First Command (2016)

Story Premise

All starship captains, even those that eventually will become famous,  have their first command action story. My short story (about 10,000 words) recounts the first serious command action of Cadet James T. Kirk in the summer between his junior and senior year at Star Fleet Academy, May 18, 2253 (before Star Dates).

Story Synopsis

Cadet Kirk is disappointed to have been assigned for the summer to a “back-water” graveyard depot of hundreds of derelict Federation starships awaiting salvage and a final disposition while his Academy classmates and peers patrol the “exciting” deep-space neutral zone.

Meanwhile, misinformed and desperate Klingons believe the depot to be a repository of Federation technology that can be easily plundered by an advanced-technology cloaked ship.

Kirk, arises to the occasion, with the assistance of soon to be fast friends from within a long-past its prime starship, to confront the Klingons and to defend the depot base. Glimpses of Kirk’s command potential quickly impress his cobbled-together crew as they battle to the death against an enemy that is invisible to their technology.

Story Twist

Kirk’s first command is of the ancient Enterprise NX-01 which was the flagship of the first modern class of starships for the fledgling Star Fleet nearly 90-years earlier. The ship was decommission as a museum, and it is at the depot for its annual inspection. The depot is the only place where replacement parts have been salvaged and available for the old ship.

Throwing Rocks (2015)

Story Premise

What will middle school science projects be like 200 hundred years from now? Little Susie has used commonly-used technology in her futuristic home to demonstrate that thrown rocks can be just as destructive as complex  and expensive explosives – and a whole lot cheaper! It is all a matter of scale and force to little Susie, who does grasp the commotion of what she’s achieved.

Story Synopsis

Susie impresses three judges with the first half of her video presentation of a rock throwing machine that, by increasing its power settings, can eventually throw rocks hard and fast enough to disintegrate a large boulder. Susie recounts that her little brother bet her that she could not make a similar device capable of destroying something as large as a planet.

With the assistance of a construction bot, Susie devotes the second half of her presentation by proving her brother is wrong. She shows videos of a much larger machine doing exactly what she said it could do – destroy entire planet, to the horror of her judges.

The three judges quickly learn that the asteroid belt in our solar system was caused by Susie’s actions; the moon around Earth was caused by Susie’s actions; and, Susie caused the complete destruction of a civilized planet between Mars and Uranus, which led to the formation of rings around Uranus and Saturn from the debris left behind.

Story Twist

Because of science project rules, Susie has only a few weeks to conduct her research and to present her findings. However, nothing in the rules prevented Susie from instructing the construction bot to go back in time to build a moon-sized rock thrower or to find nearby planets to target in her experiment.

At the end, the judges are at a loss on what to do next. Susie has documented proof of her actions that shaped their solar system – all as part of a simple science project. The actions  happened millions of years ago. And, it would be impossible to correct her actions now because it would alter present time-lines if any attempt was made to do so.