"Letters from Iowa"
Star Trek fan fiction
by
CorporalCaptain, TrekBBS
February 10, 2026
Kirk materialized in the security office at the base of Mintaka Tower.
A security officer approached the transporter pads and introduced himself. "Captain, I'm Commander Banning. I'm glad you could make it in time."
In time? Kirk did not like what he was hearing. He said, "I was told the situation is contained and stabilized."
"Not anymore. This way, please, sir." Banning directed Kirk towards the turbolift. They boarded, and Banning ordered the lift to ascend to the first deck of the main structure. "The main structure underside docking port just opened."
That worried Kirk. "You still can't access tower operations?"
"No, sir."
"What about Lieutenant Commander Erickson? Have you gotten any closer to finding him?"
"No, sir. He seems to have covered his escape well, far better than the other three."
The lift arrived at its destination, and the doors opened. Two guards in riot gear and with weapons drawn were ready outside the elevator. They acknowledged Kirk and Banning and stepped back. Banning led Kirk down a corridor, and the guards followed.
Banning's tricorder chimed to signal an important message. "Excuse me, sir." Banning halted and consulted his tricorder.
Kirk said, "Commander, while I was with him, Commodore Mendez officially filed criminal charges against Daniel Erickson. There are certain aspects of this situation that I believe you're about to learn."
"Yes, sir. I see the warrant for his arrest. Over a hundred charges. Forging transport orders, forging service orders for secure equipment.... My g... attempted kidnapping...
rape." Banning was shocked. "I
see, sir. This changes everything."
"We need to keep moving," Kirk said. The open docking port was an urgent concern.
They continued along the corridor and turned a corner. Three more guards in riot gear were in front of the entrance to the main hangar. Two were holding phaser pistols, and one was carrying a phaser rifle. The indicator lights showed that the entrance was locked.
Banning addressed the lieutenant on station. "Lieutenant Webb, this is Captain Kirk."
The lieutenant came to attention. "Sir!"
"Situation report, please, for the captain."
"All security overrides remain completely locked out. We cannot penetrate the force fields without discharging phasers. It would take at least one minute of joint, continuous fire to breach the fields. A proverbial eternity, sir. The tower's battery is being conserved and expended smartly. We estimate it has another 13 hours, give or take. Our orders are to negotiate, but there's been no reply—"
Before he could say more, the doors to the hangar unlocked and opened.
They opened to an airlock. The guards exchanged hand signals. Webb took point and entered, followed by one of his ensigns. Kirk went in next, and Banning followed Kirk. The ensign with the phaser rifle stood outside the open entrance, and the remaining two guards flanked him. The inner doors on the other side of the airlock appeared locked and closed. Banning activated the scanner on his tricorder.
"We still have no access to security overrides or tower operations," he reported. "Force fields prevent our scanning beyond the airlock." He looked up from the tricorder. "We presume that the subject is inside."
Kirk thought for a moment and then reached his decision. "Gentlemen, I believe this is an invitation, but it is for me alone." Kirk had a phaser and communicator under his tunic. To be as fully prepared as he could, he asked Banning for the tricorder.
"Of course." Banning handed it over. "Good luck, sir."
"Thank you, Commander."
Banning and the guards evacuated the airlock. The outer doors closed. Pressure equalized, and the inner doors unlocked and opened. Kirk slung the tricorder over his shoulder and went inside.
Jame Finney sat on one of the ledges of the underside docking port. She was looking down, her feet were dangling in the air. Through the open port, wind was coming up into the hangar. Kirk could see all the way to the ground, half a kilometer below. It was nearing sunset. In the parks and streets near Mintaka Tower, the purple hues were giving way to darkness.
Jame was seventeen now, turning into a beautiful young woman. Her brown hair was braided and up. She was wearing a long-sleeved dark unitard with gloves and athletic soles. Kirk spotted the security controller in her left palm, attached to the glove.
