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CH04: S [D06|10:50] Rough Awakening

[ Lt Jg Hi'Jak | Bridge Alcove | The Versant ] @Auctor Lucan
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Waking up from being stunned is a slow feeling. It starts with a few twitches as muscles began to cease their seizing gridlock. There is a distinct feeling of pain that ebbs through ones body, a dryness to the mouth and a pounding headache that comes from dehydration. Jack's breath started to go a bit more deeper, as he coughed. Pain was starting to be a constant in his life, between the missing arm, the burned away eye. The loss of several of his favorite organs, and now the latest in his long line of unheroic defeats, being shot like a dog. Something he hadn't originally thought he would get to live, but thanks to the soreness in every muscle fiber of his being he got to say he did.

He had no idea how long he had been out for. His eye opened slowly to look around him. The floor of the Versant was unmistakable. The ground was so sterile so polished, that he was able to see his reflection, a very human reflection. He attempted to roll over, to move a leg or his remaining arm, and found that he had a bit of trouble moving.

He was tied up, literally as it was. Not with rope, but with wires ripped from some console. Which confirmed two things, the first being he was alive. Which was funny because he was 90% sure that Ives had ordered his execution when they had given Ida permission to neutralize the threat.

Not that he was much of one anymore. He finally managed to roll onto his back, which confirmed the second thing as he looked around. He was a prisoner, not of the Savi, though he wouldn't have been surprised if that had been the case. Ives very well could have found someway to beam everyone else on the versant and leave him to the Scions, but no it seemed he was guarded by the one blue woman he really didn't want to see right now. The captains assassin was pretty much the person highest up on his shit list.

Now however he had to put those feelings of hate and justifiable rage aside. If he went off on the blue bitch for shooting him there was nothing stopping her from doing so again. He wasn't sure what was going on through the bridge, he couldn't see much outside of his small alcove. "What's... going on?"


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OOC: this thread is set later because of the maximum stun and does not account for other developments that could have taken place during the last 45 minutes.

Re: CH04: S [D06|10:50] Rough Awakening

Reply #1 –
[ Lieutenant ThanIda zh'Wann | Bridge Alcove | The Versant ] Attn: @Masorin
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About thirty minutes in, Ives was still in command of the Versant - at the courtesy of a very strained Thea - and the bridge module was secured for the time being.

The Savi forces aboard the Versant were kept away by layers of forcefields, and Thea remained in control of the transporter systems. The ship was out of warp, generating power, and at the front of the bridge, Ives and some tactical officer was coordinating defence against Initiator fighters that the Savi had launched to attack the bridge. Outside the viewscreens, the lasting efforts of the Savi could be seen, defying the pulse phaser turrets that riddled the hull of the giant ship. As for ThanIda zh'Wann, she could do little but stand ready, since she had no interest in seeking out the other Andorians, much less make conversation with strangers.

Her charge, who was coming to, had not been a stranger. At least not until his true nature had been cast into garish light. He had fought alongside her on the Coreless Moon, defying arachnid threats and Klingons. Only the latter had been the fruit of his traitorous labour.

Conceited fool, she thought as she turned her eyes and antennae down to the remains of the man, her white hair spilling over a shoulder on her Savi infiltration suit with the motion. She was standing in the opening of the alcove, looking down over the people on the spacious bridge, her rifle in her hands. The traitor's question wasn't unexpected.

"Preparations," she said evenly. "We're about to relocate to the Theurgy. Once there, you'll find yourself in a proper holding cell until Ives decides on what he'll do with you."

Ida then looked away, resuming her vigilant watch over the bridge area. "Don't bother telling me 'why'. I honestly don't care."

Re: CH04: S [D06|10:50] Rough Awakening

Reply #2 –
[ Lt Jg Hi'Jak | Bridge Alcove | The Versant ] @Auctor Lucan
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So they were relocating to Theurgy, he could hardly see much of the bridge. His alcove was blocked by the ass of the blue assassin in another timeline or situation it wouldn't have been an unpleasant view. But currently it blocked any purdinant or tactical information he could have otherwise gleaned. From what he could see of the view screens he saw fighters, attacking their own ship. Likely an attempt to retake the vessel. He could currently move his neck freely, which allowed his one eye only partial field of view.

He attempted to move, but found his body stiff, unwilling, and tied up for the most part. Ida would hear his grunts as he worked to bring himself to the wall, to try and force his body to sit up. He listened to her, and sighed. "Permission to neutralize this threat, Captain?"

