Lt Jovenan – What I deserved, part 1

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Jovenan

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Mar 20, 2024, 5:06:11 AMMar 20

to USS Artemis-A – StarBase 118 Star Trek PBEM RPG

((Turret, Ki Baratan, Romulus))

The klaxon howled in her ears and her field of vision had turned purple by the bright, blinking lights. It made reading the screen much more difficult, but even with these hinderances, Jovenan could tell that disabling the communications had removed their access to the sensor network. The maps went dark after they stopped receiving new inputs from the outside world, but at the same time, the weapons control screen lit up of new information.

Jovenan: We have the weapon’s control, but we’ve lost the sensors!

Adea: We will have to do it by hand!

Gnai: Is that... possible?

Sadar: I think we’ve been moving outside the realm of possible for a while now.

Ignoring the junior officers as well as her bursting headache from the abysmal cacophony and the omnipresent guilt, Jovenan raised her gaze from the now useless location screens and looked through the transparent dome of the turret once more. The sun Eisn was bright above the beautiful yet menacing buildings of Ki Baratan, but Jovenan couldn’t spent one more second aweing the now long dead world. Her gaze was up into the sky, where she spotted a vessel break through a thin veil of clouds, descending steadily towards the city.

Their target, whether they liked it or not.

Jovenan: There!

Genkos must have followed Jovenan pointing out the vessel, soon looking at the same direction with her.

Adea: Okay... Wish me luck.

Gnai: ::to the second floor:: Good luck! ::to Sadar, after a beat:: This feels wrong...

Sadar: … I know...

Jovenan looked up at the vessel before turning her gaze down to Genkos, seated next to her by the controls. She wanted to place her hand on his shoulder, to give him support in what might have been the most demanding task he had recently had to bear, but she decided against it, giving him the chance to concentrate solely in aiming instead.

Once more, she raised her eyes towards the shuttle, tracking the trajectory of Genkos’ aim. For the first time in a while, all she could do was stop and watch. That opened her mind for the awful thoughts that she had tried to suppress. The Senator, as far as she knew it, was an innocent man, sentenced only for the circumstances. And there must have been many more people aboard the shuttle; a pilot or two, security, the Senator’s aides and entourage. They were all doomed to die. Because of them. Because of her.

She couldn’t argue she did what she must. That’s not how the law of the Edo worked. Following orders was no excuse to her people as little as it was to Starfleet. Yet, had she refused the order, she would have been equally guilty of all the travesties that sprung on Betazed and beyond in the timeline they had witnessed. No matter what she had done, she was guilty of a heinous crime.

Genkos fired.

The green disruptor beam crossed the sky, hitting the shuttle. It was done.

Jovenan couldn’t yet cheer or fall into depression for what they had done, as the shuttle didn’t explode and scatter its debris down into the streets. Instead, it received damage to what looked like one of its nacelles, knocking it out of its path and spiralling it groundwards. No, it was plummeting towards them! Spending a few seconds wondering the improbability of such an event, Jovenan decided to abandon all the logic and began to praise the mad laws by which the Q’s universe was run.

Jovenan didn’t turn her eyes away from the vessel rushing towards her, not when it had grown to cover the city’s skyline, not when it crashed through the dome, not when the immense force coloured her vision white and would surely vaporise them all. She thought she had deserved it. Execution without a trial, just like home.

She didn’t believe in ghosts. But at the last moment, she wondered if Vitor would soothe her spirit to the eternal oblivion in the Artemis’ arboretum alongside her sister-across-the-universes.