Star Trek Coda

Chapter 1: The Future is Dark

NEW YORK CITY RUINS, 2408

A tall teenage boy with short brown hair sprinted through the crumbling streets of New York City, fleeing his pursuers. Three hooded figures ran after him. A phaser beam flew past his head. Wasting that energy meant they wanted him badly, he thought. He felt his chest clench with pain, his legs ached with every step. Every part of his body wanted to stop. He kept going, block after block.

Without warning his knees buckled, sending him flying into the dirt. In seconds he was thrown against a brick wall. He didn't open his eyes out of fear. He felt his face flattening, and sharp pain jarred through every part of his body. He didn't know which part of him hurt, because it all did. He tried to think of Ethan, but he couldn't focus. As his consciousness faded, Jack didn't even realise he was no longer being beaten.

*****

"Jack! Jack!" a hand was on his face. No, he thought, he didn't want to wake up to more pain. "Hey, hey its okay. I'm here." He knew that voice. His eyes slowly came open and Ethan's face came into view. Jack was still dazed, it felt like he'd woken up from a long sleep. The sky had grown dark, and for a few moments he couldn't remember where he was.

Ethan grabbed him up, putting his arm around his shoulder and carrying him through the crumbling streets. They didn't speak, but Ethan grabbed Jake's hand tight – they didn't need to speak. They reached Brooklyn Bridge, what was left of it. Ethan looked back at Manhattan Island as they crossed it. There were a few half skyscrapers left, but otherwise it was a skeleton. He wondered what it used to look like. Slowly everything flashed back, and Jack stopped, moving off Ethan and putting his hands on his knees for support. He looked up, "what happened?" he asked.

"Do you remember? I came looking for you when you didn't come back," replied Ethan in his usual soft tone. Somehow in his state of shock, Jack still felt the comfort of Ethan's calm, but it was only for a minute because he felt his eyes close and consciousness fade again.

They reached a small shanty town on the mainland on the other side of the bridge. It stretched as far as the eye could see with an assortment of tents and homes made in the ruins of the old city. People paid no attention as they walked past – it was just another beat up guy. Nothing out of the ordinary. Ethan took him into a small room forged in an old building. They were lucky, he had a roof, and for the most part the small room he had cleared could be sealed off from the elements. He lay Jack down and began wiping his wounds with one hand, the other grabbed tightly by Jack.

A few hours later Jack fully came to, looking over to see Ethan watching him intently, "what happened?"

"I found you barely alive. You tell me what happened?" asked a worried Ethan.

"I ... I tried to use the energy crystal, to access the databanks at the old library, but they were there trying to pillage it," he cringed as he realised the pain he was still in, "they saw me using - they saw the crystal – I was fucked."

Ethan still held Jack's hand but his soft tone grew serious, "I told you to stop! What's the point of going back over the past? It's done, we know what happened. They fucked it all up. We lost everything. It's over. We gotta stop fighting and make peace with what we have! It's never going to change. This is life now."

"This!?" Jack pointed at the crumbling ruins they resided in, "the great city over there? This city of starving people here? What do we have Ethan, what do we actually have?"

"We have each other, isn't that enough?"

Jack stared ahead and sighed. He squeezed Ethan's hand, "I truly love you, you know."

Ethan returned the sigh, "I know, I'm sorry for getting angry, but isn't this enough?"

"It is enough, for the moment. But not when it could disappear in an instant. Not when I could lose you so easily. This isn't life. There's more to it than this. There's so much more we could do together."

"But this is all we've got Jack."

"That doesn't make it enough. Does the impending threat of death really make it life?"

"It's still a life, that's just how it is for us. We gotta live in the moment and thrive in it. It's all we have. And we're still alive. That's what matters."

"And what about them? All these people suffering, don't we owe it to them to help them?"

"How? How can we help them?"

"We can fight for them, we can bring back what we had."

Ethan looked sadly to Jack, "Don't you get it? What we had destroyed us. Looking back at the past with longing destroyed us. If you truly wanted to help them, you would teach them a better way. You would let go."

Jack only replied in his thoughts, 'I wish I knew how'. Ethan moved onto the crumbling bed, wrapping Jack in his arms, and there they lay as they both fell asleep.