Whose was it? Erickson's? Probably, thought Kirk. There was still much that Kirk didn't understand.
Kirk started descending the steps down to the port deck. Jame looked up. Her left eye was bruising.
She'd been hit, or kicked!
"Hello, Jim," she said. "Pull up a ledge!"
From his briefing with Commodore Mendez, Kirk knew that transporter inhibitors were in effect in and around the tower, everywhere except in the security office where he'd beamed in. That meant inhibitors were in effect underneath where they were now. Kirk could hear the faint but distinctive hum of the force field generators located along the tower's pillar. Tractor beams would be useless, also. There was nothing to prevent Jame from falling.
Or jumping!
Kirk was sure of himself and not afraid of falling. He was afraid of saying or doing the wrong thing.
'Pull up a ledge,' that's darkly humorous, he thought.
It's a small consolation, but at least it's humorous. He decided to accept Jame's offer. Perhaps it would help gain her trust. He went the rest of the way down, walked to about four meters from her, and carefully sat down on the ledge next to hers. He allowed his feet to dangle, too.
"How do you like my tower?" She extended her arms and gestured, as if showcasing the hangar.
"Jame...." Kirk could not conceal a critical tone.
She was nervous. "OK, Jim,
OK.... I was being sarcastic." Her face became serious, and she managed a faint smile. "You came. You got here so fast!"
"We were headed to Rigel. Your message came while I was on the bridge. Soon after, the fleet was put on alert. Emergency at Starbase 11! My communications officer recognized your name in the... very short list of missing persons. I read your message right then, on the bridge. I immediately ordered the ship to change course. The engineer managed maximum warp and got us here in less than three hours. I've met with Commodore Mendez. The
Enterprise has gone on to Rigel."
"Wow." She seemed impressed and pleased, but then a shadow of anger descended over her. "The whole
fleet was put on alert?"
Kirk regretted not having McCoy. It was obvious to Kirk that Jame was under extreme stress. That was to be expected, but Kirk was unqualified to evaluate her mental state.
At least she's engaging me in conversation. He replied, "When part of a starbase is compromised, a fleet-wide alert is triggered automatically. Jame,
what happened?"
"My uncle was going to have me committed to a rehabilitation colony!"
Her uncle. Her legal guardian since her father, Ben Finney, had been sentenced to Tantalus V. Her deceased mother's brother. Starbase security officer Lieutenant Commander Daniel Erickson.
"That's
his controller?" Kirk pointed to her left hand.
"Ya!" She nodded and looked back down to study the lights below.
Kirk ignored the view and focused on her. "Tell me what happened."
Jame was trembling. She shifted her attention to somewhere inside of her. "I knew he would have to get rid of me."
"Who, Jame?"
"Dan.... I needed help. I needed something to protect me. I'd made a model. I made it for school, that year dad was committed."
Kirk nodded. He remembered the year. He wasn't following her, but he decided not to interrupt and just let her explain.
"Something told me not to hand it in. They'd probably have sent me in for rehabilitation right then! You know, for copying an actual security controller!" She laughed, then abruptly became somber. "Plus after what dad had done. So I kept it for myself." She brightened a little. "Of course it doesn't work, but it sure looks real. I made something else and turned that in instead. Anyway, since I was little, I liked to watch Dan using his controller. I think he let me watch just to show off. He never knew I'd figured out his gesture codes. He always said I was dumb. They're based on Lamar sequences."
"I see." Kirk was impressed, though he had no idea what a Lamar sequence was.
"I guess he didn't think I had the nerve to run. I only had a minute or two. He went to talk to some people on comms. I didn't hear, but it had to be about me. I wasn't going to wait to find out. I made the switch, I got dressed and ran. To see José. That's when I sent you the message, and one to José. From the tram. I couldn't trust beaming. I took the tram. When the guards came aboard, I knew they were after me. The way they looked at me, without looking. The way they came in separately, but together. I was never going to get to the commodore. He might be busy, like you might. My message might wait for hours before he read it. I had to hold on,
hold out, so I picked the tower. I know this tower. I've spent lots of time here. It was right there. I had to do something. I only had a second to decide. So I got off. They got off too, all three of them."
