Star Trek: Erin

Part 69: Sprite Falling

     Junior Lieutenant Anthony Sprite was not yet a junior lieutenant. Nor was he an ensign, or even a Starfleet Academy student. He was simply Anthony.

     Anthony lived on a backwater little planet that was referred to by a string of letters and numbers until long after it was settled. Colonists came from Terra thanks to Federation incentives to settle the frontier and were quickly forgotten when the frontier moved on. It wasn't like they needed to be remembered. The planet was quiet, plentiful, and opportunities to make a life off-world were always present. Sometime in the third generation of colonists, the planet gained a name from a joke that no one remembered the context to. The planet became known as Mistlid.

     It was around this time that an outpost was established on Mistlid.

     Anthony was thirteen years old.

     On his way back from school, waiting outside while his older brother perused antiques, Anthony overheard a nearby conversation around the corner.

     "Pulling out? Now? The project's not nearly ready."

     "Keep your voice down. Odesa gave the order this morning. Shame about the town."

     Anthony had been in the process of glancing around the corner to see the speakers, but at that, he froze. The other continued in their languid tone. "You think this is vengeance for something? Some local piss her off yesterday?"

     There was the sound of a smack. "She's not as sadistic as you make her out to be. It's just business to her. More likely Starfleet sent a warning that our tests are getting too obvious to ignore."

     "That kind of pressure, eh? Maybe someone should give Odesa a new knife to make her happy."

     "You don't have to make offerings, dumbass. Just do your job right and she'll stop picking on you. Anyway, let's head back. It's starting in a few minutes I don't want to be in this hellhole when it does."

     Two people emerged from the alley, and for a moment, Anthony saw a black badge being put away, its surface thinly etched with a thirty-one.

     Anthony was frozen. His mind was moving fast, racing in circles, catching, moving to the next point.

     "Shame about the town."

     Anthony burst into the shop. Tundloy, the elderly woman who ran the store, raised a hand. "Good afternoon, dear. Your brother is in the automotive section. Are you—"

     "Leave town!" Anthony shouted and sprinted for the back.

     His brother caught him before he reached the section. "Hey, what's got you—"

     "The outpost people, they're blowing the town or something. We need to go."

     "You sure?"

     Anthony had never been surer in his life.

     Whenever Anthony's brother walked by, people would say, "That boy is Starfleet material, just you watch." His brother nodded once. "I'll get Mom and Dad. Go to the hill and wave for people up there. I'll send them to you."

     Anthony had his hands clenched in fists.

     "Hey, you hear me? We're saving people."

     Anthony mimicked his brother—one nod—and ran.

     He made it to the hill. He waved. He saw a handful of people coming, more leaving their houses.

     And then the sky over the town darkened into a great black disk. Beyond was a starscape Anthony had never seen nor would again, before those stars were eclipsed by great flaming meteors.

     The handful in the front were vaporized immediately. Those behind were obscured by the rubble.

     Anthony Sprite stood on the hill as his town burned.

     The disk closed, and there was nothing left.

     When a starship came and took Anthony away, he was questioned, then consoled. The captain personally tried to distract the boy who'd lost everything. And Anthony saw the weapons that could've destroyed that outpost if they'd been just a little sooner. He saw the people so like his brother.

     He saw a path to ascension.

     There was a fire in Anthony Sprite's soul. And it burned and grew and spread until the day the pieces came together. The mentor he trusted was the mastermind he loathed with every shard of his fractured heart.

     And he pulled the trigger.