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A Mirror Shattered #73 - "To show the worth of friends..."-=On=- [Earth, New England coastline] The elderly woman gasped, sitting up in bed, looking around wildly. The faint hum of her home's generator and the friendly presence of her husband asleep beside her reassured her that everything was fine. It had only been a dream. She nudged her husband until he awoke, and then told him about her dream. He frowned and nodded slowly. "Well, I think everything's probably fine," he said. "But we have no way of finding out if it isn't, anyways." She wondered if everyone would think she was silly if she pressed the matter. She decided she was old enough to go crazy once in a while. "I think there is a way," she replied, checking her hair and sitting down at their communications terminal. A sleepy dark-haired man answered. "Yallo.... Mom?" He instantly looked more alert. "What's going on? Is Dad alright?" "He's fine," she said. "I.. well, I'm being silly, really. I had a dream." The middle-aged man sat up, frowning. "I don't remember you ever calling me in the middle of the night for a dream. What's going on?" "Can you find something for me? The status of a starship? The one your daughter is on..." Regulus blinked. "My daughter?" He brought up another screen on his terminal, tapping in a request. "What ship was she on, again?" He felt a stab of guilt as he asked. He should be able to remember something like that, for his own kid, even if he wasn't the one who raised her. "The Pegasus," his mother answered. "That's the name of it, I think." Regulus Black finished putting in his authorization code and read the response. "The USS Pegasus... Ah. No, status is fine, she checked in on time, on her mission, yadda yadda, stuff I can't tell you, it's classified. Yeah, it's fine, Mom." Kitty's grandmother nodded tiredly. "Alright then. Sorry to wake you up... I was being silly, after all. Thanks, dear. Are you coming in anytime soon?" "Yeah, Mom... in a couple of months or so I'm getting a vacation and I'm going to come visit you. How's Dad's leg?" A few more minutes of small talk and he was satisfied. "Go get some rest, Mom. I'll check the morning and evening reports, and I'll let you know the next time the Pegasus makes her scheduled contact." The communication was ended... Silly woman, but good as gold... getting old, maybe a little strange... She was always just a little strange, but everything's pretty much fine... And yet, somehow, now Regulus was the one who couldn't get back to sleep. [USS Pegasus, during Post #71,72] She was in Engineering, sitting in her chair, checking the reports for the day. Everything was fine, busy, the engines running perfectly... Until the ship shuddered, and the Red Alert signal came up. The walls bent.. creaked.. and cracked. Dark water started pouring in through the cracks. Kitty felt a moment of panic. She was going to drown! She wasn't sure how she got out of there... That's right, through the crack.. into the night sea... How did she find the surface? She had to find the surface, and she didn't remember how she did it... Oh yeah, she'd let out a small bubble, holding her breath, and followed it up. Kitty felt a vast sense of relief as her head broke the surface of the water. So far so good.. she was going to make it out. Except that then she felt a rough, cold body sliding past... and looked down to see the sharks... Again, she felt the same terror, the same knowlege that she had to conceal her terror.. or she'd become a target. Moving away.. carefully.. quietly.. sharp teeth looming up ahead and she slapped the beast's nose as hard as she could.. it diverted, not looking for prey to give it that much trouble... of course, it was after the wounded whale. And then she was alone, cold and tired, in the middle of the ocean. The coast... was That way... but it was a rocky New England coast, dangerous, and she could die, dashed against the rocks. She was beginning to realize that she had just escaped several deaths and had several more to evade if she wanted to get through this. She could feel herself weakening... she made a call for help. A special whistle, and then a hum, that she'd learned naturally at her grandmother's knee. Two dolphins approached, attracted by the call.. but as they drew nearer she saw that they were actually people, and she recognized them. They dove under, and Evans popped up next to her, taking hold of her arm. "Hey, cutie," he quipped with that special grin that turned into a comforting smile. "I won't let go until you're sure you're alright," he told her. Petrova broke the surface on her other side, taking hold of her other arm, helping to support her. "It's not so hard once you know how," she said encouragingly. "I don't know if I can keep going," Kitty said, her voice wavering. "I think I'm dying." "You're better at this than you think you are," came a third voice, as Ryylar surfaced a short distance away. "Come swim with us." "You're a cat," Kitty said wryly. "I'm sorry, for bringing you into this. You don't like to swim." Ryylar chuckled in response. "Don't be so sure that you know who I am," he said cryptically in response. Other people were beginning to surface, other people she knew. Caelen, over there.. Dr. Russell, over there... Other people she'd not seen so often.. her engineers were all in a group and they looked perfectly fine. "Come swim with us," Caelen offered, and everyone set off towards shore. "We all swim together," said Petrova, releasing Kitty's arm, "so that we all make it back home. And we all want you to come back with us." Kitty looked around at all the people with her and started to kick her feet, moving her free arm, moving forward, finding her strength beginning to return. If she wasn't alone, it wasn't going to be all that scary. With so many people working together, she was sure everything would come out alright. "You're doing fine," said Evans, staying with her. "Let's go!" She felt as if she were surfacing again, gliding up through layers of water, feeling sound and sight approaching closer and closer... and then she opened her eyes and she was in Sickbay, lying on a biobed, trying to remember why she was there, with a lingering feeling that something very big had just happened. -=Off=- Obligatory sappy dream sequence by: Lt. Kathleen Black Chief Engineer USS Pegasus |
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