1. The Nightmare Clause
A barren desert wasteland.
A red sandstorm hurtles through the air, it's particles curling and twining through and around each other, like a swarm of butterflies in Spring.
A wreck rests on the surface of the land. It is old, and comprises of rusted, dilapidated cargo containers, strung together in a shanty row as if to imitate the cars that had been thrown together in an old junkyard back on Earth.
A young man stands next to these containers. He blinks and looks about it him dazedly, obviously unaware of the storm that bustles around him, mainly because it gives him a birth; forms a mini eddie that is shielding him from the harsh winds.
He is invisible to the forces of nature that are wreaking havoc on the planet's delicate surface.
The figure looks down. He is not wearing the clothes he remembers falling asleep in, but instead, an entirely different uniform. The top half is red, and isn't like the long sleeved gold top he usually wears, but more a tunic-style piece of clothing, that is fastened at his right shoulder by a leather band, which has four studs running down it. Also, instead of the printed-on Star fleet logo he is used to seeing on his left breast area when he looks down, there is a proper gold plated badge which has the basic outline of the logo, encased in a circle on an oval back plate. The trousers he now wears are pretty much the same to the ones in which he dropped off in, as are the boots.
He lifts his head back up, his brown eyes filling with confusion and slight recognition, then strokes some thick dark hair behind his ears, which, considering the environment, is completely unnecessary.
He takes an unhindered step forwards, then stops and glances around. The calm whirlwind he appears to be stuck in is following him, keeping him surrounded and protected from the wind that is sure to kill him if he had been subjected to it.
Then he spots something that makes him forget about the strangeness of his situation. About three or four feet away from where he stands, laying out on...it's front, was a person, it's silhouette not so much black as brown.
The young man takes those three or four feet in two strides of his long legs, stops and kneels beside the body. It is that of a woman, the long grey hair that had been billowing out into the breeze falling lazily to her shoulders as the man's eddie consumes her too, hiding the face that is buried in the sand. Her clothes are ripped and battered, and seem to have faded from bright red to a washed out pink.
He examines her for a second before reaching out a hand to her far shoulder and giving it a sharp tug, trying to turn her over. When he finds that the tug doesn't have enough strength in it, he tries again, using more strength. This time he over-calculates, and he flips backwards through the air, the body falling on top of him. He lies still for a few seconds, coughing as some sand tickles the back of his throat, then pulls a face as a sharp, rotten smell settled in his nostrils.
Before he opens his eyes and discovers the cause.
And his scream is loud enough to wake the dead.
~~
The only one it did actually wake was one Pavel Andreievich Chekov, who had been having an awful dream about being stranded on a red desert planet with the body of a woman who...who...
Chekov closed his eyes once more and turned onto his side in bed, facing his un-organised room, which was bathed by the dim light of the stars hurtling past his window. He started to shake openly as warm, salty tears formed under his lids and began to stream down his full cheeks alarmingly quickly, knowing that he didn't cry out in real life...and that that meant that no-one was coming to help.
Why did he never remember? Why did he always do that? Walk up to that same body...make that same mistake?
"Vhy?" He choked out loud, his strong Russian accent grazing across the 'w', "vhy does it have to be me these...these cursed dreams find?"
He blinked a few times as he glanced around the room, then sniffed and got out of his bunk as he sighted the Replicator, figuring that a glass or two (or three or four) of sharp Russian Vodka couldn't hurt when his mind was already filled with images he'd rather forget.
Brushing some hair behind his ears as he had done in the nightmare, he stumbled over to the device on the wall and typed in "Vodka" four times on the keypad. Four glasses of clear liquid appeared on the service pad and he snatched them up before the machine could remember that he'd already had three glasses before he went to bed and tried to re-assimilate them.
He sat sideways on his desk chair, placed the four tumblers beside him, then took the first and downed the sharp liquid with relish, swinging one arm over the backrest and leaning on it heavily, blinking several times.
"Dreams..." He consoled himself, staring into the abyss that was the Universe as it flickered its contents past his window, "dreams cannot hurtchu. They cannot harm anyvun. They cannot have a basis in fact unless Freud tells you that-" He paused to take the second tumbler's contents down his throat, "-that you are tryink to release your inner self vith the use of imagery. Vhich is pointless in my case unless my real ambition is to go around planets and find dead bodies."
