Round about the starry throne

Posted on Tue Jan 10th, 2023 @ 11:33am by Captain Samuel Woolheater

Mission: Season 6 : Episode 1: Circinus
Location: USS Elysium - EVA
Timeline: MD03: 0630 hours
928 words - 1.9 OF Standard Post Measure

[ON:]


EXTERIOR – VENTRAL AXIS – BELLY OF THE SHIP

It was the most beautiful sight they had seen all day.

There, on the hull they stood. Eight marines from the 62nd Company dressed in their EVA armored suits. Their magnetized boots held them fast to the lowest side of the crippled starship. Like a wounded bird, Elysium twirled in a spiral. Venting smoke and plasma, gaping holes could be seen in her hull. As pilots had previously reported, grave cracks, like spidery webbing, were seen along her hull. And from this vantage point on the bottom of the ship, the marines could see, up close, the damage.

It was just about when they were ready to open the hatch to lowest point of the ship that someone looked up and said, “Look! I see the thrusters firing!” Taking a moment to look up, far above their heads on the port side thruster array, they could see the thruster fire and liquid turned to gas and provided the thrust necessary to slow the spin of the vessel.

The stars, those meaner beauties of the night that look so distant, so dim, so alien to our eyes. So vast was their number, so meager their light, these common people of the skies bore silent witness to the mad labor here on the ship. They were silent as they stood there. The grand spectacle playing out before them that their gaze was fixed to the underside of the saucer section and the port side of the ship. At regular intervals, timed by some mechanism or arrangement, the ship slowly, very slowly at first and then gaining in strength began to slow her spin.

The galaxies and constellations, nebulae, planets, comets and black holes, the observable universe surrounded them. And it was humbling. To feel insignificant before the Cosmos; reminded one marine that life was short. Life was but a moment, a blinking of an eye, not even a drop in the cosmic scale. And yet – they were a part of the universe. They were all made of star stuff. Just like every other living thing. With all the death and destruction, they had seen this terrible day. It reminded all of them that life is a gift. Short and precious; to be lived for and in the service of our fellow creatures. A tomorrow is never promised. We are just tenants of this world. And as the ship slowly stopped spinning. Slowly righted. And now…spinning halted. We have just been given a new lease, and a warning from the landlord.

The attitude thrusters continued to fire and Elysium was level again. The stars in their courses were fixed again. Though Samuel Woolheater did not know any of their names.

“Seeing all of this, having the privilege to see…all of this. Makes one feel small. I didn’t think that I would ever look at thruster exhaust with quite the thrill I am looking at it now. My god...if this ship doesn’t look damn gorgeous to my eyes. By virtue, first, then by choice, a queen. Tell me, if she were not so designed to be the eclipse and the glory of her kind?”

Sam looked at them, “Excuse me marines. It has been a long day and the work is terrible and necessary. This one moment is the bright spot after what we’ve been through. I am proud of all of you and privileged to serve with you. We have work to do; best get on it.”

Soon, they were back inside the ship. The extraordinary moment to simply – be – a part of the universe, to be small and to be vulnerable. To know that everyone depended upon everyone else to survive was a lesson that was often learned in the trenches. And in the fog of war. Rarely was it given an opportunity to shew wisdom of the things that mattered in a time and place as this.

The hatch was closed. The rips in the hull seemed to bleed out atmosphere and energy. The saucer and the engines had lost their comforting hues of blue and red. The nacelles were cold and dark. A shuttle and a fighter patrolled ‘round the horn of the ship. They grew small and smaller still in the distance. A long trail of vapor, like a trail of blood spilled behind the ship from where she dropped out of warp and then was adrift. The shimmering of her vapor trail behind her was very, very long. But even that looks small and distant now.

She was on the outskirts of a magellanic cloud of gas and dust. Purple and red with bright yellow hues. Comets, their tails so bright, flew past planets in their orbits and the magellanic cloud looks smaller to us. And the planets in their orbits spin round about the starry throne of each solar system. And the solar systems grow smaller still. Since the race of time begun, since the birthday of the sun, these galaxies formed and give life to their worlds. But they are foreign galaxies and distant stars to nearly everyone on board.

And Elysium can no longer be seen in the cloud, nor near the comets, nor the planets, nor their solar systems. 13.1 billion light years is a long way from home. A very long way from home indeed.




[OFF:]

Captain Samuel Woolheater
“Saepius Exertus, Semper Fidelis, Frater Infinitas”
Division VI, MARDET 62nd Company "Spartans", 1st Platoon CO
=/\= USS ELYSIUM - NCC-89000 =/\=