The Peace of Morning Light

Posted on 12/27/2020 @ 4:35pm by Lieutenant Commander Kiernan Gallagher VII
Edited on 05/08/2021 @ 1:26pm

Kiernan Gallagher woke up from a sound sleep, feeling good, and feeling renewed – until he began to sit up. He bit down on his lower lip to stifle the cry that was trying to leave his lungs. Everything hurt, his spine the most. He had felt like every bone had been broken, and every muscle and tendon snapped. Yet, he knew from what Katy was saying that everything was fine, that miraculously, nothing broke or punctured. The only damage from his fall was the gash in his arm. He looked at his arm, the bandage wrapped around it was spotty with blood, but it was not soaked like it was the night before. That was a good sign.

He moved carefully as he opened his popup to see a beautiful morning. The sun had just popped up over the horizon, casting the earth in lovely hues of yellow and orange. The sky was a brilliant blue, and only a few clouds had floated lazily across the sky. The temperature was already climbing, but it was still manageable. The world was quiet, and this was why Kiernan loved mornings so much, especially planet side. That glorious hour between sunrise, to when the world decided to rise was one of the best hours of the day. People, and animals alike were still sleeping, there was no rush hour traffic, no crowded cafes, and the streets were still mostly empty. Out here in the wilderness, only a few of the local avian were doing their chirp chatter amongst each other.

Kiernan got out of his popup and moved slowly toward a couple of trees to relieve himself. His sighed in relief as he emptied his bladder, and once done, moved slowly back to his camp space. He retrieved a PaDD, his canteen of water, and went to sit against an outcropping of rocks. Once settled, he began his personal log.

“Begin personal log…

“Well, yesterday I had fallen about… oh, I’d say about two and a half meters. Nothing broke, though I did come away with quite a large gash on my forearm. I am sore, and I feel like my bones have splintered and my muscles are on fire, but I can work through that. I’m more concerned that I fell, I have never fallen while rock climbing. My mind is preoccupied, though that still shouldn’t account for me completely missing a foot hold. Katy says I need medical treatment, but I declined. I have to push through, otherwise this whole survival training will be for naught.”

Kiernan paused as he looked over from where he sat to the rock face from which he fell. It should have been an easy climb, but again, his brain was just not focused on the climb and that was his undoing. He picked up his canteen, unscrewed the cap and took a couple of sips. The cool water felt good going down, so he savored it. As soon as the others rose, they would put on a pot of coffee and open some ration packs for breakfast and then it would be another full day of moving through the area.

“I have no real idea where we are, but I can guess. I’m thinking we are in Africa, near the equator. When we are dropped off, we are given very little by way of equipment, just enough to make it through the few days before our pickup. We are given one tricorder, but its functions have been incredibly paired down. We can scan each other, but the long-range scanning ability is disabled, as well as the global positioning has been disabled as well. But judging by the sunrise and sunset, and the temperatures of the day verses the nighttime, we are near the equator. Also, just by the landscape, and the rock and outcroppings we have encountered, looks to be carved out by the desert over hundreds of thousands of years. The sparse vegetation is another indication we are near the equator, the bark on the trees is hardened and composed of minerals you wouldn’t find on trees in more mild climates.

“Mark thinks we are near the Middle East, but Zora states that the star placement would put us in Africa. It’s not like this is on a test or anything, but it is still nice to guess. During the Academy, my survival training was done in southwest Arizona. I figured it out rather quickly, much to my team’s annoyance. Isn’t that odd, they were annoyed at me for figuring out where Starfleet dropped us off? I was a geologist in training, I knew what to look for in the landscape and the geomorphology of that landscape.

“When I was younger, I had faced my share of mean kids, but I had never expected it to be by adults, my peers, my colleagues. I suppose even to this day I don’t have many friends… which I have no idea why I am even talking about such a thing. I suppose everything I have done in my life is tied to a memory that I don’t want to deal with. Now don’t get me wrong, I have a lot of good memories, but the bad ones tend to stick out. It is because it is those memories that change us in subtle ways…”

There was another pause.

“… Anyway, I think we are in Central Africa.”

Kiernan took another sip from his canteen and looked east to the rising sun. The beautiful part about the evolution of earth and her citizens was that there was no more pollution, and they had the technology to repair the atmosphere from all the damage done in the centuries before Starfleet was formed. It only took another large world war to change those things, to change how humans viewed their home that they just practically blown to bits. Now, the blue sky was always a brilliant blue, and the sun was this perfectly round star.

“I do miss Oskar, and I definitely miss Otis. I have no idea where Oskar is on the planet either, he was placed with a different team when we were instructed to do this survival training. Otis is with my parents, enjoying the parks and trees that he didn’t get on the Crazy Horse, unless it was on the holodeck.” He swore animals knew a difference, and they knew a difference due to smell. The holodeck was meant to replicate everything, but with dog’s heightened senses of hearing and smell, Otis knew he was not in a real environment. That was probably why it always took him time to adjust. “Either way, I know he is enjoying himself, plus my parents spoil him like he was a real grandchild and not a pug that was the runt of the litter.”

Kiernan smiled at that. Otis enjoyed that aspect for sure, the pug was spoiled, but how could you not spoil the cutest, sassiest thing on the planet. Otis may have been smaller than the average size pug, and had some cognitive issues, but he still knew what was what! He thought he was people; Kiernan was sure of it. At that, he couldn’t wait until he could hug Otis again, and be with his beloved pug again. He hated being away from him, but soon they would be reunited. He had that to look forward to, and of course seeing Oskar again. He couldn’t forget about Oskar. He chuckled lightly at that little faux pas. He loved Oskar with all his being, but Otis was different. For one he had Otis longer than he had ever known Oskar. Second, Otis was a dog, a lovable pug, how could one not pick a dog over a partner each and everytime.

Thank God, he wasn’t recording any of this part. These things would stay locked in his mind. However, he also knew Oskar loved Otis just as much, and would never fault Kiernan for how he felt.

“Anyway, we have a lot to cover today.” He looked up to see Katy emerging from her popup, she yawned, stretched, and rubbed the sleep from her eyes. The braid the woman had sported the night before had mostly come undone. “Well, the troops are rising.

“Remember, no more falls, Kiernan Gallagher. I mean it… you are better than that.”

He smiled, rolled his blue eyes, and shook his head in amusement. “Computer, save and end personal log.”

**

A personal log by:
Lieutenant Kiernan M. Gallagher VII, PhD