by Rada Dengar
90627.00
Concurrent With and after Day of Reckoning
-=Office of the Chief Engineer, USS Serendipity=-
90627.00
Concurrent With and after Day of Reckoning
-=Office of the Chief Engineer, USS Serendipity=-
“Rada...”
The voice was so desperate and fearful, never stopping for a moment from calling his name.
“Rada.”
He felt it pulling on his mind, trying to drag him back to the depths of consideration. He forced his hands into a vice like grip over his ears.
“Rada...”
It was a horrifying temptress, like a flame that so enchanted the moth that it’d fly to its demise.. Yet here, it was the flame that would be extinguished by the mere beating of the moth’s wings if it just stopped struggling to get away; leaving nothing but lonely darkness and the cold where once the flame had brought all warmth.
“Rada.”
Blocking his ears was having no effect. He began to loudly sing, almost scream, songs the meanings of which he’d long since forgotten. It didn’t matter what they were as long as they’d let him keep his thoughts here on the rapidly changing screen before him and he didn’t allow himself to slip back into that world so tempting where she still had solid form.
“Rada.”
That voice. It was so pure, so clean, that even as the words from his songs became muffled by his hands beyond any drop of comprehension, that one inescapable word still echoed as clearly as the sound of distant bell travelling swiftly through dead, still air. Surely this was proof that it had to be in his mind; yet the louder it became the surer he was that it couldn’t be.
There was a time not so long ago, a vast stretch of time he wondered how he’d ever been able to last, when the two of them had been split into two initial yet hollow, separate parts. He was alone during this time, far too alone for his sanity to keep strong, and there were nights when he found himself trapped in some slither of a bed looking up into where the sky should be and using all his might to try to recapture just for a second her beautiful voice in his mind. He could never do it.
His mind could create from the most elaborate of fantasy to the most sophisticated of designs, yet recreating something so purely real was far beyond his abilities to imagine. As he looked at the screen before him where all the numbers seemed to meld into one he knew there were a lot of things beyond his abilities. That voice was her, and very soon it’d be a voice he’d never hear again.
“Rada...”
He felt the pull momentarily weakening. The light of his life at first eclipsed would be soon and eternally extinguished by these vicious cowards that had made themselves his enemy.
The great irony was that they were so different, he and them. He’d once been so frightened of the telepathic mind, that it’d almost crippled him. He’d never have become so disciplined at deluding the world if not for that fear. A true curiosity that his view should change so drastically when he simply fell in love.
“Rada!”
The tug was getting harder as strength surged back to its bones. It felt like two hands around gripped tightly around his neck yet as he struggled against it he knew one of them was his own.
Both hands were shaking as he and the voice were both screaming and he just couldn’t take it anymore.
-=Main Bridge, USS Serendipity=-
As Zanh Liis stepped out onto the bridge of her ship with TC Blane following quickly behind the thoughts of their previous conversation were swiftly dismissed as both set their minds to battle mode.
“Report!” Liis demanded from whoever had the most useful information to give as she took her seat while Thomas relieved the ensign at his operations console.
In an instant the bridge was transformed from a collection of individuals to a single forward flowing organism with the single imperative goal of defending these ships from hostile attack.
“A single ship has just decloaked off the port side and taken what was in my opinion a pretty cheap shot.” Explained Reece, speaking first. “It’s reading identical to the ship before but with not as much as a scratched door registering. Either they build these things from kits or they can fix them a lot quicker than we can.”
Liis had been afraid he’d say something like that.
“What’s the status of our shields?”
“Shields are down to eighty percent.” Paxton Briggs advised, his eyes never leaving his console and his voice remaining controlled as he watched the Domox ship begin to turn. “The enemy vessel is coming about.”
In an instant the agile ship soared up into the air like a phoenix rising from the flame and then without a perceivable moment passing in between flipped around and began barrelling down towards the Sera at near impossible speed. Power surged into its weapons as it kept to a course straight and true, like it was just waiting to see if they’d flinch and move away.
Zanh Liis was never the type to flinch or to hesitate in her orders.
“Fire phasers and torpedos at will.”
In spite of its size Paxton knew enough about their designs already to want to hit them with everything he had.
A dozen photon torpedoes surrounded the attacking vessel and as he rerouted every single mega joule of energy to a sustained phaser aimed into its heart.
