Aurelan Kirk was James Kirk's sister-in-law. She made her home on beautiful Deneva, with her husband, research biologist George Samuel Kirk (Jim's elder brother). She, and her family, and their neighbors were attacked by the neural parasites in Operation: Annihilate!.
Before we see her, we hear her. She desperately radios out, and manages to contact the Enterprise via a little-used channel.
Aurelan was a very courageous woman who struggled long against the creatures before she finally succumbed. She endured unimaginable pain to give Kirk a little useful information before she died. She breathed her last in Enterprise's sickbay while trying to warn Kirk about the creatures - despite McCoy's best efforts to save her.
Her husband was dead before the Enterprise landing party even arrived. Her poor orphaned son (Jim Kirk's nephew) Peter, fortunately survived.
Unfortunately we don't get much of a chance to get to know her, nor her men. Talk about wasted opportunities! Would it have been so hard for the writers to have one little family scene or at least a couple of paragraphs about them before so casually killing Kirk's precious relatives off?
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