Premise : Someone high on the cosmic food chain believes hurting Kirk is a dream worth dying for - so long as someone else is doing the dying. Hate may make one clumsy, but it is also unrelenting.
Proxy
by Rob Morris
CETI ALPHA V, 2275
The visitor was surprised by Khan's attitude.
"Kirk did strand you here."
The superior man shook his head.
"Six months in to our exile, Simeon, a man so brilliant at calculation he seems a seer, told me that an event of cosmic importance would alter our lives. It never came. I was furious with him for being wrong, and with Kirk for leaving me here."
Khan smiled.
"Then came that first harvest. It was poor. Even such as we struggled to get through what this planet had to throw against us--and it had ample ammunition in that regard."
Khan's foot stomped what looked like a crawling slug.
"Trust me--even such as you, my friend, do not want that to be inside you. As I said, that first year was truly the hell I prophesied to Kirk. I amusedly recalled that John Milton was well-fed when writing Paradise Lost---I nearly ate my treasured printed copy."
The visitor was confused again.
"I'm offering you the chance to surprise and destroy the man who left you here to die, and you're speaking of the very reasons why any man would want revenge."
Khan leaned in close, the visitor's power giving him no pause.
"I AM NOT ANY MAN!! Any other man would fail to see what Kirk gave me here. Here, there are only the superior men and women I have always wished to rule--the strivers and shapers. I could have conquered untold worlds, and still not have found the basic contentment that my struggle with those stony fields provides me every single morning. Do you want to know my opinion of Captain James T. Kirk?"
Khan whistled a certain tone, and a boy appeared.
"Yes, Father?"
Khan was almost bursting from the inside joke.
"Our visitor is leaving now. Say farewell to him--Jacob."
Indeed, the visitor knew that he was licked, and controlling Khan directly wouldn't do. So he departed as he came, which is to say empty-handed.
"Hadn't counted on him being that rational. Need--bigger egos."
But it was a big cosmos, and bigger egos were not hard to find.
"Those children saw you as an angel. For you, they all but destroyed their own kin. Kirk tore you down. Repayment in kind?"
The Gorgan nodded its mottled, ethereal head.
"If not in blood."
The visitor found the second team member no less agreeable.
"First, Kirk ended your reign as the most legendary murderer of all times. Then, Kirk and his Klingon ally all but laughed you off the ship. Will that do?"
The Emotion Vampire called Redjac by some shimmered red.
"It will not. It will not do at all."
Finally, the Troika was completed.
"All you sought was a new world and new host-bodies to replace the ones Ghidorah took from you. Kirk and Scott used a heavy-gravity trick to drive you out of the woman Mira Romaine, who was so suited for your purposes. You can, with my aid, hit him with a weight greater than a star's gravity well. In or out?"
The hive-mind that was all that remained of planet Zetar coalesced an answer that crackled with anger.
"In."
The three appeared with their sponsor aboard the Enterprise. He directed them to their mission.
"First : Jim Kirk and his crew are mine. Never forget that. Second : Sleeping inside that cabin is Kirk's adopted daughter, a Vulcan named Saavik. They recovered her earlier this year from a lovely trip to the North Pole - don't ask, I'd only tell you. This time, certain--entities---tried to be rid of her as well. They relented, we won't. Point being, she is your target. To do with as you please, to make suffer or do your will as you please. This is your chance to hurt Jim in ways you never could by directly targeting him."
The Gorgan seemed anxious.
"And if we merely bypass you--or get rid of you--and do what we will anyway, to whom we choose?"
The sponsor shrugged.
"Mister Scott has had almost a decade in some cases to shield and arm the ship against the intrusion of such as yourselves. Some of them are nasty ways for energy to be dispersed. My power alone stops this. Understood?"
The spectral trio showed that they did indeed understand, and walked through the walls of Saavik's cabin. The girl was fast asleep. The Gorgan leaned in.
"Child, you will bring ruin to all you love. You will make this ship mine, and give me my freedom, the freedom to sully souls exactly as innocent as your own."
Redjac leaned in.
"I can taste the many plump fear tumors in you, banished child of Vulcan. As he guides you in their ruin, I will show your spirit what you are doing, and you will know fears undreamt of since before the Ancient Destroyer awoke in Elder Times."
The Zetarian leaned in.
"When they have emptied you of all spirit and soul and mind--then we will walk within your form and---what is this?"
In as much as it could, it 'looked' at the others.
