NOV/DEC *WINNER* The Day I Died

[functionalnerd]

Breathe in. Breathe out. That’s probably more than what I’m doing. Me, well, this is all that’s left. A scorched black box. An isoinear chip found in the rubble from a matter-antimatter explosion. Bits of data. Ones and zeros. But don’t feel bad for me. Your cells will stop converting ATP into ADP too. The self sustained reaction of your life will come to an end just like mine. But more than tangible stuff--binary data, more than a chemical reaction. I’ve become something more, something intangible--a story that will go on and on. You may be breathing, but unless you’ve defeated the Borg, or discovered a stable worm hole, I’ll out live you in the stories that will be told about me.

First things first. I’m not crazy. Just because the authorities have found I have connections to “conspiracy theory” groups--people considered paranoid and delusional--don’t go putting me in a box with the likes of them. All I ask is that you hear me out.

Where to start? Well, like the billions of people that died when Earth was destroyed that day in 2387 my life ended. But not in literal sense. Life as I knew it would never be the same. When Sirius-A went supernova. When that shock wave turned Earth into a cloud of dust spread across half a light-year. When everything I cared about--my family, my home, my girl, my frakking dog--when they all got reduced to their basic elements. Blobs of protons, neutrons, and electrons. That’s the day I died. When you’ve got nothing to live for, you’ve got everything to die for.

Those “conspiracy theory” groups, I’ll admit lots of what they claim is far fetched. Stuff like the top brass of Star Fleet being replaced by Changelings, or Vulcans working with the Klingons to eliminate the Romulans is pretty absurd. But what they have to say about Sirius NOT being some freak of physics, that the Romulans had something to do with it going nova, they’ve got some solid data to back up their claims.

Rewind back to why I’m not space dust. I had just signed up to join Star Fleet, and a couple buddies of mine decided that we should go on one last hurrah before we entered the Academy. It was a trip to Risa full of booze and debauchery, kinda like spring break on Earth but on steroids.

You know it’s a good time when the only memories you have are the ones you have on your holo-camera. They were the last good memories I’d ever make.

On the journey back is when we got the news. You know that feeling you get when it feels like your heart is trying to jump out of your mouth? The way your chest tightens, and you breath the way they teach you in Lamaze class. Short, forceful breaths. Colors fade away, it feels like an overcast day even in the artificial light of a ships cabin. Your knees buckle and at the same time it feels like someones messing with the artificial gravity. That’s the way it felt when you realized that nothing would ever be the same again.

Jump forward to me graduating from the academy on Vulcan. Talk about a poop hole of a planet. I’m sitting in a bar with those same buddies I heard the grim news with. We’re freshly graduated Ensigns on a poor excuse of a planet doing the only thing we can find to do. Drink. That brings us to Joe, he’s this burley, stupid strong, kind of guy. With his finger-tip length brown hair, and forearms the size of my calves you wouldn't want to get in a fight with this guy. The thing about Joe was that you’d never accuse him of being all that bright.

“I’m going to kill me some Romulans,” Joe says. His words are slurred, and his breath is a flame hazard.

Another thing about Joe is that he says dumb things all the time, like the time he thought a ballad was a male duck. And even though you’d never expect Joe to be the sharpest tool in the shed, you never knew him to lie. Claims he made tended to be true.

“What are you talking about?” I say.

“The Romulans,” Joe says even slower, “I’m going to kill them.”

“I got that part. But, why?”

The rest of my buddies, they’re playing pool with some Bajoran hottie and her two ugly friends. One of them is getting lucky tonight, and the other two are taking one for the team.

Joe, he turns his head and squares me up with his dominant eye like he’s aiming a phaser at my face. “Because they’re the ones that caused the nova.”

You’ve got to remember that up until this time all I’ve ever heard about the nova was that it was some freak of physics. A star that was supposed to die an unspectacular death--becoming a white dwarf--ended up going nova wiping out the Sol system and everything I ever cared about. Remember how for months after the nova all you ever heard was that it was something scientist couldn't explain. That there were never any reports on how the nova was really an artificial event. Not one word of intent. Just mother nature on PMS. Unpredictable and crazy.

Reaching my hand out, I take Joe’s beer, “I think you’ve had too much to drink,” I say.

