Following up

Posted on Sun May 10th, 2020 @ 10:02pm by Master Steward Othor Jaxz Ghost of the Second Star

2,940 words; about a 15 minute read

Mission: Meanwhile...
Location: Second Star
Timeline: 0300 SB214 Prelaunch

-Start-

{Second Star NXS 414RF; Othors Private Ward}

Where most would say the lack of gravity was a flaw, for Othor it was a feature. Energy flowed oddly in this vessel, and whenever it was at full power, certain areas of the ship reduced their power consumption to ease the strain on their under-powered engine core. It meant quarter strength gravity in his ward most of the time, and he slept like a baby.

Tonight's somnambulent romp was like so many others. Tortured dreams of past mistakes and loved ones faces used in cruel parody of life. He could control the experience, but found doing so deprived him of his cognizance which only served to empower the notions they compelled later on. Most recently, the losses of his crewmates had plagued his dreams, Dure was dead and his memories lived on, bondmate to Kas , Avor and Inia, father to three...

He awoke with a gasp, certain in the fleeting twilight of dream-state Dure was in the room with him. Of course he didn't realize he had created echoes of his own thoughts which his latent telepathy picked up subconsciously. He had never been trained as a telepath, just whatever his natural sense had brought him was all he knew.

Without any chance of saving himself, Othor was in danger of slipping into a coma as his brain communicated ever more frantic messages, only for the same brain to pick up these signals in a feedback loop. Internally, Othor experienced the lives of those whose stories he had taken in.

Dure, the most recent, kept coming to him. Very recently He had taken their old ship into combat as a ruse to draw Tasco away. They had to evacuate their home, hiding for their lives on an asteroid overseeing a scrapyard, the last anyone had seen of him was glowing pulses of lights behind shattered hulks. If they hadn't found the Lafitte and restored her systems, that would have meant the end of everyone.

In his reverie, the final moments onboard the ill fated Second Star, their former vessel whose name now struck the masthead of a new destiny played in his mind. The crew was abandoning ship, their location revealed, enemy closing in. Dure lied, sent his family down, staying behind for his solitary martyrdom.
Once the crew was safe, Othor had to leave too, but with just a moment to spare...

{One Month Ago- Icarus class escort "Second Star"}

The asteroid had a small station, "Vega Tierre," long since abandoned. Scrapyards like this had been picked clean and left to rot all over known space, anyone who wanted to use this little habitat dome and glorified computer console needed to bring a shuttle to make the place livable. It was the best chance of hiding for the crew as well, who had only narrowly detected methane in a desperate bid to find refuge.

His dreams showed him the bridge, he could smell the ruined air of their old vessel, the decrepitude of stink that a dying ship creates. They were offloading, sending the crew down, but Dure stood at the consoles unmoving to join them. His dream played as life had, and spectating was all ghosts could do.

“The time is near,” whispered Othor. I see you have made your decision.”

Decades of reading the minds that lurk behind the honest and the deceitful had taught him to know which is which. It also revealed the nuances of emotion and intensity people express physically. Dure bore the sincere face of a man determined. “Please, old friend, reconsider the value of a life lost and a life lived.”

Dure continued monitoring the final load of the Workbee before its descent. "I have no intention of joining in this madness, hiding out and hoping he doesn't find us is not a plan.”

Othor continued to observe the silent mind of that stalwart Andorian.“Know for this moment that you trap your loved ones from this moment onward.”

“Go coal-skin. And tell her my thoughts were of her. Tell Avor I am proud of what we built together in the time we had.”

Othor let his tears fall openly, “Dure, come with us, just set the ship on auto and go with us.”

A beat was all the time they could afford as the timer sounded for the pre flight launch. Dure still didn't meet his gaze, the shame he felt in the truth of Othors words and the reality they beheld keeping him to his course. He would not be swayed, they all died in an hour if he didn't do this, Kas would die.
“Tell them all good bye.”

Admiration stayed Othor’s hand. This man was giving his life to throw the scent off the trail. It was tragic and noble… an idea came to him but he had never tried what he was considering now. Holding just one lifetime was troubling enough, and there was much to do ahead. Could he do this for Dure?

He could damn well try.

"Trust in me.” he placed his hands upon the Dure’s temples, “I will tell them all of that and more. Your children will come to know their father yet.”

Dure turned around finally and Othor loomed, a specter in his imagination larger than life.

{Second Star NXS 414RF; Othors Private Ward- Current time}

He awoke. Othor had to calm his racing thoughts, trying to make sense of the past. His dream had ended where it usually did, where reality had demarcated Dure's heroic action. So why did he feel there was more? Why was there a sensation of a joke left hanging, or a rising strain of music that never falls back into the melody? He had taken on two life stories that day, Lui Kania, as well as Dure. Could his mental faculty be breaking from the strain?

