| Author | Message | ||
     Lt. JG Maiko D'rall |
A youthful Maiko concentrated on the instruments in front of her as she flew closer towards one of the outlying farms out of a lack for anything else to do. Normally she would be talking to Hearny, or looking out the window at the terrain sliding by below, but this was the fourteen year old's first solo flight. Finally approaching the last stand of trees before the farmland proper, she lined up the approach and brought the plane down as low as she dared. When the fence passed under her, she yanked on the lever to the left of the pilot's seat. A series of valves on the underbelly of the craft opened, letting the chemicals spread in a trailing cloud behind the plane. Pulling up, she closed the valves and made a turn back towards the clearing Hearny called home. She only hoped her friend was okay. --- Hearny had died just months before the Pfhor attacked Reor'sa, the victim of a degenerative genetic brain disease that robbed the old pilot of her sight and sense of balance. The last time she had seen Hearny, she had helped her out to the plane, Hearny patting its skin affectionately. It was at that time she told Maiko that she would have to take care of the plane now, that it would be hers. The sense of helplessness was overwhelming; there was no known cure for Hearny's debilitation, just stopgap solutions that would only prolong the inevitable. As Maiko carefully made her way over a pile of debris, she wondered how Hearny would have handled someone like Commander Tal. As much as Hearny's accent and occaisional barb worked to keep Maiko's own cockiness in line, it so far seemed pointless against the new XO. Equally ineffective would be trying to out-skill the problem; Commander Tal's flight performance data had killed that idea before it even took flight. Cursing as she tripped over rubble from a fallen wall, she checked the tricorder she was carrying. Despite being off duty - technically on leave given the lack of any duties for a helmsperson to perform at the moment - she had joined Doc Reed's little expedition to where she and Shar had found the unusual skeleton earlier. A part of her wanted to just walk away now that the doctor was where he needed to be, to resume her morning jog, but another part of her latched onto a hopeful premise - perhaps volunteering for extra duties or doing work beyond what she was expected to do would make an impression. Maybe not, she reasoned, dusting off her sweats. Putting a hand on the wall for balance, she picked up the dropped tricorder. At this point, going beyond the 'call of duty' was the only solution open to her - aside from taking a long leave of absense and going through the Reorsan 'fleet academy. And that was when it hit her, the bones of a skeleton much like the one they had found earlier as the fractured wall next to her collapsed under the pressure of her hand, depositing the skeleton at her feet. The building, devoid of all life but hers, echoed her screams quite loudly. |