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There was peace. True peace. Not the sort that requires huge armies with banks of phasers to make it happen. But the sort that comes from simply deciding “we aren’t going to go war, ever.” The sort that comes from Klingons and Romulans alike realizing that the galaxy is large enough for their empires to expand and still leave other races alone. The sort that comes from a love of life so vast that it encompasses all of creation.
The sort Jim is seeing today. For today, they’re removing the photon torpedoes from the Enterprise. Yes, the phasers remain, since such things serve a purpose in navigating the harsher regions of space, but the torpedo, like its nautical ancestor, is only good for killing. For war. And is thus outmoded.
Jim worries a little that he’s also outmoded. All those years that he spent defending the Federation, and now that part of his career is over. He’s not sure that there’s a place in the fleet for him now. He wonders if he should step aside and let the next generation, a generation that will never know war,
It takes a while for him to see that the next generation is looking to him and to his peers. Even as the torpedoes leave the ship, they are seeking guidance, asking questions, wanting to here how it was on the frontier. Not because they want to know what it was like to stare down the Klingons. But because Kirk and Spock and McCoy and the whole crew were out there first. The newly minted officers will now a better tomorrow, but it will be some time till they go where Jim boldly went before they were born.
Jim returns to the bridge after the last weapon is gone. The crew is here, as they have been for so long. Sulu is accompanied by his daughter, almost old enough to go to the Academy but already able to handle her father’s tasks. Chekov gives the order to seal the torpedo tubes for the last time. Bones smiles, for once thinking that maybe there is intelligent life in the universe. Spock is as enigmatic as ever, though Jim is sure he spots a hint of a grin. “Mister Sulu…and Mister Sulu…set a course.”
“Aye, sir,” both say in unison. The ship breaks orbit around Babel, once merely a neutral site for Federation conferences but now to be known as the site of the Great Peace Accords. Soon planetary space is behind them, but they are not alone. Behind them are a dozen colony ships. Three from Earth, three from Vulcan, three from O’Onos, three from Romulus. Peace is only the first step. Next comes making a new world.
The sort Jim is seeing today. For today, they’re removing the photon torpedoes from the Enterprise. Yes, the phasers remain, since such things serve a purpose in navigating the harsher regions of space, but the torpedo, like its nautical ancestor, is only good for killing. For war. And is thus outmoded.
Jim worries a little that he’s also outmoded. All those years that he spent defending the Federation, and now that part of his career is over. He’s not sure that there’s a place in the fleet for him now. He wonders if he should step aside and let the next generation, a generation that will never know war,
It takes a while for him to see that the next generation is looking to him and to his peers. Even as the torpedoes leave the ship, they are seeking guidance, asking questions, wanting to here how it was on the frontier. Not because they want to know what it was like to stare down the Klingons. But because Kirk and Spock and McCoy and the whole crew were out there first. The newly minted officers will now a better tomorrow, but it will be some time till they go where Jim boldly went before they were born.
Jim returns to the bridge after the last weapon is gone. The crew is here, as they have been for so long. Sulu is accompanied by his daughter, almost old enough to go to the Academy but already able to handle her father’s tasks. Chekov gives the order to seal the torpedo tubes for the last time. Bones smiles, for once thinking that maybe there is intelligent life in the universe. Spock is as enigmatic as ever, though Jim is sure he spots a hint of a grin. “Mister Sulu…and Mister Sulu…set a course.”
“Aye, sir,” both say in unison. The ship breaks orbit around Babel, once merely a neutral site for Federation conferences but now to be known as the site of the Great Peace Accords. Soon planetary space is behind them, but they are not alone. Behind them are a dozen colony ships. Three from Earth, three from Vulcan, three from O’Onos, three from Romulus. Peace is only the first step. Next comes making a new world.