Time, was the telling factor in his revelation. Othor created totems as a way for his mind to process the events it had just experienced. His totems for Dure had been wooden wedding bands, four of them each meant to represent Kas, Inia, Avor and Dure. He had taken Dures and scorched it, the reasons unknown at the time.

His mind had begun to relax, and he felt his senses expand. Allowing himself to dream in a lucid state might prove therapeutic, and reveal answers. Time and gravity were largely absent from his sense, so his mind was free to drift.

{One Month Ago- Icarus class escort "Second Star"}

Dure saw into Othor's dark eyes, black pools of raw emotion that pulled on his thoughts like hungry hands at the table. Othor had his hands on both temples, cradling Dure's head. Dure felt like his life had just unfolded in an instant, the catharsis of it causing immediate misery mixed with adulation. The birth of his children, his life at home, service to the fisherman community, marriage to Kas, Avor and Inia... all in a flash. It was his life, and he loved it, didn't want to leave it! He hated Othor for this. Dure had known only a failed marriage and fractured family from his perspective.

Gods, he wanted it, he could go have it! He just had to go and hide in waiting, he had to hope they would be lucky, and that hope died in its infancy. The same tumult of thoughts and rewashed logical circles brought him back to this point. He was the one to do it. Someone had to take action or they would all die. It broke his heart, but there was nothing to say to Kas, she would lose her mind stopping this if she knew. Avor was more of a brother, a friend really, but the father of his children all the same.

Othor released his hands, swooned and nearly collapsed except for when Dure caught him. Time was short, but he took what he had to carry Othor to the shuttlebay. Akio had secured Lui, and Judah, though there was room for both, Dure lied to Akio. "Take him, he needs to rest he will be fine. I will have to go on the next round, now go go!" He shoved Othor to Akio, who began to protest, but said little beyond grumbling. Their small workbee was the only ferry they had, and Akio knew there wasn't time, only he didn't care about Dure, just Judah.

With no love lost between the two men, Dure took one last moment to observe his crewmates before he left them. He knew if anyone from his life had been there he would have lost the nerve, so he was weirdly grateful for how this worked out. Akio climbed inside the workbee, securing the seat restraints. He gave one last, long look, knowing there would be no second trip, that Dure was staying on board. All he could do was offer a solemn bow of the head in recognition and then he activated the hatch to close.

Dure left the shuttlebay, never looking back. He was alone on the ship, and it would take half an hour for Kas to realize what had happened. It would be over, Tasco would have caught up to them by then and his plan had better have worked.

Their little ship had pluck, tools, stealth panels, all kinds of gadgets useful for so many trades and criminal exploits. Now all of that was useless. They were bleeding, sighted by the enemy, and ripe for the kill. No ploys or clever tactics would save them except for this desperate plan. Dure had already performed this plans setup earlier in the crisis. They had two phasers, one ruined, the other precarious. The ruse would work, he was sure of it. His final walk from shuttlebay to bridge took only moments, but every memory, every doodle on the walls, flowery filigree adorning thresholds caught his eye.

A man typically isnt allowed to know the hour his time has come. Rarely does one get to appreciate the home and life for all of its values, and Dure sure remembered the values of life at this late point. The ship groaned, its damage evident in shaky floor panels, stale air, flickering consoles. His minds eye only saw the meals, mission plannings, arguments and good times this space had hosted. His heart was already broken, but what was there felt renewed sadness. He had to commit now,m or lose his nerve forever.

With bold finality Dure stepped onto the bridge of their family freighter, a small repurposed Icarus class escort. She had one last mission, and Dure was riding with her. When he sat in the Captains seat, as he had a dozen times before on various duty shifts, this time he felt the mantle. His first command, his last. He did this for his family, he did this because it had to be done. A small jolt and chime confirmed the workbee had launched, it was time now.

"Conn, take us to 041.45, once there, drop stealth, raise shields. Power forward phaser banks to 25%. Do not charge aft banks, instead route drive plasma into colonnade assemblies, pre-charge the capacitors in the impulse field coils and route to Tactical control at Command 1."

He felt uncertainty until he spoke, then his plan solidified. He kept making preparations for the battle, anything his clever mind could turn to. Deuterium pods as caltrops, warp coils as sensor decoys, it took only minutes to get to his staging ground and a target lock warning told him Tasco had found him. Dure programmed missile defense priorities to the Deflector grid, whose point defense lasers stood a fair chance of disabling torpedoes. Tasco only had two, so there was hope there. He wanted to convey their systems had dropped due to ship damage, act like a wounded creature and illicit the response.

