Crucible: Kirk Read Online Free Page B

before it had been attacked by Orion pirates. He’d spent time with Carol and Ruth, Areel Shaw and Janice Lester. He’d served under Captain Bannock aboard the Republic and under Captain Garrovick aboard the Farragut. He’d interacted with different people, visited a myriad of places, experienced events both old and new to him…dozens of times, hundreds, thousands.
    â€œWe’re running out of time,” Picard said in an odd counterpoint to the apparent wealth of time that had crashed in on Kirk. “Look,” Picard said, peering back toward the splintered bridge. “The control pad. It’s still on the other side.”
    Kirk saw it, wedged against a post support on the far half of the bridge. “I’ll get it,” he said, knowing that Picard would be better suited to disarming the missile with its twenty-fourth-century controls. “You go for the launcher.”
    â€œNo, you’ll never make that by yourself,” Picard said, and then he gazed at Kirk. “We have to work together.”
    â€œWe are working together,” Kirk told him. “Trust me. Go.”
    Picard followed his direction without further protest, getting to his feet and heading for the missile platform. “Good luck, Captain,” he said.
    â€œCall me Jim,” Kirk said as he stood and started back down the bridge. He took hold of the upper chain on the left side and made his way along the grated surface, which now hung down at nearly a forty-five-degree angle. As he moved, so too did the bridge, shaking and shimmying beneath his weight, its connections to the rocks strained. The stressed metal groaned as it shifted, and small pieces fell off and rattled to the bottom of the chasm below.
    Two-thirds of the way down, the chain in his hands snapped. Kirk fell onto his side and skidded down the bridge toward where its charred, broken metal surface ended in midair. He reached for another chain and found it just in time.
    Cautiously, he pulled himself up to a standing position, as close to the wrecked edge of the bridge as possible. He peered across the meters-wide gap and saw the other section moving too, appearing as though it could fall at any moment. He had no idea if it would bear up under his weight, particularly after a jump, but he had not come this far to play it safe. As he gazed at Soran’s lost control pad, Kirk knew that he must risk his life to do this, for if he didn’t, he would condemn the two hundred thirty million inhabitants of Veridian IV to certain death. He bent his knees in preparation, took a deep breath, and leaped.
    He landed hard on the other side. He wrapped the fingers of one hand around another chain, while he sent those of his other hand through the grated surface to take hold there. That section of the bridge shook even more, and then Kirk heard the snap and creak of metal parts. The surface dropped to an even steeper angle, and he quickly let go of the chain and slammed that hand through the grating as well.
    Above him, he heard a clatter, and he looked up just in time to see Soran’s control pad falling toward him. Letting go of the bridge with one hand, he managed to catch the device. He examined it for a moment, then pointed it toward the cloaked missile. Over the shriek of failing metal, he pushed a button. In the distance, he saw Soran’s trilithium weapon reappear on its platform, even as Picard raced up the ladder to it.
    Not wanting to give up possession of the control pad, Kirk tucked it into his waistband. Then he reached again for the chain, intending to try and pull himself up to the rocks. Above him, he heard the report of metal splitting, and he knew he didn’t have long to get to safety.
    That was when the bridge fell.
    Kirk held on tightly as it careered down the rocks. Metal ground against stone, and then the bottom edge of the bridge struck an outcropping, which sent Kirk and the entire structure spinning into open air. He