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ASR ORIGINS
ASR ORIGINS


==USS HOOD: ==
==USS HOOD: Dropping Anvils==
===by ===
===by Steve Apple and Brian V. Mansur===


[ORIGINS] USS HOOD: Dropping Anvils
SD: 2260.202
MD: 7.0100
Scene: Planet Surface, Vicinity Outpost 8
Merrick squinted hard against the mid-day glare that his landing party had
beamed into. Grimly, he stood at the mouth of a dust clogged ravine. The HOOD
had torpedoed it just moments before while warping out after some more
battlecruisers. Judging by the unworldly shrieks behind the dust shroud, there
were badly injured survivors within the rubble.
Merrick frowned.
Scratch that assessment. There was an erie quality to the screams. His frown
quickly turned into one of deep consteration. The survivors didn't sound hurt.
They sounded really ... REALLY ... pissed. Presently he ducked as a green
blaster bolt whizzed high. The Klingons were chewing up the rocks blocking
their way. He realized that fire control must have really been screwed up by
the Klingons' sensor jamming. That glancing blow had just made them mad.
"Commander Merrick!" a familiar female voice came from behind. He turned to see
Lieutenant Yarith hustling from a nearby cave. At least his team had beamed
down in the right spot.
"Thanks for coming back sir," Yarith breathed. "They were right on us and we
didn't even know it." She held up a tricorder for show. "These things are
useless now. Whatever is in these rocks has them gummed."
Merrick gestured to the ravine crawling full of Klingons. "Seems they were able
to find you without any problem."
Yarith was stunned. "Holy hell. They can pinpoint us then!" She looked
skyward in alarm.
"They've been chased off for now. Maybe their scanners can spot us and maybe
they just got lucky. But they know where we are now. How many are in the
cave?"
"Just a few of us with a supply stash. The next bunch is over there." She
pointed to another side of the mountain's base.
"We'd better try to hold them here then." He pointed to some armoured red
shirts beside him. "Get a phaser cannon up there behind cover. Common
lieutenant, let's get inside."
Scene: Supply Cache Cave
Merrick stood with Yarith at the mouth of the cave and could see the Klingon
squad make its way toward them.
"They know we're here." Yarith said looking at Merick, slight panic in her
voice.
"Lieutenant, Klingons may be brutal, but they aren't stupid." Merrick said
annoyed at her panic. "Alert the phaser cannon crew and have them get a lock on
that squad."
"Yes sir." She snapped and then asked. "What about you?"
"As I just pointed out, Klingons aren't stupid. That squad is too visible, which
means they are probably a decoy. I'm going to scale around to the back of this
cliff's ridge and see what they are really up to."
"Sir do you think..."
"You have your orders Lieutenant." He said interrupting her.
"Yes sir." She said as she watched him leave the cave's mouth.
Merrick used the jagged rock formations along the cliff's ridge as cover, he
knew something about this Klingon assault didn't feel quite right. He stopped
for a moment and listened. He could have sworn he heard the sound of small
pebbles falling.
A disrupter beam nearly took his ear off. Spinning away from the beam he aimed
his phaser at the spot he thought it most likely came from. Rocks came tumbling
toward him as did a Klingon Warrior whose purchase he had destroyed.
Merrick scrambled from his own rocky outcropping to where the Klingon had
fallen. He approached the warrior cautiously, phaser leveled at the man's chest.
"Great now I have to deal with a prisoner." He said to himself.
The loud beeps from his communicator distracted him for a moment. It was long
enough for the Klingon to make his move. Merrick saw the movement, but it was
too late as the Klingon hurled the small jagged rock. Pain erupted from his hand
causing him to drop his phaser, which bounced down the cliff's side.
The Klingon immediately grabbed for his d'k tahg and launched himself at
Merrick. Forgetting about the pain in his hand Merrick brought his right knee up
and into the Klingon.
They both heard the whine of the phaser a second before they felt the cliff side
give way. Merrick jumped for the narrow opening he saw on the plateau six feet
below. The dust was thick in the air causing him to cough and choke. The Klingon
took out what appeared to Merrick to be a glow stick and threw it to the ground,
illuminating the cave. Both circled each other
warily as the dust in the cave settled.
"It looks like the cave entrance has collapsed." Merrick said to the Klingon.
"We can try and dig ourselves out by working together, or use up the rest of the
air we have left killing each other. Personally I'd like nothing better than to
rip your heart out, but then I'd die soon after from suffocation and I find that
