From: Kenneth Field (envision_at_fidalgo.net)
Date: Sat Jan 12 2008 - 23:35:53 PST
"Sightings"
(continues from Shawn's "The First Step")
Location: GS-2
Stardate: 2.80112.2148
Scene: Sickbay
Dr. Jeff Gorman thought he'd heard everything, but this took the proverbial cake.
"Honest, Doc," the wounded crewman said, his voice quivering. "I saw him."
Jeff glanced up at the head of the biobed, checked the young man's vitals. Saw nothing out of the ordinary for someone who'd lost an arm up to the elbow. He figured it was the drugs taking hold.
"I'm sure you did, crewman," he muttered obligingly. "We all see things ... people we want to see ... when things get hard."
"No, Doc," the crewman struggled to argue with him. "Wasn't like that at all. I saw him! He walked out of the smoke and steam down there on Deck 14 after the pylons buckled. Pulled me out from under and called for the S and R boys before he walked off."
Jeff had heard enough. There were just some things you didn't kid about.
"Crewman, you're talking to the man who pronounced the man you say you saw dead." He was suddenly angry ... very, very angry. "I zipped him into his body bag, and I sent him off with his wife and daughter to BAJOR before the Dominion hit us again. So don't tell me you saw him. *I* saw him."
The crewman looked crestfallen for a moment. Then he looked up, hopeful and smiling. Jeff couldn't figure why.
"Then it was his ghost, walking the decks. Taking care of us."
*Ghost,* Jeff thought as he turned away. The crewman thought he'd seen a ghost.
"Well, stranger things have happened," he muttered as he went on to the next patient.
-------------------- =/\=
Scene: Schrodinger's Cat
Leave it to the marines to find the dingiest, darkest bar on the whole station.
Maverick sipped his beer and thought about what he'd just heard.
His marines had been fighting forever, it seemed, rooting out Jem'Hadar holdouts that had gone to ground in the bowels of the station when their ships deserted them, routed by the Fleet. Lot of good men didn't make it. A lot of good men.
"So ... what did this Fleeter look like?" he asked without looking up.
The marine who'd taken over the bar and was pouring drinks for his fellows from what was left of the stock set his bottle down.
"Well, sir," the man said, scratching a long, angry red laceration from a near miss, "I didn't see much actually."
Maverick nodded. That's how it always was with stories like these.
"Saw the uniform. Medical, it was. Or maybe Counselor. That's what he was, right? Well, I saw that uniform after that grenade blew the corridor. And I saw the earring. He was Bajoran for sure. Took awhile for us to get to the Jem'Hadar. Kark and Westerman didn't make it. But when we got there, all the Jem'Hadar were dead. And the Fleeter was gone."
"Good story," Maverick muttered.
"Yeah," the marine across the bar sighed. "Maybe so. But that's what I saw."
-------------------- =/\=
Location: USS FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE
Scene: Boarding Gate
The marine who'd been assigned to guard the embarkation port of the hospital ship tethered to the GATE returned the salute of the Fleeter who passed him on his way onto the docks, and would have thought nothing more of it if he hadn't seen the exact same person walk back past him a few moments later, this time heading back onto the ship.
"Halt!" the marine challenged the Fleeter.
The man in medical teal came to a stop and turned.
"You forget something, sir?" the marine asked, the pitted barrel of his phaser rifle centered on the officer's chest.
"As a matter of fact, yes," the man replied.
The marine knew his job. Nobody got off this station without being tested. Couldn't have Founders sneaking aboard unsuspecting ships. He produced the hypospray and held it up for the officer to see. The Fleeter rolled up his sleeve and offered an arm. The blood stayed red.
"Sorry, sir," the marine apologized. "You know the drill."
"No problem, Gunny," the Fleeter said. "I'd do the same thing if I were you."
The Fleeter turned and went back onto the ship. About two hours later, after the guard had changed, that exact same man approached the boarding gate, offered his arm for the standard test, and passed. No one seemed to realize that two men who looked exactly alike had boarded the NIGHTINGALE within an hour of each other. No one noticed, because the first man didn't like the other man any more.
-------------------- =/\=
Location: GS-2
Scene: OPS
He'd been working scan tech when the Jem'Hadar had breached security and blew the hell out of Station Ops. When he opened his eyes, there was a man sitting cross-legged on the deck a few feet away.
"Hello," he croaked.
"Hello, yourself," the other man said quietly.
"Where is everybody? Are we like the only ones left?"
The other man shook his head, a little sadly, the scan tech thought at first.
"No, there's plenty like us."
The scan tech sat up, surprised he didn't feet hurt anywhere. He looked at his hands, which seemed perfectly fine, but that wasn't how he remembered them. He remembered the scan scope blowing out at him, bits of crystalline shards shredding those hands as he tried to protect his eyes, his precious eyes.
Then he knew.
"I ... I didn't make it, did I?"
The other man shook his head. The other man wore medical teal, a full commander's pips at his throat, and an earring. He had a Bajoran nose.
"I'm dead?"
The other man nodded this time. Then he got to his feet and offered the scan tech his hand.
"Come on, crewman. Time to go home."
-------------------- =/\=
NRPG: Odd, isn't it? What stories pop up in wartime. There are stories about the first ENTERPRISE, the aircraft carrier of World War II fame, of ghosts that played cards, the spirits of men who'd drowned when the Big "E" was nearly sunk. Lots of ghosts will be walking the GATE, I think. But except for the last scene, none of the others were ghosts. That's just a hint. Anybody guess who went aboard the NIGHTINGALE? Who saved that crewman who'd lost his arm? Who'd killed those Jem'Hadar? Guess.
-------------------- =/\=
Kenneth Field
envision_at_fidalgo.net
aka Lt. JG Mowree Nurunyon
aCNS/GS-2
aka Tomas' Alexei Vukovic
covert BORG infiltrator
currently under deep cover
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 : Mon Oct 06 2008 - 03:10:25 PDT