Darkness

[STSF_Scooter 0]

“There is a greater darkness than the one we fight. It is the darkness of the soul that has lost its way. The war we fight is not against powers and principalities, it is against chaos and despair. Greater than the death of flesh is the death of hope. The death of dreams. Against this peril we can never surrender.”

--G'kar, closing lines, Z'ha'dum Babylon 5, s3e22

 

[sTSF_Scooter] ::wraps her arms around Tifa:: I...spent the past three hours reliving the Battle.

[Tifa Kvar] ::Confused look.:: The battle? ...Oh... ::Frowns.::

((Takes place immediately after last week's Pause))

 

“Yes, the Battle,” she replied, as she pulled Tifa closer to her on the bed, wrapping her arms around her. Audraya didn't feel quite as...agitated as she had since beaming over to the Men-Hilsu. “Ensign Sakai and I were the only survivors from Entente. I can't help but feel the guilt from that. I heard that after we left to patrol the Vulcan colony world, Ensign Sakai resigned her commission to become a shrine priestess at the Cherry Hill Temple in Tokyo.

 

“The battle wasn't a battle at all, it was a rout for Starfleet. Dad lost his life that day. I was in command of the emergency bridge on the Entente, and that it was my responsibility to take charge and fight the ship or get her out of there if the bridge went up.

 

“But I didn't have time, herves; I barely got down to my battlestation when the ship became a target. The attacks were fast and furious, and the ship didn't last very long under the assault. 464 fellow Starfleet officers and crew, dead in less time than to tell it, that I was fortunate, I guess, to not see. But to watch two of my duty officers die within moments of each other...its impossible to describe how I felt, floating weightless, in what should have been a dark, airless tomb for Sakai and myself.

 

“After the first couple of minutes, we couldn't talk for fear of depleting our finite supply of oxygen. The lack of life support, and the constant leaching of heat into vacuum turned our chamber into a freezer. I have no idea how long we were there, floating in pitch black darkness—the kind that makes the bottom of an old coal mine seem bright and cheerful. Minutes seemed to last as long as hours, hours felt like days, days like years.

 

“When the Constitution picked us up, I stayed in the quarters assigned to me, didn't talk at all to Dr Boyce, their surgeon, other than treatment for hypothermia. Same thing when we got back, and he transferred care to Starfleet Medical. Its been a long, hard road, Tifa, and I'm afraid. Afraid that the next darkened ship we board, I'm going to freeze up again, and I'm going to lose more people under me...” Audraya's voice trailed off, but the underlying fear was still there.