~\\_               
          \\\\_             
          `\\\\\            -----------------------------------------
           |\\\\\           Starfleet Command, Eighth Fleet (OOC)    
            \\\\\|__.-~~\   
         _--~         ~~/   Defenders Task Group 85.3, "Whitestone"  
       /~         _-~~~'    Embarked on U.S.S. Coronado, NCC-97901   
      ('-//////-//          Vice Admiral Tebrun Lora Kor, Commanding 
       ////// }}-)          -----------------------------------------
     /////~                 Simulation Teaser                        
  _///~                     Stardate 240308.16                       
 `                          
 _______________________________________________________________________ 
/ Simulation Teaser                                                     |
/ŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻ 

 Once, as a young girl at school, a friend had told Lesabeth Drennen a
 joke: A man's hand is broken.  He wakes up in the hospital and as the
 doctor begins to work on it, the man asks, "Doctor, doctor, will I be
 able to play the piano when my hand heals?"  The doctor replies, "I
 don't see why not."  The man says, "Oh good!  I've never been able to
 do that before!"

 At the time, the 8-year-old Lessa Drennen had found the joke funny.

 But 22-year-old Lessa Drennen had awoken in the hospital -- or the
 closest thing to it -- and found she *could* play the piano where she
 couldn't before.  And she could rebuild a warp plasma conduit.  And
 she could sabotage one.  And she knew the Articles of Federation, and
 the laws governing a place called Earth.  And she had stood on the
 bridge of a starship and stared down at the maw of an exploding blue-
 white supergiant star.  And she had borne children.  And she had
 killed them.

 It went on and on, and though her trainers in the Joining had warned
 her that this would be the case, she still wondered if she would ever
 get used to it.  Her prior hard-charging work ethic has been destroyed
 (temporarily, she hoped) because of the extra hours she had to spend
 every single day just trying to cope with all the thoughts and the
 memories threatening to overwhelm her.  At the suggestion of one of
 her trainers, she had taken up meditation.  Before the Joining, she
 had known only snippets of information about it.  After, not only was
 she trained in it, but she could induce a fugue state that she found
 frightening.

 "Pick and choose, Lessa," the trainers had told her.  "Kor will help
 you... he'll probably take over the process, if you let him.  Try not
 to.  Pick and choose what you want or need, and suppress the rest
 until you may need it."  Easy for them to say!

 The dreams were the worst, though.  Or the best, depending.

 In her dream, she was standing on the surface of Earth's moon.  She
 had never been there before, of course, and yet... she had.  She had
 walked the pressurized tourist ring that surrounded the Valley of
 Taurus-Littrow.  At one end of the ring, the scorched and blackened
 launch platform of the Lunar Module Challenger with the small Lunar
 Rover nearby.  On the other end of the ring, an enormous boulder that
 marked the furthest exploration of the two humans who had once walked
 the barren surface here.  The area within the ring had been left
 pristine, as the explorers had left it in every detail, right down to
 the initials "TDC" scratched in the grey dirt with a small tool.  A
 plaque mounted on the inner window of the ring explained that these
 were the initials of the mission commander's daughter.

 "America's challenge of today has forged man's destiny of tomorrow,
 and as we leave the Moon at Taurus-Littrow, we leave as we came and
 God willing as we shall return, with peace and hope for all mankind. 
 Godspeed the crew of Apollo 17," another plaque said.  The "last
 words" from Earth's Moon.  For a mere 35 years, at any rate.

 She'd been having lots of similar dreams lately, and it didn't take
 one of the Joining psychiatrists to tell her what they meant... that
 all things ended... and were replaced by new things beginning.

\_______________________________________________________________________ 
\ End Simulation Teaser                                                 |
 ŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻ 

 *Former* Defenders Task Group 85.3, "Whitestone" Staff:
    Deceased Civilian:         Tebrun Lora Kor           (Jester)
    Commanding, Xanadu:        Capt. Sieven Drexler      (Brad)
    Admiralty Liaison:         Capt. Savant              (Savant)
    Commanding, Blackrazor:    Capt. Jarod Bentall       (Alffred)
    Commanding, M64 Ground:    Brig. Jeremy Ironside     (Fraser)

 U.S.S. Coronado Crew Roster:
    Commanding Officer:        Como. William Daren       (Chris)
    Executive Officer:         Cmdr. Velorna Tal         (Aggie)
    Chief Flight Operations:   LCdr. Maiko D'Rall        (Farrell)
    Command Yeoman:            CPO Zachery Prentiss      (Cloaked)
    Civilian Liaison:          Zunite Oswald             (Sonya)
    Flight Leader:             2Lt. Richard Wolf         (Wolf)
    Chief Tactical Officer:    Lt. Derek Canterbury      (Spuzzum)
    Chief Engineer:            Cmdr. Jack C. Farley      (CCC)
    Assistant Engineer:        LCdr. Aramis Skylooker    (LewisSharp)
    Chief Science Officer:     Lt. Anna Brooks           (Kari)
    Chief Medical Officer:     LCdr. Samuel Boswell      (Santiago)
    Assistant Medical:         Ens. Nicholas Van Dyken   (Tripp)

 On Extended Leave of Absence:
    Battalion Commander:       LCol. Jacob Prescot       (Prescot)

 Positions Available:
    None!  (Coronado's final sim is on August 30, 2004)

------
Jester

Rear Admiral Tebrun Lora Kor
Commanding, Defenders Task Group 85.3, "Whitestone"
embarked on U.S.S. Coronado, NCC-97901
http://www.jestertrek.com/coro2400/