"Shoreleave"

[Shadow 0]

Shoreleave

 

The crew had left the ship of their own free will. Not on a mission, and not forced, they simply left for what they termed shoreleave, yet there was no shore nor had they anything to leave. The situation left Shadow perplexed, but the situation did not baffle him as much as the subtle changes he felt in their life energy patterns and the emotions they evoked in him.

 

Shadow had come to know the crew not so much by their names but by their life energy signatures. Each being he encountered emitted distinct variances in energy, markers if you will, that distinguished one from the other. He recognized these differences much as a biological being would recognize the face or voice of a friend. During times of stress, elation, rest, etc., the energy signatures changed, and up to now the signatures had been predictable and recognizable. What disturbed him was the change he felt as they left for shoreleave.

 

On previous occasions they had left on missions, and he had sensed their desire to return and their firm resolve to do so. This time, however, he sensed a distinct reluctance to return, a longing to stay, and, in some, a distinct recalcitrance when it came to decorum.

 

It frightened him. Torn from his home by Agnicourt as it ripped the space-time continuum and snatched him from his dimension, the ship had ironically become his haven in a totally alien universe. It was all he knew of this universe and the crew were his only contacts. If the crew were to leave the ship and never return, what would he have? Nothing. No other point of safety but the empty ship, and what could he do with it, where could he go? What could he do? What could he do?

 

{{Come with me,}} called Dr. Levy through the ether. But he could not. His fear froze him to the spot, overpowered all reason and threw him into a near catatonic state. Even with his closest "friend" he could not leave his one point of safety: the place they called Agincourt. So he remained, wrapped in the comfort of the energy from a power junction buried in a Jeffries tube just outside main engineering.