Raven Knight

Chapter 24 - The Ultimate Connection

9th June 2311 03:12 EST - There was such relief from Jason when the final procedure to cleanse his body of the Vorporin toxins was complete. It felt intrusive and extremely uncomfortable. Despite how uncomfortable the procedure was, pride engulfed him after seeing the toxicology reports and the subsequent comments from the doctors about 'how did he survive?'

The repairs to his shoulder would take a couple of months to heal fully. With his shoulder bone shattered and the muscles and tendons virtually obliterated, the regrowing and rehabilitation of the various parts would require a considerable amount of patience.

As he lay on his hospital bed, stretching his arm as much as he could to gain some ease of movement, it had given him time to reflect. He hadn't seen Voshtek K'Or, the Ceti Judicator, since their rescue. Jason had hoped he had done enough to keep Voshtek away from the wrong parties. Hopefully, the intelligence that Voshtek was willing to offer would shed some light on the devastating news about the start of the war. That news would then place pressure on the relevant parties and cause someone, whether mid-level or higher up within the conspiracy, to make a mistake.

As a stinging pain shot all the way up his arm, Jason remembered that at this point, there was little he would be able to do about it.

At least two months out of an illegitimate war in which thousands of people on both sides were losing their lives daily brought a sense of dread to Jason's stomach.

He thought back to when he initially joined the war effort. Wanting to make a name for himself, to prove he was a great warrior like his father, to make an impact in this war. He wished he had listened to his father before this all started. Everything Yulrian Scharn had said to Jason was true. Jason had cheated death a few times now, encountered far superior alien forces, only to find out that he was potentially fighting for the enemy.

Only one thing mattered now, his fellow soldiers around him. This war had taken far too many of them already, and while they all thought that they were being patriots and defending their homes, in truth they were the aggressors and fighting an unjust war.

Jason sighed. If there was one thing he could not bear was to hear that his long term friend Aurora Pendergast was dead or even worse Jacqueline Donnelly had met her fate. Yet at this time there was nothing he could do but to wait for the bone, muscle, and tissue reproduction of his shoulder to finish without complications.

He smiled as the thoughts of Donnelly flooded his mind. Her long fine dusty brown hair, her soft caring brown eyes, her sweet but devilish cheeky smile, how her soft dimples gracefully appeared when her lips parted as her infectious smile spread. Her energy and her spirit were like none other he had ever met before. Her determination and devotion to do what she felt was right and her caring but charismatic spirit were something Jason longed to be around. Donnelly had made it clear that a relationship between them was out of the question and her logic made sense, they had too many enemies on both sides of the war to ever be safe. This didn't deter Jason from wanting to absorb her aura.

Hearing her voice on Vidar had been nothing less than a welcome miracle. To hear her calm but the assertive voice would have been a perfect last moment of his life, instead though it had given him a new sense of purpose and vigour.

His arm will heal, his health will be restored and nothing would stop him from bringing justice to those responsible for the atrocities caused before and during the war.

"Lieutenant Scharn." a voice beside him broke his trance.

Turning he saw one of the staff nurses on duty quickly looking over his vitals. With a flick of her hand, various statistics and graphs appeared floating in front of her. Not looking at Jason she spun her hand around, twisting and turning to examine the results before flicking her hand once more to dismiss them.