Lest we forget... – Epitaph
by HoD Ro' Matlh

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Post Details

Title   Epitaph
Mission   Lest we forget...
Author(s)   HoD Ro' Matlh
Posted   Tue Nov 09, 2010 @ 5:41am
Location   Miletus
Timeline   The distant future
As the Fhew lifted of it kicked up a dust cloud that spread out across the frigid world. The atmosphere was turning to ice crystal and falling as a light snow covering the place where the facility had been. The sterile dust settled down with the snow making a muddy covering over the crater, the old ships and the fallen suits.

One thing stood out amongst the brown and white. A single figure lying where the door to the facility had been. One lone body, the only one in all of Miletus. HoS had a whole world as his grave.

When the Federation ships passed over they did not see anything of significance in the crater beyond one more target of orbital bombardment. They passed the very site where the catastrophe happened without a note on their logs. Four billion people ended with the press of a switch and now even the switch was forgotten.

The next morning the frost sublimed, lifting back into the atmoshpere. This time, however, the breath which lifted off HoS carried with it something new. Unlike all those who died 2000 years earlier, HoS had not been steralized at death and the bacteria and microscopic life from within his body rose as he were breathing new life into Miletus.

It floated over the warming earth, still moist with atmospheric dew. It passed over the silent remains of a village, with a bridge over a long dry creek. It finally settled out on the peaks of the moutains near the mouth of a mine where clothing from dozens of people lay discarded near unoppened ration packs. The condesation turned to a fine misting rain and the bacteria thrived as the moisture gathered in clumps.

Each night the air froze and the life went dormant, but each morning it woke again, rising on the air to spread further. Eventuall it reached the cold seas, but even here there are pockets that are always warm, and life began to get a foot hold.

2,500 years later a small vessel arrived in Miletus. It landed in a wide field of grass like ferns and the lone ocupant steped out. He did not need to wear a mask for the air was fresh to breath, albeit colder than he remembered. He gazed around at the wide diversity of plant life and listened to the odd sounds of creatures, barely large enough to be seen moved through the grass.

He walked a distance away from his ship and stoped by a wide depression in the earth. he closed his eyes for a moment then moved to his side and knelt down. His hands scrabled in the fertile soil, unearthing small worm like creatures until his hand came to rest on something hard.

Even after he pulled it out, it was hard to know what it had been. Any metal had corroded to nothing, and the leather was gone as well, but the explorer knew an Honur blade when he saw it. He was probably the only person who now remembered the name D'k'tahg, but this one he knew well. Holding it, tracing the symbol of one of the Last of the Klingon houses, he even remembered the owner.

Jared droped the haft back to the ground and returned to his ship. Next time he passed this way the sun had burnt out and Miletus was no more.