San Pedro Bay, California, North America

SD 200501.0610



It's a new dawn, it's a new day. It's a new life.

Callisto Shallencourt stood on the open bow of her boat and enjoyed
the early morning sunrise. A glass of fresh squeezed orange juice was
in her left hand, the taste of the juice still on her lips and in her
throat. A delicious taste; sweet, fruity, tantalizing.

A gentle breeze was brushing her face and hair as her boat made its
way through the no wake zone of the harbor, heading towards the open
sea. Here in the protected harbor, no swells and no waves disturbed
her balance. She closed her eyes and tilted her head back and let the
bay breeze caress her long neck.

Moving on water. Like walking on water.

The motor was silent, an advanced design. Callisto indulged herself a
fantasy thought for the moment, that she was not on a ship in a harbor
heading out to open seas, with a breeze blowing on her face and neck,
but was standing on the bridge of a Starship, silently humming through
space, the breeze caressing her skin coming from the overhead
ventilation.

Breeze drifting on by.

And she was feeling good.

She heard a splash and opened her eyes, looked to the right and saw
the ripples in the water. A smile came to her face. A fish had jumped
out of the water but she'd missed it. No worries, she took another sip
of the orange juice.

She was feeling so good.

So many things were settled, the unsettled things didn't matter this
morning. They would sort themselves out. She spotted a dragonfly
flying out of the sun towards the boat. It hovered near the front of
the bow then landed on the metal rail. Mac if he were here now
watching would think it was staring at her, and if it continued to for
a few seconds longer, Mac would hypothesize that the dragonfly was
actually a shape shifter, spying on her, plotting some nefarious
scheme.

Just the thought of it made her laugh, a hearty laugh that didn't faze
the dragonfly or the fish in the water.

Callista looked ahead to the traffic a quarter mile ahead. She wasn't
the only boater out this morning for a little relaxation on the open
sea. She was getting closer to the end of the bay, and would need to
step back off the bow and take the wheel and pilot her boat out of the
bay.

Not something she wasn't looking forward to, but she enjoyed these
precious moments, when she could launch her boat away from the slip,
guide it into the channel, and then set it to autopilot most of the
way out, and just stand, in the open bow, and ride the water, without
a care in the world, free and feelin' good.

So far removed from her responsibilities and the cutthroat life she had led.

No wonder on an early morning like this, she could stand in the face
of a warm and seductive bay breeze, and think it is a new dawn, a new
day.

A new life.

For her.

And she was going somewhere with it . . .


-to be continued-


Submitted,

Mike Shea
As
Lt. Daniel Halsted
OPS, USS KRONSHTADT

Commander Cal Nevari,
Star Fleet Security, San Francisco

Callisto Shallencourt
Civilian entrepreneur