"My god," was all Kirk could say.
"I made it to the lobby. Dan was there already, must've beamed in. His pigs followed me in. People started moving back. They could tell something was happening. I'd come running in, redshirts running after me, and now all four were cornering me." A tear ran down her face.
"I need to hear this, Jame.
Please, go on."
Jame swallowed. "If he
hadn't noticed the switch, I was almost where I needed to be. I knew they'd try it without phasers. A phaser would set off the alarms. Same reason they couldn't just lock on and beam me. They needed someone with real juice, which they didn't have.
"Before I got in position, one pig tried to grab me, but I kicked him good. He went down. Another hit me. Stupid pig. I fell down right in the perfect spot. I knew where the emitters had to be. He didn't knock me out. Dan said I was done, after I got where I was going I wouldn't remember any of this when they were finished with me." Jame waved the controller. "That's when I raised the force fields. Can you believe it? I could actually work this thing. When the alarms came on, they nearly pissed themselves! The three of them scooped up their buddy and ran off." She laughed through tears. "Everybody ran."
Jame looked below again and cried quietly. Kirk looked out, too. Night had fallen. The wind was colder. Emergency vehicles were crowded around the tower, but they could not get underneath.
Erickson was going to have Jame's memory erased? Kirk was shocked, but now he believed he understood the situation. He tried offering Jame hope. "Your uncle has vanished. Pulled a Houdini. But your messages were received.
Both of them! Starfleet is looking for him. He'll be found. The men he was using are already under arrest. When they intercepted you on your way to see the commodore, they were
not on official duty. They had no authority to detain you. This has been established by Starbase security. Those men weren't even in Dan's chain of command."
Jame was surprised, but she said, "Jim, they'll all close ranks. They can't be trusted. I know these pigs.
My uncle is one of them!" She gestured to the security controller. "Even without this, somehow, 'coincidentally,' all of the tower's security recorders were down for maintenance. I've had some time. I checked. It's my word against theirs! Plus, I hurt one of them. I think I broke his rib."
She regarded the device. "And, anyway, why didn't Dan know he had the phony? Why didn't they know I had the real one?"
Kirk considered her questions. "Maybe, he hadn't intended to use
his controller, to avoid having anything traced back to him, and he just never opened it. Regardless, deactivating security recorders is a serious offense. That's counting against them. Starfleet knows the recorders were sabotaged. It's being taken as evidence of guilt. Without an alert, their plan to cover their tracks could have worked. They didn't count on the alert and the audits that have followed. Everything that's been uncovered indicates you were acting in self-defense."
"But with the alert, they think I'm a
terrorist!"
"No." Kirk was firm. "The alert was automatic. Standard procedure. A
precaution. Starfleet knows you're no terrorist. Mendez would never have given me permission to come to the tower. I would not be allowed in here, alone with you. Jame, we're trying to save you!"
"Save me?"
Kirk waved his hand, indicating the open docking port.
"Jim, I'm not going to rehabilitation. I'm not going to prison!"
That hurt. But before he could respond, Kirk felt he had to face several critical questions.
He had to formally assess Jame's prospects. A judicial ruling was certain,
but would it lead to either of those outcomes? Kirk didn't believe it would, but he could not be absolutely certain how a court might rule, and there was still the gap between accusation and fact that needed to be closed.
Other considerations were even more difficult. How far was he willing to go to save Jame? If the only options were options that he thought she would reject, would he lie to her, to save her?
No! He found the idea repulsive. Honesty had worked so far.
