Contemplations of Matricide
Posted on Thu Sep 21st, 2023 @ 3:02am by Lieutenant Jin-soo Tae
1,037 words; about a 5 minute read
Mission:
Untested
Location: Museum of Interstellar Anthropology, San Francisco, Earth
Timeline: Day -1, 1650
It has been approximately three years since Jin-soo stepped foot on Earth, over five since she’s been to the city of San Francisco. She never made it a habit of visiting this rock floating in the midst of an ever expanding void, even if to some degree this was home. There simply was too much to do within the eternal starfield for her to confine herself in such a way, though perhaps, that was only the cope she doped her mind on as she wandered the expanding halls of this exhibition. “Relics from a Shattered World”, read the signs that adorned the entrance. She didn’t choose this exhibit, she didn’t even have a choice in this being the meeting locale, yet here she was, walking at the pace of a Bolian skink down these halls with her hands folded behind her back, pretending to give a damn.
The Museum of Interstellar Anthropology was established over a century ago in the heart of San Francisco as a monument to the ever growing knowledge the Federation had accumulated on sentient beings and their imprint upon this universe. Over the past decades since the devastating fallout of the Dominion War, it has been refurbished into a cultural centre for many of these sentients. Decorated and beautified with colours and symbols that signify unity and prosperity across one thousand Federation member states, the museum has become a welcoming destination for the diverse residents of the city to visit. Yet despite these changes, this particular exhibit remained stoic, cold, and apathetic in its display of debris wrestled from the heart of a dead sun that now lay grotesque, devouring what remained of a once proud rival.
Her pace quickened as she caught her query from the corner of her eye, who just moments prior was camouflaged by an unflinching troop of Vulcan school children on an outing. A woman of middle age, dark brown hair with a slight cadence of grey, a figure distinguished by an equally colourless flag officer’s uniform imposed only by a singular dash of red from an undershirt. It was her mother, someone with whom she held mixed emotions for like every child of a demanding but distant parent, though these past years have seen Jin-soo withdrawn more than ever before.
“Commodore,” She whispered subtly as she found her place just two paces behind her mother’s right side.
They’ve taken to addressing one another by rank at this point, though it was her parent who began doing so first when Jin-soo completed her four year stint at the Academy. She’d only started doing so herself after the completion of her first assignment, when it became abundantly clear that any hopes of rebuilding lost mother-child bond was nothing but forlorn. Now all they were were progenitor and scion, superior and inferior, the one who upholds legacy and the one expected to carry it, as if there was nothing else that came to define who they are. It’s not that she cared though--or at least that’s what she’s been telling herself over the past years--things are the way they are for reasons beyond one’s own comprehension and she figured long ago that the only reason her mother ever decided on having children was so someone may carry their family name. As for how she felt being the one chosen for this task, now that her brother was no longer in the running, she has yet to wrap her mind around it.
“Ah Lieutenant, you came.” The Commodore finally spoke without offering a single, acknowledging gaze.
“Yes.” She answered coolly.
“Nothing more to say? Seems you are learning after all.”
Her eyebrows crossed. When did her mother even become like this? The detached attitude, the lukewarm reception, and the dismissive diction. Jin-soo couldn’t remember, maybe this was how she always was.
“Have you been back to the estate?” The Commodore asked as she stepped away from the current display, making her way to the next.
“No, not yet.” Jin-soo replied, diligently following behind her steps.
“Do you plan to?”
“No.”
“Good, I wouldn’t bother.”
They stopped in front of something that featured nothing more than several slabs of dark stone, the plaque denoting the stones being pieces of an ancient temple. Jin-soo paid them hardly any mind, her gaze aimed blankly at the copper coloured walls just behind.
“So your new CO, have you read his file?” The Commodore asked.
“Yes.”
“And what do you think?”
“Nothing out of the ordinary.”
“Then you haven’t truly read his file.”
She elected not to answer. Jin-soo knew what was coming, every fibre of her being hated what was coming.
“Here.” The Commodore reached into her jacket and pulled forth a PADD, grey and sleek, before handing it to her daughter. “You should study it, know who you are dealing with.”
She reluctantly accepted the PADD, her eyebrows curling into a disdainful glare. It was classified information no doubt, matters privy only to the everwatchful eye of SFI. Jin-soo shouldn’t have this, no one should have something like this, yet every time she began a new assignment, such a thing always found itself in her hands. She wanted to report this, but betrayal was never in her nature, even if it made her an accessory to corruption. Giving her surrounding a careful gaze, she quickly slid the PADD into her uniform jacket.
“Is that all? May I go?”
“You may.”
She gave her mother one final look, her eyebrows still in the shape of that scornful glare. Not once through their entire exchange did this monolith of absolute parental authority give any sign of affection, any hint of the fact that she was proud of what her daughter had achieved in her five years within the service. There was so much she wanted to say, yet the words never coalesced. It would be pointless either way, making a scene was always pointless. With a sharp turn, she disappeared from the exhibit, the echoes of her boots against the metallic floor being the only reminiscence of her time spent in a futile chase for something that was never her’s.
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