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Fleet Admiral Alexander Marcus sat at his desk in a cushy, penthouse office, and scowled at the computer screen in front of him. Three-hundred-and-seventeen trials. Three-hundred-and-seventeen failures.
Marcus shook his head ruefully. He’d known from the moment he’d first looked at the file on Starfleet’s youngest captain that he and everyone else involved in Section 31 were in for a real challenge. Despite the devil-may-care persona he often adopted, James T. Kirk wasn’t someone to be taken lightly. His aptitude scores were off the charts. His IQ veered straight past ordinary genius-level into scarily smart. And when he applied himself, he gave Starfleet’s favorite Vulcan commander—who was brilliant, even by Vulcan’s meticulous standards—a run for his money.
Still, Admiral Marcus had never expected the young rascal to be this hard to reign in. Every other rogue genius Starfleet had inducted in the last forty years he’d been able to subdue somehow. Starfleet’s usual system of penalties and commendations worked like a charm on most captains. Of course, most captains were not Kirk. Most of them, on the contrary had at least a modicum of respect for higher authority. And didn’t seem to chomp at the bit to creatively circumvent every regulation they could.
Marcus heaved a sigh, leaned back in his cushioned chair, and stared out the long window to his right, overlooking the bay. It was frustrating being the head of Starfleet, and having this grand office around him to show for it, only to be shackled just as much as everyone else was. If he had his way, Kirk would have been demoted six ways to Sunday by now. Preferably trapped on some inhospitable Starfleet outpost, and left to rot, like that one uppity engineer had been when he’d had the gall to test one of his harebrained transporter theories on Admiral Archer’s prized beagle.
Don’t get him wrong, it was certainly within Marcus' power to do so. He could have the kid shipped out tomorrow if he really wanted. But there was one teensy problem with removing that particular thorn in Marcus’ side.
You see, Earth loved Kirk. And, unfortunately, so did the rest of the galaxy.
The kid had been cursed with a stunningly handsome face. That was something Marcus could admit, even though he was as straight as they came. It was just fact. Simple geometry—or so his Vulcan secretary told him. And no matter what people said, looks did matter.
Of course, even if Kirk didn’t look like the love-child of an angel and the quintessential, apple-pie-farm boy—a face beautiful enough to entrance, but ordinary enough not to intimidate—he had this annoying habit of saving Earth every other Tuesday. And occasionally he’d thrown another planet into the mix.
He’d kicked off his career by stopping a crazy Romulan terrorist from turning Vulcan into a black hole. And just the other week he’d demolished a corrupted antique Earth probe that was targeting the Malurian homeworld, with the intent to eradicate all biological life.
So obviously, Starfleet wasn’t going to get rid of him any time soon.
And if Marcus was being honest with himself, all headaches aside, the kid was an incredible asset, not only to the Federation as a whole, but to Starfleet itself. Their recruitment numbers had never been better since they’d slapped that kid’s face on the front cover of all their brochures. And, according to that same Vulcan secretary, Kirk was worth the hassle of extra paperwork, the botched behind-the-scenes projects and the occasional pissed-off ambassador for the sheer talent his stupidly good-looking face brought in alone.
And Vulcans, Marcus had been told, didn’t lie.
But if only they could get Kirk to bend. If Section 31 could have a veritable weapon like him under their thumb…. Well… the Klingons wouldn’t know what hit them.
Getting Kirk under anyone’s thumb, however, Marcus was quickly discovering was basically impossible. With most other captains who were resistant, for whatever reason, to the usual carrot and stick of accolades, medals and promotions, there was something else that would make them jump through the hoops Section 31 secretly set in front of them.
Sometimes it was social niceties. Or gifts. Maybe they could extend expensive experimental healthcare to help a sick family member. Or maybe they could put in a good word in with whomever the rogue wanted to impress—whether it was Starfleet brass, MIT or even Vulcan High Command.
And if, in the rare event that all legal routes failed there was still usually something that worked. Threats. Blackmail. Illicit substances. Section 31 was willing to do whatever it took to get those eccentric smart-asses in line.
But Kirk, frustratingly, in every trial, had proved resistant to them all. Experiment after experiment proved that he really didn’t care what anyone thought of him. He couldn’t be bribed or threatened. And despite his flagrant disregard for rules, he had a moral compass made of iron that nothing could convince him to toss.
Even the honey traps hadn’t worked.
Marcus sighed again and rubbed his temples in exasperation. He had been sure when he’d selected the perfect female—straight out of Kirk’s Strafleet-mandated annual brainscans—that the boy would finally fall to her charms. But frustratingly, even though the word on the street was that the kid was a womanizer like no one’s business, not even a perfect pair of breasts—or twenty perfect pairs, for that matter—could sway Kirk.
Apparently, he wasn’t as controlled by his libido as everyone thought. That wasn’t to say Kirk didn’t get around. Oh, he definitely did. But beneath the Casanova tendencies, that kid had a nose for smelling bullshit from miles away. He always caught on when Marcus was trying to manipulate him. And when he did, he dropped the women Marcus planted, like rocks.
Admiral Marcus, tore his eyes away from his office’s long window. And his lips turned down into a particularly dark frown. It was basically pointless to keep trying at this stage. But if there was one similarity Marcus could admit he shared with that little blonde pain in his ass, it was that they both hated to lose.
So, one last time, Marcus leaned closer to the glowing blue screen in front of him and spoke sharply at it.
“Computer, run the simulation again.”