Date: 09 Sep 2011 02:53 Title: A Word of Memory
Hmm...the opening narration--the way you spoke directly to the reader rather than as part of the rest of the narrative--reminded me of what you used to see Rod Serling do at the beginning of The Twilight Zone. Not sure whether you intentionally went for that effect, but it gave this a very retro feel to it.
You have a very strong focus on the relationship between Kirk and Spock, and that's a plus here. That is what kept me reading all the way to the end, because there are very strong relationships between the characters on TOS and DS9, and you seem to have a very good handle on that.
I admit, however, that I would've liked to see a little more than just the handwave at the undisclosed motivations of the Orion miners (not minors, as you spelled it), and some of the other parts of the plot...how the rescue happened, why there were no diplomatic ramifications for this happening in the middle of such a major conference (that's a huge breakdown in security and you would expect Starfleet to react to that and not just treat it as no big deal).
Also, while I understand why you may have chosen to have a scene like this for dramatic purposes, I am a little disbelieving of the idea that a disoriented patient who is clearly unprepared for contact with the "outside" world at this time would be left completely unsupervised without a nurse or orderly to watch him. Even the computer could have been told not to open the door for him.
The last piece of advice I would give you is to work a bit on your capitalization and a few other style issues. One should not, for instance, use numbers smaller than 20 in numeric form in narration; this should be spelled out, and "hrs" should be spelled out properly unless you are showing us what's on an onscreen display.
What I would say is that you've obviously cleared the first major hurdle I think any author who's going to go places should: and that is understanding the psychology of your characters, having a good sense of their interactions, and figuring out how to bring the intensity of that to the reader. That can also get your reader to forgive you a few plot or technical errors; people are willing to gloss over a few small errors, or to ignore a minor plot hole if they're deeply moved by your story.
What I think you could do from here, since you've got the most important part--the characters--under control, is to focus a little more on weaving a plot around them.
There are a lot of times in Trek where some handwaving is expected...and frankly even a good idea...for the sake of moving the plot around without bogging it down in technical detail. An example of where you did this well would be with the nature of the chemical used to block Kirk's memory and the antidote. There's no need for us to know the chemical composition of it, and since this is evidently a known compound in the Starfleet database and therefore not something that's necessary to use as a dramatic point (your story has already reached its climax with the rescue/reuniting scene and is in its denoument), we can simply brush past that detail in order to get back to the most interesting thing: the characters.
However, there are times where we need more than dialogue or where one simply cannot suspend disbelief any longer (in a non-satirical story...if one's main goal is writing for humor, a lot more can be forgiven). Examples of these moments would include the places I mentioned earlier in this review--figuring out how the rescue happened, why Starfleet treated this massive security breach as no big deal, and why the equally massive security breach (smaller in scale but critical for the mental health of an understandably agitated patient) was allowed to occur. A little more meat in this area and consideration for the logical ramifications of such things would be useful. (And of course sometimes, if you show some detail about your characters reacting to an "action" scenario, such as how Spock and McCoy might devise their plan and actually pull it off, you kill two birds with one stone--moving the plot and playing to your strength, which is understanding character dynamics.)
You might even be able to think of the situation as a "character" in and of itself. Is "Fate" gentle and kind, chaotic and unpredictable, or a cruel mistress? That will also affect the tone and feel of your story.
Overall, as I said, you have a strength with portraying character dynamics. If you put a little more meat on the bones of the plot, and deal with the technical and stylistic issues, you could really take advantage of that skill.