Dislaimer: I don't own Star Trek or its characters, only my original ideas.
Note: I'm back! This started out as an apology for taking so long to update The Surprises of Captain Kirk (I have a long chapter I'm working on for that too), and it somehow turned into its own thing. I know in TSoCK I said that Starfleet covered up the Tarsus event, but I kept wondering what if they televised what happened? How would people react? This was the result. Either way, I hope you enjoy, and keep a lookout for more updates on my works from me soon!
Frank wasn't quite sure what made him pause on the channel that he did. Maybe it was the grim looks on the reporters' faces. Maybe it was the headline below them full of words like 'genocide' and 'massacre'. Or maybe it was the dim recollection ringing in the back of his brain at the word Tarsus.
Whatever the reason, his fingers halted just before hitting the button to change the channel again, and he slowly lowered the remote. A half empty beer can cooled the fingers of his other hand, and his eyes were locked inexplicably to the screen.
Why did he recognize the name Tarsus?
"The following is footage taken from the security cameras in the colony depicting some of the events that occurred during the massacre. As a warning, some of this imagery is quite graphic, so if there are children in the room or you are sensitive to violence, please change the channel or look away."
There was a moment of pause from the reporters, then their screen cut to what was clearly security footage of the colony. There were hundreds of people gathered around a short, circular wooden stage in the center of the town square, all watching as a man stepped forward.
"Fellow colonists of Tarsus," he began, voice deep but not jarringly so - almost too soothing in its cadence, if anything. "I'm sure you've noticed by now that food is becoming scarcer. Maybe even a few of the most observant among you have even noticed the Blight - the fungus eating away at our crops."
Murmuring broke out as the crowd turned to their family, friends, and neighbors. There were several still points in the sudden flurry of motion, people who were still watching the stage rather than turning to each other, Frank noted absently. The man - Governor Kodos, he belatedly realized, as he took another sip of beer - let them chatter for awhile before he raised a hand. Silence fell almost instantly.
"Now, now. I am well aware that this is concerning news, especially given Starfleet's lack of response to our requests for aide. However there is no reason to worry, for I have managed to devise a solution!" His arms were now out as if preparing to embrace the entire colony, and expectant silence met his words. "See, if we can manage to be more efficient with what food we have, then I have found a way that we can make it twice as long without Starfleet's help. I have spent months studying and researching - ever since the Blight was first discovered among the crops."
Kodos had begun moving, slowly walking from one side of the stage to the other, looking out over the sea of faces just below him. Behind him, the line of guards looked as stern as ever, motionless, and apparently there for show rather than the fear of any real threat, given how comfortable the Governor looked. As he spoke, his eyes began to light up with passion for his cause, and his demeanor became even more charismatic than it had before.
Frank could see, even through two sets of screens, why so many in the audience were leaning in, as if afraid of missing a single word. The man wore confidence like a second skin, and the passion in his eyes was enough to move anyone to believe he could save them before they even needed to be saved. It was easy to want to hear more, to trust him, when he seemed so clearly to know what he was doing. Which made his next statements all the more chilling.
"See, to do my research I looked at all sorts of things. Fungicides, pesticides, everything to see if the Blight could be killed. When that proved fruitless, I looked for an alternative solution. If I couldn't cure the food, maybe the answer was with the people. So I looked at genetics, aptitude tests, sociability, everything. And do you know what wonderful news I found?"
He paused in the middle of the stage, looking like someone whose life dream had just been realized. There was a palpable tension to the crowd now, as more and more of them were becoming unsettled by Kodos's words. The faintest whispering murmurs were picking up here and there, and there was more visible movement at the edges of the cluster of people.
Frank's hand around his beer can tightened, denting the metal. Why did he have such a bad feeling about this broadcast? Where had he heard the name Tarsus before? It was lingering in the back of his head, he knew it, but between the scenes on the screen and the alcohol in his system, it was impossible for him to recall where he'd heard it before.
