracy as of this date, and report to Captain L. T. Stone of the
U.S.S. Farragut
for duty on board as his relief in command …”

Wow, I thought, Garrovick was getting a
Constitution
-class ship. That was a big step up from the
Republic.
I watched as Captain Tracy, a middle-aged, fierce-looking man, relieved Captain Garrovick. I was a little anxious and confused as to what I was supposed to do; Garrovick had told me he would get me my orders, but now he looked like he was leaving right away. Tracy turned to address the crew.

“All standing orders to remain in force until further notice,” he said. “The following officers will immediately depart
U.S.S. Republic
, for duty on board
U.S.S. Farragut
.” There was a pause, as crewmen exchanged excited looks at the possibility of getting off this garbage scow. But Tracy only read two names.

“CMO Mark Piper, Ensign James T. Kirk,” Tracy said. “Flight deck personnel, prepare shuttle bay for immediate launch. Crew dismissed.” Everyone looked at me, and I couldn’t believe it. I looked over at Captain Garrovick, who stood at a shuttlecraft with Dr. Piper. Piper exchanged a look with him and boarded the shuttle, and Garrovick looked at me. He was enjoying what he was seeing; he had planned this. I couldn’t put it all together before he tilted his head toward the shuttle, indicating I’d better get a move on. I immediately picked up my duffel, ignoring the jealous stares of my crewmates. I passed Ben Finney on my way; I wanted to say goodbye, but his stare conveyed such a pureness of hatred it chilled me, and I just kept moving. I went over to Garrovick, who stood talking with Tracy.