He swallowed the third glass's liquid without noticing and continued to dictate his speech to the imaginary audience that sat below the plate- glass, "And vhere did I get the idea from? Perhaps it means that a girl I know is goink to get angry vith me again. Or perhaps it means that Chenna is actually goink to actually fall out vith me ower somethink. Maybe I should borrow her dreams book and look up 'poor guy finds dead body on planet' and see that it actually means that my father star is moving a leetle out of sink and that I should-" The fourth tumblers contents went down with the rest, "-that I should switch to Buddhism because they have a really nice old geezer to look up to rather than a God who obwiously doesn't exist bekaus of so much evilness in the Uniwerse, vhich is put down to a scapegoat called Satan who is actually an old tart who sits on a brig throne in this big firey place called hell vere all the bad people go bekaus they've killed somevun or bekaus they have simply refused to register that there is a God bekaus of all the evilness in the Uniwerse vhich is put down to the wery scape-goat you are sent to if you don't believe in God!"
At the last words he slumped down on his desk, the Vodka finally taking a toll on his consciousness, and slipped back into the dream where he would play the poor guy who found a body in a storm on a planet.
Above him, seated on a shelf that was home to several Russian-printed books, sat a woman, who was unseen to the mortal eye. Her long brown hair, which curled down her back between the two wings that sprouted elegantly from her shoulder blades shone in the light of the stars, along with the long white robe that hung from her shoulders to her ankles. She had a photo frame clutched to her chest and was knawing on her lower lip absently, watching her young charge as he lay snoring softly at his desk.
"I have tried to warn you," She whispered quietly, "really I have. This dream will stick in your mind for the rest of your life, even when you think you have forgotten it. You will come to know it's meaning on your own; Freud cannot help you. When the time is right you will know what it means, and where the Red Desert land is." She pulled the picture frame out of her embrace and stared into it.
Four-hundred and sixty-two officers stared back at her, all smiling, all wearing the same Red Uniform. And in the midst of them, Captain Terrell and his first officer, Pavel Chekov, newly promoted from Lieutenant to Commander.
The four-hundred and sixty-two officers of the Star Ship Reliant.
Soon to be cut down to one.
~~
A barren desert wasteland.
A red sandstorm hurtles through the air, it's particles curling and twining through and around each other, like a swarm of butterflies in Spring.
A wreck rests on the surface of the land. It is old, and comprises of rusted, dilapidated cargo containers, strung together in a shanty row as if to imitate the cars that had been thrown together in an old junkyard back on Earth.
A young man stands next to these containers. He blinks and looks about it him dazedly, obviously unaware of the storm that bustles around him, mainly because it gives him a birth; forms a mini eddie that is shielding him from the harsh winds.
He is invisible to the forces of nature that are wreaking havoc on the planet's delicate surface.
The figure looks down. He is not wearing the clothes he remembers falling asleep in, but instead, an entirely different uniform. The top half is red, and isn't like the long sleeved gold top he usually wears, but more a tunic-style piece of clothing, that is fastened at his right shoulder by a leather band, which has four studs running down it. Also, instead of the printed-on Star fleet logo he is used to seeing on his left breast area when he looks down, there is a proper gold plated badge which has the basic outline of the logo, encased in a circle on an oval back plate. The trousers he now wears are pretty much the same to the ones in which he dropped off in, as are the boots.
He lifts his head back up, his brown eyes filling with confusion and slight recognition, then strokes some thick dark hair behind his ears, which, considering the environment, is completely unnecessary.
He takes an unhindered step forwards, then stops and glances around. The calm whirlwind he appears to be stuck in is following him, keeping him surrounded and protected from the wind that is sure to kill him if he had been subjected to it.
Then he spots something that makes him forget about the strangeness of his situation. About three or four feet away from where he stands, laying out on...it's front, was a person, it's silhouette not so much black as brown.
The young man takes those three or four feet in two strides of his long legs, stops and kneels beside the body. It is that of a woman, the long grey hair that had been billowing out into the breeze falling lazily to her shoulders as the man's eddie consumes her too, hiding the face that is buried in the sand. Her clothes are ripped and battered, and seem to have faded from bright red to a washed out pink.
