Things Past – Always the cold.
by
Post Details
ON:
It was a clear sky that night. The gorge was bathed in a soft light from both Derna and Jerrado, Bajor's most distant moons, which glinted off the quartz crystals in the rock formations all the way down the rock-face. The day's earlier wind had died down but the temperature had plummeted since sunset a few hours before - leaving the night bitterly cold. To the untrained, or lazy, eye the gorge appeared peaceful, serene, and indeed picturesque with a fog beginning to rise at the bottom. At twelve points along the ridge there were very small puffs of mist periodically visible in the stillness of the evening, which slowly dissipated in the stillness of the evening as they rose from behind the rocks. The quiet of the place was disturbed for a moment by the nocturnal alarm calls of a hara cat somewhere further down the valley. At that instant a large hand with four fingers raised appeared from behind the third outcrop on the left hand side of the gorge. Directly opposite that rock a further, much smaller, hand appeared with a raised thumb, followed by a further ten from behind other outcrops all along both ridges. Unlike the others this hand was visibly shivering in the cold air - despite the cloths wrapped around it forming a makeshift glove.
The youngster to whom the hand belonged was even trying to use his other arm to stop the shivering - determined not to appear afraid in front of his seniors, but to no effect. It was his fourteenth birthday, and for his present he'd been handed a phaser and taken on the ambush - his first ever on foot. If only he could just stop his hands shaking... shivering... in the cold. Always the cold.
A slight skitter of the gravel a few metres to his right had him almost jumping over the rock which formed his position and he clumsily swung his rifle towards the disturbance. "Woah there, kiddo." whispered a softly feminine yet husky voice from the direction of the disturbance "Don't worry: you'll do fine. Compared to that dogfight this is a doddle - just keep your head and you'll be fine. You're fire-support: just stay here and shoot where I shoot." She reached a hand out to the teenager and grasped his left hand from the muzzle of the rifle.
He gazed back into her eyes and nodded, mouthing "Thanks sis'." without any sound coming out.
With that the woman turned and without a sound disappeared back into the undergrowth to his right, and he shifted his weight back onto his left side, and raised the rifle so that it pointed down the length of the gorge. Resting it in the nook of two rocks he gazed down the sights in preparation and anticipation, but the shivering came again - from his core down the lengths of his arms, into the rifle, and against the rock. Lifting the phaser slightly to avoid the noise of it bouncing against the rock he moved his hand to cradle it - resting his wrist against the rock - feeling the cold of it. Always the cold.
At the bottom of the gully there was a sudden burst of movement: two hara kittens and their mother burst out of the undergrowth and bounded over the small stream. Whatever it was they were running from would not be far behind and Relma bit his lip to stop his teeth chattering as he tightened his grip on the weapon. A single cloaked figure emerged from the fog at the bottom of the gulch, moving slowly and leaning heavily on a stick. The lone shape kept moving down the gorge, with no sign of any other movement. Once he reached the halfway point the youngster tracked his weapon back to the end. As he did, from the corner of his eye he saw movement on the far ridge, and the sound of shifting gravel. Four dark shapes from either side of the gorge launched themselves down the slopes and slid down to surround the figure.
Vague murmurs of speech drifted up from the bottom of the gorge, but nothing audible enough for the young fighter to hear. He had no idea what was going on. The figure's cloak made him very hard to identify, but it made no sense for a Cardassian to be in the middle of nowhere like this alone. The man had to be an informant - and an important one for Borath to bring 12 people to meet him. That had to be it. But the four comrades who had slid down the slope all had their weapons trained on him. Why would the Resistance point weapons at one of their own informants. The young man really had no idea what was going on. The only thought which ran through his head in the moment was the cold. Always the cold.
