Captain James T. Kirk (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
captainkink) wrote2010-06-13 11:07 am
captainkink) wrote2010-06-13 11:07 am
Entry tags:
[OOC] Novel Extracts - Part One
Always to be taken with a grain of salt, but still interesting.
No vehicle and no driver could survive such a plunge. An easy and convenient place for a distraught child to put an end to anger, confusion, uncertainty, and despair. All Kirk had to do was keep going and gravity would do the rest.
“Your father didn’t believe in no-win scenarios,” Pike finally concluded.
Kirk nodded slowly. All the telling of old stories, all the relating of past incidents, had done nothing to temper is attitude. “He sure learnt his lesson.”
The youthful sarcasm had no effect on Pike. “Depends on how you define winning. You’re here, aren’t you?”
Kirk looked away. “Not sure I’d call that a win.”
Like the fight last night. Different antagonists, different venue, similar outcome. As he sped southward, an uncomfortable vision presented itself: him, lying on the floor of another unnamed bar, in an unknown town, at some unspecified date in the future. Dazed, beat-up, and doing boozy complex calculations in his head for the amusement of laughing patrons in order to cadge a few credits to buy a bottle. It was not a pretty picture. With no one to bear the brunt off his trademark sarcasm, it did not seem so amusing as it had in the past.
Then there was the other past–the one that damned Captain Pike had dredged up. Anecdotes about the father he had never known. Tales of heroism. Stories of accomplishment. Parables of achievement. As the bike cruised along the otherwise empty road he glanced skyward. Blue was beautiful but empty, whereas the night sky was full of stars. Go outside after the moon had set and you could not escape them. His jaw clenched. What else couldn’t he escape? Until Pike dredged it up, Kirk had managed to escape his past.
Did he also want to escape his future?
U.S.S ENTERPRISE
As he observed the flurry of activity, he sought the right word to describe the ship. She was the newest model and represented the latest Starfleet designs. Not that he paid regular attention to such things, oh no. He had been far more interested in which female performers happened to be dancing or singing at the regional bars. Physical beauty had always been important to him. That and natural charm, stance and grace.
With a start, he realized that he was unconsciously applying the same parameters to the ship under construction.
What the hell do you think you’re doing? He asked himself. You sleep on a starship, not with it. Why are you wasting your time here? What makes you think they’d accept an overage delinquent like yourself? Because one slumming Starfleet captain said so? You haven’t even begun contemplating filling out the necessary forms, let alone making formal application. Get away, get going, get gone.
Spinning the bike, he accelerated away from the fence and the inaccessible metal temptress within. But which way to go? Which way to flee? He was nauseous with indecision.
Just go, his inner self screamed. No particular direction. Thataway.
“You mean, like any last wishes? Just one. What’s the Academy’s policy on fraternization between cadets?”
Beneath the ascending craft the surface of the Earth was falling away rapidly. Iowa was falling away rapidly. He settled himself back in his seat. He was leaving behind everything he had ever known, every vestige and reminder of his life at this point of time.
Good riddance.
Her lips parted in ecstasy. “You—you are amazing.”
He smiled to himself. “You just wait until we initiate warp drive.”
When he was nine, Kirk had missed a step, fallen into a creek, and hit his head on a protruding rock. His brother, George had jumped in and pulled him out. When he came to, he had looked up and seen the terror on his brother’s face. Now he understood how George felt, since that was exactly how he felt right now..
A dazed Kirk stumbled away from the shuttle. He wasn’t on the Enterprise. He wasn’t on anything. He woud be stuck here, on Earth, in an Academy populated by underclassfolk, while every one of his friends and acquaintances soared outsystem, having been flash-promoted in the service of a still-unknown emergency. They would all return as full officers while he… while he…
Kirk gaped at him. “Excuse me sir, but—what?”
Pike’s smile was grim. “While I’m gone we need to maintain chain of command.” He nodded towards Spock. “And you two make a swell team.”
If Kirk was stunned, Spock was almost beyond words.
