Interlude-Rookie
Jordan didn’t consider herself an expressive person.
If you asked her parents, they worried that she had ‘alexithymia’, or emotional affective disorder, maybe autism. They weren't fretting over nothing—Jordan had noticed the same things that made them worried, so had Drew.
Jordan didn’t smile often. She didn’t cry much either. She didn’t complain or laugh much either. Of course her parents would worry. She still got annoyed, she still thought jokes were funny. She still got sad and happy.
It just didn’t show much.
But she just thought of it as being quiet. Or stoic. Or…maybe she was full of shit?
Where exactly was the line between an emotional affective disorder and just being naturally phlegmatic?
Her sister had never thought it mattered much. She’d just said ‘you know better than anyone else how you feel’. Drew was a great sister. She’d never seemed to doubt Jordan.
Jordan liked not showing too much emotion. Staying calm made her feel…maybe not powerful, but steady. In control. Self-possessed.
Of course even she had her limits.
“You are trying to—” the words drowned in her throat as she vomited for the ninth time today. Or was it tenth? She was losing count. At least it was all staying in the bucket.
High G maneuver drills were not agreeing with her.
The ship stopped spinning after a minute, but her head didn’t stop wobbling.
“You…are trying…to kill me,” Jordan managed to choke out.
“You having a good time?” Caleb asked, not quite keeping the grin off his face.
“How are you not [spewing chunks] too?” Jordan said. “I swear I’m going to get you back for this.”
“Are you kidding? You get to lie in the crash seats the whole time. These maneuvers aren’t that bad,” he said.
“He’s cheating,” Tasser supplied. “Between psionics and Adeptry, Caleb can mess with his own senses pretty well. I can’t prove this, but I'm pretty sure he psionically overrides his inner ear during maneuvers like that so he doesn’t get dizzy.”
“[You sonofabitch…]” Jordan rasped.
“I’ll help you get revenge some time,” Nai volunteered.
Jordan pointed at the alien and nodded, weathering another wave of nausea. She couldn’t quite get any more words out right now, but that idea was appealing.
“If it makes you feel any better, I didn’t think to do that the first time I went through the drills. So I got to feel everything you are,” Caleb said. “But you seem to be handling it pretty well.”
“[We’re out in the middle of space,]” she said while everyone else peeled themselves out of the crash seating. “[No one will hear you scream.]”
“[Take five,]” Caleb said, “because next up is maximum burn drills. On the bright side, they won’t make your head spin. But they will make you feel like a [pancake].”
·····
The orbits shook out to make a four-day trip before the Jack would arrive at the Beacon leading to the Askior system.
Every part of Jordan’s body ached. It was the last day of acceleration burn, and she finally saw a break from emergency drills and grueling tests to memorize the ship’s layout and features.
Why were the Jack’s ladders non-continuous? So you couldn’t fall down the equivalent of eight stories under thrust.
Why were the Jack’s ladders slanted—more like very steep stairs? Because it forced you to use your legs going up and down them, and it prevented the holes in each deck from aligning.
How many different airlocks were there? A primary and secondary on either end of the cargo bay, and tertiary ones attached to the flight deck, lowest crew deck, and engineering deck.
She’d climbed the length of the ship a hundred times in just a few days, endured high G acceleration that threatened to make fighter pilots pass out, and even learned how to instantly seal wounds with Adeptry.
The patches she made were quick and dirty, but they got the job done.
Jordan was ready to collapse and die by time she had a moment to breathe. She’d taken one of the berths in a seemingly empty dorm, but it had actually been Shinshay’s. They spent most of their time in the cargo bay though, tinkering with parts for the ship and running formulas through the fabricator. They often slept down there too.
The first indication Jordan had that she wasn’t bunking alone was the quarters lockdown drill.
Captain Serralinitus called out,
They slid the door shut behind them and fell down into the bottom bunk.
“Hello Jordan,” Shinshay said.
Jordan gave a start from the top bunk.
“[Oh!] Oh, sorry. Did I…report to the wrong cabin?” she asked.
