Summary : The father of James Kirk thinks this will be a big day. He has no idea. Set in the Ancient Destroyer Universe, and part of the July Writing challenge involving Kaiju.
George And The Dragon
by Rob Morris
"Oh, I can feel it, coming in the air tonight, Oh Lord; And I've been waiting for this moment, for all my life, Oh Lord..."Phil Collins
DECEMBER 8TH, 2255, THE AREA OF SPACE PURPORTED TO ONCE HOLD THE VULCANIA COLONY
USS CONSTITUTION, NCC-1700, FLEET CAPTAIN ROBERT APRIL, COMMANDING
Today was the due date, George remembered. The day his eldest son and the girl who had been like a daughter to him were set to expand the Kirk family into the next generation--with the aid of his youngest son, providing the material robbed from the elder by an accident.
George Samuel Kirk would, on that day, become a grandfather for the very first time.
"Ahem---I said you are relieved, Mister Kirk."
Apparently, this thought was one that had caused Commander Kirk to commit a serious breach of protocol.
"I stand relieved, Captain April---and sorry, Bob."
April did not look at all annoyed.
"I suppose new grandfathers can be forgiven for thinking of wails instead of hails. Anything of note, Number One?"
Distracted or not, First Officer Kirk would never forget his duties. In fact, there was not a single officer on board who was not of command caliber. And yet, this was a very sad thing.
"Our gravimetric anomaly keeps playing hide and seek with us. Sciences honestly can't say whether it played a role in the vanishing of Vulcania. It could be that it diminished over time, and that it had once had the power to do so."
April checked some of the readings and shook his head.
"It's been stable enough while we chased it--if chased is the right word. George, what if it's not an anomaly? What if it's an enemy superweapon?"
It was Kirk's turn to play skeptic.
"The Klingons would have used it again, especially if it was first tested a century ago. Same for the Kzin. If it was the Orions, they'd have sold it to everybody by now. Vulcania Colony had no strategic value, at least not in and of anything accomplished by its simple erasure."
April knew this as well. Vulcania Colony and its disappearance were naturally of great interest to Earth's earliest partner and co-founder of the Federation. But this importance was magnified greatly by the fact that two of its residents had been the son and daughter-in-law of Sra Sra T'Pau, and thereby the parents of the current Vulcan Ambassador At Large, Sarek. No one knew how Sarek had reached Vulcan as an infant. This expedition was an effort to clear up that and many other mysteries.
"Captain, XO? I think we have a bead on our anomaly."
"Pursuit course, Mister Hollister. Miss Drew, adjust heading. Time-Warp Factor Five."
Hollister's telescoping mechanism read off his optically-induced commands while Drew checked the way ahead of them, confirming their path from navigation.
"Answering pursuit course, Captain."
George yielded the chair and his off-duty time in one stroke.
*Whatever you are, you better not keep me from hearing about my grandkid. That I won't forgive.*
Kirk called on the next logical station.
"Mister Hardy?"
Science Officer Hardy was as good as any of them, and again, this was not as positive a thing as it seemed.
"Sensors indicate that the anomaly is still shifting in location, with a general pattern of---"
Hardy turned away from his station and shouted.
"It's turning towards us at matching speed!"
April sat down in the seat he had not wanted but felt forced to accept.
"May we live in interesting times. Full about, let's not let this thing take us by..."
The crew of the USS Constitution was made up entirely of people who should have been at least two ranks higher. For this George Samuel Kirk, Senior blamed himself.
"Something's hitting us---energy that's just bypassing our shields like they weren't even there!"
As a cadet and then a young journeyman officer, Kirk had opposed the construction of a separate headquarters for Admirals known as Admiralty Hall. He felt strongly that it was against Starfleet tradition to have those issuing the commands so far removed from those who received them. George had been at the forefront of a turbulent, but honest debate about Starfleet's future.
"It's coming at us from three batteries--wait, those aren't batteries..."
But George's opponents intended there be no debate, and they were not at all honest. The construction of the Hall kept getting approved by back-room and back-door maneuvers until it could not be stopped. Kirk's opponent in all this, both public debate and private games, Cadet John Gill, was at the forefront of an ancient and xenophobic order that thought of the Federation as a fiction waiting to fall apart as each species sought supremacy in an apocalypse to come.
"These readings don't make any sense. It's like that anomaly doesn't have to bother with most of the laws of physics."
