Tag: sto hook

The Crocodile

I’ve made a comfortable living so far, throwing all of the Starfleet rules out and starting over with my newly-acquired cargo vessel. Still, I search for answers about what truly happened on Borealis III. Most of it is still a blur of random images for me. The things that I can sort out fail to make any sense. Clues are starting to fall in line, and a trail is emerging, leading straight to the Gorn. 

There is one Gorn in particular who seems to know something, a scientist who has spent his life studying that area of space. He remains tight-lipped on the subject…as much as a Gorn even has lips. He has a reputation for treachery, this Gorn. I am loathe to make any deals with him…but at the same time, I cannot let this go. 

If this slippery Crocodile of a man knows what became of my crew, I have to find out. 

Respect

I used to think it was built on a system of courtesy and tradition that need only be questioned when the morality of it failed. It was clean and efficient, orders spoken from the mouth of a superior officer with a lifetime of experience. It was young and eager, strong and well-educated people carrying out those orders to the best of their abilities.

That kind of respect shattered when the weapons were drawn. 

That kind of respect would have left me enslaved. 

That kind of respect, the kind that makes decisions based on tradition, based on efficiency…left me prisoner on a dead world for over 100 years. 

I will have to adjust my thinking, and draw respect with the point of this hooked Klingon blade and the words from my mouth. I must no longer hide behind the innocence of rank and youth. I must no longer be Lieutenant Jones of Starfleet…but Captain Hook.

Trust nothing.
I’ve been assisting the “simple cargo haulers” with their ship in exchange for food and supplies during this voyage. I don’t know much about this century’s technology, but their ship is old enough that I am picking it up quickly. 

However, these men underestimate me, mistaking my lack of knowledge and temporary addled state for a simple mind. I have heard them speaking when they thought I was busy working…and they are not planning to leave me at any starbase, but to keep me here to continue their ship upkeep for cheap labor. 

I did not survive the horrors of Borealis III only to serve as slave labor aboard a decrepit cargo ship. I will escape…

Waking up. 
It’s strange to be in one place for so long. 
One solid, confined, dark place that hums with life.
They tell me that they will take me to a starbase where I can go wherever I want. I made the mistake of looking out a window and the sky was moving, so fast. Long ago, the feeling of being on a ship was so natural.

Everything is strange now. The clothes, the technology, the food. It all seems like a vision that won’t stop. 
They tell me that they think centuries have passed since my ship was lost…but how can that be? I feel the years, but they don’t reflect on my face. Who would believe it? 
I wonder if Starfleet is still around. 

I’ve survived. 
A hollow victory against an unfeeling foe. Time will eventually win this war, but for now, I seem to have won the battle. Now, I stand alone in this hellish place, above the battlefield that took my entire crew and the colonists with them. 

Time. 

The wind whispers it to me even now as the binary stars dip toward the horizon.

I’ve seen more time than anyone ever should. In flashes and grabs, in gasps and punches. In a non-reality that stands at once before my eyes, and then shimmers away and stands, glassy, in the eyes of my crew. In the seconds that tick away their life as they fall, phaser pistols still hot, dropping from their hands.

Still, I am standing here. I failed to go mad; to succumb to the illusions and mania that caused the slaughter in the valley. A few of us did, somehow immune to the panic in a way that the others weren’t. The captain and I, a medic, two science officers, several others. We were studied until the rest fell to the hands of the others. Then, in a brief moment of lucidity, I managed to drag the captain into the hills, away from the glazed eyes and phasers and bloody fists and makeshift daggers. 

Time is cruel. It twists good people into monsters. 

The captain is nowhere to be seen. I fear that he, too, has now fallen victim to time. There will be no one to bury him, or the others. No one to stand over us and mourn. Only a warning beacon that we managed to release, if it should even be discovered, will stand as legacy to our fate.

As it should be.