Books > The Return > Excerpts

James T. Kirk was dead....

As Commander William Riker resolved from the transporter beambeside the grave of that Starfleet legend, he was surprised bythe sudden thought that had come to him. Of all that had happenedon this desolate world of Veridian III only a month ago,inexplicably, the fate of James T. Kirk weighed most heavily onhis mind.

Half a planet away, the shattered hulk of the U.S.S.Enterprise lay in ruins, slowly being carved into transporterloads of recyclable scrap by a team of Starfleet engineers.Though the ship was beyond salvage, in accordance with the

Prime Directive no trace of it could remain on this world. Aprimitive civilization existed on Veridian IV, the next planetout from the Veridian sun. If someday voyagers from that worldIanded here, they must find no trace of advanced technology whichmight affect the natural development of their science.

Riker had expected that the full emotional consequence ofthe great ship's loss would have consumed him by now. She hadgone before her time, and in his dreams he had always hoped toone day sit in her captain's chair.

But in the days that had passed since the Enterprise had blazedthrough the atmosphere of this world to her first and finallanding, Riker's thoughts still kept turning to the fate of thecaptain of an earlier Enterprise. The first Enterprise...

"Sir, is that...him?"

Riker turned to Lieutenant Baru. The seam ridge that bisected theyoung Bolian officer's deep blue face pulled taut as her eyeridges widened. She looked into the distance, past the grave.

Riker nodded, smiling inwardly at her reaction, recognizing theearnestness of youth. The Farragut's chief of security hadpersonally recommended Baru, and the three other officersaccompanying Riker, to be part of the honor guard to escortKirk's remains to Earth. Riker knew what she saw What they allsaw now.

A lone sentinel on a distant outcropping. The dry desert windshifting the elegant black robes he wore. The reddening sunreflected from the silver script embroidered in their folds.

He had come.

From Romulus.

Against all logic.

"Spock," Baru said. With awe.

Riker understood.

He knew the Vulcan ambassador--had worked with him--as a living,breathing individual. Yet Spock was as much a legend as Kirk.

As much a legend as the friendship that had bound those two onthe first Starship Enterprise.

The officers of the honor guard stood at ease respectfullyrefraining from staring at the distinguished visitor. Insteadthey faced the simple cairn of rocks Jean-Luc Picard had builtfor Kirk's remains. The setting sun drew long shadows from it andcaught an old-fashioned Starfleet insignia pin with a gleam ofdying light.

Riker breathed the still, dry air of the Veridian desert. Heglanced upward to the darkening sky, as if he might see theFarragut sliding into orbit far overhead, come to claimstarfleet's honored dead, to bear Kirk home.

From his sentinel's position, Spock remained as motionless as thetime-smoothed stones of this place.

What could it be like, Riker wondered, to lose your closestfriend then seventy-eight years later, to lose him again?

A hint of the power of that answer existed in the extraordinarycircumstances that had brought Spock here. In fewer than fourdays after the crew of Riker's Enterprise had been rescued,Starfleet Intelligence had mounted an emergency extractionmission to bring Spock from the home world of the Romulan StarEmpire to Veridian III, so he might accompany his friend on hisfinal voyage.

The extraction was not an operation to be undertaken lightly.Relations between the Romulans and the Federation had beenstrained for centuries. Spock had become instrumental in theefforts to reduce those tensions by decades of secretnegotiations intended to reconcile the Romulans with the Vulcansand, hence, the Federation.

Though the Romulans were an offshoot of the Vulcan race, they hadrejected the logic which had saved their Vulcan ancestors fromsuccumbing to their primitive, passionate, blood-drenchedbeginnings. So who better than Spock--a child of emotional humansand logical Vulcans--to understand both sides and work forunification?

Riker had spent many long evenings discussing Spock with CaptainPicard. Both understood that the process Spock was involved withwas simply the playing out on a larger scale of the struggle hehad faced in his own divided heart.

But whatever extraordinary actions Starfleet had taken to bringthe ambassador to this world at this time, Riker knew that noneof them would have been questioned, even given the Federation'sneed to officially remain ignorant of Spock's activities.Starfleet, the Federation, the galaxy itself, owed Spock too muchto deny him anything.Copyright © 1997 by William Shatner and Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens