LtCmdr Jovenan – Gravity, and the thousand reasons why we hate it
Jovenan
((????))
Darkness.
Fear. Pain. Confusion.
Jovenan opened her eyes to be greeted by a visage not different from what she had seen before. She closed and opened them again, uncertain which state was the one where she was supposed to see something. Rolling her eyes from side to side, as unpleasant as that felt, revealed a small source of pale light; it was faint but just enough of a stimulus to trigger the sensitive rod cells at the outer edges of her retinas. She saw something.
It meant that she was still alive.
((Flashback))
Her heart races, and her skin is clammy from anxiety and fear, but she keeps going.
They have practised this many times. The point of repeated practise is that in the case of emergency, each required step comes from the metaphorical backbone. Stopping to think, or worse, improvising, is much more likely to lead to wasting time, screwing it up or panicking. You can’t do that. Otherwise, you die.
Her mind is full of fog, but she’s moving. Bodies are cramming through the small entrance. She takes a seat. Her hands are moving, but she doesn’t know what they are doing. At least, she won’t remember doing it.
The noise is an unbearable cacophony of different sounds. The alarm klaxon. Metal screeching. What might be people shouting. All of it is buried under the rapid, unceasing beat of her heart.
((End flashback))
Jovenan’s mouth was dry, it felt almost as if her tongue had melted into her palate and she’d need to rip them apart. She drew in some saliva, then licked her lips until they didn’t feel like cracked. Taking in air, she inhaled through her mouth. That made it feel all dry again.
Her breath made a noise. The breezy whistle was a sharp, cutting edge in the virtual silence. She closed her eyes as the pain radiated through her head. Hearing things was awful; she didn’t want to do that ever again. Except, the unwanted sensation made her aware that there were more sounds around her. There were other breaths.
((Flashback))
She straps herself to the seat. The harness presses her chest. Nothing seems to work. There’s no light. It’s already happening. Doesn’t matter. The ejection system still works. Others are already in. Their faces flash into view with the blinking alarm in the corridor. Everyone’s down. They can’t wait longer.
Jovenan: Close the hatch!
There is a hiss. Darkness grows more intense. Sounds become more muffled. Her hand finds the analogue system, a lever. She holds it tight till her knuckles turn white, though she doesn’t see that. She knows she would normally hesitate or try to calm herself first or verify somehow that she was doing the right thing, but now, she doesn’t.
Jovenan: Three… Two… One…
She pulls. Her body is jerked back towards the seat. The darkness gives way to the brightness of the burning atmosphere and the sparkles dotting the field of stars.
((End flashback))
((Escape pod, Callis 1))
Jovenan held her breath for a few seconds. There were definitely others in there. She tried to turn her head, but the darkness revealed nothing more than what she had already seen. Why were there others? Where was she, again? She was in an escape pod. She remembered holding on to something, bracing for impact, the forces of the hasty and crude atmospheric entry throwing her around in the harness until the ground cut her stream of consciousness short. They had landed, and she was somehow alive, and, if there were other people in there breathing, then someone else had survived as well.
Jovenan: Is there…
Dear god that hurt. She grimaced as the wave of pain went through her head like an electric shock. Recovering, she inhaled and exhaled before giving it a new try, this time readjusting her tone and the level of volume.
Jovenan: Name call. Jovenan.
K’Wara/Bergmen/Bancroft: Response
Lieutenants K’Wara, Bergmen and Bancroft. Those are the faces in the dull yet bright, flashing red alarm light she saw enter the escape pod just a moment ago – how long ever the “moment” had been since they had actually departed the Karnack. She pressed her teeth tight together, remembering the rust bucket of a ship; she couldn’t tell if it or its remains had even survived the descend into the planet’s atmosphere. There had been much calamity up there before it had vanished from their view, but in her state of mind, focused on the part where they’d need to survive for any of it to matter, she had not actually registered what happened outside the pod.
She pulled out her tricorder, a natural reaction by a scientist. However, as she flipped it open, the screen didn’t turn on but remained a part of the darkness. She shook it, even turned it around in case she had somehow held it backwards in the lightless capsule. Nothing; broken. Or, unusable, as the elements of the scientific data from before the fall started coming back to her. She flipped the device back shut and holstered it again. She’d be extraordinarily annoyed if it’d stay that way the rest of their stay.
Jovenan: Can someone get the door open, please?
K’Wara/Bergmen/Bancroft: Response
While the others were doing something, Jovenan managed to open her harness. There was a little tug as the gravity won over any other forces holding her still; they weren’t entirely level on the ground after all. When she started hearing a hiss, she turned her head towards where she assumed the hatch was. As a crack appeared in the dark, light poured in and engulfed them all. The brightness was offensively intense at first, and Jovenan had to squint her eyes until she got more used to it.
She got up from her seat and half walked, half crawled, out of the remains of the pod. Poking her head out through the door, most of her field of vision was occupied by the dirt and rocks displaced by their uncontrolled descent. She supposed that something, maybe the inertial dampeners or at least the design of the hull of the pod, had worked to soften the impact for the people inside; the crater looked rather nasty.
Beyond the edge of their landing area, she saw an alien terrain. The sky above was a muted, almost depressing shade of purple. In one direction, nothing but unwholesome, flat terrain with barely noticeable hills rolling into the distance. A cold wind blew over the plain, throwing her hair around and feeling like it could cut her skin. A metallic taste forced itself to her mouth through her nostrils. In the other direction, a rocky edge of a cliff, uneven and fragmented, rising high above. She pulled her head back in and looked at each of her colleagues.
Jovenan: Any injuries?
K’Wara/Bergmen/Bancroft: Response
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Lieutenant Commander Jovenan
Chief Science Officer
USS Artemis-A
E239911J11