By Lara Valera Ryn
100116.1800
About One Hour After Things are Looking Up
100116.1800
About One Hour After Things are Looking Up
-=The Forest on Sibalt=-
It was the first thing she remembered about her first anthropology class at the Academy.
Okay, it was actually the second.
The first had been the dirt fight between her and another first year student, Guinevere. Who knew that hand shovels full of dirt could fly so far?
But after that mess, (and mess was the only word to describe that particular melee), Lara had learned her first lesson: always rely on the environment. It would clue you in to everything else.
It was a good lesson, Lara thought, now standing back outside what had been a cold and barren wasteland that was once, once being only hours ago, a vibrant and lively forest. Now it was turning into a cold, slushy, muddy mess.
It was a sad shame what had been done to this planet, what irreversible harm had been done to the environment, and to the natural history simply by playing with the weather in such a cruel and heartless fashion.
Such tampering had actually been a pet peeve, to say the least, of the anthro profs at the Academy. And the biologists too. Nature being laid to waste for the benefit of a select number of species. They had actually held yearly protests against the weather regulators set in San Francisco, not that the protesting ever did any good.
But this here was not merely controlling the environment; this was manipulating it to no good end. Except maybe to make them and every other life form on this planet die a slow and cold death.
What would Guinevere think about all this? Lara wondered to herself and she looked around at the now melting snow. Of course, that was a question often asked of the fiery redheaded girl. She did have spunk; it had made her stand out, Lara remembered, among all the other girls. That and her very nice…
Lara paused before finishing last thought. She shook her head. Guinevere? She didn’t know a Guinevere. And if she had, she would have certainly not thought about a classmate or friend in such a manner, at least where her mind was wandering.
So why would this memory have popped up, especially if it were not her memory?
Lara stared down at her abdomen, where she knew the scar to be on her own body. And under the scar lay Ryn, of course. And given the less than innocent place her mind was wandering, she knew there was only one host that could be indulging in such memories through her.
“You,” she growled softly under her breath to it. “Just when we were starting to get along,” she mumbled not to herself, but again to it. Then she added, “But I don’t have time for you.”
“Lieutenant Ryn, are you all right?”
It took Lara a minute to realize that it was a real person speaking to her and not the ghost of a voice in her head. She turned to see Commander Blane glancing over at her, a mild look of concern crossing his face. Lara had been sent to join Commander Blane when Salvek had quickly realized searching the tunnels below ground would be fruitless. Besides the weather net and communications grid, which he left Samson and Sterling to look after, they had found nothing of value, and Salvek feared if Jelca returned that they would be trapped in the tunnels that apparently only had one way in or out. He’d ordered everyone else back to the surface where they had a fighting chance out in the open.
“Yes, I’ll be just fine.”
He nodded curtly. “Any signs of our friends?” The word ‘friends’ was emphasized slowly.
Lara shook her head. It was one of the reasons she was out there in the perimeter of their group, along with a rotation of other officers every few minutes. They were on the lookout for their ‘friendly’ hosts.
“Not a peep.”
“Good,” Blane said, although it was unclear if hearing and seeing nothing really was a good thing or not.
But as he walked away, Lara realized that what she said really was true. There was nothing. No sounds, except for the periodic gusts of wind.
And that’s when it hit her. She looked around and saw nothing either. No signs of life, but them. The forest had been teeming with life during their earlier paintball fight through the woods. Now there was nothing. She didn’t need a tricorder to tell her that she was not seeing or hearing anything.
“Commander,” she said, her voice tight.
TC turned back toward her and inclined his head, telling her to continue.
“She wanted to kill him so badly that she would resort to anything. Now, this weather is destroying the eco-system as we stand here.”
“We’re doing everything we can to correct it.”
“I know, I know. But every minute we wait, we don’t just risk freezing or melting ourselves. We risk everything.”
“All the more reason to set this right,” he sombrely said.
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Lt. Lara Valera Ryn
Science Officer
USS Serendipity NCC-2012
Lt. Lara Valera Ryn
Science Officer
USS Serendipity NCC-2012