[posted 7/1/99] “Mine Eyes Have Seen” Part II “The Glory” By: Carol Gravley “Epsilon” DISCLAIMER: I did not create any of the characters that have been on any Star Trek series, blah blah blah. They belong to Paramount, not to me. All other characters are mine, this idea is mine, and by golly, the computer I’m writing it on is mine! Muwahahahaha! IMPORTANT: This takes place in a different universe far far far far far far far far far far far away. Don’t get confused. ~~The tip of the pencil lifts off the paper for a minute as Tom stares at the beginnings of the story he lived, chewing his bread thoughtfully as he reads over each word that had been formed by quick, short strokes of the pencil. The handwriting is sloppy, but still legible…he wants it that way. Slowly, but not reluctantly, the pencil scratches the surface of the paper again…~~ My father is an Emp and hasn’t even so much as said “hi” ever since I became a part of this rebellion. As far as he’s concerned, I’m dead and rotting in hell with Benedict Arnold and the rest of the traitors, all of us suffering in eternal agony as the flames lick at our heels, and the smoke burns our blackened lungs; a manifestation of all malice and malevolence. Sorry, Dad, but I’m quite alive. I joined this resistance at the age of 18, of course… Okay, so maybe I lied. I said I was eighteen…that doesn’t necessarily mean I was, but I won’t get into that at the present moment…I’ll just skip it for now. I had rarely seen guns, let alone use one to take another life. My father tried to keep me sheltered of such things, but it didn’t work. I saw how the people of the lower classes suffered and struggled all day to build up enough currency to use to feed their emaciated families, I knew that no being of any level of sentience should be subject to such treatment. I asked my father once why he let such things go on, and his reply was, “To insure our own survival, son, we sometimes have to render what could potentially harm us vertually helpless.” Like I knew what that was supposed to mean. I didn’t even treat my dog that way. The fact that Hap was practically the only friend I had in the world doesn’! t mean anything… Still…I never forgot how my father reacted, I knew that I couldn’t sit back and watch such things happen when I could do something about it. Unfortunately, at the time that short little conversation took place, I was nine…Hap was nine weeks. There wasn’t much that a kid and a pup could do about the universe’s injustices. I’d have to wait a few years and keep my ears open for any news of resistance…that came eight years later. The news sent sparks of excitement through me, and I can’t remember if I had gone temporarily insane or what, but I immediately ran out into the hangars, the wolfish grey-and-white malamute following me from behind, and climbed into the single unmarked shuttle—there was no way that I’d be goin’ out there with an Imperial logo stamped on both flanks. I downloaded the coordinates from my padd into the navigational computer, checked every compartment to make sure I hadn’t forgotten anything from when I’d been secretly stocking up on supplies the years before, and was on my merry little way before my father could get the chance to discover my absence. The flight there was rather uneventful, but come morning I was grounded in the middle of a fairly large and motly crew…with guns. A lot of guns. A whole lot of guns. I swallowed hard and thought to myself, “Now or never, Tom.” (I sometimes wonder what would’ve happened if I’d chosen “never.” I would have most likely hated myself, but oh well). Soon, of course, I found out that people with guns are sometimes…well…quite nice. That’s almost all I can remember. Funny how most of the time you can only think of the horrible things that happened to you, not of the events that led up to them. All that I can really recall is a message that almost every story was built upon: War is glorious. A few days later my thought on this would be “Like hell it is.”