ON
THE
N ATURE
OF
W IND
“God, we’re alone,” he thought, digging through his pockets to find his screwdriver. Logically, he should have gone and checked to see if the other communicators were working, but then, his logic had flown the coop a long time ago. He was just about to pry open the casing and check for damage when a break came through the static. No transmission, but a break. Something that momentarily cut the noise. Sinking down until he was sitting at the bottom of the stairwell, half-shadowed in the back and forth dance of the lamps, he listened. Static... emptiness... c’mon, something caused that. Maybe they weren’t totally on their own out there, maybe something was there and the world wasn’t compacted to the small space of the schooner. He realized, abstractly, that sometimes the world and the universe could really be that small. And that he was even smaller. But not as small as whoever it was whose voice made it through the static, the wind, the creaking. Not that small. With dawning horror, he heard the cry through the night of someone far more frightened and alone than him. “Please, God... someone hear this... ... ...capsized, going down... ...” a broken sob, “I don’t wanna die like this.”
Corry stood the helm alternately for Lewis and he was loving every minute of it. Sure, most of his crew looked positively sick and ready to give up sailing forever, but for him, this was the ultimate high. Starfleet could keep their starships, their so-called adventures to other worlds. When compared to the feeling of facing off, one-on-one with Nature, their catch phrase of ‘Adventure! Exploration! Advancement! Join Starfleet Today and See the Universe!’ seemed laughable. He thought himself a part of this, as elemental as the wind he was fighting. He never once thought of himself alone out there. Holding on with an unwavering grip, feet braced apart, he was just about to whoop again triumphantly when Scott stepped in front of the wheel. There was something in his expression, in his eyes, that completely 254