"Fear Not Death"

[Cmdr JFarrington 0]

Second Officer's Log, Stardate 500501.16

Cmdr Jami Farrington, MD

USS Manticore, NCC 5852

 

Fear not death, my son.

Rather fear a deed not done,

A race not run,

A song not sung.

For death is nothing more than a becoming,

While life is opportunity for loving.

~21st Century Poet Ai Li

 

The year was 2359. The place, a system known as Wolf 359, a mere eight light years from Earth. Beginning with the USS Melborne and swiftly followed by the Saratoga, the Yamaguchi, and the Bellerophon, the Federation's newly-found enemy, the Borg Collective, systematically destroyed Starfleet. After mere minutes, 39 starships and over 11,000 lives had been sacrificed, and all with the aid of an unwilling officer named Jean-Luc Picard, Captain of the USS Enterprise.

 

Now Starfleet's finest, including the USS Manticore, had gathered in tribute to all who served and died that day. On the 20th anniversary of the conflict of Wolf 359 a memorial was to be dedicated, and Helm Officer Jami Farrington would have a front-row seat for the ceremonies. She hoped she wouldn't have a front-row seat to anything else.

 

As Second Officer on Black OPS's premiere vessel, Jami had witnessed more than her share of operations gone awry, and she had witnessed them from just about every angle. Out of necessity, she and other officers aboard Manticore had given new meaning to the term cross training. First posted in medical, she had subsequently moved to ship operations, science, and helm. Years later she would confess that, although she was a physician trained to look beyond the bloody, battered bodies strewn across a battlefield, witnessing war and devastation from the point of view of a medical officer was by far more unnerving than witnessing it from any other position.

 

Still, Jami feared not death. She often feared not being able to keep a patient alive, or not knowing when to release a struggling patient into the peace of death. But she feared not death for herself. What she did fear was the loss of control, living without being able to control her own mind, her own body.

 

At the Admiral's command, Jami changed Manticore's flight pattern. A touch of helm's membrane and the ship responded deftly. Jami enjoyed helm, because at helm she had total control, weaving throughout the moored ships awaiting the ceremony. USS Chekov. USS Tolstoy. USS Melborne. USS Bonestell. USS Gage. One by one they passed and inspected the new, more heavily armed ships of the line that had been christened to replace those lost in the Borg attack 20 years ago.

 

They passed the Liberator, the Princeton, the Roosevelt, and then, dead ahead, loomed the Enterprise. In the endless irony of life, the Enterprise had been both nemesis and savior at Wolf 359. Were it not for her captain, Jean-Luc Picard, captured by the Borg . . . .

 

Jami's thoughts broke off abruptly in a stab of realization. She feared not death, but to be taken by the Borg, to be assimilated and used, to be alive in body and dead in spirit at the same time?

 

Picard had never fully recovered from his capture. During the battle he had been a bystander to his own actions, watching as ship after ship, life after life was snuffed, fully realizing what he was doing as Locutus, and helpless to stop. Starfleet Medical required its deep space physicians to study in depth Picard's experience and the physical, emotional, and psychological damage he endured and overcame. The course culminated in a personal no-holds-barred interview with the Captain. The memory of her interview with him still garnered a knot in the pit of Jami's stomach. In conclusion and to soothe her reaction, Picard had quoted a 21st century sage. "Fear not death, my son." Then he had added his own ending. "Rather fear being alive and taking it for granted."

 

Rather fear a deed not done,

A race not run,

A song not sung.

For death is nothing more than a becoming,

While life is opportunity for loving.