After four hours of simulations and picking apart her performance with the help of Abigail, Miliam took the crew through the next teleportation and then held another full-crew drill. She did…slightly better than the first time. It seemed she would need to get used to telling real people what to do, and the individual sims couldn’t prepare her for that. Still, the simulations were at least helping her catch up on the training she would have gotten rising through a corporate or military chain instead of owning her own ship from the outset.
She even remember which twin was at which station this time…or so she thought, but they had actually swapped places today. After that, Miliam decided that telling the two apart was becoming a problem and asked to speak with them about it after their watch shifts ended. She’d also noticed a shared quirk the pair displayed thanks to them swapping places, so the meeting would be killing two birds with one stone.
“Today’s sim was a bit on the simpler side, but good work all the same, everyone. Everyone but Eun-ji and Min-ji are dismissed, just make sure to…attend your watch shifts,” Miliam announced, unable to keep the awkwardness from leaking into her words but managing to sound a bit more confident now, having done this routine a few times now. There was still some hesitance and she needed to pause while the words came to her here and there, but at least she didn’t stutter.
Min-ji continued to monitor sensor readings while Eun-ji retrieved her grimoire, settling in until it was her turn on shift. Miliam wasn’t quite done yet, though.
“After your shifts are done, are you two going to be in the lounge? I don’t want to distract either of you while you’re on watch, but there’s something I want to go over with you both before you head to sleep,” she told the two after Aoibhe left. Now that she thought about it, she still needed to ask her second in command about the co-pilot situation, but that would have to wait.
“Oh…sure. What’s it about?” Eun-ji asked.
“Nothing serious, it can wait until I see you later.”
With that done and the crew dismissed, she retired to her quarters to sleep, then headed to the lounge to meet with the dokkaebi sisters, who liked to spend their downtime playing co-op games. They’d been in the lounge during the four hours between the end of their dual shifts and the time they spent sleeping every day so far, so Miliam probably hadn’t needed to confirm with them, but she wanted to be on the safe side.
“So, uh, you’re not in trouble, really, I just need to clear up the confusion about who’s who on the bridge,” Miliam told them as she sat down, noticing the worried looks on their faces. She thought she’d phrased her request so that they wouldn’t fell as if they’d done something wrong, but apparently not. “I know we’re just preparing for the kind of emergency most ships never run into, but I don’t want to be slowed down in the moment trying to figure out which of you I need to talk to. Is there, well, anything I can do to tell you apart better? Or is it offensive to ask that? Sorry, would you prefer if I just asked by saying comms or sensors?”
Eun-ji and Min-ji glanced at each other, sharing a moment of silent communication between each other that Miliam was starting to get used to. She only knew which was which because they were playing a game when she got there, and Eun-ji was really bad at video games.
“Stations, I guess?” Eun-ji answered a moment later.
“We don’t actually have separate wardrobes, and we look pretty much the same…” Min-ji added.
“What if you, um, wear different hairstyles? Or maybe accessories? Er, I mean, I don’t want to dictate what you wear or anything, but…” Miliam asked next, feeling like it was the obvious solution.
“Well, we could, but it wouldn’t be very helpful,” Min-ji clarified with a shrug that Eun-ji mirrored without looking.
“That would just make it so we could switch identities by swapping hairstyles and accessories,” the other sister continued. What Miliam gathered from that was that they had definitely done that before and had no intention of stopping. Hopefully they would keep that to when they were off duty.
“Technically we’re not sure which of us is which, but that’s because our parents mixed us up a lot when we were babies…” Min-ji threw in, rolling her eyes.
“And also when we were older, but we did that on purpose.”
“Well I do need some way to tell you apart, so…I guess I’ll have to make a rule about it. Off-duty I don’t really care what, how should I put it…shenaniganery you get up to, but when you’re working, I might need to know who I’m addressing, even if we’re not on the bridge. I don’t want to make a rule for just you two though, so how about we all get hats or something when we get to Northeast Gate Station? The whole crew can customize theirs, including me, I guess, so you hopefully won’t feel singled out or anything,” Miliam told the two.
She’d had some time to think about the matter, but had wanted to see if they had a solution of their own before jumping to making a rule for the problem. Initially she had thought to make full uniforms, but about halfway through speaking she realized everyone would have to wear them at all times in case of an emergency, so she settled on hats, which would be easy to toss on at a moment’s notice.
“What if we put the wrong one on?” asked Min-ji.
Right. That took them back to the problem of swapping looks. Miliam did have an idea about that, which she hoped wouldn’t anger them.
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
“If you put Eun-ji’s hat on then you’re Eun-ji until you take it off, I suppose?” the captain tentatively proposed. “I know that’s not much different than if you two swap places like normal, but it gives me a way to glance at one of you and have a name immediately.”
““I don’t mind,”” they said at once, with Eun-ji adding an ‘oof’ a moment later when Min-ji elbowed her in embarrassment.
“Sorry,” Min-ji said. “We decided when we were young that we liked being the same and made ourselves totally identical…but at some point we started saying the same thing at the same time too.”
“It’s kind of embarrassing…but we can’t control it…”
“Yeah, I guess if you share all the same experiences you’d start to think along the same lines too. Don’t worry too much about it. I’m not going to make fun of you for it.” Doing that would make Miliam too much like the people that mocked her for being overly feminine growing up. Just like they couldn’t control their synching, she hadn’t been able to control the fact she had a female mind. “…Aoibhe might, but I give you permission to prank her if she does. Captain’s orders.”
