Item 3 from this captain’s log: auxiliary impulse engines.
Impulse engines are the alternative to warp drive, and are limited to speeds below the speed of light. This is a Problem, because:
Space. Is. Big.
When Kirk first orders the course to Rigel 12, they’re “less than two days away.”
Let’s assume they’re going veryvery close to the speed of light, because that’s the fastest they could be traveling. This means they started off two light days (i.e. the distance light travels in two days) from Rigel 12. Two light days is equal to 346 AU (Astronomical Units: the distance between the Earth and the Sun).
This is…not far. It’s actually about the same as the distance between the star Rigel and its habitable planets. It’s a whole lot less than the distance between Rigel A and its companion star Rigel B (about 2000AU).
In other words, they were already in the Rigel system. Which is a) weirdly not mentioned, and b) extremely convenient.
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