Admiral James T. Kirk stopped in mid-pace, hands clasped behind his back, and gazed through the transparent north wall of his Starfleet office at the Golden Gate and the magnificent old bridge that spanned it. Had he been less impatient at that particular moment, he might have appreciated the unobstructed view of the big bridge, its sharp angles softened by a hastily scheduled shower. Obscured by the rain, the view took on the subtlety of a painting done in oils, and Kirk had a certain taste for that sort of thing. The bridge's spare beauty was once again uncluttered, as he preferred: the Fourth of July weekend was over and the holiday bunting had been taken down from the towers, though the decorations would be back up for the coming Apollo Day festivities. The display of the old U.S. flag had evoked the usual protests against narrow minded nationalism, but Kirk saw the banner's symbolism as prophetic: the stars were intended to represent states, but Kirk thought of them as actual stars, as if the flag's designers had anticipated the United Federation of Planets and its own star-dotted flag.

He was tempted to curse the weather, but restrained himself; the emergency rain was needed, and had in fact been scheduled -- hastily, at the last minute, just in time to delay the countdown for the Enterprise's launch.

Kirk abruptly turned his back on the view, strode to his desk, and thumbed the direct-connect on his companel. The image of the Navy Yard Chief, a red-bearded Scottish giant, swam onto the screen. The giant was dressed in one of the new Starfleet uniforms -- the white-bibbed "penguin grays," as they had quickly come to be known.

"Good morning again, Chief."

"Aye, Admiral, an' a wet one it still is, too," Alec MacPherson answered, his tone as gloomy as the weather. "We're all just lookin' at the rain an' gettin' a good case o' th' fidgets. The hold's now at one hour an' fifty-three minutes." The big Scotsman snorted in disgust.

"Status?"

"Ready an' waitin', Admiral. Everythin' is go. No problems from th' nasty weather, either; I've got environmental shields up, an' th' saucer is locked tight as Grandma's purse in any case. I wouldna mind settin' th' new launch time for as soon as practicable, though, sir. All o' this is wearin' me a wee bit thin."

Kirk smiled faintly at the Chief, who'd put as much of his soul into the Enterprise's refit as Kirk had himself. Now, MacPherson looked as nervous and proud as an expectant father. "That makes two of us. Let's go with what we discussed earlier. I make it just under fourteen minutes until the rain's scheduled to end. Let's send her up five minutes after; the sky over the city will have cleared enough. Keep in mind there are a few tractor-pressor gangs topside who've got a good case of the fidgets, too."

"I can well believe it. I'll be sending 'em a tick at T-minus eighteen." His voice warmed suddenly. "Admiral, are ye sure ye won't change your mind about comin' over for the launch? Still plenty of time for ye to beam across town and stand wi' us here."

Kirk hesitated. As badly as he wanted to accept MacPherson's offer -- to see the Enterprise off in person, with those who had worked with him these many months on her refit -- she was Will Decker's ship now, and it was time to let her go. Kirk had decided long before to watch the launch from his office, to remind himself of the fact. His response sounded deceptively casual. "Thanks, Mac, but you don't need me getting in your way. I'll stay here."

MacPherson nodded gravely, as if he understood. "As you wish, sir. Well, here's hopin' the gods are smilin' on us."

"Aye to that. Kirk out."

"G'bye, sir." MacPherson's image faded as Kirk pressed another toggle.

Uhura's dark, elegant features filled the screen. "Communications, Enterprise." Her tone, serene and steady, belied the anticipation Kirk knew she must be feeling. At the sight of her former captain, she grinned hugely. "Admiral, hello. Looks like she's finally going to be under way again, sir. If the rain ever lets up."

Kirk repressed a pang of envy and returned the smile. "It'll let up, Commander. If I have anything to say about it."

"This new bridge is fantastic. I wish you could be here to see it, sir," Uhura blurted, then hesitated as if worried she had just said something insensitive.

