993: Still This Emptiness Persists

by Rada Dengar and Lair Kellyn
91109.17
Hours after A Day in the Life

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"Courage is knowing what not to fear." ~Plato

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-=A Large Forest, on Sibalt=-

To find himself staring down the barrel of a gun was enough to leave any man uneasy. It took incredible trust in another and in your own ability to know them; to not see within that weapon the choice available in an instant to rip from you as close to an eternity as you ever could have had.

From the most brilliant mind to the most clueless of fools that was enough for uncomfortable and unpleasant thoughts to be born. Those thoughts could take a lifetime to die.

Rada however was in this moment not looking into anyone else’s weapon. His eyes were ran along the edge of the one that he held. To his knowledge his life was in the hands of no one but himself, which amounted to no one in the end. This gun was after all just a toy. It was an utterly harmless creation meant only to cover its victims with bright colours and nothing more. No one would be injured. No one would die. It was all so simple and so clear. So why did this innocent toy place such a heavy weight in his heart and his hands?

Rada didn’t know and accepting that was becoming a habit he longed to escape but feared to leave.

Ever since he woke in sickbay and was told about the extended rest he’d had but not felt, he’d known there was something that he didn’t know. It was nothing he could pin down; not a fact that was missing like the lyric from a song to which you still remember the tune. It was much more agonising in its subtlety, like a whisper from the darkness so soft that you could never be sure it was there. Only he was entirely sure this was there.

As much as he may have wished it, it was not the behaviour of others that had given this truth away. The occasional odd looks, sentences which ended at the moment that his boots struck adjacent ground; these were nothing to the man whose paranoia was always there to keep him cold on the warmest of nights. Not even the beautiful waitress whose heart rate would seem to rise as he brushed even slightly close by her could truly have made him this sure.

It was in him, so deep but just beneath the surface, that something just wasn’t right. Yet like the soft whisper impossible to hear he could never put that feeling into words holding sense for anyone else. That was part of what was so wrong. These things he couldn’t say should never have needed to be said. It was like they should be understood by some impossible person. Impossible; that’s just what such a person had to be. To be allowed in so deep to know him even in silence would make them so much more than just a friend or just for a time; too familiar to ever be forgotten. Yet he did not remember and so such a person must never have existed.

There could be no one to understand that life simply felt off. His life, their lives, all life was utterly wrong. His only choices were either to accept it or to try to cope without accepting it as it drove him slowly mad. So he was understandable in his terror as he imagined the possibility that he could not accept.

He shook himself; an easy task with already shaking hands, bringing him back to the reality of the wilderness that was around him. It wasn’t real of course, not truly. In the wild one was lost but here he was never really out of reach of calling his home. He was still entirely uncertain though what he would say to them if he did.

So instead he tried to concentrate on all the small sounds being muffled by the silence around him. Muffled was the only way he could put it as noises from reality were intermixed and indistinguishable from those in his mind. A twig had just been snapped under feet which were maybe his own. He’d heard the sound so often here. He knew it would take him 360 degrees to be sure he’d turned towards where it had been.

As he cast his eyes through the many openings in the trees around him, he crouched down slightly lower even knowing it’d be no hindrance to men suited to conflicts of substance. It would stop Ashton Ledbetter perhaps.

He allowed himself a quiet sigh knowing if it attracted someone unaware of him then at least he'd have a target as well. As the air left his mouth it reminded him just how dry his throat had become. It was intentionally far too humid in this place, as if through your actions during misery you could show more truth than in any good times. With his weapon no longer steadied by a second hand he set it down to the ground as he reached for his small water supply and silently began to unscrew the lid.

Suddenly he stopped, now there was definitely a sound. He turned his eyes to where his ears at first swore then only suggested it’d come from to see if he could find who or what it’d been. At first it appeared there was no one but it was just the illusion of nothingness given off by being somewhere this large. There was a glimmer of white from a smile of possibly the only man who’d have one right now.

Rada knew this was his first and best chance. All he needed to do, his only mission for himself, was not to let down his team. If he could make as many hits as he would take then he could walk away with the fact that that’s all they’d each have to do for their side to win. He’d only be hit the once. All it would take him would be a single successful shot and then it wouldn’t matter what happened to him.

He could stop worrying. He could let himself be hit and taken out of the game. He could take this weapon out of his hands and go somewhere safe and far from here, alone. He had to make this shot, but holding his weapon up again in an attempt to aim he knew he couldn’t make it from here.

