Blood On His Hands Part Two

Posted on Sunday 4 December 2016 @ 11:42 by Lieutenant Caleb Mitchell

Mission: Old, New Ship
Location: London
Timeline: Thirteen Months Ago
785 words - 1.6 OF Standard Post Measure

Previously in Part One He came to, sometime later, unsure of how long he'd been out. The Andorians were gone and the shop completely deserted. It took him another minute or so before his limbs stopped shaking and his ragged breathing returned to normal. Caleb checked himself over and to his astonishment found everything besides his communicator had not been taken. That puzzled him to no end and he wondered why he'd been attacked. Rather than deliberate on it, he was a counselor not in Intel, he knew he had to report it. The White Horse was only a few blocks away. He quickly checked his chronometer and found it was 12:10. He took off at a dead sprint headed to the inn.

He was less than a half block away when he felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. An instant later he saw a light so bright that he was blinded by it for a time. He was blown through the air for twenty feet landing awkwardly and snapping his left collarbone. The heat from the explosion his eyebrows off. He staggered to his feet, pushing the pain away from his conscious mind. Ten meters ahead of him, the sidewalk was buckled and warped. Smoke seemed to be coming from everywhere all at once, it hung heavy in the air, like a small, but dense patch of fog. As he took a step forward, and then noticed the bodies strewn on the ground in front of him. Part of Caleb knew he stop and at least check them out, but his focus was focused was on his family and those in the White Horse. But, when he came up to the remains of the building he knew it was too late for anybody inside. His face drained of color and he began to sob, barely able to stand.

And now the continuation:

He had to lean against the nearest building, which had also taken damage and was missing a large number of bricks, to support himself. He wasn't sure how long he leaned against the building. It could have been five minutes, it could have been twenty-five. Unashamedly and mostly unnoticed, he cried until he had no more tears.

He had just pushed away from the building when someone touched his shoulder. He whirled around and saw a British Bobby, wearing a concerned and sympathetic look on his face. "Are you okay mate?" he was asked, "are you injured?"

Caleb shook his head. "No, I'm not injured," he replied, but my... my family was in there, in the White Horse... "

"I'm sorry mate, " the officer said, "I wish I could stay here and commensurate with you, I'm sorry for your loss, but I can't. I have a job to do. We doubt there are any survivors in the pub there, but we have dogs and Starfleet officer with tricorders on the way. There are other buildings though where we know we have people alive and trapped inside. You could help if you want. We could use the help, so could those people and it might, you know take your mind off of things, at least for a little while.

In truth, Caleb didn't feel like doing what the cop had asked, but he knew from both experience and training it would help, and besides it was the right thing to do. "I, I will help, just tell me what to do."

The work was arduous and time-consuming. Just as the Bobby had promised, Starfleet personnel did arrive. The tricorders they brought helped pinpoint life signs, but the digging, despite the abundance of technology, still had to be done by hand.

The White Horse had been devastated the interior gutted and the exterior had been knocked off its foundation and was barely standing, the conditions too dangerous to sound anyone into. A score of other buildings had been damaged some of them quite severely. By the time the casualty reports had been finalized, forty-eight people, mostly from the White Horse, had been killed at the scene and another seventy-two had been injured. Of those seventy-two, and additional twelve had died, bringing the total fatalities to sixty.

Just before midnight, an exhausted Caleb Mitchell, his clothes torn and tattered, covered in sweat, soot and other people's blood was stopped by two Starfleet Lieutenants both wearing Intelligence gray. "Lieutenant Michell?" one asked somberly.

"Yes, that's me," he croaked out.

The man who had first addressed him pulled out a phaser pointed it at him and said, "Sir, you're under arrest for acts of terrorism. You'll need to come with us."

TBC

A solo post by
Lt. Caleb Mitchell
Counselor
U.S.S Merlin