Posted June 15, 2022, 7:59 a.m. by Captain Zachariah Cobb (Commanding Officer) (Sharon Miller)
“Do you know the penalty for desertion, Mr Cobb?”
The ‘Mr’ was deliberate, a verbal fist to the jaw that refused recognition of the captain by rank. As if such trivialities could even register in the battered consciousness of Zachariah Cobb. He had been thrown to the abyss and left to claw his way out, golden pips on his collar as worthless to him then as they were proving to be now. Yet still duty bound him to this unyielding metal chair and this cavernous, floodlit room, he a dangerous specimen, pinned securely beneath a probing electron beam.
Was this how captured anomalies felt? Imprisoned within cages of such advanced technical construction as to be almost categorically without escape? Did they give pause to marvel at the unique features and configurations of each, individual cell? Or merely rage, indiscriminately, against their engineered restraints whilst the sharpest minds in the Federation filed by to observe and to study and dissect? Did they, even for an instant, know the contribution from their sacrifice to the advancement of technology within the ARU? Or was every waking moment consumed only by hatred towards their captors, minds locked to the singular aspiration of revenge?
Was revenge, too, the foremost thought for the crew of the Leviathan against their former captain, Zachariah Cobb? Cobb, the man who led charge from one quadrant to the next, course marked by victory upon victory against the deadly and the unknown. Cobb, the man who lured them further still, to the edge of charted space, fragile precipice the only separation from creeping darkness beyond. Cobb, who abandoned them in their most desperate hour, a sacrifice to the anomaly allowing the Leviathan to make perilous escape. He had wanted only to protect them, those men and women he had grown to care for and to respect, from this terrible foe. But still his desertion hung like an albatross, heavy and choking, around the old man’s weary neck.
But of course there had never been thought of dragging the Leviathan down with him. And after everything he had discovered on the other side of the Alini distortion - a world of chaos and destruction unlike anything the ARU had ever seen, each anomaly more terrifying and more internecine than the next - Zachariah’s only regret was that he had survived to escape the void at all.
The old man shifted on the cold and uncomfortable seat. “Aye, I know the penalty. And in truth I welcome it with open arms. I deserve it for leaving my people behind. And…I’m long overdue for the rest.”
But Admiral Roebuck, as always, was primed to leap to the defence of his former captain and lifelong friend.
“Of course, the information that Captain Cobb brought back with him from the Alini system will prove valuable to the ARU. We owe him gratitude for that, at least.”
The other grunted, yet no counter-protest came. The specifics of how Cobb had passed through the Alini distortion, the detailed reports on several new Abell-level anomalies, the personal logs of his successes and triumphs, his failures and deepest despairs, all of this had already been classified at the highest OMEGA level within the ARU. And now the captain’s own lips would be sealed on the horrors he had witnessed and the scars he would bear to the very end of his days.
“So be it then. Sentence reduced to six months. Solitary confinement at Hades. If it is a rest you want, Mr Cobb, then I shall see to it that you get nothing else.”
For his part, the old man merely shrugged. But as he was surrounded by an armed security team and plucked finally from the discomfort of that accursed metal chair, Cobb could not stop himself from wondering whether it would be pushing his luck to ask for a bottle of whiskey to be delivered to his cell.
…to be continued…
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