She hadn’t. Jordan didn’t have many personal effects, and what little she did have was mostly new, but a glance around the cabin confirmed it was clear this was where she’d been sleeping for a week now.
“No. this is my cabin too,” Shinshay said. “I spend a lot of nights in the cargo bay though. I have a cot on one of the shelving units.”
“I didn’t realize you had this cabin to yourself,” Jordan apologized. “Do you want me to reassign to one of the empty ones? I wouldn’t mind—”
“Oh,” Shinshay said. Not dejectedly. But ever so slightly disappointed. “I didn’t know you didn’t realize.”
“…And it might have seemed like I sought out a roommate,” Jordan followed. “I don’t mind one way or the other. You clearly keep a clean living space.”
“A clean sleeping space, more like,” Shinshay said. “I apologize too. I had the idea you’d specifically picked quarters with me, but now I realize that wasn’t quite fair of me to think.”
“It’s not unfair either,” Jordan offered. “I feel pretty inconsiderate about the whole thing, moving in without even asking. Actually…”
“I knew you and Elaine were both bunking in here while we flew away from Cammo-Caddo though,” Shinshay recalled. “I didn’t think anything of it because I knew we were passing the rescues to the Archo group.”
“So neither one of us has any reason to worry about offenses,” Jordan said. “We just both stuck our feet in our mouths.”
“Hah! Yes. That idiom translates quite well, doesn’t it?”
“Yeah.”
“If we’re sharing a bunk though, I should confirm you’re not uncomfortable with me,” Shinshay said. “My condition?”
“Condition?” Jordan asked.
“Caleb told me the word in English would be [intersex],” Shinshay said. “In Humans it would mean an extra sex chromosome. It’s a bit different in my case, but the result’s comparable.”
She did know. Caleb had picked up on the other abductees’ reactions to Shinshay’s purple eyes. All the other Casti they’d met on Cammo-Caddo and the asteroid before that had either yellow-orange or green-blue eyes.
Purple eyes was the result of reddish male and bluish female pigments trying to manifest simultaneously.
Truth was, they looked pretty epic.
“Not a problem,” Jordan shrugged.
“You’re sure? Casti have a bit of a reputation about clothing, and some alien cultures are picky about nudity. It can all get uncomfortable quickly.
“I’m sure,” Jordan said. “…But out of—perhaps morbid—curiosity, what kind of reputation do Casti have?”
“Well, Nai calls us nudists, and she’s not wrong,” Shinshay said. “Most Casti cultures have a very strong sense of propriety and seniority, but almost none of them connect propriety to clothing. Unless you’re someone like me with something physical to hide, nobody cares much.”
“And so it can get uncomfortable quickly,” Jordan nodded. “I can imagine.”
“Well just to reassure you, I do have body parts to hide. Not because I think you’ll think less of me, mind you. It’s just a habit I’ve gotten into, and it’s how I’m comfortable. Caleb has said my sense of clothing and nakedness is downright ‘Human’.”
“I won’t lie, that is a little reassuring,” Jordan said, deciding to return their phrasing. “But only because I have a lot to get used to already, mind you.”
“Hah,” Shinshay smiled. “I think we’ll get along fine. You seem to be taking all this quite well. Staying steely-faced and whatnot.”
Jordan didn’t flinch, but she felt a pang go through her.
…But Shinshay had showed some personal vulnerability. Least she could do was return the gesture.
“Some people tell me I seem heartless,” she admitted. “I don’t always show emotion.”
“Huh. Interesting. Is it a particular condition? Or do you simply feel aloof?”
“Not sure,” she said.
“Ah. Then saying you’re ‘steely-faced’ isn’t so considerate,” Shinshay said.
“I know it was a compliment,” Jordan said. “I’m even trying to be unflappable and tough. But…I’d be lying if I said I loved it. Don’t think you were actually being inconsiderate.”
Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.
“Okay. The more people I meet, the more convinced I become that everyone has at least something odd about them,” Shinshay said.
“Three different kinds of aliens on one spaceship,” Jordan said. “Normal is figment of imagination.”
