– 1 Week later –

I helped the Commander to the best of my abilities with the repairs of the ship. Our timetable had been moved back by quite a bit thanks to the explosion in the Engineering department, but luckily it didn’t cost us any lives because that’d have been immeasurably worse. Both for the people themselves and for the Commander. I could tell that she was still quite shaky mentally. It didn’t show in the crisis situation itself, but afterwards it wasn’t hard to notice how hard her clenched hands were shaking. A death in her crew would probably have pushed her over the edge.

I tried to take as much of the load on me, so she got spared from a lot of tedious and stressful work. She did seem to appreciate that quite a bit. She even offered to make one of her dishes again, but I told her it would be best to wait until after the repairs had been completed.

“Uhm, XO?” A voice shook me out of my thoughts. It was one of the engineers who’d been working on the repairs.

I coughed. “Yes, Ensign? Is there something you need?”

“I was just wondering where the Commander was, our repairs are almost done. We are just having to work on the superficial damage now.”

“All the sensors are back up?”

“As up as they will be for the moment, ma’am. There’s still some errors when the back thrusters are running. We’ll need to calibrate them, but that will take at least two more weeks.”

“I see… I will tell the Commander once she’s back from her bathroom break.”

“Tell me what?” The Commander appeared from behind the corner. Her face was blinking as she’d clearly splashed some water in her face. A bit of her uniform got discoloured because of the water as well.

“Ah, Commander!” The Ensign saluted and started to give her report to her as well.

“I see. I guess it can’t be helped.” The Commander looked at the holochart that the Ensign had presented her.

“It’ll detect larger anomalies when the engines are running, but small ones will be an issue for a while.”

“Okay, seems like Crazy Ivans will still be on the menu for a bit.” She handed the chart back to the Ensign. “Thank you for your report. You can go back to your post now.”

“Yes, ma’am. XO.” She saluted the both of us and then left the bridge.

“So, what’s the plan, Commander?”

“We can’t stay here. Well… we can, but I’d rather not.” She pulled up the navigational charts. “I’d prefer to keep hopping systems. The engineers can fix the systems while we are doing so. Ellie got up with a countermeasure to the pulsar problem yesterday, so big energy bursts shouldn’t cripple us anymore. Hopefully.”

“Do you doubt my skills, Commander?” Ellie suddenly spoke up.

“I don’t, Ellie. But a wise person once said to always expect the unexpected. Maybe one of our other systems might not be up to the task. We are pioneers here, after all.”

“Noted Commander. Saving proverb to the database.”

“Don’t be so overly dramatic.” She chuckled, but our AI assistant didn’t really reply. “Anyhow… tell the crew to prepare for FTL, would you, dearest XO of mine?”

I blushed. “Yes ma’am.” And alerted the crew to our FTL ambitions.

And so we continued travelling. Jumping from star system to star system while occasionally and at random intervals turning our ship to ‘clear the baffles’ as the Commander said. This lasted for two weeks, two incredibly peaceful weeks of absolutely nothing happening. It became routine. Not that I minded at all. I liked being around the Commander. While she stressed me out in the beginning, out of fear of being discovered. Right now, I just enjoyed being with her. She did still make me nervous at times. When she got a bit too close, when she gave me a pat on the shoulder, when she walked past me and I caught a whiff of her perfume… It was sometimes a bit much and I had to force myself to take some distance to calm down.

“Hey, Luna?” The Commander spoke to me when we both walked off the bridge after a long watch duty.

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“Yes, Comm… uh… Lauren?”

“Would you like to come to the officer’s lounge with me? Eva, Gunny and Yuki will be there too, and the Doctor really insisted I should ask you to come as well.”

“Uh… I don’t know... I’ve never gone before.”

“Really? You haven’t? Then you definitely need to come over, at least this once. It’s really cozy.” Lauren smiled.

“Alright then…” I whispered.

“Sorry?”

“Yes, I’ll come.” I repeated my acceptance.

“Great! Do you need to get ready first, or can we go now?”

“Not particularly…”

She smiled again and led the way.

