LETTER OF TRANSMITTAL

FROM: Thometz, G., Admiral, Commandant, Star Fleet Academy, San
Francisco, USNA, Earth

TO: Kirk, James T., Admiral, Star Fleet Command, commanding NCC-1701
ENTERPRISE, on active-mission status (via: Star Fleet Command/Deneb:
scrambled/Captain's Seal: hold for arrival: routing code
EFTO70137226012144030951852SF/FSIG)

SUBJECT: ADVANCED CADET-EVALUATION MATERIALS

Sir:

You will be pleased to know that Star Fleet Command has chosen the
Enterprise's recovery of the USS Robert A. Heinlein during the second
five-year mission as the model for the new cadet-performance evaluation
exercise at Star Fleet Academy, Earth and Star Fleet Academy, Deneb,
supplementing the "Kobayashi Maru" scenario. (Star Fleet Academy, Vulcan
is presently evaluating the supplement to see that it meets their logic
standards, and Admiral T'Kaien's office assures me of a decision within
several standard weeks.)

You have not been the only commander to point out the Academy's urgent
need for a subtler and more complex evaluation scenario than the one
offered by the "Maru."

While administering the "no-win" scenario gives us a good preliminary
sense of who our potential heroes are, it leaves untested those
qualities in a commander that are as important as heroism but less
spectacular: namely, observation, accurate evaluation, and multi-level
"synthesis" -- not to mention sheer endurance, empathy, and humor. The
Enterprise's recovery-mission scenario gives us ample opportunity to
test for all of these, in depth. And since the mission results were
(naturally) never declassified, the effectiveness of the material as a
means of testing the command aptitude and intelligence of new cadets
should be very high indeed.

I suspect that some of Fleet's eagerness to implement this new scenario
has to do with the fact during the past year three more cadets have
broken the old "Kobayashi Maru" scenario---and only one of them used
methods similar to yours. (This information is to be treated as
confidential until further notice.) Apparently, cadets are getting
smarter. Or perhaps the no-win scenarios of the past are no longer a
sufficient match for the deviousness (and resourcefulness) of the
present.

At any rate, we need to prepare our cadets for reality, not fantasy.
Both the despair of the pure no-win scenario and the equally dangerous
elation of the "no-lose" attitude lie mostly in the latter category. We
look for good results from the new scenario, for it concerns the
real-life, "gray" area between those two attitudes. Administration
methods will vary. The test may be conducted via sleep learning or in
computer simulation.

Star Fleet Academy, Earth will be administering it aboard the new
training ship USS Sans Souci. I am enclosing a copy of the computer
version for you to evaluate. Please feel free to make any suggestions
you think will improve the usefulness of this scenario as a test for
future starship captains.

Sincerely,

Admiral G. Thometz, Commandant Star Fleet Academy, Earth


(P.S.: Let's see them cheat on this one, huh, Jim? Also, 'Eliake sends
her regards. Best, Greg)

BRIEFING

Transcript of disk SFC/SFAMK2 #664658: Audio/sleep-learning cadet
preparation session. Authorized personnel only.

(CAUTION: Full Vulcan cadets should not take the direct-experiential
version of this briefing, due to the presence of species-idiosyncratic
emotional reactions.)

The communicator whistles right into your ear. The dream you were having
about hiking in the Grand Canyon falls right out of your head as your
eyes snap open. You lie there staring at the ceiling for just long
enough to let your heart rate slow down a little, then sit up and swing
out of bed, hitting the communicator switch.

"Kirk here. This had better be good, Lieutenant."

"It may not be good, sir," says the dry voice of the duty communications
officer, "but it's important. Eyes-only dispatch from Star Fleet."

You groan softly to yourself and sit up a little straighter, just enough
so that you can reach the keyboard by the bed and type in the long
string of characters that will give the comm officer access to your
command ciphers.

"Have the computer send it down here."

"Aye, aye, sir."

You wait a few seconds. The communications officer wakes up your desk
screen by remote, then switches off.

"Voiceprint," says the desk computer.

You say your name.

"Retinal," says the computer.

You hold still and let the low-power laser flicker in your eye. Without
further ceremony the desk screen fills up with print, amber on black.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
URGENT * URGENT * URGENT * URGENT * URGENT * URGENT * URGENT *
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: SFC, EARTH VIA SFC, DENEB TOP SECRET/EFTO/SC937-0176CEC To: JAMES
T. KIRK, CAPT. (COMMANDING) From: NHAURIS RIHAUL, ADM., SFC, DENEB
Subject: SPECIAL MISSION ORDERS

TEXT: U.S.S. Heinlein, on exploratory mission in Trianguli area, has
fallen out of communication under what we consider suspicious
circumstances. Routine hourly telemetry squirts ceased without
explanation twelve hours ago. Appended to these orders is the contents
of a single unscheduled squirt that came to us via an unusual routing
--- dumped to a robot communications satellite near Gama Trianguli,
apparently by high-powered communications tachyon packet beam. You are
to evaluate the contents of the telemetry squirt and report immediately
at maximum warp to the Heinlein's last known position, which is
indicated in the squirt.

WARNING: Heinlein was persuing a mission, the objectives of which are
highly sensitive and have not yet been declassified for any personnel
except those of Star Fleet Command, Earth Fleet Admiral's Office. This
mission material will be available to you as soon as declassification
procedures are completed.

