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Personal log, James T. Kirk, Stardate 8415.9.

No longer an admiral, I am a captain once more, but a captain, as of yet, without a ship. The Enterprise-A remains in spacedock, while Chief Engineer Scott prepares our new starship for final testing and service.

With time on my hands, and my future on hold, it is the past that occupies my thoughts. Old decisions, and new regrets, haunt me, compelling me to embark on a solemn pilgrimage to the site of what may have been one of my greatest mistakes….

"We're approaching Ceti Alpha V," Sulu announced from the helm. "Switching to impulse."

"Very good, Mr. Sulu," Kirk responded. "As always, your piloting is to be commended."

The Yakima was a compact, warp-capable cruiser, only slightly larger than a shuttlecraft. Besides Kirk and Sulu, the chartered vessel held only two other passengers: Spock and McCoy.

"I still think there are better places to spend our vacation time," McCoy groused. The doctor sat opposite Kirk in the cruiser's cabin-sized passenger compartment, next to Spock. Like the captain and Sulu, McCoy had eschewed his Starfleet uniform in favor of civilian garb. A rumpled brown jacket hung over his bony shoulders. "Next time we're going to Yosemite or something."

"Nobody forced you to come along, Bones," Kirk said with a smile. A turtleneck sweater and trousers served as casual attire. He knew McCoy too well to take the doctor's grumbling too seriously. "This is a personal matter, not a Starfleet assignment."

McCoy's tone softened. "That's what friends are for, Jim." All kidding aside, the doctor's innate compassion was written upon his weathered features. "You shouldn't have to make this trip alone."

"Indeed," Spock concurred. "For once, Dr. McCoy and I find ourselves in agreement." Clad in an austere black robe, the Vulcan maintained a dignified posture upon his seat. His hands were clasped before him as though in prayer. "One does not have to be human to understand that this particular voyage is bound to trouble your emotions."

That's putting it lightly, Kirk thought. It had been less than a year since the deadly return of Khan Noonien Singh, who had blamed Kirk for his disastrous exile on Ceti Alpha V. Since then, Kirk had often pondered whether Khan had been justified in his quest for revenge. Was I wrong to maroon Khan and his followers there so many years ago? Am I responsible for all those deaths?

Kirk felt he owed it to the memory of those who had died on Ceta Alpha V to visit the planet himself, and perhaps learn more of what had transpired there after he'd left Khan behind all those years ago. "Thank you," he told his friends sincerely. "I'm grateful for the company."

He glanced out a porthole at the surrounding space. The stars, which had been streaking by the windows at warp speed, coalesced into discrete points of light as the Yakima dropped to impulse. Isolated chunks of solid matter bounced off the cruiser's deflectors, while the ship gracefully wove through an obstacle course composed of larger rocky fragments.

"Heading through an asteroid belt," Sulu warned them by way of explanation. "Things could get a little bumpy."

"Wonderful," McCoy drawled, buckling his seat belt. "I'd forgotten how delightful this system is." He rolled his eyes. "You know, I never did understand how the Reliant managed to mistake Ceti Alpha V for Ceti Alpha VI in the first place. Mind you, I'm a doctor, not an astronavigator, but how do you misplace an entire planet?"

"More easily than you might suppose, Doctor," Spock replied. "This remote sector has not yet been extensively charted, so Captain Terrell had to rely on the Enterprise's original survey of the Ceti Alpha system, conducted many years before. According to that survey, there was a total of only six planets in the system, bordered by an extensive asteroid belt." He tilted his head at the porthole, where myriad granite boulders continued to zip past the window. "As Reliant approached the system from the outside, they naturally assumed that the outer planet was Ceti Alpha VI—and mistook the remains of the real Ceti Alpha VI for a portion of the asteroid belt mentioned in the survey."

Exactly, Kirk thought. Reliant had no reason to suspect that the sixth planet had been completely destroyed. He seized on Spock's argument to help ease his own pangs of conscience. Just as I had no way of knowing that Ceti Alpha VI was going to explode.

Or did I?

Should I have looked harder? Anticipated every possibility?

The nagging questions gnawed at Kirk's soul.

"All right," McCoy conceded. "But that just raises another question. How in blazes did Starfleet manage to forget where we put Khan? Didn't they realize that maniac was, at best, only one planet away?"

"Blame Starfleet secrecy," Kirk explained grimly. He'd asked himself many of the same questions in the weeks after their return engagement with Khan. "The details of the Botany Bay incident had been classified top-secret by Starfleet, which didn't want to advertise the existence of a colony of genetically engineered superhumans on Ceti Alpha V. As a result, Captain Terrell, immersed in the equally top-secret Genesis Project, was completely unaware of the system's history." Kirk's frown deepened as he remembered how that lack of information had ultimately cost Terrell his life. "Lord knows it wouldn't be the first time that Starfleet's right hand didn't know what the left one was hiding."

"Or, to be more precise," Spock observed, "had hidden eighteen years earlier."

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