Making a Difference

[Neptune Rex 0]

Lt. Neptune Rex

Communications/Operations | Challenger NX-05

January 4, 2155

 

>Begin<

 

The snow feel gently around Neptune, with Moose a few meters ahead, but well in sight. The jacket kept him warm, which was a good thing at his age. Maybe when he was younger he’d been all up for a trek through mountainous snow country. He had, after-all, gown up in the Swiss Alps. Though unfortunately no St. Bernhard’s would be carrying them bottles of rum if they got cold.

 

Actually that was the furthest thing from his conscious thoughts at the moment. He could only imagine the look of either anger or disgust on the face of the Andorian Fleet Admiral Werin. On some level Neptune almost wished he could see the antennae wiggling as the Challenger “evacuated.”

 

But even that wasn’t the primary occupier of his thoughts. Neptune had been in the business of dealing with Aliens and their Governments for almost as long as anyone he knew, and he couldn’t for the life of him just explain away the events that had transpired over the last few hours.

 

Sure, he could see the Andorians sending a vessel or two to herd them out of “their” space, but an entire Task Force? Logically, one would think—what was he talking about “logically,” this wasn’t the Vulcans he was dealing with. It was the people who had been willing to destroy an entire race of people over one blinking ship that barely had the capability to travel the stars! Shesh, no wonder the Vulcans had found them so distasteful.

 

So what was it the Andorians were hiding here on the rock of ice? In a few hours he intended to know.

 

One day, when this Challenger experience was over, he’d look back and smile at the entire experience, or so he told himself. It was moments like this when he was trudging through several feet of snow on snow-shoes, stranded from his vessel, being hunted by aliens that he wished he’d stayed on Earth.

 

But, he knew that here at least, he was really making a difference. He was acting, not reacting.

 

So as Moose and Neptune trudged on, Neptune smiled slightly. This was what he had signed up for, making a difference.

 

>End<