Star Trek: The Original Series - 162 - Shadow of the Machine
Page 10
“What if it’s a situation he’s never experienced before, one which his crew has no experience of?” Peter asked.
Kirk confessed, “I wing it.”
This made the boy laugh, and the sound was like music to Kirk’s ears. It sounded like the laugh of someone who hadn’t laughed in a long time.
“If I succeed at the Academy, do you think I could command my own ship?” Peter asked.
“Yes, I think you could.”
From somewhere beyond the trees Kirk could hear the sound of the shuttlecraft approaching, and he reached down to pick his bag up off the ground.
They moved back as the shuttle maneuvered itself onto the patch of ground in front of them, kicking up spumes of dust.
Once it was down, Kirk climbed aboard, stopping only to hand his bag to an ensign. He turned back to Peter. “Courage isn’t about not being afraid, it’s about being afraid but doing the right thing. Your father was afraid of going to the Academy, leaving his family, and of being so far from home. But look what he found: your mother and then you. He was courageous, and from what I saw the other day, so are you. Please think about it, Peter.”
“What about you?” Peter shouted over the noise of the engines.
“What about me?” Kirk asked.
“Were you afraid too?”
Kirk thought carefully about the question.
“Terrified,” he shouted back, although he was smiling at the memories.
The Galileo lifted off from the ground and performed a neat pirouette in the air. Peter Kirk stood and watched it accelerate sharply over the trees before it disappeared.
Acknowledgments
Once again thanks are in order to a string of very kind and talented people, without whom this book would not be in your hands . . .
A hearty thanks must go to Una McCormack, James Swallow, Paul Simpson, Robert Dick, Lee Harris, Margaret Clark, and Ed Schlesinger, all of whom we shall file here under the heading “Support Team.”
Also thanks to Margaret and Ken Harrison and Bill and Janet Croke for tea, cakes, Sunday lunches, games nights, and for not being too cross when I was too busy to turn up for family gatherings.
And, most of all, to my wife, Linzi, for her seemingly limitless patience, support, and love.
About the Author
Scott Harrison is an award-winning scriptwriter and novelist whose books include the Capcom novel Remember Me: The Pandora Archive, Blake’s 7: Archangel, and the forthcoming hard-SF novella Fall of Tithonus for Tor Books. For audio he has written the New York Award–winning play Sometime Never, The Confessions of Dorian Gray: The Houses In Between, and Blake’s 7: Epitaph. He lives by the sea with his wife and an ever-growing stack of books that he’ll probably never get around to reading.
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
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ISBN 978-1-4767-5635-6
Contents
Historian’s Note
Epigraph
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Acknowledgments
About the Author