But Kirk's amused expression never wavered. "I know it is. I've seen it," he said easily. "Let me talk to Captain Decker, please."

"Aye, sir. Right away."

"Captain?" Uhura called.

Moving with deliberate calm to conceal the restlessness he was feeling, Willard Decker swiveled in his chair to glance at his communications officer. He felt fortunate to have a veteran like Uhura on the bridge. Her confident demeanor had a steadying effect on the less experienced crew members -- including her new captain. When the countdown had begun, Decker had been pleased at his ability to remain inwardly relaxed. That was before the rain, and the hold.

"Admiral Kirk calling, sir. On six."

"Thanks." Grateful for the distraction, Decker touched a button on the console arm. Kirk's features appeared instantly on the main viewer. "Any news, Admiral?"

Before Kirk responded, Decker quickly studied the admiral's face for signs of envy -- what Decker would be feeling were their positions reversed. He recalled a moment when, almost nine months earlier, he'd learned that Kirk had recommended him to oversee the Enterprise's refit as her new captain. Decker had called the admiral at HQ to thank him, but at the time, Kirk's response had taken him aback:

Quite frankly, Will, I envy you. If I were still a captain, I'd do whatever was necessary to get command of my ship back.

Now, sitting in the command chair on the bridge of the Enterprise, Decker understood Jim Kirk's words perfectly. The way Will felt today, nothing short of an anti-matter explosion could have pried him away from this ship, this bridge, this crew...

The admiral's expression was good-humored, and his voice carried a hint, not of jealousy, but of the anticipation Decker himself felt.

"Get ready to take a time tick from MacPherson, Will. The rain is supposed to stop in about fourteen minutes. You'll lift off five minutes after that."

"Understood, Admiral," Decker said, relieved that the delay was not longer. "We're raring to go, sir."

Kirk grinned. "Well, just be sure you put all the little pieces in the right places. It'd be embarrassing to have anything left over when you're finished."

"Scotty says he knows where all the parts go," Decker replied, grinning back. "Thanks for the advice, though, Admiral."

For an instant, the two men locked gazes. Kirk's eyes reflected the same emotion Will knew shone in his own: the deep pride and admiration only a captain can feel for a first command. And then Kirk said abruptly: "Smooth sailing, Captain. Kirk out." The screen blanked.

Decker released the comm line and directed his attention forward, to the pilot station. At the helm was Lt. Commander Sulu, who was in charge of the upgrade to helm systems.

Former navigator Pavel Chekov had left ship's company to attend the Starfleet security school at Annapolis. Decker looked forward to having Chekov back shortly as the ship's security chief when he had completed the program.

Since Chekov's permanent replacement as navigator had not yet been assigned, Chief Suzanne DiFalco -- Montgomery Scott's number-two for navigation systems -- was pinch-hitting as navigator for this short flight.

"Chief," Decker said, "I trust you're ready to receive the time tick?"

"Aye, Captain," DiFalco answered evenly, though her eyes were unusually bright. She paused for a moment and then added, "Got it, sir. The clock is now running." DiFalco's fingers flew across a series of buttons on her board. "Our projected course to Spacedock Four has been corrected for the new time of departure."

"Amended course laid in, sir," added Sulu.

"Very good."

It was quiet now on the bridge; everything that could be done had already been done, and then checked and rechecked. Decker looked around him. Most of the people on the bridge were new to the Enterprise, having been assigned aboard only during the six months that the saucer had been sitting in the Navy Yard. The green bridge crew had found its identity quickly, though, forming itself around the few veterans still aboard -- which was exactly what Admiral Kirk and Decker had hoped would happen. Much the same thing had occurred in Engineering, where Scotty had seeded a number of old hands among the new personnel who'd been trained in the latest methods of ship design, construction and maintenance.

