An Isolated Dawn, Part 1: Heartbeat

Posted on 02 Mar 2013 @ 1:37am by Lieutenant Dawn Meridian
Edited on 02 Mar 2013 @ 1:50am

351 words; about a 2 minute read

Lieutenant Edmond de Fay stood with his hands folded behind his back, a smile of quiet satisfaction on his rugged features. An eerie glow filled the observation lounge from the open viewport, the light coming in slow, shimmering waves. "Do you see that, Dawn?" he asked. The little girl at his side nodded, her grey eyes wide with wonder. "No one in the Federation has ever seen anything like it before. It's beautiful, isn't it?"

It was a silver orb, several metres in diameter, that seemed to pulse in time with the beating of their hearts. He'd never seen anything so beautiful... or so unsettling. Dawn tugged at her father's uniform, and he patted her head. "It won't hurt you," he said. His deep voice made her feel a bit better. "As far as we can tell, it's completely harmless."

As far as we can tell. The anomaly baffled him. It sat in the middle of a nebula no one had ever noticed, even though it was only a few light years away from a major trade route. And given that the nebula interfered with their sensors, they had only been able to get preliminary readings. Very preliminary readings. The only option, he'd been told, was to send in a probe to take readings at the smallest possible distance.

He gave the sphere one last glance and then smiled down at Dawn. "It's time for bed. If you're lucky, we should be on our way back to the starbase when you wake up. That means you can play with Kara again." Dawn was growing to look startlingly like her mother, but with his black hair instead of Selene's blonde.

"You have to launch the probe, right Papa?" Dawn frowned, as if in deep thought, and then heaved a dramatic sigh. "All right."

Edmond gently kissed his daughter's forehead. "Run along, now. Your mother and I will check in on you once we're done." He smiled softly. "I love you."

"I love you too, Papa." Dawn hugged him tightly.

Behind them, the anomaly never once skipped a beat.

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