Ghostly Visitor

Posted on Sat Oct 8th, 2022 @ 7:56am by Petty Officer 1st Class Tia Smithy(Kosugi)

Mission: The Goddess
Location: Gladiator
2459 words - 4.9 OF Standard Post Measure

It was night, and Tia wore a black tee shirt with the sleeves cut off, and on the front of the tee shirt in white lettering was a skull in a combat helmet with weapons in the background. The words around it, on top were the words Death Smiles at us all. and below it were the words,Combat Engineers smile back. This was a tee shirt Tia's brother had given to her. It was one of the things Tia had brought with her on her flight from the Tsul.

Currently Tia was working on a project she got caught up in. She was building the Enterprise, a ship that wasn't commissioned by the US Navy back in 1776. This was a 25 ton schooner fully rigged. Tia rubbed her eyes as they were getting tired, just one more tug and then the sails could be raised on the ship which was built inside of a bottle. She already had the Sloop that was built in 1775, bearing the name of Enterprise as well. They were the only ones that were not commissioned by the US Navy and did not bear the USS symbol.

With another gentle tug, the rigging was up, the sails in full display. She placed the cork on the bottle sealing it shut, and smiled at her handiwork. Leaning back in her chair, she stretched her back muscles, to get out some of the kinks that were there. Rising from her chair, Tia moved to place this ship next to the Enterprise Sloop, inside her storage shelf in her room. She was happy she was able to recreate the ships she had done back on the USS T'sul.

Stifling a yawn with the back of her hand, Tia turned her hand to kiss the palm and placed it upon the schooner and then did the same to the sloop. "Goodnight my lovely ships." she stated softly. Tia then closed the door and latched it shut, wouldn't want it to go sailing out of the shelf. in case of an accident.

Her eyes drifted over to where her crew mate Ashley normally slept. Ashley, she wasn't going to be there tonight as she had a date and wasn't going to come back to the quarters. At least that is what she told Tia. Tia didn't mind, she had the place to herself. At least for now. She was glad that Ashley was able to get herself back up from that break up she had with her ex jerky boyfriend. Ashley had also been asked to bunk down at a couple of her other friends' quarters, they were having some little get together to celebrate one of their birthdays. Tia didn’t mind, this would give her some uninterrupted sleep. She shrugged out of her shoes using only her feet, pushed them back against the bed and crawled beneath the covers, and soon fell asleep. The room’s temperature turned colder, and Tia in her sleep snuggled down even further to keep warm while still asleep.

Tia…Tia…” a voice whispered her name from out of the mostly dark room.

Tia was dreaming of walking down a path where there was nothing but the moon and stars above, there was a dark forest on either side of the narrow path and in front of her were white pebbles in the center of it, guiding her towards something, someplace. Tia knew not where she was going, all she knew was that she needed to follow the pebbles, in the direction she was traveling.

Tia! the voice sounded urgent.

Tia woke up with a start, feeling like someone had taken her by her shoulder and shook her.

“What, what!” she yelped, sitting up quickly. Tia looked around and saw that no one was there, Ashley was still out of the quarters. Tia moved to settle back in bed, when she felt a coldness in the room, and she shivered.

”Tia.”

Tia froze hearing a voice, she shook her head, she must be imagining this, she must be dreaming. She pinched herself. Ow that hurt!

Slowly she turned to see who was calling her name, her heart seemed to stop beating, her eyes grew large as saucers. Her mouth opened as if in a silent scream..but no sound came from her. There by her bed was someone, something, an apparition? She could see through that someone. He was tall, blonde, and had broad shoulders and Tia squinted her eyes for a moment, she could feel chills go up and down her spine, he looked so familiar but it couldn’t be!

“O-Owen? Is that you?” Tia finally gasped out.

“Yes.” was the only word he spoke. Then he motioned for Tia to follow him.

Tia without a thought, tossed her blanket to one side, put her feet in the shoes she had by the bed and followed after Owen. One corner of her mind, Tia thought she should be frightened to death by this apparition. For some reason, she wasn’t. Not at the moment, she felt almost compelled to follow. Was it because of her desire to find out why this so-called apparition of Owen was here? It wasn’t a comprehensive thought that entered her mind, except the feeling she just needed to follow this ghost.

The door of the Turbo lift opened and Tia stepped inside, and turned to face the front, she glanced over towards where ‘Owen’ was, and the lift moved down towards the lower decks of the ship. If anyone were to have glanced from a camera point of view, it would have looked like Tia was just looking into empty space, to her side, her head lifted up and her lips moving.

“Where do you want me to go?” She asked Owen.

Owen made a couple of sign language gestures and Tia nodded, giving the order to the lift computer. And so they went. The lift doors opened and Tia stepped out finding that Owen was waiting. Once more he gestured for her to follow, and she went to an access panel which led into the jefferies tubes. Tia opened it and crawled inside, after a bit of crawling, by this time Tia’s sweats were dirty and had a slight tear in the left knee. Tia found herself climbing up another ladder into another area and found a little ‘alcove’ and then climbed out of another access hatch to a small hallway where there were lockers.

The ghostly form of Owen was there, pointing towards a locker that made her gasp aloud. There was his name on a metal name plate, Black. Tia, with trembling hands, lifted up the latch which held the locker closed and opened the door. What Tia saw she looked questioningly towards ‘Owen’ as the locker was empty!

“What is the meaning of this!” Tia growled at the ghost, who frowned at her and gestured emphatically towards the inside of the locker once more.

