Postlude: And I Will See My Dream

It was, as usual, a beautiful day across the bay, along the inner shores of the Golden Gate. Banks of fog and gusting winds beset the mountainous peninsulas that sheltered the inner harbor, bringing rain and chill to the docks of San Francisco as tempests whipped through the narrow straits; but in the sheltered lee of the bay, the skies were sunny and blue, the air warm and calm, and the lush greenery was colorful and vibrant.

To the north, skating past San Rafael on one side and Richmond on the other, the bay narrowed and opened wide again, into the enlarged expanse of San Pablo Bay; and here, where the foothills of the mountains gave way to the dredged marshlands and waterways, a flattened piece of sculpted land reached outward into the bay. The peninsula was calm, almost placid; small hills rolled across it, undisturbed by ranks of housing or sheaths of structures, save for a handful of buildings elegantly placed about the parkland.

Mare Island Starfleet Cemetery was busy this day, busy as it had been every day, unceasing for days and weeks and months. Each day, every day, an average of fifty-four burials were taking place; and many more of the fallen were buried elsewhere, in other cemeteries, some on other planets.

Today, like other days, hundreds of people were milling about the cemetery, attending to their loved ones; some crying, but most in silent remembrance until they read the etchings on the tombstones. KIA, they read; KIA. KIA. All gave dates of birth and death; and many, far too many, had died before their twenty-fifth birthday.

One visitor did not resemble the others, but few turned and looked; despite her strange appearance, there was a shared commonality of grief among the attendees. She was short, barely the height of a mid-sized child; and her skin was blue, the blue of ice beneath a clear sky. A mop of white hair sat atop her head, and from it two antennae emerged, twitching back and forth as she walked unerringly, yet unseeing with blind eyes.

She flinched, once, twice, three times, as the sharp bark of old-fashioned rifles fired off in salute; she knew that it happened like clockwork, every ten minutes, but age-old wisdom held that it was impossible to be prepared.

The crack of the rifles echoed away, and yet Jhamel waited, until the last faint echo went unheard; and then the buglers started, three spaced far apart, in a rough triangle. She paused, stopping where she walked, in respect, with her head bowed down; the bugles rose, then fell, in mournful dirge.

Jhamel stayed still for a long moment after, as the doleful tune drifted away into silence; then she started walking again, through the tombstones, navigating amid the never-ending synchronized waves of polished white stone. They stretched on far, too far, and yet she seemed to know precisely where she was going, and she tread softly amid the ranks of graves.

Now, it was just a short distance, until she stopped before a tombstone. In shape and form, it was identical to the others; but its inscription, like each one, was unique.

She knelt down carefully before the stone, setting a blue rose at its base; and reaching up with her fingers, she traced the words carved in it, mouthing them silently as her fingers read:

MALCOLM EDWARD REED

CMDR., STARFLEET

B.09-02-2118

D.11-11-2157

THE WARP 5 MISSION

DELPHIC EXPANSE

KIA, ROMULAN WAR

Her fingers traced the epitaph beneath it; it was an old saying from Earth, some two hundred years old, words that had originally been spoken in sarcasm and bitterness. But in the centuries that followed, as we rebuilt the ashes of world war, humanity had claimed the dictum as a statement of faith and hope.

Satisfied, Jhamel let her fingers fall away from the stone; standing up, she turned away, her body rejoicing in the warm light of the alien sun, remembering the man—the human—who had given his life to save her child on the far-distant world of Threllvia IV.

OH BRAVE NEW WORLD THAT IS MADE BY PEOPLE SUCH AS THIS.

FORTITER ET FEDILITER.