"The Corbomite Maneuver" Line-by-Line!

SPOCK: In chess, when one is outmatched, the game is over. Checkmate.

 

Kirk: Is that your best recommendation?

 

SPOCK: I'm s, I regret that I can find no other logical alternative.

 

McCoy: Assuming we get out of this, Captain-

 

KIRK: Nobody's given up yet.

 

McCoy: Well then, about Bailey. Let me enter it in my medical records as simple fatigue.

 

KIRK: That's my decision, Doctor.

 

McCoy: And your mistake. You overworked him, pushed him, expected too much from him.

 

KIRK: I'm ordering you to drop it. I have no time for you, your theories, your quaint philosophies.

 

McCoy: I intend to challenge your actions in my medical records. I'll state that I warned you about Bailey's condition. Now that's no bluff.

 

KIRK: Any time you can bluff me, Doctor.

 

BALOK [OC]: Three minutes.

 

Kirk: All right, Doctor. Lets hope we have time to argue about it.

Kirk thinks for a moment.

Kirk: Not chess, Mister Spock. Poker. Do you know the game? Ship to ship.

 

UHURA: Hailing frequencies open, sir.

 

KIRK: This is the Captain of the Enterprise. Our respect for other lifeforms requires that we give you this warning. One critical item of information that has never been incorporated into the memory banks of any Earth ship. Since the early years of space exploration, Earth vessels have had incorporated into them a substance known as corbomite. It is a material and a device which prevents attack on us. If any destructive energy touches our vessel, a reverse reaction of equal strength is created, destroying...

 

Balok: (over comm) You now have 2 minutes.

 

UHURA: (looks bored, punches some random buttons.)

 

KIRK: Destroying the attacker! It may interest you to know that since the initial use of corbomite more than two of our centuries ago, no attacking vessel has survived the attempt. Death has little meaning to us. If it has none to you then attack us now. We grow annoyed at your foolishness.

 

Spock walks to Kirk, shaking his head.

Spock: Although it was well played. I regret not having learned more about this Balok. In some manners he was reminiscent of my father.

 

SCOTT: Then may heaven have helped your mother.