This is a work in progress story that I started some time ago. I admit to not reading much fan-fiction, so please point out any glaring inaccuracies. Having said that the focus of this story will be the questionable decisions people have to make for the good of their beliefs. As such the federation may be portrayed in a darker light than some people may be happy with.
The setting is in the imedeate aftermath of the dominion war.
Enjoy.
STE 0.2 – Ash
The wind battered our faces, tore at our coats. The old leather hoods flailed behind us trying to flee the sea-born gale. We weren’t alone in our vigil. The throng of mourners huddled against the cold, facing the black cliffs and the grey waters. We stood apart from them, as apart we were, but we still watched the same hunched figure, standing alone at the edge.
Weeping and shaking, she lifted the lid from an urn, and raised it to the winds, and the ashes of Tona Yrtis lifted and swirled into the air.
There were six of us, for the last time, and we had been magnificent. To my left were Samuel and Jenna, to my right were Stella and Maxim, and all around us was Tona. My name is Jacob, and for the last time we were a crew. My crew.
As the last of the ashes scattered we came as one to attention, honouring her as officers now that we had grieved her as friends.
The congregation turned and began trudging down from the cliff top, and we followed suit at a distance. They did not want to speak to us. In their eyes we had taken Tona away, to fight the war that killed her with its final breath, and robbed her of a proper burial.
I looked at the faces of my friends, judging their states of mind. Jenna was adamant, she had mourned Tona, now she would try to live well in Tona’s honour. Jenna’s teens had been spent at war with a great empire that occupied her home. Death had visited her often.
Stella was distraught. The loneliness of the ceremony had hit her hard, there really was nothing in her mind at the moment besides her memories. Stella was normally bright and quick thinking, she loved fixing things, but there was nothing she could fix here.
Maxim consoled her as best he could. His face was tired, which was rare, and his eyes looked haunted. Always a man of action he was now helpless, all he could do was wait and worry. He looked more worried about Samuel than Stella, and so was I. Maxim could hold Stella’s hand, and be a companion, but Samuel had always been a loner.
Samuel had lost his wife and child five years ago. Since then his life had seemed empty to him, even the skills he had once so enjoyed honing. He had once done a trick with his pistol where he blasted the core out of an apple, but he had not played like that for nearly a decade. The only times he seemed to come alive were in the heat of battle, where he was forced to work his amazing best, or when he was with Tona Yrtis. He had started this decade in mourning, now it looked like it would end the same way. With the war over too, there really was nothing left of his life now.
I was resolute. I was determined that my grief would not overcome me. Tona had been the glue that held my crew together, and a dear friend to me. She was supportive and understanding to everyone she met, she could temper Jenna’s boldness and coax Samuel from caution. She would always see us off before a mission and she would patch us up when we returned. I knew it would take time for her loss to sink in.
—
The comforting stars slowly returned as we left K‘Tari, peeking one by one through the stratosphere. Jenna piloted the boxy shuttle into the heavens with Maxim beside her. Behind them Samuel stared blankly into the void from the bench opposite me, with Stella asleep on his shoulder.
My ship was beautiful, an elegant melange of old and new. She had been assembled from the remains of five separate excelsior class ships, but every feature had been smoothed and exaggerated. The USS Enceladus was lean, seventeen decks tall, and her clean lines shone in the breaking dawn.
Two flashes of light lit the night beyond my ship, and suddenly two vessels appeared beside mine. They were elegant too, beautiful in a more classical sense, and their hulls gleamed with youth. One of them was the Sovereign, the namesake of Starfleet’s flagship class. The other was the USS Odyssey-B, the newest addition to the family of which my Enceladus was a direct ancestor.
Maxim beamed when he saw her name, because that ship, glistening with glory, would soon be his to command. But with Stella at his side only Samuel and Jenna would stay with me. As the Enceladus’ hangar bay swallowed us the doors closed with a silent finality.