Memories

Posted on 09 Dec 2023 @ 10:17pm by Lieutenant JG Kaelyth Solmarr

1,727 words; about a 9 minute read

Mission: Shoreleave
Location: DS9, Promenade, Upper Level
Timeline: Present

Kaelyth Solmarr stood on the upper level of Deep Space 9's Promenade watching the people moving below him, his hands curled around the railing. This place was like a thousand other stations from a thousand species. The names and species changed, but freeports were the same the universe over, and this place was no different.

Oh, yes, he knew this was not technically a freeport -- it was administered by Starfleet -- but at least on this level of the place, it reminded him of one. He also knew that the crowd beneath him was much smaller and less diverse than it had been before the Dominion War, but wars had a way of changing not only people but places, and this place was no exception to that rule either.

He was no exception to that rule. War was not really what had changed Kaelyth though. What had changed him was far more... personal. And as he watched the people below him, some of them families, his mind retreated to a time before all of the pain and darkness.

Flashback
Esryth, Veloris Prime

Kaelyth walked silently beside his wife, their daughter sitting on his shoulders. Siyarra loved to sit on Daddy's shoulders because it made her tall. After all, at six feet and five inches in height, he was taller than pretty much everyone she had ever met. Then again, he was taller than anyone her momma had ever met.

Currently, they were walking through the bazaar in Esryth, the capital city of Veloris Prime. They had finished their seventh mission as Advance Team and had been given some time off. Frankly, he was grateful for it as it allowed him to focus on his family first.

"Daddy! Look!" Siyarra squealed in delight, pointing to one of the vendors' shops.

"What, Little Spark?" Kaelyth asked, using the nickname he had given her when she was born. He turned his gaze toward the shop and saw several things that might have caught his daughter's eye. "You wish to take a closer look, yes?"

"Yes! Yes! Please, Daddy!"

Kaelyth chuckled and looked down at his wife. Enyrra was smiling as well. They moved toward the shop, Kaelyth lifting Siyarra off of his shoulders as they did so that she could look closer at whatever it was that had caught her eye.

"We spoil her, you know, Love?" Enyrra said quietly, though there was not the slightest indication that she might be saying that was a bad thing.

Kaelyth set Siyarra on her feet and watched her scurry to the shop and put her face against the transparent metal window. He chuckled softly as well. "Perhaps, but not to such a level as to change her," he answered, a shadow passing over his eyes and facial expression for a second before he cleared it.

Enyrra had seen that before and frowned. But she did not press. When he was ready to tell her what was wrong, he would. Instead, she simply focused on the statement and the Now. "No, I agree. Though I cannot fathom anything changing her, my Love," she answered.

He nodded, and they joined their daughter at the window.

Present Day
Deep Space Nine

He remembered that day clearly. They had bought Siyarra the small locket made of kherrys crystal and had stored their image and hers in it so that she could feel close to them even when she grew up and had her own life far from them. They had been so happy then. None of them had suspected what would happen only three missions later.

Flashback
Ellerrann VI

They had been here for what seemed to Kaelyth like an eternity. It was several months, but it felt so much longer to him.

He knew, intellectually, that such a feeling was likely tied to the physical stress of living around the constantly-changing energy patterns of rising and waning storms. On most worlds, the ambient energies resonated through him, but this was different. It was like having someone constantly screaming in your ear while sitting in a violently-vibrating body-encasing constraint device. He felt as if he had run several marathons back to back.

The good news was that they were almost done. They had finished with the other two Towers and were connecting the final Tower to the Hub. Once that was completed, all that would remain would be to turn the whole thing on and let it “housebreak” this Goddess-forsaken planet.

Crack! Sizzle! The sound and vibration were unexpected, even by him, and far too close for his comfort. He was outside, testing the circuit pathways in the final panel, and that bolt had struck not five feet from him!

Kaelyth leapt back from the panel and away to his left — the bolt had struck on his right. His eyes darted about in search of the source of the bolt, but the sky was, as always, filled with storms beginning, storms ending, and storms raging. Which one had been to blame was not clear until another bolt struck nearby, closer this time. But this time, he had seen where it had come from.