Four alarms sounded on panel as a torpedo detonated outside their defensive perimeter, shot down by the point defense. With no time for anything else he put the Second Star into tight maneuvers and flew into the maelstrom of metal that was the scrapyard. Tasco was a smaller ship still and followed, unable to get clean firing solutions with the floating hulks to close together. Dure scraped and took hits to accomplish this, but he vaguely considered "for what result?" Tasco would catch up and kill them no matter what.

With the chase exactly as he intended, Dure hid, ducking and weaving using the stealth systems to confuse as much as as the ships themselves. Tasco took damage from Dure at every opportunity, venting unspent plasma, using the laser systems without drive plasma made for powerful lasers that burned and peeled metal. For two hours Dure pulled every trick out that he could, hiding. Tasco finally got a clean shot, and seeing the choices presented, chose to fire at the charged phaser bank. There was still damage, but someone firing a gun from a sinking ship doesn't stop to put out a fire.

Tasco was lazily passing by, repositioning for the kill. The Aerowing had virtually no protection underneath except for its weakened shields. Dure quick charged the unpowered bank by flooding drive plasma into it, it would ruin the phaser array, but it made for one very powerful blast. When he fired, Tasco had taken position far enough away trying to get safely away to detonate the Second Star. The shot crippled the Aerowing, and utterly destroyed the Second Stars power grid.

Dure leaped away from the consoles that erupted into plasma fury. Several pieces of metal blown from the walls and panels found themselves painfully embedded. For several seconds the ship wracked itself in secondary fires and containment breaches, then it stopped as the power supply ran out. Dure tried to stand, but he had already bled too much. He tried to breathe, but the air was thick with smoke. Time passed slowly, and his consciousness drifted along with his body as gravity failed. Weightless, in delirium, and dying, Dure was just marking time until the end.

“Channai, g’lo fo Treno.” He sent his final well wishes into the universe. What was a desire for his family to know happiness, expanded into a universal sense of stillness and desire for well being. As quietude claimed him, he ignored all around him, a biological process of death already begun, his brain spinning into the final dream to take him home. A final thought of love for those he loved provided the final flicker of emotion as he slipped into a deep unrecoverable sleep.

{Second Star NXS 414RF; Othors Private Ward}

The feeling of floating was such a peculiar one, and for a dream surprisingly hard to detect as real. Othor realized what had happened by now, that he had somehow retained his connection to Dure despite their distance. He had remembered Dure's final thoughts, but had not realized, just experienced the sadness subconsciously. He wept openly, the emotional toll overwhelming. After a time, the dream began to leave him, as it so often did. Once he had composed himself, he wanted to reach out to Kas, but knew given the hour she was asleep. He had made them wedding rings, perhaps because that was what they mourned most, but it had not been a totem for Dure.

Othor knew he had little real artistic ability, but his totems were art simply for the person they represented. Yes, the four way bond of Andorians was sacred, with Dures death that dream was too shattered. But what of Dure? Guilt over his oversight crept into him. Deciding to take action, Othor bounded do his workstation. He wasn't sure what he was doing, but these compulsions directed themselves. He had learned to have tools ready by this point.

Four wedding rings, one of them burned. So now he labored to fix this incomplete story. Four rings, one of them lost, but the space was open for another. Dure wanted them to complete the family, but Othor's hands hesitated, what was he doing? Trusting himself, he let his mind go blank, reliving those moments.

When he was done, almost an hour later he dared to look. In his hands, was a pendant, and engraved was a maze. three of the four paths connected through to the middle where three dots signaled their terminus. One path, was unmarked, and lead only halfway through the maze. The effort of it all exhausted Othor who looked at it for another hour before his chronometer sounded it was time to wake up and start his day.

He knew he had to talk to Kas, but decided it was best to wait for now. Dure wanted them to marry again, wanted the family to be complete. Poor Kas, she would hate herself if she knew. Their marriage was rocky, this was not going to help.
So Othor put the totem on his shelf, content to carry the story with him until it was ready to be told. As always, the mantle of pen-barer wore heavy on his shoulders, with the weight of so many stories eager to be told and the burden relieved.

=0= Randall to Master Jaxz, incoming message for you from Fala, marked urgent delivery 0500 hours.

Othor chuckled, Fala never slept, was probably thinking Other awoke at 0500 and was waiting for him. The day had arrived, and he was alive to see it. Thanking Dure for that cognizance, he felt a natural smile and ease come over him.

Life was good, all of it, was very good.

-End-

 

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