“I’m serious,” Joe says, “I’ve seen the evidence myself.” Snatching his beer back from me, he takes another swig. “Back when I took astrometrics lab I pulled up the records from the months leading up to the nova. I found tachyon trails. And I matched them to tachyon signatures of Romulan cloaking devices.”

“That doesn’t mean they caused the nova.” I say. “It just means they were around, I’m sure the Romulans are always snooping around and Star Fleet is keeping tabs on them.”

Remember, I’m not crazy. Just because I’m listening to the ramblings of a drunk Grizzly Bear, doesn’t mean I believe what he’s saying. In fact, I tried to convince him that he was the crazy one.

Shaking his finger at me, Joe puts down his beer, and widens his eyes. “That’s what I thought,” he says. “So I saved my data separate from the academy's computers and told my professor what I had found. He said that it was ‘interesting’ and that he’d ‘look into it’.” Taking another swig of his beer, Joe continues. “Bull! After I told my professor, the next week in class, I tried pulling up the same data file I had before and they were replaced. The tachyon trails were gone.”

“You probably just stumbled across some classified data,” I argue. “It doesn’t mean the Romulans did anything.”

Finishing off his beer, Joe slams it down on the counter top, and slides it away from us towards the bar keep. “Remember that one girl you bonked in Comm 310?” Joe asks. “Not the red head with the bubble butt, it was the blonde with the big ta-tas.”

Okay. I’ve got a confession to make. I might be what you consider a sexaholic. I wasn’t always this way. In fact, before my life ended I was what you considered to be a good guy. I was loyal to my girl. I bought her flowers, Gerber Daises--they were her favorite--just because. I listened when she talked, and even sold my hover-cycle to buy her a ring. But after the nova, the day she died, I died too. Since then, I feel like I’ve been doing a horrible impersonation of myself. I quit caring about being a good guy. Because when you’ve got nothing to live for, you’ve got everything to die for. Plus, the girls in Comm 310, you could never accuse them of being prude.

“Yeah,” I lie. There were at least three blondes with big ta-tas in that class that I bonked.

“Well her,” Joe nods, he’s grinning at me, “I remember in the Comm 310 lab, we were analyzing old comm logs. And she unscrambled a Romulan signal. It was all esoteric, but I remember one word: Manhattan.”

Yes, you heard right. ‘Esoteric’ came out of a gorilla's mouth. I kid you not.

This is where things start to become all “conspiracy theory”. You see, on Earth, back in the days when they thought bombarding themselves with radiation good idea, the first nuclear bomb was created with the code name: Manhattan Project.

I promise you, I’m not crazy. Just because I did some digging based off the drunk ramblings from a Sasquatch does not make me crazy. Think of it more as curiosity.

The thing is when you start looking into all this conspiracy theory stuff, you find yourself in the company of some shady people, like Ferengi, Nausicaans, and Cardissians. Where ever there’s crime to be committed, there’s always money involved. Because latinum is power, the same way a disruptor is power, the same way big ta-tas are power. In those circles, they’ve been saying that the nova was really an attack from the Romulans on the Federation. They found the same data that Joe found and more. They had some cryptic Romulan communications on something called Green Matter. Needless to say Joe’s information was solid. He was right, Romulans needed to die.

Jump back to now. In those shady circles you meet really interesting people. If you ever happen to meet the Ferengi that sells self-sealing stem bolts only in the orbits of uninhabited moons, you probably met the man that sold me this Cardissian missile. It’s supposed to be this unstoppable, self-guided missile, complete with defensive weaponry and 1,000 kilograms of matter and antimatter. The reason why you hear all that beeping, well that’s me flying this “self-guided” missile. Apparently you can make a lot of latinum just off of the computer from this thing. It’s okay, though. I’m a lot more entertaining than some Cardissian computer. A lot more dedicated too. I’m going to get my job done. I just hope it doesn’t hurt too much. No matter, I’m a bit of a masochist, and that’s a valuable job skill.

Remember, I’m not crazy. Just because I’m flying a missile at the capital of Romulus doesn’t make me a nut. Revenge comes in many forms; some people get even, others escalate, and I, well I end things.

Okay, I won’t be able to talk now. I’m taking a lot of heavy fire from a couple of Romulan Warbirds. I have to concentrate now. Remember, I’m not crazy. When you’ve got nothing to live for, you’ve got everything to die for.

My name is Jonas. And this is the day that I died.

