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BRUNETTE, JON/KILLING KIRK: A STAR TREK STORY/
Killing Kirk: A Star Trek Story
By: Jon Brunette
James T. Kirk leapt off the turbo-lift; his boots appeared filthy and lined with rough sand after his fight with the reptilian leader. The Metrons had informed the leader of the Enterprise that a fearsome alien, by the name of Gorn, their ridged frames heavily muscled and their minds small, had possessed powerful skills as military combatants. Kirk confessed that his opponent did seem second to none. Though the well-honed skills and experience of the highly-ranked officer in Star Fleet had nearly suffered defeat, the intelligence and will-to-survive that humanity had always possessed had assured his continued existence.
Outmatched, humans possessed extreme mental abilities, and quick reactions, as opposed to the slow and manipulative Gorn, whose limbs had appeared as if he had traveled through pools of slime-infested filth.
Kirk inhaled; his muscles rippled, and his hair matted in the same manner as it had inside the battle helmets that Kirk had hated in Star Fleet Academy, inside the jungles of Hawaii and the Amazon Rain Forest. He loathed the smell of perspiration that seemed as powerful as urine-filled latrines that hadn't been emptied. He smelled the reminders of physical exhaustion. His mind felt exhausted, and sensations of tattoos marred his face. He needed sleep more than he had in his entire life.
Still, he survived, and, despite his humanitarianism, he had glanced painfully, and with ingrained grief, as their knobby-skinned leader had died.
Tears filled his eyes, but, as quickly, subsided, as they did for anyone who had cried in the face of battle. In Star Fleet, he had viewed lifeless bodies millions of times; as someone in the profession of his medical officer always would, Away Team members would witness humans slip into lifelessness commonly in performance of their duties.
Kirk held his pectoral muscle. He understood how badly their reptilian leader had harmed him. His heart had suffered trauma by his clawed hands; the ruthlessness of his foe had pounded him around the rocky surface, and had pummeled him with chilly emerald hands. His sledgehammer palms had thrown him around in the same manner that his brother, and his wife, who had died in performance of their duties, had disposed of baby rattles owned by their infant boy; his boy hadn't realized his physical abilities, in his youth, and, as he inhaled, Kirk suddenly realized that he also misunderstood the force of well-honed bodies. They could and would endure and extol in equal measures.
He pushed the square comm pad on the multi-hued wall brace. The familiar squeak of polished boots sounded hollowly inside the hall.
Kirk informed his Vulcan friend, his breath raspy inside his windpipe, "I might have died"—he spun his shoulder around—"if not for that foul potion. I must"—he bobbed his head with purpose—"thank Bones properly."
"His 'foul potion,'" said Spock tonelessly, "might have allowed you to live beyond the years of many captains in Star Fleet."
"I know, I know," said Kirk, his bloody hands flipping airily. The Vulcan nodded, and his appearance of no emotions made his superior smile, and eased the pain below his shoulders.
Leonard McCoy jumped through the hall, hair ruffled, hands jittery, and eyes heavily lidded; their ebony lines appeared as thick as wool blankets. Kirk had just found that Janice Rand had been impregnated by an alien male from a planet of which Kirk had never heard the name of, and the news made him feel alive.
"Jim," McCoy said, "you wouldn't need that 'foul potion' if you would learn to duck once and awhile."
He smiled. "Doctor," admitted Kirk. His eyes glanced approvingly at his companions.
Bones frowned. "Unlike your yeoman, someone has finally offered their appreciation."
"Why do humans need useless forms of appreciation?" Spock tilted his olive-faced head. "The ability to save a life should be rewarded simply as another form of self-preservation." He glanced at his medical friend. "You, of all members of this ship, in your positions, Doctor, should remember that your world considers that human emotion highly valuable."
"Sound illogical, Bones?" Kirk quarried, his eyebrows arched. His smiled filled his joyful eyes with amusement; the face of his human friend didn't seem as impressed.
"As that highly logical First Officer knows," said Leonard, "I precede without emotional interference." His tricorder blurred and bounced images around its medical display panel, whirring and buzzing; finally, the operator snapped its metallic device inside its usual position. "I must follow an oath that allows no emotional involvement."
"Self-preservation," intoned the intelligent alien, "should be valued as a highly valuable form of human emotion."
"Spock," said Bones bitterly, "captains rarely value self-preservation."
"If they did," Kirk said lightly, "they wouldn't need their medical officers."
"Now," said Bones, "someone finally makes sense around here."
The Vulcan glanced around the eyes of his friend, stiffened his body, and formed his more usual appearance. "Why, Doctor, I have always made sense."
Bones stared behind their green-blooded alien friend. He grimaced, glancing at and around the mashed uniform of his human friend. "So, Vulcans wouldn't consider arrogance as another highly valuable emotional state?"
"On the contrary," said Spock in the presence of another jibe; "I merely address the fact that I, as a Vulcan, have never been able to lie."
"Sounds like a lie to you?" Jim couldn't help but smile.
Like millions of times before, James T. Kirk and Leonard McCoy giggled; their alien friend stood as stiffly as someone always did from his homeland. Spock really wouldn't understand human emotions, especially humor, and he had never appeared to mind.
The captain and his medical officer had no desire to wager jars of Klingon Blood Wine on his opinion of their human minds. Their alien friend wouldn't have understood; his attitude would flutter butterflies of amusement inside the middle of his superior, and, as he should, the Chief Medical Officer walked swiftly towards Sickbay. The baby of their yeoman would need nutritional formula and more of his questionable bedside manner.
Spock lifted his steely brow for their real "miracle worker," and, somehow, his mindful, emotionless face attempted another smile. Despite the fatigue of battle, their leader, who inhaled in a fearful manner, glanced at his bridge companion, and, with discomfort, blushed in the same manner as his youthful yeoman.
Kirk remembered the embarrassment that had come in the aftermath of their retirement ceremony for Captain Pike, who would have promoted him. For reasons that he would not admit to his friend, he had enjoyed the sensation. And, now, he enjoyed that same sensation inside the acoustic halls of the U.S.S. Enterprise.
Only Janice Rand would have understood.
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