Green Is the Color

Green is the color of life.  It's the color you see around you, lying on the grass in the field, looking at the trees in the nearby wood.  Looking into the green, green eyes of the one you love.  The instrument board is all red now; I'll probably never see green again.

I'm Phil. A Senior Crewman aboard the Pulaski, Lafayette class it was.  A good starship, with a competent captain and crew.  One of the best.  I say "was" because I'll be orbiting its remains for the rest of my life ... and that's measured in hours or maybe minutes.

I was out in an EV pod when it happened, making adjustments to the deflector dish.  As near as anyone could figure, the warp core imploded.  As starships are built to do in emergencies like that, the saucer sealed and detached.  They radioed me to come down and about, beneath the saucer, to check the seals, before I came in.  We figured it would be all right; starships are built for survival, and we could live in the saucer for over a year, plenty of time for Starfleet to find us and bring us home.

Then it happened.  One of the big nacelles came loose in the implosion, I suppose.  I watched horrified as it flipped, slowly, massively, inexorably up and over.  And drove itself into the body of the saucer.  Taking out the bridge would have been bad enough, but those tons of strengthened metal cut right through the body of the saucer.  I think they all died.  I hope so.  I brought the EV pod up and over to check.  If there's anyone alive, they're sealed in rooms with no life support.  They'll be dead before me.  And this pod only had eight hours life support on board -- you can always replenish it from the ship, you see.  Except when the ship is dead, like now.

How'd I get here?  Well, it all started when we bought the house next to Hank and Gloria.  I'd left Starfleet when I married Darlene -- I wanted a career where I was home with my wife and kids, not one off in space two thirds of the time.  We were so happy when it looked like Darlene was pregnant!

But she wasn't pregnant -- it was uterine cancer.  And to save her, they had to do a hysterectomy.  We talked about adopting, but fortunately hadn't started the process when it came back.  Yeah, the cancer.  It had metastasized, spread through her body.

The end was swift.  Hank and Gloria were watching little Chris when she died, while their son Robert and his wife went on a second honeymoon.  He was their only grandson, and they spoiled him unmercifully -- but he ate it right up and stayed the sweet, affectionate, blond haired green eyed little fellow he'd been.  Then the news came -- their plane went down in the Pacific, no survivors.

Gloria brought me over, and basically force-fed Hank and me.  We were all devastated, but she was the practical sort, and knew you had to eat.  Then we sat down and grieved together, for Darlene, whom they loved like the daughter they'd never had, for Robert and Bonnie.  And as I sat there weeping, little Chris, face flushed and eyes full of tears himself, came over and wrapped his arms around me, and tried to comfort me.

After she died, I went back into Starfleet, but I kept the house.  Hank and Gloria were getting no younger -- he walked haltingly with a cane; she started developing mild Parkinson's.  And in our common grief we drew even closer together.

It was Chris who gave me a reason to go on.  He needed a father figure, and I was elected.  And didn't mind a bit.  He was the sweetest boy imaginable -- though just as mischievous as the next kid, too.  Helping him come back from grief and become a normal boy, having fun, again, gave me something to live for.

Three nights before I left for this voyage, we lay in the grass behind Hank's house together, him cuddled up at my side.  I showed him the star we were headed for, there in the Great Bear, and told him about the world where our colony was.  He loved to hear about the great galumphing amphibians, like bullfrogs the size of a bull. And he giggled when I pretended I was one of them, intent on tickling him.  Anyway, that night I pointed out the star.  And he told me, "I love you, Phil."  And I said, "I love you too, Chris" and squeezed him to me.  And then he saw a shooting star, crossed his fingers, and closed his eyes tight.  I knew he'd made a wish on it, and I asked him what he'd wished for.  "Can't tell ya, wishes don't come true if you tell."

"Yeah, but that doesn't apply when you're telling someone in Starfleet," I said.  "After all, we're out there around those shooting stars."  It was a joke, of course, but he took me seriously.

"I wished that you were my Daddy for real," he said.

Next day I talked to Hank and Gloria, and they agreed to get their lawyer at work on making his wish come true.  They'd still have part custody as grandparents, and I'd adopt him when I got back from this voyage.  We told him later that day, and he was jumping for joy.  He ran over to me, gave me a big kiss, and I saw the happiness shining in his green, green eyes.

Then I left for a three week voyage.  We were heading for Heli -- it has some catalog number, but the colonists came up with "Heli" after the Greek sun god Helios for their sun.  About two thirds of the way there, there's this M9 red dwarf, and we did a science layby there.  It has a planet just moving from a reducing atmosphere to an oxidating one, and observations every time there's a ship in the area are important.  Then there's a couple of protostars in a nearby gas cloud, less than a lightyearoff, and it's a great place for a starship to observe them close up without disturbing the gas cloud by flying into it.  Since the planet's lit by a red dwarf, everything's in shades of grey, russet, brown, and a sickly yellow -- not the color of bananas or lemons, but the color of a dying leaf.  No greens.

Here, in this black and red place, is where it happened.  Around a red dwarf star light years from anywhere where people are, where anything is green.  Light years away from Hank and Gloria, from Chris.

Green is the color of life.  Green is the color of love in a young boy's eyes.  I won't see those eyes again, and Hank and Gloria are getting old.  Somebody, please take care of Chris!

Captain's Log:  The above was found next to a corpse dressed as a Starfleet crewman, in an EV pod orbiting the remains of the Pulaski.  I am forwarding copies to Starfleet Engineering and Design, and to Federation Youth Services to honor his dying request. 

/s/ Albert Kwanguni, Captain, Lexington, NCC-1713-a