A Time to Heal

[Cmdr JFarrington 0]

Personal Log, Stardate 5108083.0

Cmdr JFarrington, MD

USS Manticore, NCC 5852A

Somewhere in the Andromeda Galaxy

 

A Time to Heal

 

It is the little rift within the lute

That by and by will make the music mute,

And ever widening slowly silence all.

~Alfred Tennyson,

Idylls of the King

 

Rifts destroy, or so the saying goes.

And yet, without a rift to part the ice, a seal could not breathe,

Nor could it climb upon the flow.

Without a rift, a flower could not sprout, nor bloom, nor grow.

Without a rift sliced into tumored flesh the patient could be lost.

Without a rift a child would forever tethered be,

At greater cost.

~21st Century Poet Ai Li

Two million light years from home. Two million. The number, the distance seemed unfathomable, and yet there it was on Escher’s science console, refusing to change, taunting Manticore’s bridge crew like a bully itching for a fight. If tension on the bridge were not enough, speculation and panic on the lower decks seemed to be growing exponentially. There were those, of course, who tended to grab life by the horns and were treating this as the ultimate adventure. Jami half envied them and hoped their enthusiasm was infectious enough to bring the rest of the crew out of their dazed depression.

 

On the morning of the fourth day the distance still had not changed. Sleep came in fevered bits, and upon awakening Jami Farrington half believed their encounter with Andromeda had been a nightmare. She would wake to familiar stars, a passing starship, and a Federation buoy close by spitting out their location with the standard date and time. But reality has a habit of slapping one in the face, and so it did this day with all its mocking cruelty.

 

The rift had damaged the ship as well as the crew, and that could be a thinly-disguised blessing, Jami thought as she dressed while mulling over events of the past few days. If grief could be measured, Jami believed the grief that Engineering Chief Garnoopy had borne at the loss of his twin brother would probably top the chart. Twins shared a special union, closer than that of imzadi, closer than Vulcan or telepathic bonding. To share the womb and grow together in the strange dichotomy of separate unity, then to have one ripped from the other in early death? Jami could not imagine the pain that must cause.

 

And now to be torn from everything else familiar must be doubly difficult. Small wonder Garnoopy lashed out during the conference, willing to sacrifice countless worlds and beings to return to home and family. In war, those who defend their homes are the fiercest adversaries. The war within Garnoopy pushed him to that level. Hopefully the ship’s physical damage would occupy his mind – if only for a little while – and allow the turmoil within him to subside.

 

On the bridge, sometime towards noon – Jami wasn’t sure; she didn’t seem to be eating much lately or keeping track of time – Atragon emerged from his ready room. That he had been cloistered there for hours in itself didn’t seem strange, but the pained grotesque half-smile pasted across his face, the sweat beading on his forehead, and the jerk of his hand when she touched it had post traumatic stress written all over it. But from what? From the loss of his first wife? She glanced at Margaux, studied her briefly, then turned her full attention to Atragon.

 

“I never told you about my career on the Koenig, did I?” he whispered, struggling for composure. Jami wondered if he shouldn’t leave the bridge, but then he had been in the ready room for quite some time and that, apparently, had not cured his anxiety.

 

“I had just joined Special Ops,” he began, his fingers nervously tapping the armrest. “I was a young, fresh-faced kid, right out of the Academy and Command School, deep in the Beta Quadrant, on a ‘survival’ mission.” Here he paused to glance around. Apparently it wasn’t privacy he craved, but the presence that was the bridge. He needed those tangible warm bodies to reassure himself that he was not alone.

 

“Five of us went off the Koenig in a shuttle. A ‘three hour tour.’ A survival test to see how long we could last in a shuttle.” Atragon’s fingers stopped tapping and dug into the armrest as he paused for a moment. His next thoughts came in strained phrases punctuated by an occasional sharp intake of breath. “Two weeks out, the Koenig explodes. No one knew we were off the ship. Everyone thought all hands were lost. We didn't even know it until rendezvous time at six weeks. No ship. No contact. Nothing. We were out there for two years. Finding what we could to try and survive on a small planetoid. Only two of us were rescued. I won't go through that again. No one will die!”

 

So, even the presence of a habitable planet might not assuage his apprehension. In the midst of emotional chaos the entire crew had lost touch with reality. They needed to understand that they could not change the past but they could influence the future. To that end Jami Farrington determined to get a grip on her own fears, put the past aside, and concentrate on what mattered at the moment: survival and the prospect of eventually getting home.

 

In actuality, they had found a planet – six to be exact – which seemed simultaneously strange and logical. It was strange, to her, that they would find a familiar-looking planet in a galaxy two million light years from home. Yet, it was completely logical given the laws of nature. That the beings and the planets of the Milky Way galaxy would not be mirrored elsewhere in the universe was absurd. It smacked of the hubris that led to Galileo’s conviction for heresy.

 

They would find a planet. They would survive. They would return home, but when and how was something to be considered later. Today they would look no farther into the future than their next move. Everything else would eventually fall into place. Of that she was certain. She had to be. There was no other way to face it.