Another collaboration between myself (the writing and a little art tweak to make a composite) and 
“So, this is not how I imagined us starting the week of our 19th wedding anniversary,” Captain Marcus Aurelius Kirk Jr. said to me as we sat in my quarters on the Annapurna, awaiting the arrival of Dr. Shaaka iMaru and a very special artifact from the Uppaaimar homeworld.
“Well,” I said, “after all, Mark, just because you are the cousin to my famous fleet colleague doesn't mean you all get to start all the surprises and fun.”
He broke out laughing, and I was glad to see him do that, because he was more nervous than I was.
I have been a fleet officer for longer than my husband has been alive – my quarter-Vulcan in heritage meant he didn't see the age difference when we met and insisted on having me anyway, and so it ends up being just a difference in perspective. Captain M.A. Kirk has shipped commercially to the frontier since age 16, and so is brave on levels and in ways I cannot comprehend – but I'm 31 years older, and was just a hardened old soldier of an admiral when we met.
Marcus stresses a great deal about protecting me and our family, and since I was semi-retired like all full fleet admirals at the time we met, I was past the vast majority of the experimental science on the edge of the frontier that would have truly worried him.
Still, he was worried about the Uppaaimar iron helm, which had not been designed for a human or Vulcan mind. What made it palatable was that he was familiar with Uppaaimar technology; he and his partner Capt. Rufus Dixon had worked out how to open up the Uppaaimar Warp-Canal, restoring that to the use of the galaxy and opening up archaeological exploration of the Uppaaimar homeworld.
“I've dealt with a lot of cultures,” he said, “and I've rarely met a culture more efficient than the Uppaaimar in terms of not hurting those who mean well.”
He knew that I would be safe working with Dr. iMaru, but asked if he might sit in, just in case.
“Of course,” Dr. iMaru and I said together.
“It will be good to have another mind here to anchor you, Admiral, and it does not matter, Captain Kirk, that you are not a telepath. You know your wife well, and that is more than sufficient. Very rarely did anyone in the Uppaaimar military who used an iron helm do so without a trusted adjutant or family member or both present.”
“I wouldn't have anyone else, Mark,” I said. “Happy anniversary, hubby.”
He broke out laughing, but took my hand, and did not let it or me go.
The Uppaaimar iron helm was analogous to 21st-century Earth virtual reality headgear, just invented a few thousand years earlier, and loaded with far more information. It communicated with the vast operating libraries deep in the ground on the Uppaaimar homeworld, and apparently elsewhere – the Annapurna's shields were down and signals passed through from surprising directions.
The helm had wings that wrapped around the head and neck, securing it in place; despite its great age, the material was still reasonably comfortable. There was nothing terribly unusual about it once it was fixed in place. Nothing just happened. The first impression I had was the weight of it.
“You need to ask a question, Admiral,” Dr. iMaru said. “A small-scale warmup, if you will, so you can get the sense of how it works. You can say it aloud or not, but be sure to express exactly what you mean.”
I asked to see the top 5 most beautiful tactical situations in Uppaaimarn history, and I saw the look of surprise on Dr. iMaru's face just before he faded from view into a what appeared to be a meteor shower with the soft delicacy of a shower of snow.
But then, in another moment, I saw that same shower, with galaxies viewed distantly through it, almost edge-on, looking like glittering shards of ice amidst the shower.
Nor was this a simple view as if through a porthole; it was as immersive as if I were on the bridge of the Annapurna, and we were flying through.
Following that came a great black hole, seen at an angle that made it seem like a great eye, with two great jets of different colors and energy coming out –
Jets by
The surprise was, upon closer examination of the jets –
– was that each of them was used as model for a devastating weapon in the Sterapore region. The pattern of the delicate whirls and handles was the same upon the handles. That was a whole different mystery to solve, however, and as I put it from my mind, it faded into a beautiful red energy field – auroras of another world pulsing across a dark night sky.
I watched that for far longer than I intended, and actually fell asleep before the fifth image – and really the one the back of my mind that I was looking for – came to me, with all the information I needed.
