round 12 Fleet Captain Kalianna Nicholotti - Legacies

[+ Rune Jolara]

((Unknown))

::Sunlight splashed into the [...]pit of the fighter, blinding her. Raising a suited hand, she blocked the light, squinting her eyes open just enough to make out her surroundings. That was when she realized that her hand wasn’t suited, and the light wasn’t pouring into her [...]pit.::

::Pulling herself up she looked around. Everything seemed unfamiliar and dark, except for the area where she sat. The five or so feet around her was like a piece of home; the feeling of tarmac under her made her look in the direction where her plane should have been. But it wasn’t there. Only the stars were there. Only the stars that she didn’t recognize.::

Nicholotti: Hello?

((Flashback, Moments Prior))

::Pushing the fighter, she saw it start to come apart. She’d reached the point where the shearing was too much for the integrity fields and the shields. Soon the fighter would cease to be and the anomaly would remain. Now had to be good enough.::

::Lighting the candle that was the equivalent of an ancient plane’s afterburners, she hit the commands that would set things in motion. The pulling at her mind seemed to grow stronger and get worse as the speed increased. She watched the computer go through the countdown that would take care of things once and for all. Thoughts of her return fled and left her knowing that this was a one way trip, but that didn’t matter. All that mattered now was success.::

((End Flashback))

::In her mind, words coalesced and formed, echoing in on themselves.::

Voice: Greetings Kal-E-an-ya.

::It was disembodied, yet she could almost pinpoint it in her mind. In fact, she wasn’t sure she could really ‘see’ at all. Was this all in her head and nothing more? As if reading her mind, an answer was quickly forthcoming.::

Voice: Yooo have been successssful. It is done. Now you are done as well. There isss no return.

::The words hit her hard, but were not entirely unexpected. She’d known that this was the risk, though she didn’t realize that success would be told to her by some disembodied voice in her head on the other end. The fighter must not have been destroyed.::

Nicholotti: What happens now?

::Again, the tones of the voice coalesced around her. Increasingly she felt as if the surroundings weren’t really there and that all of this was just a fragment of her imagination. Still, she listened, unafraid, and unmoving.::

Voice: We know what we need to know, connect to your mind. All are safe now, ourssss and yoourssss.

::That was a kind of relief, one that gave her the respite to lay back and let the tugging notion of sleep at the edge of her mind to take over. A smile on her face, and fond memories in her mind, she allowed herself to slip under.::

Nicholotti: Good.

::The voice said something incomprehensible then, and the environment around her faded. Soon, so did the sounds and smells. Drifting on, she found herself unable to hear or focus on anything but her own breathing, and soon enough, that too faded into the nothingness of the end.::

((Flashback, Moments Prior))

::The fighter held together for the time she needed to reach the pre-determined location in space. Once there, it settled into a spiraling circle as she finished punching in the commands that would end it all. In an instant, it was done. Energy shot outwards and the last thing Kali remembered was a blinding light, the feeling of standing perfectly still, and the strange recollection of memories that were not hers. The story of another civilization that existed in another realm, another dimension, flooded her mind. Some of it made sense, while some of it didn’t, but it all led her to the idea that this had been the right thing to do.::

::It also led her to the conclusion that this was the final step in a path that allowed no return.::

::As the lights faded and Kali found herself and her fighter pulled into a new realm with new sights and sounds, she allowed her consciousness to fall victim to the ever growing pull of the tendrils wrapped around her mind.::

((End Flashback))

::A new quiet filled the region of space where the anomaly had once been, but the fighter that had flown into the area was missing. Neither the fighter, nor the pilot, was ever to be found, but if these creatures ever did run into the races of this dimension again, they’d have the tools needed to speak to them. That, and the swirling gasses of the scar running across that region of space were the legacies left behind.::

::The gift of communication and a scar left on space itself was all that was left of Fleet Captain Kalianna Arashi Nicholotti.::

TBC

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Fleet Captain Kalianna Nicholotti
Commanding Officer
USS Excalibur, NCC - 41903 - A