As his ears strained to try to hear the discourse below his eyes kept scanning the edge of the gully, where a couple of bushes rustled in the breeze, but a name had just been spoken below 'Ches... something' he thought he had heard, but he couldn't be sure. The name meant nothing to the young man, and he'd need the full name to make anything of it. Whatever it could be. But even in the stillness of the night the full word had not carried, even in the near perfect conditions with no breeze... and there was no breeze...
... so why were the bushes moving?
The teenager's eyes darted back to the bushes. In the bright of the moon there was a bronze-coloured glint. Only one thing could glint like that in the moonlight: a Cardassian rifle. Without even thinking he levelled his rifle and aimed the sights three inches above the glint and fired. The phaser was cold in his hand as he pulled the trigger and lit up the gorge with the yellowish light. He wasn't shivering anymore, but he could still feel the cold. Always the cold.
The gorge exploded in a mesmerising array of phaser and disruptor fire. An entire platoon of Cardassian soldiers burst out of the undergrowth and took shelter under the boulders at the bottom of either side of the gorge, with the exception of a few who were felled by the first shots from the Bajorans. The four men in the bottom of the gully, including Borath and his son, were highly exposed and fell back into the stream bed for better cover - dragging the cloaked figure with him. Meryn kept firing his phaser on the Cardassians as they scurried for better cover and closed on the group's leader. His eyes kept moving ahead of the arcing beam of his weapon as he watched for new targets - such that he had no idea which of his shots hit and which didn't.
In the far corner of his eye the teenager saw a flash from the undergrowth at the end of the gorge. The next thing he knew was the sensation of falling - all the way down the gravel bank. His ears were only filled with a dull high-pitched whine, his eyes stung from the dust thrown into them, and his left side felt thousands of tiny pin-pricks - like boiling needles shot into his flesh. His slide was halted by the steam-bed, and as his head slipped under the water the heat was gone. Tiny pebbles and other pieces of shrapnel rained down from the top of the bank where he'd been only a few moments before, and the smell of scorched rock still clung to his nostrils, even under the water. There was an amazing sense of peace down there. The light-show above could be best appreciated from here. It was a thing of beauty really. He wondered why he'd never noticed that before. At the same time, however, the thing he noticed most about the water was the cold. The cold which filled his lungs in that moment. All there was here in the stream was the cold. Always the cold.
His daze was broken as a pair of strong hands dragged him to the bank and slapped his back. As he came out of the cold water he spluttered up the gulp he had taken in a moment before. The man was yelling at him, but his ears were still ringing and he couldn't hear a word of it. He turned his head to try and read his lips, but the man had turned back to the approaching Cardassians and opened fire again. As he lay in the dip of the stream-bed, with disruptor fire whizzing overhead, he tried to catch his bearings. He was still only vaguely aware of what had happened but he presumed a grenade had been involved. Alongside him lay the cloaked man, cowering. He was an elderly Bajoran, a kindly looking farmer. On the other side was Borath, firing like his life depended on it, which it did. Meryn closed his eyes for a moment to blink, and, as he did so, felt a tug on his right hand. Opening his eyes again he saw the cloaked man pulling at the rifle which still somehow sat firmly within his grasp. Even in his state of disorientation, however, he kept hold of the weapon, pushing the older man away into the stream. As his eyes refocused on the man he saw him rise to his feet and start running, without the aid of his stick, further down the gully - away from the fighting. Nudging Borath to his side he raised a groggy finger in the direction the man was running in. Rolling over Borath's gaze followed the man's gesture and caught sight of his prey making his escape and he pushed himself to his feet to set off in pursuit, but the man crumpled back to the ground a second later when an arcing light grazed his left thigh.
