Evacuation

[Shane 0]

Stardate 0806.13

Duty Log

Midshipmen Shane Tayjer

Location: Pandora's Box

 

</\>Begin Log</\>

 

"All hands abandon ship! Evacuate to the escape pods immediatly!"

 

Shane was at his post at tactical when he heard the command. People around him began rushing off the bridge, headed for the pods on deck two. Looking back at the image of the targeted 8472 ship on his console he fired one last volley of torpedoes. The 3 torpedoes flew towards the ship and exploded against the starboard side, but did no damage.

 

The security officer left tactical and headed for a jeffries tube. He bent down to enter the crawl space and glanced back at the abandoned bridge. The red alert lights were flashing through the smoke of the shattered consoles. Wires hung from the ceiling and the cracked bulkheads were black from the blown circuits. Crewman Lee still lay were she had died when her console had exploded.

 

Shane peeled his eyes away from the gruesome scene and crawled through the tunnel to the ladder. As he quickly climbed down towards deck two he couldn't help but wonder, Could this had been prevented? Would Lee and others still be alive if we had prepared better? Instead, we rush into battle knowing from the Voyager's reports that ourweapons were virualitly useless against the enemy. Could I have preformed better at my post? I did the best I could. But why did...

 

Suddenly the ship lurched, making Shane lose his grip on the ladder. He fell about 10 feet down the tube and landed in a heap on deck two. Something wet trickled down his forehead, but he ignored it, untangled himself and crawled out of the tube into the corridor.

 

He turned left and began running to the pods. On the way he almost passed an engineer who was limping slowly on a badly twisted ankle. Shane put his arm around the engineers shoulder, trying to move down the corridor as quickly as he could.As they moved, Shane remembered something else he wanted explained.

 

Why did we retreat?

 

It angered him to think that we came to help those who were in need and when the situation looked grim what did the captain have us do? Run. Where was the honor in that? How did any of the people left on the outpost feel about being abandoned? Yes, the odds were against us, but did that stop the Enterprise-C from fighting to the finish? The odds were against them too. What about the casualties on the Pandoras Box? Would they have rather died honorably, fighting in battle or died having been shot in the back while running?

 

Shane's pod came into view in the corridor up ahead. He almost dragged the injured engineer the rest of the way to the pod. They entered and Shane helped the engineer sit down. He heard a woman ask him something but ignored her in haste to get the escape pod launched. Seeing that it was full, Shane closed the hatch, sealing it. He sat down in his seat and entered the launch code into the pod's controls. There was a hissing sound as the pod de-attached itself from the ship. Then the pod lurched as it shot away from the Box.

 

Shane turned and looked out of the viewport at their vessel. The 8472 craft was still pouring beam after beam in the crippled vessel. He could see the last of the escape pods leaving the Box. One of the fleeing pods was caught in an enemy energy beam. It exploded instantly, completely disentigrated. Shane turned away from the viewport, shaking his head sadly. His first real battle and it ends like this, in defeat. Where was the glory of battle that he had heard from old captains, that he had read about in history? He had imagined it so differently. It wasn't supposed to end this way.

 

Then he remembered, that God was in control. He had a plan for everything, even this. Shane leaned back in his seat and closed his eyes. He began to pray. He thanked God for the lives of those who had escaped and prayed for the comfort of the families of those who had died.

 

</\>End Log</\>

 

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Edited June 13, 2008 by Shane