A Light In The Dark

Posted on Mon Jun 10th, 2024 @ 4:18pm by Major Samantha Snyder

999 words; about a 5 minute read

Mission: Ethics, Morals & The Prime Directive.
Location: Trapped in debris.
Timeline: Current

Sam could hear the sounds of battle above her, weapons fire muffled in part by the sound of small loose debris skittering about as it fell to the floor. Dust laced the air to the point where she could feel it encrusting inside her nose from the nosebleed that had since stopped.

"Major, you've got to stay awake. I know you want to rest and close your eyes, but you need to stay awake. Talk to me, about anything, I don't care what, but you can't fall asleep."

Sam knew he was right, keep the mind engaged and focused, it would help fend off falling asleep...or worse. "Like what." Sam spoke, her voice softer, weaker.

"Anything, tell me about your first time on board the ship?" Dockard asked.

Sam slowly recalled the time she stepped on board the then U.S.S. Dreadnought, a variant of the Galaxy Class. A Captain then, one of the few female officers apart of the detachment but the ranking one. How over the years she worked with Jack, who was a Major back then engaging in missions that in part made her wonder if she was still cut out for it now. She told of the change in ship to the Ronin class, how she was offered placements elsewhere but wanted to stay with the ship. Then to the Ascension class when the Ronin's were decommissioned.

She spoke of how things just grew when the detachment grew in number over the years and how she felt more of a desk worker than a marine. Something she secretly hated. There was a pause...so tired, need to rest.

"Hey, hey, no no no." Dockard gently pressed her leg near an injury, the pain would do the rest.

Sam moaned; anger briefly flashed in her half open eyes, but she knew why he did it.

"Keep going." He spoke as he tended to his own wounds trying to keep Sam engaged, talking about work would only last for so long, he needed to change things up. "Rumour has it there is a girl on the scene." There was no judgement in his voice, in the current day and age the whole sexual orientation scene was widely accepted without reservations.

"Bianca."

"Tell me about her." Dockard asked as he tried to make himself a little more comfortable so he could now check on Sam's wounds, little that he could actually do for her, but he had to do something.

There was a faint hint of a smile at the corner of Sam's mouth as she thought about Bianca but it was swiftly dashed as a tear spilled from the corner of her left eye, it raced down the side of her face towards her ear due to her laying position leaving an almost clean streak on her cheek.

"Sam." Dockard spoke. "Tell me about Bianca, what's she like?"

Sam softly spoke that until Bianca she was a career woman. The uniform was everything, she was a marine. Everyone knew that dating a marine came with baggage, long stints away, the risks, the dangers. Many didn't want or couldn't handle that. Bianca though, she was different. Sam spoke of Bianca's long black hair and how it contrasted to her own. She spoke about how even being a marine when she was around her, she didn't feel like one. She spoke of how when she was around Bianca that she could be herself, not the Major, but be free as herself and be accepted as such. It was a hard feeling to shake for Sam since she'd devoted so much time to being a marine and accepted because she was a woman in a male dominated profession. So many often saw the pretty face and vibrant blonde hair and dismissed or underestimated her.

She spoke about a time that Bianca once opened her clothes storage the first time and saw nothing but uniforms from left to right on the rack. Jackets, shirts, skirts, pants all neatly pressed and ready. "Even my resting clothes were PT slacks."

Dockard smiled. He wouldn't openly admit it but when he first met the Major she did come off as a by the book, regulation style woman. All work, lived and breathed the marine way of life so it was funny to him to hear that story. "What did she do next?"

"She took me shopping." Sam whispered.

"That had to be an adventure." Dockard responded as he observed Sam, and things were not fairing well. He knew he'd have to do something and Sam's life depended on it, if he did nothing she very well could die down here.

Sam thought about that day and some of the things that Bianca tried to fit her into. It looked...so alien to her. Seeing herself in the mirror in a dress, an actual, proper dress. "I didn't recognize the woman staring back at me."

Dockard looked around at the rubble around them and though he knew that he wasn't able to move anything around them due to his own injuries or the weight of the rubble, he couldn't just sit around. He tried to find any light from the outside, even turned off the rifles torch in the hopes that any light would be seen or given away by the dust's movements by air current. "I'll be back Sam, I need to see if I can see or find a way out, even for a signal. Keep talking, I'm listening."

It was agony to move but for him he was a 'walking wounded' but Sam was a whole different story. The only options he had was knowing it was nighttime, so taking the light off one of the weapons he would stick it through a hole in the debris and flash it on and off in the hopes that someone would be able to see the flashes of light or at the very least, a glow that flickered in a steady pattern.

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