"We have been deceived. The power within this child is vast. She is not yet aware of this, but she exceeds any of us--perhaps even all of us combined."
Redjac confronted their sponsor.
"A good scheme. Have us destroy her on a mortal level, while you reap her power?"
The sponsor wore a look of disappointment.
"Well, it seems I've been found out. But I still want a quarter of that power."
Gorgan reached through the girl's head.
"You will get what scraps we leave y-----aaaaaaagggghhhhh!!!!"
The fading 'angel's' hand passed through Redjac's energies as he screamed, just before fading away for all time. Redjac then began to cry out as well, shuddering and sparking before it too faded like a bad nightmare. Purest greed overcame the Zetarian, and it attempted to occupy Saavik without sharing, believing the many essences that made up its one could contain what had destroyed the others.
"We are---done."
As its grand fade began, it looked at the sponsor.
"You knew."
"Knew? More like I guessed. I mean, she is the Rock Of Prophecy. The boy it is said can best any physical opponent. Looks like she can do the same to any energy-based opponent or similar psychic entity. He is the ultimate dragon-slayer, and she an abjurer, or if you will---"
The Zetarian literally popped like an oily facial protrusion. The sponsor smirked.
"---the ultimate Ghost-Buster. Oh well--note to self---need to order more henchmen---good ones, this time. I---"
The sponsor barely got himself out in time as the half-awake Saavik leaped at him. She awoke on the floor the next morning--rested and refreshed.
The sponsor found himself above a certain world--and met by one who knew his level of power.
"Haven't you had enough yet? You got those three idiots killed, and for what?"
The sponsor smiled at Q.
"Well, now I know for certain that trying to kill Saavik Kirk is a bad idea."
Q sneered.
"I could have told you that. You really make me wish that power had found Jimmy instead. You moron--you're going to sacrifice another proxy..."
"...or mold this one in my image..."
"Whatever. All because you hate a man who would still welcome you back with open arms, after all these years, and after all you've done. You are pathetic. Still a member of the Order, outer trappings aside."
The sponsor laughed.
"Then stop me, Q---oh that's right---you can't. Because I serve Lord Ghidorah in all things, and he will give me the cosmos when he is done with it!"
Q snapped his fingers to vanish.
"Some free advice, friend. Forget the cosmos--take the furniture instead. Universes come and go---but you can always use furniture."
With Q gone, the sponsor descended to the planet unimpeded. Voices surrounded him, fronted by floating faces.
"We know what you wish here. We will act to protect him--and to protect others from him."
The sponsor made a calculation, then shrugged.
"How?"
A wave of energy burst forth from the intruder, and those surrounding him first retreated to their normal bodies, and then just as rapidly turned into stone statues. The intruder, reveling in his power, did not keep them as statues for long, and as he drank in their power, he also reveled in their death-screams as their forms shattered into rubble.
"Now--where are they keeping you, kid?"
An obvious energy-barrier was absorbed without effort and the one behind it released.
"Where are they? I want---to hurt them!"
The intruder crumpled rock to dust between his fingers.
"The Thasians are dead, Mister Evans---can I call you Charlie?"
Charlie Evans looked at the stars above him.
"You can call me Good Bye Charlie---because I have a Captain to see about letting innocent teenagers be taken away by EMOTIONLESS MONSTERS!!"
The intruder--soon again to be the sponsor--held him back.
"If you know Jim Kirk, then you know his own life and well-being mean little enough to him."
Evans still looked like a teenager, but his mind showed some evolution at least.
"Then how do I hurt him? His ship? His crew?"
"His son."
Evans shook his head.
"One of his sons is dead. The other doesn't even know Kirk is his father."
"The son who's dead? He'll be coming back in a couple of years. He and Jim will grow even closer. Imagine his pain when he loses his son again, this time for good."
Evans began to smile.
"There's also a woman I want to see again. Janice Rand."
"All in due time, Charlie. She'll be-- a reward for completing the first half of your training with me."
"Training? Training for what?"
"Didn't I just tell you? You and I together, in about ten years time, are going to assassinate Peter Kirk--a being that some say cannot ever be killed. But we can break his power. Beat him. Beat him, and leave his body for Jim to find. You see, I've been contemplating the death of my old friend for some time, and it seems poetic to have his son precede him."
Evans scanned his rescuer, and felt a push back.
"Wow---I thought I cornered the market--but you really hate Kirk. Who--are you?"
The sponsor extended his hand.