He ducked down low so as not to be seen as he took light steps around the trees and towards the clearing in which his target stood.

From her current vantage point Lair Kellyn could see nothing. It was what she heard, however, that concerned her.

She was keenly aware of the sound of crunching footsteps in the underbrush, and the wind rustling through the large trees overhead.

She poked her head out from around the trunk of the large tree she was lurking behind, knowing that doing so might cause her to get 'shot' but almost hoping that it would. At least if she was 'taken prisoner' she'd be given a chance to sit down somewhere, even if not the opportunity to catch a nap until it was all over.

Every exhausted centimeter of her body was throbbing with pain.

The humid air was doing nothing for her chronically reduced lung capacity. She was fighting to quiet the raspy sound of each breath, but it was no use, it was getting louder. The louder it became the more anxious she was to reach into the pocket of her vest and pull out the canister of medication that would help her lungs to better function. She resisted, though, knowing if she did that the hissing sound it made when it released the mist into her mouth would surely alert anyone in the area to her presence. She felt she owed it to her team to at least give this her level best, even if she really didn't care what was going on in these 'games' at all.

She had no doubt why the decision had been made to send the crew here, as a distraction and to hopefully help them to begin somehow to heal recent wounds. Still, she doubted that for some of them it could help the situation in the least.

She herself was someone she placed near the top of the 'doubtful to be helped' list. She was still raw from her experiences commanding the Alchemy during the battle with the Domox. She had wondered, frequently and often late at night, how anyone could have been considered to have won that fight. These troubling thoughts persisted even though the fact she was still alive should serve as proof that their side had been the one to emerge victorious.

In the end analysis her heart told her only one thing; there had been no winners.

Then there was Rada, Wren, and Tam.

She fought the urge to sigh; again worried that any smallest of sounds could give her away. The tighter she held her breath the harder it seemed to find air to take in at all. Her heart rate seemed to be slowing. The entire planet around her seemed to be dimming. Maybe the heat was finally beginning to get to her...

She heard a sound and looked up now. She saw clearly the form of Jamie Halliday, as he made his way happily (as he did everything) through the forest. She wanted to slap herself on the forehead; the only thing Halliday wasn't doing to help himself get shot quicker was singing a merry little tune.

Oh for the love of...

She glared at the man in the distance with irritation. Hours, she'd been tramping around in the woods trying to keep herself from getting hit and thus lowering the count of members of her team still standing, and here was Jamie, right out there as if waving a red flag saying 'come get me'.

Kellyn heard another sound now, and she looked over and saw the nozzle of a gun rising from the bushes across the way.

She couldn't see who was holding it, but their position and posture told her that Halliday was about to be taken out of the game.

She leveled her own weapon at the person aiming at Jamie, and her finger hovered over the trigger. The rules of engagement dictated that she should shoot first, ask questions later. Still, it was something she was finding difficult to do.

For just an instant she hesitated. In the end, there was more than just bragging rights at stake here and it bothered her on some deep, core-level that no matter who she shot at now, it was going to be someone that she had to look in the eyes later as she walked the halls of the Serendipity. They may for the moment be divided into two teams, but they were still one crew.

Still, she knew what her orders were.

She closed one eye, the other sighting her target. She drew in a breath, prepared to fire and just about to do so as a clear, loud splattering sound was heard. She looked down first at her own shirt to see if she'd been hit, but quickly realized she'd felt no impact.

She looked over at Halliday as a second shot was heard. It just barely missed Jamie as he looked down and saw the bright blue stain on his clothing. "Oh well." he said, with a soft laugh, "I guess that's it for me then. I surrender!" He called, putting his hand up. The rules dictated that all those 'shot' were to be taken as prisoners and held by the opposing team until one team was left standing.

Just then, the sound of more shots being fired near her caught Kellyn off guard.

Someone was firing from above.

She retreated quickly, back into a more densely concentrated stand of trees. She heard footsteps rapidly approaching her now, and she was certain that at this point it was going to come down to either 'shooting' someone or getting shot herself. She lifted her weapon again and just before she was about to pull the trigger, she stopped.

She saw his face, and his gun aimed squarely at her and she simply froze where she stood.

“Rada?” she asked in shock, though of everything about him his name that was certainly not the thing in question.

Something however was very wrong.

He wasn’t firing. He wasn’t moving. His gun though directed straight at her chest wasn’t held close like a weapon for better control but rather extended at arm’s length like something pushed away as far as it could go.

