The Kobayashi Maru Read online

  "Captain Kirk?" the Klingon commander parroted. "The Captain Kirk?"

  Kirk fought a smile as his bridge crew exclaimed in a single voice, "The Captain Kirk?" The "dead" navigator began to laugh.

  Kirk cleared his throat and went on. "I'll prove it, if you force me."

  The Klingon commander barked to the others in gruff Klingonese. "That will not be necessary," he said in a more subdued tone. "Report coordinates of freighter, and Kh'yem will offer all assistance, Captain Kirk."

  Somehow, the navigator's braying laughter destroyed the solemnity of the moment. Kirk, his head spinning, returned his crew's stunned stares with a smug grin. "Gamma Hydra, section ten. We would greatly appreciate your escort, Kozor."

  "Of course, Captain Kirk! Whatever you require…!"

  By the time the test was over, eighteen minutes twenty-seven seconds had elapsed. Kirk commanded the recovery operations in a giddy daze, somewhat amazed to discover that there was a Kobayashi Maru to be rescued after all. The crew performed beautifully, the Klingons were uncommonly cooperative, and Kobayashi Maru's master, Kojiro Yance, even agreed to have dinner with Kirk that evening.

  The simulator still stank of seared wiring and melted plastic when the viewscreen cracked to admit Admiral Howell. Overhead fans vacuumed away the worst of the smoke, but for every whiff whisked away, another rose from the simulated damage. Spidery glimmers of liquid crystal crawled across the soot-streaked floor. Howell paused just inside the starship's viewscreen and shook his head at the laughing, shouting cadets who pushed past him on their way to the conference hall.

  Kirk stayed in the command chair, his head angled downward as he stroked the command chair like a prized horse. We did it, he thought contently. We beat the no-win scenario. Not specifically the no-win, since he had changed the conditions, but that seemed a minor technicality at the moment.

  "That was an interesting performance," Howell said when the last of the cadets were gone. "Admiral Walgren is talking of having you court-martialed. I'll have my hands full trying to dissuade him." He stepped around the helm console to sit.

  Kirk grinned and studied the bridge speculatively. "I did succeed."

  "What did you prove?" Howell's voice was confused but honestly curious. "That cheating pays off?"

  Relegating his solution to the realm of simple cheating stung Kirk's pride. "Consider me a conscientious objector. I don't think of it as cheating when the rules of the game are unfair."

  "I explained that to you already," Howell began, but Kirk interrupted, to say again, "I don't believe in the no-win scenario."

  "And you think reprogramming the simulation so the Klingons believe you're a famous starship captain proves you're right?" Howell studied Kirk narrowly. "What are you going to do when you run up against Klingons in real life? Convince them all you're Garth of Izar?"

  Kirk straightened in the command chair, feeling suddenly protective of some nebulous future ship and career. "I'll deal with that as I come to it, sir," he said stiffly. "I may not have to convince them of anything at all."

  Some indefinite emotion flickered through Howell's dark eyes, then was gone before Kirk could identify what he'd seen. When the ensign frowned faintly, the older officer smiled and rose from the helmsman's chair. "Forget I asked," he acquiesced. Stepping to the foot of the dais, he looked up at Kirk like a subordinate reporting for duty. "Let's go see what the rest of the class has to say this time," he suggested. "I have a feeling you've got quite a busy time ahead of you."

  Kirk stood slowly and joined Howell on the empty deck. "Yes, sir. I guess I deserve whatever they give me."

  Howell smiled at him kindly, "Yes, Mister Kirk, I think you probably do."

  Somehow, Kirk sensed he wasn't just talking about the rest of the day.

  Chapter Three

  HALLEY

  KIRK HAD SHIFTED POSITION at McCoy's insistence, elevating his knee by sitting with his back to the bulkhead and his leg stretched across the row of empty seats. He sat in that position, drumming his fingers against a seatback, for perhaps a full minute before embarrassed irritation finally moved him to suggest, "It wasn't that funny, Doctor."

  McCoy choked his laughter down, 'til it became a sporadic chuckle. "Yes, it is, Jim!" The doctor paused in rummaging through his medikit to lean back in his seat and regain his breath. "It's so in character! I'm surprised I didn't just guess it!"

