STE!

HOME page> NEW STUFF page>
WRITING CONTENT page> GUEST ARTISTS page>

STAR TREK: THE EXPLOITS AND MADNESS OF CAPTAIN GARTH OF IZAR
Ponk Vonsydow
ponkvonsydow@gmail.com
Copyright © Ponk Vonsydow 2021
Ponk Vonsydow asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
This is a work of fiction. The names, characters, and incidents portrayed are based solely on the author's imagination.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopied, recorded or otherwise, without the prior permission of the author.

PROLOGUE
Consider the very distinguished and decorated career of Starfleet Captain Garth of Izar, a captain whose many successful missions and space battles are required reading at Starfleet Academy.

Garth charted and explored more new worlds than any other Starfleet captain before him. Early in his career during the conflicts with the Klingon Empire, during what became the Four Years War, Captain Garth aboard the USS Xenophon defeated Klingon Admiral Kkorhetza-Zatai-Riskai and his three Kilingon K'T'inga class battle cruisers. In another conflict with the Klingons Stardate: 2151, while Captain Garth was aboard the USS Heisenberg, Garth defeated another Klingon battle cruiser group consisting of two Klingon warships.

Captain Garth's most famous victory is known as "The Battle of Axanar." The Axanari people were greatly disappointed when the Federation refused to ratify their application to enter the Federation of Planets, due to the Axanari having inferior starships. The Axanari in a concerted effort to prove to the Federation they were worthy used their inferior starships to conquer two benevolent planets. Captain Garth was assigned duty and given the important mission to lead a Federation strike force to liberate the two planets the Axanari had conquered, while Garth was aboard the USS Constitution. Given that Captain Garth's strike force was greatly outnumbered it was a fierce battle, but Garth improvised several unheard of maneuvers that allowed him to lead the smaller Federation strike force to a famous victory. Garth's clever new battle maneuvers, were then made standard during the training of any new Starfleet captains and bridge crew personnel cadets.

What would ultimately cause the tragic downfall of Captain Garth's distinguished career, took place beginning at stardate: 2198 on the benevolent planet Antos V.

CHAPTER 1

Captain Garth was taking part in a standard landing party on the surface of Antos V, which at that time was thought to be uninhabited by any intelligent higher lifeforms. It was made impossible to run sensor probes of the planets surface or to beam down due to the planets upper atmosphere consisting of cascading ionized energy fields. Thus the landing party went to to the planets surface via a shuttlecraft.

It was standard procedure for the members of the landing party to check in each hour if they were separated from the group. It was when Captain Garth, who was separated from the group, failed to check in that the rest of his landing party became concerned for Garth's welfare and they began to conduct a search for him in the wooded area where Garth was last seen. A short time later one of the group discovered pieces of Garth's shredded uniform tunic with spots of fresh blood on them and there was more blood on the ground. The landing party then knew their captain must have been attacked, but why, or by who or what was unknown. The landing party spread out to search for Garth, but after several hours trying that, Garth was never found. The ionized atmosphere also rendered their tricorders useless for a long range scan so it was impossible to scan for Garth's life signs. A second shuttle craft arrived with a second landing party, who joined the desperate search to find their missing captain, but some 24 hours later Garth was still missing and they were forced to give up their search, return to the ship and depart, since the rest of their mission at Antos V had already been accomplished.

What Captain Garth's crew were unable to discover when Garth went missing was that Garth had been attacked by a vicious bearlike six legged reptile with a dense scaly hide and a fang filled gaping maw known as a makika. The makika attacked Garth, then while Garth was unconscious it dragged him to its underground lair, where it would wait for its dead prey to putrefy before it devoured Garth. Then the makika left its prey to rot and went elsewhere presumably to continue hunting.

It was a fortunate stroke of sheer luck that two Antosian hunters who had been tracking that particular makika to its cave discovered the still unconscious and badly wounded and bloody Garth. One of the humanoids threw Garth over his shoulder as a soldier would do, and they took turns carrying Garth out of the canyon, a three hour hike to the entrance to the tunnel that would take them underground to their subterranean city. Garth himself while being carried regained a semblance of consciousness. He should have died from his injuries, but Garth used his strong force of will to continue to survive despite how badly wounded he was.

The hunters brought the badly injured man to the healers. They lay him down on a soft stuffed mattress and put a blanket over him. Garth saw two humanoid women with light grey skin and white hair kneeling at his side. Garth figured he wouldn't be able to understand their alien language, but then he began to hear voices in his head, women's voices he could understand. One of the voices said:

"We are the healers. We are here to heal you."

Then one of the women placed both her hands on Garth's temples. Soon after, weird thoughts began to flood into his mind. This lasted about five minutes. After that he heard a woman's voice say:

"Now you may heal thy self!"

Garth was puzzled. He thought:

"What? Heal myself? Oh..."

It was at that juncture Garth realized in his mind he thought he knew what to try next to heal his self indeed. Garth began to concentrate and what he then knew was two serious internal injuries. A ruptured spleen and a collapsed lung. Garth closed his eyes and concentrated on his torso. He felt his innards beginning to tingle and a warm sensation inside his abdomen and chest. Then a few minutes later the pain in his guts subsided and he was able to breath normally without gasping for air.

Next Garth focused his attention on his four amputated fingers. He wondered:

"Let's find out if I can will my fingers to grow back!"

Garth concentrated on his stump. Soon enough he felt his stump begin to tingle and both his hands felt warm. Then as he studied his hands to his amazement he watched as fresh finger bones sprouted out of the four stumps, then tendons and muscles grew to encase the finger bones until they were covered in skin and his four missing fingers had grown back complete with fingernails and finger prints!
On to Next Page>