Personal Mission
The rover touched down with a thud just beyond the coordinates provided by Central Command. The plasmic disturbance made for a bumpy ride. The escape hatch slowly opened. Captain Walters and his reconnaissance team crept out of the capsule, phasers set to stun. He vaguely recognized his surroundings, but the streets and walkways were bare. It was eerily quiet as they made their way towards ground zero. Why had their important mission on Cragen 5 been cut short just as they were on the verge of finding the missing crystal? Why could he not get a straight answer from the Admiral? No matter, Walters loyalty ran deep and he would follow the orders he’d been given. He just thought he’d reached a point in his career where he should be in the know; particularly surrounding missions to his home planet. And why the secret return as he longed to contact his family.
The team split up to surround the target, who’s walls were thick and impenetrable to the typically reliable life scanners. But Walters’ gut could feel something looming there. In an instant Walters saw a flash and a moment later Parsons, Rodriguez and Jannick 462 vanished from his scanner. He was alone. He was a highly trained veteran and had been on hundreds of missions, but this felt different. Walters crept towards the back entrance, checked his bioscan readings then took a couple of deep breaths to try to bring them back in line. The phrase “I’m getting too old for this,” momentarily crossed his mind. He hailed each of his team members again on the comms to no avail. He would proceed with his orders to infiltrate the target location against his better judgment. Walters turned up his phaser to neutralize, took one more long, laboured breath, kicked open the door and engaged his phaser. He was immediately inundated by blinding light, a papery blast, a short horrified scream and muted shouts of Happy Birthday…