==============================

Ensign Cameron Bunag

Science Officer

Duronis II Embassy

USS Thunder

[functionalnerd]

Breathe in. Breathe out. That’s probably more than what I’m doing. Me, well, this is all that’s left. A scorched black box. An isoinear chip found in the rubble from a matter-antimatter explosion. Bits of data. Ones and zeros. But don’t feel bad for me. Your cells will stop converting ATP into ADP too. The self sustained reaction of your life will come to an end just like mine. But more than tangible stuff--binary data, more than a chemical reaction. I’ve become something more, something intangible--a story that will go on and on. You may be breathing, but unless you’ve defeated the Borg, or discovered a stable worm hole, I’ll out live you in the stories that will be told about me.

First things first. I’m not crazy. Just because the authorities have found I have connections to “conspiracy theory” groups--people considered paranoid and delusional--don’t go putting me in a box with the likes of them. All I ask is that you hear me out.

Where to start? Well, like the billions of people that died when Earth was destroyed that day in 2387 my life ended. But not in the literal sense. Life as I knew it would never be the same. When Sirius-A went supernova. When that shock wave turned Earth into a cloud of dust spread across half a light-year. When everything I cared about--my family, my home, my girl, my frakking dog--when they all got reduced to their basic elements. Blobs of protons, neutrons, and electrons. That’s the day I died. When you’ve got nothing to live for, you’ve got everything to die for.

Those “conspiracy theory” groups, I’ll admit lots of what they claim is farfetched. Stuff like the top brass of Star Fleet being replaced by Changelings, or Vulcans working with the Klingons to eliminate the Romulans is pretty absurd. But what they have to say about Sirius NOT being some freak of physics, that the Romulans had something to do with it going nova, they’ve got some solid data to back up their claims.

Rewind back to why I’m not space dust. I had just signed up to join Star Fleet, and a couple buddies of mine decided that we should go on one last hurrah before we entered the Academy. It was a trip to Risa full of booze and debauchery, kinda like spring break on Earth but on steroids.

You know it’s a good time when the only memories you have are the ones you have on your holo-camera. They were the last good memories I’d ever make.

On the journey back is when we got the news. You know that feeling you get when it feels like your heart is trying to jump out of your mouth? The way your chest tightens, and you breathe the way they teach you in Lamaze class. Short, forceful breaths. Colors fade away, it feels like an overcast day even in the artificial light of a ships cabin. Your knees buckle and at the same time it feels like someone’s messing with the artificial gravity. That’s the way it felt when you realized that nothing would ever be the same again.

Jump forward to me graduating from the academy on Vulcan. Talk about a poop hole of a planet. I’m sitting in a bar with those same buddies I heard the grim news with. We’re freshly graduated Ensigns on a poor excuse of a planet doing the only thing we can find to do. Drink. That brings us to Joe; he’s this burley, stupid strong, kind of guy. With his finger-tip length brown hair, and forearms the size of my calves you wouldn't want to get in a fight with this guy. The thing about Joe was that you’d never accuse him of being all that bright.

“I’m going to kill me some Romulans,” Joe says. His words are slurred, and his breath is a flame hazard.

Another thing about Joe is that he says dumb things all the time, like the time he thought a ballad was a male duck. And even though you’d never expect Joe to be the sharpest tool in the shed, you never knew him to lie. Claims he made tended to be true.

“What are you talking about?” I say.

“The Romulans,” Joe says even slower, “I’m going to kill them.”

“I got that part. But, why?”

The rest of my buddies, they’re playing pool with some Bajoran hottie and her two ugly friends. One of them is getting lucky tonight, and the other two are taking one for the team.

Joe, he turns his head and squares me up with his dominant eye like he’s aiming a phaser at my face. “Because they’re the ones that caused the nova.”

You’ve got to remember that up until this time all I’ve ever heard about the nova was that it was some freak of physics. A star that was supposed to die an unspectacular death--becoming a white dwarf--ended up going nova wiping out the Sol system and everything I ever cared about. Remember how for months after the nova all you ever heard was that it was something scientist couldn't explain. That there were never any reports on how the nova was really an artificial event. Not one word of intent. Just Mother Nature on PMS. Unpredictable and crazy.

Reaching my hand out, I take Joe’s beer, “I think you’ve had too much to drink,” I say.

“I’m serious,” Joe says, “I’ve seen the evidence myself.” Snatching his beer back from me, he takes another swig. “Back when I took astrometrics lab I pulled up the records from the months leading up to the nova. I found tachyon trails. And I matched them to tachyon signatures of Romulan cloaking devices.”

