As his usual holodeck workout program ended, and Julien stood in the red sand, cleaning is Batleth, he realised he had finished early today and still had 15 minutes of holodeck time left. Well, he might as well use it to train for his mission a bit, he thought.

“Computer end workout program.” he said, and the desert landscape around him, the bodies of the Klingon’s he had killed, all the blood and the dust on his sweaty skin was gone, as was his fight suit. That left him standing there in just his slacks and a black muscle shirt on, showing off that he had a lot of them (muscles), but who cared. Nobody would see him anyways. He put down his very real Batleth. The many little scratches and the worn leather handle spoke of the real action it had seen.

“Computer load a replica of the bridge with Captain Ghubari sitting in the Captain’s chair.” he said. One beep and he stood on the bridge, in front of Ghubari, still frozen by the program.
Now, if he was an assassin, under orders to kill the Captain because maybe she came too close to uncovering the Conclave, or maybe even contracted by Price to kill Ghubari before she could bring Price to justice - how would he go about it… on the bridge. Of course he would have to play this through on all the places Ghubari was frequenting… as he was sure Stark had already done as well. He liked the Caitian. At least he seemed to take his job seriously. Stark was always around, knew what was going on on the ship, went out of his way to check out crewmembers. Whereas the COS… Ghubari’s husband… Julien shook his head and thought of his own COS on the Genny, Thomas. No comparison! he thought and had to chuckle.

His android eye zoomed slightly in and took measurements of the bridge, while he calculated the distances and angles for different weapons. To do that he moved around Ghubari sitting in her chair. The best angle was definetly from behind her, right from the turbo lift door. He knelt down in front of her, to get the perfect angle for a phaser beam to her head, placing both hands on her chair’s arm rests and leaning forward a bit towards her still face. Yes, the back of her head was just above the back rest, due to her being so tall, that was an easy shot that would instantly kill her.

For just a moment he looked into her still eyes and was surprised that the compter got that special colour so accurately. That made him remember the day when he met her, when she had thrown her leg prothesis across the room and how the fire of her anger had made her eyes ablaze almost as if they were on fire. That recollection made him smile.

• Julien Smith, doctor

After a short while memorizing the specifics he got up again. “Computer delete Koraia hologram from the scene.” he said, and stood on the empty bridge of the Athena. It was quite a bit larger than the bridge of the Genny, though not by much, but the shape was different and the set up of the command crew chairs and consoles was very different.

He turned to look at the screen, showing the actual part of space that they were just flying through. The temptation was overwhelmingly strong then to ask the computer to switch to the Genesis bridge. But he could not do it. He knew it woud be the beginning of a holo addiction, he had seen it a few times over the years with crew members. He ground his teeth, but couldn’t get himself to end the program.
Just a few seconds back on his bridge, just a few seconds in his chair. What could it hurt… he thought, while something in his chest felt so constrictive that he barely got a full deep breath in.

• Julien Smith,
  doctor