Runner Up 6 20501.26

Space - Lt Rexar Idrani

© 2005 by Federation Space and the author pen named Rexar Idrani

Space… the final frontier. It is difficult to say who really decided to open all our Academy texts with those such very meaning four words...

In the very beginning of our lives, we have conciousness there are lots of wonders in the stars, waiting for been reached, explored, admired. There is a kind among us who dreams every night in his childhood with alien worlds, shining stars, misterious nebulae and the cold emptiness of the endless universe, dreaming it overflowing life. Those who belong this kind spend our nights looking at the sky, feeling the magnificient of those numberless clusters of light in the darkness. We discover ourselves painting casually some kind of starship design, some kind of humanoid life form, rings arround a planet. We spend our young ages reading about space, all those stupid cheap novels about alien empires, fantastic devices, brave stellar captains. Every shooting star is in our imagination an starship with a majestic name and a heroic crew in course to the unknown, to hundreds of adventures and dangers.

And time passes. Some of our fantasies vanish. The affairs at the surface take over our attention from the sky. Some feel the uselessness of all that wasted time, and wonder about the reason to those nosense dreams. Most simply forget. His imagination turned into an all-grey colour. Plain, almost dead minds without fantasy. All those readings covered with dust. All those dreams drowned. We mourn sometimes quietly, for they who could reach their dreams, but chose to bury them in the oblivion.

There is a way. Some of us can fly beyond. We can reach the courage to leave. It is not an easy issue. Leaving is not easy. It is most than a change of life, it is the fate of the exiled, the non-return path. We are only a few. Little of my people have the bravery to pursuit their dream, and those that do that doom ourselves to be forgotten. Forever.

But here am I. At this final moment I cannot regret. I am where I dreamed. At this very moment I have all the magnificent of a nova just in front of me. What I see is hard to describe. The light is passing trough my ship, fulling everything with the most strange combination of colours ever seen. The cosmic radiation is passing through the polarized glass making a million colours rainbow. The tears run in my face before so beauty. The first planet of the system is not yet destroyed. It is only a spheric empty rock making its final turn around his sun. Just like me. The final turn. Empty. My time is over. The ship is now reaching standard orbita around this planet. I am in the dark side. A nova sunrise. It probably will leave me blind, but it does not matter. After seeing all the wonders I saw, I need this last view to reach the rest. Blind. Only a few moments. Radiation will kill me a little after. If only I could take some more little time... I have been all I wished, I could ever dream. I do not regret. I did live my life, this borrowed life, plenty.

Since I woke up the first time in my new life, at my quarters at the academy. I could not believe it could be all true. There was starships, alien civilizations, misterious phenomena, a full universe to explore. I was there -here. I was one of them. One of the heros. I could not nearly wait the instruction. I needed to be out. Every night, when I went to bed, I feared the dreamed run over. But never happened. They told all of us our time was sacred. We would not be stolen a single minute. It was part of the deal. And they always honor their deals. The academy, those were some of my better times. I did not recognize then, but now, with the end at the door, I realize it. Discover the universe the first time. Every piece of information was new to me. It was different from that silly novels. I was part of a Federation devoted to peace, surrounded by enemies of all kind, but that confront them with the eternal hope of further understanding. Devoted to exploration, to discover everything possible about things over here, at the space. Space… the final frontier. It is difficult to say who really decided to open all our Academy texts with those such very meaning four words... but they were the final truth. All my life I were out here, and I cannot see a minimal part of the vastness of the universe. I was jump from a starship to another, travelling to distant places. Those unreachable stars were now real, here. In my hand. While building a career in Star Fleet I visited the most worlds I could. And in all of them I did the same thing: I watched the sky. The sky is different seen from every planet. Some of them has bright nights with lots of stars conglomerated in dense clusters. Some have no moons, some has amounts of them. Some have nearly empty skies when the face is looking at the edge. Some of them have no nights. Another lives under eternal eclipses. All are beauty in their way. Even the hell worlds anybody can live there have his own wonders.

