Medal of Honor

Dallas McCord “Mack” Reynolds was, and continues to be, a popular American science fiction writer. He wrote under many names including Dallas Ross, Mark Mallory, Clark Collins, Dallas Rose, and others. Reynolds was the first author to write an original novel based upon the 1966-1969 NBC television series Star Trek. The book was called Mission to Horatius and was written in 1968.

Medal of Honor is considered one of the best of his many stories. In it, Captain Don Mathers, a less-than-heroic interplanetary scout during an interstellar war with powerful aliens, is approached by two businessmen. They have a scheme to fake an enemy engagement and win Captain Mathers the Galactic Medal of Honor, the “highest honor of which man has ever conceived.” This medal is awarded to very few, since the bearer of the medal “can do no wrong.”

Being awarded the Galactic Medal of Honor would make Captain Mathers above the law and able to accomplish certain unsavory projects with impunity. Things do not go exactly the way he or his associates hoped and, in a strange way, Captain Mathers learns that the motto associated with the medal is actually true.