Future, Past, Present

[Cptn Corizon 0]

future

 

One moment, everything went according to plan, a blink later and Hades unleashed. Dameon’s have no hell or heaven, but surely, if we did—that period of time—nothing could even touch it.

 

Defeat. That word leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Just saying it, I want to brush my teeth. Failure, even worse. But that’s exactly what I faced. And just when it looked as if we’d escaped the worst, and we could attempt to salvage this cataclysmic failure—we dive into a deeper circle of hell.

 

Putting the events back together in my mind, I see now how easily it could have been avoided. I blame myself, and I always will. I should have given them more time to come up with a plan, or at least to modify the shuttle. But at the time, we didn’t have the time.

 

~

 

past

 

Major Akira Sumnata lowered her riffle, motioning for her troops to fall in line behind her. The position was indefensible, and she knew it. How the hell did they expect her to be able to hold this position? She felt like Picket sending her troops into this battle. And she knew…none of them would come back alive.

Ah-Windu glanced casually over the morning reports. It had been a bloody day in the Dominion War. He’d gotten used to that. It was to the point he no longer bothered to read the causality reports. Like everyone else, he’d read them when they weekly, but as they grew to be daily…even hourly…he didn’t bother. But today, he did bother.

 

Last week, he’d been in charge of creating a defense plan for AR-986. It was a small moon in a relatively useless system. But it housed an important communications relay, thus protecting it was of paramount importance. Ah-Windu had been given this task, not because he wanted it—no—because he was the best.

 

Even so, an indefensible position was still an indefensible position. He knew that, but yet…he still drew up the plans. He still took painstaking efforts in plotting out the battle. And then gave the plan to Colonel J’Kla, the Marine in charge of the facility.

 

Two days ago, J’Kla was killed. They didn’t even find his body, all they found were his pips and a picture of his wife. Today, Ah-Windu knew what he would find. He knew that with in a matter of days, the Dominion would take the North Hill facing the comms relay, and they did—that was were J’Kla’s…remains…were found. After that the Jem’Hadar would massacre them with ease.

 

He scrolled down the list of causalities. It seemed to go on forever. Death…injury….mostly death. Page by page the horror of war unfolded electronically. How any group of civilized beings could do this to each other sometimes astounded him, but he knew that it was survival.

 

Finally, he came across the names he knew would be there. Every man. Every woman. Not even the youngest Private or Ensign survived. All of them…butchered at the hands of the Dominion.

 

Sighing he put the PADD down, ears resting to either side and closed his eyes. It’s not my fault. I only follow orders. Do what I am told. They had theirs too. We do what we must do. Fate will decide the way for us.

 

Somehow, that attitude got him through that day. And the next. And the so on, It got him through the war. But it left him broken and cold to the touch. But it was the only way he could continue to live. Even if the blood of those….those soldiers were on his claws.

 

 

~

 

present

 

Laying facedown on the deck plating of the Excalibur—he felt cold again. Failure, defeat, loss, sorrow; everything rushing to him at once like rabid jackals to a fallen gazelle.

 

The thought of his own death didn’t even occur, or even those under his command. They all took the same oath he did. It was the billions of people who were going to die. Needlessly.

 

As he started to lift himself up again, fate came smashing back down on him as the klaxons wailed. The Excalibur was going to blow up. Eject the core!!!

 

He didn’t know how many times he screamed it, or if it would even do any good. Mostly because it was all going on at the subconscious level. Like some built in reaction. Klaxon sounds…you scream.

 

Consciously his mind was further. Self-preservation was the last thing on his mind. His thoughts raced. He was responsible for this, but he didn’t have time to sulk or contemplate that—he neither had time, nor would sulking do anything about it. Instead it was best to focus on the mission. Amazing how one can multi-task and not even know it. At one moment while trying to save the ship, he was compartmentalizing everything that had just occurred.

 

They were going to die, he’d accepted that. Whether it was from the core breach, or the effects of the breach…they were going to die. He knew it. Thus the only thought he could reasonably entertain was whether or not the away team would find something on the planet to vindicate his death. Of course, that was assuming that the away team had even made it to the surface…they never did know for sure.

 

If they didn’t then the entire mission had failed, and the deaths of billions people would be on his claws—he didn’t know if he could live with that—good thing he wouldn’t have to.