Lt Jacin - Falling
Emma Banin
(( Sheliak Shuttle))
Smoke filled the cabin as the navigational panel exploded in a shower of sparks and flame. Ayemet choked at the poisonous fumes and tried to see through them to what was left of the panel before her. Every part of her hurt with a mixture of phaser burns, smoke inhalation and the remnants of whatever it was that the Sheliak had done to her at the facility.
You didn’t think this through
Another shot rocked the cabin as the pursuing ship found its’ mark once more. The shuttle was smaller, more maneuverable, but the pursuing cruiser was faster and stronger in every conceivable way. Quite how she had got this far was a miracle to her.
Indeed how she had got into the shuttle in the first place was perhaps even more so. She had literally dragged her body into the shuttles cabin, shutting the doors just as the guards had reached it, taking off clumsily and only just avoiding the rapidly closing bay doors.
It had occurred to her that maybe this was all some kind of experiment by the Sheliak, that her head would explode once out of range of the lab and its’ scientists, or she would wake only to discover that it was some elaborate holo simulation designed to test Starfleet tenacity. Yet her current predicament took her focus away from such logic and if it was some kind of simulation it would end soon enough.
Another shot. The shuttle began to spin wildly as alarms sounded angrily announcing yet more damage to her increasingly fragile means of escape.
I’m not going to make it.
Her head was spinning as wildly as the shuttle. She didn’t know if it was the loss of blood or the smoke which had filled her lungs, and she didn’t care. All she knew is that the shuttle would explode, shattering into a million small pieces scattered across wherever she was.
The Khitomer would hold some sort of ceremony for her, posthumously awarding her some medal Captain Shayne would have to contact her mother, and Connor would find solace in his work. Trying to use it as a distraction against the sadness. Perhaps this had all already happened, and the last few minutes or seconds were merely a full stop for her benefit alone. She’d be gone, forgotten, another name of the wall of those lost in action along with Amanda’s, and all the others.
She had barely escaped the planet’s atmosphere. Not much of an escape. She thought as the shuttle continued to spin uncontrollably. Fatigue washed over her as the cabin continued to disintegrate with fire and smoke. Her eyes began to close.
Jacin: Connor…
The shuttle began tumbling back towards the planet and a single tear fell down her face.
TBC
Lieutenant Jacin Ayemet
Ship Counselor
USS Khitomer
NCC 62400
A239810JA2Q