Star Trek: Trek to Madworld

Captain's Log, Stardate 6191.7: (First Officer Spock reporting) It has now been two days since Captain Kirk ordered the ship through the region of nebulosity rather than detouring around the navigational hazard as is standard procedure. Though he and I have been standing alternating six-hour watches, the interval has been refreshingly free of troublesome incidents. Barring unforeseen circumstances, theEnterprisewill reach Epsilon Delta 4 in two more days. Chief Engineer Scott informs me that all systems will be properly functioning for the emergency evacuation by that time. In all, I can report that conditions aboard ship are exactly what they should be under the given circumstances. The Bridge was quiet as Spock sat calmly in the command chair. Though most of the people on duty at the moment were from the second or third shift, they were all more than capable at their jobs and they knew Spock's preference for quiet efficiency. There was little joking or personal byplay as there sometimes was when the captain was in this chair; although there was no concrete evidence that such behavior detracted from efficiency, Spock disapproved of anything that took the crew's attention away from the performance of their duties. Spock liked a quiet Bridge--it gave him that much more time to think. Unfortunately, the Bridge of theEnterprisewas seldom as quiet as he would have preferred; the very nature of the ship's mission was to seek out the unique and the unusual, which frequently led to trouble and disquieting activities. Spock would not avoid trouble if it confronted him, but neither did he seek it out. That was not always the case, he felt, with his captain; at times it seemed as though James Kirk actually went to great lengths to ensure that theEnterprisewould see more than the optimum share of excitement. The current situation was a case in point. To Spock, there was no logical reason why theEnterprisehad to be placed in a position of danger by traveling through this nebula. The saving of one day from the total duration of their trip would make little if any difference to the success of their mission; the argon poisoning was such a slow-acting phenomenon that none of the colonists was likely to die of an extra day's exposure. If Spock had been commanding the vessel, he would have weighed the time gained by the shortcut against the possible harm to the ship by traveling through uncharted territory and decided against taking the extra risk. But that was where he and his captain differed. Kirk was a man with a strong flair for the dramatic, and even Spock had to admit that Kirk was at his absolute best when the element of danger was present in whatever he was doing. This shortcut, while pointless in its overall effect, would be symbolic to Kirk of a triumph against nature; and Terrans, Spock had noticed, were particularly influenced by such petty symbolism. When they had first entered the nebula the temperature of the hull had increased dramatically, even with the shields up. Spock had kept a very close eye on the increasing heat, ready to inform the captain the instant critical tolerances were reached. Fortunately, the temperature climb had evened out shortly before the critical level, just as Spock had calculated it would, so there was no actual reason to cease the traveling through the nebula and return to normal space. Since then, there had been little trouble. TheEnterprisehad encountered small pieces of cosmic debris along its route, the largest being a meteoroid nearly a kilometer in diameter. TheyGoldin, Stephen is the author of 'Star Trek: Trek to Madworld' with ISBN 9780553246766 and ISBN 0553246763.