Lt Jovenan – I won't leave you behind
Jovenan
((Cave, Rakantha Province, Bajor))
Jovenan: Everyone ready? Energizing.
For a brief moment, the world was not so dark as it had been.
Jovenan’s fingers glided up on her PADD, sending a signal to the shuttle further away from her. Blue, bright mist surrounded black figures deep into the cave, barely visible without the shining light that engulfed them. And as her fingers glided down, the mist vanished, and the cave was once more lightless, damp and dead.
She had a deep breath. Three of the four team members were safely away from the lethal depths of the hidden cavity in the side of a Bajoran hill. One more remained. Jovenan turned her eyes to the dark. She was unable to see the silhouette of the man she needed to rescue, but she knew he was still there.
Jovenan: Chevalier? Everything okay? I’m coming to you now.
She was afraid. Her legs were shaking, even though those were the parts of her body she now needed the most to stabilize. First, she needed to follow the same path Chevalier and Savel had taken, precisely; a misstep could cause injuries or even death to herself and to the Ensign.
Should she succeed in walking down the path, she still needed to figure out how to defuse the mine Chevalier had stepped on. It was a matter of luck that it hadn’t exploded already, maybe the triggering system had aged, or it only would detonate after stepping off. Aged munitions were always unpredictable and therefore dangerous. Jovenan didn’t know yet how to deal with the mine, but she was certain she needed to find a method to prevent it from blowing up on either of them. She had to.
After just a few steps in the wet rock floor of the cave, Jovenan’s breath and the dripping water alone worked to keep the silence away. It was like that, until she heard a voice calling to her in the darkness.
Chevalier: Lieutenant? ::pauses:: It’s gonna be okay…
And for a fleeting moment, the cave was bright, even if the world had turned a bit darker.
The mine went off faster than Jovenan could comprehend what had happened or how to react to it. The bright initial explosion caught her attention, allowing her to see, even if for a split second, Chevalier’s shape, falling to the ground, his limbs weirdly distorted to an unnatural position. Jovenan could also see something small she couldn’t recognize in the short interval of time, moving up in the air, towards the ceiling of the cave.
Then the second explosion came.
Somewhere near the ceiling of the cave, the mine blew up, sending dozens of small shrapnel in every viable direction. Many of them clanged safely against the barren walls and floor of the cave, leaving a small, permanent dent wherever they had impacted. Some other shrapnel had more luck.
Jovenan was so shocked and so full of adrenalin that she didn’t even realise the shrapnel tearing her uniform and drawing long scratches to her skin in her legs and on her sides, nor the one that bounced off the floor, dig through her flesh and attached itself near her shoulder. Instead, she was worried, worried of the Ensign that had been much closer to the epicentre.
Jovenan: Chevalier? ::pause, cryingly:: Jaseb? Jaseb, answer me!
Chevalier: Response?
Panicked and desperate, yet determinate, Jovenan, knocked down to all fours, crawled towards where she had seen Chevalier fall down. Reaching him, she patted around his body, finding several moist spots, but without proper light, she couldn’t tell if it was water from the bottom of the cave, or blood.
What she felt, and the little of what she saw, reminded her of the twisted and burned corpse of Chevalier’s alternate universe counterpart.
Jovenan: No no no, please no…
Chevalier: Response?
Jovenan couldn’t think of anything but trying to save Chevalier. Any thought dedicated to guilt or depression had to wait till they were off of this cave, or they could have spiralled her concentration so that she could not move a part of her body.
Inspecting Chevalier’s body, Jovenan noticed that his leg, in particular, was covered in warm, rusty liquid, and it was pulsating. Despite the lack of light, she could tell he was losing a significant amount of blood through there, and such an injury could cause death in mere minutes. She didn’t have a medkit with her – she should have asked one to be brought from the shuttle – so she didn’t have the proper equipment to deal with it right now. Instead, she removed her tricorder belt and tied it tight around his leg, as close to the groin as she could, where the largest blood vessels were.
Then she tapped her combadge.
Jovenan: =/\= Savel, Gnai! Beam us out the instant you can! Get the shuttle ready, we need to go to the closest hospital! ::pause, then cryingly:: Chevalier’s badly hurt! =/\=
Some officers might have avoided showing any such emotion in front of their crew. Jovenan didn’t care, she didn’t have the skill or the effort to control her emotions even if she should have. Tears were intervening with her vision as she tried to control his bleeding.
Savel/Gnai: Response
Unable to do much more helping Chevalier not to bleed out, she stood up to her legs and lifted his upper body so that she could entwine him in her embrace, her arms going under his shoulders from behind. She started to pull him out, through the way she believed was safe, towards the transporter booster perimeter.
Moving him would have been much easier had he not been quarter of a meter taller than her and almost 30 kg heavier. As he moved, Jovenan noticed that one of his legs wasn’t coming along. Not thinking about it too much, she leaned in to pick it up and placed it on his lap before resuming pulling.
Jovenan: ::breathing heavily:: D- don’t do this, Jaseb! I’m… I’m gonna get you… Okay…
Chevalier: Response?
Savel/Gnai/Renirs: Response
TAG/TBC
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Lieutenant Jovenan
Chief Science Officer
USS Artemis-A
E239911J11