Visions

[Ron_Lunn 0]

Visions

 

Midshipman Ron Lunn

Assistant Engineer

USS Agincourt, NCC-81762

 

The arched roof towered high over head, almost giving a sense of vertigo if one looked directly up at it. It was covered in scenes of angels and saints and bibilcal stories. The cross hung over the altar and cast a shadow over the pews where the congregation would sit. The only light within this massive church came from the hundreds of candles scattered throughout the structure. And crouched on his knees on the left side of the pews was a man in a Starfleet uniform, hands clasped, his forehead resting against his hands as his eyes gazed down into the darkness.

 

Tok tok tok, the priest's steps echoed throughout the church as he stopped infront of the man. "My child, may I help you with something." The priest took a seat in the pew infront of the crouched figure.

 

"Forgive me Father for I have sinned, and for my sins I feel I may have been cursed."

 

"Cursed?" The priest was a bit surprised.

 

"Yes Father, I am plagued by dreams, dark dreams. At first I thought they were merely nightmares, stress of being assigned a new post, but then I started to have visions, the same dark things, only this time when I was just walking down a corridor, or doing my work in engineering." The man's voice was quiet and broken.

 

"It sounds troubling, my child. Will you pray with me."

 

And together they both repeated, "Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy Kingdom come, thy will be done, on Earth as it is in Heaven, give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil." The last line lingered on in the church like smoke from an extinguished flame.

 

The man stood, "Computer, end program." The church shimmered and the walls of the holodeck appeared in the blink of an eye, the doors slid open and Ron walked out of them and back onto the deck of the USS Agincourt.

 

"Daddy, I want to find pigeons," Ron said to his father as they finished throwing the last of the bread at the ducks.

 

"Pigeons," his father sounded surprised. "But you have ducks here, don't you like ducks more?"

 

"Not nearly as much," Ron said as he shook his head. "Pigeons are much prettier, and they go 'hoo coo, hoo coo', and that sounds much better than 'quack!' which in my opinion isn't nice at all, what would someone do if I quaked at them!"

 

James laughed, "Ok son, I see your point, but we're all out of bread. Tell you what, we'll come back tomorrow with more bread, and this time we'll look for pigeons instead, ok?" Ron looked quite pleased as his father stood and took his hand, leading him home.

 

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He lay face down in the damp dirt and moss. Ron opened his eyes and wondered how long he had been lying there. The ground started to shake, then the sound hit his ears, a massive explosion. The ground shook again and the next explosion made his ears ring. He jumped up and looked around, there were explosions happening all over, fighter crafts screamed through the air dropping bombs or blasting lasers into wooded areas. He could see that someone on the ground was returning fire, whoever it was, he stood a better chance with them. He started to run, one of the fighters went screaming overhead and everything slowed down, he could see the bomb descend, he tried to come to a halt and run in the other direction but it was too late. The bomb sunk into the soft earth and sat there for a moment, then all of Ron's senses were flooded with light and sound.

 

"Are you ok?" The crewman had his hand on Ron's shoulder.

 

"Huh? Yeah... yeah I'm fine, just a headache." Ron went back to his work scanning flow intact valves on the deflector array. He could almost cry, he had just felt himself die, he knew he had died, the bomb had landed right in front of him. What was happening? Maybe he needed to see the ship's counselor, but then things always have a way of getting around a ship, and he hated his personal information being on record, even if it wasn't one to be shared. He figured the best thing to do was to not think about it, but to pray even more, only God could get rid of the visions, he figured.