Decker slowly released a silent sigh. He had been preparing more than eight months for this launch -- but these last few minutes seemed the longest part of the entire wait. "Well, it seems there's nothing left to do but cool our heels. Lieutenant Commander Uhura, patch into the local relay for WorldNews and put it on the main viewer. Let's see what they're saying about us."

"And now there's just a little more than twelve minutes to go until the scheduled end of the rain," newscaster Nan Davis said, smiling into the trivision scanners. Outwardly, her manner was one of total ease, as if it were a perfectly natural, ordinary thing for her to address an audience that numbered in the billions. As natural as breathing, which she had forgotten to do at the moment. As she paused between sentences, she reminded herself to take a nice, slow, even breath.

Inwardly, she was frantic. After several uneventful -- and unnoticed, Nan had thought -- months at WorldNews, she'd finally been given a huge break: the chance to cover the Enterprise launch. If the producers liked what they saw, her one-year probationary hire at WorldNews could turn into a permanent position. And if they didn't... time to update the résumé.

Which, the way things were going this morning, she might be doing a lot sooner than expected. For the past two torturous hours, she'd been trying to fill air time with information she'd repeated several times in as many different ways. Her first worldwide feed, and it was going down the chute.

Damn the weather.

"The weather might be terrible outside," Nan continued brightly, her professional smile intact, "but we're nice and dry here in our San Francisco studios -- and with us this morning are our special guests, Admiral Timothea Rogers of Starfleet Command Public Information, and retired Starfleet captain Robert April, the very first commander of the starship Enterprise."

Both guests nodded to the scanners as their names were mentioned. April was a tall, distinguished looking man of about eighty with a handsome shock of white hair; he was casually but neatly dressed in civilian attire.

Rogers was in Starfleet dress uniform and wore a severe, intimidating expression. Her straight salt-and-pepper hair framed a long face that seemed unused to smiling. Earlier that morning, when Nan had met the admiral, she'd felt a sudden chilly gust from one of the studio's air vents -- or had it simply been her imagination, looking into Roger's cold, forbidding features? She'd been prepared for Rogers to be reserved -- Nogura calls her his Vulcan, the aide scheduling the interview had confided -- but Vulcan-like reserve was one thing, and Rogers' demeanor was quite another. The woman radiated all the personality and warmth of an ice sculpture. And Nan had known, with heartsinking certainty as she shook the admiral's hand, that Rogers was going to be perfectly awful on 3V.

So far, the interview had proven her right. Admiral Rogers had been adequately responsive throughout the feed, but with her habit of citing statistic after dull statistic in that flat, uninflected voice, she was about as endearing as a Rigellian fever sore.

"For those of you just joining us," Nan said, "the countdown for the liftoff of the renovated command section -- the 'saucer' -- of the Enterprise has been put on hold due to a two-hour rain ordered early this morning by California Governor Sarah Meier. The shower was needed to help extinguish a small forest fire that started around dawn near the city of Mill Valley, just north of San Francisco. We're told the fire is out and damage to local property is minimal."

Nan, Rogers and April were seated on a small studio set that had been put together overnight by the WorldNews studio crew. The animated backdrop consisted of a moving starfield dominated by an artist's conception of the way Enterprise would look once her renovation had been completed. The setting looked good, better than the credit-pinching WorldNews art director usually managed to provide. Nan had been quite pleased with the set when she'd first seen it that morning, and had taken its presence as a good omen.

But that had been before she'd met Rogers.

So much for omens.

"Starfleet has delayed the launch until just after the rain," Nan told her audience, "for fear that turbulence from the command section's powerful impulse engines could turn the weather stormier than Weather Control intended."

The prompt bug in her ear buzzed. "We've just been informed by Starfleet that the command section of the Enterprise will lift off five minutes after the scheduled end of the rain -- fifteen minutes from now." She could not quite hide her relief from the scanners.