Honesty begets honesty. Trust is hard to build, but easy to destroy. If she saw through a lie, it might provoke the response he was trying to protect her from. Jame had displayed remarkable strength and resourcefulness. She had not intended to choose self-destruction. Kirk believed she was considering it only because, after Erickson's attempt to falsely arrest her, she couldn't see any other
reasonable option. After Erickson's betrayal, how could Jame really know who to trust? Kirk had not consciously realized until then that he had come to Starbase 11 precisely to make sure that Jame
had reasonable options.
Kirk decided that the only way forward was to face the truth with her. That would have to begin with the premise of self-destruction. "Jame, I think it's our duty to survive. Death will come for every one of us, but we don't have to hurry it. Our only chance to experience life is before it comes. There's so much to discover before then. We can't come back, once we cross over. This is our only chance."
Kirk's communicator beeped twice. Jame nodded for him to answer. "Kirk here!"
"Jim, it's José." Mendez's voice was somewhat distorted.
The signal must be affected by the force fields. "I can read you, Commodore."
"Good. We've arrested Dan Erickson, aboard a freighter bound for the outer colonies. He and the others were beamed out by mercenaries. We got them, too! We need Jame to come in. We have to scan her. We need that evidence, Jim. Can you convince her to come in?"
"That's good news! I'll get back to you, sir. Kirk out."
Kirk closed his communicator. "Jame, did you hear that? Commodore Mendez wants to help."
"You mean, help lock away the
rest of my family? And
me, too. You think all these pigs will just let this go? I told you, I'm not going to prison!"
"I don't believe a Federation court will order you to prison,
or to a rehabilitation colony."
Jame stared defiantly at Kirk, but she said nothing.
Kirk had an idea. "Jame, will you let
me scan you?
"Oh, Jim!" More tears welled up. She rolled back from the ledge, sobbing heavily.
She might have lost her balance, sobbing on the ledge, but she rolled back! She wants to live! Kirk rolled back from the ledge and stood up. He was elated.
Jame stood and began wiping her face.
Kirk asked, "Do you trust me?"
"Jim, I trust you. You can't take anything from me that Dan didn't already take."
Kirk unslung Banning's tricorder and waited.
"Just do it," she said.
Kirk selected a full medical scan. After several seconds, the scan was complete. He shifted the tricorder to his left hand and opened his communicator. "Kirk to Mendez."
"José here."
"Commodore, I have the evidence you need." Kirk set his communicator down on a hangar console. He selected a secure starbase channel that the tricorder could read through the force fields, and set the tricorder to upload. "Transmitting."
"We're receiving." Half a minute passed.
"Dan Erickson's finished. Tell Jame, I'm sorry, but there will
have to be a formal hearing. I will vouch for her. I suppose the question is, will she trust us to stand with her?"
"Commodore, we'll have to earn that trust."
"I agree. We need the tower back, Jim."
"A few more minutes. Kirk out." Kirk put his communicator away and reslung the tricorder.
"Jame," Kirk said, "whatever you choose, I will fully support you." He smiled hopefully.
Jame was too exhausted to smile back. She said, "I won't jump today. I surrender. I hope my trust is not misplaced." She detached the controller and handed it to Kirk.
Captain's log, stardate 6227.2. Although we're following their likely course out of Federation space, sensors remain unable to detect any signs of the pirate vessel.
Ten minutes before going on duty, Spock rang the buzzer to the captain's quarters.
"Enter," Kirk said from inside his cabin, and the door slid open. Kirk was in uniform, seated at his library computer console. "Mister Spock, come in."
"Thank you, sir." Spock entered, and the door closed behind him.
"What's on your mind?"
Spock was marginally uncomfortable. "It's not within the scope of my duties to inquire, but you've never discussed the emergency involving Ms. Finney in any detail." Spock came to attention and allowed the implication that he had questions to remain unspoken.
Kirk projected polite bemusement. "Please continue."
Spock seemed concerned. "Are you satisfied with how the emergency was resolved?"
"You've read the report?"
