Lt Jovenan – When lies don't spread faster than the truth
Jovenan
((Chez Adea, Dekoa, Betazed))
Of all the rooms in this family home doubling as a veterinary office, the study seemed to be the most diligently raided. Bookcases were turned over, small objects were thrown around and the computer terminal didn’t function beyond the small flicker they managed to get out of it.
Adea: They might also have been trying to send a message - we’ll mess you up.
It was entirely possible. The occupier intimidating the general populace by committing vandalism in their homes was sadly not a rare occurrence. They also didn’t know for how long the room had been like this; maybe it was trashed before the family was taken away in an attempt to make them stop whatever activity they were engaged in.
Jovenan: Or maybe your parents were suspected of being in the resistance and the Dominion wanted to find something to help them find the other members. ::pause, to Elain:: Tevet, do you happen to know why, um, Genkos and his family were taken to the camp?
Elain: Because whitebloods’ boss didn’t like them. Mom told that’s why they take you. ::pause:: They have weird ears.
Jovenan turned her eyes to Genkos, who quickly adopted a smile and raised his eyebrows looking at her and Doctor Sadar. Jovenan responded by smiling as well and pulling her eyebrows together. The Vorta do have uncommon type of earlobes, but weird wasn’t very polite way to put it. Eh, maybe it wasn’t her place to criticize a child who grow up in these conditions for the lack of manners.
Adea: That they do.
Sadar: Well, the terminal’s not going to help us in this state. What’s our next move, Sirs?
Jovenan thought for a moment. Trying to do something to the terminal was probably pointless, but if they could fix it, it might help them a lot. And when it came to the room, until they figured out why they were here, they might as well take this whole thing as a mystery. And when a detective in human literature encountered a mystery, their first step was to look for clues.
Jovenan: We could try looking for clues why this place was burgled and what was taken, if that helps at all… ::pause, looks at the terminal:: I could also try to set the computer to base operations mode which should be easier for it to run, but if it’s more broken than that, it would all just be waste of time.
Adea: Try it. I’ll take a look, see if there’s any loose wires.
Nodding, Jovenan returned to the terminal. It was rather old – or maybe it was brand new for the time period – and not exactly the same type Jovenan had accustomed to using. It was still Federation technology, and while major changes kept happening constantly, the very basics remained.
Elain: Can I help with anything?
Adea: Not at the moment, we can take care of this.
While Tevet walked to sit on a chair and Genkos kneeled down to look under the terminal, Jovenan tried activating it. Before it would shut down again, she tried entering the command to enter the base mode, forcing the computer to disable all but the minimal required functions. Still, the screen turned off again. As much as she wanted to blame herself for not getting the device work properly, the problem was more likely in the energy feed.
Adea: I’ve found a wire!
Sadar: Unless I’m mistaken, Sir, you’ve located multiple.
Jovenan peeked under the terminal where Genkos was with a bunch of unconnected wires.
Jovenan: Careful, they might have life current. With proper equipment we could connect them back to the terminal.
Elain: I know where Genkos’ parents kept tools. Do you want me to go fetch them?
Adea: Please!
Sadar: Are we sure- ::watches Tevet run off:: N-Never mind.
Watching the child run out of the room to whatever part of the building the tools were kept, Jovenan wondered how she had survived here for so long. Having telepathic abilities probably had benefits in avoiding and hiding from the occupiers, but she was also so young and innocent. Jovenan’s thoughts were interrupted by the sound of sparks crackling.
Adea: My gods, can’t believed that worked… but by the four, that hurt.
Jovenan did her best not to roll her eyes. They had literally just sent the kid get them tools to avoid this. But for whatever it was worth, it worked, and the terminal lit up.
Sadar: For the future, Sir, could you refrain from blatantly hazardous behavior until we can actually locate some medical equipment? I couldn’t even deal with a common scrape right now, much less acute electrical shocks.
Adea: Jovenan; try and see if there’s any obvious news item that screams “history changed here”. Sadar, you and I are going to try and put this room back to normal - see if we can spot any gaps.
Jovenan: Aye, sir!
Sadar: I’ll be counting on your directions as to ‘normal’, Sir.
While the two medical officers began to clean up and reorganize the room, Jovenan turned to the computer terminal and accessed it. The screen turned darker at times, but it didn’t turn off entirely at any point, mostly thanks to the wire’s Genkos connected and partially to Jovenan disabling unnecessary subroutines such as voice recognition and higher artificial intelligence functions.
The interface was… dated. A civilian variant of their LCARS, it had all the familiar elements to it, but it was also thirty to forty years old. Orange, blue and purple blocks clashed heavily on the screen with nonsensically large empty space in between. It was all so bulky. They really had weird visions of what looked good in the 60s and 70s.
Ignoring the sounds of cleaning for a while, Jovenan accessed the news and report databases, filtering out all but the war related news and going few years back. For an occupied planet, Betazed had decently good access to the news, at least to the ones from the beginning of the war.
Sadar: Well, despite the chaos, it doesn’t look like anything’s missing?
Adea: Response
She wasn’t a historian, and she had been born when the war was already beginning. The Edo had also been outside of the effects of the invasion, so she had heard very little about it until moving offworld. However, she was certain that all the earliest stuff was correct. The destruction of the Odyssey, the Antwerp bomb attack, the beginning of the invasion through the Bajoran Wormhole and the capture of Deep Space Nine. Ross, Gowron, Weyoun, Sisko, Martok, all the names they learnt from the history books. Destruction of the Dominion fleet in the Bajoran Wormhole, recapture of DS9, occupation of Betazed.
Sadar: Perhaps whoever did this was looking for something, but didn’t find it in time?
Adea: Response
After that, the news became sparser but didn’t stop until fairly recently. Perhaps the brutality of the occupation increased over time as the occupiers began hunting for the Resistance among the civilians. Failed attempts by the Second Fleet to retake Betazed, beginning of the construction of Sentok Nor in the Betazoid orbit, all that happened. It wasn’t until the Battle of Chin’toka when she realised something was missing.
Sadar: There’s something on this bookshelf. A carved design of some kind… ::starts looking for a way to remove the individual shelves::
Hm. Doctor Sadar’s words drew Jovenan’s attention from the screen back to the reality – well, to the reality they currently occupied.
Jovenan: Did you find something?
She stood up and joined the two other officers.
Adea/Sadar: Response
Jovenan: The news aren’t exactly detailed military reports, but it seems that for whatever reason, the Romulans didn’t join the Alliance in time for the First Battle of Chin’toka, turning it from victory to defeat.
“Whatever reason” was not exactly a phrase a scientist should use too much, but the news reports weren’t detailed enough to tell how they had ended up with this fake timeline.
Adea/Sadar/Elain: Response
Jovenan: I guess the ships that later liberated Betazed got called to enforce the core worlds and the holdings near Bajor. ::tilts head looking at what the others had found:: What’s that?
Adea/Sadar/Elain: Response
TAG/TBC
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Lieutenant Jovenan
Chief Science Officer
USS Artemis-A
E239911J11