From: Jerome McKee (parakeety_at_hotmail.com)
Date: Thu Jun 21 2007 - 08:44:44 PDT
"FLESH HARVEST"
(Continued from "Oops")
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Captain's Log, Supplemental - With the disappearance of Counselor McInnis
and the rise of religious turmoil on the station, we race against time to
locate our missing colleague and stave off a damaging idealogical conflict
over the Orb of Judgement...
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Location: GS-2
Stardate: [2.7]0621.1645
Scene: Temple of the Prophets
Michael Turlogh Kane was listening intently to the prylars as they told him
of how Xana had visited the temple some hours before. He listened with
growing grim apprehension as they described how she had declared war onm the
Prophets, how they had noted the sword at her side, how simultaneously
outraged and fearful they had been at her blasphemy.
Kane held up a hand suddenly, realising that the man he most wanted to speak
to wasn't there. "Where's Ranjen Roh?"
"We don't know!" said one of the prylars worriedly. "He hasn't been seen for
hours and we cannot contact him!"
A pit of worry opened in Kane's stomach. The GATEWAY complex was enormous -
there were plenty of places that were not covered by both internal sensors
and the comnet. If the killer was operating from one of those hidden areas,
if both Counslor McInnis and now Ranjen Roh had become victims, and if word
got out to the pilgrims that flocked to the station to plead for clemency
from the End Times, then...
Things were starting to speed up all of a sudden, hurtling onward toward
whatever endgame lay in wait. With a start, Kane realised that the killer
*must* be operating outside the sensor net - that was why the computer
couldn't locate through an internal scan. It might not be enough, or in
time, but it was enough of a start. He tapped his communicator. "Kane to
O'Patterson."
[[Go ahead, Captain.]]
"Assemble as many security teams as you need and begin a systematic sweep of
all areas on the station *not* covered by the internal sensors. The killer
is most likely operating from one of those locations. Devote all your
resources to this end - it's top priority."
[[Understood, Captain. I'll get back to you with a report.]]
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Scene: FSC's quarters
Darkness, broken by unbidden thoughts. They were coming faster now, still
blurred but quicker together. Nick tosses and turns in the throes of a
dream-addled sleep, lost somewhere between wakefulness and Morpheus' shadowy
kingdom.
A Bajoran blade, dripping red with blood. The blood was fresh and raw, a
rich scarlet hue - heart's blood? Whispers, too, in the dark - they ebbed
and flowed, tidal in their surging, a maddening aural kaleidoscope of odd
sounds and unfamiliar words.
The End Times are here. They are being carved out of living skin, being
harvested by the dripping blade, being announced by thge sibilant whispers.
Is this truly the end of all things? Would / could the Prophets do that?
It's (no, child) a dark room (we would not)! There are figures moving like
souls in an ether, and a new colour - imperial purple on a sleeve, a
voluminous (look) fold of a cloak (remember), or perhaps a robe.
More light! Let there be light!
Now there is a (final) smell, too - the metallic (days), thick stench of
blood rising (leaving?) from the blade, tearing up his eyes and (you must
prepare) making them water.
Where am I? Who are you?
We are of Bajor. We will always be of Bajor.
Unknowing, he asks - what do you mean?
The echo of his disembodied voice rises and falls, as if in a huge, empty
cavern. Nick looks down and sees a man in purple robes standing over the
comatose body of Gene McInnis, dripping blade raised to strike.
A journey must be made, both here and there, and our children must guide
themselves for... some time.
He flies up and up, outside of his room, outside the module, out and up into
the ether. He feels the stars penetrate and flow through him, infusing his
spirit with the very essence of the universe. Eternity falls away on every
side - up and down, he turns gently over and over, pirouetting through the
constellations, the starfiel whirling around him like a dervish.
Infinity, he realises simply, is eternal. The distance from Earth to GATEWAY
without the wormhole is *unimaginable* without *imagination*. Life teems
throughout the galaxy - uncountable centillions of beings on thousands of
worlds blindly push their way through the maelstrom, living and dying across
the millenia and epochs of the ages.
What would it matter if the universe was here, or gone, or never here at
all?
The Prophets endure. He feels their timelessness, their detached presences,
how they struggle to comprehend and understand existence in linear time.
When one exists at all points of time, at the beginnings and ends of
everything that is, was, or will be, then existence *itself* becomes a
ponderous thing - a thousand thousand years pass like a fleeting, unanchored
thought.