They smiled in appreciation of the support, though inwardly Miliam hoped it wouldn’t come to that. She’d said it without thinking and now she was scared of what Aoibhe would say if she found out.
“Was there anything else you wanted to talk about?” Min-ji asked, not-so-subtly eyeing the controllers they had put aside. Miliam blanked out for a moment before she remembered there was, in fact, something else.
“Oh, right. I’ve noticed in our sims that both of you have a tendency to wait for orders before activating our ECM and MCM. I noticed when you switched today that both of you always have sensor readings available ahead of time, so why do you wait for me when you’re on comms?” she asked, leading them both to open their mouths at the same time and then stop, each realizing the other was about to speak. Eun-ji nodded at Min-ji, who shook her head, and then Eun-ji elbowed her sister, who glared back but decided to get on with it and speak.
“We were taught not to begin until ordered to because it could be taken as a hostile action,” Min-ji explained as she rubbed her side. “Like telling anyone we encounter we already intend to fight.”
The thought had occurred to Miliam that the standard protocols had that one flaw. Immediately beginning evasive actions had the same issue. Any human captain would know that was a precaution and nothing more, developed due to the fact that weapons could be aimed and fired faster than a captain could receive a report from their sensor officer and issue orders. An alien captain, on the other hand, might take that as a sign of hostility.
But that could be said of any action she took. Active sensors could be a way of announcing one’s presence, or it could be a prelude to an attack. Dropping barriers might be a show of good faith, while keeping them active meant expecting a need for them. It was all relative, and no single set of protocols could account for the differences in psychology between species.
In the end, Miliam wasn’t going to take an action that made the ship more vulnerable. There was no way of knowing who was in command of another ship at a glance, so it was better to maintain a policy of shooting second but remaining on guard.
“That small delay between me figuring out what’s going on, giving the order, and you taking action could be the difference between life and death. The Astrum Vitae is just a corvette, so its best defense is not getting hit at all. Anytime we’re outside the Gaian Collective, just…assume you have permission to act the moment you hear there’s a ship out there,” Miliam told them, intent on making her own chances of survival as high as possible. And also the crew’s, by extension.
““Yes ma’am,”” Eun-ji and Min-ji acknowledged together, looking down as if they’d just been admonished. Seeing them like that made Miliam feel like she’d just kicked a puppy, and their diminutive sizes wasn’t helping that impression.
“I’m not mad at you!” Miliam assured them, waving her hands frantically. “I just want to get you on the same page as me, okay? It’s not criticism at all.”
““Oh, no, don’t feel bad!”” the twins shouted at once, waving their hands the same way as Miliam.
“It’s just this is our first job so we’re a little disappointed we messed up already,” explained Eun-ji, speaking for them both.
“This is more about us than you, we promise!” Min-ji added a moment later.
“Oh, okay, that’s good. I don’t want to make anyone uncomfortable. It’s kind of my first job too and it’s like I jumped straight to being the manager. Let me know if I overstep, okay? Wait, maybe that’s not right…captains are supposed to be confident aren’t they? Uh, you can…confide in me. And I will take your concerns under…consideration. Yeah,” Miliam babbled, going from anxiousness to second guessing herself and to false confidence all in one breath.
She took a moment to catch her breath and force herself to calm down before opening her mouth again. It did not help.
“Anyway, that’s all I guess, so you can go back to your games. And I’ll just…go nowhere actually, because I like to study here and this is the lounge and I’ll shut up now.” Miliam sank into her chair as if trying to fade from sight, embarrassed enough that she wanted to leave but feeling like she was stuck here now that she’d said it. Fortunately the twins were more interested in getting back to their game, so Miliam managed to move onto studying after a few minutes.
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Codex Entry: Mana Conductivity
Sapient beings have no in-built capacity for mana; no biological storage tank which can be expanded to increase their ability to cast. One's limits are determined by their ability to conduct mana instead- how adapted their body is to channeling mana through it like a circuit.
Needless to say, biological bodies are not meant to channel mana. Doing so is inherently damaging, although the effects build up slowly. Early stages of mana exhaustion are not dissimilar to physical exhaustion, and are evenly spread throughout the body. Using magic is like experiencing a full body workout- it leaves the entire body feeling sore when pushed to its limits.
Later stages of mana exhaustion are progressively more damaging. A mage can cast a spell beyond their means by channeling more mana than their body can handle or, indeed, survive. This begins with spontaneous cell death and miniscule bone fractures as the strain overwhelms the body's ability to repair itself, and if pushed far enough, mana exhaustion can result in total organ failure.
Mana conductivity, like muscles, must be built up gradually and over time. Each time a person uses magic, their body becomes more accustomed to mana passing through it and adapts to provide less resistance. Some people are born with a higher capacity than others, but only hard work and dedication will allow one to cast the most complex spells without dying.
As cells are continually replaced, however, mana conductivity is gradually lost over time, requiring constant practice to maintain. At the extreme end of things, this can result in a mage overestimating their capacity and burning themselves out with a spell they could normally cast, or severely damaging organs like the stomach where cells are rapidly replaced even while the rest of their body is unharmed. Daily magic practice cannot be neglected any more than daily exercise.