Personal Log - Hal Jordan

[Greenlantern Excelsior]

Ensign Hal Jordan returned to his quarters and flopped down in his chair. He was exhausted after his long duty shift at the bridge tactical station on the starship USS Vox Aura. He had been assigned to the ship's bridge crew immediately upon arrival at Pathfinder Station. Tactical Officer was a perfect assignment for an Intelligence Branch specialist. As the ship traveled through space, he gathered copious amounts of information, processed it using the finest computer in the galaxy (the human brain), stripped out only the important parts, and delivered those to the Captain. The Captain had a ship to run and crucial decisions to make. There was no time for her to analyze continuous streams of incoming data.

During normal operation, a Tactical Officer would keep a somewhat close eye on the in-flight scanners as the ship transited from point A to point B. But current events were anything but normal. The Vox had taken heavy damage, crippling most of her systems. The crew had repaired what they could, but they needed raw materials to replicate the tools that would create the new components. Starships carried replacement parts for some systems, but they were not designed to take such tremendous damage, and the crew could not replace virtually half of the ship's systems from what they had in the spare parts lockers. What they needed was several months in a Starbase repair facility. What they had was a barely functional starship in empty space, position unknown, with life support failing, and emergency rations almost exhausted.

He had almost missed the flicker on the navigational sensor screen. Switching to the lateral sensor array, he had spotted their possible salvation. It was a large moon, traveling without an associated planet or star. As they moved closer, scans indicated a breathable but cold atmosphere, surface features containing many metals needed to repair ship's systems, and heavy vegetation possibly containing protein for the ship's replicators. The scans also detected almost half a million small life forms moving among and around 12 regularly spaced heat sources on the moon's surface. The heat was coming from power generators deep underground, with shafts leading to the surface. They could find no other signs of technology at that point.

Hal closed his eyes and leaned back in his chair, allowing his body to relax. Hours of boring, uneventful bridge watch had culminated in several minutes of intense analysis and activity. The information he reported and the analysis he gave could result in salvation or doom for the starship and its crew. His extreme fatigue coupled with many hours of intense observation took his mind back many years to a time that was even worse. Back then he had been not Starfleet Ensign Hal Jordan but Phoenix Police Officer Hal Jordan. Earth had become a sanctuary for the Bajoran Cult of the Pah-wraiths, and Phoenix had become their rallying point. Some years earlier, a private citizen had shot and killed a Bajoran cultist who was attempting to set fire to a church full of people. The news of her death spread like wildfire, and cult members flocked to Phoenix from all over the galaxy. They could be seen every day, marching and shouting outside St. Mary's church, throwing trash, rocks, and sometimes firebombs. On Bajor they would be arrested as soon as the police saw their red armbands and earrings, but on Earth, home of religious liberty for all, they roamed around free until they committed a crime. Hal had been assigned with several other officers to monitor the gatherings and take action if necessary. Watch the hands, the danger always comes from the hands. That cult member is reaching inside her robe - will she produce a religious pamphlet or a grenade? Be cautious, watch everyone, don't miss the slightest detail. He had made many arrests, and had watched a good friend get severely injured after being splashed with burning liquid. Every night he would come home, sit in his chair, close his eyes, and relax just as he was doing now. But one morning as he was checking his uniform in the mirror prior to going back on patrol, he had an unwelcome thought. "Maybe today is the day I finally get to kill me a zippernose Bajoran and hang his skin up on my wall." The thought stopped him dead in his tracks. One hour later, he turned in his badge and his gun and began a search for a different occupation. Three months later he was a newly-minted Cadet at Starfleet Academy with a bright future ahead.

And now he was a newly-minted Ensign on a dying starship in an unknown location, drifting off to sleep, and hoping that salvation could be found on the Rogue Moon of the Space Bunnies.

[Greenlantern Excelsior]

Personal log, Ensign Hal Jordan, stardate 171028. I have returned to my quarters after an exhausting duty shift. At one point during the shift, the entire crew blacked out, and when we regained consciousness we were in a location where space appeared to be white and the stars were black spots. The ship was moving faster than the impulse engines should have been driving it, the crew was experiencing increasing pain and disorientation, and a power drain on ship's systems was beginning to be seen. As Bridge Tactical Officer it was my job to evaluate any threats coming from outside the ship, but I found none nearby. Now that my shift is over, it is my job as Intelligence Officer to research historical data and determine whether these particular circumstances have been encountered in the past.

I found the answer in the historical databanks almost immediately. I should have realized it during my duty shift, but the pain and disorientation diverted my attention to the point where I wasn't thinking straight. I knew the basic story - we all knew it. It's something that we would tell our children at night around the campfire to scare them. A gigantic unstoppable creature is coming to suck the life from you and everyone you know, and there's nothing you can do about it.