The Orb, then, was not sent *now*. It was sent a million years ago, and will
be sent again when the unverse collapses in on itself and linear time breaks
apart like a wave crashing and foundering upon uncaring, immovable rocks. It
is those who exist in *linear time* that must interpret, struggle to
understand, and finally assign a consensual meaning to the events that occur
in *their* point of reference, though their viewpoints be ever constrained
and limited by their dulled minds, contained and shackled by the prison of
mortality. The End Times, then, are *always* here, always around the next
turning of the years, always never farther away than the next breath. They
are heralded by the mewling cries of new-born babes, lamented by the keening
wails of the survivors, and very occasionally felt as a dark, oncoming,
inescapable force by those who, for a moment, ponder their place with the
universe, and are afraid.
His vision cleared, and he found himself in his quarters again. Slowly,
deliberately, he pressed his communicator.
"Cannon to Security. I know where the killer is."
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Scene: The Dark Room
It's hard to think with a head full of pain. Gene thought his eyes were
open, but he couldn't be sure. The soporific that had been forcefully
administered to him tasted like dolocaine tree sap - something that he had
not smelled since he was a child on Bajor - and had left a bad headache.
Behind him, he heard the killer whetting his blade on a strip of leather.
The sound was dolorous and dreadful, and made evil, spiteful promises of
pain and blood.
Through dry, cracked lips he tried to speak. "Why, Kemal?"
The blade-whetting stopped for a moment, then resumed. When he spoke from
the gloom behind him, Ranjen Kemal Roh's voice was utterly devoid of
humanity. "Because the End Times are here, Counselor."
Gene became aware of the restraints around his arms and legs. He was
securely tied down to the chair. "Don't kill me, Ranjen. I have a child, a
wife. I've done nothing to deserve this. Don't kill me - please don't."
Tears welled up in his eyes.
"You should as easily beg your heart to stop beating," said Roh coldly, "or
the worlds to cease orbiting the stars. Death has found you, Counselor, and
I will deliver you into the arms of the Prophets like the midwife who pulled
you from your mother's womb."
Gene's mind tottered. Consumed, hoplessness threatened to engulf him. His
life, he knew, was hanging on by a thread, subject to the untender whim of
the madman in the darkness behind him. All those comfortable familiarities
he had enjoyed lately - Xana, the baby, a home - they seemed as ephemeral
now as a dying leaf on a tree, now to be pruned away by the stroke of a
lunatic's knife.
In spite of himself, he still managed to say it. "You're insane!"
The blade-whetting stopped, and a moment later, Gener became horribly
*aware* of Roh standing behind him. "Weak fool!" hissed the ranjen. "You
think me mad? In a galaxy of infinites, who is to say what normal is? Our
Vulcan friends have the perfect equation - infinite diversity in infinite
combinartions. The End Times *are* here, where the Bajora face the greatest
trial in their history, one which they may not survive."
"We don't even know what it is!" cried out Gene.
"That matters little. Vedek Dawan believed it - he clucked and fretted about
it like an old buzzard. By delivering as many of our brothers and sisters
unto the Prophets as I can, I ensure that the Celestial Temple is stocked
with fresh souls before the Prophets' judgement comes! I am *helping* you,
Counselor! Enjoy the pain my knife will cause you! Drink in the agony as I
tear your skin from your bones! Feel good about it as, piece by sinful
piece, I send you into the next world!" He chuckled oddly. "It is not I who
am insane, it is the unverse itself that is steeped in madness!"
Fear crashed into Gene as the blade was applied to the nape of his neck, and
was slowly drawn forward towards his throat. Dizzy, he passed out, falling
down into darkness, spared the misery of a final thought, of a realisation
of what was happening to him, by the cold unyielding oblivion of
nothingness.
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NRPG: Time to wrap this storyline up now, folks - Gene is in imminent danger
of nasty slicey death unless someone can save him! Which one of you will get
there first??
CHANCE: Like to see a post from you before the mission ends!
Jerome McKee
the Soul of Captain Michael Turlogh Kane
Commanding Officer
GS-2
the Soul of Lieutenant Solomon Arn
Senior ACT Instructor
Starfleet Academy
"He speaks an infinite deal of nothing!"
- Shakespeare's "The Merchant of Venice", Act 1, Scene
1.113
"Futile is resistance. Assimmilated you will be."
- Yoda of Borg
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The Live Earth concert on the 7th July 2007, with more than 150 top
musicians http://liveearthsos.msn.com/Hub.aspx?mkt=en-ie
From HyperNews_at_youth.net
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