A SEA OF TROUBLES: KODOS THE EXECUTIONER Part 1

During 2246, 13-year-old Jim Kirk spent 8 months on the Tarsus IV colony. He was there when Governor Nikos Kodos arbitrarily murdered 4000 residents, in the process becoming known as Kodos the Executioner, one of the most reviled villains of all time. This excerpt recounts Jim Kirk’s eyewitness look at one of the 23rd centuries most notorious crimes.

EXCERPT OF CHAPTER THREE: A SEA OF TROUBLES

PART ONE

On the morning of October 12^th, 2246 Jim Kirk woke to the sound of loudspeakers outside his window. The voice that blared from the public address system directed all colonists to assemble in Voltemand Square, just a quarter mile from the hostel where the young boy was sleeping. A few minutes later, Kirk joined the thousands of weak and emaciated colonists skittering towards the city center. On the street there was a corpse, dead of starvation, crooked awkwardly against a street sign; even so, hope was on everyone’s lips, as rumors passed between them that a new storehouse of food had been discovered, or that a supply ship had arrived during the night. Visions of new rations and packages of fruits, vegetables and meats ran through their starved minds.

Jim Kirk was not so certain that this would be the end to their troubles. In the crowd he found his friend Tom Leighton, who was convinced that Governor Kodos would announce some imminent salvation on the horizon. “We thought it was good news – the assembly. That we were at the end of our ordeal.”(1) In the square many older people sat on the street and cried. “Most of the colonists were broken,” Jim said, “and everyone desperately wanted good news.”(2)

 

Governor of Tarsus IV Nikos Kodos, known to history as Kodos, The Executioner.

Appearing on the visi-screen, Kodos addressed the assembled mass of 8000 people. It was not the good news anyone was hoping for. “As of today, star date 2794.7, I am declaring martial law within the colony of Tarsus IV. It is necessary for the safety and security of our colony as we implement measures to resolve the problem we find ourselves in,” he began. “Our first order of business is to divide into work teams. There is much left to be accomplished.” Kodos then asked each colonist to consult their personal data device, which would tell them the location where they should report. Almost half the population – roughly 4000 people – was directed to stay in Voltemand Square, while the rest were dispersed to three other locations. Most were weak and more disheartened than ever, but they followed the order, clearing the area within a few minutes. Tom Leighton and his parents were among the people assigned to stay behind, and Jim told his friend that he’d see him later.

Walking to his destination, Jim Kirk’s natural inclination against authority pulled at the back of his neck. “I had a feeling something was wrong. I couldn’t follow that order just because the governor said so.”(3) Directed to go immediately to a hospital building a mile away, he instead lingered just outside the square with a small knot of other colonists. “We were talking about what might happen next, and if Kodos was right to impose martial law. Then we heard his voice over the loudspeaker again.” Directly in front of the 4000 assembled residents of Tarsus IV, the governor took the microphone. Later that night Jim Kirk wrote down the words that were indelibly etched in his memory from that day forward:

“The revolution is successful, but survival depends on drastic measures. Your continued existence represents a threat to the well being of the society. Your lives mean slow death to the more valued members of the colony. Therefore I have no alternative but to sentence you to death. Your execution is so ordered.”(4)

At this moment a dumbfounded silence fell over the crowd. Most thought they hadn’t heard Kodos correctly, or simply couldn’t believe the order. Almost instantly, however, the whine of phaser fire rang out and the acrid smell of disintegrating bodies dispersed through the air. Across the square people were disappearing wholesale as the beams of Kodos’ security force swept through the crowd. Most tried to run, but the soldiers vaporized them as they bunched together, or as they fell over the remaining limbs and torsos of their fellow colonists. A few of the men who were still near the square tried to intervene and were destroyed for their effort. The 14-year-old future captain scrambled to get out of the pack and go to the aid of his friend Tom Leighton, but just as he broke free a hand grabbed him by the collar and pulled him back. “I don’t know who that man was,” he later mused. “I’m not sure if I hate him or want to thank him, but he saved my life that day.”(5) As the mass execution continued, Kirk and seven others watched silently together as Governor Kodos himself also stepped forward to personally kill men, women and children as they tried to flee the horror around them.

Within four minutes it was done. Over 4000 people had vanished from existence, with nothing more than a few body parts left behind, and the pervasive odor of the cellular disruption of human flesh stagnant in Jim Kirk’s nostrils. The young boy threw up, then sat on the street and cried.(6) Of the 4000 remaining colonists, only a handful of eyewitnesses lived to tell the story of Kodos’ direct participation in the mass murders on Tarsus IV; in that moment they joined a club that eventually became the galaxy’s most dangerous survivors group.