Buoyed, she turned slightly in her seat to face April. In striking contrast to Rogers, Captain April was an interviewer's dream -- animated, warm, relaxed, and most of all, interesting. If, without being too obvious, she could focus the remaining time on him... "Captain, it seems we're on our way again. Tell me, as the first skipper of the Enterprise, how do you feel about seeing her reborn?"

April grinned, showing a flash of white teeth against suntanned skin. "Quite proud, Miss Davis, quite proud indeed. I still feel as if I'm a part of that ship; I spent quite a while aboard her, you know. Though the changes in technology since the Enterprise was launched have been considerable."

Nan sincerely returned the smile, then, careful to hide her reluctance, turned to Rogers. "Admiral, can you tell us something about those technological changes? For example, the new warp engines. Is it true they're so powerful they would have torn the old Enterprise apart?"

Rogers pursed her thin, pale lips as if in distaste. "Well, yes, I suppose so," she answered dryly, "if you care to put the matter in those terms. The new warp drivers generate six times more power than the old ones, and such a strain would have been a problem for the old Enterprise. However, the re-design--"

"That brings up something else, Captain April," Nan said quickly, before Rogers could continue. The admiral closed her mouth and fixed a fishy stare on Nan. "Why renovate the Enterprise instead of building an entirely new cruiser from scratch?"

"Well, Miss Davis," April began, "my understanding is that the new design incorporates so much fresh technology, it can't even be finalized for more than--"

"The decision was made by Starfleet for two reasons," Rogers snapped. Careful to tilt her face away from the invisible audience, Nan looked daggers at her.

Rogers pretended not to notice. "Money and time. Enterprise's renovation will cost only sixty-two point six percent of the price of constructing an entirely new cruiser, and work will be completed a year sooner. The time factor was also shortened by giving the job to our Starfleet Operations people. Since things have gone so well with the Enterprise refit, Operations will be handling all of Starfleet's ship renovation projects from now on."

"Fascinating," Nan said feebly. If Rogers was going to bring up the subject, she may as well follow through with questions and try to kill some of those fifteen minutes. "Who's responsible for the change?"

"Admiral James Kirk was put in charge of Starfleet Operations eight months ago. The renovation plan is his."

"But aren't starship repairs and so forth usually done in orbit, in special docks?" Nan asked. "The entire starship is usually left in one piece, isn't it? Why was the command section detached and flown down for renovation?"

Rogers gave a single curt nod. "Before now, Starfleet has always done this kind of work in the microgravitational environment freely available in orbit. However, Admiral Kirk determined some of the renovation work could be done much more efficiently in a gravitational field. He found a substantial savings in time and budget could be realized if we did most of the work on the command section on the ground."

"Isn't working in a gravity field inconvenient?"

"Not when you're painting, running wiring or laying carpet, among any number of other jobs. Admiral Kirk knew that the Enterprise's main gravity generators would not be up and running until rather late in the renovation process; in fact, they came on line only last week. We gained a great deal of time by not waiting for the engineering section to be made ready before beginning substantive work on the saucer. While the command section has its own, smaller gravity generators, they are not intended for months of continuous operation. So we took advantage of the biggest gravity generator in the immediate neighborhood -- Earth itself."

"That construction technique is being called revolutionary. Is that a fair assessment?" Nan asked.

"It is... unprecedented," Rogers replied coolly.

Nan nodded. "I see. So what's scheduled to happen next?"

"Work on the command section is nearly complete," Rogers answered. "As I've mentioned, Starfleet felt that the larger part of the work on the saucer..."

The control room called up a computer-generated graphic of the Enterprise and put it on the air. Blinking arrows indicated the saucer-shaped command section.

"...could be done faster, easier and more cheaply on the ground. The engineering section, on the other hand..."

The arrows moved quickly from the command to the engineering section.

"...needed to be worked on in orbit. For one thing, the engineering section can't be landed. In a procedure we call 'saucer separation' the command section detaches from the rest of the ship and, under its own impulse power, can rendezvous with a rescue craft or make a surface landing."

