The Autobiography of James T. Kirk (44 page)

I was glad I took the time to do it. My life as I knew it was about to come to an end.

A few weeks later, I was alone in the dark. I wasn’t sure how long I’d been locked in the cell of the Klingon ship. There was no light, no bed, no toilet. Time would pass, I’d sleep for a while, then wake up in a panic, trying to find the walls, or a door, or a hatch. They didn’t feed me or give me water. I was weak, disoriented. I sat in the dark, hungry, and I was sure that I was on my way to my execution. I had a lot of time to think about how I’d gotten there.

The chancellor of the Klingon High Council was dead. Apparently by two Starfleet soldiers who beamed aboard a Klingon ship from the
Enterprise
and shot him. We were escorting him to Earth for a historic peace conference. The Klingons had asked for the conference; they were desperate. Their moon, Praxis, had exploded. I remembered when I was part of the DSPS, Cartwright had done extensive studies on the Klingon Homeworld Qo’noS and its single natural satellite Praxis. Despite the widespread nature of the Klingon Empire, it was still highly centralized around their Homeworld; the overwhelming majority of the Klingon population lived there. The only moon, Praxis, had been discovered centuries ago, when the Klingons first went into space. Its rich mineral wealth had been considered a gift from the Klingon gods. According to the strategic studies I had read, without the moon providing energy, they would lose almost 80 percent of their available power.

This had been part of Nogura’s plan all those years ago, one which Cartwright enthusiastically pursued: fortify our borders, forcing the Klingons to fortify theirs, spending capital we knew they didn’t have. It looked like it had worked; now they didn’t have the resources to combat this catastrophe. If they couldn’t build air shelters for their population, Qo’noS would be uninhabitable in less than 50 years, and most of the population dead well before then. When I heard this, I thought, our greatest enemy was about to be defeated. The Galaxy would be safe.

But I hadn’t known about the peace mission. That was why Spock had been called home to Vulcan. His father had asked him to act as a special envoy, and he had begun negotiations with the Klingon leader Gorkon to dismantle the defenses on our borders and help the Klingons integrate into the Federation. And then Spock informed me at a meeting of the Admiralty that he had volunteered the
Enterprise
to bring Gorkon to Earth.

“There is an ancient Vulcan proverb: Only Nixon could go to China,” Spock said, by way of explanation. I had no idea what that meant.
*

I was furious. He knew how I felt about the Klingons, what they’d done to me, to David. I had no interest in helping them, or bringing them into Federation space.

“They’re dying,” Spock said.

“Let them die,” I said. And I meant it. I wouldn’t miss them, and, as far as I was concerned, neither would the Galaxy.

But then I met Gorkon.

We rendezvoused with his ship and had him over for dinner. He was a bit of a surprise. He didn’t seem like the usual Klingon. A man about my age, he was cultured, civilized, and with a beard and manner that evoked the ancient American president Abraham Lincoln. Before we parted, he quietly said to me that our generation was going to have the hardest time living in a postwar society. His wisdom was lost on me at the time, but not now.

Less than an hour later he was dead. McCoy and I had beamed over to help, but the doctor was either too drunk or too inexperienced with Klingon anatomy or both to prevent Gorkon’s death. We were placed under arrest, put into shackles, and shoved into these dark, separate cells. I knew I was being framed for the murder. And the problem was, I was a great suspect: I had means, motive, and opportunity.

Time passed. The darkness made me hallucinate. I thought I was beginning to see glowing orbs or bubbles, but then I’d put my hand in front of my face and it wouldn’t block the light; it was true darkness. I began to think I was already dead; I had the urge to scream, just so I’d know I was still alive. But I wouldn’t; I didn’t want to give my jailers the satisfaction. I slammed my hand against the wall ’til it bled, then put it in my mouth. I could taste the blood. I was losing a sense of time and myself. Maybe the war had already started. Billions were dying because of me. They’d open the door and shoot me. There was no hope.

And then I felt it on my back. My thoughts were foggy. What was it, an insect? No, it didn’t move. Then I remembered. Spock had put his hand on my shoulder before I left the bridge of the
Enterprise
for the Klingon ship. I thought he was uncharacteristically patting me on the back, wishing me good luck, but instead he had placed something there. I knew immediately what it was: a viridian patch. A little technological marvel that would allow the
Enterprise
’s sensors to locate me over 20 light-years away. As angry as I’d been at Spock for dragging me into this, he was still looking after me. I gently rubbed the patch. I smiled; it felt like he was in the room with me. He was going to save me.

Shortly thereafter, the door opened and light flooded in. I squinted as two guards grabbed me. I forced my eyes open in the glare and saw McCoy being dragged along with me.

“Bones,” I said. “Are you all right?”

“Not at all,” he said.

They brought us to the transporter and beamed us down to another prison. (We were on Qo’noS, but we didn’t get a tour.) The guards threw us into a cell, this time together. This one at least had a toilet, and they gave us the leg of some dead Klingon animal, which we both tore apart. I was going to tell McCoy about the viridian patch, and then thought better of it; the cell could be bugged.

A few hours later, a younger Klingon, dressed in military robes, came in. He introduced himself as Colonel Worf, who’d been assigned to represent us at our trial.

“I am familiar with the facts of your case,” he said, “but we should go over them to be certain nothing important was left out. First, why did you kill the chancellor?” (It reminded me of the famous example of the “loaded question” of ancient Earth, “Have you stopped beating your wife?”) We were emphatic that we had not killed Gorkon. We went into great detail about what had happened from our point of view. Worf was another Klingon who surprised me; he believed us. He said he didn’t think humans would carefully plan an assassination and then beam themselves into custody.

