Posted by Ensign Mirai ‘Raptor’ Nakuto (Engineer) in Shuttle Bay - Nakuto’s arrival
First there was heat, searing in its intensity, flames clawing at exposed skin like some deranged and ravenous beast. Then followed the sickening plummet back to earth, the ground rushing to meet her with terrifying, almost incomprehensible speed. Every atom of her existence had been expended in service to the good fight, the true and noble way of the Klingon warrior. But now, in her final moments, she had been abandoned utterly. No voices stood ready to roar her arrival into Sto’Vo’Kor, no eyes still lingered to witness her ascension to those hallowed halls or record the moment into myth. If a tree perished, alone, in the jungles of Carraya IV, then did it even make a sound? So too with the passing of Mirai Nakuto - unwitnessed and unheralded, would she even be welcomed into Sto’Vo’Kor at all? Or simply be left to decay amongst the debris of her ship, until her bones were no more than dust to be consumed by the winds?

But the gods, it turned out, were even crueller in their deliberations than she could possibly have foreseen. No warriors end would be granted but rather an excruciating return where she, veteran of two major conflicts and one of the most accomplished pilots in the Federation, would crawl pitifully back to Qo’nos on her belly, like the serpent she had become. Her father, the aging yet still mighty Isaake, welcomed her with open arms. But as for Chaya, the Klingon matriarch spared not a single glance towards her wounded daughter, the elder’s disgust and distain at what had slithered from her womb so palpable it almost gained physical form, crushing Mirai beneath its weight.

And so, as the months passed by, Isaake tended to his oldest daughter, her physical wounds healing too quickly for penitance to be reached. But in her mind the depression came like a tempest, an isotropic void of apathy and profound, unbearable sadness, the likes of which she would never have believed could be endured.

“You will rise again one day, my little Senshi,” Isaake would tell her often. But she possessed neither the strength nor the desire to agree.

At first the letters from her sister had brought her comfort, the thoughts of Kara still out amongst the stars, forging her way to the top of the command chain an escape from her own meagre existence. But as the years rolled by and Kara remained unstoppable, Mirai’s once boundless love for her other rotted into bitter jealousy. Only then did Mirai finally seize the motivation to drag herself back out into the world and blaze a trail of violence and destruction through every bar and tavern on the Klingon homeworld in a desperate effort to regain her mother’s respect and attention.

But on the night Chaya Nakuto herself finally passed into Sto’Vo’Kor, her final words to her two daughters had been as disparate as the sun against the ocean. For Kara, “Continue, my darling, to blaze a trail across all of the heavens!” For Mirai, “In the name of Gre’thor, learn how to cook so you might at least find a mate!’

And so concluded the final destruction of the once-mighty warrior, Mirai Nakuto.

===

“So, she’s a Captain now.”
“Mirai,” her father cautioned gently, “you should be proud of your sister for all she has achieved. She will carry the name of Nakuto across the four quadrants.”
“And what of me? What songs will be sung in my name? They do not revere domestics in the great drinking halls!”
Isaake Nakuto laughed, his weary face wrinkling like sun-bleached parchment. “You? You are the reason I am still here.”
Like the child she had once been, Mirai fell to her knees and nestled lovingly at her father’s feet, to better hear his always wise and comforting words.
“When your mother passed,” he continued, one withered hand coming gently to rest against the long, ink-black hair of his daughter, “I felt sure I would follow close behind. But you, you sustained me, gave me the strength and the will to carry on. Oh, Mirai,” he sighed as her tears began to fall without shame, “I am dying. Your sacrifice for me has been great and more appreciated than you will ever know. But do not remain here after I am gone. Do not remain a prisoner of these walls, as grand as they may be. Strike out and once more find your destiny.”
“I am afraid,” she whispered.
“And with good reason. But you are still your mother’s daughter. And you will find your strength lingers within you still.”

And so, clad still in the black dress worn for the mourning of her father, Mirai Nakuto found herself boarding a shuttle that would take her far away from the towering red mountains of Qo’nos and back to the bright and sun-drenched shores of San Francisco, where she would close down her career as a pilot and return to her first love of engineering. Just like her sister.

===

=^= USS Chimera, this is transport shuttle Winchester dropping off your new recruits=^= came the call from the approaching vessel. Followed in a more whispering tone by =^= Now someone come take this Klingon off our hands before she bloody kills someone! =^=

• Mirai Nakuto (Eng)

OOC: Such a wonderful first post! Welcome aboard!

IC:

Katelyn’s soft but calm voice responded:

=/\= Thank you, Winchester. Please inform the recruits to report to their department heads once they have disembarked. =/\=

Jacobs, CO