Keibren Denshar - Between Ages and Across Time, Part ll
Doz Finch
((Cockpit, Undercover Shuttlecraft 2, New Cyndriel — Time Index: Early 2367))
Denshar: He…he said that wouldn’t happen, he said…that’s why I’m here if the first plan fails. I…I set up the device so that if it did fail then certain information would be transmitted and…no, I can’t accept what you’re saying. Commodore Johnson is a great man. A good man. He would never let a thing like that happen. He intends to make things right. He—
Finch: —Is just a person, love. He’s not perfect. He can make mistakes. Just like we all can.
Now his hands began to tremble, so the woman—Finch—abandoned her tea and moved to sit next to him, taking his cup from him and placing it down on the floor. She watched him through those old almond eyes of hers, as the words tumbled out of his mouth.
Denshar: Maybe we can change it, now that we know. M-maybe we can…come up with a third plan? Something that will stop all of that from ever happening.
Finch pulled away for a moment, and a look of sympathy stitched itself into her features.
Denshar: Haven’t you ever thought about it? Haven’t you ever…ever wished it was possible? To bring back the people who died that never should have?
Finch: Every single day.
Whatever he wanted to say next didn’t find its feet; the older woman gazed at him with a look that could move mountains, stars, galaxies, as her eyes filled with an aqueous light, accentuating the littlest details within them. She was smiling too but it wasn’t a full smile. It was as if it was held there with pins in the corners of her cheekbones.
Finch: I lost a very dear friend once. I mean, at my age I’ve lost many friends and family members, it’s a given. But that particular loss…my god. It stays with you forever, that pain.
The older human eyeballed the innards of the shuttle.
Finch: I’ve asked the universe countless times why him, why would it take such a good person away. Why couldn’t it have been me instead.
She drifted for a moment…and Keibren simply listened, somewhat reminded of those evenings drinking tea with aunt Colanna.
Finch: He’s alive…here I mean. In this time, in this era. I know exactly where he is. Where he’s working, what he’s doing, the sort of projects he's working on. I remember it well.
Denshar: You could send him a message. Maybe you could prevent his death too? Don’t you see? The Commodore’s plan is good.
Finch: Oh, trust me I’ve thought about it. Ever since we got here I’ve thought about it. But I won’t do it. I wont. That’s the difference.
Denshar: But why? We could save him. We could save so many people.
In the palm of your hand, life is everlasting. What his aunt Colanna really meant by that was that a person's good deeds could live on forever. That everything a person touched eventually touched something else, or someone else, and that it went on and on and on.
He looked down at his own hands for a moment, considering that memory and everything Finch had said to him there in the isolation of the shuttle.
Finch: But we shouldn’t, Mister Denshar. It isn’t up to me, or you, or Commodore Johnson to decide who lives and who dies. As much as the pain scratches at my insides somedays. As much as I have screamed into my pillows over the years, and sobbed until there was not a smidgeon of liquid left in me, I’ve had to accept that what happened to my friend, happened. Do you understand what I’m saying?
Keibren turned and looked away for a moment, his chest tight and his face flushed. What became of his homeworld, then? If all of it failed, what was any of it for? And what would happen to him? What if none of it was an act of good, but an act of destruction?
Finch: There isn’t a single person in this galaxy who deserves to have the power to rewrite history, love. You wipe away the past and in the process you lose everything that makes us who we are. Our tears. Our joy. Our misery. Our laughter. We’re like bits of tattered fabric sewed together, frayed in places, full of all sorts of different patterns and odd shapes, and although it hurts sometimes, that’s exactly as it should be.
With rosy cheeks, the older woman reached for a nearby PADD and began pulling up information and images, some of it he caught in his peripheral vision. But then she handed it to him, and slowly…a space opened between his lips. It was images of the future, data and information explaining the causality of the Commodore’s tinkering. A distorted reality from what was promised, what was dreamt of, hoped for.
It was devastating.
Denshar: This wasn't…I...I really thought that…
Finch: ::Her voice softer.:: I know.
The woman stood to her feet and cracked her spine in several places before moving over to the front of the cockpit, the shimmer of the forcefield briefly disappearing to allow her through. He supposed she was going there to contact someone, to tell them she had caught him. But all he could think about was what he saw before him.
Finch: Drink your tea before it gets cold, and I'll...well, I'll make you another one just the same.
Keibren bobbed his head, half listening, half not. The image of worlds transfigured bleeding through the screen in front of him, the numbers of planets lost, the billions of lives either zapped from existence or stolen and changed forever. The ripple of one decision, one act…and the unexpected consequence of it right there on the PADD between his palms.
He just hoped this time it wasn’t everlasting.
Keibren Denshar
An Accomplice Under Arrest
United Federation of Planets
Simmed by
Assistant Chief Engineer
USS Gorkon NCC-82293
C239809SH3