Captain Jehovah nodded and quickly departed. "Any damage captain?" Jehovah asked.
"No," Kirk assured. "Shuttle bay doors are going to need some work, but nothing we can't handle."
Jehovah
nodded. "Very primitive but almost too effective tactics!" he
complained. "I must remember the level of their thinking. Mr. Spock,
when we arrive at our destination I want to go into a slingshot around
the sun, bulldog. I want to go into time slip. It will only be
necessary to get the ship traveling in time, ahead into the future.
Would you make the calculations? From that point on I will guide us to
our destination."
"Understood!" Spock acknowledged. "I'll have the calculations in an
hour. Sir, do you realize that during that encounter you were releasing
energy one to the twelfth power?"
"That little?" Commodore Jehovah commented. "I'm really getting old! I used to be able to put out twice that."
He took a package from a container at his side and began to nibble on
it. He saw Kirk's curious look. "Food concentrate," he explained.
"Ordinary food wouldn't permit us to regenerate fast enough. This has a
thousand times the nutrition of ordinary food. To ordinary people it
would be toxic, deadly. But we can digest it."
He went over and began to check some readings. Chekov looked up at
Captain Kirk. "They were putting out power," he muttered, "twelve times
more powerful than that emitted by the Earth's sun?"
Kirk nodded. "Merciful God!" Chekov continued.
"Precisely!" Kirk answered.
Jehovah went over by Uhura's station. "Have you picked up any transmissions from the other vessel?" he asked.
"No," Uhura answered. "A very unusual name, sir! I've never heard of a
family named after one of the old versions of the Christian's name for
God."
"There aren't any," the commodore answered. "There's not a religion
that wouldn't consider it sacrilege to use that name. I'm afraid I'm
rather stuck with it."
Uhura stared wide eyed for a few minutes and then smiled. "Yes sir!"
she managed, and returned to her work. Jehovah smiled and went over to
Spock's station. While he was busy on the computer he used some of his
instruments. Kirk wondered what next, and why did this seem so natural?
That was the worst thing about it. It just seemed so natural!