The Autobiography of James T. Kirk (11 page)

In the end, the mission led to negotiations with the Klingons that would keep the peace and prevent a full-scale war for 15 years. But what I saw on Axanar also cemented the negative impression I’d had about them since childhood, one that wouldn’t change for another 40 years.

Ben tried to talk me out of it, but I wasn’t listening.

“Come on, I need you,” I said. “I have to get into the program bank, and you know that computer system better than anyone …”

“You’re spending too much time with Mitchell,” Ben said. “Since when do you take this kind of risk?” Ben was right; we could get in a lot of trouble, but I could tell he was coming around.

I was a few months away from graduation and had recently been given the
Kobayashi Maru
test, relatively new to the academy at the time. We had no idea who devised it, but we’d heard rumors that a Vulcan had included the proposal for it in his application, and it was one of the reasons he was accepted. The details were a closely guarded secret, and the honor code of the academy stated that you couldn’t discuss the test with anyone who hadn’t taken it yet. But, as it turned out, many in the academy did not observe the honor code, and the details became public.

The test placed a cadet in command of a starship that received a distress call for a fuel ship, the
Kobayashi Maru
, which was in the Neutral Zone bordering the Klingon Empire. The cadet had to decide whether to try to rescue the ship violating the treaty and risking interplanetary war. If the cadet chose this route, his/her ship was destroyed by the Klingons. It was considered an important test of command character.

I thought the test was bullshit.

I had spent the past four years preparing to find answers to the questions I would face in the Galaxy, and up until this test, every question had an answer. There was always a way to successfully complete your mission. My old roommate Thelin agreed with me. He had taken the test multiple times; he had not even tried to rescue the ship, but instead had used it as bait to try to trap the Klingons. This agressive tactic kept him from graduating.

I decided that the central problem of
Kobayashi Maru
was really about figuring out how to beat the test. I took it very personally, felt it was an insult to all the work I’d done. I just couldn’t live with the failure. So, with Ben’s help, I would reprogram the simulation. Thus, the third time I took the test, I rescued the
Kobayashi Maru
and escaped the Klingons.

It caused quite a stir. I was able to keep Ben’s name out of it (no one knew the reprogramming was beyond my ability), and I was called before an honor review board for cheating. It looked like I might be expelled.

“What justification can you possibly give for such duplicitousness?” Admiral Barnett said. He was the imposing head of the review board.

“Sir, with all due respect, it wasn’t duplicitous. Nowhere in the rules did it state that we were not allowed to reprogram the computer.”

“You violated the spirit of the test,” Admiral Komack said. He was sitting next to Barnett and he was annoyed. Judging from the reaction of the admirals on the board, he wasn’t alone. I didn’t think I could change their minds, but I also knew that I was right. I’d been carrying a lot of demerits on my record since first year, thanks to Finnegan, and it wouldn’t take much to keep me from graduating. Looking back, I don’t know why I took such a risk, with all the work I’d done to get into the academy, and then all the work I did there to succeed. But I actually think all my experiences led me to make my decision, and I had to let them know.

“If I’m in command, aren’t I supposed to use every scrap of knowledge and experience at my disposal to protect the lives of my crew?” Barnett smiled at this. I could see the outrage on a few of the other admirals’ faces begin to flag. Except one.

“You broke the rules,” Komack said.

“No, I didn’t, sir,” I said. “I took the test within its own parameters twice. You have those results to judge me on. By letting me take it a third time, you invalidated those parameters. So I used my experience with the test to beat it.”

This argument visibly swayed Barnett and a few of the other board members. I decided to pursue my advantage.

“In fact, if I’d just let the test run its course a third time without trying to adjust its programming,” I said, “I would have been guilty of negligence, as I would not have done everything in my power to save my hypothetical crew, and you would have to expel me on that basis.”

“We may expel you anyway,” Barnett said, though he didn’t sound serious.

The admirals said they had to make a determination, and I went back to my room that night, not sure what my future was going to be.

*
EDITOR’S NOTE:
The colony on Tarsus IV would be reestablished 25 years after the Kodos incident, albeit under a different form of government.

*
EDITOR’S NOTE:
The Sub Shuttles were a subterranean rapid transit system, built in the early 22nd century, using tunnels that honeycombed the globe. They were taken out of operation in 2267 when they were made obsolete by the preponderance of matter/energy transporters.

**
: Captain Kirk has made a common error: It is in fact named for Henry Archer, Jonathan’s father and the inventor of the Warp Five engine. The building was constructed during Jonathan Archer’s tenure as Federation president, and it was he who insisted it be named for his father.

*
EDITOR’S NOTE:
The Xindi Incident began when that race attacked Earth in 2153 with a prototype weapon that killed seven million people. Starfleet foiled a further attack involving a much larger weapon.

*
EDITOR’S NOTE:
Kirk’s assessment is somewhat inaccurate. Shortly before this book went to press, Sean Finnegan’s “unremarkable” career led him to be appointed commandant of Starfleet Academy.

“THAT’S IT, THAT’S THE
REPUBLIC
,”
Ben Finney said.