"Pleased to meet you, Charlie--"
Charlie Evans took that hand and sealed his fate thereby.
"---my name is Gary Mitchell."
Proxy
by Rob Morris
CETI ALPHA V, 2275
The visitor was surprised by Khan's attitude.
"Kirk did strand you here."
The superior man shook his head.
"Six months in to our exile, Simeon, a man so brilliant at calculation he seems a seer, told me that an event of cosmic importance would alter our lives. It never came. I was furious with him for being wrong, and with Kirk for leaving me here."
Khan smiled.
"Then came that first harvest. It was poor. Even such as we struggled to get through what this planet had to throw against us--and it had ample ammunition in that regard."
Khan's foot stomped what looked like a crawling slug.
"Trust me--even such as you, my friend, do not want that to be inside you. As I said, that first year was truly the hell I prophesied to Kirk. I amusedly recalled that John Milton was well-fed when writing Paradise Lost---I nearly ate my treasured printed copy."
The visitor was confused again.
"I'm offering you the chance to surprise and destroy the man who left you here to die, and you're speaking of the very reasons why any man would want revenge."
Khan leaned in close, the visitor's power giving him no pause.
"I AM NOT ANY MAN!! Any other man would fail to see what Kirk gave me here. Here, there are only the superior men and women I have always wished to rule--the strivers and shapers. I could have conquered untold worlds, and still not have found the basic contentment that my struggle with those stony fields provides me every single morning. Do you want to know my opinion of Captain James T. Kirk?"
Khan whistled a certain tone, and a boy appeared.
"Yes, Father?"
Khan was almost bursting from the inside joke.
"Our visitor is leaving now. Say farewell to him--Jacob."
Indeed, the visitor knew that he was licked, and controlling Khan directly wouldn't do. So he departed as he came, which is to say empty-handed.
"Hadn't counted on him being that rational. Need--bigger egos."
But it was a big cosmos, and bigger egos were not hard to find.
"Those children saw you as an angel. For you, they all but destroyed their own kin. Kirk tore you down. Repayment in kind?"
The Gorgan nodded its mottled, ethereal head.
"If not in blood."
The visitor found the second team member no less agreeable.
"First, Kirk ended your reign as the most legendary murderer of all times. Then, Kirk and his Klingon ally all but laughed you off the ship. Will that do?"
The Emotion Vampire called Redjac by some shimmered red.
"It will not. It will not do at all."
Finally, the Troika was completed.
"All you sought was a new world and new host-bodies to replace the ones Ghidorah took from you. Kirk and Scott used a heavy-gravity trick to drive you out of the woman Mira Romaine, who was so suited for your purposes. You can, with my aid, hit him with a weight greater than a star's gravity well. In or out?"
The hive-mind that was all that remained of planet Zetar coalesced an answer that crackled with anger.
"In."
The three appeared with their sponsor aboard the Enterprise. He directed them to their mission.
"First : Jim Kirk and his crew are mine. Never forget that. Second : Sleeping inside that cabin is Kirk's adopted daughter, a Vulcan named Saavik. They recovered her earlier this year from a lovely trip to the North Pole - don't ask, I'd only tell you. This time, certain--entities---tried to be rid of her as well. They relented, we won't. Point being, she is your target. To do with as you please, to make suffer or do your will as you please. This is your chance to hurt Jim in ways you never could by directly targeting him."
The Gorgan seemed anxious.
"And if we merely bypass you--or get rid of you--and do what we will anyway, to whom we choose?"
The sponsor shrugged.
"Mister Scott has had almost a decade in some cases to shield and arm the ship against the intrusion of such as yourselves. Some of them are nasty ways for energy to be dispersed. My power alone stops this. Understood?"
The spectral trio showed that they did indeed understand, and walked through the walls of Saavik's cabin. The girl was fast asleep. The Gorgan leaned in.
"Child, you will bring ruin to all you love. You will make this ship mine, and give me my freedom, the freedom to sully souls exactly as innocent as your own."
Redjac leaned in.
"I can taste the many plump fear tumors in you, banished child of Vulcan. As he guides you in their ruin, I will show your spirit what you are doing, and you will know fears undreamt of since before the Ancient Destroyer awoke in Elder Times."
The Zetarian leaned in.
"When they have emptied you of all spirit and soul and mind--then we will walk within your form and---what is this?"
In as much as it could, it 'looked' at the others.
"We have been deceived. The power within this child is vast. She is not yet aware of this, but she exceeds any of us--perhaps even all of us combined."
