Jay's Epiphany

Jay was a little taken aback by Cassandra's rant, but it did make him pause for thought.
He mused for a few seconds before speaking.
"You're right..." he said humbly "I...I'm sorry...I'd been so intent on getting myself back to a Blue Dwarf before the Hymenopteran attack that I lost sight of anything else. 600 years is a long time to be focusing on one goal..."
He sat back on the cases of mushy peas.
"I guess...I blame myself for what happened back then, do you have any idea how it feels for to have hundreds of people under your command die?"
he was staring down at his feet at this point, Cass was seeing a side of Jay that didn't emerge often, underneath the bravado and the confidence there was doubt.
"We lost more than half the personell that day. Not just crew, but civilians too, children included. Hell, did you know that Katrina was pregnant when she died? I probably lost more than anyone, my wife, my sister, my unborn child....I lost EVERYTHING that day, but the thing that's been hammering away in the back of my mind the whole time was the fact that *I* let 500 people die."
He continued. "And it's not even the fact that I was in command at the time, any captain feels a responsibility for those under him, and any captain will accept that he will lose people. No...the fact is, that it was all because of HIM!"
"Who?" Cassandra asked
"My counterpart...'Evil Jay'. He wouldn't even exist if it wasn't for me! If I'd not allowed him to link with the hive, then none of this would have happened...."
"I wanted nothing more than to put right my mistake.....to give the people who died another chance. For 6 hundred years I've been trying to find a way to do that and have never even gotten close, now, here, is the closest I've ever got....."
"But...I never wanted it to be at the expense of innocents. You're right Cass, the huzards and the rodents, and whatever else is out there evolved here. To go back and change what happened would erase them from history, and
that would be make me no better than the bug's that took everything from me....I guess i just figured everyone wanted to go 'home'....I was blind to anything that fell outside of what happened that day...I'm sorry"
<Cass - care to respond?>
"As for heading for engineering" Jay said "That's all well and good....but we need that access key to do anything once we're down there. Honestly, i'm amazed that life support has lasted as long as this as it is....how about we split up? Some of us head down to engineering, and see what you can do...the rest of us go after that key.....we'll work out the rest from there..."

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