trans_9 | The Funeral

Everyone's had a chance to recover somewhat, to stop reeling or at least try. Now that people are at least somewhat closer to being on balance again, it's time to say goodbye.

There is a message throughout the ship, one tinged with sadness:

||Attention, crew. Those who wish to attend the funeral services for the crew-mates that died during the conflict should report to Obs Deck immediately. Services will begin in approximately a thirty Earth standard minutes.||

The floor of the Obs Deck shifts to allow lifts to come up through it. Tubes connect from the space there to the hatches that suddenly appear between the windows, giving something of an impression that the closed caskets are missiles about to be shot through a missile tube. The funeral pods themselves have clear round domes in them--some of the people that died more peacefully are visible, looking as if they're sleeping. Most, however, were killed in a way that would make them appear less than presentable, so in their funeral pods only the vaguest outlines of humanoid forms can be made out. Some have entirely closed pods or were vaporized and thus, only have a funeral pod there to represent them.

The ship lurches lightly as it comes to a stop to a random universe, but where it's stopped at is beautiful to behold. They are in the middle of a nebula, surrounded by red and blue plasma. Several new stars burn brightly, here, and they are stopped near one, just short of being sucked in by its gravitational pull. It's a red dwarf, small and faint and new, but its light is welcoming. Here, where the very fires of creation burn, and stars are born is the last place the dead will be sent.

[ooc: Instruction thingies]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Kirk steps up to the makeshift podium and places his hands on either side of it, surveying the assembled crew. he's done this before, for members of his own crew. However, it's never been on this scale before. He sighs softly and shakes his head. He hopes he'll do.

"Ladies and gentlemen, we're gathered here today to bid farewell to a group of beings that we, unfortunately, never knew. A group of sentients who would've joined us, eventually, on our journey through uncharted waters and into the unknown. They did not come from our worlds and they would not have been familiar to us. However, I would like to think that they would have been welcome, that they would have become as much a part of our crew as we all have."

He paused and then continued, "And while we never will know them, we can at least do them the honor of remembering them. Of knowing that they existed. Of keeping at least that much alive, in all of us. They and their worlds may be gone, but we will carry on. We will move forward. And although we may not mourn them as long nor as deeply as one we knew far longer then they, their loss is still felt by us and by the multiverse."

"My words will never be able to do them justice nor will I be able to explain who they they were. All I can offer to them is a farewell and to let them know that we, at least, will honor them and we will not forget. That we will do our best to ensure that something such as this does not happen again; that we pledge to keep those not yet awakened safe until they do. Farewell... and godspeed."

Kirk steps back from the podium and snaps off a salute to the fallen, before folding his hands in front of him, grim-faced.

The Funeral

Re: Speaker for the Dead