Free The Autobiography of James T. Kirk by David A. Goodman Page B

called
koshi garuma.
I was serving as an instructor in Hand-to-Hand Combat, and Gary Mitchell, a first-year cadet, was my problem student. It didn’t seem to bother him that he was going to wash out of my class. Probably because it wasn’t the only class he was going to fail.
    It was my third year, I’d been promoted to cadet lieutenant, and Mitchell was in my squad. He was everything I wasn’t: charming, gregarious, rough, and a little reckless. I had been leaning into him, hoping to shake loose a little intellect, but I wasn’t having much success. I had a feeling at that time that Mitchell wouldn’t make it through.
    I was at the Finneys’ home one night and mentioned it to Ben.
    “Let him wash out,” Ben said. “Who needs another loser graduating?”
    Ben was now in his second year as a postgraduate instructor, and the academy had just asked him to stay on for a third. Unlike Finney, many computer specialists could often be notoriously bad teachers, which is why he was so valuable to the academy. But he’d watched two graduating classes leave him behind, and now he would see a third; it was starting to get under his skin.
    His baby, Jamie, however, seemed to do a lot to soften his mood. Ben had said he wanted a son, but didn’t seem at all disappointed in having a daughter. It had come as quite a shock when he and Naomi told me that they were naming their first child after me, and it made me feel more attached to them as a family. I leaned on them during those years after I broke up with Ruth. Aside from a couple of casual relationships, Ben and Naomi became my one major social outlet, as I threw myself into my studies. (I found out later that some underclassman had dubbed me a “stack of books with legs,” which I would only criticize as not being particularly clever.)

    In any event, it was soon time to submit Mitchell’s grade. I spoke to his other instructors; though he was passing most of his classes, he was going to fail his Philosophy of Religion course. That and another failing grade from me would lead to expulsion. I weighed the decision seriously and finally decided to pass him. Maybe I had softened on him, maybe I just liked him, but whatever the reasons, I would not regret that decision.
    The following summer, I was part of a flying exercise of two squadrons of five craft each; we were flying academy trainers, the century-old Starfleet surplus shuttle pods, with basic instrumentation and updated piloting software. I had rated high on piloting, so by my third year I had my own squadron, and Gary was in it. We were out near Earth’s moon, learning to operate in its gravity well. I was in the second squadron; my old roommate Adam Castro led the first. Our job was to follow them, stay within ten kilometers, and imitate their maneuvers as closely as possible. Castro acted the role of hotshot pilot, so he wasn’t making it easy. There was also a little bit of competition between the two squadrons, which I did my best to tamp down.
    We were doing a fair job of following, until their final maneuver. They lined up wingtip to wingtip, forming a three-dimensional loop. We imitated the maneuver, when I noticed something on one of my scanners. Gary noticed it too.
    “Cobra Five to Cobra Leader,” he said, “they’re opening their coolant interlocks. Do we follow suit?”
    “Cobra Leader to Cobra Group, do not, I say again, do not follow suit,” I said. I could see what Castro was up to and I didn’t like it.
    “But they’re accelerating, pulling ahead,” Gary said. “You know what they’re doing, don’t you?”
    “Yes, I do,” I said. “Cobra Leader to Cobra Group, I repeat, keep your coolant interlocks closed. Engines to all stop; we’ll wait here until they finish.”
    The ships of the other squadron spun, moved inward on the circle, and vented plasma. As they passed each other inside the circle, the plasma ignited. The maneuver, called a Kolvoord Starburst, usually ended as the ships