We were in a shuttlecraft, two newly minted officers packed in with some enlisted crewmen, crammed up against the porthole trying to get a glimpse of our first assignment. Through my sliver of a window, I could see the
U.S.S. Republic
, an old
Baton Rouge
–class starship. As we passed its engines, we noticed mismatched paneling that indicated an extensive history of repair work. It was a beaten-up rust bucket, and as an ensign assigned to engineering, it was in no way a glamorous posting.

The review board had not only let me graduate, they’d given me a commendation for original thinking. Only one admiral had opposed: Komack. He stuck to his opinion that I’d violated the spirit of the test, but he’d been overruled. However, Komack had his own avenue for punishment. He was head of the committee in charge of posting cadets to their first assignments. Though I was near the top of my class and requested starship duty, he made sure I was not given an exploratory ship, which were considered the most desired postings. Instead, I was put on a 20-year-old ship that made “milk runs,” delivering personnel, medicine, spare parts, other supplies from Earth to starbases and colonies and back again. I could have complained, but I felt that would be pushing my luck; I decided I was doing penance for the
Kobayashi Maru
.

I wasn’t too disappointed. I was getting what I wanted: I was an officer aboard a starship. And now, as we approached the ship, I was overcome with excitement. I wish I could’ve said the same of my companion.

The
Republic
was not at all what Ben Finney wanted. He was hoping for a more glamorous assignment to jump-start a career that he felt had already been unfairly slowed down because he’d been an instructor for so long. However, since he was older than a lot of cadets, he was less attractive to some starship captains who wanted to mold their own kind of junior officers. His only choice was also the
Republic
. But Ben wasn’t going to be passive; before we even docked, he was making plans to get himself off this ship and onto a better assignment.

The shuttle flew into the hangar, and we all stepped out into the cramped bay; it wasn’t the clean, state-of-the-art facility we’d become used to at the academy. Paneling had been stripped away to make more room for shuttles, so the ship’s superstructure was visible. Overhead the various small crafts were stacked in their docks, making use of all available space. Before we could take it all in, we were greeted by the ship’s chief petty officer, a salt-and-pepper veteran named Tichenor.

“Welcome aboard, sirs,” Tichenor said. Before we could introduce ourselves, he shouted, “Atten-shun!”

We stood at attention with the noncommissioned crew, as our new commanding officer, Captain Stephen Garrovick, entered the bay. He was stoic and imposing: well over six feet, a little gray at his temples, with a stern expression that, only with the gift of hindsight, hinted at a smile underneath. He looked us over with an air of amused disdain.

“Kirk and Finney,” he said. “Chief will get you squared away.” He then turned and walked off. I think I was hoping for more, maybe a “welcome to the team” speech. But we weren’t getting one; we grabbed our duffels and followed Tichenor out.

The CPO led us to our “quarters.” I didn’t expect it to be luxurious; I figured I’d be on a quadruple bunk bed in an eight-by-eight cube, crewmen stacked like those shuttles I saw in the bay. I was overly optimistic.

We were in the primary hull’s engineering deck, a crowded area packed with monitors, piping, and crewmen, many of whom were engaged in loud repair work. Tichenor pointed to a space on the floor underneath a staircase leading to the impulse engines. It had been curtained off.

“Sir, that’s your berth,” he said.

This had to be a joke, a hazing of the new officers. I looked at Tichenor, and then at Finney, who shrugged.

“You have a complaint, sir?” Tichenor had a smile on his face; it looked like he wanted me to complain.

“No, Chief, this’ll be fine,” I said.

“All right, sir, once you’re squared away, regulations require you to report to sickbay for your physical,” he said, then led Finney off, presumably to his makeshift quarters. I looked at the cramped space under the staircase. I wasn’t even sure I could fit lying down. I tossed down my duffel, figured I was “squared away,” and headed toward sickbay.

I was halfway through my physical when Finney joined me.

“They’ve got me sleeping in the photon torpedo bay,” Ben said.

Dr. Piper, the ship’s chief medical officer, stout, affable, and seasoned, chuckled.

“It won’t be forever, gentlemen,” he said. “Officers do their best to get off this ship.”

When the
Republic
was first commissioned, it was the state of the art in exploration and research vessels. But it was a small design, and upon being superseded by the newer classes of ships, it was reclassified to tasks it wasn’t initially designed for. As a result, it had to devote a large portion of what had been crew quarters to storage. Thus I would spend my first six months in Starfleet sleeping under a staircase and using the common bathroom off the engineering section.

After our physicals, we reported to our immediate commanding officer, Chief Engineer Howard Kaplan, a balding, flabby man in his fifties. I would soon discover his annoyed expression was his resting state.

“Finney, you get beta shift, Kirk, you’re on gamma shift,” he said. Since Starfleet ships try to duplicate Earth conditions of night and day as closely as possible, gamma shift was midnight to eight. This meant I would be trying to sleep under a staircase during the “daytime” shifts, which were always the busiest.

Kaplan checked a console chronometer.

“Finney, you’re on duty in an hour, Kirk in nine. Use the time, learn the job. I don’t want to be woken up unless the ship’s about to blow up,” he said, then turned to a member of his staff. “Lieutenant Scott! Give ’em the tour.”

A lieutenant, a little older than Ben, came over and put out his hand.

“Montgomery Scott, call me Scotty,” he said. He had a brogue to match his name.