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     Lt. SG Maiko D'rall |
In the buildings surrounding the spaceport back home, there's a rather old bar. I suppose tavern might describe it better really. It's not of modern construction; instead, it's something I've heard used to be called a 'log cabin'. It's big, its impressive, and for a building made out of just wood, it's actually pretty cozy in the winter. They call it The Lady Luck. Something of a place where us pilots could unwind after a long day and drink away the worries over the Accursed. Though I guess I was never really considered a part of the 'us'. The regular shuttle pilots, myself included, were often left to our own devices, watching the patrol crews come and go. They were the teeth of our defense; we were just glorified transport pilots, an anachronistic throwback to an era before transporters, only having jobs because of Reor's unusual atmosphere. Inside The Lady Luck, it's almost the same as it is on the outside - the tables and benches are made of wood. So's the bar. Glass bottles - a few rare liquors left from long ago, but mostly newer brews that are only aged enough to give you a swift kick in the head and leave you paralyzed until mornin'. No comms. No vid. Candles for lights. Even the cash register was nothing more than an old fashioned pencil and paper, and if you paid with a shi'z, it went through a hole carved in the floor to a 'safebox' below. Even after the task force showed up and boot-strapped our technology, there was just booze and wood in that place. And music. Somehow, somewhere in its history, the bar wound up with some beat up machine. There was a legend to that machine, that it had been on the Churchill when she found Black Eye, and had been one of the few creature comforts on Reor all those hard years ago. I can't say how it worked, or who kept it working; I just know it had a lot of music on it. Mostly stuff from way back in Terran history, before the last world war. Most of it I can't stand - I never did like that one group called 'Aerosmith' - but there were a few good tunes. Johnny Cash, for instance. Elvis ain't bad if you're too drunk to care. And then there's this one song called "Fate's Wide Wheel", by some equally ancient band called King Thunder. I can't remember who sung it - it was either some guy named Baulka or something. Maybe Mole. I dunno. It never really was my favorite song, but it got played a lot by the rest of the space jockeys. I never did like any of them. The Braids on the flight crews were okay - hell, the Swordsmen alone were more than happy to give you a minute of their time - but the others... well, they were top kids and they knew it. And they loved that song. And here I am, pawing through a blanket-sack full of pistols and rifles and grenades humming it. I'm sure a few of them are rolling over in their graves or wherever they are at the thought. Then again, they haven't even been born yet. "As I travel in space and time, I want to stay, I want to go." How true. Spooky how the song seems to remind me of how I feel about Coronado sometimes... I mean, it's a great ship, and a good crew, yet I feel useless - just like I do now. Any other member of the crew would have stopped the Klingons dead in their tracks up there. I screwed up. Royally. Nearly got myself killed - again. I'm still here though - on Coro, in the fleet, and stuck on this ship that feels like a ghost out of my past. This pistol phaser - something I saw on the belts of the pictures of people they show every Remembrance on the vid. Solemn faces dressed in the red and black livery. Most of them dead before I was even 6. The steadfast loyal crew of the USS Churchill. Grammie and Gramps were of course in there, both sides really. They never intended to wind up in the middle of nowhere with no help. And taunting me from whereever they are, they're here. In this universe, this time, never having gone to M64. Yup, I belong in this time and place as much as I do with a phaser in my hand. I stand more of a chance of shooting one of ours than a Klingon, and there's no way in hell anyone's going to get back to that maintenance room, not with the Klingons on Deck 5 shooting all the way. Can you blame me for letting slip a barking laugh? From transport pilot to helmsman back to transport pilot again. By now I'm sure these old things are running low on charges. If I can't fight them with energy weapons and don't have my reflexes quite up to dealing with physical combat, I guess I might as well take some spare weapons out and bring back the exhausted ones. No sense in the Klingons getting their hands on any of them after all. At least this time it's my choice. The first time they bombed Fisher's Landing I was so damn pissed I would have gone out there and buzzed their ship to death. They wouldn't even let me help though. Too dangerous they said. That I wasn't combat qualified. And then when I tried to join the standing forces, they took one look at my marksmanship scores and told me I had as much a chance of being any kind of combat crewman or officer as anyone seeing Braids flying in Reor's atmosphere without the aid of a shuttle or patrol craft. Bastards. "You see my face but its not mine; what you can't see, you'll never know." That damn song again, and I'm humming it. A lot of people can't begin to understand just how fustrating it is for me - I've never been good with shooting things. I've got the reflexes to push Coronado through a dense asteroid belt and not scratch the hull yet I can barely track a moving object and hit it without throwing the beam off or missing entirely. I spent half the Pfhor occupation playing yeoman or being stuck on shuttle duty. And the rest, flying Coro. In between have been those reminders though... seeing Commander Smith go down under that horde of those damn Things... If he were here, he'd probably be out there with the rest of the marines and Daren ripping the Klingons a new one. That Hunter... sheer luck. All pilots have it, and I guess I've blown mine way too early. The Drohak. Not surviving that race. The shuttle crash in the fourth chamber. And now, just minutes ago on that ladder in the turboshaft. I just hope I don't get my ass shot bringing these weapons up. They're happy to see me, sure, but the minute the fighting starts again, I'll just be in the way to them, just like I seem to be to everyone else. "I'm just a traveler upon the sea. Of time, of life, of Fate's Wide Wheel. Just a traveler in this mystery. The me I am is all that's real to me." Damn that song. All those hours spent drunk at The Lady Luck, hearing that song. I'm sick of it... yet I can't get it out of my mind. That and the memories of listening to the pilots bragging about their maneuvering exploits. I'm sure all the armored Starfleet people from this era I see will share a few rounds in the mess hall when this is all over. They would on our ship, or at least our people will if we find a way back. If only my friends knew I didn't get drunk just to get drunk, but merely to try to forget that I'm different, that I'm not one of them... Damn. I've just bumped into one of their surviving officers. Farking woman wasn't watching where... I... will never cease to be amazed at what seems to happen to one when serving onboard Coronado - any Coronado. It's one thing to have one's ancestors hanging in space a few parsecs away from your location. It's another to encounter one of them up close. [To Be Continued (later this weekend)...] ((The song in question is "Fate's Wide Wheel". Yes, it was sung by Scott Bakula (Cap'n "Hold'em?Fold'em." Archer) and is actually quite good. Quantum Leap fans may recognize the song and the reference to the band and singer. A copy of the song can be found at the URL below; it formed the cornerstone of this series of logs. And I apologize for what's probably going to be a post-heavy weekend for me, but once the dam breaks, it's a little too late to confine all the water molecules. (VBG) -D )) http://farrell.mcc3d.com/14%20-%20%5bScott%20Bakula%5d%20Fate's%20Wide%20Wheel.m p3 ((If there's a space in mp3, remove it.)) |