[Round 5] Ships In the Night

[James T. Kolk]

Lt. Ethan Brice - "Ships in the Night"

(( BLACK OF SPACE ))

:: What was that old saying? In space no one can hear you scream? The lack of atmosphere in space meant that sound couldn't travel. No sound meant no screams. It meant that the rush of the warp nacelles on either side of the Akira class starship wouldn't have been heard even if there were life forms in the vicinity to hear them.::

:: A child in an orphanage played with a domino collection, arranging them neatly and precisely in a line, sweeping into a curve and back around again. She knew what she was doing. It was all mathematical.::

:: The monogrammed hull careened softly through the black, pin-[...]ed darkness of space, aware of its own existence. The gentleness of its journey was a parallel to the damage which streaked down the gun metal exterior. Scorch marks, cracks and running wave lines rippled like water over the wounded battleship on its way home.::

:: Gliding through purple and blue, flickers of light like forks of lightening flashed through the black and onto the hull, tapping like a water drop would falling from a leaf in the rain, barely glancing off the surface before distributing itself in all directions. It was a magnet moving with such timed precision through the nebula that every simple turn, every minute fraction of a degree was a complex system of mathematical equations.::

:: The child flicked the first domino, humming to herself. It knocked into the second and started to drop in a descending order, creating a pattern along the floor.::

:: A bolt of the transparent lighting flashed over the hull once more; it triggered a set of systems to go into a spiral. Immersing the ship into a dampening field, a cocoon was established around the unsuspecting crew, shutting down subspace transmissions almost immediately. Starfleet Headquarters would realise this before the Ronin would have the chance.::

:: One system after another started to fail. Subspace transmissions, weapons, shields... then the most detrimental of all. The two who would register this were very different. One a red haired Captain who would know the signs immediately and the other a dark haired Engineer who would be reading it with a wide eyed expression.::

:: As the last domino fell, panic would descend.::

TBC

Lt. Ethan Brice

Chief of Engineering

USS Ronin

[James T. Kolk]

As I do so many of Ethan's posts, I thuroughly enjoyed his extremely artful way of describing just about everything. I love the way he tells us what's going on but also leaves us guessing and anticipating where this new plot will take us. He didn't just move the plot along, he created it. Thanks Ethan for another great SIM.

[Ilene Torza]

I echo what Jack said and add something else I really liked: I like the way you juxtaposed the buildup of the ship's problems with the child in the orphanage. The mix was probably my favorite part of the whole piece. Nice job, Ethan!