Old Ghosts

Posted on Mon Nov 5th, 2012 @ 5:08am by Captain Alexsa Kendrick

1,524 words; about a 8 minute read

Mission: Sowing the Seeds
Location: Personal Quarters, USS Ranger
Timeline: Mission Day 2: 1300 hours (just after "Concerto")

It was one of the longest and most uncomfortable walks she had taken in her time on the USS Ranger. Along with her emotions, already difficult to contain, bubbling over the brim like a piece of makapa bread dipped in raktajino, the pain in her head and body pulsated. Her legs were the worst, almost to the point of collapse--her previous injuries taunting the nerve endings in her thighs.

When she finally arrived back at her quarters, she inwardly cursed the ship for being so deceptively large, ordered a tall drink from the replicator and virtually fell back into the lounger, her body crying out for the torment to stop. From her past experiences, she was used to dealing with pain, mental and physical, but like her so-called friendship with Captain Jenner, something had happened to cause it to change.

Suddenly, the ringing in her ears got louder, tensions in her temples increased, the heavy pressure washed over the top of her head, and her conscious mind vacated as she sat up, her world then going black.

Her eyes slowly opened to words sung to a tune that she'd not heard in a very long time. It was a happy but slow melody that she remembered both her parents singing to her when she was just a small girl. Consciously taking in her surroundings, she raised her head from her crossed arms on the table, finding that she wasn't seated where she thought she had been. The words and the melody flowed clearer now from the next compartment.

Warily standing, she entered the next chamber. As soon as she passed across the threshold, a young and bright voice exclaimed, "Oh good, you're up."

The sickening feeling in her stomach worsened as she took in the innocent young features of Amara, her sister, long since passed, sitting on the edge of the bed playing with a tassel from one of the cushions. "Amy?!" Alex exclaimed quietly. "Oh my... Amy." She repeated as an uncharacteristic tear formed in her eye.

"Alex, what's wrong?" Amara asked, her tone genuinely concerned, "I thought you'd be happy to see me."

Kendrick went weak at the knees, and sat down on the edge of the bed next to her little sister. She reached out a gloved hand and felt the physical presence of somebody, but couldn't quite bring herself to think of her sister actually being there. "Amy, is it really...?"

"Yeah," came the twelve year olds' reply.

"Do you know how you got here?"

"No. How long's it been?" Amy asked, returning the questions to her older sibling.

Alex thought back on a time of her life she'd rather forget, cursing herself for having the memory she did. "Twenty-one years." She paused slightly, the memory of that terrible night burned into her psyche, "Four months, fifteen days." She added sadly.

"You didn't forget?"

Painful memories washed to the forefront of her thoughts. "There's nothing that could strip those memories from my mind; the horrors I saw when I got back to the settlement, the bodies, Dad, you..."

"When those people..." Amara started softly.

"Yeah." Alex responded to stop the conversation visiting that point any further.

"I remember."

"How?" Alex asked, still not buying into this vision for lack of a better term. "You're dead. You died on Kagara with the others. How can you remember?"

"I don't know. I don't know how or why I'm here. I just am, and know that I don't have a lot of time."

"Are you a ghost?"

"No," Amy replied with a weak smile, "You know I don't believe in ghosts, besides I'm hungry and need to use the rest room."

Alex thought about the possibilities, telepathic control, drug induced hallucinations, or, "Well, perhaps you were transported here through time, from a point before you died."

"That's not it," her sister replied with remarkable assuredness. "I do remember dying a little bit, the pain. Burning's not fun." Amy said thinking through her own agonizing memories. "But," she started attempting to change the subject, "It looks like you've been through some more hard times." She said gently touching the scars on Kendrick's face.

Alex slowly brushed her sister's hand aside and gradually stood. "I've lived through things, done things I'm not particularly proud of, but I guess that's the crux of it. I'm alive."

"So what have you been doing? I guess wearing that," Amy said waving at Kendrick's uniform, "everything's classified."

"A lot, but I guess who are you going to tell?" Alex said turning back to the girl still perched precariously cross-legged on the edge of the bed. "I left Kagara on the first ship I could find, went back to Earth, and Australia to our god-parents, joined Starfleet shortly after and went into the field service. Throughout that and my time in the JAG, I didn't win many friends." She sighed before going on, not wanting to give any further detail. "And now I'm out here on this ship called the Ranger, charting a previously uncharted area of space."

"We're in space?" Amy asked, and going on from Alex's affirmative nod continued, "Cool; where are we?"

"Home." Alex replied simply, before expounding. "You remember where Mum was originally from; where our people started out?" Amy returned the nod. "There," Alex went on returning to the next compartment of her quarters, causing Amy to follow. "Starfleet, want this area catalogued even though early and cursory scans reveal no appreciable significance now that most life has either died or moved on. I get the feeling though that something's not quite right with this sector."

"Why?"

"People, they seem to have changed, are changing." Alex replied thoughtfully.

"I've not changed," Amy said innocently sitting down on the couch beside Alex.

A rare event happened then, and Alex broke a slight smile, if a sad one. "No, you haven't. You're still as young and calming as ever. No matter what happened, what Dad and we had to live through, to do, you were always one of those bright lights in my life, in both our lives."

"I'm sorry I left."

"You have nothing to be sorry for, Amy." Alex cut in assuredly. "You didn't leave; you were taken from me, as was Dad."

"We had some fun times though, didn't we?" Amy went on with a bright smile.

At first Alex shook her head. They weren't fun, and sometimes they were barely liveable. Company and her Dad made life for them as good as it could be. "I stopped having fun a long time ago. With the raids and pillaging, we were cold, often hungry..."

"Yeah," Amy interrupted with a tear, "but we had fun."

Alex smiled sadly, and for a few long moments nothing was said until, "Why are you here, Amy?"

Amara looked down, not knowing what to say. She could tell that Alex wanted concrete answers but she really didn't have any to give her. "I'm sorry Alex, I just don't know, I just know that time is slipping away and soon I won't be around anymore."

"Where are you going?"

"I do have a message though." Amy said ignoring the question.

"From whom?"

"Mum," Amy replied, instantly piquing Kendrick's interest. "She said 'Life's too short, and they are still here. When you reach the crossroads, choose the fifth path'." Glancing at Alex's expression, Amy added, "Yeah that was my expression about it too. So with all these enemies, you didn't couple, or have kids?" Amy went on, still trying to change to subject.

Alex looked at her sister incredulously, "You think I'm the marrying type?" she asked while Amy just displayed a mischievous smile.

That smile didn't last long though as she thought about her own non-existent life. "I wanted to have kids, lots of kids."

"Amy?" Alex started with another question formulating before her sister cut her off.

"It's time, I have to go now."

"Not yet, just stay a little longer."

"I have to. Remember, life's too short Alex, don't waste it." Amy said as she stood and walked back to the bedroom without glancing back. Alex stood to follow but by the time she got there, her sister, or whoever, whatever she was, was gone.

Disappointed and maybe more than a little sad, she turned abruptly, and the room didn't stop spinning. After a few long seconds, things normalised and Alex realised she was sitting on the floor beside the lounger again, the drink she picked up from the replicator earlier now spilled on the carpet next to her. She slowly got to her feet and went to the bedroom finding the cushion that Amara was fiddling with on the floor at the foot of the bed. What had transpired was a bit of a mystery and one that she was not altogether comfortable in experiencing.

Did she dream it? She hardly dreamed anymore, or despite her memory, remember them after the fact.

Did she imagine it? Something said no--her imagination was even less developed nowadays than her dreamscape.

One thing was for certain though; she didn't feel the same as she did before.

 

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