The trial was in a grand hall, with hundreds of Klingons yelling for our heads. The evidence was piled high against us, and my reputation for hating Klingons was well known. But in case the judge wasn’t convinced, they played an excerpt from my log.

“I’ve never trusted Klingons, and I never will. I’ll never forgive them for the death of my boy.” I couldn’t deny that those were my words. But I knew in that moment that it wasn’t only the Klingons who were framing me. I’d recorded that a few days before; only a member of Starfleet, a crewman on my ship, could’ve gotten that log excerpt.

My own people were part of this. As angry as I was at the Klingons, it had blinded me to much closer enemies. And I had been an unintended coconspirator.

I had assumed Gorkon was lying, that he didn’t want peace; I couldn’t imagine a Klingon who’d seek the same things I did. And I would have let all them die rather than help. David’s death festered, and I didn’t want it to heal. It was easier to hate and blame. I understood the conspirators.

McCoy and I were of course found guilty, but due to Worf’s spirited defense our death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment on Rura Penthe, the frozen prison planet in Klingon space. Thanks to the viridian patch, Spock was able to rescue us from there, and then we rooted out the conspirators.

Their leader was Cartwright.

I arrested him and put him in the brig on the
Enterprise
. I was personally going to take him back home to stand trial. I also wanted to talk to him. As we began our trip to Earth, I went to see him in his cell. He looked me straight in the eye; he was not sorry for what he’d done.

“I was trying to protect us,” he said. He used the excuse men had relied on for centuries: war is necessary for security. I wanted details of the conspiracy. I knew it had involved several highly placed Klingons as well as the Romulan ambassador. All of them wanted the same thing: the same balance of power and the same borders that kept the Galaxy the way it was. Cartwright wouldn’t give me too many details, and he apologized for having put me in prison. But he felt the consequences were too great.

“They’re animals,” he said. “We can’t live with them.” A few days before, I might have agreed with him. But now, I took great pleasure in pointing out something he’d missed.

“Lance, don’t you see? You proved that we
can
live with them. You hate Klingons more than anyone, and yet your conspiracy proved that, when Klingons and humans have a common goal, they work together just fine.”

I’ll remember the look on his face for the rest of my life.

I went back to the bridge and looked around at my old friends. Spock, McCoy, Uhura, Chekov. We had all been brought to the brink of a holocaust that would’ve cost billions of lives, by a bunch of old men whose fear of death made them seek an unobtainable measure of security. Men like me, who’d grown up hating Klingons, and didn’t know there was another choice. Men who’d gotten used to being the inner circle of a democracy’s military, thinking they knew best, and depriving the rest of us of our right to make decisions. I’d seen it firsthand working with Nogura. And now, my contemporaries and I in the upper ranks at Starfleet had almost missed it. “The price of liberty,” the American patriot Thomas Jefferson wrote, “is eternal vigilance.” We needed the next generation to start keeping watch.

It was time for me to go.

We brought the
Enterprise
home, again. Or maybe the
Enterprise
brought us home, it’s hard to know which. As we pulled into Earth orbit, we passed a space dry dock, where the next
Enterprise
sat, almost completed. This was truly the end of my era as captain of the starship; I didn’t even know who would be taking over. I said goodbye to my friends, certain I would see them all again soon.

As I usually did after a long trip in space, I went back to Iowa. My father was there, and we sat on the porch on a pair of antique rocking chairs. Mom had taken off again to a conference, this time on Andoria. Dad was in his eighties; he was big and stocky, and still vital. He asked me what I was going to do now. I said I wasn’t sure. I thought about the fact that I had nothing to come back to, no wife, no children, no home that I’d built myself. I looked over at my dad and saw myself, but also my opposite. He had all the things I didn’t, and I had much of what he’d given up.

“Dad,” I said, “did you regret giving up your career?” He took a long pause.

“I don’t know,” he said. “I made a decision. My dad was never home; I wanted you and Sam to know I would always be here. I don’t know if it was a good choice, or the right choice; it was just my choice.” We sat and talked a while longer, and then noticed a Starfleet officer walking up the path to our house. It was Peter, now in his thirties. Dad said he heard I was coming and decided to take a quick shore leave. He’d gotten a new assignment, commanding the
Starship Challenger.
I stood up to greet him, and he grabbed me in a hug.

“Great to see you, Uncle Jim,” he said. I stood back and took in his new rank insignia.

“Great to see you too, Captain Kirk,” I said.

That was several months ago. When I announced my retirement from Starfleet, a historian at Memory Alpha contacted me. He requested if he could collaborate with me on my autobiography. With no other projects on the horizon, I agreed. I sit now, having finished it.

Tomorrow, they are christening that new
Enterprise
. I will be there, but there will be another captain in the command chair. I suppose the journey back through my memories has made me realize that perhaps I had retired too soon, because as long as I sat in that chair, I felt relevant. I have some regret that I could never figure out how to break the cycle of my life, finding relevancy in something besides Starfleet. I suppose that makes me like a lot of other people, who don’t really know how to change.

My collaborator, upon reading an early draft, noted that he was surprised I didn’t mention any of the commendations I received from Starfleet, and I had to examine that. I realized that the medals I have do remind me of my victories, and that’s the problem. The Duke of Wellington said, “Nothing except a battle lost can be half so melancholy as a battle won.” Too many people died for me to win those medals. And all those victories I suppose made it hard for me to connect, to foster relationships and a life. I just kept going back to being a captain. In that chair, I felt like I accomplished a lot; it felt like I helped more people than I hurt. I hope that’s true.

Even as I sit here, this doesn’t feel like an end. I realize 60 is not all that old. Starfleet may not want me, but maybe I can get a decommissioned ship. I could fill it with people like myself, who still want to help but have been mustered out. We could set our own missions, help where we can, try to stay out of trouble. But also get into some trouble.