I had a bad feeling when the Commander told me to go with her to the lab. Mostly because I didn’t want to see my compatriots in the state they were in, but what I learned, or better said, what the humans had learned was even more unsettling. It was by law forbidden to do any kind of DNA research on our own species, and now I know why. We’d been genetically manipulated, and probably by our own people. But why? Why do this to us? Why keep it secret?
The ramifications of what I’d just discovered made me nauseous. So I ran.
“Luna, stop!” It was the voice of the Commander coming from behind me. She’d already caught up to me. Probably because I was walking through the hallways like a headless chicken.
“What’s wrong?”
I didn’t reply.
“Luna…” She walked next to me for a moment before she pulled me by my arm through a door in the hallway. It was a door to a bathroom.
“Here, splash some water in your face, it helps for me.” She guided me to a sink and made the water run.
Not knowing what to do, I just followed her instructions. The cold water helped a bit.
“And here’s a towel.” Lauren handed a towel to me so I could dry my face. “I’ll just stay here until you calm down.” She stayed next to me. After I dried my face and during the couple of minutes where I was just staring soulless into the mirror.
“Shouldn’t… shouldn’t you head to… the bridge?” I managed to stammer out.
“We got time. The ship isn’t leaving without us.” She leaned back against the sink cabinet. Right in time for the door to the bathroom to open. “Sorry, it’s occupied. Take the one next door.” The Commander stated in a friendly yet authoritative tone. The private who entered, made an about face and left just as fast as she came. “Both unisex bathrooms anyway.”
I just nodded and splashed some water into my face again.
“Were you that shocked to see the bodies?” Lauren asked. “Or was it something else?”
I obviously couldn’t tell her what had triggered my panic attack, so I just stared at her, trying to find an answer.
“You don’t need to tell me.” She shook her head with a smile. “I’m just here if you want to talk about it. You did that for me, I do it for you as well. No strings attached.”
Somehow that made me want to tell it to her even more, but alas. “Thank you, Commander…”
“It’s fine.” She smiled again. “Sorry for dragging you with me, I shouldn’t have done that.”
It was my turn to shake my head. Even though it did make me incredibly uncomfortable, I did learn something that could be really important. “We… we learned something new… and that’s the most important part.”
“Still though…”
“No, it’s really okay…” I straightened my back and fixed the collar of my uniform. “I think I’m ready to go out now.”
The Commander smiled and led the way out of the bathroom, but from what I could tell she wasn’t heading towards the bridge.
“Commander, what are you doing?”
“Just a small thing I know to calm your nerves even further.” She replied cryptically.
“But… the bridge?”
“Eh, it’s fine.” She led me all the way back to the cafeteria and told me to wait at the door until she came back a minute later with two cups in her hand. “Here, you can never go wrong with a good cup of hot chocolate.”
It did smell really good and having the warm cup in my hands made my nerves mellow a bit.
“Commander.” Ellie's voice came over the intercoms. She sounded a bit annoyed. “Why aren’t you at the bridge yet.”
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“We are coming, Ellie, don’t worry. I just wanted to show her something.”
“You wanted to show her… the cafeteria?”
“Yes.” She lied.
I didn’t know AI’s could sigh, but what Ellie did clearly sounded as such. “The crew is waiting on you, Commander.”
“Thank you for the information.” She smiled at one of the cameras in the corner of the room, and Ellie went quiet after that. “Anyhow, I guess that’s our cue that we shouldn’t dilly-dally much longer.” She laughed as she guided us back to the bridge.
Our usual group of officers was already at their posts waiting for us to give them a command. Lieutenant McAllister, the pilot, seemingly hadn’t slept very well or was incredibly bored, as she was yawning almost constantly.
“Alright people, sorry for the delay. We just ran into a minor complication on our way here.” The Commander spoke to the bridge. “Let’s get our ship going.”
