“Ready weapons.” The scruffed voice of a Romulan said. “Fire.” Johnny Burke watched as two officers from the Cargo Freighter Apollo were vaporized. He clutched onto his mom’s hand harder for support. Being only six years of age, Johnny couldn’t understand why the Romulans would kill such innocent people. Luckly their deaths were quick… he didn’t know if they were painless. Of course Johnny didn’t know what real pain was until he had been captured.
He had been in his parent’s quarters, playing with a small shuttle that his grandparents had given him. He didn’t remember the alert klaxon going off, everything happened too quickly. Before waking in the Romulan holding cell, the last thing Johnny remembered was his mom taking him to the nearest escape hatch.
Johnny and his mom had only been in the escape pod for maybe ten minutes when they were transported aboard the Romulan ship. Upon waking, from what his mom had called fainting, Johnny was laying in the arms of his father. Johnny’s father had tried to comfort him, but it didn’t manage to do any good. He could tell that something was wrong, and that something even worse was about to happen.
"Next." The Romulan Commander’s voice brought Johnny’s memories back to his present state.
He watched as his parents were forced by guards to line up against a wall. Johnny tried to run to his parent’s defense, but was held by one of the Romulan officers.
"Not so fast pup." The Romulan officer said. ‘Pup’ was his pet name for the boy. Johnny didn’t like the nickname and he even disliked the officer even more.
"Ready your weapons." The Commander again called. Three officers stood before John and Kathy Burke with their weapons pointed at the two.
"Fire." As the green beams of light reached their targets with dead accuracy, Johnny’s parents fell to the deck.
"No!" Johnny yelled out. His cry echoed through the room. He too fell to the deck, but his falling was in remorse for his parents death. The Romulan officer that had been holding him reached down to grab Johnny up from the deck when his commanding officer spoke.
"No, I’ll take care of him." The Romulan Commander picked up Johnny from the deck. Johnny of course started to kick and try to get free from the commander, but was unable to. The Romulan Commander took Johnny out into the corridor. As they walked, the commander talked to Johnny.
"I know how difficult this is for you." The man said. "I too had to watch as my parents were executed by the Federation."
Johnny didn’t say a word. He kept replaying the images of his parents death over and over again in his mind.
After about five minutes, they stopped at a large door. Johnny didn’t recognize the door. The Romulan didn’t make a move. He just stood there in front of the door. "I could get in a lot of trouble for doing this." He said to himself. The commander punched in a command sequence into a nearby padd. The doors opened.
Johnny looked before him. It was a large hanger full of shuttles. He had only seen a room like that in diagrams of the cargo ship he had been on. He simply stood in awe with tears still running down his cheeks.
The Romulan looked to Johnny and then led him over to a small escape pod. "This will take you back to Federation space." He paused, "Remember this day Human. Not all Romulan’s are evil."
Three hours later, Johnny’s escape pod crossed into Federation territory and picked up by a Federation Starship. Johnny was now safe, and on his way to recovery.