“It's empty! There is nothing the-” she stopped and noticed something that didn’t seem right. She stepped near the locker once more and felt the inside of the locker and found something that she hadn’t seen before, it was a light notch in the upper right corner of the locker, and she ran her finger along it and pressing it she was able to work a fingernail to loosen it up it popped loose and behind it was something that made her gasp. She turned to look back to see if Owen was still there, he was, but was fading away fast. “Goodbye Tia, and I’m sorry, love.” he leaned in before he completely disappeared and brushed his lips against hers.

Tia reached up to caress his cheek, and met only air. Owen was gone. She felt her lips where they tingled from his kiss. Feeling her chest tighten a bit, Tia fought to quell the feelings she had bubbling up inside. Tia stiffened her resolve, and not let herself crumple up in a heap on the floor. She had to look at what lay hidden inside that compartment, away from prying eyes. Reaching in, Tia found that she had to put her head and a shoulder inside the locker in order to grasp what lay inside that space. She felt the narrow neck of a bottle and pulled it out to get a better look at what she held. Tia almost dropped it, it was the bottle of bourbon that she had given to Owen!

“Oh Owen…” placing it where it won’t get broken, a foot away from the locker and against another locker. She reached back inside, and felt around some more. There was a crinkle of paper and she pulled the object and found it was an envelope. There were only two other items inside and those she retrieved as well. One was the pocket watch he used to wear when he was both in his civvies and also uniform. The other was a swiss army knife. She recognized it as something she had given him last year for his birthday, before things went weird on the T’sul. He had kept it, even though at the time, she wasn’t interested in him. Well not in that capacity that he had hoped for. Tia was mystified to find the pocket watch in the cubby hole. It was an antique passed down through the family line, father to son or in this case it was mother to son. And something that Owen carried with him, why was it there?

Tia opened up the envelope and found an isolinear chip in a protective holder inside, as well as a device that could read the chip. Picking up the bottle of bourbon, the other items stuffed in the pocket of her sweat pants, Tia went to find a private place to see what was on the chip. She found a supply closet that just had some things that had been placed there and forgotten about. Sinking to the floor, back against the rear wall, after having locked the door of the supply closet for her not to be disturbed. Tia slid the isolinear chip inside the device and then she saw Owen, looking quite a bit happy. And she realized that this was a personal log he had made.

Personal log of Chief Petty Officer Owen Black, Yes you heard right, I am now a chief petty officer on the USS Gladiator in Operations as well as the transporter Chief! I can’t believe my luck. Since the USS T’sul was having to go into drydock to get refitted and repaired, I got a transfer to a new ship. I wish I could tell Tia about my fortune, hopefully she is okay after she jumped ship. It is strange though, there wasn’t any word as to her missing from the ship. Everything was well… odd. Things seemed to be normal but weren't. Boy was I glad to get away from there. I just felt really weirded out. I did from time to time find myself being watched by Esra Borden, while on the Tsul. He was one of the ones Tia was worried about. One of the ones who Tia had mentioned didn’t act normal. Well I gotta go, my first shift as transporter chief is about the start. Man, Tia if you only knew you’d be so jealous. This is Chief Black signing off for now. End log

Tia skimmed over the next few days when something caught her eye. Clicking on the file she opened it up.

It was Owen once more, looking rather harried and very concerned and somewhat frightened. Not a whole lot seemed to bother Owen, but this was definitely a look of fright.

Personal Log, we picked up a few refugees who had sent out a distress beacon, their ship had been attacked by pirates and so The USS Gladiator went to help. They were aided, the other ship was destroyed as it was unable to be salvaged. Routine rescue, or so I thought, a day passed when I noticed one of the refugees staring at me, there was something familiar about them. I followed said person and got an image of said person. I overheard some talk, I think they were planning on how to gain access to the ship. I’ve got to go tell someone about this, and the disguise was dropped, I found out that the refugee that I thought looked familiar was in fact Esra Bordan, he had been disguised!

A flicker and Owen came back to the screen. “If anyone finds this and I hope someone will, we’re setting up to get rid of the intruders.” he looked up as the lights flickered. Oh no! Something is wrong. I need to go I’m placing this in a protective device that the data won’t get messed over. Anyone who finds this give Tia my regards.” a gulp then Owen said. “I’m sorry Tia, I don’t think we’ll be able to go on our date, I’ve got a bad feeling about this. Give my love to my family. I’ve left some instructions on here as well. Chief Owen Black out.”

The log goes dark, and Tia sat there, staring into nothingness, her mind in a whirl, at what she had just found and watched.

Owen was here, on the Gladiator, he was here when it got attacked from within. His apparition, which showed her this, Tia was shocked, he was dead, but hey maybe not? She shook her head, it was ridiculous to give herself any false hope, she just needed to find out from the medical records to see if they had a listing of those who had died. There it was, Tia was actually hoping that he would be among the living and was just taken. But there it was, in black and white, Owen was indeed dead. Numbly, Tia just curled up into a ball in the supply closet, not feeling the urge to move, no tears coming to her eyes. If she got the chance and she caught up to Esra Bordon, she was going to kill him. Right now though, all Tia wanted to do was just go to sleep, with the unopened bottle of bourbon cradled in her arms, a pocket watch in her pocket, and a swiss army knife in the back of a supply closet.

"Goodbye Owen, goodbye, I will avenge your death I truly will" Tia whispered softly before she slipped away into slumber.