kind of death empty and useless."
"You humans are walking self-contradictions. You go about the universe as if
knowledge and self-improvement mattered. Yet you believe all your efforts will
come to nothing. Why do you delude yourselves into thinking anything you do has
meaning unless its significance can be felt across the breadth of eternity?"
"It means something to me you bastard."
"For the few minutes that you have left to live. And after that?"
"I'll deal with that when I'm dead."
"Do not shame yourself with a coward's reply," the Klingon rebuked. "An
honorable fighter either comes to terms with Truth or he is smashed by the
reality of it."
"You sound like a goddamn preacher."
"I like to enlighten those whom I am about to send into the afterlife. The way
you fight, you may find yourself in Stovokor."
"Stovo huh? What's that?"
"It is where the honored warriors go to fight forever. Endless battle. Endless
glory."
"That supposed to be a Klingon's idea of heaven?"
"If you prefer the term."
"Sounds like hell to me, but whatever makes you happy."
"Now now Commander. Do not lie to yourself. You too would prefer such a life: to
never grow weary of building glorious empires and halls full of honors forever."
"I could think of nothing more pointless," Merrick sneered.
"Oblivion is utterly pointless," the Klingon countered. "Of course no sane
sentient being wishes to suffer unceasingly either. But tell me truthfully which
is better: to be happy and fulfilled forever or to be nothing forever?"
"You talk a lot for a Klingon."
"We can return to fighting till your death any time you choose," he deadpanned.
"Let's keep talking."
"Good. You did not answer my question. Would you not prefer living happy and
fulfilled for always?"
"I believe that existing eternally and being happy are mutually exclusive,"
Merrick said.
"Are they? Even if they are, what sense is it to believe that? Nothingness gets
you nothing. If that is the reality we face then we may as well kill each other
now and be done with it for all the difference it will make in the end."
"That's a selfish thought."
"I'll ask you if you care once you're dead."
Merrick felt unsettled by the point, but said nothing.
"I sense that you have not always abandoned yourself to the mere pretention of
having a purpose."
"I think maybe I prefer fighting after all."
"You used to believe in something didn't you," he observed. "Why did you give
that up? Why did you give into the absurdity of your non-belief?"
"You self-righteous ass."
"You weakling coward. You sit here facing your death. The universe gives you a
warrior philosopher to help you sort through your final moments and you still
refuse to deal with what really matters. Why bother fighting? Is it just because
your genes compel you? Because if they didn't make you fight they would already
have died out? Is that all you are? A self-perpetuating
meme whose sole purpose is to exist?"
"Let's just say I'm in no mood to die today."
"So that is all you are then. A shifting mood. Choosing to fabricate meaning
because it suits how you feel. How very disappointing. I had hoped there'd be
more to you than that."
"Isn't that your line of reasoning? Believing in your Stovo whatsits because you
don't like the alternative?"
"Are you not paying attention? Your alternative ... oblivion ... is inherently
not worth discussing even if it is true. If you disagree, I'll be happy to
listen to you argue the point after we're both cold rotting corpses."
And in a silent blinding rush, the Klingon was suddenly across the room ramming
Merrick straight into the cave wall. Merrick didn't know what had hit him. Least
of all did he comprehend how the amrour encumbered Klingon had moved so fast.
All he knew was that his whole body suddenly ached and he tasted blood in his
mouth.
But that was all. He was still alive and the Klingon was gone. And as he came to
his senses, he heard a voice.
"Commander Merrick?!" Yarith sounded worried, but controlled for a change.
It took his eyes a few moments to focus. Where in the hell am I, he thought as
the lights made him squint. "The Klingon Lieutenant, the one I was fighting
where did he go?"
"The Klingon sir, I don't understand. We found you alone in that cave,
unconscious." Yarith said.
"Cerebral anoxia." Corbett said.
"What?" Both Yarith and Merrick said in unison.
"In laymen's terms the good Commander had a lack of oxygen to his brain, which
caused a hallucination and quite a doosey it seems." Corbett answered.
NRPG: From Brian - Thanks a million to Steve for contributing to this post. He
really made it work.
Respectfully Submitted Jointly,
Steve Apple
Dr. Stile Corbett
CMO, USS HOOD NCC-1703
ASR ORIGINS
and
Brian V. Mansur
LCDR Sean Merrick
FO, USS HOOD NCC-1703
ASR ORIGINS


==USS HOOD: ==
==USS HOOD: ==
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