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LeftEar JoNs

"Clear the Air"

03.14.08

USS Excalibur NCC-2004 C

“Clear the Air”

 

It was late, well into the third shift. The only crew members up at this hour were those brave enough to take on the responsibility of the night shift, and a Caitian who had her genetic makeup rooted in a nocturnal predator’s past. Commander Left Ear JoNs admitted to herself that even though she served on the day shift and had done so for most of her adult life, there was something comforting about the night, and she was as comfortable working at night as she was during the daylight hours. But, the night could offer so much more at times, and when she was able to, the feline embraced it.

 

Like when you had a desire to complete a personal mission in order to put your own mind and possibly a few wandering spirits to rest. The brown furred executive officer currently stalked quietly down the corridor leading to the hanger bay, clad in off duty civilian attire and carrying a leather messenger bag that contained the few items that she would need for what she was planning to do this evening.

 

As soon as she entered the hanger bay, the feline visually located the security guard assigned to guard the area, as well as the chief deck hand who was responsible for overseeing the night shift. She whistled sharply, and waved a paw for the two men to come over to her. The Human security officer and the Andorian deck hand both trotted over to the senior officer.

 

Left Ear spoke quietly to the two junior officers. “Boys, I need your co-operation with a little project I have.” She turned her panther like gaze on the blue skinned Andorian, “Chief, I want you to round up your grease monkeys that are on duty tonight -- what is it usually, about four of you on shift? – and leave the hanger bay. Take a fifteen minute break and then come on back. I want to check over the fighter craft that we recovered, just to satisfy my own curiosity,” the Caitian then turned her attention to the security guard, “and Ensign, I’d like you to accompany them.”

 

Both men exchanged a quick look, and then the two of them started speaking at once, overlapping their sentences, but their protests where plain.

 

“Sir, the orders state that no personnel are to go near the fighter craft…”

 

“And I can’t just up and leave the hanger deck ma’am….we need to process those fighters and get ‘em back on the jump line for the next available patrol hop.”

 

Like a swift wind blowing across the grass plains of Cait, Left Ear’s normally dormant temper blew out, fierce and swift. It had been a long day, dealing with the escaped raiders, an unknown ship seen leaving the HaVorante system, dead pilots with the life and blood sucked out of them, and recalcitrant senior officers. It wasn’t right, but the feline chose that opportunity to vent some of her frustration on the two hapless men.

 

“ATTENTION!”

 

Her snarled tone reverberated back and forth between the hanger bay bulkheads, but it had the desire effect: both of the junior officers snapped to attention. The Caitian also noted that the various work tools that she heard clinking while being used went quiet, no doubt because the Chiefs deck hands were watching what was unfolding from afar.

 

“I understand very well the nature of your orders gentlemen, as I was standing right here when they were issued! Some of the crew on this ship seem to have a slight problem with following the orders that I give. Last I checked gentleman, this ship was not a democracy! I say jump, you say yes ma’am, how high ma’am and in what direction ma’am! Do you get me?”

 

“Yes sir!” Two voices answered her in unison.

 

“Okay, then lets try this again - you two get your collective butts out of here, and come back in fifteen minutes. Is that clear?”

 

“Yes sir!”

 

JoNs made a curt gesture with her paw, indicating that the two off them could go now. The security officer ran like hell, and the deck chief soon followed after he had hastily rounded up his few people, and then he and his deck hands left the area as well.

 

Left Ear began muttering to herself as she started walking toward the fighter shuttles in question. “… lucky I didn’t lay a paw cuff across their thick skulls … arguing, recalcitrant … remind me of my godchild ….”

 

The feline officer as a general rule really didn’t practice any sort of Caitian spirituality, but her exposure to the belief system while growing up had instilled a respect for the practices and ceremonies. And so, Left Ear found herself skulking down here in the hanger bay, preparing to perform a Caitian spiritual prayer and ceremony.

 

JoNs spoke to the air. “Computer, take environmental alarms off line for a period of eighteen minutes. Authorization code JoNs Hakim-sa Beta. Mark.” A double blip followed by the monotone voice of the computer system confirming the order indicated that the computer had processed the request and the environmental alarms were now temporarily offline. Gods forbid she set off the fire alarms or the environmental regulators or something.

 

The brown panther-like Caitian stood quietly in front of the recovered fighter shuttles, all neatly lined up in a row and being prepped for maintenance checks. She suddenly felt a sadness weigh down on her chest. All pilots knew the risks. If you didn’t, then you were a stupid jump jockey. Every flight mission that a pilot engaged in had the potential to be dangerous. Left Ear had been one of the few lucky ones that had put time in as a pilot and was still among the living to tell her tales. It just so happened that the pilots found dead inside these birds wouldn’t be celebrating a mission gone well in the officers club this time around.

 

She began to gather the items from the messenger bag: a small wood urn with green markings to hold the incense, an arrow, and a well-worn piece of parchment (she had to be honest; she didn’t remember the prayer word for word).

 

JoNs had been told a story a few years ago by an old, tough as duranium human pilot that had helped train her and the other raw rookie pilots in her squad, and the story had managed to stick with her through all these years. Two pilots had gone on patrol back in Earth’s early twenty first century, and after about an hour, they both disappeared from radar. A recovery squad was sent out, and the one pilot was found, saying that the two of them had encountered some fog and gotten separated. The other pilot was not found until two weeks later, her fighter jet landed on a remote strip of land wide enough to accommodate the jet, with the pilot herself dead in the cockpit.

 

The official records concluded that she had died of a heart attack. But, the rumors are always more interesting then the facts, aren’t they? Other pilots claimed that they had seen her restless ghost around the airfields and the barracks. And her plane, thought still in perfect working order, always seemed to have mechanical problems after the incident. It finally got to the point where none of the remaining pilots would fly the bird, claming it was cursed or some such. It was all superstitious nonsense. Could inanimate objects really retain the ‘vibes’ of a tragic event? Who the Hades really knew, and it was all according to what you believed anyway. Despite this conviction, Left Ear still found herself here in the hanger bay, preparing to perform a little ceremony over the fighter craft so the birds wouldn’t suffer any mechanical difficulties or be ‘cursed’ by the strange events that the now dead Excalibur pilots had encountered in the nebula.

 

The feline supposed that she could do the same for the bodies in the morgue, say a few words over them, but she nixed that idea as soon as it had entered her head. Tampering with bodies under medical quarantine pending investigation was strictly against the regulations. Possible immoral. Yes – she’d stick with the inanimate and non-dead fighter shuttles, thank you very much.

 

And so, the executive officer of the Excalibur quickly and quietly performed her little ceremony, a ceremony that she had first learned way back when she was still a little girl. If the simple act settled some, if any, dark spirits that prowled around the fighter shuttles, then so be it.

 

….Left Ear knew that this simple act of prayer made her feel a heck of a lot better.

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