His tone of voice was a bit of a mockery of hers as he spoke. Again still trying to force his body to sit up, but in the end he fell back down onto his back, panting from the exertion of tired muscles. "By that order, (phfft) You had free reign, (huf) to incinerate me."

He took a moment to get the wind back into his lungs. "You say you don't care, but your actions suggest curiosity?" His blue eye looked at Ida. "You know, after you got shot I was the one who put you in the pattern buffer of the Sabine. I was also the one who treated your injuries and made sure you were alive."

Jack laid back for a moment his eye closed as he breathed, Normally he could work on getting himself untied, but every time he had done that in the past he had two arms, and he wasn't confident with his ability to escape with just the one, even then Ida had a gun, and was not hesitant to use it. "And I helped you after I had been found out so it's not like there was any expectation of keeping you alive would help me down the road. In fact judging by my current situation I'd say I accomplished the opposite of helping myself."

Re: CH04: S [D06|10:50] Rough Awakening

Reply #3 –
[ Lieutenant ThanIda zh'Wann | Bridge Alcove | The Versant ] Attn: @Masorin
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Knowing what the smooth-headed pinkskin had done, all his words were heard through a bullshit filter, and it made Ida quite deaf to his arguments. He was a slimy little viper who had no compunction about stabbing his fellow officers in the back, his loyalty neither towards Ives nor the mission. Of course she had wanted to kill him. He had sent the Klingons that almost killed her in the first place. Yet the fact that he believed she would preform a public execution... it said more about him than her.

"Unlike you, I am a Starfleet officer," she said evenly, and she did not care to explain the distinction further than that. Nor did she have to illustrate the difference, since they both know he joined the fleet under false pretense. He was never loyal to the Federation. His oaths meant nothing. He had already sworn his oaths to the Klingon Empire. "That you think I'd pick the kill setting without being threatened says a lot about what you would have done in my place."

Ida knew he would try to get under her skin. By Lor'Vela how she loathed spies. "That being said, I am not adverse to strike you down again, should you try to stand." She turned her head, her white hair whisking over her shoulder when she gave him an amused glance. "In fact, I'd welcome it. I could think of worse ways to pass the time, and your face is already ruined."

Re: CH04: S [D06|10:50] Rough Awakening

Reply #4 –
[ Lt Jg Hi'Jak | Bridge Alcove | The Versant ] @Auctor Lucan
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For some reason the way Ida called him out not as not a Starfleet officer hurt, and a rare moment of silence followed from the science officer, as he breathed thoughtfully. He didn't really want to believe her words about what he would have or wouldn't have done in Ida's place. But there was some truth he wasn't really an officer. Trent's words about having made himself unimportant and beneith the notice of everyone came back to him. She went on to threaten him again should he attempt to stand up, and for a moment he contemplated doing so.

Suicide by cop he supposed.

He shook that thought off as quickly as it had come. He was still silent for a short while after that. The shot at his face was just a lowblow, he had lost a lot of what he had cared about, his flesh, his genetics. He didn't have much else to work with at the moment. "I don't know I've never been in your situation." He admitted softly. Some form of deep sorrow had crept into his voice.

"Maybe I could have been, but honestly I don't know. I find it hard to believe that anyone would accept orders given to them under threat of violence. You can glare at me all you want, say what I did was treason to your cause. I told Trent that I wouldn't broadcast their detection method until we had worked out something more scientific. Apparently demand for more evidence made me an idiot."

Jack's voice actually seemed slightly choked as he spoke. "I failed as a warrior because i was a coward, I failed as an officer because I was meek, but no this time I had to grow a pair and try to have morals. All I could think of wasn't the threat of my death which you were so kind to put on the table, but all the people after me whom would die if I sent that message. For once in my life I looked away from myself and saw the ten billion lives of my empire, and the countless in the Federation, and so I realized I had no right to follow that order."

"And my mistakes piled up from there. The Hakaarl was too close, I couldn't have predicted how fast the new warp drive would have worked so we got caught in the middle. I couldn't call off the attack before the moon fired it's weapon and destroyed them. I don't even know how many people were aboard the Hakaarl, I just know I killed them all." He shook his head as he laid back, it felt like a massive waist of everything.

Miserable, but also wanting to reserve his energy, he couldn't exactly hide his emotional state going through this conversation. He supposed as someone whom had always found it easy to lie, or push something off, he was having a lot of things crash against him now. This was the first time he could really focus on his own ineptitude. His personal failings as an officer. He swallowed trying to keep those emotions from overwhelming him. "I should have just said no, and let you shoot me back then. Tell me what would you have done in mine?"

