Lt Jovenan – A blessing and a curse
Jovenan
((DS9))
Jovenan walked to the closest computer console she could see. Just because CloQ was showing them something, she had no reason to just take their word for anything. Surely this was part of the game, testing if they’d fall to their silliest prank.
Jovenan: Sisko’s in the wardroom, Mr Tolar appears to be in his quarters, while the tailor… um, I can’t actually locate him. Maybe he has left the station.
Or hiding. It was possible to try and make a lifesign scan in the station, and since the tailor appeared to be one of the few, if not the only Cardassian onboard, it might have been fairly easy to identify him as well. However, Jovenan wondered if the scanners would even work when everything else was frozen in time – the weirdness of the fact that the computers worked at all hadn’t occurred to her earlier.
Silveira: I assume this happens after the holodeck forgery. We can't be sure how long.
CloQ: Not long, I assure you.
Sadar: Meaning he hasn’t had time to relocate from the station…
Jovenan pondered the events in front of the console. What exactly was the role the tailor had? The failed fake recording was stored to a Cardassian rod, but Jovenan doubted a plain, simple tailor would have had access to such technology, Cardassian or not. And Sisko. Sisko had a motive to kill the Senator, but how did he do it?
The others seemed to have similar thoughts, as Talos shrugged.
Dakora: Vreenak traveled here secretly, right? He must’ve arrived in something relatively stealthy. Something small enough to fit inside one of the internal landing pads.
Jovenan pursed her lips. She and the rest of the team on Romulus had seen the shuttle in the sky through the dome over the turret. She avoided looking at Sadar so that her mind wouldn’t run into scenarios of the two being crushed to death by the said shuttle.
Jovenan: We saw Senator Vreenak’s shuttle when it arrived to Romulus. We, uh, had a close look at it. It wasn’t much larger than a roundabout, I’d think it could fit in the landing pads for example.
((OOC: Runabout. Not roundabout.))
Silveira: A little too discreet for a Senator.
CloQ: Unless they’re on a discrete mission, of course.
Was CloQ helping them, or trying to mislead them? Jovenan couldn’t still trust them. Talos didn’t seem to mind them either but pointed at the terminal.
Dakora: Maybe we can find which landing pad it’s on. They’d have to have to take it out of service or something, even if they aren’t saying the real reason why.
Jovenan nodded and turned to study the status report on the console. Admittedly, she was inefficient in her task as she kept thinking about what Sisko had done. Although they didn’t know yet what Sisko had done exactly, they had some sense of why he did it. He had a motivation to kill, and his objective was noble. Many human languages knew a proverb of “the goal sanctifies the methods” or something similar. Such a Machiavellian philosophy was alien to the Edo, it reminded her of the days before their laws, the Chaotic Times. It had been chaotic times in the Alpha Quadrant when Sisko had committed his act, but did it justify it?
Silveira: It would be the best place to sabotage it.
Vitor’s utterance had been like a hit to the face. Sabotage. CloQ, instead, seemed to be joyous he had finally landed on the conclusion.
CloQ: Ding ding ding! We have a winner!
Jovenan looked at the chaotic entity with confusion. She wasn’t alone, as the others seemed to be equally baffled.
Dakora: What? …That’s it?
Sadar: ::whispers:. Don’t say that like you wanted it to be more convoluted.
Jovenan: That’s the mystery? I-I don’t know what to think of this.
Of all of them, Vitor was apparently the least bewildered, as he could still demonstrate sensible thinking and pose a question.
Silveira: There’s one thing to consider. What if the missing tailor took the matter into his own hands?
CloQ rolled their eyes again, like clock hands circling the face.
CloQ: Nope - Mister Garak carried out the sabotage under the purview of your Captain Sisko… Well, Sisko felt guilty about it, but I assure you, he could live with it. But he hired Garak because he knew precisely that the Cardassian spy would do the “right thing” even if Starfleet held back Sisko himself. Any questions?
Jovenan’s stomach turned once more. There had gone the last excuses they might have had to argue Sisko’s innocence. He knew what he was doing when he began this endeavour, and he finished it. And thanks to his actions here on this day, the Alpha Quadrant was safe. Did the end really justify the means? Even such cruel ones?
Not one of the team waited for their turn to present their inquiries to CloQ.
Sadar: The ‘right thing’? I thought morality was-
Dakora: When can we go home?
Jovenan: The tailor was a spy?
Silveira: Response
CloQ didn’t bother even listening to their questions, but instead raised their hand to their badge.
