Imago, Part I: Do Not Go Gentle

Posted on 13 Jan 2013 @ 11:06pm by Lieutenant Lilou Zaren

840 words; about a 4 minute read

Mission: Episode 03 - Frontier
Location: USS Galileo: Deck 2, Observation Deck
Timeline: MD -02 - 1520 hrs

[ON]

The next mission loomed glorious and fearsome to the left and ages away through the winking stars. Massive balls of churning, superheated gases and frozen storms that, from here, looked as innocent as dewdrops on the leaves of her father's freshly watered garden. Lies. Silent sirens beckoning the exploring hearts of the Federation to take their lives in their hands and thrust them willingly into the careless might of the void; their only protection a few meters of metal and shields that would hopefully withstand both the pressure of space itself and whatever added destruction that comets, lasers, and torpedoes might throw at it. It was madness, sheer and utter, but it was who they were. Every one of them, in their own differing manners. And on this ship, Lilou imagined, their hearts burned just a little brighter, full of an intense, unstoppable desire for an understanding of the universe that superseded its mere exploration. They were all seeking something, whether they knew it or not. Otherwise, why would their own personal spirits have led them to this beautiful, fragile piece of wondrous reformed wreckage.

The newly appointed Chief Engineer lay her palm against the glass of the observation room's window, watching as the Galileo sped further and further away from the relative safety of the colony. She'd done all she could to ensure their safety; every preventative measure that could have been taken, she'd strived toward. It was a different sort of job, she'd learned. She'd been so used to being the damage specialist, the tight-space repair-girl, the air duct shimmier... Up close and personal, listening to the ship as though she were a cell in its body. In two short weeks, she'd come to see her beautiful and titanic mistress as something like a universe unto herself. Not the sum of her parts, but the cosmos in which her tinkering bits maintained the crew. And studying the Galileo from the outside in rather than the inside out was, frankly, terrifying. And mesmerizing.

Stranger still, it had taught her about herself as much as it had taught her about the new role she was now expected to play, perfectly, without ever having seen a single page of script. If the other Chiefs stumbled, there might be a glitch or a ruckus or a temporary panic. If she failed, they all died. Panic and fear were no longer options. She had to know what to do. Period. Without second guessing herself.

She shut her eyes and swallowed the two things that were no longer allowed to exist inside of her, imagining the diplomatic officer's implacable expression. A leaf resting on a pool, she thought. A single band of electricity thrumming fearlessly from a deuterium engine. To where? Who cares. So long as there is power and arclight.

As for grief. It had given her the energy to push through the arduous hours of repairs and consultations, but it wouldn't help her now. Her gaze needed to be focused ahead, not behind. Still.

"Do not go gentle into that good night," the words came unbidden to her lips as she focused again on the gleaming stars. "Old age should burn and rage at close of day." It was a poem. An old one. A favorite of her mother's. She'd learned it once to recite for her mother's naming day when she'd been but eight. "Rage, rage against the dying of the light. Though wise men at their end know dark is right, because their words had forked no lightning, they do not go gentle into that good night." The words had been nothing but rhymes then. Now, they felt heavier on her tongue. Fuller on her lips. Like thick drops of tart honey.

"Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay, rage, rage against the dying of the light." For the last time, she let herself cry for them: the dead, known and unknown. The lost. The starry wanderers, frozen in the capsule of the void. "Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight, and learn, too late, they grieved it on its way, do not go gentle into that good night. Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay, rage, rage against the dying of the light. And you, my father, there on the sad height, curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray. Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light."

Her fingers trickled down the glass like rain until they fell useless to her side. The underside of her chin felt cool where it gathered her tears and absorbed them, leaf like, for her body's use once more. "Spirits bless you. I wish I had not been such a coward that I lacked the courage to know you all as friends."

Courage. So be it.

[OFF]

ENS Lilou Peers
Chief Engineering Officer
USS Galileo

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