[repcisg]

I was didling around with the Tigers concept tonight and sort of wrote this as I did some free association type thinking.

What do you think?

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The Bayan Captain leaned back into his command chair, with a soft sigh. It wouldn't do to let his crew know of his pain.

I mustn’t move to much, the pain is bearable if I stay still. Besides the others must not know of my pain, it will be unseemly of me to let it show. Besides, they have their-own pain to deal with, my duty demands I remain silent.

Rolling his tired eyes to his right, Qual, the communications operator sat slumped forward at his station. The youngster had been below near the engines when it happened, his exposure was greater than most. The gold and black crest, which he had held so proudly erect when reporting on board, now lay limp and flat on the console. His body showed no signs of life.

Perhaps it's just as well, the captain thought to himself, since the blowout in the engine room, we're all dead any way. And if the great maker has decided some of us are to die more slowly than the others. Then so be it, it is his will.

Rolling to his left the Captain studied his navigator, he too was slumped over his station. But the gold and black crest still held its form. His body moved in a regular rhythm, he was still breathing.

The ships pilot lay in his couch, his back to the command station. From where he sat the Captain couldn't say for sure if the pilot still lived, but then what did it matter. In a few hours at most, no life will remain in any of them. Soon his ship will enter the dust cloud ahead and stop. There to remain for eternity.

In his minds eye he could see the slow accretion of dust on the ships hull, attracted by the ships mass. Each particle adding to that mass and in turn attracting more dust. In a hundred cycles or so this metal coffin will no longer look like a vessel, rather just another dust ball.

More dust will attach itself and more and more until finally the full weight will crush the ship and its crew into an ever shrinking lump.

Perhaps we will become the core of a small planet or, if the maker wishes the center of a new star! Oh blessed maker wouldn't that be something indeed.

My bones ach, he thought, that thought seemed strange to him. How can ones bones ach? Surely there are no nerves there. To ach you need a joint or cartilage, don't you? I must ask the healer about this.

But how, when? In the next life perhaps, will I remember it? I must, for our healer is dead. Along with the engineers, yes, I remember now, he dropped down to the engine room to pull the crew out. He died quickly. They all did. Lucky.

Oh maker let me be the last, it's my duty. I must say the last prayer, my honor demands it, It is by your law I ask this.

Rolling his eyes back to the front view screen, strange, there is darkness within the darkness of the cloud. A world perhaps? No two worlds, twins! How can this be. No, not worlds, but truly twins. Each line on one is on the other. Each curve as on the other. Such grace, such form. Identical in every way. My mind is dying, I am hallucinating. They are not there, they are gone. All of them are gone. I must be hoping for a miracle, this is my minds final act of denial.

There is no one that can save us, not even these twins, even if they were real. Not us, but perhaps our words. Perhaps they will hear our words, my log. This they will listen to and from that know of us, they will know what befell us. But hallucinations cannot hear our words. They cannot hear my praise for the chief engineer. He who gave his life trying to save ours, at the risk of being fried alive to replace the shielding. Nor can they hear of the Healer, who went to his rescue, only to fall beside him.

For both I recommended the honor of the golden crest. The highest honor our people can bestow upon the fallen. They gave their lives freely to save ours, that they failed will not lessen their valor nor the courage of their sacrifice. I only wish their kits could know of this.

"Captain!" Yelled the Navigator.

"What?"

"Look sir, in the front view screen, look!"

He must be hallucinating, like me. For I what I see cannot be, they are all gone. He heard like I did, like we all did. The calls for help and the pleas for mercy, for mercy that was never granted. They are all dead, dust between the stars, like we will soon be.

"What do you see?"

"Tigers, sir! Tigers!"