Welcome to Fan Fiction Fridays! Think I have enough “themed” blog entries yet? I’ve decided to start sharing fan fiction produced by myself, my family and my friends herein, because, well, we put a lot of work into it. It’s the reason we got involved in crazy ventures like Farpoint and Firebringer Press. And I think it deserves to be remembered. I’ve shared some of my fic already. You can access it from the Fan Fic menu item above. But there are some big chunks missing.

In 1982, I wrote a Star Trek fan fic titled “A Noble Mind is Here Oer’Thrown.” Terrible title, right? I got news for you. Most of my titles suck. Not news. By 1984, it became its own fanzine novella, Enterprise Regained. You can read that here.

People liked “Regained” so much (and when I say “people,” I mean probably two or three) that they told me to write a sequel. “But,” I said, “‘Regained’ was a continuation of ST II, and ST III invalidated it. How can I write a sequel?” “Make it reconcile the two,” they said.

And Enterprise Lost was born. It has never seen the light of digital day, to my knowledge. So here it is, the prologue, anyway. I’ll post a chapter a week. My thoughts on this segment follow it.

Oh, and I did the artwork, too. I beg your forgiveness. 

PROLOGUE

Admiral James T. Kirk, Saavik’s captain of two weeks, was dead. He floated now before her, a lifeless shell surrounded by bright luminescence, which only accentuated the pallid, death-like tones on his face. He no longer moved and hadn’t for quite some time. He had been murdered.

A cloud, a mass of non-corporeal energy—living  all the same—had destroyed his mind, leaving him lifeless. At least, that was the way Saavik remembered it. But had the cloud been responsible? Had not James Kirk allowed himself to die? He had not fought back.

Or was he dead at all? No! What had made her think that? The cloud was not a murderer; it had merely been careless. Unknowing, it had separated Kirk’s mind from his body; and, with Saavik’s help, Kirk had reunited himself, mind and body. He lived again.

But why didn’t he move? The light—the light of the cloud—surrounded his body as it floated, motionless in space. And then the cloud had form. It was alive and standing over him. It wasn’t human or Vulcan, but it did have form.

And it breathed into James Kirk.

The body before her became animate. It stood and looked at her… and it smiled.

Jim Kirk smiled affectionately at her in thanks, his power of command and his confidence restored to him by her actions… and the cloud’s. It had breathed life back into him.

The father became the son. James Kirk was suddenly David Marcus, and Saavik did not think to question the transformation. She rushed forward to take David’s hand in hers. And an awful roar filled the air. What was it? Some kind of monster was hiding in the shadows. The same kind of monster., she was sure, that had haunted her childhood; but this one would not have two legs.

The cloud’s light had faded around David, and now it shifted from yellow to green.

It was a deep, dark green, which caused fear to well up inside her. She did not question how a color could cause fear. It did, and that was enough.

Slowly, the green of a gaseous cloud became the green of a solid object. The monster was everything she had ever imagined a monster could be—when she had allowed herself to imagine at all. It was a dragon. From a rancid mouth full of yellow teeth, it spat fire at her and began to lumber forward on massive legs. She drew the phaser which hung at her belt, but she was not the dragon’s target.

It advanced on David, obviously intending to devour him. Saavik aimed the phaser and prepared to fire, but David calmly held up his hand. As the animal drew closer, he smiled at it. One huge claw came down toward him. It would smash him as a human would an insect. Again Saavik raised her weapon, and again David gestured for her not to fire.

The hand of the dragon came down behind him and gently lifted him from the ground.

It looked at him with affection, and he reached out to pat its scaly flesh with one hand. The creature made a sound which resembled purring.

The dragon’s tail drew up against its head, forming a ring. And tail and head melted together, becoming one. The whole of the animal’s body melted into fluid. The greenish liquid flowed and began to form new shapes. Its green hue faded into all the colors in the spectrum, neglecting none.

Where the dragon had been was now a huge, ring-shaped object, some sort of gateway; Saavik knew that the dragon must be behind it, as must David. But the gateway was a closed one. In the center was an opening, roughly circular in configuration.

Through the opening was blackness and space, but not David. If she stepped through, she thought, she might then find something. Perhaps it was possible to see beyond the gateway only at its threshold. Saavik came closer, and now she saw that it wasn’t empty after all. There was someone standing in it. She knew him, as well she should have.

He was the first being who had ever shown her kindness. She owed her existence to him.

Unbelieving, she called his name. “Spock?”

Spock was dead.

* * *

Saavik awoke to find herself sitting up in bed. She didn’t often have nightmares, not that she would expect to. Nightmares were the product of anxiety and mental stress which formed in undisciplined minds, like the minds of humans.

And this had been a particularly harsh nightmare. Her hair was plastered to the back of her neck with sweat. In fact, her entire body was soaked in hot, sticky fluid. Her sheets and pillows were all on the floor—she had apparently thrown them there in her sleep.

As happened with all dreams, this one was fading from her memory even as she recovered from the trauma of awakening. As she pushed herself off the bed, still breathing heavily, she thought over what she could remember of it.

Kirk was not dead. That was clear to her now. And David was on Regula I continuing the research on his creation—the Genesis project.

But Spock was dead. Why had he been in her dream? Was she trying to fulfill some wish within her subconscious? Did some part of her still not accept the death of her teacher and friend even after six weeks? Perhaps not. Illogical as it was, she did wish that Spock still lived.

She wished she could tell him all she had learned. She wished he could have seen her when she used a mind-meld to enter James Kirk’s subconscious and help him restore himself to full life. Spock had taught her everything she knew, but now others were teaching her as much. These past months she had learned of love and friendship, which Spock had not been prepared to teach her.

If only she could show him all of this. You are being illogical,she reprimanded herself. He is gone. Accept it.

Now composed, she tossed the wet sheets from her bed into the laundry chute on the wall and drew fresh ones from the closet. It would be a long day tomorrow. She had reports to complete and turn in to Commander Uhura, and she needed rest. But she did not sleep more than a few hours that night. Nor did she in the many nights that followed.

Comments:

Wow. I could have sworn I never had and never would write anything with a dragon in it, but I did, didn’t I? Back when I was but 18. Saavik, in case you can’t tell, was my favorite, and the reason I got actively into fandom. There’s not much to say about this entry. Dream sequence intro. How trite. Not sure I’d pull a stunt like that today. And the monthly reports get mentioned! They’re a running theme for the first two chapters. And now I’m Kirk’s age and filing weekly ones. How prophetic. And, boy, do I want to tell 18-year-old me to stop babbling about them!