“I like that, ‘a figment of imagination’…That’s very good,” Shinshay said. “Still, I feel bad. Want to try taking a crack about me so we’re even?”
“Are those the kinds of roommates we’re going to be? Trading friendly insults constantly?”
“At a glance, it seems better than—bah, what was the expression? ‘[Walking on shells]’?”
“Fair enough,” Jordan said. “We’ll just have to promise to keep each other in the loop about where the line is.”
“Clarifying boundaries is an important element of interpersonal relationships,” Shinshay quoted something.
“Speaking of clarifying…do you know what this quarters drill is about?” Jordan asked.
“Ye—I mean, no. No, I do not,” Shinshay said.
“Uh- huh…” Jordan scoffed.
“No. Really, I have no idea!”
“You couldn’t be more obviously lying!”
“So? You have no leverage with which to compel me,” Shinshay preened. “My lie is unassailable.” They craned their head out from their bunk to look at the clock mounted the wall panel above the door.
“Waiting on something? A certain time?” Jordan asked.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Shinshay said. “I’m just curious.”
“You know something. Tell me,” Jordan said.
“True. It’s just—”
“—it’s just that,” Shinshay said.
Someone was overboard?
Everyone checked in but Caleb.
Every door on the Jack was actually two. A simple sliding door for casual access and a collapsible steel shutter sealable with hydraulics. Those would only trigger if the ship experienced a catastrophic hull breach, compartmentalizing decks and rooms.
This wasn’t a real emergency. It was another drill with no warning.
And yet she knew the whole point was that she shouldn’t treat it like a drill.
So she moved, banishing all traces of her previous pleasant conversation.
Despite how unlikely the scenario was to ever truly occur, there was a very clear sequence of steps she should take.
“I’m going to need help, Shinshay,” Jordan said.
“You bet.”
The two of them pushed through the ship for the cargo bay, and Jordan tore the human emergency suit off the wall. Putting it on in zero G was an extra complication. It took agonizing minutes to confirm all the latches were secured and the helmet fit properly, but proper space suiting was not the place to cut corners.
“
“
“
“
The two of them hauled open the primary airlock—because the drill cited that the secondary one had failed. Jordan was the only one to step into it though. With just the two of them, it was faster for Shinshay to cycle the airlock from inside the cargo bay.
Jordan forced herself to keep her eyes open as the airlock cracked open. No air hissed out though. Had the air barriers been extended past the hull?
No, sticking her hand out past the lip, she could feel the tug of the vacuum puff up her glove the tiniest bit. The air barriers were still flush to the hull, and that included where the airlock’s exterior door had just been. It would be this way in a real emergency too.
She clipped her tether to both anchors in the airlock, and swallowed the taste of bile creeping up on her. If she threw up now, she’d be the one needing a rescue. She had to make sure not to spin too much in space either. Even if the motions weren’t as intense as the negative G drills before, tumbling weightless could still ruin her composure.
For a second she couldn’t unclench her hand from bracket she was holding herself onto. Caleb was spinning through space somewhere, and every second she hesitated just made it more likely he’d die.
But she couldn’t peel her fingers away from the handhold until she reminded herself that Drew was somewhere out there too.
That finally let her gently kick off the airlock and float out with nothing but a tether.
Now came the hard part.
Caleb had apparently been thrown out the other airlock, and the ship hadn’t turned around. So she needed to start on the other side of the rocket.
“
Every member of the crew was probably watching her right now.
Jordan had been told how to scan for something floating close. It was so easy to lose track of things even just a few feet from the ship. There was a lot of space on even small planets. Planets were big. But space was bigger, because it was empty in every direction you picked, not just up.
The trick was to recognize that things could only move in straight lines in space, unless something else pushed or pulled on them. And also to remember that, fast or slow, nothing ever stopped. That included herself.
It was a patience game. Because she had to force herself not to look in every direction in a panic. Let her eyes adjust to the background: it was functionally infinitely far away. That let closer objects stand out. Their motion became obvious when something else came into view. Parallax, it was called.