The effect was incremental but immediate. Anyone like Kirk who had opposed the Hall's construction was of course considered career-dead. But it got worse as, with each incident involving Federation casualties on the frontier, Admirals once opposed to the Hall began to walk in step with them. For the Order Of The Ancient Destroyer was nothing if not adept at exploiting fears that normally would have been overridden by cooler heads.
"That thing's definitely a construct, except I think Barian'dso, Stephen King and HP Lovecraft were on the crew that constructed it."
Advancement for anyone who openly criticized the Hall's influence simply crawled to a stop. Slowly, the Hall went from merely a gathering place to a power unto itself, mainly because the Federation Council in Paris had been promised a quiet Starfleet in exchange for not codifying the division of powers between the Hall and the CIC's office. Very soon, the Hall would be issuing policies in its own name.
"The discharge is like gravimetric lightning---and it's not coming from all three batteries, just the middle one--not that this helps us--hull breaches on seven decks! Two are completely open to space--localized force-fields inadequate."
Back when he commanded the USS Enterprise, Captain April had seen the writing on the wall. His first choice as XO-Kirk-had been refused in favor of Christopher Pike. Pike had been a good man, but it looked like he too was to advance no further. Add to that, Heichiaro Nogura, another great young officer, had been kept from even advancing in the ranks.
"George, I'm very close to giving one of two orders. But will either do any good? If we evacuate, where the hell do we go? If we blow ourselves up, do we have any guarantee that it will so much as bloody the nose of that thing?"
So April, Kirk and a group of officers feigned failing in a mission that required Pike and Nogura to step up. Pike became Captain Of The Enterprise, while Nogura, who had shown talent in keeping Earth colonies from signing on to an aggressor power's proxy during the crisis, became Commissioner Of Colonial Affairs. As their enemies laughed and cheered, April and Kirk seized the day and called due on every last favor they were ever owed, from the simple to those that verged on extortion. The result was that the Constitution itself, the prototype for the line, was not mothballed but rather refitted, making it a home for the talent the Hall now sought to exclude for 'mushy' thinking on the 'challenge' presented by alien cultures.
"Advise we stay and fight, sir. Escape pods are going to be even more vulnerable to what's happening out there."
The price to George himself had been far greater. The Order had recruited his sister-in-law Brianna, who then murdered her twin sister Winona and became his wife. George had felt no choice but to marry her. Winona had been pregnant when she died, and Bri made sure to have those embryos kept viable. Sam she had browbeaten until his confidence and self-esteem was shattered. Jim she had beaten into a coma at least once that he knew of. Even his assemblage of the Fleet's Commodore's had devolved into a mere complaining club whose opposition to the Hall would be meaningless if it did not draw their enemies into a real court fight. Yes, George Kirk blamed himself for the end of these officers' careers, for failing to recognize the fight for what it really was. Now, he would also blame himself for something else. The ship shook as never before.
"There's something different about this new beam---My God, that thing out there is organ---"
Green flames burst out from every console and every station and every floor panel on the ship. People were erased where they stood, some barely seeing the green or feeling the flame as it happened. Robert April, venerable figure of space exploration, was among those killed in less than a heartbeat.
"No! NO PLEASE NOT AGAIN!!"
George Kirk suddenly found himself the only man on a dead ship.
"Did--did something just take out a working Constitution-Class in one shot?"
Not bothering to hide his great secret any longer, Kirk worked at insane speeds to get at least the ship's viewer on line. If his ship was to fall, some record of what they faced would be somehow saved.
"Bobby--I'm sorry--all of you---"
Kirk achieved his goal, and the rounded viewscreen lit up.
"That--that's just not possible."
Before him, so large that anti-magnification factors had to be put in play, was indeed something organic--or perhaps it was a parody of life. What looked like wings but moved behind and propelled the creature where there was no air. A body rendered in scales that should have been easily scattered with ship's phasers on low stood ready to survive a star gone nova. Then there were the beast's three heads. The right one was machine-looking, silvery and cold-looking. The middle-one was golden and sleek, like a perfect statue come to life. The right one looked like a banana left to rot inside a corpse. Over countless eons, it had gathered an equally countless amount of names to itself. George knew the taunting monster from legends taught to him by his family guardian.
"GHIDORAH!!!!"
As the thing flew off, leaving the irrelevant starship in its wake, George began to slave all ship's functions to a few controls on the Bridge.
"To coin a phrase, monster, you let me live. It's something you'll regret."