"The results quite clearly showed one solid solution to our problem." Kodos paused in his words, eyes sweeping across the crowd before him, eyes fervent with belief and dedication. "I won't bore you with the numbers and statistics of it all, so to put it simply, half of the colony is better suited to life than the other. Therefore, to protect the more deserving half, I have drawn up a list of the second. They will be taken for elimination at once, and the colony can prosper until Starfleet arrives or we can replant!"
There were screams from the crowd now, and several people tried running. The guards stepped forward from behind Kodos, phasers suddenly in their hands as they moved towards the people below. Some of the runners were ignored entirely, while the guards took off after some of the others, returning minutes later at a stroll. The square was in pandemonium, people moving everywhere, trying to pass each other, shield loved ones, run.
A flash of gold moving along the bottom of the screen caught Frank's eye, the color pinging along with the word Tarsus in the back of his mind, but it was gone before he could see what or who it belonged to.
An explosion somewhere out of sight shook the camera, and the screen cut back to the reporters who looked very pale. One of them opened and closed her mouth, before muttering quietly that she couldn't do this, standing up and leaving the table. Another woman at the table took over, clearing her throat and wetting her lips before speaking.
"What you just witnessed was Governor Kodos's orders of execution. His claims that Starfleet had ignored the issue were falsified, as it was revealed in the aftermath that he had set up a jamming device that blocked all information from leaving the planet. It had been intentionally designed to not show anything out of the ordinary to anyone on planet or looking in from the outside"
The reporters glanced down at the notes in front of them, before one blanched and promptly walked off the screen. Frank shifted uneasily in his armchair as he waited for the broadcast to continue.
"What we will next show you are some scenes of what occurred over the next - the next year as the remaining colonists fought for survival, either by evading what had become Kodos's militia or by - by joining it. Again, viewer discretion is advised, as the footage will be rather . . . graphic."
The man finished speaking, and there was another short pause before the screen switched again, this time showing footage of one of the food plots, rather than the town square. Even here, the Blight was visible. Bright purple streaks of branching fungus winding their way up the stalks of the crops, bursting into something resembling mushrooms here or there, as it snakes its way even across the ground. Short gusts of wind showed that even the slightest movement of the growths sent their spores falling in clouds from the mushrooms' gills, and Frank could easily see how it would be difficult to move among them without announcing your presence to the entire surrounding area. Not to mention it would have to be hell on the lungs, if the spores were as toxic as the growth looked.
Nonetheless, a shadow slowly grew more apparent among the crops, and Frank realized that it was a person slinking their way through the plants, somehow avoiding disturbing the fungus surrounding them. They reached the edge of the field and paused, looking around warily at their surroundings.
After several moments of being motionless, they crept forward, and it was easier to see now that the person was a young boy about ten years old. His dark hair was scuffled and unkempt, and he looked to be a little lankier than was healthy for a kid his age. Nonetheless, the slight muscle in his frame was evident as he moved.
Then, without warning, the sudden sounds of phaser-fire went off. Most of the blasts landed in the crops, sending up cloying puffs of spores here and there, but a few landed frighteningly close to the child. The boy himself tensed, jolting from a hunched over, slinking crouch to fully upright as he spun to race back into the crops.
As soon as he reached the edge though, a figure dressed in the same guard's uniform as from the previous clip sprinted on-screen, tackling the boy to the ground. Instantly the boy began thrashing, clawing at the soldier's face with his hands, snapping his knees up and his elbows out, snapping his teeth at whatever part of the soldier was close enough to potentially get caught between them.
The look in his eyes was a pure, terrified and cornered rage. It was a look Frank had never seen on another human being before, and it unsettled him to see it on a child the boy's age. Despite the boy's struggle though, the guard was much larger and heavier, and soon he was restrained enough for the guard to grab their phaser from where it had fallen during the struggle.