Relma again felt the man's hands grab him firmly by the scruff of the neck and shake him. He still couldn't hear, but he could see the words being formed by the man's mouth: 'Stop Him, Kid! Collaborator!' Beginning at a crawl Relma set off in pursuit. Despite his disorientation he had pushed himself to his feet and to a lumbering run very quickly, and could see the man through the mist ahead. He didn't know how long he chased him for. It felt like hours, but it could easily have been mere minutes. Even with his handicap the younger man was closing as the older man was without his stick, and finally he caught him as the man's cloak got under his foot as he ran and tripped him headlong into the stream-bed. Standing over him the teenager kept the rifle pointed straight at the man's head. The man's eyes were a deep blue, and looked like they belonged on a deeply spiritual man. He could imagine a grandson gazing into the eyes of a trusted paternal figure like him. The man had a deep cut to his forehead from his fall and as she struggled to get his footing again on the slippery pebbled the young man felt sorry for him. The teenager tilted the weapon up to try and stop the man a she gazed into his eyes, which seemed so warm and kindly. The bitter chill of the evening was biting into Relma and all he could feel was the cold of the water swirling around his ankles. As he stood over the elder man the latter tried to back away from him, through the water of the stream. He could see form the way his mouth was moving that he was saying "No! Please! Stop! Mercy!", but that didn't matter. Staring directly into his eyes, as the cold ate into his skin through his sodden clothes, Relma pulled his trigger - slicing through the old man's chest and extinguishing the spark from his eyes. Maybe not being able to hear the shot made the experience more surreal and distant, maybe the numbness throughout his body from the chill of the night stopped his connection to the event. He staggered backwards after the shot, and collapsed down onto the stream bank. The rest of the cell who had survived found him there, shivering, he didn't know how much longer afterwards, and staring into the eyes of the dead man. Whenever he would think of that night later he would feel only the cold. Always the cold.
And it wasn't the cold of the night. It was that of his heart, and the indifference with which he had ended another Bajoran's life - seeing his final desperate thoughts and the spark leave his eyes. Thinking back even over 20 years later, and all he could think about when recalling that night was the cold.
Always the cold.
OFF:
Relma Meryn
Borath Resistance Cell, 2363-9.
by
Post Details
| Title | Always the cold. | |
| Mission | Things Past | |
| Author(s) | ||
| Posted | Tue Jun 19, 2012 @ 2:31am | |
| Location | Lonar Province, Bajor. | |
| Timeline | Stardate 41104.9 (February 7th 2364) |
It was a clear sky that night. The gorge was bathed in a soft light from both Derna and Jerrado, Bajor's most distant moons, which glinted off the quartz crystals in the rock formations all the way down the rock-face. The day's earlier wind had died down but the temperature had plummeted since sunset a few hours before - leaving the night bitterly cold. To the untrained, or lazy, eye the gorge appeared peaceful, serene, and indeed picturesque with a fog beginning to rise at the bottom. At twelve points along the ridge there were very small puffs of mist periodically visible in the stillness of the evening, which slowly dissipated in the stillness of the evening as they rose from behind the rocks. The quiet of the place was disturbed for a moment by the nocturnal alarm calls of a hara cat somewhere further down the valley. At that instant a large hand with four fingers raised appeared from behind the third outcrop on the left hand side of the gorge. Directly opposite that rock a further, much smaller, hand appeared with a raised thumb, followed by a further ten from behind other outcrops all along both ridges. Unlike the others this hand was visibly shivering in the cold air - despite the cloths wrapped around it forming a makeshift glove.
The youngster to whom the hand belonged was even trying to use his other arm to stop the shivering - determined not to appear afraid in front of his seniors, but to no effect. It was his fourteenth birthday, and for his present he'd been handed a phaser and taken on the ambush - his first ever on foot. If only he could just stop his hands shaking... shivering... in the cold. Always the cold.
A slight skitter of the gravel a few metres to his right had him almost jumping over the rock which formed his position and he clumsily swung his rifle towards the disturbance. "Woah there, kiddo." whispered a softly feminine yet husky voice from the direction of the disturbance "Don't worry: you'll do fine. Compared to that dogfight this is a doddle - just keep your head and you'll be fine. You're fire-support: just stay here and shoot where I shoot." She reached a hand out to the teenager and grasped his left hand from the muzzle of the rifle.