In 3V displays everywhere, sparks appeared around the neck of the Enterprise, and the ship seemed to be decapitated by an unseen headsman. The command section flew toward a bluish-green planet.

"Your viewers will recall that the Enterprise returned from its historic five-year mission early last year," Rogers droned on. "Six months ago, a skeleton crew separated the saucer and flew it down to the San Francisco Navy Yard. That's where it's been ever since, straddling four repair bays."

The control room switched to a live shot of the Navy Yard, the eastern part of which was dominated by the Enterprise's command section. The remote 3V scanners caught the diminishing rain pattering on the shields that protected the saucer from the weather. The mist in the air had condensed on the normally invisible shields. They overlapped repeatedly, looking like exquisitely thin plates of clear crystal piled in shinglelike fashion above the saucer, protecting it.

"When do you think the whole job will be finished, Admiral?" Nan asked.

"Another year. After a shakedown cruise, the Enterprise will return to active service, to continue its peaceful mission of exploration and discovery."

Nan nodded. "Getting back to the business at hand, will it be difficult to rejoin the two sections of the ship?"

"No, not particularly," answered Rogers, "but it is a job that calls for the utmost precision. The saucer will go into orbit, make rendezvous with Spacedock Four, and then be brought into precise position by tractor-pressor crews. Correctly mating the saucer with the engineering section will take careful handling -- but our people are very good at that sort of thing.

We're beginning to think about designs for ships that will permit easier saucer recovery, but that's still to come."

Only a few minutes left now. Just two or three more questions, and the torment would be over... but Nan found herself suddenly at a loss. Were there any questions left that she hadn't asked a dozen times already? A half second before the pause would have turned awkward, one she hadn't thought of finally came to her -- one that should take more than a sentence to answer.

Grateful for the inspiration, she asked, "Will Admiral Kirk be working on similar renovation projects in the future, Admiral Rogers?"

Which would be answered affirmatively, most likely, leading into which projects, and, with any luck, the end of the interview.

"I have no idea." Roger's tone grew cold as Plutonian winter. After her burst of talkativeness, she fell stonily silent.

The unexpected reaction threw Nan into a well-concealed panic. This was it, the interviewer's worst nightmare: at a total loss for a question, any question, even a shred of innocuous small talk. Nan blinked and looked to her other guest for help, but even the usually ebullient Captain April appeared cowed.

After another stretch of dismal silence, Nan surrendered and turned to face the nearest scanner. Hoping the control room would manage to cue up something in time, she said, "We'll be right back after these important messages."

If I still have a job, that is.

Across the continent, a slightly degraded 3V image flickered in the corner of a secondary school classroom in the endlessly rebuilt Chelsea section of New York.

Joey Brickner leaned, elbow on desk, cheek scrunched against fist, and looked away from the screen at the gray, rain-softened sky. The Enterprise launch sparked no interest in him, not even for the practical reason that the teacher thought it important and might put some of the information on the exam, or assign reports on the subject.

Joey didn't care much about school these days. In fact, he didn't care much about anything, except daydreaming. Most of all, he wanted things to be the way they'd been before Jase had gotten sick.

Nothing was the way it should have been.

It was early July, and he should have been somewhere other than a classroom, three weeks into another school year after only two weeks off from the last one. Who ever heard of starting school in June? Oh, it was an honor to be allowed in the experimental class, his mom kept telling him. A real honor, especially at his age. All the other parents were desperate to get their kids enrolled, because the class got results.

Yeah. A real honor. Big deal. Only he should have been on vacation. Should have been outside, playing in the rain with Jase. For a moment he indulged his imagination: He and his kid brother were outside, playing Klingons and Feds with water phasers. Getting soaked by the rain and each other's potshots.