Kodos now broadcast a message to the remaining residents, locked away in their designated holding areas. He attempted to offer comfort, and to construct the story that his actions had been the only possible solution to their troubles. “What has been done is terrible, but it is for the greater good. We are now strong and viable as a community to endure the coming winter. Tonight, food will be distributed and we can begin the process of our continued survival.” Weak and malnourished, the remaining colonists were in no position to turn on their ruthless leaders. When Kotos’ men came along to offer rations, hundreds refused to eat at the expense of their dead friends and family members. In the next days scores died exactly where they sat after hearing of the murders. Jim Kirk likewise refused to eat, relenting only when he discovered that his friend Tom Leighton had survived the onslaught. “I don’t know how he got out, but I found Tom the following day. I think someone just carried him out of there,” he said in an interview years later. “Half of his face was gone – family dead; absolutely awful. But it gave me the strength to go on. I wound up taking most of my rations to him.” Then his voice flattened into a monotone: “I guess they didn’t need to kill him after the deed was already done.”(7)

Anger overwhelmed Jim in the days after the murders. The deep wellspring of temper that he had successfully controlled since his father’s death now came forth with frightening force. After years of exercising an embargo on his violent emotions because of George’s disapproval, he now saw no reason to hide them. The boy’s hatred was so pervasive that he thought hard about killing Kodos, if he could get close enough. At that moment, his own fate didn’t matter to him – if he lived, died, was imprisoned or became a hero, he would take what came with the satisfaction of the knowledge that justice – at least in his mind – would be served. Over the next two days he was consumed with rage against the man who had destroyed so many friends. “Before the murders, Jim and I were just boys,” Tom Leighton said. “After that our youth was gone. It always happens when you first see life the way it really is.”(8)

Jim Kirk’s hatred did not entirely cloud his thinking mind. It was here that he began to consider the very idea of the possession and exercise of power. As a result of this scarring event in his youth, the mature Jim Kirk harbored a deep dislike and suspicion of autocratic, tyrannical men. He had seen the deadly corruption of power, and projected this experience on the hearts of those he saw making rules designed to suit themselves and not others. As a Star Fleet captain he was often indignant of world leaders and societies he considered dangerously arbitrary or dogmatic. More than once his actions against this type of authority nearly resulted in his ouster from Star Fleet, but Jim Kirk made no apologies for his effort to allow beings of other worlds the opportunity for self-determination. He was never able to recognize that others could interpret his own occasional subjective imposition of will as the selfsame problem.

Shortly, the anger and loathing of Jim and the other survivors had nowhere to go. On October 14^th, came grimly ironic news in the form of a sub-space message from the Star Fleet vessel U.S.S. Titus. They were en route to Tarsus IV, and would arrive in two days with relief packages and medical care. No one had needed to die. 4000 souls were vaporized for no reason at all.

The meager remains of 4000 victims of the Tarsus IV massacre being prepared for removal.

With the revelation of the imminent arrival of Star Fleet, order began to break down almost immediately. The security crews involved in the slaughter at the square dispersed into hiding, taking with them the untainted supplies they had hoarded inside the governor’s mansion. Two committed suicide on the very spot where they had murdered their fellow colonists. Kodos himself was nowhere to be found, until a group of survivors – including Jim Kirk – broke into the mansion looking for stores of food. There they found two badly burned bodies, assumed to be Kodos and his wife Auneea. “I didn’t feel any satisfaction in it,” he said. “I wanted to see him pay. I wanted everyone to see it. It just made me angrier.”(9)

By the time the Titus arrived on October 16th, only 3868 people were left of the 8042 recorded in a census only four months earlier. The Star Fleet ship quickly stabilized the situation, feeding the colonists and providing medical care for the elderly and very young. It is fortunate that the impressionable 14-year-old Jim Kirk, who saw the corruption of power in such brutal extreme, was also able to observe the positive aspects of that same power. The Titus crew made an immediate impression on the future diplomat. “Captain Chiron took charge with such clear moral authority – he gave everyone confidence. I knew right then, that this was the kind of career I wanted. To be out in the world, helping people in distress, working for something good.”(10)

It would not be unwarranted to say that the awful events on Tarsus IV and their aftermath pointed Jim Kirk towards his future path as a great adventurer and explorer. Since his father died he was a rudderless young boy without the individual tools or proper outside influence to find his way. Here was a confluence of events – tragedy and rescue – that unlocked his heretofore-unobserved wellspring of compassion, and gave him a glimpse into a world where his desire for personal control could be a positive characteristic of his life. The direct, unambiguous need for rules and regulations – and the ability to rely on them – was enormously comforting to Jim Kirk. His road to Star Fleet had begun.

Read part 2 of this chapter HERE.

1) Interview with Tom Leighton, Tarsus IV colony, October 18^th, 2247

2) Interview with Jim Kirk [Age 14], Tarsus IV colony, October 16^th, 2247

3) ibid

4) Jim Kirk’s handwritten transcript of Governor Nikos Kotos’ proclamation, file of the Tarsus IV massacre, Star Fleet library

5) Psyche profile interview, Star Fleet records, 2255

6) Kirk, 10/16/2247

7) B. Trivers, The Play’s the Thing: The Last Act of Kotos, the Executioner, etherbase, 2288

8) ibid

9) Audio pac of psychologist session with Jim Kirk, U.S.S. Titus, October 21, 2247

10) Star Fleet entrance interview of Jim Kirk, May 12, 2250