Knowing the direction the storm was from him, he skirted around the building, putting the Tower between himself and the storm while he tried to reach the relative safety of the Tower’s interior. When he did, he called to his wife and daughter. “Enyrra! Siyarra! We must leave now!”

Enyrra came out of the Tower’s control room and looked at him oddly. “What’s wrong?”

Kaelyth felt unsettled, and it showed in his eyes and the tone of his voice. “There is a storm here that—” he cut himself off, not sure even he believed it.

Enyrra frowned now. She could see that her husband was distressed, but she couldn’t understand the reason. This planet always had storms. What could possibly be so different about this one? “A storm that what, Kaelyth?” she asked, moving closer to him and reaching out to put a hand on his arm.

Kaelyth looked down into her eyes, seeing her concern for him and her confusion. He closed his for a moment, then reopened them and answered, “There is a storm here that I did not feel rise. It… surprised me,” he admitted, waiting for the disbelief that he felt to be reflected in her reaction.

It was not. Enyrra’s look of concern deepened. Partly, that was because she knew that Kaelyth could feel the energy waxing and waning as a storm rose and dissipated. Partly, though, it was because she had never seen her husband so distressed, and that distressed her. “Perhaps, Love, you simply missed it among all of the other energies?” she offered, trying to ease his worry.

He shook his head. “I thought of that,” he countered. “I feel all of the others come and go. I know they are near before the first lightning bolt strikes. This one I did not feel. I knew of its existence because of the lightning that nearly struck me.” He took her hand that had been on his arm and held it firmly. “Please, find Siyarra. We must leave.”

His tone was a plea. She could hear it as clearly as she heard the crashing of thunder outside. She brought her other hand up and closed it around his. “All right, my Love. We will go,” she promised. As soon as you release my hand.

Kaelyth nodded, reluctantly releasing her hand. Somehow, feeling that contact had calmed him if only a little. She moved off, calling their daughter as she did so.

A few minutes later

They were running. The shuttle was not far from the Control Hub, and they had come back to the Hub for the equipment that did not belong to the Weather Control System. Kaelyth could feel the storm pursuing them, almost as if he was the prey and it was a powerful predator. Every so often, lightning would strike, each strike coming closer and closer to its mark.

Urgently, and with panic growing inside of him, Kaelyth urged his family onward toward the safety of the shuttle. He had one hand on Enyrra’s back and one on Siyarra’s, guiding, protecting. Only a few more feet, and…

Crack! Sizzle! The bolt struck, and he felt the white-hot fire of electrified plasma cut through him, igniting every nerve in his body. He cried out and pulled his hands back, instinctively trying to retreat.

As his hands pulled away, the energy that had been caught, enhanced, and focused by the Shaelyth in his body reached out and touched Enyrra and Siyarra. They had no time to even register what was happening; a fraction of a second of searing agony, and then oblivion. The ashes were caught by the winds and scattered across Ellerrann VI. And like those ashes, the storm that had been the cause of this horror vanished as well, but Kaelyth did not notice. Even if he had not been so overwhelmed with grief, he likely would not have sensed it leave, just as he had not sensed it arrive.

That tore another cry from him, this one filled with anguish and loss, and he sank to his knees. “Take me too, damn you!” he screamed to the storm which, by now, had vanished. “Let me go with them!” But the storm did not hear. He remained, alone and lost among the storms.

Present
Deep Space Nine

That had been so many years ago, but it cut through him today as it had so long ago. His heart ached, and he closed his eyes against the pain of the memory. Eventually, he banished it, returned it to the black box in the back of his mind where it could not hurt him, and closed the box. He could not deal with that now, but neither could he stand here any longer and watch the ebb and flow of the station's population.

It is time to go, he told himself, time to meet your new crew. Yes, focusing on here and now, on his current career in Starfleet, that should help.

OFF:

A Post by

Lieutenant Junior Grade Kaelyth Solmarr
Assistant Chief Engineering Officer
USS Cygnus

 

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