A world of silence

Posted on Friday 14 January 2022 @ 20:22 by Commander Seklar

Mission: First Contact
Location: private quarters
Timeline: 00'01" to 01'00"
618 words - 1.2 OF Standard Post Measure

It was dark and it was silent. Seklar wasn't sure what had woken him up in the middle of the night. From the corner of his eyes he saw a flickering light and only when he tried to get up, did he notice that he was actually on the floor. He scrambled to find the bedside light, reasoning that he had to operate it manually because he had this nagging feeling a vocal command wasn't going to work.

Within seconds, two moving figures entered the bedroom and from the contours he could tell they were his children. A female contour going by the night dress, and a male going by the pants and shirt. Even from the darkness he could tell they were shouting, he could easily sense their despair. Two even smaller forms shot by, and schooted under the bed. Tibbe and Moor, he recognized.

He brought his hand up to his head, feeling it was spinning, feeling his balance was off. He remembered being released from sickbay and being told to rest. But now, his place probably was in engineering...assuming he could even get there. "Get dressed," he told the twins, at least he hoped that was what he said because for some reason he wasn't hearing his own words.

Seklar reached out, gently touching the cheeks of each of the twins, hoping to reassure them. "Get dressed," he said again, "we have to get to engineering. I am not leaving you behind, when I do not know what is going on."

Ishara looked at her father with big, frightened eyes, only mildly reassured by his touch. She looked sideways at Salai, who felt equally scared. "Daddy why didn't you hear us call? What happened daddy, why is everything so dark? Why won't the lights come on?"

"Why were we thrown from the bed?" Salai added, "I think I hit something daddy...my arm hurts..."

Though he could see the children were talking, even in the semi darkness, Seklar had no idea what they were saying. "I cannot hear you.. I do not know why, but my hearing is... impaired. Please bear with me, touch me, if you need anything. Please...get dressed now. We have to get to engineering. I need to know what happened, what caused this... outage." He made himself sit on the bed as he got himself dressed. When he tried to reach down to get his boots, it felt as if the room was starting to spin again, so he forewent getting his boots on.

"We have to go," he told the twins, urging them on.

Aware of the red lights flashing in the corridor, Seklar took each of his children by a hand. "Warn me if you ear anything," he told them, "I do not know what happened, but I cannot hear you for the moment." He was wondering if perhaps his prior head injury was involved somehow but, not being a medic, he had no way to be sure. "We are going to try to get to engineering."

It took them a few minutes to get past the few meters in the corridor as it was littered with debris, and Seklar didn't want to risk his young children getting injured in the process. By the time they reached the end of the corridor, a good half hour had passed. With some effort, the Vulcan pried the hatch to the Jeffries tubes open. "Stay close to me, and stay in contact," he told them, "this is going to be quite dangerous." He gestured for the twins to get inside, and once they were, he climbed in behind them.

::TBC::

Commander Seklar
Chief Engineer

Ishara & Salai
Seklar's twins