I know all of this could sound a little a little fantasious, a little romantic. Stars has been there for centuries. But, you know, I come from a world isolated in the space. My people has no idea if they are alone in the night, or are part of a vaste comunity of the stars. The place I come starships are only fantasy. New worlds are unreachable at the moment. Routine of every day has suffocated the fantasy, and few of us look the stars. We are trapped, limited to our planet. The division between our people is just begginning to be defeated. There are no time to dream. No time to travel far beyond. There is a way. Some of us can fly. There is a place, in our world, a gate, a door, a mistic window to the dream. We do not go there often. But we know. Some of my kind has been there. Very little of them has return. They speak about another worlds, another realities. Past things, future stories, dreams made reality. Our wise men ensures there only exists madness. All of they who returned are insane. Most of they who went there, never returned. I went there. They tell you when you arrive: there is a price. Time is limited and you will lose your soul. But we would not be stolen a single minute. When time is over, it ends. Never return. Those who returned did not pay the price. They become mad forever. Those who pay the price never returned. We live our lifes and then dissapear. Then we go. Just now. I go.

The nova sunrise. I could never imagine such a celestial seeing. The sun rises in a second, fulling all with its terrible light. The refraction of the tin atmosphere creates forms and colours in every fragment of the thawing ice on the glass. I become blind. The pain cannot hide this was the most marvelous watch anybody could hope see. This memory will be with me towards the place I go. Now, when the radiation is making burn my body to the death, I cannot avoid wondering if all this has been real. Perhaps I was only gift a dream. A very real and wonderful dream, but only this. This life I could live, has had any meaning? Has it deserved the price? I fear this was only a fantasy, just the same my novels, my silly, stupid novels, and madness was the only that was there. But such a madness. If I were there again I would make the same. Without any doubt. But now, when my breath stops because the burning air, I believe this was real. This universe is real, and what I was, was a stranger, an intruder who cheated the destiny and bought an existence that was not the mine. Like the others in my kind, we bought our dreams, and after that I simply cannot believe this could not exist. I want to believe universe will go on without me. I was pulled into this place to have a inkling of the vastness of the realities, not this place into my mind. And now I do want to believe this place was real, I abandon it fearing it could desappear in fragments of sorrow, forever. But perhaps it does not mind. My life was what it was, ended. I wish my place will be at the stars...

--- Chapter log, stardate 20406.24. USS Yokohama. Acting Captain Sheridan.

I must record this events, although it seems obvious to me that they will never be finded. We have just recovered the missing shuttle. Two days since the Captain´s runaway, we thought we had at the end finded him. Why he stole the shuttle, and how managed to avoid our hunt for two days, we do not know. The shuttle was in orbit around Vesta I. The Vesta star is in nova state, and it was dangerous to get so close from it. The Captain´s shuttle had his shields off line and his life support at minimal operating rate. We prepared to recover the remains of our captain, but the shuttle was empty. We could not explain that enigma. It was impossible to anybody to survive that conditions for a moment, but the Captain seemed to have reached Vesta I, disabled the shields and the life support (the investigation suggests a voluntary switched off of the vital systems) and vanish. Perhaps he became insane, or contracted some virus. The investigation could proceed until we know the truth. But the most disturbing started yesterday. The files about the Captain at the computer of the Yokohama are being erased. We tried to discover the reason, when we discovered some of the crewmembers had forgotten the captain. We tried to contact Starbase Charlie, but they declared never to hear anything about him. I got up this morning and there was four pins in the neck of my uniform. The crew claims I always have been their captain. Those who were closer to him have been the last of forgot. I am not crazy. I was his best friend, and the certain tomorrow I will not remember him tortures me. I am sure this file will dissapear too, and we never will solve the mistery because tomorrow there will be no mistery to solve. But I must make this last effort to avoid him to be forgotten. I need to record this lasts thoughts and send this record in all the frequencies, to avoid the universe to forgot the name of one of the best Star Fleet officers never born, a hero, a master, a friend, the name of Captain Maurice Derwent.

“Computer, save log”

[Unable to complaint]