Lt Jovenan – Mea culpa
Jovenan
((Rakantha Central Hospital, Bajor))
Jovenan: Just… behave nice. I’m going to try if I can go see Chevalier as well. Just take it easy, we can talk what happened once we’re back on the ship.
Leaving Renirs to rest – or whatever the Crewman considered appropriate use of her time on the hospital bed – Jovenan continued walking along the corridor. The passageway was lined with beds, some hidden behind curtains, all brought here for the purpose of allowing their occupants to gather strength after their respective procedures. Each person resting in the Recovery Ward were dressed much like Jovenan, in light blue hospital gown, and many of them, Jovenan included, wore surgical bandages or dressings until they’d be properly treated with dermal regenerators or similar equipment. Only the nurses and occasional visitors broke the uniform dress code.
Jovenan had acquired one of such nurses as her target. The nurse, posted there for the purpose of caring of the patients of the Ward, noticed Jovenan as well and adopted the standard customer service smile.
Bajoran Nurse 2: Hello, can I help you?
Jovenan: Hi, yes. May I ask about one of my crewmembers, Ensign Jaseb Chevalier? Is he still in surgery? What’s his status?
Despite the smile on Jovenan’s face, she had hard time banishing the images from her mind. At the time, her brain had been so filled with adrenaline she couldn’t comprehend the full extent of the gruesome sight before her eyes. She winced involuntarily; even the calming medicines couldn’t keep the thoughts from arising to the surface. The nurse was looking at her console at the time, and Jovenan was saved from having to explain the mental storm about to break loose within her mind.
Bajoran Nurse 2: Let me check... ::tapping at her console:: Oh, it looks like he just got out of surgery a bit ago, and... yep! He should be waking up just around now.
Jovenan closed her eyes briefly out of relief. She couldn’t have borne the guilt should he had perished under her command and because of her decisions. She wasn’t absolved from his injuries and possibly ruining his life and career, but she was grateful he had survived.
Jovenan: Dear God… ::at nurse:: Thank you.
Bajoran Nurse 2: Do you want to go see him? ::pause, peering behind her:: Can I help you?
Before Jovenan could answer to the first question, the nurse had addressed someone behind her. Jovenan turned around to see who it might be, and to her joy, she saw Ensign Gnai, alive, well, and uninjured, before her.
Gnai: ::to the nurse:: This is one of the officers under the command of Lieutenant Jovenan. Hopefully this is not an intrusion, but this is also concerned about the recovery of the others...
Jovenan turned back to the nurse.
Jovenan: Ensign Gnai was with us at the time of the accident. ::to Gnai:: I’m happy to see that you weren’t hurt in the process!
Gnai: ::to Jovenan:: Lieutenant, it is good to see you doing better. ::to both:: Do you know if Crewman Renirs is going to make a full recovery as well?
Jovenan looked over her shoulder – a bad move, considering the surgical wounds in her shoulder – at the general direction of where she had just met Renirs resting. She then turned back at Gnai, a forced smile on her face.
Jovenan: I talked with her just a minute ago, she seemed fine. Thank you for helping her in the cave and in the shuttle. You might have saved her life.
Bajoran Nurse 2: Well, if you're all settled... ::getting up from her desk:: We can go see how he's doing.
Looking at first the nurse and then Gnai and back, Jovenan nodded at both of them, and the nurse stood up to show way. They walked past corridors and doors, entering another segment of the hospital and what seemed like another recovery ward. Jovenan didn’t know what was different between the two wards, although she could guess these patients must have gone through intensive care and required closer supervision.
Then she noticed him. She wanted to be happy to see him again, but the worry and fear for him dominated her mind after the moment she saw him. Chevalier, lying on bed under a blanket, reminded her too much of the twisted and burnt remains of his alternate universe counterpart, covered by a veil in the Artemis morgue. The memory was like another shrapnel, penetrating her heart.
Controlling herself, Jovenan tried walking normally to the bed despite the legs feeling weak. She smiled, forcedly, and nodded at the Bajoran hospital staff member, before looking down at Chevalier.
Jovenan: Ensign Chevalier? ::pause:: Jaseb?
Chevalier/Gnai: Response?
Before the conversation could roam much further, Jovenan heard the doors to the ward be slammed open. Raising her head from her injured colleague and subordinate, her heart skipped a beat recognizing the flaming hair accompanied by determined stomp of feet, and the Captain’s steel cold eyes penetrating her skull.
Jovenan stepped away from Chevalier’s side and positioned herself between the Captain and the rest of her team. It was as futile a gesture as placing herself between Doctor Sadar and CloQ had been, knowing that both the Commanding Officer’s and the Q Continuum’s powers could easily wipe her off the way as they desired.
MacKenzie: You fools better have a good explanation for this.
Almost instinctively hearing the Captain’s tone, Jovenan straightened her posture despite the hindrance caused by her own wounds and the bandages. Those words alone brought Jovenan near the edge of breaking down; she had never in her earlier life deliberately violated rules or laws, and rarely had she been subject to such forceful scolding, or even the implication of one, as it was the case now.
She responded quickly, making sure that the Captain placed all the accusations on her alone, turning the plural fools in to a singular. Jovenan was the fool.
Jovenan: Captain, I was leading an exercise for Ensigns Savel, Chevalier and Gnai as well as Crewman Renirs. Gnai and Renirs discovered a transporter-proven cave, which they entered with my permission and where Renirs stepped on a weight triggered explosive. Due to Renirs’ injuries, I ordered Savel and Chevalier to proceed with immediate rescue attempts, during with Chevalier also stepped on a mine and suffered severe injuries.
Chevalier/Gnai/MacKenzie: Response
As much as Jovenan wanted to defend herself, she chose to stick to readily accepting her responsibility. In her mind, as she had grown up to believe, there was little difference between a negligent mistake and deliberate, grave endangerment of fellow officers; both acts warranted an equal punishment, so defending served no purpose.
Jovenan: Crewman Renirs is in another ward, and she was making a full recovery as I last saw her. Ensigns Gnai and Savel survived without injuries. The cave is being investigated by the Bajoran authorities.
She deliberately chose to leave out her own condition. It was minor, almost trivial compared to what Chevalier and Renirs had gone through, and she didn’t want to give the Captain any impression of her trying to gain the Captain’s pity.
Chevalier/Gnai/MacKenzie: Response
TAG/TBC
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Lieutenant Jovenan
Chief Science Officer
USS Artemis-A
E239911J11