Address any inquiries to Star Fleet Command, Earth.

(Respectfully) NHS. Rihaul, Admiral, Star Fleet Command, Deneb

You sag a little where you sit, letting out a worried sigh as the
screen scrolls down and adds:

P.S.: Jim --- Stay out of trouble. You're going to be a long way from
help. Best, Nhauris.

"Stop," you say to the screen as you get up and head for the closet to
get into uniform. Damn, you think. Sulu has the Heinlein. What's he
gotten himself into now? Brand-new ship. And you were the one who
recommended him for this temporary command assignment. When one of
command rank with sufficient knowledge of the Trianguli sector was
available, he was the perfect choice. You thought he'd just ride around
for a few weeks, enjoy the scenery, and not get himself right into
trouble.

You pull the uniform top over your head and sit down at the desk. "Go,"
you say to the computer.

"Appended," it says. "Visual and audio content."

"Ready. Go."

The text vanishes. Part of the screen begins reading out printed
telemetry, the ongoing status of a starship's main function boards. The
rest of it fills with an image of the ship's bridge. The Heinlein is one
of the newer light-cruisers and, though the bridge is a touch smaller
than the Enterprise's, it's sleeker, neater. Banks of switches have been
replaced by light-controlled relays or motion sensors; screens are
bigger and clearer: the fore screen looks more like a picture window,
one that you could walk right out of and into the stars drifting slowly
toward you. You look past the helm, at that screen. Sitting in the
center seat is a lithe young form, with his back to you. You know that
back well, having stared at it for so many years when you were sitting
where he is now. But he's not so young anymore, and very straight he
sits in his own center seat, superbly self-assured. He is staring at the
contents of the screen intently.

"Don't lose it, Michael," he says softly. "You lose it, I promise you
I'll dock your pay."

The navigator looks over his shoulder for a second. Wearing the
slightest grin, he says, "Sir, this fish is hooked. Eighteen light-years
and closing."

"Screens," says Sulu.

"Deployed," says the helmsman, glancing over her board. "At full
intensity."

"Phasers---"

"Ready, sir."

"Don't get trigger-happy, Brynne. They're just in case."

"Noted, sir," says the helmsman. But you notice that her fingers are
twitching a bit --- the way Sulu's used to, once upon a time. Despite
the building tension, you smile a little.

"Target at sixteen light-years," says the navigator.

"Identification yet?"

"Not close enough, sir."

"I want to know who that is," Sulu says softly, "and what they're doing
here so close to what we just passed."

"Target's accelerating, sir! Warp five now --- warp six ---"

"Oh, no you don't," Sulu says. "Catch him. Maneuvers at your discretion.
Mr. Wilhelmsen, hail him. Ask him politely to stop and be identified."

"Warp seven now, sir," says the navigator, and the ship moans softly in
its bones as it leans into higher speed. You lean forward a little with
it. Stars stream by the screen faster. And up there in the darkness,
just barely visible, something shines.

"Visual!" says the comm officer. "No response to hails."

"All right," Sulu says, not sounding entirely regretful, "we'll do this
the hard way. Rhia, what do its engines' power-consumption curves look
like? Can you get a fix on them?"

-- and your insides jump in terror as the screen whites out, as the ship
lurches madly and people caught entirely unaware spill onto the floor as
the Heinlein's automatic red-alert sirens begin wailing like banshees,
as the moaning of the ship's engines gets alarmingly loud. Sulu is still
in his helm --- how, you can't imagine, shouting orders, hearing answers
back before he finishes them.

"--- five ships --- six --- eight now ---"

"--- fore screens down to forty percent, sir!"

"--- fire at will ---"

"--- hull pressure ---"

"--- explosive decompression!"

"--- seal down decks five and eight ---"

"--- Wil, dump the log three ways, hurry it -- packet the top
to the nearest station and load the buoys with the rest -- no,
even better, just one buoy ---"

"Star Fleet Command, Deneb, this is Heinlein ---"

"--- twelve of them, sir ---"

"What are they? who are they?!"


"--- can't even ---"

"--- hull pressure ---"

"--- starboard nacelle ---"

And then comes another terrible explosion and crash and flinging of
bodies about. Visual goes down, leaving you with a screen two-thirds
black, the rest displaying frantic and deranged readouts from science
station, helm, navigations: all systems near failure, life support
going, matter-antimatter reaction near critical --- and the voices, the
terrible voices, confused, desperate, brave:

"--- come on, Wil, move it!"

"--- phasers ---"

"--- tubes are crushed, no use ---"

"--- Star Fleet, Deneb, do you read? U.S.S. Heinlein ---"

And worst of all, Sulu's voice, flavored with something you've
never heard in it before --- despair.

"Oh, my god ---"

A scream; then nothing but black noise, the complacent hiss of
uninvolved stars. And even the telemetry dies.

"End file," says the screen.

You have to hold still for a few seconds, again, to let your heart
slow.

"Bridge," you say then.

"Bridge. Lieutenant Renner."

"Get me Star Fleet," you say. "And once you've done that, recall the
special-missions crew. We've got trouble."

"Yes, sir"

Sulu... you think.

"Any other orders, sir?"

You think about that too.