<USS Meridian> The Fates, Chronicle 4
- From: Shawna Kenton <askmesomeday@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: ussmeridian@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 3 Jan 2006 08:58:05 -0800 (PST)
The Fates by Ensign Shawna Kenton
The Fate of the Earth Part One
Above, as the populace scattered onto the polished streets under the tall
spires of their age-long creations, the sky began to change. It churned and
morphed with changes in light and color, clouds and daylight glimmering of
orbiting stations. All noise was deftly muffled, and one could only hear their
own breath; one could only feel the cold, emptying feeling in their gut; one
could only see the abnormalities in the atmosphere. Bright, natural blue
swirling and changing to blood red, to night black, to death yellow, to fire
orange.
Among the nations still dwelling under the sun at the hour, it was Australia
who witnessed the cause of the anomalies of the day. At their southern horizon
was a point at which the sky itself seemed to turn to a viscous liquid and
shift, behind which was a glowing white light that challenged and rivaled their
waxing sunlight. Along he Tasman Sea, Discovery Bay, even so far north as the
underbelly of the Great Australian Bight that met with the Indian Ocean, which
now shone with a mysterious malevolence, the people crowded to the shores and
stared scared at the ruination of their sky.
In New England, the denizens wrestled themselves away from their evening
entertainments to migrate to rooftops and other such high points of their city
to witness the odd southwestern glow in their night sky, far from the place at
which their sun had set hours ago. Many lights were extinguished and many trips
were taken to the countryside nearer the unnatural celestial form so as to get
a better, unmitigated view. What was burning in the South, if anything was
burning at all?
Scientists digging through snow and ice in Antarctica now had something new
to observe. Violent brightness overwhelmed them as some took to their vessels
and fled. All over the waking world there was fear, and it spread through those
who slept as alarms belted and blared through every society; the Earth shook
with one trumpeting ring as all were pulled from their beds in emergency, only
to tune into broadcasting. Those on the other end of the broadcasts, however,
knew no more than those wondering and wandering in the dark. Mystery shivered
through the people of the planet, while in the heavens, their guardians in
uniform bustled.
Starbase 1, the oldest and most powerful base of them all, was teeming with
freshly awoken officers from cadet to admiral. Even an unofficially assembled
civilian militia stirred within the armored shell that had orbited their
beloved planet for decades. Ships of old and new, worn and untested, spewed out
of all bays fully loaded with rushing crews and charging weapons. They all
headed for the southern region of the Earth?s orbit, where the enemies were
coming through their newly developed gate that could very well have transported
them from the farthest depth of their cursed quadrant.
The second and third Starbases circling the planet also deployed all ships,
and sent them scraping down their homeworld to meet the Borg head on at their
own South Pole. Two hundred-strong, the Starfleet force raced southward,
chatting to and fro their jargons of strategy. Word had come from the
now-assimilated Starbase 67 of how their evil ships copiously poured from the
opening in space itself, and the home team now felt the remotest of confident
inklings in every one of their hearts. They would not die today, they would not
let those creeping locusts reap the people of their own world, they would not
let any of the Borg live.
Rift position was almost directly underneath the planet. They were coming
right up from underneath.
Galaxy class USS Sentinel led the way, speeding at full impulse with a third
of the entire force trailing behind in the formidable formation of a V, as if
it would have some significance in spatial battles. Another third, led by
Klingon-loaned Yod streaked along the dark side of the Earth while the final
third, led by the USS Caeterus rode the western edge of daylight while Sentinel
rode the east. They would all meet the enemy in the south with a blaze of light
and death.
At the horizon they beheld through their screens, they began to see the shine
of the rift, reaching in cold, sharp fingers to touch them. Their hulls began
to glimmer, and below, the watching people saw brilliant streaks of light in
their skies and felt warmth in their hearts that Starfleet was riding to the
doom that awaited them.
They were upon the rift. The final latitude was crossed and the deadly luster
of the Borg?s rift brought everyone?s palms to their brows. Menacing vibrations
began to tip their sensors? scales, and a reading could not be found on any of
the ships that approached. Weapons charged from every angle and prepared to rip
apart anything that would come through that energetic gate with fire through
metal, and through long-dead flesh manipulated by a maniacal conscience
somewhere beyond all imagination.
Captain Jerod Astacia of the Sentinel made the call that swept across all
channels. Fire. But at that moment, the light brightened and all ships
violently shook. Not one blast of phaser or photon torpedo was launched. Crew
on every ship were thrown to their backs as every vessel of Starfleet was cast
away, outward in a circle underneath the planet of their origin. Shields held,
damage minimal, no casualties, but upon regrouping they found themselves
watching their planet from afar as its fate clasped around it. An energy blast
had sent them all kilometers away, helpless, and too far to ride to help.
What emerged from the rift was both expected and unexpected. Captain
Astacia?s head had been struck and bled down around his left eye, but he
flinched not. Horrified, he watched at cube after cube of Borg machinery
bubbled up from underneath his planet and engulfed it, strategically
surrounding every inch of the Earth?s atmosphere. The brilliant blue and white
of the planet was replaced by mechanical dark; the Borg enclosed the entirety
of the world; the rift closed; nothing more moved.
The watchers in the south saw as their sky was obfuscated. Before each cube
was the remnants of the rift?s energy, forming and morphing with kinetic
violence, taking shapes like rabid flames in a world of the dead. In the front
of the wave of Borg racing over their atmosphere, many people saw the flames
before the leading ship take the form of a wolf, and when it reached the sun,
it swallowed it and all was dark. Strangely, on the other side of the nighttime
world, people drew the same analogy with the ship that finally blocked out the
moon: a barking, snarling wolf, hungry for the light of life and fertility.
No further activity arose once the Borg surrounded Earth with their ships.
Spheres orbited the new metal surface of the planet like malicious moons,
replacing the one that was snatched away from the people below. Why were they
not biting that which was in their jaws? Surely and slowly the grave
realization came to the men on the outside, in their ships, watching: the fate
of the Earth was that the planet itself was now a hostage. Every available
vessel would be deployed to that very location, nullifying the military
movements of the Alliance as the force that birthed from Starbase 67 chased
them home.
The fate of the Earth was captivity.
Hope was snuffed out like the suffering flame that it was, drowning in wax.
To be continued?
---------------------------------
Yahoo! Photos
Ring in the New Year with Photo Calendars. Add photos, events, holidays,
whatever.
Other related posts:
- » <USS Meridian> The Fates, Chronicle 4
