From: Jerome McKee (parakeety_at_hotmail.com)
Date: Fri May 04 2007 - 09:55:33 PDT
"COMING SOON"
(Continued from "A Letter From Home")
*******************************************
He woke up feeling groggy, dazed. As his eyes struggled to adjust to the
gloom, he felt a burning in his skin, like his face was peppered with sparks
of fire. He struggled to speak through raw lips. "What happened? I was in
Schrodinger's - "
The voice from the darkness behind was chilling. "You had three drinks and
went to the latrine. While you were gone, I slipped a sedative into your
fourth and took you back here."
He struggled to understand. "Why?"
"Because it's fun. Do you recognise this?" Two hands appeared from the gloom
on either side of his head, holding a flap of skin. It dangled there like a
carrot in front of his nose, and it took him a moment to recognise the mole
on the right cheek, the neatly-trimmed moustache, the mono-brow. Then, in a
rush of terror that opened his bowels, he realised that it was the same face
that he saw in the mirror each morning, and that the taste in his ruined
mouth was his own blood, that the pain all around his head was due,
horribly, to -
"Oh, don't quit on me now," said the voice. There was a sound like a blade
being sharpened on leather. "I'm just getting started."
-----------------------------------------------------------
The roaring of the crows had reached a zenith of sorts now - their placards
and bellowes logans were rising to fever pitch. In a single voice they shook
their fists, claws, and forelimbs.
"Federation out! Federation out!"
Kane watched as they surged, tidal, against the line of security guards. How
had it ever come to this? He grapsed Hannibal by the arm. "Bolster that line
- if this thing spills off the Promenade the whole station will be wrecked."
It happened suddenly, as these things often do. Someone took offence to
something someone else said, or perhaps it was a pre-arranged signal - one
of the placards came down, felling a security guard to the cheers of the
demonstrators. Breached, the alien tide flowed like water through the
security cordon, whooping and clamouring.
"Federation out! Humans go home!"
Hannibal turned to Kane. "Permission to fire on the mob, Captain!"
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Back in the Ops room, the senior staff listened intently to the comms
chatter. It was, Kane mused, a uniquely helpless feeling. He realised that
his clenched fists were shaking impotently.
[[He's on your six, Burnout! He's right behind you!]]
[[Stay still, you bastard! I've got tone - fox three!]]
[[Tommy, break right! Break right!]]
The display screens showed a mass of colours as the two fighter wings
engaged. Almost instantly, the sky-blue deltoids representing the Federation
fighters began to disappear.
"We're taking casualties," said Kat quietly.
Kane had his eyes closed. The harsh whine of static as each pilot's subspace
radio frequency went dead jolted up his spine like nails on a blackboard. It
was one thing to command a starship in combat, and he had done that, but
knowing that your own crew were fighting for their lives and not being able
to help - that was worse than any red alert.
[[He's too close for missiles, I'm switching to phasers!]]
[[This guy's on me like an Alabama tick - I can't shake him!]]
[[I'm hit! Green Two, going down!]]
The seconds stretched out like years.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Prepare and Proliferate -
That is the need of the Mind of the lords we serve, the only need that we
must serve, for They and Theirs have enemies who are many. All that is mere
flesh and bone and blood trembles in Their invisible shadow, and wishes to
destroy Them and Theirs, lest They make nourishment of those of flesh; food,
vessel or slave, all have their place within Their divine strategems.
And so we Prepare, for the time is coming when They shall emerge from the
shadows of the ether and begin Their great harvest. All those of flesh are
as crops that have been blown asunder in the wind, that will be transplanted
and spliced to serve Their needs.
And we Proliferate, for in proliferation can we effect Their return more
easily.
Know this, we are the chosen, and so we choose to serve Their needs.
All is as I have written here - Prepare and Proliferate.
- Ignatius Darke, "Song of the Crystal Mind" (Banned
by Resolution TH-03 of the Federation Security Council)
********************************************************
NRPG: Flashes of upcoming episodes, all unrelated to current events.
Remember, try to get those final details to me by tomorrow Saturday so I can
send out the completed ship's books this weekend. Our first storyline will
be commencing next weekend at the latest, and quite possibly sooner.
Jerome McKee
the Soul of Captain Michael Turlogh Kane
Commanding Officer
GS-2
the Soul of Lieutenant Solomon Arn
Senior Instructor
Starfleet Academy
"He speaks an infinite deal of nothing!"
- Shakespeare's "The Merchant of Venice", Act 1.113
"Bigamy is having one wife too many. Monogamy is the same."
- Oscar Wilde
***********************************************************
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