[Stone's Office]
Recording inquiry. Matter. Captain Kirk, James T. Subject. Circumstances of death, Lieutenant
Commander Finney, Benjamin. This inquiry, to determine whether a general
court-martial should be convened against Captain Kirk on charges of perjury and culpable negligence.
Ready. Let us begin with your relationship with Commander
Finney. You knew him for a long time, didn't you?
Yes. He was an instructor at the Academy when I was a midshipman, but that didn't stand
in the way of our beginning a close friendship. His daughter Jamie, who was here last night,
was named after me. It's common knowledge that something happened
to your friendship. It's no secret. We were assigned to the same
ship some years later. I relieved him on watch once and found a circuit open to the atomic
matter piles that should've been closed. Another five minutes, it could have blown up the ship.
Ship nomenclature. Specify. United Starship Republic, number 1371.
Continue. I closed the switch and logged the incident.
He drew a reprimand and was sent to the bottom of the promotion list.
And he blamed you for that? Yes. He had been at the Academy for an unusually
long time as an instructor. As a result, he was late in being assigned to a starship.
The delay, he felt, looked bad on his record. My action, he believed, made things worse.
Comment. Service record of Lieutenant Commander Finney to be appended this inquiry.
Noted. Now let's get into the specifics of the storm,
Captain. Weather scan indicated an ion storm dead ahead.
I sent Finney into the pod. Why Finney?
His name was at the top of the duty roster. If he blamed you
He may have blamed me that he never rose to command a ship, but I don't assign jobs on
the basis of who blames me. It was Finney's turn, and I assigned him. He had just checked
in with me from the pod when we hit the leading edge of the storm. Not too bad at first. I
signalled a Yellow Alert. Then we began encountering pressure, variant stress, force seven, the
works. I finally signaled a Red Alert. Finney knew he had a matter of seconds. I gave him
those seconds and more. But apparently it wasn't enough.
Then why, Captain, does the computer log from your ship, made automatically at the time,
indicate that you were still on Yellow Alert when you jettisoned and not on Red?
I don't know. There's been a mistake. It would seem so. Could the computer be wrong?
Mister Spock is running a survey right now, but the odds are next to impossible.
Stop recording. Now, look, Jim. Not one man in a million could do what you and I have
done. Command a starship. A hundred decisions a day, hundreds of lives staked on you making
every one of them right. You're played out, Jim. Exhausted.
Is that the way you see it? That's the way my report'll read if you co-operate.
A physical breakdown. Possibly even mental collapse.
Possibly. I'd be admitting a man died because
Admit nothing. Say nothing. Let me bury the matter here and now. No starship captain has
ever stood trial before, and I don't want you to be the first. But if what you suspect
is true, then I'm guilty. I should be punished. I'm thinking of the service. I won't have
it smeared. By what, Commodore Stone?
All right. By an evident perjurer who's either covering his bad judgment, his cowardice,
or That's as far as you go, sir. I'm telling
you I was there on the Bridge. I know what happened. I know what I did.
It's in the transcript, and computer transcripts don't lie. I'm telling you, Captain, either
you accept a permanent ground assignment, or the whole disciplinary weight of Starfleet
command is going to light right on your neck. So that's the way we do it now? Sweep it under
the rug, and me along with it? Not on your life. I intend to fight.
Then you draw a general court. Draw it? I demand it. And right now, Commodore
Stone. Right now.