  Kirk made a face he didn't think McCoy could see across the half-light between them. Too bad—it seemed a pity to waste such honest annoyance on darkness. "Is that supposed to offend me?"

  The doctor shrugged. "It's your self-image…"

  "I don't think I understand…" Chekov had joined them from the front hatch partway through Kirk's narration. He sat now with his back against the airlock doors, his arms folded on his drawn-up knees; lamplight brushed blue highlights into the lieutenant's brown hair, while distance hid his dark-eyed face in shadow. "Are you saying that you cheated?"

  "Mister Chekov!" McCoy's tone was mock scolding, his face too studiously serious to be sincere. "'Cheated' is a trite, misapplied word to what our captain accomplished!" Picking something out of his medikit, he tilted it into the light for purposes of identification. "He exercised a commander's prerogative of creativity in the face of adversity!"

  "I changed the conditions of the test," Kirk attempted to elaborate, but McCoy overrode him again.

  "His solution doesn't even apply to the test his classmates took!" Disregarding whatever he'd found, McCoy returned to his rummaging.

  Chekov looked from Kirk to the doctor, as though trying to catch some communication between the two that he was missing. "You cheated."

  Kirk felt his face twist into a sardonic smile he doubted he would have recognized in a mirror. "I've been cheating my whole life," he said, before he thought better of it. "Fate just never figured it out until now."

  Like wax under a particle beam, the tenuous good humor evaporated, leaving only thick, churning silence. Kirk wanted to apologize, but realized that would only make things worse; he listened to McCoy's quiet searching, and Scotty's clatter in the back, and waited for someone to brave another topic.

  McCoy, as usual, was the first to break the quiet.

  "Come on," the doctor grumbled as he stood, nudging Chekov with one foot. "Get into a seat! This metal decking'll leech the heat right out your backside; I don't need a hypothermia patient on top of everything else!"

  Chekov climbed obediently to his feet; Kirk caught just a glimpse of the lieutenant's troubled, half-angry expression as Chekov passed through the light on his way to an empty seat in the row behind Sulu. "Even the seats won't be safe soon. As long as it's colder out there than it is in here, all the insulation in existence can't keep us alive." He dropped into a center seat and turned hooded, frightened eyes on the encroaching vacuum. "Practical physics in action."

  Of course it was Chekov who remained mindful of the death waiting outside the shuttle's doors. Kirk sometimes thought his security chief had spent so much time fighting to stand upright between bludgeoning practicality and blind idealism that he'd finally been torn apart—afraid now to take a step in either direction lest he lose his grasp on the other. Who had done that to him, Kirk sometimes wondered. And why would anyone want to?

  "Don't give up," Kirk advised, wishing he could follow his own advice. "We've got quite a few hours before we have to worry about freezing—Scotty could practically build a new ship in that time!"

  "If freezing's all you're worried about," Scott volunteered from the rear of the shuttle, "the ship we've got now will suit us fine!"

  Kirk's knee barked a protest as he twisted about to face the burly engineer trudging down the center aisle. Equipment belt askew on his hips, Scott passed one hand through his rumpled hair to no particular effect—an afterthought to his physical appearance. He smiled ruefully at Kirk and stepped around the emergency lamp.

  "What's the word?" Kirk already knew the answer would not be good.


  Scott's initial reply was to pass into the forward hatch and lean across the helmsman's chair. Strong, cool light washed away the darkness as the engineer thumbed a series of toggles; the shuttle itself seemed to heave a grateful sigh. Kirk smiled.

  "We've got heat, too," the Scotsman volunteered as he returned to the middle chamber. "We won't be feeling it for another hour or so, but it's working. We won't freeze."

  "And we've got more than starlight to see by!" McCoy paused in his examination of Kirk's knee to click off the lamp on the edge of the seat. "This looked better in the dark, Jim."

  Kirk grimaced. McCoy had slit his trouser leg clear up to the thigh, and the offending knee had swelled to accommodate. The chemical cold pack draped across Kirk's leg didn't hide the purple-black bruising, or do much to relieve the pain. McCoy tucked the pack under an elbow as he readied another hypo; Kirk listened to Scott with pointed attention so he wouldn't have to observe the injection.

  "So we have engine power?" Kirk wanted Scott to keep talking.