He gazed back into her eyes and nodded, mouthing "Thanks sis'." without any sound coming out.
With that the woman turned and without a sound disappeared back into the undergrowth to his right, and he shifted his weight back onto his left side, and raised the rifle so that it pointed down the length of the gorge. Resting it in the nook of two rocks he gazed down the sights in preparation and anticipation, but the shivering came again - from his core down the lengths of his arms, into the rifle, and against the rock. Lifting the phaser slightly to avoid the noise of it bouncing against the rock he moved his hand to cradle it - resting his wrist against the rock - feeling the cold of it. Always the cold.
At the bottom of the gully there was a sudden burst of movement: two hara kittens and their mother burst out of the undergrowth and bounded over the small stream. Whatever it was they were running from would not be far behind and Relma bit his lip to stop his teeth chattering as he tightened his grip on the weapon. A single cloaked figure emerged from the fog at the bottom of the gulch, moving slowly and leaning heavily on a stick. The lone shape kept moving down the gorge, with no sign of any other movement. Once he reached the halfway point the youngster tracked his weapon back to the end. As he did, from the corner of his eye he saw movement on the far ridge, and the sound of shifting gravel. Four dark shapes from either side of the gorge launched themselves down the slopes and slid down to surround the figure.
Vague murmurs of speech drifted up from the bottom of the gorge, but nothing audible enough for the young fighter to hear. He had no idea what was going on. The figure's cloak made him very hard to identify, but it made no sense for a Cardassian to be in the middle of nowhere like this alone. The man had to be an informant - and an important one for Borath to bring 12 people to meet him. That had to be it. But the four comrades who had slid down the slope all had their weapons trained on him. Why would the Resistance point weapons at one of their own informants. The young man really had no idea what was going on. The only thought which ran through his head in the moment was the cold. Always the cold.
As his ears strained to try to hear the discourse below his eyes kept scanning the edge of the gully, where a couple of bushes rustled in the breeze, but a name had just been spoken below 'Ches... something' he thought he had heard, but he couldn't be sure. The name meant nothing to the young man, and he'd need the full name to make anything of it. Whatever it could be. But even in the stillness of the night the full word had not carried, even in the near perfect conditions with no breeze... and there was no breeze...
... so why were the bushes moving?
The teenager's eyes darted back to the bushes. In the bright of the moon there was a bronze-coloured glint. Only one thing could glint like that in the moonlight: a Cardassian rifle. Without even thinking he levelled his rifle and aimed the sights three inches above the glint and fired. The phaser was cold in his hand as he pulled the trigger and lit up the gorge with the yellowish light. He wasn't shivering anymore, but he could still feel the cold. Always the cold.
The gorge exploded in a mesmerising array of phaser and disruptor fire. An entire platoon of Cardassian soldiers burst out of the undergrowth and took shelter under the boulders at the bottom of either side of the gorge, with the exception of a few who were felled by the first shots from the Bajorans. The four men in the bottom of the gully, including Borath and his son, were highly exposed and fell back into the stream bed for better cover - dragging the cloaked figure with him. Meryn kept firing his phaser on the Cardassians as they scurried for better cover and closed on the group's leader. His eyes kept moving ahead of the arcing beam of his weapon as he watched for new targets - such that he had no idea which of his shots hit and which didn't.
In the far corner of his eye the teenager saw a flash from the undergrowth at the end of the gorge. The next thing he knew was the sensation of falling - all the way down the gravel bank. His ears were only filled with a dull high-pitched whine, his eyes stung from the dust thrown into them, and his left side felt thousands of tiny pin-pricks - like boiling needles shot into his flesh. His slide was halted by the steam-bed, and as his head slipped under the water the heat was gone. Tiny pebbles and other pieces of shrapnel rained down from the top of the bank where he'd been only a few moments before, and the smell of scorched rock still clung to his nostrils, even under the water. There was an amazing sense of peace down there. The light-show above could be best appreciated from here. It was a thing of beauty really. He wondered why he'd never noticed that before. At the same time, however, the thing he noticed most about the water was the cold. The cold which filled his lungs in that moment. All there was here in the stream was the cold. Always the cold.