On Stardate 4307.1, the USS Intrepid (NCC-1631) was sent to investigate the loss of contact with the Gamma 7A system. After contact was lost with Intrepid as well, Starbase 6 diverted USS Enterprise (NCC-1701) to the area. Enterprise discovered a single celled living creature, 11,000 miles long, radiating a zone of darkness around it that siphoned energy from all mechanical and biological sources. Through detailed scientific investigation, Enterprise determined that the creature could be destroyed with an antimatter charge placed near the chromosome body. They configured a probe to contain the antimatter charge, and the operation was a success.

The creature was an anomaly. Nothing like it had ever been discovered before or since. It had destroyed the entire crew of the Intrepid and the billions of lives in the Gamma 7A system. When Enterprise destroyed the creature, it was getting close to reproduction, and the Enterprise crew speculated that several of those creatures could destroy all life in the galaxy. The creature's effects on the Enterprise and its crew were very similar to the anomaly's effects on the Vox Aura and its crew. Both ships had power drained from their systems. The crews of both ships lost consciousness and experienced negative physical symptoms. The actions of the impulse engines were not what the crew would have expected. And visually, the space outside both ships looked much different than it should have. If we have another one of these huge single cell organisms here, it is absolutely imperative that we destroy it before it multiplies.

I have to get this information to the Captain. But my head hurts...so much...

[wraith Fride]

Interesting read

Ensign Hal Jordan returned to his quarters and flopped down in his chair. He was exhausted after his long duty shift at the bridge tactical station on the starship USS Vox Aura. He had been assigned to the ship's bridge crew immediately upon arrival at Pathfinder Station. Tactical Officer was a perfect assignment for an Intelligence Branch specialist. As the ship traveled through space, he gathered copious amounts of information, processed it using the finest computer in the galaxy (the human brain), stripped out only the important parts, and delivered those to the Captain. The Captain had a ship to run and crucial decisions to make. There was no time for her to analyze continuous streams of incoming data.

During normal operation, a Tactical Officer would keep a somewhat close eye on the in-flight scanners as the ship transited from point A to point B. But current events were anything but normal. The Vox had taken heavy damage, crippling most of her systems. The crew had repaired what they could, but they needed raw materials to replicate the tools that would create the new components. Starships carried replacement parts for some systems, but they were not designed to take such tremendous damage, and the crew could not replace virtually half of the ship's systems from what they had in the spare parts lockers. What they needed was several months in a Starbase repair facility. What they had was a barely functional starship in empty space, position unknown, with life support failing, and emergency rations almost exhausted.

He had almost missed the flicker on the navigational sensor screen. Switching to the lateral sensor array, he had spotted their possible salvation. It was a large moon, traveling without an associated planet or star. As they moved closer, scans indicated a breathable but cold atmosphere, surface features containing many metals needed to repair ship's systems, and heavy vegetation possibly containing protein for the ship's replicators. The scans also detected almost half a million small life forms moving among and around 12 regularly spaced heat sources on the moon's surface. The heat was coming from power generators deep underground, with shafts leading to the surface. They could find no other signs of technology at that point.

Hal closed his eyes and leaned back in his chair, allowing his body to relax. Hours of boring, uneventful bridge watch had culminated in several minutes of intense analysis and activity. The information he reported and the analysis he gave could result in salvation or doom for the starship and its crew. His extreme fatigue coupled with many hours of intense observation took his mind back many years to a time that was even worse. Back then he had been not Starfleet Ensign Hal Jordan but Phoenix Police Officer Hal Jordan. Earth had become a sanctuary for the Bajoran Cult of the Pah-wraiths, and Phoenix had become their rallying point. Some years earlier, a private citizen had shot and killed a Bajoran cultist who was attempting to set fire to a church full of people. The news of her death spread like wildfire, and cult members flocked to Phoenix from all over the galaxy. They could be seen every day, marching and shouting outside St. Mary's church, throwing trash, rocks, and sometimes firebombs. On Bajor they would be arrested as soon as the police saw their red armbands and earrings, but on Earth, home of religious liberty for all, they roamed around free until they committed a crime. Hal had been assigned with several other officers to monitor the gatherings and take action if necessary. Watch the hands, the danger always comes from the hands. That cult member is reaching inside her robe - will she produce a religious pamphlet or a grenade? Be cautious, watch everyone, don't miss the slightest detail. He had made many arrests, and had watched a good friend get severely injured after being splashed with burning liquid. Every night he would come home, sit in his chair, close his eyes, and relax just as he was doing now. But one morning as he was checking his uniform in the mirror prior to going back on patrol, he had an unwelcome thought. "Maybe today is the day I finally get to kill me a zippernose Bajoran and hang his skin up on my wall." The thought stopped him dead in his tracks. One hour later, he turned in his badge and his gun and began a search for a different occupation. Three months later he was a newly-minted Cadet at Starfleet Academy with a bright future ahead.

And now he was a newly-minted Ensign on a dying starship in an unknown location, drifting off to sleep, and hoping that salvation could be found on the Rogue Moon of the Space Bunnies.