  "We've got generator power," the engineer obliged him, "but no engine ability worth speaking of." Scott leaned back against the bulkhead, stretching his shoulders in a slow, soul-weary motion. "It's like that with gravitic mines," he explained, sighing. "You get what damage the strained engines inflict upon themselves, and then whatever damage the gravitic stress does on top of that! I can hardly track it all down; the damage patterns make that little sense!"

  "Does that mean we're still drifting?" McCoy retrieved Kirk's attention and applied the hypospray to his arm just in time for Kirk to notice the doctor.

  "Aye, Doctor," Scott admitted. "It means that." McCoy turned away to tend to Sulu, a bit too abruptly, and Scott seemed to feel some need to elaborate. "I've got shunting equipment I can barely identify right now, much less repair. Because of that, the generator and the engines aren't…" He waved his hands as if grasping after an appropriate phrase. "…Well, aren't on speaking terms, exactly. We can run the lights and heat for another hundred years or so…but we canna change our course so much as a centimeter without outside help."

  And their only prospect of help came from Spock and the Enterprise. Kirk wondered if there was really any chance his starship could save them, or if abandoning what tenuous hope he placed in that chance would be more wise. Like Chekov, torn between placing his faith in what should happen or what would happen, Kirk decided that miracles were made, not waited on; if he wanted to win this scenario, he would just have to cheat again. "Scotty, is there any chance we can salvage the radio?"

  Scott looked across the shuttle to Chekov. "Lad?"

  The Russian shook his head. "I pulled the master board." He aimed a nod toward the front compartment, and a look of self-reproach so intimate it startled Kirk moved across the lieutenant's face. "It's on my chair, along with what I could remove of the receiver."

  Scott disappeared into the forward compartment again, and Kirk heard the engineer make a soft but distinct sound of disgust. When the captain glanced inquiringly at Chekov, the lieutenant volunteered, "Gravitic stress."

  "I might be able to cannibalize some of what I have back here…!" Scott stomped through on his way back toward the rear, one hand clamped about a shattered, blackened collection of what might once have been circuitry. "It's better than sitting idle!"

  "Sitting idle…" The phrase stabbed Kirk with gentle guilt, despite the thick pain in his injured leg. I should be doing more …!

  He looked across the aisle at Sulu and McCoy. The helmsman had slipped into waxen unconsciousness a half-hour ago, but McCoy's ministrations roused him now. As he became aware of the lapse, Sulu murmured, "I guess I fell asleep . . . . Sorry, sir…"

  Kirk shrugged, then realized Sulu wasn't in a position to appreciate the gesture. "You didn't miss much."

  "The captain cheated on his Kobayashi Maru," Chekov volunteered from the row behind Sulu.

  "Sir?" Sulu asked. Kirk sighed.

  McCoy told him.

  "I'm not too surprised," the helmsman admitted with a smile when the doctor finished speaking.

  McCoy snorted. "I said the same thing," he told Sulu. "Only the captain nearly demoted me!"

  "It's the injury, Doc—it grants me immunity." Sulu dissolved without warning into quiet, pain-filled chuckling. "God protects fools, children, and invalids."

  McCoy tossed Kirk a questioning look, and the captain only shrugged. Turning back to the helmsman, the doctor prodded, "Come on, Sulu…What's the joke?"

  Sulu gathered his breath in a contented sigh. "I was thinking about fools, and the Kobayashi Maru…"

  Before Sulu could elaborate, Chekov suggested from behind him, "You haven't that much immunity…!" Despite Chekov's threatening tone, the proclamation seemed to amuse Sulu all the more.

  "What's this?" McCoy's eyebrows rose in innocent interest. "Someone else on this shuttle took the Kobayashi Maru test?"

  Chekov remained pointedly fixated with whatever was outside his viewport, his face darkening—with embarrassment, or anger, Kirk couldn't tell. When he didn't volunteer a reply, Sulu explained, "We both did." The chuckling overtook him again. "Only I left the simulator intact when I was done!"

  McCoy burst into laughter, and Kirk endeavored to suppress a smile. "Turnabout's fair play, Mister Chekov," Kirk enjoined.

  Chekov's resolve buckled slightly. The lieutenant's stubborn "…it's embarrassing…" was so quiet, Kirk almost didn't think he'd heard.

