"Twilight Runner"

[LeftEar JoNs 0]

Note: this log takes place right after the 07.13.08 sim.

 

07.14.08

USS Excalibur NCC-81762

“Twilight Runner”

 

It was early morning in this particular hemisphere on the planet Cait, and the sweet smells of the early morning dew and the grasslands wafted through the open window of the bedroom area. Sunlight also penetrated through the window, sending the soft rays of light dancing across the floor and spraying across the far walls.

 

Left Ear knew she needed to get up, but she really didn’t want to. The brown furred Caitian rolled over onto her other side, purring contentedly and breathing in the smell of clean sheets and a clean pillow.

 

Something nagged at the back of her mind however. This wasn’t right. The feline really wasn’t supposed to be in her bedroom right now. Her old bedroom, along with her parent’s home, was currently located quite a few light years away. She finally opened her eyes and reluctantly sat upright on the bed, looking around the bedroom warily.

 

“Hey there M‘Vess. Or should I call you Left Ear?”

 

Her gaze shot to the open doorway, and her older brother M’Rirr stood there. He had always been a good looking Caitian, and there he stood in all his feline glory. Tall for a Caitian, he stood six foot one with golden brown fur and a rich brown mane, and sported the common lion genetics of the Caitian people. His cocked his head to one side in curiosity and he had that damnable jaunty smirk on his face that he always seemed to have, even as a kid. One shoulder leaned against the doorjamb, and he crossed his feline shaped hind legs at the ankles while his arms were crossed over his broad chest. He wore a ceremonial Caitian day robe … the black and red one that had been draped over his mortal remains for the ceremony and funeral pyre.

 

The problem was that M’Rirr JoNs, the eldest of the six children of M’Vess and Va’Rirr JoNs, had been killed in action back in the year 2375. Yet, there he stood in the doorway, frozen in time at the age of thirty one -- the same age that Left Ear was now – looking hale and hearty. When his body had finally arrived home after the battle, the burns and disfigurement had made him almost unrecognizable.

 

The female Caitian stood from her spot on the bed and slowly walked over to him. She spared a glance down at herself, and saw that she too was wearing her own mourning robe from that day as well. The colors matched M’Rirrs robe, but her colors were reversed to red and black. When laying the remains of a fallen member to rest, the immediate family wore the same colors as the deceased but the pattern was reversed. The shared familial garb was a sign of respect but also a sign of separation from the one who was now deceased.

 

Left Ear stopped in front of her brother, and placed two big brown paws on his chest; she felt warmth coming from him, as if he were still alive. M’Rirr in turn placed his two strong paws on his shorter sister’s shoulders, and calmly waited for her to speak.

 

Even though M’Rirr was of the lion genetic, and his brown furred sister was of the less common panther genetics that ran through the JoNs bloodline, there was no doubt that they were brother and sister because they both sported the same deep green eyes. Now, both sets of those eyes locked onto one another with a deep understanding that can only be shared with siblings.

 

“ … this isn’t a good situation is it?”

 

“Not if I am here, and you are here, and we are both standing here in your old bedroom.”

 

“ … how?”

 

“Well … chances are something happened to you, and the physical damage must be pretty extensive if your mental defenses kicked in and made your mind check out to the memory of this place …. I assume your body is probably fighting the physical damage right now.”

 

The brown furred female looked away from him and out the window for a moment, and then her intense green eyes found his again. “Any idea what happened? I just have this fuzzy image of getting … shot or something … “

 

M’Rirr started to speak and then hesitated, looking away from his sister for a moment. His ears went flat in distress.

 

“What’s the matter? Please tell me M’Rirr.”

 

The big lion like Caitian looked back at his slightly shorter panther like sister, and after another moment of hesitation, he had decided to tell her what he could about the entire situation. “Look M‘Vess …. I haven’t been of your world in a long time. I can’t see the past, and I can’t see the future, but every once in a while we can be pulled to a family member if the connection is strong enough in real time. In this case, you have that connection because you are so badly injured … when I look at you, really look at you and concentrate … I’m getting a faint visual image of the injury, like a computer grid overlay or whatever. You have multiple penetration and puncture wounds going on all across your neck, chest and shoulder … like shrapnel clocked you or something.”

 

Her paws tightened on his chest.

 

He quickly shook his head, and tightened his own paw grip on his sister’s shoulders. “Forget it M’Vess, forget I said anything. You’re here for whatever reason, and I’m here. Let’s make the most of it, okay?”

 

She looked away from him and out the window again; a small flock of itzan birds flew by the window, chirping happily away in the early morning breeze. Left Ear was determined not to cry, but the eyes she again fixed on her brother were a bit watery. “Fine. If I need to be here, then I need to be here. I might as well make the most of it. It has been a long time since we piloted the old hover cycles across the plains, hasn’t it?”

 

= = = = =

 

The time lag could have been an hour, or two hours, or it might have been five days for all Left Ear JoNs knew about or was aware of. Time had no meaning in the nether world that she now found herself in. M’Rirr JoNs, long deceased, flew his cycle and enjoyed the moment. Left Ear JoNs, currently serving as the first officer to the Excalibur and literally swooping away from the Reaper on her own hover cycle, enjoyed this strange twilight reunion with her elder brother and roared across the plains with him, the same plains that had always surrounded their childhood home on the Hisstasha Province of the planet Cait.

 

The two adult siblings played together now much as they had as children and young teens, darting around one another, buzzing the plains animals and getting an annoyed roar in return, and flying at breakneck speeds. However, this moment of play between the two siblings was on borrowed time, and tragedy lashed out once again and struck without mercy.

 

A burning pain sliced through Left Ear’s shoulder and neck, and her chest seized up, making it hard for her to draw a breath. The feline crashed her hover cycle into the ground, and flew over the handlebars to land in a heap about five feet from where the cycle had gone down. She had taken this same nasty fall years ago from the cycle, but instead of the accident replaying itself as it had happened then during this fantasy twilight that she was experiencing, the fall was now directly connected to the medical difficulties that the feline was having as an injured patient in the USS Excalibur’s Intensive Care Unit.

 

M’Rirr had his own hover cycle powered down within seconds and jerked it roughly down to the flat ground, landing the cycle unceremoniously and jumping off the vehicle before it came to a complete stop. He ran full tilt to the writhing form of his downed sister and quickly knelt down and took her head in his big paws, trying to steady her head as her body continued to spasm.

 

Left Ear was in distress and was foaming at the mouth and coughing up blood as she tried to speak. The spittle and blood sprayed across his chest as she involuntarily spewed out the liquids, but M’Rirr payed the wetness no mind. His own gaze fixed directly onto his sisters eyes, and he tried to speak clearly to her even though her eyes had glazed over, hoping that her auditory senses would pick up on his voice.

 

“M’Vess, please fight it! Stay with your lifetime! C’mon baby I know you can fight … “

 

The feline Starfleet officer felt herself drifting away from her brother and the sound of his voice became distant to her keen ears. Her vision went gray and the sharp tang of antiseptic assailed her nostrils. Her vision then refocused, and she found herself staring up at the bright lights of the operating theater in the medical bay. Her body experienced another wracking bout of pain, but she couldn’t get enough breath to scream and a foamy spray of blood and spittle spewed out of her mouth yet again.

 

Collapsing back onto the bio bed pallet, the last sounds that Left Ear JoNs heard where the distorted beeps and pings of the various medical instruments going haywire as they monitored her deteriorating condition, and the various shouts and orders being vocalized by the medical staff as they worked to stabilize her and save her life.

 

Trying to fight but losing the battle, the feline executive officer again slipped into an unconscious state of blackness.