“Aye aye, ma’am.” The officers called back. No one really questioned her on why exactly we were too late, although I did see Lieutenant Zu occasionally glance back at the cups we were holding.
“Yes, Zu, you can go for a cup as well once we are in FTL.” The Commander had noticed it too.
“Thanks Commander.” The Lieutenant smiled and focused back on the task at hand.
“Next couple of systems are pretty empty, so I don’t expect to encounter anything, but do keep your eyes peeled.”
The Commander opened the star map in front of us and pointed at a system two days of jumps away from us. She started talking to me. “This system looks interesting, what do you think, XO?” The Commander zoomed in on it, so I could see it better.
I didn’t recognize anything from the files I’d looked up before, but I did notice that the system in particular had a lot of planets in, what the humans called, ‘the goldilocks zone’. I found the tale that the name was based on pretty bizarre, as it was about a girl stealing the soup of three bears. But from my further research, apparently a lot of these so-called fairy tales had pretty strange plotlines.
“Looks promising.” I replied and gave her a nod.
“It does, doesn’t it?” She then leaned in and whispered to me. “Chocolate milk appears to be working.” And she gave me a smile.
I don’t know if it was because of my focus on working, or effectively the chocolate milk, but I’d indeed calmed down quite a bit. But I decided to let the Commander have her little victory. After all, it was because of her that I managed to calm down, hot chocolate or not. “Apparently so.” I smiled back.
“Hey, Commander.” A couple of minutes later a familiar voice rings out from behind us, it was Doctor Winter who entered.
“Hey doc. Do you need something?”
“Well, it’s incredibly quiet in the infirmary at the moment, so I was thinking about some games for the party we were planning and I made a list if you want to take a look.”
Lauren looked around for a second, since we had just gone into FTL we didn’t really have much to do either except for keeping an eye on things.
“Let me take a look.”
The Doctor handed over her holostick tablet to the Commander and then joined me at me side while the Commander was looking over the list. “Is that hot chocolate?”
I nodded. “It is.”
“Hmmm… now I also want to go for a cup…”
“Lieutenant Zu just left to go and get hers.” The Commander said with a smile while diagonally browsing the tablet.
“Oh, that’s why she looked so giddy.” The Doctor chuckled. “I always get so nostalgic when I drink hot coco.” She sighed happily and looked at the ceiling before grounding herself again. “We should totally have some smores for the party too.”
“Hmm, that can be arranged.” The Commander nodded. “By the way…”
“Yes?” Eva tilted her head.
“Did you tell Grayson about the party already?”
“The guy from the lab?”
“Yes, him.”
“No, why? I don’t even know him that well.”
“I see… well, he asked about it and I wonder who told him. It can’t be Luna because she was with me all night.”
“Strange… Maybe Gunny told him? I can’t imagine Yuki did.” The Doctor scratched her chin.
“I guess so.” Lauren shrugged.
“Speaking of the sleepover. How did it go?”
“It went pretty well. Didn’t have any nightmares, so it definitely helped.”
“Worth repeating?”
“If Luna agrees, it was definitely fun.”
I nodded. “I wouldn’t mind…”
“Good.” Eva smiled. “Anyway, I should probably get back to the med bay, after I take a quick pit stop for some hot coco.”
“I order you to enjoy it.” The Commander lazily saluted the doctor with a big grin.
“Will do.” Eva saluted back in an equally nonchalant way.
“See you later, XO.” Eva said goodbye to me, in return I just saluted her quickly.
When she was gone, the Commander offered the holostick to me as well. “Want to take a look, XO? Maybe you want to add something as well…”
“Uh, sure…” I took the tablet from the Commander’s hand after putting my cup of cocoa down. “But… doesn’t Doctor Winter need this?”
The Commander fell silent for a moment. “She probably has more in the med bay… I think…”
“I will go and bring it to her after I’m done reading…”
“Yeah… that’s probably for the best…” She coughed and looked ahead of her. She looked a tiny bit embarrassed, that was actually pretty cute.