<USS Avalon> Re: "Avalon's Ending" (revised)

Avalon's Ending
(Revised to fit with  recently established timeline.)
Cailin Danaan and  Veronica  Pageant



She   almost couldn't believe it. It had been what, six   weeks? 
But the  broadcast to abandon ship had been made. Cailin growled, something 
she   rarely did, and uncurled herself from the couch in her quarters. They had 
 been  instructed to bring only necessities and what could be carried, but  
that was not  a problem for her. She didn't have much. Quickly gathering  her 
few prized  possessions, she stuffed them into a duffel, along with  some 
off-duty clothing.  She picked up the medical kit she always kept with  her, 
and 
with one last look,  left her quarters for the last   time.
Cailin made her way  quickly along the corridors. She knew she was assigned 
to the Lancelot  for evac, and she hurried to get there. But as she was  
passing a  turbolift, she heard the strangest noise. The hair on her ears and 
at  
the  nape of her neck stood on end as she stopped and listened, to make sure  
she hadn't been hearing things. She heard nothing else, but she went over  the 
sound in her mind, and was fairly certain she hadn't imagined   it.
Veronica  Pageant  had rushed back to her quarters and was now on her way to 
the shuttle   bays.  As she turned a corner, ahead was a woman stopped in the 
middle  of  the corridor. "Ma'am," she said, trying to recall who she was. Ah, 
 the new  counselor.  "Counselor, perhaps stopping now isn't  prudent---we  
need to make it to our shuttles, otherwise we won't get off  the ship. Rumor  
has it that Avalon is   dying."
Cailin wanted to pull  out the tricorder from her medkit and scan the lift  
shaft. She had  heard something, and wanted to make sure what was   there.
"There's no time to  try to take a lift," Veronica pressed. "We walk and  
then 
climb, it's  the only way. Trust me, I have already tried the lifts,  and 
they're not  working."   
The  Tuathan looked at her companion, whom she recognized as the  captain's 
personal assistant, at the same time acknowledging the agitated  twitching of 
her tail. Combined with her hair standing on end, it reaffirmed the  importance 
of   haste.  
"I know,"  she replied, finally turning and leading the yeoman away---her   
curiosity would simply have to  go unsatisfied.
As the  two women walked quickly toward the nearest Jeffries tube access,  
Cailin was assaulted with nearly paralyzing memories. She had been  forced to 
evacuate  the Tambora seven years ago, and now she  was leaving the Avalon, a 
 
ship she had served on only weeks.  The last time she'd done this the ship 
was  not only dying but falling down  around her ears; Avalon, by comparison,  
was 
slipping  quietly  away.
Didn't  make abandoning ship any   easier.
They crawled---quite  uncomfortably, considering they were both dragging 
duffel bags---through what  seemed to be miles of Jeffries tubes. When the two 
women had at last reached the  shuttle bay, they cast a last look at one 
another, 
as they were assigned  to separate  shuttles.  
"See  you at Izar, Counselor," Veronica   said.
Cailin nodded. "Fly  safe,  Yeoman."

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