Redjac confronted their sponsor.
"A good scheme. Have us destroy her on a mortal level, while you reap her power?"
The sponsor wore a look of disappointment.
"Well, it seems I've been found out. But I still want a quarter of that power."
Gorgan reached through the girl's head.
"You will get what scraps we leave y-----aaaaaaagggghhhhh!!!!"
The fading 'angel's' hand passed through Redjac's energies as he screamed, just before fading away for all time. Redjac then began to cry out as well, shuddering and sparking before it too faded like a bad nightmare. Purest greed overcame the Zetarian, and it attempted to occupy Saavik without sharing, believing the many essences that made up its one could contain what had destroyed the others.
"We are---done."
As its grand fade began, it looked at the sponsor.
"You knew."
"Knew? More like I guessed. I mean, she is the Rock Of Prophecy. The boy it is said can best any physical opponent. Looks like she can do the same to any energy-based opponent or similar psychic entity. He is the ultimate dragon-slayer, and she an abjurer, or if you will---"
The Zetarian literally popped like an oily facial protrusion. The sponsor smirked.
"---the ultimate Ghost-Buster. Oh well--note to self---need to order more henchmen---good ones, this time. I---"
The sponsor barely got himself out in time as the half-awake Saavik leaped at him. She awoke on the floor the next morning--rested and refreshed.
The sponsor found himself above a certain world--and met by one who knew his level of power.
"Haven't you had enough yet? You got those three idiots killed, and for what?"
The sponsor smiled at Q.
"Well, now I know for certain that trying to kill Saavik Kirk is a bad idea."
Q sneered.
"I could have told you that. You really make me wish that power had found Jimmy instead. You moron--you're going to sacrifice another proxy..."
"...or mold this one in my image..."
"Whatever. All because you hate a man who would still welcome you back with open arms, after all these years, and after all you've done. You are pathetic. Still a member of the Order, outer trappings aside."
The sponsor laughed.
"Then stop me, Q---oh that's right---you can't. Because I serve Lord Ghidorah in all things, and he will give me the cosmos when he is done with it!"
Q snapped his fingers to vanish.
"Some free advice, friend. Forget the cosmos--take the furniture instead. Universes come and go---but you can always use furniture."
With Q gone, the sponsor descended to the planet unimpeded. Voices surrounded him, fronted by floating faces.
"We know what you wish here. We will act to protect him--and to protect others from him."
The sponsor made a calculation, then shrugged.
"How?"
A wave of energy burst forth from the intruder, and those surrounding him first retreated to their normal bodies, and then just as rapidly turned into stone statues. The intruder, reveling in his power, did not keep them as statues for long, and as he drank in their power, he also reveled in their death-screams as their forms shattered into rubble.
"Now--where are they keeping you, kid?"
An obvious energy-barrier was absorbed without effort and the one behind it released.
"Where are they? I want---to hurt them!"
The intruder crumpled rock to dust between his fingers.
"The Thasians are dead, Mister Evans---can I call you Charlie?"
Charlie Evans looked at the stars above him.
"You can call me Good Bye Charlie---because I have a Captain to see about letting innocent teenagers be taken away by EMOTIONLESS MONSTERS!!"
The intruder--soon again to be the sponsor--held him back.
"If you know Jim Kirk, then you know his own life and well-being mean little enough to him."
Evans still looked like a teenager, but his mind showed some evolution at least.
"Then how do I hurt him? His ship? His crew?"
"His son."
Evans shook his head.
"One of his sons is dead. The other doesn't even know Kirk is his father."
"The son who's dead? He'll be coming back in a couple of years. He and Jim will grow even closer. Imagine his pain when he loses his son again, this time for good."
Evans began to smile.
"There's also a woman I want to see again. Janice Rand."
"All in due time, Charlie. She'll be-- a reward for completing the first half of your training with me."
"Training? Training for what?"
"Didn't I just tell you? You and I together, in about ten years time, are going to assassinate Peter Kirk--a being that some say cannot ever be killed. But we can break his power. Beat him. Beat him, and leave his body for Jim to find. You see, I've been contemplating the death of my old friend for some time, and it seems poetic to have his son precede him."
Evans scanned his rescuer, and felt a push back.
"Wow---I thought I cornered the market--but you really hate Kirk. Who--are you?"
The sponsor extended his hand.
"Pleased to meet you, Charlie--"
Charlie Evans took that hand and sealed his fate thereby.
"---my name is Gary Mitchell."
