Ah, I must've misassociated/conflated those two mentions in the book, where someone says early on that the Connies are being kept a Starfleet secret, and then a bit later when Winona Kirk tells Georgiou that George is always off on "secret missions" for Starfleet. Re-reading them again both now, it seems they're more contextually-independent than I remembered them being.It wasn't my intention that George Kirk be on the Enterprise at this point in time. Best Destiny makes it seem as though he's not been aboard the ship since the events of Final Frontier.