Everlasting - end

 

Caroline watched the last ship burning with a sense of relief washing over her. They had done it, freedom beckoned, and they could finally go home.

Home.

She tried to remember the last place she had called home that had not been a birth on a warship. Maybe it was her parent’s house back on Shire but she had not been there in years. Her thoughts turned to her mother and the sister she hadn’t seen in fifteen years of the garden, the trees blowing in the wind that was like a sigh across the water meadows.
   She wanted to go home now and she wanted to take Jonathan with her. She felt the beginnings of a smile touch the edge of her lips and despite her professionalism ordering it to stop she let it spread quickly.

“Caroline, I’m sorry.” The familiar voice of The Watcher returned now but it was lacking its usual sting of smug arrogance and was leaden instead with a thick sadness. “I tried to warn you, tried to protect you but… I have failed and your actions and choices meant this future was inevitable.”

There was a pause before his voice turned to spiteful bitterness “You should have come with men. You were supposed to chose me not him.”
“What do you mean? What was inevitable?”
Her plea was met with stony silence. Suddenly her heart was racing as she started trying to look for something, anything she might have overlooked or missed.

“Jonathan, I need a fall sensor sweep of the area. Something feels wrong.”

“Yes Captain.” He ran over to the sensor station and began following her orders, his brow furrowed in thought and she could see him using his fighter pilot training to look for anomalies beyond the sensor’s scopes.

“Helm, bring us to point seven five and increase speed.” She did not know what The Watcher had meant but she did not want to find out. She had to get her crew to safety, they ahd been through too much to lose it all now.
“Anything on sensors?”
“No Captain.” Jonathan was staring intently at the screen desperately searching for something, anything when suddenly his eyes fixed on something and widened. “Captain, enemy ship is powering up engines, they’re moving for an intercept course.”

“Gunnery control, target that ship.”
“Yes Captain!”

Caroline whirled around again to watch the approaching derelict, great holes were already rent in the side of the hull and burning atmosphere spilled from unseen ruptures. The impact of the firepower was doing nothing to slow her approach. It looked like the N’kell had forgone shields and were piling all of their power into the engines to try and ram the Indomitable.

“Helm, hard to port. That should bring us clear.”

“Aye Captain.”

It was too late though, and her planned timely manoeuvre failed to escape the sudden burst of speed from the hulk that slammed into the hull of Indomitable with a sickening crash and tearing noise.

“Shields collapsing!” Ethan reported clinging to his consul “hull breaches on all decks!”

“Helm hard over! Get us off this thing.”

She turned to look at Jonathan, his eyes filled with concern and fear but his features set in a steely resistance.  She felt a smile touch her lips and she caught his eye before mouthing “It will be ok.”
Her heart skipped a beat when she saw him smile slightly and she felt herself relax from stress and focus on what needed to be done.
“Ethan, what state are ---”

She never finished the sentence as a further impact caused part of the ceiling to collapse and a great medal support girder fell across her pelvis and she felt the bones shattered like a dinner plate against the wall. The pain that lanced through her was indescribable and she heard herself scream. Within seconds Jonathan was at her side attempting to lift the metal from her, his face flushed scarlet with the effort and his muscles straining.
   She heard Ethan take over command issuing orders and assessing damage. She wanted to bite out at Jonathan to do his duty as First Officer, save the ship and look after the crew but the pain was so intense she could not think clearly and all she managed was a sharp “Leave it!” Her left hand lanced out and grabbed his wrist and squeezed hard as she could.
Lieutenant Carroll rushed up carrying the field medic box and Caroline felt a slight pin prick in her shoulder followed by a wash of cold through her body that doused the fires f pain and she began to relax again.
“Jonathon, you need to get everyone off, get them to safety.” He voice was dry and raspy but she squeezed his hand tighter. “Promise me.”

He kept a steady stare at her but did not reply.

“Captain” Ethan knelt beside her, his features similarly softened as he addressed them both. “The breaches can no longer be contained and reports from the engines are not good. We could be looking at a reactor breach. Can I give the order?”

