EXPERIMENTAL WARP SLED SHUTTLE USS HERALD

IN ORBIT OVER DENEVA THREE, JUNE, 2278

Willard Decker looked over at Carol Marcus as they made orbit over a world once called for paradise. In fact, it had never been that. For one young man, it had been his first true taste of hell. In an odd way, all three people present were connected to that young man, counted dead ten years.

Decker himself had never met Peter Kirk, but both came from Starfleet royalty of sorts, and both their families had been early and vocal in opposing the vicious racist cabal known as Admiralty Hall. Like his mentor George Kirk, Matt Decker had suffered for this choice.

The last way Matt had suffered was when his requests for back-up had been refused by The Hall. Matt had chosen in that instance to investigate the vanished planets and systems themselves. The USS Constellation died encountering a cosmic obscenity built to fight the cosmic obscenity Peter Kirk was born to destroy. Just as King Ghidorah had killed George Kirk, so had the Doomsday Machine killed Matt Decker.

Carol Marcus had hated Peter Kirk. To be fair to both, this hatred had been caused through no action of the young boy. After her son David had been born under circumstances that still chilled her to the bone, Jim Kirk's brother and equally flaky sister-in-law had come to visit. All seemed to be going well. Jim's newborn son already had a hold on his soul, and Carol would soon make clear her demand that Kirk relinquish a space-lane career to be around him.

It was a low, and perhaps even a scummy thing to pull. But she was a scientist, and she knew that method must never be wholly shackled by morals. She wanted Jim around, and this pregnancy seemed the surest way to achieve that. But if she had played Nyota Uhura correctly throughout this, Carol had never taken Aurelan Kirk into account. She had wandered in, seemingly admiring David. Her own son stood in the room's doorway. Aurelan's words cut through all of Carol's planning. David was not unique, and could not bind Jim to her in that way.

"Jim's *second* son is cute, Carol."

The face on the boy spoke volumes. Carol herself had been present at the accident that sterilized Sam Kirk. Jim, even if kept away from David, had another son. So it was that by the mere fact of his existence, Peter Kirk ruined the best thing Carol had almost accomplished.

The Hall didn't take her seriously, she knew. To them, she was just another of Jim Kirk's ports of call, although that rep had always been overblown outside his Academy days. Still, to only send one low-ranking officer made her wince, so she really sold it, to make Cartwright and his bunch squirm about what they missed.

"Commander Decker, the terraforming of Earth's moon took sixty years. The terraforming of Titan took forty-five. Even with the Archer Red Shift of 2111, the entire Alpha Centauri system took thirty years to complete."

Will nodded. Henry Archer, father to the great Captain, had in one year changed everything with a cache of recovered technology, said to be Iconian. Yet no Iconian ruins could safely account for the fact that the first Enterprise went at Warp 9, Old Measurement, or the replicators that rapidly became commonplace at the turn of the century. There were lurid tales and urban legends of a scout ship taken from a dying machine race fleeing an apocalypse that was still coming. But Will had long ago decided he'd have heart to hearts with his father's ghost before he'd believe crap like that.

"Yes, Doctor. But Admiralty Hall is very anxious about your claim of a device that can accomplish a terraforming in as little as six years. That's why Deneva Three was chosen for your initial test. The cover story used after the parasite plague was put down has worn thin to many people. We need a living planet down there, and we need it soon."

Carol smiled. Cartwright would scream when his reluctant errand boy told him.

"I don't need any more time, Commander. Turn on your viewer."

Decker did, and what he saw flabbergasted him.

"How?"

The blasted plains flowed again with lush, green grass. The sun shone filtered through an actual atmosphere. Trees were growing. Water flowed through once-dusty canals and valleys.

"But Captain Kirk used the Oxygen Destroyer. It doesn't leave so much as a single atom of organic matter."

Her next words were tinged with more pride than even Marcus expected. She pointed at the planet below.

"What Jim Kirk did, I have in six short months undone entirely. The planet where I once visited Jim's family is reborn."

She turned and faced him up close.

"And Commander, you can tell your Hall that we can make it happen, eventually, in as little as six hours."

As she left Decker alone to contemplate this, Carol failed to see his face drain of color.

===================================

Walking into David's workplace on the small shuttle-cruiser, Carol saw him motion for her.

"Hey. You'll never believe who left you a commcall. The Grand High Boy Scout himself."

"Jim?"

David nodded.

"Figures. Decker was just a feint. The real big man is coming, gonna swoop in, claim credit for his own corrected mistake, and then for the big finish--Qo'nos and Romulus become Earth 2 and 3, with more to come! The Genesis Project becomes The Doomsday Machine. Ba-da-bing--ba-da-doom!"

For the past ten years, any time Jim Kirk's name had come up in any fashion, Carol had moved David away from it, sometimes physically sending him to another room. An unintended side-effect of this had been David's development of a rather narrow   view of Starfleet.

"David--Starfleet is staffed by people who are sworn, trained and committed to see to it that something like that never occurs."

Another voice challenged Carol's.

"Much of Starfleet is, Doctor. But not all of it. Your son is right. Genesis must be kept away from Starfleet for as long as possible."

Besides Decker's sudden intrusion, Carol was very confused by his words.

"Commander, just what are you getting at?"

