No Time to Wallow

Posted on Sun Dec 17, 2023 @ 12:30am by Lieutenant Jason Haines

636 words; about a 3 minute read

Mission: Tergum In Tempus
Location: Pangaea
Timeline: MD 01, 1630

[ON]

A rough wind buffeted Jason as he held his head in his hands. Large, burning pieces of falling debris had disrupted the atmosphere, causing the breeze. What had started out as a bright moment, was now darkening, like the sky as the dust and dirt from explosive impacts spread.

Some tears lightly fell from Jason’s eyes. His home: this place that was once just a posting, now a part of him, had been destroyed. Just like in his dreams, Deep Space 5 had fallen.

“Look at me boy”, Jason heard a gritty voice say.

Numbly he looked up. A tall, brown haired and bearded figure with slightly pointed ears looked down on him. The individual was clad in black and silver armor and a sword was on his hip.

Glancing around Jason saw all the clocks that had been in his mind, fallen to the ground. There was also rubble from the buildings that he had seen when he had interacted with George.

“Do you remember what you pledged to me when you were younger?”, the individual asked.

“What?”, Jason replied having no idea what he meant.

“I even sent you a reminder”, the man said. “The ones you call Vulcans.”

Jason thought about it and then remembered when he first arrived at the station and was ordered to protect the Captain and Alanna.

“I still don’t understand”, Jason replied.

“When you were young, your mother had died.”, the individual said, “You were crying like a sniveling babe. When I arrived and told you that in the future if you protected the queen that I would help you find your mother, you agreed.”

A vague, hazy memory came briefly to Jason’s mind. It faded quickly though.

“Get up and do what you pledged instead of crying like an infant”, the man replied and vanished.

Jason took a couple of deep breaths. Between them, George appeared in front of him.

“What the hell was he talking about?! Who was he!?”, Jason exclaimed.

“Ah, that was Saris”, George said. “He’s sort of what you might call an errant. He’s a high noble, but he really doesn’t care about the court. He mainly focuses on the throne. He knew the throne would one day face something like this, so he’s recruited a few other changelings to help. You are his main interest right now. The others really don’t know about things. If you can’t do it or get killed, he’ll wake them up.”

“I was ten years old”, Jason said.

“Well, you have to understand, anyone less than 2000 years old is a child to him”, George replied.

“I had just lost my mother, I had no idea what I was agreeing to”, Jason snapped. “That was a shitty thing to do.”

“Oh yeah”, George replied. “He does that all the time. He’s what I think you would call, a dick.”

“Yeah, he’s a dick alright”, Jason said, a frown growing on his face.

“Well, kid”, George said. “I can’t stay long, but I can tell you she’s not dead. At least not yet. The throne being destroyed sort of threw things into chaos. You still have time before the nobles do anything.”

Jason nodded.

“Well, I got to go”, George said with a nod. “Good luck.”

With that, George popped away.

Jason looked about and as the scenery started to change back to Pangaea an idea hit him based on what George had said. He stood up and looked at Brianthe who had her hand on his shoulder.

As the power flickered and then gave out, revealing the secret science lab that had been dubbed, ‘Bag End, Jason said, “We need to find Alanna.”


[OFF]


Jason Haines, Resident Pain in the Butt
Deep Space 5

 

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