The Gorn, a startrek: the original series fanfic

The Gorn

By John Gibson

At the very last moment, Captain James T Kirk saw the danger and dropped to the course desert floor. The giant boulder whistled passed his head, missing by mere inches, ruffling his hair, and crashed down to earth with a bone-juddering thud about six-feet behind him. "Phew," he thought, "that was close." He lay still for a moment on the rocky outcrop, panting. He was finding it increasingly difficult to breathe in the thin desert air. The hot desert sun beat down mercilessly on the back of his neck. "Where," he asked himself, for the umpteenth time, "are the weapons." He glanced frantically about, looking for anything that might serve. "The… Metrons… said… there'd be weapons. About three-feet away on the rocky escarpment lay a rock; a jagged triangular piece of sandstone weighing, he estimated, maybe a couple of hundred pounds. Kirk glanced cautiously over the edge of the precipice. The Gorn was about a hundred feet below him, climbing slowly but steadily towards his position. Using nearly the last of his strength, Kirk scurried over to the rock and heaved it over the edge. He watched, first with satisfaction as the jagged stone fell directly towards the Gorn's head, and then with dismay as the lizard-like creature batted it away as if it were no more than a beach-ball.

Kirk collapsed back against the rock face in despair. His breath coming in short hitching sobs. At first, when the Metrons had beamed them both down to this harsh inhospitable desert world, to settle their differences man to lizard, he'd thought it would be an easy win. The Gorn, although incredibly strong was slow and lumbering, whereas Kirk was fast and nimble. He'd thought that he could keep outrunning the Gorn until he found the weapons that the Metrons had promised would be here, and then blast the scaly green bugger to kingdom come. What he hadn't reckoned on though, were the hot arid conditions and the meagre air. He was tiring now, slowing down. Gasping for breath. The Gorn though… the Gorn seemed tireless, it just kept coming. The Gorn was indefatigable. The Gorn was ineluctable.

He could hear it now, climbing steadily up the escarpment towards him. Summoning his remaining strength, Kirk forced himself to his feet and staggered down the far side of the rocky embankment. He knew that he had to somehow stay ahead of the Gorn until he could find a weapon. "Where…" he asked himself again, "are… the weapons?"

"How are we feeling today, Mr Vasquez?"

Startled, I pull my attention away from the screen. It's Helen. She's standing at the end of my bed writing something down on a clipboard. She obviously slipped into the room, on her soft-soled shoes, without my realising it.

"Oh, not too bad." I tell her. It's a familiar lie. It rolls smoothly off the tongue.

"Good." She finishes writing and hangs the clipboard back on it's hook. "Good! We'll have you out and about in no time." These are the lies we tell each other.

I like Helen though, she's young and pretty and she always seems to have time for me. Not like the other one. The one I secretly call Ratched. "Star Trek?" She asks, nodding towards the little screen that hangs above my bed from a complicated cantilever arm arrangement.

"Yes," I tell her. "Arena, it's a classic episode from the first season of the original series. Circa 1968."

"You like these old sci-fi things, don't you?" She clicks her ballpoint and returns it to the breast pocket of her tunic.

"I do," I reply, "they take me back."

We chat for a couple of minutes: I ask her how the apartment hunting is going. She and Billy, her fiancée, are currently living at Helen's mothers house. A situation she describes as "tense". They're trying to find a place of their own, but so far, have had no luck in finding something they can afford. All too soon though, Helen tells me that she simply must get on. "Enjoy your show." She says, nodding once more towards the screen. I give her a smile and a little wave as she bustles off to finish her rounds.

Kirk's got an idea now. He thinks that the "weapons" that the Metrons promised him are the various chemicals and minerals that can be found on the planet's surface. He's trying to make gunpowder. "Gunpowder," I muse, "I thought you needed saltpetre for that." From what I remember of my high school history, saltpetre used to be made from urine. In the middle-ages they used to believe, for some reason, that bishop's piss was best. The idea that a passing cleric might have passed through a couple of hours earlier and micturated against a rock amuses me so much that, for a moment, I actually laugh out loud. I'm immediately taken aback by the unfamiliar dry rusty sound.

It's true, what I told Helen though, these old shows really do take me back. As I watch Captain James T struggle to build his rudimentary bazooka, I'm transported — much as the good captain himself has been — through time and space. In my case though, my destination isn't a strange alien world (that looks a lot like Santa Clarita, California), but my parents living room, in 1968. I'm seven-years old and I'm lying on my stomach on the threadbare rug. I have my head propped up in my hands and, behind me, my feet bob and weave in free space with a restless energy. I'm watching TV. Watching Kirk fight the Gorn.

The television set was a Pye Vision King and it stood, on it's four spindly legs, in the corner of our living room from the mid-nineteen-sixties until well into the late seventies. It was my window on the world during my formative years. On it's bulbous black and white screen I watched the ghost like forms of Armstrong and Aldrin as they bounced across the lunar surface. I watched the impeachment of Nixon on it, and the fall of Saigon. I watched Elvis's 68 Comeback Special and his 77 funeral. And, of course, I watched all my favourite science fiction shows: Lost in Space; Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea; Dr Who and Star Trek. Always Star Trek. I remember sometimes, when the scary bits came on, I used to hide behind the settee, only peeking out when the music suggested it was safe to do so. But I was never scared of the Gorn. Not back then anyway. Now… maybe.

The cold November rain rattles against the window, but I barely hear it, lost as I am in memories of my childhood days. "Where did they all go?" I ask myself. Back then a day was a usable thing. It was long. Immense. You could get things done. You could ride your bike and fly model aeroplanes in the morning, go fishing or swimming in the afternoon, and still have time to build a model kit or watch some TV in the evening. Now the days rush by so fast that they all blur into one. Nothing ever happens. I try to remember something, some event, anything from my adult life. Something that singled out, defined, a particular day. The best I can come up with is a cold December evening from a couple of years ago. I'd been shopping at the local supermarket and, as I was leaving, I caught a momentary glimpse of a grey old man. He seemed to be watching me with his sad grey eyes. I remember wondering for a second who he was before, with a sudden shock, realising it was me. My own reflection in the big plate glass windows that fronted the shop. When I got back to my car and switched on the ignition Unchained Melody was playing on the radio and I burst into tears. It reminded me of Eileen. As I say, that would be a couple of years ago, before I started getting the pains.

Out in Santa Clarita, Jimmy T's finally bested the Gorn. The jury-rigged mortar he built proved remarkably (incredibly, really) effective. The Gorn's on his back and Kirk's on top of him, holding an obsidian dagger to the creature's scaly green throat. But, now, at the last moment Kirk decides show leniency. He won't kill the Gorn, not for the benefit of the Metrons. He lets the creature go. Both Kirk and the Gorn will live to fight another day.

"No!" I think, "No, that's a mistake! You should have killed it. Put the slimy green fucker on ice!"

Because, you see, I do fear the Gorn now. I know now that he's out there, and that he's coming for me, and that sooner or later he'll catch up with me. Sooner or later he'll catch up with us all. I can hear him now, shuffling along the corridor outside, I hear his snorting breath over the muffled conversations and the clattering of trolleys. I fear the Gorn now, and there's nowhere to hide. No sofa to duck behind in this stark white room. I sense his claw-like hand on the door handle, I hold my breath watching, waiting for it to turn. I know he's out there, and I know he's coming for me. And the Gorn is indefatigable, and the Gorn is ineluctable.

THE END