The Passenger

[Hanna-Beth Rieve 0]

In the turbolift, Pvt. Hanna-Beth Rieve performed her duty. She found the victim, scanned him for forensic evidence that might explain the circumstances of his death, that might explain the circumstances of the attack on the station. Then, she continued on to the second floor. She had been trained to see death, and to keep working, she is a Marine. She tried to appear unaffected, but, for some reason, she couldn't get the Starfleet officer's face out of her mind. It was different from the training at the academy, when the holodeck computer simulated the loss of comrades, or, from the funerals she attended of Marines she had never known. It was even different from the sudden loss of Cpl. Steele, whom she had known and trained with for nearly a week, in the heat of battle.

 

In the turbolift, Hanna-Beth spent barely a minute staring at the man's face, but, the image followed her around on the second floor. Who was this man? What was he doing in the turbolift when the fatal disruptor blast hit him? Was he going for help? Did he ever see the Romulan/Reman invasion force coming? That morning, could he have forseen that his blood would mark the footprints of the enemy? A man who was once living, breathing, and thinking was now a shell of inanimate matter. Now, his thoughts, the essence of his being, were somewhere in between nowhere and oblivion. Death was a normal part of life, she had been told, but, it always struck a unique individual. This time, one in the midst of performing his duty. Momentarily, the focus of Hanna-Beth's thoughts shifted back to herself, and, just as suddenly, they returned to the mission at hand.