“That doesn’t mean they caused the nova.” I say. “It just means they were around, I’m sure the Romulans are always snooping around and Star Fleet is keeping tabs on them.”

Remember, I’m not crazy. Just because I’m listening to the ramblings of a drunken Grizzly Bear, doesn’t mean I believe what he’s saying. In fact, I tried to convince him that he was the crazy one.

Shaking his finger at me, Joe puts down his beer, and widens his eyes. “That’s what I thought,” he says. “So I saved my data separate from the academy's computers and told my professor what I had found. He said that it was ‘interesting’ and that he’d ‘look into it’.” Taking another swig of his beer, Joe continues. “Bull! After I told my professor, the next week in class, I tried pulling up the same data file I had before and they were replaced. The tachyon trails were gone.”

“You probably just stumbled across some classified data,” I argue. “It doesn’t mean the Romulans did anything.”

Finishing off his beer, Joe slams it down on the counter top, and slides it away from us towards the bar keep. “Remember that one girl you bonked in Comm 310?” Joe asks. “Not the red head with the bubble butt, it was the blonde with the big ta-tas.”

Okay. I’ve got a confession to make. I might be what you consider a sexaholic. I wasn’t always this way. In fact, before my life ended I was what you considered to be a good guy. I was loyal to my girl. I bought her flowers, Gerber Daises--they were her favorite--just because. I listened when she talked, and even sold my hover-cycle to buy her a ring. But after the nova, the day she died, I died too. Since then, I feel like I’ve been doing a horrible impersonation of myself. I quit caring about being a good guy. Because when you’ve got nothing to live for, you’ve got everything to die for. Plus, the girls in Comm 310, you could never accuse them of being prude.

“Yeah,” I lie. There were at least three blondes with big ta-tas in that class that I bonked.

“Well her,” Joe nods, he’s grinning at me, “I remember in the Comm 310 lab, we were analyzing old comm logs. And she unscrambled a Romulan signal. It was all esoteric, but I remember one word: Manhattan.”

Yes, you heard right. ‘Esoteric’ came out of a gorilla's mouth. I kid you not.

This is where things start to become all “conspiracy theory”. You see, on Earth, back in the days when they thought bombarding themselves with radiation was a good idea, the first nuclear bomb was created with the code name: Manhattan Project.

I promise you, I’m not crazy. Just because I did some digging based off the drunken ramblings from a Sasquatch does not make me crazy. Think of it more as curiosity.

The thing is when you start looking into all this conspiracy theory stuff, you find yourself in the company of some shady people, like Ferengi, Nausicaans, and Cardissians. Where ever there’s crime to be committed, there’s always money involved. Because latinum is power, the same way a disruptor is power, the same way big ta-tas are power. In those circles, they’ve been saying that the nova was really an attack from the Romulans on the Federation. They found the same data that Joe found and more. They had some cryptic Romulan communications on something called Green Matter. Needless to say Joe’s information was solid. He was right, Romulans needed to die.

Jump back to now. In those shady circles you meet really interesting people. If you ever happen to meet the Ferengi that sells self-sealing stem bolts only in the orbits of uninhabited moons, you probably met the man that sold me this Cardissian missile. It’s supposed to be this unstoppable, self-guided missile, complete with defensive weaponry and 1,000 kilograms of matter and antimatter. The reason why you hear all that beeping, well that’s me flying this “self-guided” missile. Apparently you can make a lot of latinum just off of the computer from this thing. It’s okay, though. I’m a lot more entertaining than some Cardissian computer. A lot more dedicated too. I’m going to get my job done. I just hope it doesn’t hurt too much. No matter, I’m a bit of a masochist, and that’s a valuable job skill.

Remember, I’m not crazy. Just because I’m flying a missile at the capital of Romulus doesn’t make me a nut. Revenge comes in many forms; some people get even, others escalate, and I, well I end things.

Okay, I won’t be able to talk now. I’m taking a lot of heavy fire from a couple of Romulan Warbirds. I have to concentrate now. Remember, I’m not crazy. When you’ve got nothing to live for, you’ve got everything to die for.

My name is Jonas. And this is the day that I died.

==============================

Ensign Cameron Bunag

Science Officer

Duronis II Embassy

USS Thunder

Edited November 14, 2011 by functionalnerd