He examines her for a second before reaching out a hand to her far shoulder and giving it a sharp tug, trying to turn her over. When he finds that the tug doesn't have enough strength in it, he tries again, using more strength. This time he over-calculates, and he flips backwards through the air, the body falling on top of him. He lies still for a few seconds, coughing as some sand tickles the back of his throat, then pulls a face as a sharp, rotten smell settled in his nostrils.
Before he opens his eyes and discovers the cause.
And his scream is loud enough to wake the dead.
~~
The only one it did actually wake was one Pavel Andreievich Chekov, who had been having an awful dream about being stranded on a red desert planet with the body of a woman who...who...
Chekov closed his eyes once more and turned onto his side in bed, facing his un-organised room, which was bathed by the dim light of the stars hurtling past his window. He started to shake openly as warm, salty tears formed under his lids and began to stream down his full cheeks alarmingly quickly, knowing that he didn't cry out in real life...and that that meant that no-one was coming to help.
Why did he never remember? Why did he always do that? Walk up to that same body...make that same mistake?
"Vhy?" He choked out loud, his strong Russian accent grazing across the 'w', "vhy does it have to be me these...these cursed dreams find?"
He blinked a few times as he glanced around the room, then sniffed and got out of his bunk as he sighted the Replicator, figuring that a glass or two (or three or four) of sharp Russian Vodka couldn't hurt when his mind was already filled with images he'd rather forget.
Brushing some hair behind his ears as he had done in the nightmare, he stumbled over to the device on the wall and typed in "Vodka" four times on the keypad. Four glasses of clear liquid appeared on the service pad and he snatched them up before the machine could remember that he'd already had three glasses before he went to bed and tried to re-assimilate them.
He sat sideways on his desk chair, placed the four tumblers beside him, then took the first and downed the sharp liquid with relish, swinging one arm over the backrest and leaning on it heavily, blinking several times.
"Dreams..." He consoled himself, staring into the abyss that was the Universe as it flickered its contents past his window, "dreams cannot hurtchu. They cannot harm anyvun. They cannot have a basis in fact unless Freud tells you that-" He paused to take the second tumbler's contents down his throat, "-that you are tryink to release your inner self vith the use of imagery. Vhich is pointless in my case unless my real ambition is to go around planets and find dead bodies."
He swallowed the third glass's liquid without noticing and continued to dictate his speech to the imaginary audience that sat below the plate- glass, "And vhere did I get the idea from? Perhaps it means that a girl I know is goink to get angry vith me again. Or perhaps it means that Chenna is actually goink to actually fall out vith me ower somethink. Maybe I should borrow her dreams book and look up 'poor guy finds dead body on planet' and see that it actually means that my father star is moving a leetle out of sink and that I should-" The fourth tumblers contents went down with the rest, "-that I should switch to Buddhism because they have a really nice old geezer to look up to rather than a God who obwiously doesn't exist bekaus of so much evilness in the Uniwerse, vhich is put down to a scapegoat called Satan who is actually an old tart who sits on a brig throne in this big firey place called hell vere all the bad people go bekaus they've killed somevun or bekaus they have simply refused to register that there is a God bekaus of all the evilness in the Uniwerse vhich is put down to the wery scape-goat you are sent to if you don't believe in God!"
At the last words he slumped down on his desk, the Vodka finally taking a toll on his consciousness, and slipped back into the dream where he would play the poor guy who found a body in a storm on a planet.
Above him, seated on a shelf that was home to several Russian-printed books, sat a woman, who was unseen to the mortal eye. Her long brown hair, which curled down her back between the two wings that sprouted elegantly from her shoulder blades shone in the light of the stars, along with the long white robe that hung from her shoulders to her ankles. She had a photo frame clutched to her chest and was knawing on her lower lip absently, watching her young charge as he lay snoring softly at his desk.
"I have tried to warn you," She whispered quietly, "really I have. This dream will stick in your mind for the rest of your life, even when you think you have forgotten it. You will come to know it's meaning on your own; Freud cannot help you. When the time is right you will know what it means, and where the Red Desert land is." She pulled the picture frame out of her embrace and stared into it.
Four-hundred and sixty-two officers stared back at her, all smiling, all wearing the same Red Uniform. And in the midst of them, Captain Terrell and his first officer, Pavel Chekov, newly promoted from Lieutenant to Commander.
The four-hundred and sixty-two officers of the Star Ship Reliant.
Soon to be cut down to one.
~~