Re: CH04: S [D06|10:50] Rough Awakening

Reply #5 –
[ Lieutenant ThanIda zh'Wann | Bridge Alcove | The Versant ] Attn: @Masorin
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Listening idly, Ida continued to look at the proceedings below on the bridge of the Versant.

She offered no comment, letting him finish without turning her head towards him. While he appeared to lament some of his decisions, Ida dismissed any kind of real emotion behind his words. She could not afford to think it anything but an act. So, she would hold no sympathy for him. He had shown his true colours, and she could not dismiss how he would say anything at this point to get some kind of leverage over her or the situation. While he might appear earnest about his actions and his shortcomings, Ida didn't even blink, much less entertain the notion of feeling sorry for him.

"The first thing I would have done... would be not drawing my weapon on a superior officer," she said evenly, speaking about the control room before he'd compromised the mission. "In fact, my rank wouldn't even matter to you, so let me rephrase. Since you are an Imperial Intelligence operative, with your own orders, what do you expect I would do when you threatened me? Be naive and let you shoot me? Perhaps you're even more a fool than you make yourself out to be."

She turned her head to look at him then, remembering all too well how she'd forced him to send the message. "I don't know what Trent may have said, but I got my orders from the Captain, and whatever compunctions you may have had about spreading the only means of detection, it was never your call to make. You merely interfered in a way that not only obstructed a meeting between Martok and Ives - who know each other from the Dominion War - but you got people killed doing it. By Lor Vela, did you honestly think Ives would advocate anything but caution in using my detection method, and do you give your Chancellor so little credit that you'd think he'd start stunning people indiscriminately?"

Ida shook her head, and looked back down on the bridge below them, occasionally looking at the fighters that tried to penetrate the defensive perimeter. "If I were you, as you said, I would know better than to think my own lacking judgement was better than that of my superiors. I would not have said 'no', and I would have helped forge an alliance between the High Chancellor and Captain Ives. Now, with Drex dead, Ives said you have most likely painted a target on us instead. The hope of the Empire lending aid to the Theurgy's mission lost. All because you, a meek coward with no knowledge of war, thought you knew better."

Re: CH04: S [D06|10:50] Rough Awakening

Reply #6 –
[ Lt Jg Hi'Jak | Bridge Alcove | The Versant ] @Auctor Lucan
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"Your detection method, no wonder it's so barbaric." He couldn't exactly resist a low dangling fruit even in his situation, talking to Ida was very much like pulling teeth, unpleasant and left with a bad taste, so he couldn't resist the dig at her, but the rest of what she said made sense. He sighed, he wasn't sure what he was expecting Ida had never shown any actual subtlety in her actions before.

He could point out the fact that he had felt threatened sure, but in truth she was right he had drawn his weapon first, he had undermined people whom knew the state of the board better than he had. His intelligence had been faulty from the start when it came to the Theurgy. The comment about not knowing war stung hard. Jack had been 16 when the dominion war had taken place, it had been one of the things that had brought him to the Klingon military academy.

He had been proud when he had met Gowron. If a bit younger and naive. The war had been over by two years by the time he had finished his ph'd's in Starfleet and contribute he had missed it. Every time he had a chance to be useful he had been too slow to the call, and this time he had tossed it aside because he didn't trust the source.

He tried to think up some defense of his actions, but it all rested on conjecture, Jack for the first time found his throat dry, with little more he could say, his silver tongue failed him. Silence on the other hand did not sit well with him, it never did, but at the same time he had no defenses other than conjecture. In seeking to protect his empire he had shamed himself. If he were a warrior he would die for his mistakes. Intelligence officers were not held to the same code of ethics, but right now he was certainly feeling the shame of it.

"I only wanted to save lives."

Re: CH04: S [D06|10:50] Rough Awakening

Reply #7 –
[ Lieutenant ThanIda zh'Wann | Bridge Alcove | The Versant ] Attn: @Masorin
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Whether it was a ploy, this remorse the spy was showing her, Ida did not know. Therefore, she could not take the risk of feeling any compassion for him. "Saving lives?"

As crestfallen as he appeared, despite his comment about her method, Ida prodded the fallen to see if there was any more fight in him. If there was any honesty in his words, or if he was still trying to lead her on.