But after a minute of searching, she still hadn’t found Caleb. If this had been a real emergency, he would likely be dead.
It clicked for her that she’d skipped a step in the search. If someone fell out an airlock somehow, it wasn’t guaranteed they’d be flung away from the ship. She’d moved herself to the other side of the ship, but she’d neglected to check its whole length. The Jack’s hull wasn’t a smooth continuous surface.
But to check it all quickly…
Jordan bit her lip and got it over with, letting go of her handhold.
She pushed herself into the void. A thin piece of wire was the only thing keeping her fastened to a rocket and preventing her from becoming a piece of space junk herself. Worse, she kicked off too quickly, and sent her self slowly tumbling in the air.
It wasn’t a fast somersault, but the rocket slowly flipped end over end from her point of view.
Enemy’s gate is down, she tried to repeat in her mind, but she couldn’t stop her turning without leverage. It was so slow too! She felt pathetic not being able to compensate for even this slow motion.
Her gut wrenched and she clenched every muscle in her torso to keep herself from throwing up. Dizzying nausea swept over her. She dimly felt proud of the fact she caught a glimpse of Caleb’s suit holding onto the Jack’s exterior barely around the edge of the secondary airlock.
she cried.
With no tether, he floated toward her, flickering plasma trailing behind him like an afterimage. Except it wasn’t trailing him. It was pushing him.
He’d evolved past spacing out individual thrust points to a more freeform propulsion trick. He grabbed her suit and pulled her back toward the Jack.
The next thing Jordan knew, she was inside the airlock. Had she passed out? No. She’d been focused on making sure she didn’t drown herself in her own helmet.
She noticed her body had weight again. The ship was back under thrust. Decelerating now, had to be.
“How’d she do?” Serral asked as they spilled back into the cargo bay.
“Above expectations,” Shinshay said. “She did the suit double checks perfectly, even caught the clasp I ‘missed’.”
“Caleb, you were outside. Your thoughts?”
“Like Shinshay said: above expectations,” he said. “She was methodical. She figured out what she missed in the search technique quick. I was only in vacuum for four minutes. She rose to the challenge quickly, and most importantly, she [aced] the critical test here.”
“But does she know exactly what that was?” Nai asked, staring at Jordan.
Jordan got a grip of her helmet’s releases and pulled it free for a breath of fresh air. Or…as fresh as air got out in space.
It gave her a moment to try and catch up to the conversation. She’d done well? She’d given up without rescuing Caleb. He would be dead had this been real.
…Then…this hadn’t been a drill to test her rescue skills.
“I…gave up,” she said. “I asked for help when I needed it.”
“[Ding, ding,]” Caleb said. “Told you she’d get it.”
He smirked at Nerin who rolled her eyes.
“I just wanted someone else to do worse than me, is that too much?” she pouted.
“[You’ve been piling it on on purpose,]” Jordan said. “[I’m a completely amateur astronaut…spacewalk rescues are so not my forte…only someone insane would try to have me stage one, even as a drill.]”
“The most dangerous thing you can do on a ship is not own up when you can’t do something,” Caleb nodded. “Nai thought you’d buckle yesterday with the gyro drills.”
“When did you give up?” Jordan asked.
“Minute one,” Caleb shrugged. “I’ve got my pride, but not about stuff I don’t know. I asked Nai and Tasser to talk me through anything I didn’t get.”
“That’s somewhat of an unfair comparison,” Shinshay said. “You’ve been through fire with Nai and Tasser. They’d probably help you even if it were against the rules. Jordan doesn’t necessarily have that kind of rapport to know she can rely on others. Considering she was alone for so long, the opposite is more likely the case.”
“All the more reason to have learned this lesson,” Serral said. “Well done. Never forget, if you need help: say so.”
“…[Yes sir],” Jordan nodded, but then realized that had been in English. She almost stammered, but Serralinitus saw it on her face.
“Relax, I don’t know much English, but I do know that one,” the Captain said. “We have another two days of decelerating until we reach the Beacon to Askior. Get some rest. You’ve earned it.”