Star Trek Into Darkness Page 0,25

irregular mess whooshed past, ripping through office furniture as if it were made of cardboard.

Following the pulse rifle and the coil of hose, the heavy chunk of building slammed into the jumpship’s critical intake. This was followed by an eruption of light, flames, and a thunderous explosion. Belching smoke, the fatally stricken ship shuddered, lost power, heeled to one side, and started to spin uncontrollably, picking up speed as it did so.

Rushing to the open edge of the building, Kirk looked out. A single figure was discernible through the transparent cockpit. For the second time, the two men locked eyes: one staring downward with satisfaction, the other peering upward through the transparent canopy and—unreadable.

Swirls of white light from the cockpit grew so intense that Kirk was forced to momentarily glance away. When he managed to look back, there was no sign of the jumpship’s pilot. Kirk was still pondering that when the crippled craft smashed into the side of the building. Flames erupted from within. For an instant, he thought it might hang there, eighty stories above the ground. Then it broke free of its temporary perch to plunge to the paved quad far below. When it smashed into the ground, it sent up gouts of flame and debris that fell far short of reaching him. Clinging to dangling cables for support, Kirk gazed hard at the remnants of the ruined jumpship.

For a long moment there was no sound but the wind whipping in off the bay. That, and the distant cries of wounded officers and security personnel seeping out from the battered conference room nearby.

Within that scene of fire and destruction, an intent Spock gently laid a hand on Pike’s face and commenced to do what he could. Too late. Not even a Vulcan meld could retrieve and heal that which was no longer present.

Returning to the scene of the attack, Kirk found Spock peering helplessly down at Pike’s limp form. The admiral’s eyes were still open. While there was no expression on the Vulcan’s face, there was bereavement in his eyes as he removed his right hand from the dead admiral’s head. Kirk put the tips of his fingers against Pike’s throat. The gesture only confirmed what the science officer did not say. Both survivors—one fully human, the other only half—exchanged a wordless glance. As Spock looked on in silence, Kirk lowered his head and fought to stem the rush of emotion that surged within him.

Christopher Pike was dead. The man who had not only stimulated Kirk to enter Starfleet, but who had quietly mentored him, encouraged him, chastised him when necessary, and grudgingly praised him when possible, would no longer be there to provide advice, suggestions, consolation, and yes, discipline, when needed. Another father lost. Another of the very, very few with whom Kirk could reveal himself, with whom he could be open and straightforward and . . . innocent . . . was gone. Wordlessly, he rose, resting a hand on the science officer’s shoulder for support. Spock did not object.

Relief and medical teams were pouring into the conference room. Hasty organization was taking the place of chaos. The injured were being evacuated, the dead placed to one side. Kirk might have assisted, but his heart wasn’t in it. Given his present state of mind, it was more likely he would have simply been in the way.

That’s what Pike would have told him.

Kirk did not get much sleep that night. His mind was filled with the sights and sounds of destruction and of men and women dying. Every time he would start to drift off, a face would catch his attention. It was that of John Harrison, shrinking away from him, trapped in the crippled jumpship, falling toward his death eighty floors below, and utterly, voicelessly, indifferent to his apparently imminent destruction. Falling—and vanishing, in spirals of white luminance. What had happened, there at that moment fraught with death and devastation? A brilliant flare, and then nothing. Was the man dead? Kirk doubted it. There had been too much purpose in that burst of luminosity—and in that preternaturally calm upward-gazing stare.

His communicator demanded attention, shattering his contemplation. “Yeah?” he said toward the unit.

The instant he heard who was on the other end, Kirk was fully attentive.

“Jim,” Scotty was saying, “I searched the wreckage of the jumpship. You’re not gonna believe what I found. You’ve got ta come, right away.”

“D’you have any idea what we’re dealin’ with here, man?”

Belying the bedlam of the previous night, the day