"Did you even realise what Ives did, giving you the assignment to the Coreless Moon mission?" she asked, vaguely remembering that she'd already told him as much in that control room, but the spy might have just dismissed her out of arrogance. "Trent blew your cover, and if it was me, you would have been in the Brig from that moment, stripped of rank entirely since your oaths to the Federation and the fleet aren't worth anything. Instead, Trent spared you, but it was up to Ives to decide your fate."

Ida looked at him out of the corner of her eye. "You were given a chance by Ives to prove yourself, which might have been naive, letting you show yourself loyal to the mission and to hir command. And what did you do? You spat in the Captain's face and showed how unreliable you were. If you have made Martok an enemy in doing so, it won't just be the lives lost at the moon that you're accountable for. All lives lost on the Theurgy, should the Empire attack us, will be on your head too. You didn't just disgrace yourself in the eyes of your people, but you ended any chance for a continued service in Starfleet, in the event we deal with the Infested."

The last bit was her take on what lay ahead. What she foresaw would happen. She turned back to look at the moving abductees below, her antennae angling forth. "In all likelihood, you will be turned over to the Chancellor as a peace offering, along with the witness accounts of your actions - mine included. Martok needs to restore honour to his House in the eyes of the Council, and you will likely be killed for what you've done. With the mission being Ives' priority, and you failing to prove your loyalty, I think handing over a traitorous spy won't be beyond hir."

Having said as much, Ida hoped it would finally dawn on him what he'd done. The extent of his disgrace.

Re: CH04: S [D06|10:50] Rough Awakening

Reply #8 –
[ Lt Jg Hi'Jak | Bridge Alcove | The Versant ] @Auctor Lucan
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Ida continued to layout pretty much all of his failures as a person. Explaining what the corelessmoon had actually been. Where he had thought it a simple grave, an attempt to use and kill him, it had actually been a test of loyalty, and he had at the time simply been too afraid or unwilling to see it as such. More than that because of his actions though they had been done with the intent of saving lives, it seemed he had only brought about more harm.

He listened, and understood. He would be used as a pawn, given back to the empire to improve theurgy's standing, and he would die for his crimes. He need only wait, and he would die. Of course he would join the dishonorable dead, most intelligence officers did, and yet to die in such a way, no name, no deeds, no honor, even his klingon nature taken from him. It was an amalgamation of his worst fears, everything he had always believed.

All because he thought he knew better. It was remarkable just how vast his failings were. "I doubt you will believe me when I say this, but no. I didn't once realize I was being tested. I thought i was being used and discarded."

The worst part was that Ida was right. This break down in communication had all been his bull headed way. He had nothing to offer anymore. "Whisky, Alpha, Lima, Delta, Oscar."

At this point he had nothing left, and holding any information that could be considered vital, may just end up hurting more people. "That's the password to my pad, on it is the master copy of all the research that the Savi did on the Omega Particle, my virus deleted all other copies from the Savi mainframe so it's not information that could be given any other way. Please pass on that information to Thea, and tell the captain I am sorry."

Of course that was all he could do, give up his last piece of any puzzle and apologize. "Please... Ida, I won't be moving from this spot any time soon. Just make sure that the information I stole from the Savi... does something. I don't want my entire life to amount to this pile of failure, I want to do something I need something I do to have a positive impact."
 

Re: CH04: S [D06|10:50] Rough Awakening

Reply #9 –
[ Lieutenant ThanIda zh'Wann | Bridge Alcove | The Versant ] Attn: @Masorin
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It seemed that, to some extent, Ida might have gotten through to the prisoner. Whether or not that remorse he displayed was real, however... that Ida couldn't count on.

What he did, however - his actions - they accounted for something. There was no telling the worth of what they got from Hi'Jak, and Ida reckoned Thea was sophisticated enough to have gained access to the data anyway, but she would forward the password to the A.I. and let them evaluate this dubious gift. "How am I supposed to ensure that the information on your datapad becomes useful?" she asked him, her words having less of an edge, but in no way or form showing compassion for him. "Either what you've found is useful, or it's not. I can, however, make sure Thea gets access to it."

She turned back to the bridge, made eye contact with another from security, and waved for him to come and take her post by the prisoner. Once he was on his way up the stairs, she looked back at Hi'Jak, and while she was pleased to not suffer his company any further at that time, she added. "I'll tell Ives you're sorry too, but I hardly think it will matter."

Having said this, she walked down the stair, and left the broken spy to his regrets - real or not.

- FIN

 
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