We entered the, for me, unfamiliar room. It was strangely quiet, with some jazzy music playing on a low volume in the background and a single conversation coming from around the corner. The room’s dark purple wallpaper worked soothing for my eyes, which had been looking at screens all day long.

“Oh, look who we have here!” Doctor Winter welcomed us when she caught sight of us. “I see you managed to persuade her to join us.”

“Apparently she’d never been here before, so I couldn’t really let that go.” Lauren took her beret and frisbeed it towards Gunny. It landed cleanly in his lap. Ensign Yuigahama was sitting next to the Gunnery Sergeant, reading something while she sipped on a glass of water.

“H-hello everyone.” I gave them a shy wave, desperately trying not to stutter.

Doctor Winter signed for me to sit next to her, while the Commander kept on walking towards the bar.

“I’m getting something to drink, Luna, and everyone else, want something?”

“Just water for me.” I replied.

“Lauren, that better be water for you too when you come back.” The Doctor called out to our Commander.

“Yes ma’am!” The Commander called back.

“How was the shift? Anything interesting happening in outer space today?” Eva then turned herself to me.

“Not really…” I replied. “Looks like we’ve used up all the excitement earlier this month.”

“Hey, don’t jinx us now.” The Gunnery Sergeant shook his head. “Calm is good.”

Ensign Yuigahama looked up from her reading material to agree with Gunny. “Calm times are the best. I don’t want things like that to be the norm…”

“Right, sorry about that.” Human superstitions were definitely something I wasn’t that used to yet.

The Commander joined us again and handed me my glass of water. To my surprise she’d actually listened to the Doctor and had taken a glass of water for herself as well.

“Do you like the room’s aesthetic? We can change the colour if you want. Yuki has chosen this one.” She asked.

“It’s very calming.” I nodded. “But is it always this quiet here?”

“Do you want the music louder?”

“No, uh… I meant…”

Lauren laughed. “Sorry, I was pulling your leg. We are quite often alone here. Sometimes another officer visits the place too, but that rarely happens. I wonder why, actually.”

“Maybe because they think it’s a place for your close circle rather than the officer lounge in general.” Doctor Winter proposed.

“Really? Do they think that?” The Commander was clearly taken aback.

“It… could be the lack of games too…” Yuki spoke up.

“Huh…” Lauren slid back into the sofa, leaning backwards so she could look up at the ceiling. “I guess we could quite easily fix the games thing, right?”

“We can fabricate most simple bar games ourselves. That’s true.” Eva replied.

“But about the closed circle thing… Hmmmmm….” She hummed and then turned her head towards me. “What do you think, Luna?”

“Uh…” I didn’t really expect her to look at me for answers. “What about… a party?”

“Oh…” Lauren looked back at the ceiling. “A party, a party, a party….”

“Sorry like that was a stupid idea…”

“No, not at all.” Lauren shook her head. “I think that could actually work. Then we can also show the new games off and make it clear it’s not only for us.”

“It’s a good idea.” the Doctor agreed. “However, I will miss this place being so empty. I kinda liked being alone like this.”

“Really?” The Commander sat up straight.

“No, I was kidding. We can always meet in personal quarters if we want something for ourselves.” She winked. “It’s important that every part of the crew has a place to chill out with their mates.”

“Amen to that.” Gunny nodded and toasted with his beer. The Ensign followed his example so, in the end, we all decided to make it into a communal toast.

At the end of the evening, Yuki and Gunnery Sergeant Taylor said goodbye to us, leaving the three of us alone in the bar.

“It’s probably time for us to leave too.” Doctor Winter looked at her watch.

“Hey, Eva. Would you mind sleeping over again?” The Commander asked.

“Feeling off today?”

“Yeah… a little.”

“My back’s hurting a little, so I’d prefer my personal mattress…”

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

I saw Eva’s eyes light up for a split second. “Say, Luna, would you mind keeping the Commander company for the night? She has some sleeping issues and the company does help.”

“Would you want to do that?” The Commander looked at me. She looked strangely helpless.

“Uh… yeah… sure…”

“Thank the Goddess.” The Commander said, while Doctor Eva just smiled.

-I wonder if it would be weird to ask for my shark to accompany me…-