title: What Would Captain Kirk Do?: Intergalactic Wisdom from the Captain of the U.S.S. Enterprise (Star Trek)
author:  Brandon T. Snider 
description: Brandon T. Snider has written several licensed books for Penguin Young Readers, including <i>What Would Uncle Grandpa Do?</i>, <i>Game Night: Quips' Book of Questions, Puzzles &amp; Games</i>, and <i>Mordecai and the Rigbys: The Experience</i>. This is his first Star Trek book.
zlib_text: ## Prologue
  
  
  ### Hailing Frequencies
  
  
  U.S.S. ENTERPRISE NCC-1701
  
  
  STARDATE UNKNOWN
  
  
  Sometimes it was Harry Mudd, and sometimes it was Kodos. But this time, when
  the turbolift doors parted, it was the Gorn who charged him.
  
  
  Kirk stumbled backward as ivory claws slashed the air.
  
  
  He lost his footing, fell to the deck in the corridor of his ship, scrabbling
  back to avoid the inevitable.
  
  
  The Gorn advanced, one heavy, deliberate step after another. Its obsidian
  blade flashed with each strobe of the red-alert warning lights, gleamed with
  the deep, rich color of blood.
  
  
  “I weary of the chase.”
  
  
  Each word was guttural, hissed.
  
  
  “Wait for me… I shall be merciful and ssswift.”
  
  
  Kirk froze, no longer able to move, even to save himself. The Gorn towered
  over him, arm raised for the killing stroke, its muscles bunched beneath its
  scales. Its breath enveloped him with the stench of rotting meat, of death,
  defeat.
  
  
  But defeat was nothing Kirk could accept, and in his primal rejection of
  