Benjamin Finney Lieutenant Commander Benjamin " Ben " Finney was a male Human Starfleet officer in the 23rd century . He served in the command division aboard the in 2267 under the command of Captain James T . Kirk , during a historic five - year mission that starship undertook . He served as the ship ' s records officer . Ruined career . As a young officer , Finney spent an unusually long period as an instructor at Starfleet Academy , a circumstance that frustrated his ambitions . Finney love d the service , and hoped to command his own starship in the future . In 2252 , he met and befriended a young midshipman , James Kirk . The two became such close friends that Finney name d his daughter Jame Finney after Kirk . Letters sent home to his wife and child described their friendship and his esteem for the junior officer . When Finney was finally assigned to a starship , aboard the , Ensign Kirk joined him . Some year s later , the friends shared the same engineering duties . On one occasion , when Kirk relieved Finney from his watch , he noticed a circuit left open to the atomic matter pile s when it should have been closed . If left unattended another few minute s , the error could have destroyed the " Republic " . Ensign Kirk closed the circuit , but was bound by Starfleet regulations to report the incident in his log . As a result , Finney was reprimand ed and fell to the bottom of the promotion list . His career , already lagging from his extended tenure at the Academy , was dealt a crushing blow that made a chance for starship command highly unlikely . Getting even . In the following decade as Kirk became a rising star in the Fleet , Finney nursed his grudge into a growing ( but concealed ) paranoid madness . Though their friendship was effectively over , Finney eventually served aboard the " Enterprise " in 2267 as records officer , now subordinate to the young Captain Kirk . The embittered officer prepared to sabotage Kirk ' s career . Finney ' s opportunity came when a powerful ion storm was encountered by the " Enterprise " on stardate 2945 . 7 . The storm coincided with his turn in the ion pod duty rotation ; an exposed , potentially hazardous , duty . After the ship hit the leading edge of the storm , Kirk ordered a yellow alert from his panel on the captain ' s chair . As the storm increased in intensity , Kirk warned Finney of the possibility of red alert , meaning he ' d have second s to extricate himself from the pod before it was jettisoned . When the storm reached force 7 and the ship was at risk , Kirk declared the new alert status . After the appropriate pause , the pod was jettisoned , but Finney did not report in . Kirk ordered a phase 1 search of the starship that turned up nothing . Finney managed to keep himself hidden from the search parties , a challenge made easier by the crew ' s assumption that Finney wanted to be found . By the time the " Enterprise " pulled in to Starbase 11 for repairs and to report the officer ' s death , the logs reflected a different version of Kirk ' s actions during the storm , contradicting a sworn deposition Kirk submitted to the portmaster , Commodore . The court martial of James T . Kirk proceeded while Finney lurked in the bowels of the " Enterprise " . The court ' s sudden change of venue , followed by the departure of all but a handful of ship ' s personnel , alerted Finney that the court had become aware of his plotting and his continued presence on board the " Enterprise " . Meanwhile , in an effort to call Finney ' s bluff , Kirk had ordered the impulse engine s shut down , so that the ship ' s orbit would begin to decay . Unbeknownst to Kirk , however , Finney had made a final attempt to avenge himself against Kirk and the officer corps that had left him behind . Echoing his " one mistake " of the previous decade , Finney tapped out the ship ' s primary energy circuit s , making it impossible to restart the engine s and halt the " Enterprise " s decaying orbit . Finney jumped out from his hiding place , holding a phaser to Kirk ' s back , and the two former friends confronted each other in main engineering . Finney had lost any pretense of sanity , and his demeanor quickly shifted from menacing threat to pathetic melancholy . He ranted about the injustices in his life and jealousy of Kirk in detail , while the court monitored every word from the bridge . Kirk revealed that Jame Finney had recently boarded , part of a plan to help calm him down . The realization that he had endangered his daughter sent Finney into hysterics , and Kirk took the opportunity to relieve Finney of his weapon . Beaten and sobbing , Finney revealed the details of his sabotage , allowing Kirk to make the necessary repairs . Without objection from the prosecution , Stone dismissed the court and the accusations against Kirk . Charges were brought against Finney for his criminal actions , but he quickly found an able defender in Samuel T . Cogley , attorney - at - law – having seen Cogley ' s skill firsthand , Kirk expected Finney to win the case . ( ) Memorable quotes . " " Oh , I wouldn ' t kill you , captain . Your own death would mean too little to you . But your ship . . . " " " " What about my ship ? " " " " It ' s " dead " . I ' ve " killed " it ! " " Appendices . Background information . Finney was played by actor Richard Webb , and stunt double Troy Melton . The Ben Finney backstory is one of only a few ( along with Gary Mitchell , Kodos , and Captain ) substantial canon sources for James T . Kirk ' s early history . In the final confrontation between Kirk and Finney in engineering , Finney is shown wearing a command division uniform with commander ' s stripes , although dialogue throughout identifies him as a lieutenant commander , and no full commander besides Spock and Leonard McCoy ( the latter promoted in 2269 ) served on the " Enterprise " during its five - year mission . In , Security Chief Giotto was also shown wearing full commander ' s stripes and was also referred to as a lieutenant commander . Finney did spend several days in hiding , however , and appeared a little gamey in his climactic appearance . In lieu of a shower , helping himself to an extra shirt might have been his best option . Whether he sewed himself into a promotion was another matter , but not inconsistent with his mental state of the time . Apocrypha . Finney was a major supporting character in the novel " Renegade " by Gene DeWeese . After the events of the series , Finney was sent to a rehabilitation colony , but later recruited by another renegade Starfleet officer , working with the Klingon s . With their encouragement , he created a complex computer virus to infect the " Enterprise " s computers , believing he was aiding a plot to frame Kirk for the massacre of a ship of unarmed refugees . When he realized that the Klingons planned to infect every computer in Starfleet and then conquer the Federation , he balked and his superiors tried to have him killed . Escaping , he found himself among the very refugees which the " Enterprise " was about to fire on . Finney hallucinated that his daughter was among them , and the experience brought home to him , in a way his years of rehabilitation therapy never quite had , how his hatred of Kirk had driven him to endanger innocent people . He was also badly shaken by a mind meld with Spock , which caused him to see himself ( and Kirk ) from a more objective view , seeing Kirk as a loyal friend and commander , and himself as a tragically unbalanced paranoiac . After the plot was foiled , with his help , Finney willingly turned himself over to Federation authorities , ready to give therapy another chance , and to assist Starfleet in creating countermeasures for his program .