Ensign Lhandon Joseph Nilsen - Echo
Thomas Sanderson
V’Airu: Perhaps not. But then again, perhaps Echo, too, has abilities we've never considered.
However, and while Ossa indulged in her little joke, Nilsen turned to her, utterly serious. Any other day he would have caught the joke and smiled, but he was scared. His breath should be short right now, the blood should be pumping around his body, his sympathetic nervous system should be firing, yet he felt none of that.
Nilsen: Commodore, if it’s all the same to you, I’d like to go home.
V’Airu: (gravely) Very well. Shall we?
He had hoped that he hadn't come across as scared; that would have been mortifying. He had hoped he had appeared as a good and brave Starfleet officer, one who had literally gone where no one had gone before. Horque had patted Nilsen on the shoulder; the two were about the same height and towered over the others. Lhandon had liked the guy; although he had just met him, Horque seemed chill and had been a massive help to him.
Commodore V’Airu seemed like she knew what she was doing as well. This was her wheel house he thought.
Almor: Commodore, I think your Vulcan heritage will be served with physical touch—even in this realm.
V’Airu: (with a terse nod) I see. Nilsen, will you give me your hands?
Nilsen: Yes sir
Nilsen took the Commodore’s hand, his palm much bigger then hers, but as of this moment, she was a giant to him, one that he looked up too and in this moment, one that he trusted.
Torka: Trust the Canan.
Almor: I don’t know that any of this is for sure, but the longer we wait, the harder it will become.
V'Airu: Then let's begin.
Nilsen: Alright, lets go.
Almor: See you on the other side!
Horque: Hopeful!
Nilsen: Thank you Torka. I’ll make sure Bajor knows about your people.
Torka: This one knows you will.
Nilsen received one final shared image, but this one was more of a feeling, one of many smiling faces and an immense sense of gratitude. He had hoped he did well, but he didn't feel it. There was something at the back of his mind, a sense that there was more he could have done, and the feeling that it wasn't enough to compensate for the fact that he wasn't a good person. Etan's rage towards him reminded him of that. Behind the jokes, the laughter, and the recklessness that endeared him to his fellow officers, he was someone who had made bad choices.
Bad people make bad choices, one good choice isn't going to make up for that.
The Commodore spoke
V'Airu: (quietly) One foot in front of the other.
Nilsen: I can do that.
Torka: This one knows you can.
The others faded away, their images had become more and more ghostlike until nothing remained. Soon, it had been just Nilsen and Torka alone in the conference room, a chance to say their final goodbyes. Even though Nilsen had only had Torka and the others share his body for a short time, losing their presence and the tightly woven connection that had quickly formed had become odd, disconcerting. The sharing of ideas, like an entire life could be transferred between people in an instant.
Nilsen would have to go back to being singular. Alone.
Nilsen: Why have I not gone?
It started with the silence gentle whirring of the computer consoles fading awy, and the almost comforting beeping they constantly made. It was part of life on a starship, a little piece of home in a way. It wasn’t there anymore, the conference room was silent. Looking around, Nilsen noticed the conference room beginning to disappear.
Torka: Soon
The chairs, then table which dominated most of the space. The consoles vanished next, then the walls themselves ceased to exist. Nilsen found himself in existing in nothingness, just darkness all around him. The only things left were Nilsen and Torka, and the conference room door floating, becoming to him.
Nilsen: About your offer…
Torka walked towards Nilsen, an almost sad smile across his face. He reached a hand out, laying it on Nilsen’s cheek, a gentle almost caressing motion. If Nilsen were in the real world his heart would skip a beat; he would have feel the hand, its warmth, the callouses on his hands that spoke to the farm life Torka had once lead. Lhandon took his own hand and placed it on Torka’s.
Torka inched closer, his image beginning to fade away as everything else had done, his face now only a few centimetres from Nilsen’s.
Torka: Dakhur and Dakhur; perhaps, in another lifetime……
And like that, as if someone had snapped their fingers, Torka was gone. His image had faded entirely. Nilsen had been left alone in the dark, with nothing but a lingering sensation of what could have been. If circumstances had been better, if 65000 years hadn't separated them.
((Mindscape, A Doorframe)
Nilsen stood rooted to the spot for what felt like an eternity, before turning around and stumbling towards the door. He came to a stop against the door frame, suddenly more exhausted than he’d ever felt in his entire life.
One foot in front of the other.
One foot in front of the other.
A mantra going through Nilsen’s mind.
He tried to walk towards the door but the door was shut. He pressed the button to the side to open the door, it didn’t even beep.
His legs gave way beneath him, and his body collapsed against the closed doorway, landing hard on a floor he could not feel. He tired to open the door again, reaching up but he didn’t have the strength.
He ended up with his back against the door, sitting on the floor that was not there. The Darkness around him seemed closer and closer.
Nilsen: Torka…you there?
He said in worry.
He was alone.
One foot in front of the other….he couldn’t do that.
One foot in front of the other…he couldn’t move his foot
His leg had been locked in place when a console, a console from a shuttle that had been ripped out of its usual dashboard, appeared on top. It had slammed onto his foot, clamping it in place. He winced in anticipation, but there was no pain.
Then, almost at the same speed, the bulkheads of the shuttle slammed around him, forming the wreckage of Shuttle FH-421 that had nearly been his coffin jus tover two years ago. He had looked down and seen that he was wearing his cadet uniform. The patch for Echo Squad had returned to its spot on the upper arm of his flightsuit. The fire had returned, but it was not hot.
The shuttle FH-421 had finished forming around him. He saw the asteroid he had crashed on in 2398, the incident that had led to him being kicked out of the squad, transitioned from red to gold.
He was not Oumuamua
He was Echo.
To be continued
Ensign Lhandon Joseph Nilsen
HCO
USS Oumuamua
O240007LN1
He/Him/His (Both player and character)