Jase laughing, carrot-colored hair turned dark auburn and plastered to his scalp by the rain. Joey closed his eyes and let the corners of his mouth turn up slightly as he tried to satisfy his imagination by getting the image perfect. Jase would have been six months' older now, six months taller, coming maybe to big brother's chin. Yeah, to the chin. Joey almost smiled.

Hey, Joey! Jase was outside the classroom window, waving the toy phaser, the skin beneath his freckles -- so many freckles, more than Joey'd ever seen on any one person, including himself -- flushed bright pink as he laughed convulsively at some private joke, almost doubled over. Hey, Joey, hey--

"Brickner," Ira Stoller hissed from the desk behind Joey's. "Hey, Brickner!" Stoller jammed a knee against the back of Joey's desk and started jiggling hard, in the precise area of Joey's right kidney.

Joey swiveled his head and eyes in Stoller's direction, watching with his peripheral vision to be sure the teacher hadn't noticed. When Stoller got that certain tone, you could be sure he was about to say something that would land them both in trouble. But the teacher -- a real, live person, not an artificial intelligence program -- was still staring distantly at the trivision. He had a thoughtful expression on his brown-skinned face, even though the news program had been replaced by an antacid commercial. The other students were beginning to turn in their chairs to whisper to a neighbor. Even the two teacher's pets, Ricia Greene and Carlos Siegel, had ducked their heads together and were speaking in low, serious voices. Probably talking, of all things, about the launch.

Stoller was grinning wickedly. He was tall -- a full two heads taller than Joey -- and skinny, all knees and elbows. At sixteen, he was also the oldest member of the class. Stoller had a sparkly, crazy edge to him -- sometimes a little too crazy; he respected nothing and no one, including the teacher. But after the first few weeks of class, Joey was grateful for any attention; most of the students were fifteen, and wanted nothing to do with a thirteen-year-old. Especially a thirteen-year-old who was short, even for his age.

"Hey, Brickner! If Tarzan and Jane were pigfaces, what would Cheetah be?"

Joey rolled his eyes. "Pigface" was Stoller's term for Tellarites; Stoller knew more insulting names for aliens than Joey had ever imagined existed. Turning his head just enough to glance at Ira, Joey whispered, out of the corner of his mouth, "This'd better be good."

"The other woman," Stoller said, one knee still jiggling, and ignored Joey's pained grimace. "If Tarzan and Jane were jackrabbits" -- i.e., Vulcans -- "what would Cheetah be?"

"Bored," Joey offered.

"An outworlder. With a Master's degree."

Joey gave his head a slight shake. "Not funny."

"If they were turtleheads..." Stoller began, his eyes narrowing with malicious delight.

Stricken by guilt, Joey glanced nervously over at the teacher, who had looked away from the 3V and was now gazing absently out the window, apparently oblivious to the growing noise in the classroom.

"If they were turtleheads," Stoller seemed to relish repeating the term and watching Joey's dismayed reaction, "what would Cheetah be?"

"I give up," Joey whispered.

"A gifted child." Stoller leaned back, pleased with himself.

Joey squeezed his eyes shut and tried, really tried, not to laugh, but despite the pale freckled hand he clamped over his mouth, a high-pitched giggle escaped.

It seemed to summon the teacher from his reverie. Doctor G'dath looked up, frowned -- though really, with the protuberant bony ridge that ran from just above his eyebrows to the crown of his head, it was hard to be sure -- and said, in a low, rumbling voice:

"The prelaunch activities will best be appreciated in silence."

All motion, all sound -- except for that of the 3V -- ceased. Like every other student in the class, Joey faced forward, folded his hands atop his desk, locked his gaze on the screen and devoted -- well, pretended to devote -- his full attention to the commercial. Stoller stopped jiggling his knee.

The teacher, Doctor G'dath, did not repeat himself, nor did he threaten. He did not have to.

He was a full-blooded Klingon -- a turtlehead, to use Ira Stoller's terminology -- and Joey and every other one of his students were scared to death of him.