"By order of Governor Kodos," the soldier began, voice too muffled by their helmet to determine much of their identity, as they twisted the phaser to point at the boy beneath them, "you - "
They abruptly cut off as a new figure crashed into them from the side. Together they fell away from the boy on the ground, rolling into the edge of the crops, just inches away from a cluster of mushrooms. The boy on the ground scrambled to his feet, eyes wide, for the first time looking young and uncertain.
"Run Tommy!" The newcomer - a slightly older boy, a teen likely - was panting, struggling to pin the guard on the ground. "Get out of here, now!"
"But JT - " the boy stuttered in protest, before the older one turned a blazing glare on him.
"Now!"
Without another word of protest, the boy took off running into the field, clouds of spores bursting into the air in his wake. However the brief lapse of attention on the newcomer's part had given just enough of a window of opportunity for the guard to free their arms, and they lashed out at the teen.
Dodging the blow with a curse, the teen rapidly returned his attention to the soldier beneath him, lips lifted into a snarl, eyes colder than snow - even through the screen. But that wasn't what caused Frank to nearly drop his can of beer.
Tarsus. That was why the name kept tapping at his memory. That was why his eyes were caught by that flash of gold earlier in the broadcast. He knew those eyes.
The boy on screen was James Tiberius Kirk.
It clearly wasn't the Jimmy that he'd known though, because that version of the kid had never looked like this. He'd never bared his teeth like he'd challenged Death itself to a fistfight and won, like he was willing to do any and everything to win a fight. His eyes had never looked so dead and yet lit with the fury of living all at once before.
The guard swung a fist towards Jimmy's face, and the boy leaned right. The shift in weight was just enough for the soldier to swing their combined weight in that direction though, rolling them so that they ended up with the upper hand, pinning the teenager below them with their weight. They were now right next to the mushrooms, and both combatants seemed to be acutely aware of them, and trying to avoid touching them even despite their fight.
There was a scuffle, where it was too difficult to tell what was happening due to the camera angle. However after several tense moments, the soldier grunted with the weight of what Frank assumed was a punch, pausing just long enough for Jimmy to get the upper hand.
Reaching his free hand out blindly, Jimmy's hand closed on a jagged rock the size of his fist. He swung it up, bashing it against the side of the guard's head. The hard sides of the helmet caught most of the blow, but it was still apparently enough to stun the guard, as their grip on Jimmy loosened.
Fast as thought, the boy slipped out from under them and pinned the soldier to the ground on their stomach. He knocked the rock against their head again, cracking the helmet. He was lifting the stone for another blow when the soldier below him heaved upward, trying to get free. Jimmy was forced to drop the rock to hold the guard down with both hands, and after several seconds, Frank noticed a sudden increase in the tension of Jimmy's shoulders, even if he couldn't see the boy's face.
Jimmy suddenly removed his hands from pinning the guard's shoulders to suddenly grab the sides of their helmet. Frank suddenly remembered that they were right next to the patch of bright purple, sickly looking mushrooms, and he figured out Jimmy's new plan just before he put it into action.
The boy on screen forcibly lifted the soldier's face up, using the movement to shift the pair of them a little further to the right, before slamming their face down on the ground, helmet and all. There was the sound of cracking glass, likely from the opaque front of the helmet, Frank realized, a short yell, and a cloud of spores bursting into the air around the pair.
The guard began struggling anew, but the teenager had the clear advantage here, as the guard's struggling seemed weaker this time. He lifted the soldier's head again, bashing it against the ground, and then one more time, and again, sending up thick clouds of spores each time, before diving off the guard and running several yards away.
He began frantically rolling in the dust and grass, scrubbing his hands over his clothes and hair, before finally rolling up to his hands and knees and crawling away from the spot, heaving for air. Had he not been breathing while fighting the guard at the end? Frank watched as the teenager eyed the guard warily, even as he caught his breath, and it was soon clear just why he had done his best to rid himself of spores and get away, as Frank followed his gaze.
