Star Trek Into Darkness Page 0,8

subsequently within the volcano itself, but the Enterprise is too large to employ such methods. If utilized in a rescue effort, it would invariably be revealed to the indigenous species.”

“More referencing of the Prime Directive,” McCoy muttered. “To hell with the Prime Directive.”

Fully aware that such an observation would be utterly ignored by his science officer, Kirk tried a more logical tack. “Spock, nobody knows rules better than you. So you must know that depending on the circumstances, there has to be variance allowed. There must be some exception to—”

Through heat, distance, and looming apocalypse, Spock cut him off.

“There are none, Captain. Not in this instance. Revealing the superior technology represented by the Enterprise would constitute an action that unequivocally violates the Prime Directive.”

So much for logic and reason. Kirk knew there was no time to indulge in the kind of elaborate debate favored by his science officer. “Spock, we’re talking about your life.”

The response was calm and unrelenting. “The rule cannot be broken under any circumsttssssss . . .”

Kirk did not have to hear the rest to know that his plea had no more effect than his argument. But he wanted to hear the rest of his science officer’s words, if only because as long as the Vulcan’s voice echoed through the bridge, he knew that his friend was still alive.

“Spock?” Whirling, he addressed his chief communications officer. “Try to get him back online.”

There was no one on the Enterprise who desired that more than Nyota Uhura. No one who would have given more to hear the familiar measured, assured tones of the ship’s science officer. So when she turned to shake her head once, slowly, the full measure of the loss struck everyone on the bridge.

Speaking with difficulty, Chekov looked up from his readouts and broke the silence. “Ninety seconds until detonation, sir.”

Kirk stared ahead, gazing at something that lay somewhere beyond the now-imageless forward screen. “If Spock was here, and I was down there, what would he do?”

When no one offered an immediate reply, he turned to once again eye Uhura. She started to speak, paused, said nothing. Her anguished expression told him what she wanted him to do, but as a Starfleet officer she could not say it, and the contradiction threatened to tear her apart.

In the end, it is always physicians who seem to address such questions. The doctor did not consciously seek to imitate the science officer’s manner, but Spock would surely have approved.

“He’d let you die,” McCoy said without hesitation.

McCoy’s words, Uhura’s expression. There are times when being captain of a noble ship is grand, times when it is confusing, times when it is troublesome.

At that moment in time, for James T. Kirk, it was hell.

Though very real, the fear left Spock quickly enough. He had been trained to deal with it. Fear was, after all, nothing more than another emotion. Possibly it was not really “fear” he had been experiencing at all. More of a disquiet at the certainty of approaching immolation and the subsequent lapsing of consciousness. That, and a looming sense of loss. Of things as yet undone, of experiences unfulfilled, of a certain relationship left unfinalized . . .

In its wake, there was peace.

It came to him with surprising ease, as much due to who he was as to any formal teaching he had received. Regrets cast aside, he readied himself for the ending. Spreading his arms in a gesture any Vulcan would have recognized, he closed his eyes, tilted back his head, and prepared to embrace emptiness.

They had vanquished the interlopers who had stolen the sacred scroll. The gods would be pleased. Some of those who had participated in the successful recovery ululated ecstatically before the recovered relic. That the gods were happy with their subjects was given additional proof when the temple was destroyed, for providentially, none had been trapped within when the molten rock had come downslope. The loss of the temple itself was not important. What mattered were the scroll and the words inscribed thereon. When queried about the destruction of the temple compound, the priests had avowed that it was the only way the gods could convince their subjects that it was time to raise a new temple, one grander and more impressive than its predecessor. This the people would surely do.

Further proof of the gods’ satisfaction soon manifested itself in an entirely unprecedented fashion—one for which even the most loquacious priest had no explanation.

It was as if the air itself had become an