  "It's always embarrassing," the captain allowed. "That's part of the test."

  "Actually," Sulu allowed, "the Kobayashi Maru isn't the embarrassing part."

  "Sulu…!" Chekov warned again, this time more seriously.

  "It's just sort of set up for the good part," Sulu persisted despite Chekov's displeasure. "It's a great story—really!"

  The Russian heaved a rough sigh of frustration and maintained his study of the stars. "All right, then," he grumbled. "You tell them, if you want to. I don't care."

  "Come on, Mister Chekov." Kirk felt the need to alleviate a little of the stress building between the two officers. "How bad can it be?"

  Sulu giggled. "You'd be surprised."

  When Chekov turned a confused, betrayed look on his friend, Kirk echoed McCoy's earlier quip, "It'll pass the hours," and hoped the security officer would understand.

  Chekov didn't seem to realize anything fell between the spoken words until Kirk made eye contact with him for a number of seconds. Then the captain saw understanding dawn in the dark Russian eyes, and Chekov nodded faintly, slowly. Somewhere behind his assent, Kirk could see that dim war still going on; he watched practicality win an uneasy victory over whatever Chekov's emotions demanded, and felt both guilty and relieved. "It really isn't funny," Chekov insisted. The lieutenant pursed his lips and turned back toward his viewport again. "It's more embarrassing than anything else…!"

  Chapter Four

  HOW YOU PLAY THE GAME

  WHEN THE U.S.S. Yorktown exploded into a cloud of neutrinos and high frequency light, Cadet Pavel Chekov settled back into his auditorium seat and heaved a contented sigh. The three Klingon vessels surrounding the Constitution-class starship followed almost immediately afterward, washing the video screen at the front of the lecture hall an impressive, roaring white. The other students in the hall burst into applause, cheering and laughing like the audience in a theater. Four science cadets in the front row were the only people who looked disgruntled with the proceedings. Chekov noticed Alan Baasch at the center of that group and smiled; if anyone were going to object to a creative finale it would be "By-the-Book" Baasch. It was somehow satisfying to know he'd annoyed the other cadet so thoroughly.

  When the auditorium lights came up, cadets blinked like children just out of sleep. Robert Cecil, in the chair next to Chekov, remarked conversationally, "Kramer's gonna kill you."

  Chekov leaned forward over his desk again, watching Cecil brush carbon grime out of his dark blond hair. Every cadet in the hall was soot-smeared and smelly
from the simulator room. Chekov wondered what his idol, James Kirk, would have thought to see him in such a state of disarray. Chekov had made no secret of his respect for Kirk or his confidence that he would be assigned to the Enterprise on graduation.

  "What can he do?" Chekov asked the other ensign. "They put me in a simulator and told me to blow up the Klingons—so I blew them up!"

  Cecil snorted and settled back into his own seat. "They told you to function as a starship commander," he pointed out. "I don't think they intended you to blow up your own ship in the process."

  "Then they should have stressed that before the Klingons arrived." Chekov knew sacrificing the Yorktown was quite probably a unique response to a tense command scenario, but he still believed the solution feasible. Commodore Aldous Kramer could strut and fume all he wanted—God knew, that seemed to be the only justification for the man's existence since Chekov entered command school—but it wouldn't change what Chekov had done. And it wouldn't change the fact that they'd been told before entering the simulator that these scenarios were primarily designed to test command character, not rules laid out by command school bureaucrats who had never been in the field. If Kramer didn't like Chekov's character, the ensign felt that that was Kramer's problem; Chekov certainly wouldn't waste time liking him.

  Kramer stood now at the foot of the floor-to-ceiling video screen. His hair was the color of steel beneath the dismal white overheads, his uninspired eyes nothing but angry black raisins pushed into the white dough of his face. He said nothing to quiet the cadets, did nothing to attract their attention. Instead, he only exuded haughty displeasure until they ceased to rustle in their seats and their busy chatter died away. It didn't take long.

  When the lecture hall achieved an acceptable level of order, Kramer stepped neatly to the front of the podium and summoned, "Cadet Chekov!" in a stentorian baritone.

  Chekov straightened obediently in his seat. "Sir?"