Over by the infected crops, the guard had rolled over onto their back and was clawing at their shattered helmet. Finally they managed to get the strap free, and they flung it way, grasping at their throat frantically. The guard was a woman, her dark hair askew and her brown eyes wild as she stared in terror at Jimmy, eyes pleading. Her pale face was covered in scarlet scratches from the broken glass of her mask, but most startling were the dark purple, almost-black veins creeping across her face stemming from her eyes and mouth.
The Blight. This what why the boys had been so careful, and why even the soldier had been wary to get too close to the infected crops. The fungus didn't just kill crops, it killed people too - and quickly, from the looks of it.
As the spores settled, Jimmy only watched, eyes hard, as the woman gasped for air, each one coming more weakly and sounding more and more gurgled as time went on. To Frank, it felt like dozens of minutes had gone by, though in reality it couldn't have been more than one. He couldn't imagine how long it felt like to Jimmy and the female guard.
Finally she went still, body convulsing for a moment, until she went limp, hands falling to her sides and her head dropping to the ground. Her neck was a dark purple, and Jimmy watched her cautiously for another moment, until it was clear she was dead. Then he stood up, sides only lightly heaving now, and approached her.
He reached out and carefully shifted her away from the mushroom patch, before maneuvering her around so he could get her pack off of her back. He opened the top and dug around in it, before nodding and moving to empty her pockets of all their contents, dumping them into the bag. For a moment, he seemed to consider her jacket and boots, before glancing over at the Blight and the surrounding area, and apparently deciding against it.
Finally, he left the soldier where she was and darted over to grab her phaser. Checking that it was undamaged, he shouldered the bag and held the phaser at the ready. He took one last scan of the surroundings, before turning and running off into the crops, leaving small bursts of spores to burst into the air behind him.
The screen suddenly switched to a new scene from within the town, and Frank took a bracing sip of the alcohol he had almost forgotten he was holding in moment of silence. He felt like the entire house had gone quiet, and he couldn't take his eyes from the screen as the next clip began to play.
A group of militia were gathered in a plaza around a large pile boxes labelled with everything from food to clothing. Some of them were guarding the pile, while others were sitting down and talking to each other. Behind them was a large building that looked heavily fortified, the words City Governance Center written above the doors. That was likely Kodos's headquarters, Frank realized, returning his attention to the guards patrolling outside of it.
"Are you sure we shouldn't be helping them guard the stuff? Those kids recently -"
Another guard cut off the one who had spoken, though with their helmets on, the only way to tell who had first spoken was by who had turned their head to glance at the others.
"Nah, six of them should be enough," the new guard said, made clear by the fact that they'd leaned back onto their hands. "I don't care how many there are; a bunch of unarmed kids are no match for our phasers."
The first guard shifted uneasily but stayed silent. There was a general calm and silence about the scene that was so drastically different from the last one that Frank began wondering if the broadcast had accidentally put on the wrong clip. It was so uneventful, that much like the guards on screen, he didn't realize that something was wrong until several long moments had gone by.
"Hey, where did the others go?" The first guard asked, jolting to their feet, looking over to the pile of supplies. Frank suddenly realized, in unison with the other guards who spun around and scrambled to their feet as well, that there was no sign of the other six guards who had been circling the pile of supplies. The four who had been sitting began frantically scanning the area, drawing and arming their phasers. One of them, the shortest of the four (seriously, they couldn't have been more than five feet tall, if that), suddenly reached for the comm in their ear.
They didn't even manage to touch the side of their head before they dropped, so smoothly and silently that it took Frank and the others a long moment to register what had just happened. Then the fourth guard dropped as well, and the remaining two scrambled for cover. They didn't make it more than three feet before one fell, then the other.
There was an almost stunned moment of stillness and silence, before small figures began melting their way out from between buildings and down from roofs. There were around thirteen of them total, all armed with stolen phasers as they crept into view with all the wariness of feral street cats.