CloQ: Leave them for the end of the tour, sorry, should have said.
They tapped the badge, and again, Jovenan’s entire field of vision turned white. They would travel in time and space once more, and Jovenan hoped the timeline they’d land on would be a happy one.
((Bridge, USS Artemis))
Sadar: -a matter of ::confused look around:: perspective?
The white glow dissipated as fast as it had appeared. Like before, it had given way to a new environment, somewhere and somewhen new. Except, Jovenan could recognize the place easily. She was staring at the science console on the bridge of the Artemis. They… They were home?
Looking at the main screen, she saw the exterior of the structure they had stood in just a moments ago. But, more importantly, her sight was partially covered by a silhouette of a little person.
CloQ: Well, until next time… Ciao.
And then they vanished.
Blinking a few times just to make sure her eyes weren’t deceiving her, Jovenan looked around. The crew were here with her. Everyone who had been in the Fifth Chalice for the ceremony were there, but so was Ensign Gnai. She was relieved CloQ hadn’t abandoned it alone on Romulus or the drifts of time, but there was even a face or two Jovenan had not yet get to know.
Was it really over?
Dakora: Good to see you, Captain. ::He gestured to the image of Deep Space Nine on the view screen.:: It seems we might have drifted just a little off-course…
MacKenzie: ::nodding slowly:: It would certainly appear so… ::gesturing:: It appears everyone made it back from whenever they were…
A voice within Jovenan kept insisting that this was nothing but another layer in CloQ’s deception, but nothing came of it. There weren’t Romulan warbirds around the station, no Betazoid imperials demanding their surrender, no Dominion forces taking them to a camp. It… it was over?
Dakora: Orders, M’am?
From her seat, Jovenan observed the Captain standing up and walking closer to the main viewer. CloQ was no longer standing there, watching back at them, but instead, the Captain had taken their place and looked forwards.
MacKenzie: Request permission to dock, I guess.
((Later that day))
((Astrometrics, Deck 9, USS Artemis))
It was late into the nightshift when Jovenan walked into the empty Astrometrics. All the scientists and technicians were asleep or otherwise processing what they had experienced that day. The Edo alone was up and walking along the corridors of the Science Centre; she had tried to sleep but reaching the realm of slumber had proven harder than before. She needed to see something first.
The Astrometrics’ main holoviewer activated without delay or resistance by Jovenan’s command. Above her head, just in front of the consoles, a large holographic projection of their current location emerged. The rings and the arching pillars of Deep Space 9 appeared like a shadow against the bright purple swirls of the Bajoran Wormhole, while the planet itself and its star were hardly visible in the distance as the holoprogramme tricked her mind to think that the walls had been replaced by the endless chasm of space.
Jovenan lowered her head from the holographic structure above her to the console once more. After leaning against it for a while, she gave the ever-listening computer a verbal command.
Jovenan: Activate the null-gravity mode.
The computer chirped. Jovenan had a deep breath, and then she jumped.
Raising a few metres off the deck plating, Jovenan reached the image of the space station, hung in the dark space. She floated around it a few times, looking it at all angles. It was remarkable such a small structure could be the host so many untold storied, some of them joyful, some of them sad… and as Jovenan had witnessed, some of them sinister.
Absent-mindedly, she traced the arc of one of the pylons. Eventually, she abandoned the station, turning to face the abyss instead. She hadn’t come here just to see the frontier town in space, she could see it through the window by her own eyes if she wanted to. She wasn’t there to see the stars or her homeworld, or to listen to the song of the nebulæ this time either. With a carefully considered waves of hand, she put stars around her in motion.
Bajor and its cosmic structure near it disappeared behind her as seemed to rush through this part of the galaxy faster than any warp or slipstream drive could move her. Eventually the motion of the stars calmed down as her apparent speed within the projection above the immobile floor of the Astrometrics lab slowed down. She had voyaged the straight route from Bajor to here, a journey few would complete and even fewer had a reason to travel anymore.
Gone.
Gone was the bright star Eisn. Gone were the high towers and menacing pillars, gone was the blue sky above and the smells of spring arriving. Only a cloud of dust and rocks remained.
Being an unwilling time traveller was a blessing and a curse. She had seen so much beauty and so much ugly, yet in the end, it was gone, and she couldn’t be there for real when it went away.
And alone, she cried.
TAG/End for Jovenan
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Lieutenant Jovenan
Chief Science Officer
USS Artemis-A
E239911J11