Sudden Doubt

Posted on 06 Mar 2019 @ 10:01am by Lieutenant Colonel Cassandra Blackburn

591 words; about a 3 minute read

Mission: Empty Creche
Location: Officers Quarters
Timeline: ED2

ON:
Blackburn stood in the shower in her quarters, her hand outstretched against the frame of the cubical to support her. She had returned to her quarters in an almost jovial mood after needling the cadet, but now doubt started to wash over her as well as the water. She didn’t move as she let her mind ran away with itself. If Jody Scott had not felt closure when he killed Marshall, would she when she got Fursman?

She stepped out, dried and started to dress, putting on a newly replicated set of combat uniform. The feeling of doubt would not go away. She had put her entire being into this one objective – vengeance – and the closure it would surely deliver. Could her entire premise be wrong? It scared her.

She finished lacing her boots and sat down in front of the mirror, looking back at herself in the black vest top worn under the combat jacket. She had lost weight - a pale and gaunt face looked back at her. Her hair had also grown longer, and it was now in danger of touching her shoulders. As she stared at herself she continued to reflect. She had lost so much in the preceding years; her friends, her family, her career, her self-respect. She had run and been caught and run again. Running didn’t work so she’d chosen to fight, surely that would work? She had been manoeuvred into staying on this ship and then chosen to stay when she could have left. She hated the ship, a physical representation of everything that had happened. Why had she stayed? She could answer that one: it was to get to Fursman. To get the closure. Was this all a mistake?

She picked up a small device and ran it slowly around the base of her skull, allowing it to cut her black, straggled hair back to an acceptably cropped length. She felt thin fibres fell onto her shoulders and her legs as she maintained eye contact with herself. What if killing him didn’t work? What if she didn’t get the closure she so desperately wanted? What if she was condemned to be broken like this forever?

Her objective had been so clear for so long but now it seemed muddled. She wasn’t sure what to do. Part of her was incredulous that such a simple conversation with a cadet had thrown her completely. She placed the device back on the table and brushed off the hair on her shoulders with her hand, glancing for a moment at the freshly repaired wound on her arm as she did so.

No. She suddenly thought decisively. Scott was wrong. She would relentlessly pursue her objective and come out of the other side. After all, what choice did she have? She hadn’t had any real control over her choices for so long, so she didn’t have one now. May as well continue.

She stood and put her jacket on, the new silver oak leaves sparkling as she did so. She presented herself in the mirror, looking like a Marine Officer for the first time in nearly three years. No, she repeated to herself. She would hunt Fursman down and then she would be free. No room for doubt. No hesitation.

She left her quarters to head to the Marine decks. She told herself to leave the doubt behind. It went with her.

OFF

OOC: Sorry for the long absence in posting, RL got in the way a bit.

 

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