Now that he knew to look, Frank was able to pick out Jimmy in an instant. The boy looked much thinner than in the last clip, lean muscle the only thing besides bone giving his body definition. His hair was scraggly and unkempt, and there was a thick layer of dust and dirt turning his usually golden skin brown. The rest of the kids looked to be much the same. Jimmy's eyes also had none of the blazing fire from before, just a deadened ice that looked weary.
"Take what you can, be on the lookout for other guards and the replacements for these guys." Jimmy's voice is commanding, firm but not unkind as he speaks to the other kids around him. "We don't know when their absence will be noticed, so you'll want to hurry. Don't get caught."
The kids nod and quickly begin scanning crates, some of them gasping as they uncover something and immediately pulling it out of the pile. Two of the thirteen seemed to be the designated carriers for everything, and they had revealed backpacks that when they opened were filled with other bags and pouches. They sank down near the removed crates and began stuffing as much of the contents that they could into the bags as the others searched through the pile or stood watch.
Jimmy turned to another boy, the one he had saved in the last clip, Frank realized, and seemingly the next oldest. At his sudden attention the other boy - Tommy, had Jimmy called him? - was instantly alert and attentive.
"As soon as I'm in, get out," Jimmy said, looking at the boy but speaking to everyone. Already anticipating the protests, Jimmy shot a sharp glare at the group, silencing them before they'd even begun. "I mean it. Get back to the rendezvous, and if I'm not there in three hours, go. Go to somewhere new, not one of our main hideouts. And don't leave anything behind that could let anyone find you, even me. Once you're there, try the comm I fixed up, see if you can contact Starfleet."
There were no verbal protests to the command, though Frank could see that none of the kids looked happy about the decision. Tommy - who could only have been ten or eleven, given that Jimmy would have been fourteen by then, Frank realized - looked particularly unhappy as his mouth thinned.
"I still don't like this," he said quietly to Jimmy, voice just barely picked up by the cameras. "JT, you know the chances of disabling the jammer without getting caught are minuscule at best. We should wait it out, make another plan. Hell, we could even just raid this food store for all it's worth, and leave it at that."
Jimmy - JT? - pulled the younger boy to the side, hands gentle but firm as they stopped just barely in sight of the camera's lower right corner. He stopped and stared the other in the face.
"Tommy, I know, I can't say I'm looking forward to this either. But if we don't, we are going to die here. He will win, and everything we've done up until now will be pointless." JT cast a glance at the others, and Tommy followed his gaze. "We're already starting to lose kids, Tommy. It's sheer luck we've lasted ten months like this in this hellhole as it is. Injuries, illness, hunger, exhaustion - food can't fix all of that. I can't fight that. And even if we fix things for a while, sooner or later the food will run out, and we'll have to try this anyway, weaker and even more tired than we are now."
Tommy crossed his arms and stayed silent for several long seconds, before sighing, his posture loosening as he turned back to JT with a look of poorly concealed concern.
"Fine. We don't have a lot of time though, so you'd better hurry if we're really doing this," he sighed. JT nodded, turning to walk towards the City Governance Center before he paused, hesitating just long enough to rest a hand on Tommy's shoulder and squeeze it tightly for a moment.
"Hey, if I - if I don't come back out of there, take care of them, alright? And yourself too." With that said, he let his hand fall back down to his side, and took several quick steps towards the building before Tommy called out to him, making JT pause for just a moment longer.
"JT!" he began, meeting the older boy's eyes head on. "Don't make me have to, okay?" Jimmy's only response was a tight smile, before he turned back to the government building and took off running, footsteps silent as he went.
When he reached the edge of the wall, he leaped off the ground, hands finding purchase in a crevice over halfway up the thrown-together defense. His feet soon found footholds after that, and with a few deliberate movements, he was at the top casting a final glance back at the group. Between one heartbeat and the next, he had dropped down to the other side and disappeared.