TO BE CONTINUED
George And The Dragon
by Rob Morris
"Oh, I can feel it, coming in the air tonight, Oh Lord; And I've been waiting for this moment, for all my life, Oh Lord..."Phil Collins
DECEMBER 8TH, 2255, THE AREA OF SPACE PURPORTED TO ONCE HOLD THE VULCANIA COLONY
USS CONSTITUTION, NCC-1700, FLEET CAPTAIN ROBERT APRIL, COMMANDING
Today was the due date, George remembered. The day his eldest son and the girl who had been like a daughter to him were set to expand the Kirk family into the next generation--with the aid of his youngest son, providing the material robbed from the elder by an accident.
George Samuel Kirk would, on that day, become a grandfather for the very first time.
"Ahem---I said you are relieved, Mister Kirk."
Apparently, this thought was one that had caused Commander Kirk to commit a serious breach of protocol.
"I stand relieved, Captain April---and sorry, Bob."
April did not look at all annoyed.
"I suppose new grandfathers can be forgiven for thinking of wails instead of hails. Anything of note, Number One?"
Distracted or not, First Officer Kirk would never forget his duties. In fact, there was not a single officer on board who was not of command caliber. And yet, this was a very sad thing.
"Our gravimetric anomaly keeps playing hide and seek with us. Sciences honestly can't say whether it played a role in the vanishing of Vulcania. It could be that it diminished over time, and that it had once had the power to do so."
April checked some of the readings and shook his head.
"It's been stable enough while we chased it--if chased is the right word. George, what if it's not an anomaly? What if it's an enemy superweapon?"
It was Kirk's turn to play skeptic.
"The Klingons would have used it again, especially if it was first tested a century ago. Same for the Kzin. If it was the Orions, they'd have sold it to everybody by now. Vulcania Colony had no strategic value, at least not in and of anything accomplished by its simple erasure."
April knew this as well. Vulcania Colony and its disappearance were naturally of great interest to Earth's earliest partner and co-founder of the Federation. But this importance was magnified greatly by the fact that two of its residents had been the son and daughter-in-law of Sra Sra T'Pau, and thereby the parents of the current Vulcan Ambassador At Large, Sarek. No one knew how Sarek had reached Vulcan as an infant. This expedition was an effort to clear up that and many other mysteries.
"Captain, XO? I think we have a bead on our anomaly."
"Pursuit course, Mister Hollister. Miss Drew, adjust heading. Time-Warp Factor Five."
Hollister's telescoping mechanism read off his optically-induced commands while Drew checked the way ahead of them, confirming their path from navigation.
"Answering pursuit course, Captain."
George yielded the chair and his off-duty time in one stroke.
*Whatever you are, you better not keep me from hearing about my grandkid. That I won't forgive.*
Kirk called on the next logical station.
"Mister Hardy?"
Science Officer Hardy was as good as any of them, and again, this was not as positive a thing as it seemed.
"Sensors indicate that the anomaly is still shifting in location, with a general pattern of---"
Hardy turned away from his station and shouted.
"It's turning towards us at matching speed!"
April sat down in the seat he had not wanted but felt forced to accept.
"May we live in interesting times. Full about, let's not let this thing take us by..."
The crew of the USS Constitution was made up entirely of people who should have been at least two ranks higher. For this George Samuel Kirk, Senior blamed himself.
"Something's hitting us---energy that's just bypassing our shields like they weren't even there!"
As a cadet and then a young journeyman officer, Kirk had opposed the construction of a separate headquarters for Admirals known as Admiralty Hall. He felt strongly that it was against Starfleet tradition to have those issuing the commands so far removed from those who received them. George had been at the forefront of a turbulent, but honest debate about Starfleet's future.
"It's coming at us from three batteries--wait, those aren't batteries..."
But George's opponents intended there be no debate, and they were not at all honest. The construction of the Hall kept getting approved by back-room and back-door maneuvers until it could not be stopped. Kirk's opponent in all this, both public debate and private games, Cadet John Gill, was at the forefront of an ancient and xenophobic order that thought of the Federation as a fiction waiting to fall apart as each species sought supremacy in an apocalypse to come.
"These readings don't make any sense. It's like that anomaly doesn't have to bother with most of the laws of physics."
The effect was incremental but immediate. Anyone like Kirk who had opposed the Hall's construction was of course considered career-dead. But it got worse as, with each incident involving Federation casualties on the frontier, Admirals once opposed to the Hall began to walk in step with them. For the Order Of The Ancient Destroyer was nothing if not adept at exploiting fears that normally would have been overridden by cooler heads.
