From: Kenneth Field (envision_at_fidalgo.net)
Date: Sun Dec 16 2007 - 11:22:23 PST
"The World's Gone Black Right Before My Eyes" -- Bob Dylan
(continues from Ran's "Missing Daisy")
Location: GS-2
Stardate: 2.71215.0823
Scene: Bonviva/McInnis Quarters
Lt. Jg. Mowree Nurunyon picked his way carefully through the wreckage. It had once been a place where people lived.
Not any more.
The bulkheads in all directions were scorched haphazardly by the solar blaze of a detonating pocket phaser. There were reverse shadows etched upon those walls, carved by whatever had been between them and the sudden flare of light and heat. A piece of human furniture called a "couch" lay shredded on its back near one wall. Lt. Kor had pulled it back to find Gene McInnis where the blast must have flung him.
Mowree shoved that image away for the moment and looked elsewhere. The other rooms were serviceable, if not exactly orderly. The blast had been confined to the one area, thankfully, though the bulkheads would need replacing. Xana's kitchen had been swept clean, the hanging clumps of herbs he remembered burned to cinders, the cooking pots and utensils slagged. He reached down, found one shard of ceramic amongst the rubble and recognized it as one of Xana's cookie jars. He couldn't tell if it was the one for people or the one for animals.
The dining table made of Bajoran oak had been flipped on its side and burned to a fragile shell against another bulkhead. None of the chairs had survived. Gene's katana swathed in the McInnis family tartan was simply gone, probably vaporized. Forensics teams had gone through the debris and identified some residual atoms of the Founder that had perished here. The heavy rolltop desk had fared best of all the furniture. It had burnt back, exposing the gaping fronts of drawers and splintering the shelving, but Mowree thought he saw something inside.
He bent over, brushed away debris and found a book. Its cover was scarred with fire, the edges of its pages burnt, but the writing inside was still legible. He extruded one claw and carefully peeled back the page.
"A journal," he mumbled.
The dates began years ago with a fateful voyage of the SUTTNER crew. He had never thought of his senior officer as a writer. He wondered if he should read the thing or just give it quietly to Ambassador Bonviva when she came back to them ... if she came back to them. In any case, he would keep it safe for now.
*Dahlia should have it,* he thought.
-------------------- =/\=
NRPG: Hello, everyone. If any of you wants to talk, feel free. I'm still here.
-------------------- =/\=
Kenneth Field
envision_at_fidalgo.net
aka Lt. JG Mowree Nurunyon
aCNS/GS-2
aka Tomas' Alexei Vukovic
Former Chief of Staff to Ambassador Xana Bonviva
currently operating covertly in the Dominion fleet
aka Maury R. Tee
Professor of English (Retired)
Proprietor of "Impulse Drives,"
a little shop of horrors
GS-2, Promenade
aka Commander Gene McInnis, deceased
formerly CNS/GS-2
"To gently lie and prove the lie true ... everything is finally a promise ... what
seems a lie is ramshackle need, wishing to be born." -- Ray Bradbury
From HyperNews_at_youth.net
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Sun Feb 17 2008 - 03:10:18 PST