"Alright, let's get out of here! Let's not push our luck." At his words, the others immediately abandoned the pile and each took a load from the two who had been packing up the backpacks with supplies. Tommy went and grabbed one for himself, flicking a glance back at the building behind them and muttering just barely loud enough to hear. "You'd better come back out of there, JT. You aren't allowed to die here."
With that, the group of kids melted back into the surroundings, as silently and easily as shadows, leaving no sign of their previous presence except for the down guards and the small pile of empty crates.
The scene on the screen abruptly switched back to the news anchors, who all looked shaken and solemn at the footage they had just witnessed. One man tried to take a sip of his drink, and Frank could see that his hand was shaking slightly as held the cup.
"Those clips depicted several members of what the ex-colonists have taken to calling the Children's Rebellion, the group who were ultimately credited for bringing the situation to the attention of Starfleet by destroying the device that was jamming signals going to and from the planet. They were a group of nearly twenty kids surviving in the wilderness, all between the ages of four and thirteen. The eldest, the thirteen year-old, was the individual shown in the clips referred to only as JT, and none of the children were willing to offer up further information after their rescue. The boy himself disappeared as soon as the responding starship docked at the nearby spacestation, presumably wishing to remain unknown.
"The final scene of our report tonight before we discuss more about the reasons behind the tragedy takes place a few weeks after the last clip we showed, and depicts the moment Starfleet finally breached the defenses of the City Governance Center, where Governor Kodos - or Executioner Kodos, as some have taken to calling him - had been based out of. This is the last recorded footage of the massacre as it was ended here, as well as the last video we were able to obtain with the leader of the Children's Rebellion, JT. As before, viewer discretion is advised."
The final scene that came up on the TV was of several Starfleet officials standing with a group of what looked to be twenty children. Even here, the children seemed to be wary, the youngest herded to the center of the group, and the whole lot of them eying the adults warily even as they waited impatiently in front of the Center.
"Medic! Get the medical teams ready!" came the cry from inside, causing one of the officers to immediately reach for their comm. The children all went still, eyes locked onto the entryway in anticipation. Two Starfleet officers were hovering around a teenage boy and attempting to help him, though he seemed determined to walk on his own - and doing a fairly decent job of it as well, despite the amount of scarlet and rust staining his skin and clothing.
The dirt on his face had streaks where tears had fallen, and what was visible of his skin was a mottled mix of yellow, green, and purple. Despite that though, the set of his shoulders was determined, the jut of his jaw stubborn. His eyes looked like an aurora of fury and frigidness as they scanned his surroundings calculatingly, almost as if he were above what was happening.
"JT…" one of the kids breathed, staring at him in a mixture of relief and horror. Jimmy, Frank's own thoughts echoed, staring at the stranger on the screen, as the boys eyes jumped to the group of children. The ferocity of his expression dimmed slightly at the sight of them, his eyes skimming the group, clearly checking that they were all there. When his eyes met any of the officers' own, they narrowed in warning.
Before anyone could say anything else, several of the kids broke rank and ran to JT. It was as if they were suddenly let loose, as the other children quickly followed, surrounding JT even as they gave him a bit of space. Only a few dared to breach that bubble of personal space: a small boy who looked to be around six years old who grabbed a fistful of JT's shirt, a girl who gently took one of JT's injured hands between her own, and the boy Tommy, who pulled JT into an embrace that had to have hurt, but that neither child pulled back from.
"You're a right bastard, JT," Tommy said after a moment, stepping back. "If you ever do that again, I'll kill you myself. You crazy, lucky bastard."
JT's laugh sounded like someone dragging broken glass over gravel, and his answering smile looked razor-sharp and slightly brittle. On his side of the screen, Frank flinched at the sound, as did the officers on screen, even as none of the kids batted an eye.