The torpedoes detonated the moment the phaser’s beam struck and the enemy was engulfed by a sea of flame so thick that it almost encapsulated the Sera along with their opponent.
A fiery Hell was created in every direction the enemy could see as the incredible energy and heat of the phasers stabbed at it like a knife driven into the very soul of the beast.
Yet this Hell was not to last forever as the flames swept rapidly away, revealing within them their enemy’s ship had remained completely unharmed.
-=Deck Eleven=-
Now it was the beast’s turn to strike back.
It discharged from its weapons of burst of energy so thick that almost cut through the Sera’s hull and the resultant vibrations rocked every inch of this vessel.
A hundred consoles erupted in sparks as power cut out to countless systems throughout the ship.
As the world around him began its descent into darkness and disarray one Angosian didn’t even notice. The shock to the environment almost knocked him to the ground but he nothing could stop him running until he saw her with his own eyes.
-=Main Bridge=-
“Shields are down to twenty percent.” Paxton advised with the ship still shaking from the onslaught as the alien vessel turned off with ease. “Damage to the enemy was negligible.”
“Bring us about.” Liis ordered, shouting over her shoulder. “Briggs, is there any chance we’ll be able to use this freezing Gamera idea any time soon?”
“Not Gamera, Godzilla.” Reece corrected before Briggs had a chance to speak, with the casual calm of a man who was either very foolish, incredibly brave, or both.
Before he could continue with an explanation about how Gamera should be killed he was cut off by Commander Salvek’s arrival on the bridge.
“Whatever oversized creature Mister Reece believes we’re fighting, I believe we may have the answer. We think this is the location of their environmental controls,” he announced, handing a PADD he’d been carrying Paxton Briggs, who was starting to feel somewhat like this conversation was just something taking place around him. “However, I must stress that we are in no way certain.”
“Good enough for me.” Liis replied with a nod. “Relay to the Alchemy and the Zenith that they’re to target those coordinates and hit them with everything they've got.”
-=Sickbay=-
As Rada finally arrived in the Sera’s sickbay he wanted nothing more than to run to the woman he loved. He didn’t care about what anyone had to say to him, because until he saw her no words could matter.
Yet he stopped in his tracks as by some cruel trick of fate he caught a sight out the corner of his eye.
It was Doctor Lance Hartcort, and there was a look in his eyes which seemed to burn through Rada’s soul leaving only frozen ash where it’d been. It was a look of failure and of painful sympathy which told Rada that there’d be no hope left when the body where the woman he’d once loved had been.
The good Doctor had just been about to contact him, to tell him he had to get up here now because there wasn’t any time left to wait., and knowing that it’d just have guaranteed him the chance to watch her die Rada wondered what sort of person the doctor really could have been.
“I’m sorry Chief.” Hartcort said softly. This part of the job harder even than watching them die. “There’s nothing more I can do. She doesn’t have much longer.”
Once more Hartcort considered asking Rada personally about putting Wren in the pattern buffer but she’d just taken a turn for the worst and now he didn’t believe that could do anymore than temporarily sustain her. He refused to give him that false hope.
Rada wanted so much at this time to just run out of here, to preserve in his mind the impossible image of her still alive and well. Yet the voice in his thoughts was relentless, forcefully reminding him she was still in there somewhere and that it was time to say goodbye.
Slowly he walked past the doctor. He wasn’t sure just how long the walk took as she grew from what seemed like a dot in the distance to a lifeless body before him but he was sure when he arrived that the voice in his head had been hers.
It had gone quiet now, but the sense of her mind was so much stronger; as was the knowledge of just how weak she’d become.
Before she’d been connected up to so many machines and he’d noted that he couldn’t see Wren in there. Yet now here she was unobscured, just a pale woman on a bed in loose hospital gown rags, and with nothing to hide behind he knew it was definitely her. It wasn’t much of her, but it was the last tiny ember where the flame had been and he could feel it going out before his eyes.
Taking her frozen, listless fingers in his hand and looking down to where her beautiful eyes should be, he couldn’t allow as much as a thought to enter his mind. Reality was far too harsh for him to face at a time like this. That wall was finally here.
Lt. Commander Rada Dengar
Chief Engineering Officer
USS Serendipity NCC-2012
Chief Engineering Officer
USS Serendipity NCC-2012