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31_days2007-02-03 12:08 am
inaqui.livejournal.com) wrote in 31_days2007-02-03 12:08 am
[February 3] [Original] Fifth Column part 3
Title: Fifth Column part 3
Day/Theme: February 03 / the wicked daughter
Series: Original
Character/Pairing: Original
Rating: PG
Day/Theme: February 03 / the wicked daughter
Series: Original
Character/Pairing: Original
Rating: PG
Commander Branner stared across at the unconscious woman on the pallet in the med-bay from his seat next to her bed. Her skin was purple and cracked, pus oozing slowly and obscenely from her charred flesh like magma from a volcano. Ointments and treatments were smeared everywhere over her body, machines buzzing around her as they kept her alive. The burns had rendered her face unrecognisable, and the heat had fused her dog-tags to her chest, but he knew her. He would know her anywhere. After all, he was her father.
Four days since the fire alarm had sounded for the hangar housing the new Echo-class Mako fighter ships. His first thought among the chaos and frenzy of emergency protocols had been of sabotage, but never would he have dreamed the source could possibly be his daughter. She had always been a model soldier.
But she had destroyed the ships, and nearly herself all at once. All he could do was ask himself why. His Executive Officer was taking care of the investigation, and Branner didn’t particularly care about the rumours flying around the fleet about his own incompetence in the face of disaster. This was his daughter, and he wanted to be there when she woke up. He wanted to be the first to know why. He wanted to protect her.
He only hoped he wouldn’t have to, that the whole thing was a mistake, that she had accidentally discharged her firearm in a restricted area. Anything was better than the alternative. Because that meant court-marshal and certain execution. Any death was better than being put out the airlock. He’d done it to a few of his people who succumbed to the manipulation of enemy agents, and to those agents, too. He couldn’t, and wouldn’t, do it to Clara. No matter what she had done.
He slowly reached his hand out to touch hers. It was hard, like a well-done roast, but he curled his fingers around it anyway. He would be here when she woke up. Decisions, moral dilemmas, taking on the fleet to save her… it could all wait until later.
Four days since the fire alarm had sounded for the hangar housing the new Echo-class Mako fighter ships. His first thought among the chaos and frenzy of emergency protocols had been of sabotage, but never would he have dreamed the source could possibly be his daughter. She had always been a model soldier.
But she had destroyed the ships, and nearly herself all at once. All he could do was ask himself why. His Executive Officer was taking care of the investigation, and Branner didn’t particularly care about the rumours flying around the fleet about his own incompetence in the face of disaster. This was his daughter, and he wanted to be there when she woke up. He wanted to be the first to know why. He wanted to protect her.
He only hoped he wouldn’t have to, that the whole thing was a mistake, that she had accidentally discharged her firearm in a restricted area. Anything was better than the alternative. Because that meant court-marshal and certain execution. Any death was better than being put out the airlock. He’d done it to a few of his people who succumbed to the manipulation of enemy agents, and to those agents, too. He couldn’t, and wouldn’t, do it to Clara. No matter what she had done.
He slowly reached his hand out to touch hers. It was hard, like a well-done roast, but he curled his fingers around it anyway. He would be here when she woke up. Decisions, moral dilemmas, taking on the fleet to save her… it could all wait until later.