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     MCapt. Craig Serrold-Fel |
Dust swept around the open plains of the first portion of the Fourth Chamber. Everything looked perfectly normal, all things considered. It was a shame that so many people had passed this way as of late. A detailed studied of any tracks and residues left in the "Foyer of Forever", as the 60km stretch of the chamber had come to be known, might have revealed some interesting facts about the Jjaro, their history, and their future. There were still some interesting things to study in Alexandria, but they were nothing compared to the Fourth Chamber. The young man knelt beside a hand-written sign and smiled. Admiral Marshall had always had good senses of both humor and perspective. He tried staring out into the great unknown before him again, but the effects were just the same. The slug in his abdomen squirmed. His brain tried to grasp the simultaneous nothing-that-was-something that his eyes were seeing out beyond the sign. His stomach twisted in knots, and his lunch threatened to come up. He closed his eyes and slowed his breathing. Slowly, the symptoms passed. Turning around, the man with the 200-year-old symbiote shook his head with a frown. "Sorry, sir. Even flying entirely on instruments, I doubt I could get very far out there. I've got the skill, and Fel has the experience. But if Admiral Kor had a hard time, there's no way I can get you very far." The other individual nodded, his blue antennae bobbing above his silky white hair." "That's all right, Captain," Dr. Rhosan ch'Garen said with a smile. "If two expert Trill pilots are befuddled by this - phenomenon - then I guess I'll have to find another way to explore beyond this region." Rhosan nodded to the younger man as the two began to walk back towards their craft that was parked not too far away. "I must say, Captain Fel, I'm grateful for all your help. It was kind of Admiral Theron to allow you to serve out your sentence as my personal aid." The Andorian smiled thoughtfully. "Sometimes I imagine that I'd forget my head if it weren't screwed on properly." Craig Serrold-Fel, former Captain in the Starfleet Marine Corps, simply nodded. "You've shown a great aptitude for the cyber-archeology we've been engaged in as of late. These computer systems are without a doubt the most intriguing I've ever seen. Fascinating encryptions. Undoubtedly to keep us from learning too much about the future that brought Xanadu to be here in the first place." "Undoubtedly." Rhosan stopped as they reached the runabout Guadalupe. He turned to the blank-faced young man. "Captain," he started carefully, "have I done something to offend you? You seem positively monosyllabic this afternoon. Usually I can't get a word in edgewise, which is surprising, given my proclivity for self-indulgent speech." The last comment brought the briefest of smiles to Fel's face. "It's not you, Doctor ch'Garen. It's - complicated. Being here on Xanadu with you, instead of back on Reor'sa serving a lifetime sentence of public service - well, it's better than that. On the other hand, to be so close to freedom and knowing that I threw it all away with my own stupid choices - that's it's own sort of personal hell." Fel nodded toward the "front" of the chamber, towards the doorways back into the more "normal" parts of Xanadu. "There's a woman out there whom I haven't seen in months. And I'm ashamed to ever see her again, because I know that I can't ever be with her or give her everything she needs or wants. "The symbiote in me reminds me that I have to live with my choices. But the man in me says that to accept defeat so easily is to lose part of what has made me who I am." His antennae twitching again, Rhosan nodded. "I served briefly aboard the starship Pegasus nearly twenty-five years ago. She was a fine ship, but her captain was an untried man who had been placed there as much by a political agenda as by his own merits. He resigned himself to accept what fate and his choices had delivered him unto." Fel nodded. "What happened to him?" Rhosan grinned an almost feral grin. "He died lonely and miserable, not a friend in the world. When he accepted his fate and did nothing to change it, he became bitter and angry. He tried to consolidate what he thought was rightfully his when he had simply inherited it by default. He became arrogant and conceited. He was not a bad man, but he let his circumstances dictate who he was." "You're saying I should fight for her, even if it won't be easy." "I'm saying that you have to determine your own path for yourself. Sometimes you do have to accept your lot in life. But often you can do something to turn that lot around. I myself have often been accused of being very arrogant and single-minded. I was focused entirely on my work. That got me great accomplishments in the fields of computer science and cybernetics, but little more. I've learned something very important in the past three decades - you have to grab hold of what is right and good and wonderful." Rhosan spread his arms. "This place is magnificent. It is a testament to the spirit of the Federation and her peoples. Even if it is some future version that will never survive past this vessel's construction, it is the result of people making choices and not letting their circumstances dictate their actions. You would do well to remember that, Captain." "Thank you, Doctor. I will." "And now, may we depart? I don't like this place for much more than its scientific value." Fel nodded. "Yeah, I've got a bad feeling about this." ========== Christian D. Clem '01, aka "Aggie" OOC: Okay, this is my week to try to do logs for every single one of my characters. So far I've hit three - Tal, Serrold-Fel, and Rhosan (a character who appeared briefly on the Pegasus sim). I don't know why, but I figured that having more Coro-related characters than anyone except maybe Ross, I had to at least make the attempt for such a venture. ;) |