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NEW TNG Far Above Our Poor Power [PG] (Marrissa Stories)

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Stephen aka Old Man ASC

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Nov 11, 2007, 7:48:41 PM11/11/07
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On this, Veteran's Day in the US, I feel this repost is in order.

Title: Far Above Our Poor Power
Author: Stephen
Series: TNG, Marrissa Stories
Rating: PG
Summary: Marrissa preforms her ritual for the fallen.

It was a small island separated only by a fast flowing channel from Star
Fleet's Essex Fighter Academy. Tall trees filled its edges, obscuring its
center save a tall towering flagpole, topped with the blue and white
Federation Flag.

Captain Marrissa Amber Picard, commander Endeavor, approached the bridge
to the island on foot, as she did every time she had returned to Essex
since the end of the Dominion War. She was a Princess of this world, and
often took that as an excuse to avoid the uncomfortable dress uniform, but
not today. Today demanded her full dress uniform, with its medals and
honors. Her task did not demand this because of orders, or customs. She
did it because to do anything less would dishonor them.

Her boots echoed on the bridge as she crossed, the orderly beat much like
that of the honor guard approaching. She stepped off the bridge onto the
black slate path. It was fall, and trees had begun to turn from their
normal deep blue-green to a golden yellow hue. Marrissa slowed her pace,
preparing herself for her self-inflicted penance for being one of those
that had survived.

The clearing ahead was filled with a large blue-gray slate-paved circle,
the same dimension as that of the saucer of the Stargazer. Two long pools
of water, the shape of its warp engines stretched outward, and a tall
ivory pillar stood between them, slanted back to touch the flag pole. At
its front were seven marble fighter craft profiles. The lead one's
registry read "Dominion War" and was covered with engraved names of those
who would never return to this hallowed ground near where they had
received their wings.

Marrissa's fingers rested on the gold wings pinned to her chest. They
weighed heavily on her. As it always was when she visited this slate
circle of honor, she wondered, irrationally, if there had been anything
she could have done to prevent there from being any names on this Memorial
Island. Then she took out a long folded sheet of parchment. She had
written the names of every pilot that had died under her command on this
parchment. Marrissa remembered when she'd written the first of them, and
when she had written the last, the hundred and first.

The paper was tear-spattered, and had gotten more tears on it over the
years. It had never escaped a visit to this isle without it. The names
were still readable, though, and in the steady voice, Marrissa began to
read them aloud. One hundred and one names. One hundred and one men and
women, humans, Bajoran, Vulcans, Andorians, Tellerites, and Betaziods, all
of which Marrissa had known.

She paused after each name, trying to recall the face that went with the
name. Some were easy, they had been under her command for a long time.
Others were hard, and had gotten harder over the years. Marrissa tried.
It was those names that were important. Those names were more important
than all the battles she'd won, the medals she'd earned, and the
promotions she'd been given. They deserved to be remembered.

The Stargazer had been the best ship she'd ever served on, and they the
best crew she had ever served. They had taken a fifteen-sixteen-year-old
girl and turned her into a woman. Credit should not lay with her, but
with the crew, those people that were just names on this marble monument
to others. Tears began to flow as she reached the fiftieth name, each
name causing her soul to ache as she brought their faces to mind.

It was not easy to work through this list of names. This list of
memories of those that should not, could not, be forgotten brought tears.
Tears of sadness, tears of morning, tears for those whose lifes had been
cut all to short. Marrissa's voice began to catch with each name, and
she tried to make each name clear and strong, as she stood at the head of
the slate circle.

Tears continued to come, flowing unhampered down Marrissa's cheeks.
Finally the last name was reached, the last fighter pilot to die under her
command during the seven hundred and forty-two days of the Dominion war.
Her gaze moved up again from the once again tear-wetted parchment, to the
inclined reflective metal serving as the windshield of the lead fighter.
It reflected the sky above, the fast-moving clouds on this cool fall day.

Marrissa did not enter the slate circle. She did not approach the pillar
with the names of those who died on the carriers in support of the
hallowed named she had just finished reading. Instead she folded her list
up once again, and slid it under her uniform jacket. She stood at
attention for a full two minutes, her right hand in the old salute,
looking upwards at the Federation Flag flying above the monument.

Then she broke her salute, and about faced, with the precision she'd
learnt when she had been Chief of Security on the Enterprise. She left
nothing behind as she marched out of the memorial. They had given their
last measure in service of their worlds. She could add nothing more.


"But in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we
can not hollow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who
struggled here have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or
detract."

-- excerpt from Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, November 19, 1863.
--
Stephen Ratliff stephen trekiverse org

"I don't know if I'm cut out to be Captain. First Officer
maybe. I understand there are no real qualifications."
- Counselor Troi, ST:TNG "Disaster"

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