He wasn’t even looking at her, his eyes locked onto his hands in horrified disbelief as if questioning how they could even be.

“Yes…” He finally said softly, his first acknowledgement that he was aware she was there.

Kellyn dropped her weapon to the ground, forgetting now entirely about the game; not that she’d cared much about it to begin with. He made no attempt to stop her as she took hold of the barrel of his gun and aimed it away from her; both hoping and afraid it would startle him.

“Rada, what’s wrong?”

Confusion enveloped his features as he turned up to face her, looking for answers he knew his friend couldn’t provide.

“I don’t know.” He said in true fear at the statement.

The way he’d spoken the words put this now officially beyond anything Kellyn could just been content to let be. She knew Rada far too well to think that any fraction of what pained disorientation she saw in him now could have been considered normal.

“We should see if we can recall the Alchemy. Get you back to the ship.” She decided quickly; a decision of which Rada clearly didn’t approve. In fact judging by the look on his face which seemed to plead that it not be done she could see that it outright terrified him.

“I don’t need to go back.” He blurted out immediately, even as it was impossible for him to hide just how much he needed not to be here at this moment.

Kellyn’s chance to attempt to make at least some sense of his reaction was cut short by the sound of shots from above impacting on the ground mere metres from where they were standing.

Rada clearly did not want to go back to the ship and Kellyn would respect that he felt he had a damned good reason for it, however she knew he certainly couldn’t stay here.

“It’s the same person who got Jamie,” Kellyn informed, seeing the color of the paint splotches as they impacted against the tree just millimeters from her. She ducked down and pulled Rada down with her.

“I shot Jamie.” Rada declared regretfully.

“No, Rada, listen to me. The Sera team, their paint pellets are yellow. Alchemy’s color is purple. The paint that hit Jamie was blue.” She pushed him back a step, grabbed a hold of him by the front of his shirt and then dropped to her knees, pulling him down to the ground along with her.

The sniper, whomever it was, perhaps O’Sullivan or someone that Jelca Rued had sent, kept firing with increasing accuracy and Kellyn was afraid; not of what would happen at this point if Rada got hit by the paint and taken out of ‘the game’ but instead what would happen to him if he saw her get hit in his current state of mind.

“This has to be one of the traps that they…” she said softly. “Come on.” She crawled along the forest floor, until she could no longer hear the impact of the sniper’s fire and knew that he’d, at least for the moment, lost them or turned his attention to another, perhaps easier target.

She finally rose to her feet again and quickly scanned the immediate vicinity for somewhere with better cover. There was nowhere completely protected but there was a small clearing surrounded by a mess of large trees nearby. The clutter as the branches had become entangled made aiming through them nearly impossible and made it completely unsuited to use as somewhere to fire from. There was only one gap large enough to let anything, or anyone, in. Similarly there was only one way out, making it a very bad place to try to hide. Hopefully that would mean no one would be looking there.

“Come on, Rada.” She repeated the words firmly to him, completely unsure if he was even capable of hearing her given the look upon his face.

She realized she was still dragging her gun. Force of habit, she supposed, after all her training and years in Starfleet. She continued to carry it if for no other reason than because she knew if it were found then it could draw attention here. After a couple of steps she looked back to confirm he was following her and he was, he knew she was just trying to help him and help was something he desperately felt he needed.

It was a short hurried walk in which neither spoke, but it was more than enough for something in Rada to have changed greatly by the time they’d arrived at their destination.

At the instant they’d stepped through the small opening between the trees in to this dark area that was as humid as outside but at least a little more secluded, he seemed very much to have awoken. His breathing had gotten heavier. His heart was pounding. He stepped to the location of the farthest trees and then turned and continued to pace quickly. Then finally he stopped himself as he turned back to Kellyn.

She wasn’t speaking; just looking at him with the haunting concern of a woman knowing Rada had worse problems than even he did. At first he tried to force a laugh, to shrug off the issue, but remembering whom he was dealing with he thought better.

He reached down to his water container with slightly shaking hands and brought it up to his mouth, allowing just enough to slip down his throat to take the feeling of friction from the surface.

He sighed heavily as he screwed the lid back on the bottle and then, after a brief pause, spoke as honestly as he could.

“I…I feel so guilty.”

Lt. Commander Rada Dengar
Chief Engineering Officer
USS Serendipity NCC-2012

and

Commander Lair Kellyn
Engineering Research and Development
The Alchemy Project