"Challenges on the Challenger" Part II of II

[JerryGraham 0]

“Challenges on the Challenger” Part II

Personal Log

Ensign Jerry Graham

Assistant Engineer

CHALLENGER NX-05

 

BEGIN LOG-

 

“With unbounding determination of our people, we gain the inevitable triumph. So help us God.”

-President Franklin Delano Roosevelt December 8, 1941

 

Who knew that the Breakfast I had with Lucky only a day before would be the last time I would ever see him. Lucky was a grand man. I was very fortunate to know him. He will never be forgotten, and neither will the Suliban responsible.

The reception was very nice, the whole crew was there to pay their respects to our fallen comrade. I think that if Lucky had not died that fateful day I believe it would have been a normal day. But it was not a normal day, in fact it was far from normal. What gives anyone the right a good man’s life away, he had friends on board CHALLENGER, and a family on earth. I miss him greatly.

There was thing that I did not expect, I did not expect for the funeral to be this soon. I receive a communication from Commandor Moore. It read as follows:

“To all crew, on this day September 20th our crew was hit with quite a shock. With a disaster prevented, from the Suliban sabotage, a great loss has occured. Ensign Jonathon Lucky has been murdered by a coward, the Suliban. Jonathon Lucky was found earlier that morning dead. Captain Moose wishes to have the ceremony as soon as possible. So today September 28th all personal are to report to the Armory. The ceremony will be held at the time of 900 hours. Thank you for your time.”

First officer Elias Moore

Well I went to the ceremony, and could hardly believe that he was gone. I had just seen him the day before and he was in fine health. I would like to write the letter to his family, but the Captain will probably want to do it.

Aaron and myself have been spending a lot of off hours together. I heard something about a movie night. So I of course am planning on going, if Aaron goes who knows. The loss hit the crew pretty hard.

William, Aaron and myself walked slowly but surely to Engineering. Aaron never met Jon Lucky, I told Aaron about him. I sure am going to miss that guy. In engineering we had a toast, we had no drinks to do it with. So we did what every other Engineer would do; we toasted with Engineering tools.

Well the Chief didn’t show up today. I think he makes his own hours. We set to work to make sure that all the systems on board were functional. There was nothing wrong with them. When we through, Aaron began to look the Mars records, William was simulating the Challenger and at warp 5.1, and me, well I was sitting there talking to them both about coffee.

With ten minutes left in the shift, I went for a locker at the far end of Engineering. I opened the locker and I found the coffee that I had brought in earlier. I pulled out three cups, poured the coffee and took them to Aaron, William and saved one for myself.

The coffee was delicious, well what can I say, Chef made it. I love Chef’s cooking. I think he’s the best cook in all of Star Fleet. Cause I sure didn’t eat this good on the Intrepid. There’s something about the Intrepid that I never liked. Every time you would look out your window you would see Earth, but were never allowed to go down to it. At least on Challenger, I don’t have to deal with that.

 

END LOG—