Leonard Nimoy credited as playing...
Mr. Spock
- Capt. Kirk: Mr. Spock, relieve Commodore Decker immediately. That's a direct order.
- Matt Decker: You can't relieve me and you know it, according to regulations...
- Capt. Kirk: BLAST REGULATIONS! Mr. Spock, I order you to assume command on my personal authority as Captain of the Enterprise.
- Mr. Spock: Commodore Decker, you are relieved of command.
- Matt Decker: I don't recognize your authority to relieve me.
- Mr. Spock: You may file a formal protest with Starfleet Command, assuming we survive to reach a Starbase, but you are relieved. Commodore, I do not wish to place you under arrest.
- Matt Decker: You wouldn't dare.
- [Mr. Spock signals two security guards who immediately step forward at his command]
- Matt Decker: You're bluffing.
- Mr. Spock: Vulcans never bluff.
- Matt Decker: [sadly] No. No, I don't suppose that they do. Very well, Mr. Spock, the bridge is yours.
- [Decker has taken a shuttlecraft]
- Mr. Spock: Commodore, I must insist that you return to the ship.
- Matt Decker: You said it yourself, Spock - There is no way to blast through the hull of that machine, so... I'm gonna take this thing right down its throat.
- Capt. Kirk: This is Kirk. Matt, you'll be killed!
- Matt Decker: I've been prepared for death ever since I... ever since I killed my crew.
- Capt. Kirk: No one expects you to die for an error in judgment!
- Matt Decker: [final words] A commander is responsible for the lives of his crew, and for their deaths. Well... I should have died with mine.
- Matt Decker: That thing must be destroyed!
- Mr. Spock: You tried to destroy it once before, Commodore. The result was a wrecked ship and a dead crew.
- Capt. Kirk: Am I correct in assuming that a fusion explosion of 97 mega-tons will result if a starship impulse engine is overloaded?
- Mr. Spock: No, sir. 97.835 mega-tons.
- Mr. Spock: Captain, you're getting dangerously close to the planet killer.
- Capt. Kirk: I intend to get a lot closer: I'm going to ram her right down that thing's throat.
- Mr. Spock: Jim, you'll be killed, just like Decker.
- Capt. Kirk: No, no, I don't intend to die, Mr. Spock. We've rigged a delay detonation device, you'll have 30 seconds to beam me aboard the Enterprise before the Constellation's impulse engines blow.
- Mr. Spock: Your chances of survival are not promising. We don't even know if the explosion will be powerful enough.
- Capt. Kirk: A calculated risk, Mr. Spock.
- Mr. Spock: There's another factor, Captain. The transporter is not working at 100% efficiency. Thirty seconds is very slim timing.
- Capt. Kirk: A chance I'll have to take. Kirk out.
- Scott: A cranky transporter's a mighty finicky piece of machinery to be gambling your life on, sir.
- Mr. Spock: It's closing fast on the Constellation.
- Sulu: Standing by, sir.
- Mr. Spock: Commodore, I suggest...
- Matt Decker: Kirk pulled us out of there by distracting it. Now it's our turn. Fire phasers.
- [the Enterprise fires upon the planet-killer, causing it to release the Constellation]
- Matt Decker: Did it! Hard about! Give me some distance.
- [the Enterprise veers sharply to the left, away from the planet-killer]
- Mr. Spock: We're being pulled inside, Commodore. You must veer off.
- Matt Decker: Maintain phaser fire, helmsman.
- Mr. Spock: We've lost warp power. If we don't break the tractor beam within sixty seconds, we never will.
- Matt Decker: But don't you understand? We've got to destroy it!
- Mr. Spock: That, sir, is illogical. It is suicide. Attempted suicide would be proof that you are psychologically unfit for command. If you don't veer off, I shall relieve you on that basis.
- Mr. Spock: Captain, sensors show this entire solar system has been destroyed. Nothing left but rubble and asteroids.
- Capt. Kirk: That's incredible. The star in this system is still intact. Only a nova could destroy like that.
- Mr. Spock: Nonetheless, Captain, sensors show nothing but debris where we charted seven planets last year.
- Mr. Spock: It came up on us fast, Captain, but we seem able to maintain our distance.
- Capt. Kirk: We're blind here. What's it look like?
- Mr. Spock: It looks very much like Commodore Decker's planet killer.
- [the doomsday machine begins a turn towards Enterprise]
- Mr. Spock: And it is pursuing... us...
- [as the Constellation nears the planet-killer, Kirk presses the detonator, then grabs his communicator]
- Capt. Kirk: Beam me aboard!
- Mr. Spock: Energize.
- Lt. Kyle: Energizing...
- [the transporter shorts out]
- Lt. Kyle: Bridge, it shorted out again!
- Scott: [seeing the short, jumps back into the Jeffries tube] Och...!
- Capt. Kirk: [still on the Constellation's bridge] Gentlemen... beam me aboard.