His daze was broken as a pair of strong hands dragged him to the bank and slapped his back. As he came out of the cold water he spluttered up the gulp he had taken in a moment before. The man was yelling at him, but his ears were still ringing and he couldn't hear a word of it. He turned his head to try and read his lips, but the man had turned back to the approaching Cardassians and opened fire again. As he lay in the dip of the stream-bed, with disruptor fire whizzing overhead, he tried to catch his bearings. He was still only vaguely aware of what had happened but he presumed a grenade had been involved. Alongside him lay the cloaked man, cowering. He was an elderly Bajoran, a kindly looking farmer. On the other side was Borath, firing like his life depended on it, which it did. Meryn closed his eyes for a moment to blink, and, as he did so, felt a tug on his right hand. Opening his eyes again he saw the cloaked man pulling at the rifle which still somehow sat firmly within his grasp. Even in his state of disorientation, however, he kept hold of the weapon, pushing the older man away into the stream. As his eyes refocused on the man he saw him rise to his feet and start running, without the aid of his stick, further down the gully - away from the fighting. Nudging Borath to his side he raised a groggy finger in the direction the man was running in. Rolling over Borath's gaze followed the man's gesture and caught sight of his prey making his escape and he pushed himself to his feet to set off in pursuit, but the man crumpled back to the ground a second later when an arcing light grazed his left thigh.
Relma again felt the man's hands grab him firmly by the scruff of the neck and shake him. He still couldn't hear, but he could see the words being formed by the man's mouth: 'Stop Him, Kid! Collaborator!' Beginning at a crawl Relma set off in pursuit. Despite his disorientation he had pushed himself to his feet and to a lumbering run very quickly, and could see the man through the mist ahead. He didn't know how long he chased him for. It felt like hours, but it could easily have been mere minutes. Even with his handicap the younger man was closing as the older man was without his stick, and finally he caught him as the man's cloak got under his foot as he ran and tripped him headlong into the stream-bed. Standing over him the teenager kept the rifle pointed straight at the man's head. The man's eyes were a deep blue, and looked like they belonged on a deeply spiritual man. He could imagine a grandson gazing into the eyes of a trusted paternal figure like him. The man had a deep cut to his forehead from his fall and as she struggled to get his footing again on the slippery pebbled the young man felt sorry for him. The teenager tilted the weapon up to try and stop the man a she gazed into his eyes, which seemed so warm and kindly. The bitter chill of the evening was biting into Relma and all he could feel was the cold of the water swirling around his ankles. As he stood over the elder man the latter tried to back away from him, through the water of the stream. He could see form the way his mouth was moving that he was saying "No! Please! Stop! Mercy!", but that didn't matter. Staring directly into his eyes, as the cold ate into his skin through his sodden clothes, Relma pulled his trigger - slicing through the old man's chest and extinguishing the spark from his eyes. Maybe not being able to hear the shot made the experience more surreal and distant, maybe the numbness throughout his body from the chill of the night stopped his connection to the event. He staggered backwards after the shot, and collapsed down onto the stream bank. The rest of the cell who had survived found him there, shivering, he didn't know how much longer afterwards, and staring into the eyes of the dead man. Whenever he would think of that night later he would feel only the cold. Always the cold.
And it wasn't the cold of the night. It was that of his heart, and the indifference with which he had ended another Bajoran's life - seeing his final desperate thoughts and the spark leave his eyes. Thinking back even over 20 years later, and all he could think about when recalling that night was the cold.
Always the cold.
OFF:
Relma Meryn
Borath Resistance Cell, 2363-9.