not normal, Harewood thought. He fought to stay calm as he entered the thankfully empty elevator and thumbed a control. The lift started down, its descent uninterrupted. B-8, B-9, B- . . . A casual observer would have remarked on the unusual number of subterranean levels the elevator ticked off.
The real secret of the archive was that nothing was archived within. Few were curious enough to consider that in an age of multiple instant information backup, there was no need for such a facility to store anything that was not antique. The name was as much an artifice in reality as it was on the front of the building.
Emerging from the lift, Harewood entered a vast underground chamber. Working to maintain his poise, he paused to garner a glass of water from a dispenser. Around him, people and automatons were hard at work on shuttles and ship components, armaments, and modules that were intended for special operations in the cold reaches of deep space. Sparks flew, and in the distance, heavy machinery moved expensive equipment and components into position to be assembled by other robots. From time to time, he nodded in recognition to personnel as they passed.
An open work cubicle provided a semi-refuge from all the activity. Though he had barely been noticed, Harewood was still unaccountably nervous. Setting the water down on the small desk area, he made no attempt to mate a communicator, light player, or any other device to the cubicle’s secure dock. Working quickly, he sent the brief transmission he had composed. Then he sat quietly, contemplating the glass of water.
When he had let as much time pass as he thought wise, he slipped off his finger the silver-hued ring dominated by the insignia of Starfleet. Holding it over the glass, he hesitated ever so briefly.
No going back, he told himself. Not now. For his wife’s sake, for his daughter’s sake, he dared not hesitate.
He dropped the ring into the water—a Starfleet Academy class ring that was something more than what it seemed. He might have murmured something under his breath. A name, a hope, a prayer. There sounded the mellifluous plink of something solid and metallic landing in liquid. It began to fizz. To tremble, then to bounce.
His wife . . .
He never finished the thought, or anything else.
Tom Harewood vanished, the first casualty of the shockwave that tore across the underground chamber, obliterating everything in its path. Metal was twisted and torn, ceramics shattered, high-tech materials shredded. In the fiery burning chaos, mere flesh simply disintegrated. There was scarcely enough time for those trapped to scream before they died.
Above ground, a section of London erupted in flame and smoke. Successive concussions continued to detonate for some time after the initial explosion, sending flames, earth, debris, and people many stories high.
As old blues and new conversation filled the bar behind him, an utterly miserable James Kirk stared at the liquid in the glass on the table in front of him. It was rich and golden—unlike the ruins of his career.
The woman a couple of seats to his right was beautiful, and she smiled pleasantly enough when he grinned at her. Still have that, at least, he told himself.
Without uttering a word, a charcoal-and-gray uniformed senior officer abruptly sat down between them. Staring morosely down at his half-empty glass, unable to meet the older man’s gaze, Kirk could only sigh.
“How did you find me?”
“I know you better than you think I do.” With a glance at the bartender, Admiral Pike ordered for himself. “The first time I found you was in a dive like this. Remember that? You got your ass handed to you.”
“It wasn’t like that,” Kirk mumbled.
“It wasn’t? It was an epic beating.”
Kirk’s voice was beginning to slur. “No, it wasn’t.”
“You had napkins hangin’ out of your nose,” a remorseless Pike reminded him. The image, if not the memory, forced Kirk to laugh softly. “A good fight,” the admiral continued. After a pause, he added, “I think that’s your problem right there.”
Frowning, Kirk turned to regard his mentor.
“They gave her back to me,” Pike told him. “The Enterprise.”
Kirk took a moment to digest the news. He wanted to respond with something clever. Wanted to be brilliant, to be sharp. But all he could say was, “Congratulations.” No, that wasn’t enough. “Watch your back with that first officer, though.”
Pike shook his head. “Spock’s not going to be working with me. He’s been transferred. U.S.S. Bradbury.” The admiral let that sink in before saying, utterly