The Captain's Oath (Star Trek: The Original Series)

by Christopher L. Bennett

“There’s no one else I trust the same way.” McCoy grunted. “You know how I feel about flattery, Jim.” “You eat it up.” “From an attractive young lady, sure. From you? I know better.”

“It was unwise to make him angry, Captain.” Kirk stared. “Make him angry? Isn’t that a Klingon’s default state?” “Even so, it’s a bad idea to make it worse.”

“Damn facts, always getting in the way.”

“It won’t be enough, sir.” He spun the chair and skewered the slender, pale-haired lieutenant with his gaze. “Never let yourself believe that. Never stop striving.”

“How are we going to approach them?” Diaz asked. “We’ve always been trained to avoid revealing ourselves to primitive cultures.” Sherev raised a finger. “First off, banish that word ‘primitive’ from your mind. It’s easy to build a civilization when you have transtators and dilithium circuits and bulk synthesizers. It takes a lot more ingenuity, insight, and patience to do it with wood and bronze and muscle power. We’re all just coasting on the hard work that our ‘primitive’ ancestors did in figuring out how to build civilization in the first place.”

“Look for the value in today, Jim. It’s what we do today that decides our tomorrows.”