Chapter Text
The Star Beagle Adventures
Episode 12: Close to the Edge Part I - The Solid Time of Change
Scene 4: Music of the Suns
A dewdrop can exalt us like the music of the sun…
12.4
Music of the Suns
The sound of water, dripping slowly into a deep pool. Rhonda Carter had forgotten how much she enjoyed this sound. It had been years since she had visited this place. Carter had grown up near Augusta, Georgia, and as soon as she could, she had started caving. Cloudland Canyon State Park had been her favorite. Particularly the underground lake. Most people liked the falls.
Rhonda’s favorite place was much further inside and required rappelling, climbing, and spelunking to get to. And Rhonda had a natural advantage - her diminutive frame could fit through spaces that most people wouldn’t dare to enter.
Very few people ever made it into this place. It was possible to transport into this cavern, but not advisable. So how General Krank had found his way into here was mysterious to her. As was what he was trying to say to her. As silent as this place was, the dripping water completely drowned out his voice.
There was something in Krank’s expression that bothered her. Rhonda settled back into her captain’s chair and tried to focus on the elderly klingon. Krank could read lips, but she couldn’t. And the dripping water was starting to drive her crazy. It still was her favorite sound. But it just kept dripping and dripping. And dripping. And precisely in time with the elderly general’s words.
Carter reached up for the wraparound screen that her 1st officer had installed above her command chair. The computer was able to hear Krank and transcribed his words.
But Carter could not read th’lingan Hol.
And she really, really had to pee. And the captain’s chair was not the place to pee.
Captain Carter dragged herself out of bed and wandered off tiredly to the water closet. There weren’t many amenities on the Escort class ships. They had been designed to escort other ships. Which allowed the crew to take advantage of the few dozen empty staterooms that were typically available on Intrepid class ships, or the tremendous resources of the aging, but still quite useful Galaxy class ships that were, essentially, spacebound conference centers.
Until the fighting had to be done. In the heat of combat, there wasn’t a better ship to be on than the small, nimble, heavily armed and even more heavily armored Escort class destroyers.
The captain’s private quarters with its private water closet was one of the very few luxuries on this ship. The sound of dripping water had really made her need to pee. Actually, that might have been why she had been hearing dripping water. Maybe some dreamtime wish fulfillment as well.
She missed the sound of water. She also found herself missing the sound of silence. That wasn’t what she heard now. It was an endless buzzing whine. Something akin to tinnitus. Being deaf was anything but quiet. Sometimes the noise threatened to overwhelm her.
It was that crackling sound that General Krank had tried to warn her about. But she still couldn’t read th’lingn Hol. She tried to read the words again. And pondered that it was a bit of an extravagance that another wraparound screen had been installed above her toilet.
She needed to get up. But the crackling was the sound of her bones and flesh turning to stone.
Only now everything was sideways. She was still locked down. Turned to stone. With one eye she could see the wall of her room. The corner of her bed. The corner of her desk. The other eye could only barely see over her pillow.
And now the voice rang in her head… The loudest thing she had ever heard… A low rumble, like the holy warriors. A soft, high voice, like her deceased wife. A whisper… A roar…
“You do not understand. You are not listening. But you will.”
Rhonda had never been a bed wetter as a child. She was grossed out that her sheets were now soaked with urine.
She set about, angrily, cleaning this mess up. It was only gradually as she was cleaning her quarters that she noticed the strange voice had left her a gift.
Silence.
Wonderful, delicious, beautiful silence.
12.4