Part Two will come whenever typing out extracts doesn't feel tedious.
No vehicle and no driver could survive such a plunge. An easy and convenient place for a distraught child to put an end to anger, confusion, uncertainty, and despair. All Kirk had to do was keep going and gravity would do the rest.
“Your father didn’t believe in no-win scenarios,” Pike finally concluded.
Kirk nodded slowly. All the telling of old stories, all the relating of past incidents, had done nothing to temper is attitude. “He sure learnt his lesson.”
The youthful sarcasm had no effect on Pike. “Depends on how you define winning. You’re here, aren’t you?”
Kirk looked away. “Not sure I’d call that a win.”
Like the fight last night. Different antagonists, different venue, similar outcome. As he sped southward, an uncomfortable vision presented itself: him, lying on the floor of another unnamed bar, in an unknown town, at some unspecified date in the future. Dazed, beat-up, and doing boozy complex calculations in his head for the amusement of laughing patrons in order to cadge a few credits to buy a bottle. It was not a pretty picture. With no one to bear the brunt off his trademark sarcasm, it did not seem so amusing as it had in the past.
Then there was the other past–the one that damned Captain Pike had dredged up. Anecdotes about the father he had never known. Tales of heroism. Stories of accomplishment. Parables of achievement. As the bike cruised along the otherwise empty road he glanced skyward. Blue was beautiful but empty, whereas the night sky was full of stars. Go outside after the moon had set and you could not escape them. His jaw clenched. What else couldn’t he escape? Until Pike dredged it up, Kirk had managed to escape his past.
Did he also want to escape his future?
U.S.S ENTERPRISE
As he observed the flurry of activity, he sought the right word to describe the ship. She was the newest model and represented the latest Starfleet designs. Not that he paid regular attention to such things, oh no. He had been far more interested in which female performers happened to be dancing or singing at the regional bars. Physical beauty had always been important to him. That and natural charm, stance and grace.
With a start, he realized that he was unconsciously applying the same parameters to the ship under construction.
What the hell do you think you’re doing? He asked himself. You sleep on a starship, not with it. Why are you wasting your time here? What makes you think they’d accept an overage delinquent like yourself? Because one slumming Starfleet captain said so? You haven’t even begun contemplating filling out the necessary forms, let alone making formal application. Get away, get going, get gone.
Spinning the bike, he accelerated away from the fence and the inaccessible metal temptress within. But which way to go? Which way to flee? He was nauseous with indecision.
Just go, his inner self screamed. No particular direction. Thataway.
“You mean, like any last wishes? Just one. What’s the Academy’s policy on fraternization between cadets?”
Beneath the ascending craft the surface of the Earth was falling away rapidly. Iowa was falling away rapidly. He settled himself back in his seat. He was leaving behind everything he had ever known, every vestige and reminder of his life at this point of time.
Good riddance.
Her lips parted in ecstasy. “You—you are amazing.”
He smiled to himself. “You just wait until we initiate warp drive.”
When he was nine, Kirk had missed a step, fallen into a creek, and hit his head on a protruding rock. His brother, George had jumped in and pulled him out. When he came to, he had looked up and seen the terror on his brother’s face. Now he understood how George felt, since that was exactly how he felt right now..
A dazed Kirk stumbled away from the shuttle. He wasn’t on the Enterprise. He wasn’t on anything. He woud be stuck here, on Earth, in an Academy populated by underclassfolk, while every one of his friends and acquaintances soared outsystem, having been flash-promoted in the service of a still-unknown emergency. They would all return as full officers while he… while he…
Kirk gaped at him. “Excuse me sir, but—what?”
Pike’s smile was grim. “While I’m gone we need to maintain chain of command.” He nodded towards Spock. “And you two make a swell team.”
If Kirk was stunned, Spock was almost beyond words.
Part Two will come whenever typing out extracts doesn't feel tedious.
no subject
I really liked some of these bits. And others just made me. laugh.
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject