I woke up this morning and felt… nothing.  I don’t know what this emptiness means.  If I say something about it…they’ll make me feel again.  I don’t want to feel again.  I want…something else.  Somewhere else?  I do not know.  I should know.  They’ll make me know.

I’m not staying here.  I can’t stay here.  I need to feel the nothing that’s out there.

I’ve got to get out of here.

— from Gant’s Personal and Secure Log

The universe had become an unholy place.  He sat in the center chair of his ship, the weight of a long history weighing on him as the present events barreled wildly forward.  The images and memories circled his mind.  Sounds of the suffering and stories of the destruction played endlessly in his ears.  They had fought their way forward.  Now they massacred the enemy in the name of supremacy.

“To what end?”  He muttered it out loud.  The stories that had been told about the years that had come before his time were not false.  And yet…here his people spilled innocent blood across the stars.  “To what end?”  He repeated the question to himself.  How much death would it take to satiate the Supremacy?  Would the hunger fade?  Or would the fires of fury burn through them until nothing was left to conquer?

“To what end?”  His voice had strengthened.  He had wrestled with this question for several weeks.  He had felt himself walking to a fighter and strapping in.  He’d requested departure to go on a search pattern.  He’d flown until he’d arrived within sensor distance of what the Federation called Caireann Station.  The Vaadwuar group he had been assigned used numbers for most targets.  Other targets were given vulgar names.  He thought it was intentional.  To foster the lust for killing.  For the genocide of the Federation and beyond.

“To what end?” He shouted to no one and everyone.  What was the point of all this?  He was not hungry for blood.  He was tired.  The station had hailed him several times, and he had yet to find the strength to respond. An inability to press a single command and open the comms, even as the station powered their weapons.

But rest would have to wait. He knew that. Even if it would come eventually.

When the viewscreen flickered to life, the man on the other side seemed just as tired. A surprisingly welcome sight. Not that Gant knew many members of the species referred to as ‘Trill’ – as a matter of fact, this was the first one – but it was the expression on his face that struck him.

He looked young and incomprehensibly old at the same time, stood firm and yet was carrying a weight no one could see. Gant could relate – or perhaps he simply looked for something to relate to.  It had been far too long since he had felt connected to anyone. Not since his friends and loved ones had perished in the fire.

“My name is Captain Ceix. State your intention.”