"Yes, sir."
Kirk countered, "What do
you think?"
Spock tried to equivocate. "I'm not certain that I could endorse anyone's behavior—"
"Before abandoning her post, Inta Thorol was preparing to do Dan Erickson's bidding at the Tantalus extension. Jame was facing the horrifying, irreversible erasure of her personality, under the guise of color of authority, to cover up one of the most serious crimes against her that there could possibly be."
"That is beyond question," Spock agreed. "I am simply concerned that the sounding of a fleet-wide terror alert itself warrants a response meant to
increase security, rather than one that could encourage further breaches."
"You think the Federation has been too lenient with Jame?"
"Ms. Finney's right to claim self-defense notwithstanding, she
did commit several acts that the Starfleet Manual of Defense Protocols explicitly lists among its enumerated acts of terrorism. Is there precedent being established that actual terrorists might exploit for leniency?"
"You've answered your own question, Mr. Spock. Jame Finney was not an actual terrorist. There is no such precedent being established. Jame's need to defend herself
was exculpatory. Her behavior during the emergency was found by a Federation court to be
not criminal.
"No, the only people terrorizing anybody were the people threatening and abusing her.
When those entrusted with authority criminally abuse their positions, they become criminals who undermine the legitimacy of the state. This been a cornerstone of human law since the post-atomic horror. Starfleet Command would like nothing better than to lock them all away—Daniel Erickson especially—
and throw away the key. Their convictions have made the Federation more secure. Their sentencing can't come soon enough."
Spock silently accepted this.
Kirk became more contemplative. "Jame took quite a chance. If her uncle had known that she had taken his controller, it would have been his
duty as a Starfleet officer to arrest her. It would have given him a pretext to approach her as a hard target. But, if she hadn't taken possession of it, as it was, she would have lost, well,
everything. Jame's a brilliant young woman. She takes after her father." Kirk smiled. He could not hide his admiration for her.
"Indeed?" asked Spock.
"Only in her intellect! Otherwise, she's nothing like him," Kirk said with assurance.
"Good." As he often did, Spock came close to smiling.
"Thank you, Mister Spock. I'm satisfied by how the emergency has been resolved." Kirk smiled in appreciation for Spock's concern.
"Of course, sir. I'll see you on the bridge. Any orders?"
"Check with Starfleet Intelligence regarding activity near Orion space. I'll be up shortly."
"Aye, Captain," replied Spock, and he left.
Before going on duty, Kirk decided to watch Jame's letter once more. It was a letter that he hoped would be the first of many.
Jame stood in a lush meadow under a blue sky and smiled into the camera.
"Jim, I love it here! Your mother is wonderful...."
The End.
"Letters from Iowa" is dedicated to my brother, who provided many invaluable suggestions, to my father, who is sadly unable to read it but without whom it would never have been written, and to someone I love, who will never be whole.
Note — Certain guest characters appeared on episodes of the original series of
Star Trek. Jame Finney and her father Ben Finney appeared in "Court Martial" (first aired February 2, 1967). Commodore José Mendez appeared in "The Menagerie, Part I" (first aired November 17, 1966) and was present on Starbase 11 in "The Menagerie, Part II" (first aired November 24, 1966). During those events, the appearance of Mendez in the shuttlecraft and aboard the
Enterprise was an illusion. Dan Erickson, Banning, Webb, and Inta Thorol are my inventions.
Note — Starbase 11 was visited in both "Court Martial" and in "The Menagerie, Part I". I intend Mintaka Tower to resemble one of the unnamed towers that could be seen in the background during "The Menagerie, Part I". The penal colony on Tantalus V was the planetary setting in "Dagger of the Mind" (first aired November 3, 1966). The idea that Ben Finney was sentenced there and the idea that the hospital has at least one extension (that I intend to be on a planet outside the Tantalus star system, maybe even on the same planet that Starbase 11 is on) are my inventions.