"Exactly what I said, Doctor. Admiralty Hall is full of closet racists who would love access to an instant terraformer. And please be certain. It wouldn't only be the Federation's enemies on their list."

Even David seemed thrown-off by that.

"Wait. I know these folks talk the war-talk. But that's what they have to do, right? Ya know, the powers grumble at each other over the borders, so nobody sees the real atrocities?"

Decker looked at the sixteen-year-old genius.

"Ask any cadet who shakes in terror at the thought of a so-called 'personal review'. Ask any starship crew stuck fast in a hellish sector because they're not staffed by Hall-approved lock-steppers."

Decker pointed to himself.

"Ask the man who told the Hall he would not spy on a certain Captain, only to be given a posting on Starbase Omega."

Carol thought for a moment.

"But that's where they keep the shell of the cylindrical planet-killer."

David shook his head.

"Hold up. The ACTUAL Doomsday Machine? They make you baby-sit the thing that killed your Dad? That's cold."

Decker nodded, and half-smiled.

"Hopefully, it always remains cold. The bay window in my quarters looks straight down the maw."

Both that vision of hell and David's wistful sound when using the word 'Dad' gave Carol heavy pause.

"What would you have us do, Commander?"

Will sat down.

"Let me tell them that Deneva is still not ready. With your help, I can provide some techno-babble reason why this is. Then--take a slow path to your six hours, Doctor. I want you to be so conservative on this, they'll say you're to the right of Green. I'll keep their interest in Project Genesis. You keep them from getting it anytime soon. After that--welll, maybe by then the UFP Council will finally have woken up about the Hall's activities."

David shook a finger.

"Wait. What about Kirk?"

Decker shrugged.

"What about him?"

Carol closed her eyes.

"I have a comm-call to answer from him. David thinks its connected to your visit."

Decker got up.

"Its not. And Jim Kirk would never play the Hall's game. He holds the rank of Admiral himself, but will not use it, nor will he permit himself to be addressed as such. He's never been pleased about the Hall's foot-dragging on the investigation of his family's murder. And you'll never find a man more ideologically their opposite."

On the trip back outside the quarantined Denevan system, a cover story was carefully planned. When the Essex dropped the Marcuses off at Regula One, Carol put David to work on plotting their new, slower path. Then she sealed her quarters, breathed in, and placed a call to David's biological father. Onscreen, Jim was smiling a smile Carol had only ever seen on the very grandest occasions.

"Carol, I'm glad you returned my call. I have great news. Peter's been found."

Marcus realized that Kirk wouldn't call over the discovery of mere remains, so she made a guess.

"Alive? Jim, where has he been all this time?"

"Ambassador Sarek has contacts in the terrorist community. Whoever did the kidnapping, one of them had a change of heart--or perhaps grew one. They kept him in cryo. He's still thirteen, Carol. But we have no idea what he remembers, or what they might have done to him."

That phrase contained more terror than any graphic description for Carol Marcus. The injured alive-again boy was her son's half-brother, after all.

"Thank you for letting me know, Jim. Have you physically seen him yet?"

In fact, she almost wished she didn't know. Once again, Peter Kirk by his very existence made Carol's uncomfortable. It was not so very hard to see David found alive after some ungodly amount of time, the shattered target of his father's enemies. It was one of many reasons why Jim was not a part of David's life.

"We're planning a trip to Vulcan as soon as we can. That is, if we can get around the sudden flurry of assignments Admiralty Hall has given us. Carol, when Enterprise makes that trip, Peter's adopted sister Saavik will already be there with him. I'd like to bring his half-brother along, as well. I know its sudden, but for Peter to know he's not alone would help him in ways we can't imagine. He's been through so much. Please, Carol. David is old enough not to be enthralled by the more colorful aspects of my life. He's not going to run off, just to know a father who's never been there. And I'll keep him safe til we bring him back to you. I swear."

It was a simple request, and logically based. David was old enough to not see Enterprise as the circus. Jim Kirk would likely trade his life for that of a crewman, let alone a son. On Vulcan, David would have a brother and a sister, and that brother had suffered, no questions asked. But whenever Jim made this request, a harsh reflex took over the rational scientist. As it did now.

"As safe as you kept Peter, Jim?"

She severed the contact, and wished that she regretted her words more. When she allowed David in later, she told him an edited version of her conversation with Kirk.

"The kid whose funeral we attended? So now I'm older than him. Boy, talk about your irony."

Carol didn't understand.

"What irony? Where's the irony?"

David looked directly at her.

"Well, we just restored Deneva Three to life, and now its last surviving resident turns up alive, too. Decker was talking about how this  Admiralty Hall failed to find Peter Kirk, and who finds him? The Vulcan Ambassador? Yah. That makes them look either foolish or guilty, and with bureaucracies, you can never tell what they fear the most."

Jim Kirk's cautionary words of ten years ago rang through Carol's skull, only minutes after he had made the reverse plea.

*They're killing Kirks, Carol. So its important that David not be known as one.*

They. Who were they? Would even a proper Vulcan fail to pursue such leads? If Decker was right about the Hall's reach, then why such a notable failure in the most notorious murder case in Earth's recent history? Who hated the Kirks so much, they would kidnap a young teenager?

"No, David. I suppose we can't know what it is that the Hall fears the most."