"Yeah, next time we do this, it's your turn to go solo," he said, even though it was obvious they all knew that was never going to happen while JT had anything to say about it. He turned his attention to the officers standing awkwardly around. "If you're still looking for Kodos, the coward will be in the hidden room of his office. There's a green pyramid paperweight on his desk. Rotate it once to the right and push down. You should be careful though, I think he got ahold of cyanide capsules as soon as I broke the jammer."
One of the officers nodded and spoke into their comm as one of the officers hovering near JT finally cleared their throat, seemingly unable to stop themselves from finally speaking up.
"You need to get aboard the ship to be looked at by a medical team," he said anxiously, all four of his arms twitching anxiously around him. "I honestly have no idea how you are conscious right now, much less capable of walking and talking."
"Uh," JT drawled hoarsely, eyeing the being as if they'd just told him that his mother was actually a chicken. "It's not that bad. I'm still standing, so that says something."
The man let out a distressed chirring sound as a result, before stating, "Your vitals were all at dangerous levels when I scanned you earlier. Please, just let us take a look at you on the ship!"
"JT," the girl still holding his hand with both of hers quietly spoke, her voice heavily accented by some alien tongue when he opened his mouth to protest. He stopped abruptly, looking at her for a long moment before sighing.
"I'll go up when they find Kodos," he said, voice firm. "That son of a bitch started all of this. I'm not leaving this planet until he does, whether in cuffs or in a body bag."
The officers didn't look happy about it, but agreed with the condition that if waiting caused JT's condition to worsen even further, they'd be taking him aboard anyway. JT grudgingly agreed, though that was mostly due to the kids surrounding him. They waited for several long minutes, the officers tending to JT's injuries as much as he'd let them while they waited. Finally, one of the comms on the officers' shirts blipped, and everyone's attention snapped to that officer.
"Kodos is secure. Let the ship know we're going to need secure transport to the brig." The message relayed successfully, they all watched as Kodos was escorted through the entry of the Center, hands secured behind his back, and the phasers of three Starfleet officers trained on him as he walked.
Kodos looked disturbingly ordinary, for what he had caused. His eyes scanned his surroundings, the expression on his face almost surprised, as if he didn't understand why he was being treated like a criminal. That is, until his gaze landed on JT, where his expression contorted in a mix of rage and betrayal. There also seemed to be a hint of confusion to the expression too, as if he didn't understand why JT had helped take him down.
"You! This is all your fault!" he spat. "If you had just listened to me, tried to understand that what I was doing was for the greater good of the colony, this entire mess could have been avoided!"
"If I had listened to you, over five hundred more people would be dead," JT responded, voice hard and sarcastically biting, glaring at Kodos. "If I had trusted my instincts about you from the beginning, maybe even more would have been saved. It wasn't your choice to make, who lives and who dies. You're not a god."
Kodos was going to respond, but the officers moved him along, and the group watched as they were beamed up to the ship in a flash of light. As soon as that happened, more than half the tension in JT's shoulders seemed to drain out of him, leaving behind only a dulled exhaustion. He swayed a bit on his feet, before what seemed to be sheer power of will steadied him out again.
"Okay, kid," one of his two officers said, voice firmer than before. "It's time to get to Medbay. We've indulged you until now, and Kodos is off the planet as you wished. Now it's time for you to get serious medical attention."
With that, the entire group went over to the beam-up point, and disappeared bit by bit until none were left and the scene ended. The news cut back to the reporters and went on to tell a more in depth story about what happened, but Frank paid no attention to it.
His eyes were locked onto the now-warm beer can still in his hand, and he sat in silence running his index finger over the rim slowly. He was still, aside from that one moment, muted and motionless. The house was quiet too, as it had been for nearly a year now, no sounds besides the hum of the electricity, the occasional wooden creak, the soft whistles of wind, and the quiet voices of the reporters on the television.
Raising the half-full can of beer to his lips, Frank drained the remaining liquid in one quick swig, clutching the can tightly when it was empty and feeling the way the aluminum bent under his fingertips. He sat there for a moment longer, then stood and went to get another.