Without hesitation Caroline nodded and Ethan charged off shouting fresh orders at the bridge crew who sprang into an energised response passing instructions. She was proud of them, she had trained them well for situations like this.
“Can we move her?” Jonathan looked over to Carroll who had just finished a medical scan  and was in the midst of putting the scanner back in the box. Her expression was grim and she almost unnoticibly shook her head but Caroline had seen it and it confirmed her thoughts and fears. She sighed and even through the pain killers her chest burst into flames again. She struggled to look at the medic and with an immense effort managed to croak, “I’m dying aren’t I?”
“Captain, I –“

Caroline closed her eyes and shook her head signalling Carroll didn’t need to speak and instead turned to Jonathan. She felt her heart swell fade into the pain at the thought of losing him which gripped her, she could never imagine not seeing him again, growing old with him, taking him home to Shire, sitting under the autumnal trees or the light in those blue eyes that appeared every time he saw her. She had had such great plans for the future, of spending time with this man and now they were all laying shattered in her mind with only one fate ahead for them.

“Freya” her voice was almost a a whisper “you have to go. Leave me here.”

“You know I can’t.” he squeezed her hand tighter and she could see tears welling up in his eyes whilst his voice fought back the grief.

“You will, you have to get the crew to safety. They look to you Captain.”

The ship shook again and more debris fell from the ceiling landing around the emptying crew pits. Jonathan turned to Ethan and called over the din and confusion. “Abandon ship, get them to the Swiftsure!”

“Yes Commander.”

“Your turn. You must leave me.” She tried to put as much force into her voice as she could but he was unmoved.

“Would you leave me if our positions were swapped?”

“To do my duty? To save the crew? Because you begged me to? Yes… What happened to that cocksure pilot who was always diving into trouble? I haven’t got long left. I don’t want our last conversation to be an argument.”

He half laughed “Like our first?”

Through the pain and growing darkness she laughed remembering the docking bay, Captain Wright insisting that they would work well together. She had been right though.

“I love you.” He whispered and she could see the pain and emotional torment that ravaged him.

“You know I love you too which is why I can’t let you die here with me. GO now before it is too late.”

He lent over and she felt his lisps on her cheeks, the soft prickle of his stubble and warm moisture of his tears. She bit back her own and squeezed his hand.

“Go… leave me. Be the best man you can be…”

She watched him stand noticeably reluctantly letting go of her hand and take a slow step backwards. She felt another sharp pain in her arm as Carroll gave her another dose of painkillers.

“How long?” she whispered to the medic.

“Hard to say Captain but not long.”

“Get him out of here, you’ve done all you can.”

Carroll nodded and grabbed Jonathan’s arm and despite her smaller stature gave him a solid push towards the door where Ethan was stood anxiously.

Her heart breaking she turned to look at the starfield, the glare of the system’s sun catching the edges of her vision as great golden arms stretched out in flares of erupting gas. She took a deep painful breath and exhaled in a long sigh.

Her mind was clear of all the usual chatter and life stresses, reports that needed filing, rotas, petty politics and all the rest of the nonsense. There was only her and her most important thoughts. She closed her eyes and she was under the autumnal leaves falling from the tall oak trees, the soft smell of foliage and moss underfoot as the sunset’s last warmth touching her cheek.

“Caroline?”
A familiar voice cut through the scene’s serenity and there he was. Jonathan was wearing dress uniform, his boots a mirror shine, his trousers pressed into fine creases and his three awards shined on his breast.

   Caroline looked into his eyes and saw the warmth and love, the soft smile that touched his lips, the one he reserved only for her. She stepped towards him and fell into his arms pressing her head against his chest and squeezing him tight feeling his arms wrap around her around her and hold her as tightly.

She opened her eyes and the woodlands scene had dissolved into a candle lit ballroom, he took her hand and rested his other hand on her back as they started to slow dance to the gentle piano music in the background.

“I will always love you.” He said.

She felt her heart swell with a happiness she could now fully embrace and she allowed herself to grin int a way she had not in almost two decades and her walls disintergrated and she rested her head on his shoulder again.

“I will never leave you.” She whispered “I will always be at your sides and in your heart.”

She closed her eyes and listened to the music slowly die away and all faded to black.