Aedon Gavin Montrose
The Organization
Enjoying a well-aged bottle of scotch...
Posts: 356 
Affiliation: "Veritas" Crew
Traffic Light: Yellow
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Post by Aedon Gavin Montrose on Mar 14, 2022 19:58:15 GMT -8
Memoirs of Montrose: The "Veritas"- Principal Author: Aedon Gavin Montrose
- Who can post on this thread: Principal Author only
- I want to receive critical responses: Feel free to DM with any critiques or accolades.
- I will be using standard Universe rules here (e.g. - canon-only, fleet limits, etc.): Yes.
Location: Skip One in Wild Space, the Crow's Nest and its hangar. Synopsis: Aedon sets foot on the "Veritas" for the first time since the horrible attack from the Syndicate that killed nearly his entire crew. In the year since, the ship had been stripped down and defaced by members of the Syndicate; but, once that faction had been eradicated by Aedon and his associates, Castle had taken the time to work with Na'me He're to bring the ship back to its former glory. For months, the ship sat unused; as though it were the haunted, hushed casket of the fallen crew. And Aedon will likely never recall the reason why he decided to set foot on the deck plating of this mausoleum of memories, but, here he is...
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Aedon Gavin Montrose
The Organization
Enjoying a well-aged bottle of scotch...
Posts: 356
Affiliation: "Veritas" Crew
Traffic Light: Yellow
|
Post by Aedon Gavin Montrose on Mar 15, 2022 19:52:35 GMT -8
I had stood - right there, in just that spot - probably a hundred times before; the slack plate for the loading ramp to my Consular-class cruiser, staring up into the ventral portion of my ship like it was the belly of the beast. I knew what waited there; every bolt, rivet, and piece of deck plating that the "Veritas" consisted of. But it was the invisible, intangible web that I was afraid to get caught in. Hundreds upon thousands of memories from every member of my crew that had been so unceremoniously blinked out of existence by that bastard, Vosh Eris, and his kriffing Syndicate.
If I could bring that bitch of a kath hound back to life a hundred times over, I'd gladly riddle him with holes in a million different ways and watch him bleed out all over that casino floor with glee every single time.
That was the one thing that no one wanted to say about revenge: once you've carried it out, once you've finally found vindication and closed that particular door, it stayed slammed shut. And, more often than not, you would manage to shut yourself out in the dark and the damp, unable to experience that emotional high that you found when you were vindicated. I mean, sure, the sleemo was dead. I could rest in the knowledge that he wouldn't be around to gloat about his "glorious empire" or let out that ridiculous laugh he chortled out. The fact that he was no longer wasting precious oxygen on this Skip was enough for me to sleep slightly better at night. But, still, in those faintest of hours, that's when I felt like I hadn't made him suffer enough. That was when I wish I could hold his face in front of a capture of every single one of them, burn their image into his brain with a bolt from my blaster, again and again.
But, even that wouldn't be enough, I don't think. I almost wish I would have let him live; shoved him in a cell and strapped him to a chair hooked to a dozen different electrodes and torture devices, forcing him to watch hours upon hours of footage of the lives he had ended. All of their happiest moments that they would never get to live again. And the moment the chair's instruments would have detected a rise in his endorphins or picked up that he was deriving pleasure from seeing their faces, it could have sent a few thousand volts flying through him and remind him that he didn't get to feel good about ending their lives.
But I can't continue to live in some kind of fantasy world like that. Instead, I was alone, staring up into the belly of my own ship, desperately trying to fight off the guilt and the pain from failing my crew. I felt like...the moment I stepped onto that boat, their ghosts would chase me off - or chase me down. That would have almost been preferable to having to live each and every day with the knowledge that they all put their trust in me - as their Captain and their leader - and that trust was what got them killed. Na'me tried to comfort me...told me over and over again "You can't control the evil deeds committed by the evilest of men." It didn't matter. What mattered were the facts. They were dead. And I could have prevented it, if not for my karking pride. Or, maybe it wouldn't have changed anything at all.
Regardless of any epiphany I was sure to come across on that kick-plate, I was tired of my demons getting the better of me. Something in me made that first step that day. And the climb was...terrible. Every step up that ramp, and it felt like my legs were getting weighed down by slab after slab of duracrete.
{To Be Continued}
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