"Retrospectives" | XO | Cmdr Rochelle Ivanova

Posted on Fri Aug 16th, 2013 @ 12:19am by Admiral Rochelle Ivanova

865 words; about a 4 minute read

Mission: Secret Meetings

Pain. Broken pain. Searing pain. Hot pain.

The roar was gone and had been replaced by the shrieks of klaxons and people, and Rochelle was slow to roll over from where she'd landed on her stomach. The taste of blood was what caught her attention first, then the throbbing sting of a split lip, then the biting ache that protested her every move from her chest and shoulder. "Andrea?" She groaned as she lay flat on her back and looked around through the blur of her unfocused eyes and the smoky haze that lingered across what was left of the promenade. Something sharp bit into the space just behind the round of her scapula, and with a wince and a tempered yowl she forced herself to sit up and instinctively cradled her left arm to her chest. Something was broken and not just any something, something that allowed her to use her arm. It was gone. And what was worse? Looking down she could see the sharp hint of bone protruding from the collar line of her scoop-necked shirt.

Swallowing hard, she quelled the shaking and blood draining panic that threatened to settle over her. "I think they call it shock..." She muttered to herself as she forcibly tore her eyes away from the bloody mess of her chest to follow the line of her mangled arm. Glass and pieces of metal had punctured through the bare skin of her arm and left it pocked and studded with horrible decoration and rivulets of vermilion.

Then it dawned on her... Andrea hadn't replied. Rochelle's eyes and head shot in the direction she'd last seen them standing. But they were gone. As was the vast majority of the platform they'd all enjoyed. The fall beneath them was, on it's own, a good thirty feet. Rochelle swallowed the lump that was rising in her throat, shivered, and coughed. They were gone. The thought kept ringing in her dizzy skull over and over and over again as distress and shock crept up and took it's hold as breathing became far too much of an issue. She gasped. A horrendous wet noise as she struggled to inflate lungs that just refused to allow for air to fill them. In truth they felt as if they were filled with a thousand razor blades. Fiber glass that had been pulverized from displays would later write a letter to claim responsibility, as would it's cohorts; three broken ribs caused by the blast's force itself.

Rochelle's tears slid down her dirt and ash smeared face in a steady path as her sobs only served to cause more pain and damage. Airless sobs. Choking sobs. Her entire diminutive frame slowly sank back to the pain of whatever sharp shard had punctured her shoulder earlier. She'd have screamed and moved if she could have, but she simply couldn't. The bite of the metal piece as it embedded itself deeper under her scapula, driven by the dead weight of her oxygen deprived body, was horrific all by itself. Combined with the brutal onslaught of her other afflictions? Darkness seemed her only savor. Darkness and silence. Both closed in on her, the voices becoming murky and distorted as if she were sinking under fathoms of water. Her only vision? Flashes of life between Will, Andrea, the man on his knees just before the bomb exploded and life was torn away from so many... Will. Her anger towards him -- towards his actions -- she'd never been allowed to say good bye, to say she loved him.

As if in answer to her thoughts a familiar figure appeared, striding through the smoke and debris he came like something from a dream. Coming to her side he put an arm on her elbow. "Commander Ivanova…”

The voice pierced through her memories, failing to match the face she remembered – failing to match the lips that moved – and then in a flash... It was back to reality. Back to the bridge of the Vindicator and the relative safety and warmth of the valiant vessel. They’d survived that act of sabotage, perhaps even in better shape than the Griffin had the attempted execution of the Whydah as they sat prone and docked. But monsters that hunt through the night never die. The consortium was still out there, this the little savage knew, but she’d never in a billion years be able to prove that this latest skirmish was their doing -- or point fingers even in their vaguest direction.

That was paranoia.

“Yes, Ensign?” She asked, blinking away the nightmare that plagued her even during her waking hours. The Ensign looked at her with concern shading his eyes. “The Captain has called for all Senior officers.”

“I’m not deaf Ensign, I heard the man.”

Sometimes it was all too easy to send them away in a hurry – this Ensign proving her theory correct as he nodded and disappeared into the ether – and once again she was left to the view of stars shooting past as she bid her time before having to once again slip back into the role of Executive Officer.



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Commander Rochelle Ivanova
Executive Officer
USS VINDICATOR

 

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