| Author | Message | ||
     Brigadier General Jeremy Ironside - Supreme Commander, Defender Ground Forces |
He felt a sense of repetition that permeated every move. It was as if he were floating. He felt no gravity. No pull in any direction. Just lazily hanging in the midst of a blue and white fog. Strands of what seemed to be gas surrounded him, and occasionaly a pulse of white light shot down them, extending out into the bluish mist. There was a voices speaking to him, though he couldn't understand it. The single voice held immense power, and his head beat just attempting to contemplate the meaning and the expression behind the words. But were they even words? It was explaining something to him. How he came to be here. The voice came closer quickly, and just as if it seemed about to hit him, his eyes were blinded in a flash of white light. He was in the CIC. There was a bluish-grey orb floating in through the entrance way. He felt trapped, pinned like an animal knowing it was about to be slaughtered. A look around revealed several others. Marines, Dejat, Dalton. There was a pang of fear as the orb drew closer, then a solidifying sense of duty and determination. He leaped at the orb, attempting to wrap his arms around it. He was engulfed in pain, in shocks, but his determination grew even harder. He held on, held on for as long as he could, hoping it would be long enough so the others could escape. His body convulsed. It wished to scream in pain but was unable to. But every passing second hardened his resistance even more. The danger was occupied, the others could escape. As the others in the room fled out the door, he noticed another man. One he vaguely recognized, stand in the doorway and raise his arms. Another flash of light and he was floating within the nebula again. The voice speaking to him was clear, now. He understood its words, he understood where he was, and he was determined to once again wage battle upon the enemy. Those blue-grey orbs. He was moving, rushing through the nebulous clouds. A planet rushed up to meet him. He soared through the atmosphere and into the rock of the surface, still diving deeper into the planet. He emerged in a hemispherical room. Crewmembers gathered around a large crystal, but he ignored them. Floating to a stable position, he waited, but only for a moment, before unleashing with attacks upon the enemy orbs that filled the room. There were others with him. They coordinated, and the enemy was slaughtered. The crystal grew brighter and brighter. He floated down beside the man, who he now recognized. The man thanked him, and he responded, feeling almost human as he did so. But he was no longer human. He was Ĉon. General Ironside's eyes snapped open and he sat upright in bed sharply, the dim blackness of his quarters static around him. It was a dream he had not had for more than two and a half years. A fading recurring dream dream that at the time had meant nothing to him, it now reappeared anew...and made much more sense. He tugged the covers off his legs and swung them over the bed, placing his feet on the floor and standing, making his way to the head. The information he had uncovered within the records of Stardate 240012.4 were disturbing, to say the least. The thought that one had died, only to be reanimated through the twisting and bending of space-time alone was enough to make a man reconsider his life - the insinuation of the records that in the process one had somehow been copied by an ambivalent and omniscient force was enough to make a man question his entire identity. The general leaned over the sink of the head and stuck his hands under the faucet. As the water automatically began dispensing, he splashed it onto his face and rubbed his eyes. Then he looked up, and stared himself in the face. If it was even him he was looking at. If he was really him. Was he just another copy of a now deceased Starfleet Marine? Had the enemies of the Adversary replaced the real Jeremy Ironside, deceased, with him? If so, what was he? The eyes staring back at him in the mirror were the same they had always been. They reflected the same determination, the same resolve that his life was defined by. Or did they? Ironside grabbed a towel and wiped the remaining water off his face, tossing the cloth onto the edge of the sink and exited the room, heading back for bed. The dreams were fading at least, as they had the last time. But not fast enough. Not fast enough to erase the idea that he was a fraud. He lay back down and pulled the covers back over his body, turning over onto his side and closing his eyes in an attempt to return to sleep, but it would prove futile, and he would shift and toss for the remainder of the night. He felt a sense of repetition that permeated every move. |