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Tick Tick Boom…Beacon of Hope Vessel…When the past doesn’t match the future or the present.

Posted Aug. 6, 2022, 12:08 p.m. by Civilian Jessa Novar (Child) (Kate O'Neill)

Posted by Civilian Jessa Novar (Child) in Tick Tick Boom…Beacon of Hope Vessel…When the past doesn’t match the future or the present.
Jessa held her breath as the invisible beam swirled around her and moved her along its invisible tether from one place to another. It was still disorienting to her to use this method of transport. What disoriented her more was the state of the ship. Jessa looked around and felt like she was sucker punched. The XO was correct. The crew of the Atlantis had not just broken into the Beacon of Hope but destroyed all hope of the ship ever returning home.

Panels hung from half-broken hinges. Wires and electronic components seeped out from dented walls and consoles and coalesced like mechanical pools of blood on the floor. A few wires occasionally sparked in dark recessed corners or from overhead. The once honey-colored wood accents bore scorched marks where they had been set afire and put out from environmental fire suppression systems before becoming fully ablaze. Cracked and shattered console screens had sent chunks and shards of crystal plaz all over the floor. It made each step in the area sound like Jessa was stepping on newly formed ice. Large black streaks from weapons fire crisscrossed the walls, floors, and ceiling carving into the metal as if claws had tried to rip their way out of the metal skin of the Beacon’s hull.

For a second Jessa froze as misinformation from Aimee Rian and the state of the shuttle began to morph into a distorted sense of reality. Her mind went blank feeling the weight of what she was about to do begin to crush her. Closing her eyes, she fell back into a memory from home to center herself and increase her resolve.

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In Class at the Educational Center for Guardians
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This room was like all the others in the school with glistening white marble floors and walls. It was austere with no decorations except for two flags that hung on the wall framing the large windows that looked out to a peaceful garden. There was no need for mats or other protective gear when one was Divine. The injections by the medical staff ensured that any nick, scrap, or broken bone was healed almost as fast as it was acquired. The injections were tailored so the students could feel the pain long enough to know they had failed but this resulted in no permanent injury. In battle, one had to push through pain so a taste now helped the students to make fewer mistakes in accruing them.

The only people in the room were rows of students dressed in white athletic robes and one man dressed in black from head to toe. The visuals of the room and its occupants were mesmerizing. It was meant to be that way. It invoked a feeling of purity and strength.

Adar Vyce’s voice boomed through the walls of the gymnasium the students had gathered in for their lesson. “The universe does not bestow beings anything. It is earned through struggle, pain, and conflict. Life is a struggle, conflict, and pain. Rise about the anguish in a battle to know a warrior of the light lets no obstacle prevent them from pursuing the course given to them. Those who have a will to live in the light will triumph in battle. No one can stop a warrior on the path of righteousness. So who can stop you.”

“You can’t stop me. So who is going to stop me,” Jessa yelled out the response in unison with the rest of her peers?

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Back on the Beacon of Hope
=======================

Jessa felt her uncertainty and fear associated with this endeavor solidifying into an angry resolve. She had slipped into a dazed moment but the voice of Aimee Rian snapped her back to reality. Tapping her chest she activated the comm badge the XO and Rian had given her. =/\=Understood four minutes and mark =/\= she replied activating the timer on the watch they had given her.

There was no going back now. “Defensive mode,” she called out as she walked the length of the ship. These people had no idea what they had done. Ian and the others were so concerned about giving justice to the three Elders in the brig while Rian and her group seemed just as intent on giving them their freedom. No one realized that the key to power in the Union was technology. Nothing was going to be able to stop Jessa when she unleashed the Draconian measures the Galactic Union used to ensure peace and harmony.

Moving down the stair to their sleeping quarters, Jessa stepped around the broken bottles of liquid and scattered nutrient packs. She was both on a mission of her own and for Aimee Rian. Luckily the two objectives seemed to meld together that no one would notice.

Walking to her bunk she bit her lip seeing the carnage from the battle with Styxx and Vasher. Nothing was left in her bunk and the few non-personal items left were scattered into disarray. Her mattress was still stained in parts even though cleaning bots continued to scrub and try to eliminate the stains from the opened nutrient packets that had been opened on it. Picking up a small sachel, Jessa slid the globe into it and around her body. Kneeling down to the floor she pressed her hand onto one of the tiles engaging a biometric lock. It glowed red for a second before turning a soft blue. The tile slid back revealing a secret smuggling-type compartment. Inside she retrieved a small rectangular box and four discs that were each two inches deep and four inches across. Placing it on her arm, Jessa felt it suction to her skin and then ripple. In a matter of seconds, the disc began to spew out discs that overlapped and replicated until she was encased in thick silvery armor. It concealed any identifying feature making her look automated and not human. Opening a panel on one arm she emptied the contents of the rectangular box into a compartment. On the other arm, she slid in the three remaining discs.

Anger coursed through her body at everyone as she thought about the last few days. She was mad that the Elders had messed up the mission enough to force her to rescue them. She was mad at the counter-intelligence team for sending her alone or involving her when Jessa was sure they could have released the Elders without her help. She was mad at Rinker and Ian for trying to trick her into believing a version of reality that didn’t exist. Jessa saw the state of the Beacon of Hope and while she did not initially believe Aimee Rian that the command staff had ordered its ransacking, looking around, Jessa could not deny what she saw. Most of all she was furious with herself for leaving Cildar without talking to Pellan.

Her interactions with the crew of the Altantis would result at least in the Altar of Cleansing if not her own death; however, pain and suffering were the prices for enlightenment. She was just one being among trillions of trillions. They had come here looking for the Prism of Life. Returning the Prism would ensure the path of enlightenment would spread across the cosmo to every living being. It was a worthy goal and one worth sacrificing her life for. Absently she reached down and touched the small satchel that housed the glass globe she stole from Aimee’s office. It felt wrong to know she was going to deceive everyone in her life from the Atlantis crew to the Galactic Union but this was the only choice she had. Telling her people that she had found it would ensure a rescue mission. The Elders would not leave the ship without it but had no idea what it actually looked like. That was why the small globe she stole would buy her passage off the Altantis if the Elders decided to leave her behind. The crew of the Atlantis had no idea that the Prism was the reason the Galactic Union was about to show up on their doorstep so they would not find it on the ship before she did at a later time. No matter what happened now though the Union had finally found the resting place for the one thing they had sought for millennia.


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