"That thing's definitely a construct, except I think Barian'dso, Stephen King and HP Lovecraft were on the crew that constructed it."
Advancement for anyone who openly criticized the Hall's influence simply crawled to a stop. Slowly, the Hall went from merely a gathering place to a power unto itself, mainly because the Federation Council in Paris had been promised a quiet Starfleet in exchange for not codifying the division of powers between the Hall and the CIC's office. Very soon, the Hall would be issuing policies in its own name.
"The discharge is like gravimetric lightning---and it's not coming from all three batteries, just the middle one--not that this helps us--hull breaches on seven decks! Two are completely open to space--localized force-fields inadequate."
Back when he commanded the USS Enterprise, Captain April had seen the writing on the wall. His first choice as XO-Kirk-had been refused in favor of Christopher Pike. Pike had been a good man, but it looked like he too was to advance no further. Add to that, Heichiaro Nogura, another great young officer, had been kept from even advancing in the ranks.
"George, I'm very close to giving one of two orders. But will either do any good? If we evacuate, where the hell do we go? If we blow ourselves up, do we have any guarantee that it will so much as bloody the nose of that thing?"
So April, Kirk and a group of officers feigned failing in a mission that required Pike and Nogura to step up. Pike became Captain Of The Enterprise, while Nogura, who had shown talent in keeping Earth colonies from signing on to an aggressor power's proxy during the crisis, became Commissioner Of Colonial Affairs. As their enemies laughed and cheered, April and Kirk seized the day and called due on every last favor they were ever owed, from the simple to those that verged on extortion. The result was that the Constitution itself, the prototype for the line, was not mothballed but rather refitted, making it a home for the talent the Hall now sought to exclude for 'mushy' thinking on the 'challenge' presented by alien cultures.
"Advise we stay and fight, sir. Escape pods are going to be even more vulnerable to what's happening out there."
The price to George himself had been far greater. The Order had recruited his sister-in-law Brianna, who then murdered her twin sister Winona and became his wife. George had felt no choice but to marry her. Winona had been pregnant when she died, and Bri made sure to have those embryos kept viable. Sam she had browbeaten until his confidence and self-esteem was shattered. Jim she had beaten into a coma at least once that he knew of. Even his assemblage of the Fleet's Commodore's had devolved into a mere complaining club whose opposition to the Hall would be meaningless if it did not draw their enemies into a real court fight. Yes, George Kirk blamed himself for the end of these officers' careers, for failing to recognize the fight for what it really was. Now, he would also blame himself for something else. The ship shook as never before.
"There's something different about this new beam---My God, that thing out there is organ---"
Green flames burst out from every console and every station and every floor panel on the ship. People were erased where they stood, some barely seeing the green or feeling the flame as it happened. Robert April, venerable figure of space exploration, was among those killed in less than a heartbeat.
"No! NO PLEASE NOT AGAIN!!"
George Kirk suddenly found himself the only man on a dead ship.
"Did--did something just take out a working Constitution-Class in one shot?"
Not bothering to hide his great secret any longer, Kirk worked at insane speeds to get at least the ship's viewer on line. If his ship was to fall, some record of what they faced would be somehow saved.
"Bobby--I'm sorry--all of you---"
Kirk achieved his goal, and the rounded viewscreen lit up.
"That--that's just not possible."
Before him, so large that anti-magnification factors had to be put in play, was indeed something organic--or perhaps it was a parody of life. What looked like wings but moved behind and propelled the creature where there was no air. A body rendered in scales that should have been easily scattered with ship's phasers on low stood ready to survive a star gone nova. Then there were the beast's three heads. The right one was machine-looking, silvery and cold-looking. The middle-one was golden and sleek, like a perfect statue come to life. The right one looked like a banana left to rot inside a corpse. Over countless eons, it had gathered an equally countless amount of names to itself. George knew the taunting monster from legends taught to him by his family guardian.
"GHIDORAH!!!!"
As the thing flew off, leaving the irrelevant starship in its wake, George began to slave all ship's functions to a few controls on the Bridge.
"To coin a phrase, monster, you let me live. It's something you'll regret."
TO BE CONTINUED
I found myself enjoying the story as I struggled to wrap my mind around it. This was a very good (and very strange) AU story that fit the challenge theme well. Great work! 
