Saying Goodbye

Literary Challenge 20 - Saying Goodbye

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Work Bees flittered about the cruiser. Some were boosting away, with their manipulator arms carrying various bits of the ship. Others were slowly arriving to conduct assigned work on the hull. All of them had one goal: to dissemble the USS Galatea.

Kathryn looked out the viewport of the shuttle as another Bee flew past the window and met with two other Worker Bees shuttles. Her gloomy mood made sadder as she watched their laser cutters activate in succession and cut into the hull plating near the impulse engine assembly. She touched the rank pips on her collar absentmindedly and then pulled at the dress uniform jacket. Kathryn was filled with emotion, from concern for her crew to sadness at having to say goodbye to her first true command post.

Her shuttle had exited the main shuttle bay at a lazy 1.5 knots a few minutes ago. The pilot was gracious toward Kathryn’s wish to survey her ship for the last time. It was not uncommon for Captain’s to make such a request and was certainly not against Regulations. At the same time, Galatea’s slow destruction was also not the safest place for a transport shuttle. Work Bees and Pods tried to keep the space around the ship free from debris, yet flotsam and jetsam were inevitable.

After the battle, the ship literally hobbled back toward Federation space. Thel and the Engineering team toiled to keep the warp core together. It almost seemed like faith and prayer kept the ship from falling apart on the journey. The entire team would be officially commended for their actions. Kathryn would see to that. Omazei and the science crew would receive their fair share of accolades for navigating through contested territory safely. Anthi and the security teams worked to keep morale up along the two week trip. No one rested. Kathryn could not recall reading about any other crew to work so hard to save a ship like hers. She hoped against hope it would be repaired, yet the damage was too extensive. SFCE decided it was better to scrap the ship and use whatever was salvageable, than to resurrect it.

The shuttle had finished arcing around the bridge and was on a path toward the bottom half of the primary hull. From the looks of it, Galatea received damage evenly everywhere. The ship was surrounded and no matter where she moved, disruptor beams found a target. Every defense pattern was used in the book to get away. The planet’s ring served them well to deflect more attacks. After more cat-and-mouse with the four Vor'cha battlecruisers, the helmsman pointed the Federation cruiser perpendicular to the rings and punched full impulse speed to egress the game. Two seconds later they hit warp speed to exit the system. Why the Klingons decided not to follow the debris trail for the kill surprised Kathryn at the time.

Kathryn watched as the deflector dish’s vibrant blue emission faded to grey. Lights within the ship darkened. The shuttle was heading away from the docking cage and she saw the Warp Core slowly pulled from the hull. Her eyes filled with enough water to blur vision, but not enough to slide down her cheeks. She sniffed a little which caught the pilot’s attention. They looked at each other for a few seconds. The pilot gave a sympathetic smile, and then turned to face forward. Kathryn internally thanked him for not adding to the somber moment.

There was just enough window space left to see the port nacelle detach from the pylon before the shuttle’s path was focused toward Space Dock. She put a finger to one eye to catch the tear. Flicking the water away, she looked up as if to pour more tears back into her head and sighed heavily. Looking down, she opened her left hand to look at the only memento of Galatea: a piece of carpet from the hallway to the main shuttlebay.

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Cast:
Kathryn Beringer - Katheryn Winnick
Mentioned but not seen:
Anthi Ythysi - Monique Ganderton
Thel Ythysi - Kevin Sorbo
Omazei - Gemma Arterton
Shuttle Pilot: Random male extra