A comet, intersecting with a whirling mass, and the whirling mass thereafter dissipating … upon focusing on the whirling mass, I could see that it was eerily reminiscent of the Prameranian horror of a toy white hole. I was also able to “roll the tape back,” and saw that, in a wide angle view, that horror had been sent to destroy the Uppaaimar homeworld itself!
It was almost anti-climactic how the matter ended, unless you understood the magnitude of what had happened: the Uppaaimar Warp-Canal recalibrated itself, and sent out a pulse of fire that nudged the great Prameranian weapon into the path of the comet, which knocked out its center.
At that point, just for a moment, I had a vision of Madame Admiral, the admiral who had worn the helm and directed that move 3,000 years earlier – she greatly resembled Dr. iMaru, with long black tresses that shone with violet and bright violet eyes and a violet sheen to her big teeth – and a laugh! She was laughing, and I heard her speak:
“Silly girls with their little toys!”
And that had been the end of the war between the Prameranians and the Uppaaimar!
I woke up with a start, in the strong arms of my husband.
“Vlarian...?”
His love washed over me and brought me fully back into the present even before his tender kiss. The helm fell off my head as he did that, and Dr. iMaru caught it.
“Work must be done, Admiral – the helm always unties itself when it is no longer needed.”
I took a moment to gather my thoughts – it was a good thing I had only asked for five items, and that the fifth had overlapped with my true goal. That had been a lot of information, and it had affected all five senses. I was exhausted with my travels.
Still, I had a job to do.
“Yes, I saw what has to be done,” I said. “Don't know how to do it yet unless there is a comet lying around, but I do know what has to be done. Thank you, Dr. iMaru. I just need to rest a few minutes.”
Dr. iMaru smiled gently.
“Admiral, you have two decades to figure out what to do. You might want to do what every military leader who has worn the iron helm that long in history – who has ever been permitted to do that – did afterward. Have a good night.”
“I thought I only had a few minutes,” I said.
“I underestimated you,” he said. “You wore the helm for six hours.”
“What?”
“You slept for four,” my husband said.
“It has to do with your choice of a beginning, Admiral,” Dr. iMaru said. “Most military and political leaders are in a hurry, in tenseness, in mind of what has to be done, and also what will be the outcome for them. You asked for the key thing that most overlook … cosmic affairs are incredibly beautiful, and, the Uppaaimar drank deeply of the beauty of it and made use of it. That comet intercept you saw … thought of by an admiral who also thought of how beautiful it would be, and who chose it not only for its effectiveness, but for its beauty. You achieved a resonance across 3,000 years, so things went well.”
No loss of life … just a slap on the wrist to a civilization with equal technological skill to the Uppaaimar, but no wisdom to match … there was a resonance indeed. As it was often said, history does not repeats, but it rhymes … and in the galaxy, it orbits.
My mind caught up with what time it was. My fleet was gathering, and I had already given my orders for the day about that. Mark and Dr. iMaru would depart the next day to safety … even assuming a toy white hole, this was not a situation for civilians. So, it was time to call it a day – we could all have dinner, and then Mark and I could enjoy the rest of the evening.
Afterwards, that night, Mark and I shared the same dreams. My telepathy had been fully extended because of the high stimulation of my mind, so he got to see all that I had seen as my mind sorted matters further, and, because he entered the same deep state of relaxation I had, this was enough to overcome difficulties with heart rate and blood pressure and thus major headache there had been since his injury … we made love during the shared vision of those red auroras, experiencing a kind of intense synesthesia while doing so … everything about that color could be felt, tasted, smelled, and everything felt, tasted, and smelled enhanced what was seen.
“Okay, so I am as high as a kite,” Mark said in the morning, “so are you all right, Admiral?”
“I'm a hardened old admiral. Coffee and bad news is always waiting to sober me up.”
“It's going to take a lot of coffee, because I hope you don't get that much bad news.”
“Good thinking, Mark. Good thinking.”
But, us hardened old admirals can feel trouble coming a parsec away.