“Holding position above the mining area,” Petty Officer Bakken stated curtly.
“Commander Kristain?” Ensign Lansford’s voice held an urgent undertone.}
At that point, the dream diverged from the actual chronology of Carlton’s incredibly-altered life…
{As he struggled to voice a decision, even knowing already what that decision would be and that he would be undertaking a potentially life-threatening sacrifice, Carlton felt a sudden incessant itching on the surface of his hindquarters. He wondered if the sensation was meant as a foreshadowing of the childish, chastisements that his impending action would ultimately result in him undergoing–for that sensation hadn’t happened in the real-life situation that his dream had, until that point, perfectly re-enacted.}
{Carlton reached back towards his buttocks, intending to remove his protective armor’s lower-body section in order to scratch his intensely-itching posterior, when he realized that his two medical crewmates were staring quizzically at him while awaiting his orders. Certainly he couldn’t begin clawing his fingernails into the irritably-tingling flesh of his asscheeks in front of his military subordinates–yet his hands continued to steadily move backward and downward…}