”Now I Lay Me Down To Die” By JadziaKathryn Rating: PG Genre: Angst, Drama Disclaimer: I made up the main character. All else is owned by Paramount/CBS. Description: The last moments of a nameless security ensign. When I signed up for Starfleet, I knew that the possibility of my death was always strong. Security isn’t a very safe department. No, if I wanted to be safe, I would’ve joined up for command. Still, I’m lying here now, watching Dr. Crusher hover over me, thinking that my sacrifice for the Federation was supposed to be noble. Oh, it was an important mission, and it succeeded. Data –oh, to be as he is, impervious to phaser blasts! - was able to download the entire Dominion database before we blew the asteroid to pieces, and the Dominion cave hideaway with it. It was not considered by them to be a critical post, but the information we gained could hold the key to victory. And yet none of that comforts me as I lay here dying. Data carried me out of the cave, but by the time we reached a level penetrable by the transporters, it was too late for me. He told Captain Picard how I took the hit for Capelini. How could I not? His wife is pregnant. I dove in front of him. That’s noble, yes. But my death is still so void of meaning. Capelini is here in Sickbay beside me. The guilt he feels as he watches my readings grows, and he’s saying that he wants to resign from Starfleet. “No,” I tell him, summoning all the strength I can and projecting it into my voice. “You have to stay and save the Alpha Quadrant from those bastards. So the universe will be a safer place for your son.” I think Dr. Crusher told him not to upset her patient, because he’s silent now, just sitting beside me and letting the silence envelop him. It’s enveloping me, too, only it’s silence of a more permanent variety. Dr. Crusher’s voice is in the background, and I’m sure that she’s administering the best care Starfleet can offer, but it’s not enough. I can’t even make out individual words; I simply hear the cadence of her voice as it rises and falls. The world is getting blurrier, passing me by already, as though since there is no hope for me to live, my role in life is already being absorbed and reformed by the form of society. It occurs to me that maybe it’s best I didn’t ask Kim Metriale out. She never has to know, now, and it will spare her pain. There’s enough pain out here, in this damned war; I certainly don’t need to cause her any more. I can hear the captain’s voice over the comm, but I don’t know what he’s saying. There would be a supreme irony if he was telling me that he’s nominating me for a Medal of Valor. If I could still control my muscles, I’d smile at the thought that what I wanted so much in life could be mine in death, and I struggle to make out the words to no avail. Whatever my captain’s last words to me are, they are a mystery. There is nothing left that I can control except my thoughts, and even this last stronghold of life is fast fading away. Voices, now indistinguishable, swirl around my consciousness and provide a kind of chorus. I’m thinking of the time when I was five years old and ate my chocolate Easter bunny. I liked it so much that I ate Sarina’s, too. She was a good sport about it- about everything I did. I was, in retrospect, an extraordinarily bothersome little stepbrother, always tagging along and getting into her stuff long after most of my friends stopped following their siblings. Sarina never complained. When I accidentally spilled chocolate milk on the PADD containing her essay written in Andorian, she just sighed and started over. I always told her that I’d name my first son James, after her middle name, Jamie. The chorus of amorphous voices is getting quieter now, slowly singing me into a final sleep. Mom told me the legend of King Arthur years ago, and I always remembered that the dying man faded into the mist to reappear when he is needed most. I suppose, in a way, that’s what I’m doing. Of course I won’t physically reappear, but after I’ve faded to nothing from this auditory mist, my memory will be there. When Capelini needs strength to fight another day, my memory will be there. When Sarina needs to remember that life used to be peaceful, without war, and that it will be again, my memory will be there. When Mom needs something to remind her that just because she didn’t figure out a way to exceed current warp limits, she was still a successful person, my memory will be there. Maybe that’s the power of the legend, or maybe it is the jumbled thoughts of a dying man. So I didn’t die in a grand, spectacular way, but the almost inaudible chorus reminds me that people care, and I have not died in vain. I strain to hear the voices, but the many voices have faded into one. I can almost hear the words. Maybe if I concentrate just a bit harder, I’ll hear what they’re saying…. “Record the time of death.”

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