The Grey Man

Posted on Wed Sep 4th, 2013 @ 8:27am by Commander Jordan Gunning

Mission: Picking Up the Pieces
Location: [Location Redacted]

[ON]

The Iapetus crew passed in front of him as though he was sitting at his console on the bridge. He could see the Captain and Commander Walex deep in discussion in the Command area and almost intangible form of Sara lurking at the rear of the capsule, probably constructing a report. He didn’t know what the report was about.

Everything about the bridge and his friends and colleagues was the same but very different. He could feel someone looking at him from the front of the bridge and felt his chair turning without any input from him. There he was. There was the man he had been seeing in his dreams. He wore an old fashioned business suit and stared at Jordan through sunken eye sockets, his skin pulled and grey around his cheeks.

The man’s hand raised to shoulder height and was allowed to survey the room as a dull whooshing noise emanated from a source unknown to Jordan. His chair began to spin slowly as he found everyone looking at him, glaring as if they knew some terrible secret which he harboured. The Captain had moved and was now seated on the other side of the grey man who had taken his place in the Captain’s chair. His cold, dead eyes piercing his body and passing into the bulkhead behind him. The whooshing was growing into a roar as Jordan’s chair span once more.

The viewscreen had become a torn fissure, screaming out into the inky silence of space. Jordan could hear the blood pounding in his ears and his panic reflex kicked in, trying to take a sharp breath and finding that he couldn’t. The chair span putting him eye to eye with the grey man. The roar came forth from the grey man’s mouth and tore at Jordan’s eardrums with the shredding intensity of an explosion. Beyond his opaque skin, Jordan could make out the battered, bloodied and lifeless bodies of Captain Krace, Commander Walex and Lieutenant Commander Archer suspended a few inches off the floor of the bridge. He tried to cover his eyes but his entire body was paralysed and forcing him to stare at the scene before him.

The sound stopped and the grey man made a slow, deliberate movement and passed straight into his chest absorbing every fibre of Jordan’s being. His eyes reopened and he found himself confronted by Starbase 332’s gaping super structure, destroyed by a terrorist bomb and only now coming under reconstruction efforts, and the gentle chirrup of the communications system.

“Talon Sixteen, come in,” the voice was calm and measured, “this is Starbase Three-Three-Two Dockmaster.”

“This is Talon Sixteen.” Jordan acknowledged. “Apologies Dockmaster. I must have been dreaming.”

[OFF]

Commander Jordan Gunning
Chief Strategic Operations Officer
Starbase 332