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Chapter 6 - Definitions - Part 2
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I have this bad habit of daydreaming. A doctor once called it a coping mechanism; ‘Always thinking about everything and anything except the things that truly worry me’. Then again, even before my parents went to war, I spent my childhood getting told off in class for spending all my time imagining brave knights and heroes instead of paying attention in math…
It is a habit I can't seem to shake. Frequently, I'll lose focus while eating, only to be nudged kindly by the last person to leave the break room. Leading to me often being late to get to work and chewed out by the Chief. Today is one of those days.
The last person, Mr Harry (one of the older mechanics who spends an admirable amount of time nurturing this bushy white beard and tache), is nice enough to call me just before he heads out the door. I quickly stand up and move my things over to the abandoned counter, once again the final one to leave. With a sigh, I exit the kitchen and decide to just wait for an elevator rather than simply floating down to the lower floor. Late is late, after all.
The narrow door opens – I stare at the man inside – Lt. Vitka stares back at me from over the top of three boxes in his arms. He is a tall, sleek man with very short-cut brown hair and angular facial features. I have to think fast. No doubt he will want to know why I'm late heading to work, why I'm taking the lift, why (as I just now notice) my rank badge is crooked. Before he can ask any of that, an idea comes to me, and I spring, “Oh, Lieutenant sir, can I help you with those boxes?” Genius.
Vitka raises one eyebrow but then nods; “Very well, Crewman Kris.” I grab the top two that almost cover my face and hobble into the small elevator. Sure, helping the Lieutenant will take longer and make me later, but even Gros can't complain much if I was helping out a senior officer, heh-heh, perfect if I say so myself.
We only take a few seconds to reach the third floor and step out. I follow the almost silent Vitka down the corridor. I don't get to come up here very often. Aside from the meeting room, the bridge and officer's quarters are places I've never been called to, so I take the opportunity to look around.
We move down a passage that is, of all things, carpeted. Moreover, the walls here are not the regular metal plates of the rest of the ship but instead have a hardwood facade, and rather than ceiling lights, there are petite wall scones that let out a warm glow.
Along this rather lush corridor are four doors. No doubt, this is the officer’s quarters of the ship. I do briefly wonder who the fourth door is for – the Caravel only has three officers and is too small a ship to need a guest room for visiting dignitaries – perhaps it is more storage or a large washroom? Such questions will probably go forever unanswered.
I plan to stay on this ship, supporting Templar (whose door we just passed) for as long as I possibly can, but mechanics seldom get officer rank within Remembrance. Even Chief Gros is, well, a Master 'Chief' Petty Officer – which is still an NCO rank. So this opportunity to even see the area, much less enter one of these rooms, is kind of a treat.
Vitka steps up to the furthest room on the left and calls out, “Captain, ma'am, I am here to reinstate your computer.” He lets his box float free so that he can open the door before stepping in. I follow suit and, if a little hesitantly, step through the doorway.
The first thing that hits me about a senior officer’s room is the pressure – literally – there is a weak but acute sensation of gravity in here, something I haven't felt in over a month.
Luckily, it’s quite weak, much less than planet Abhaile's. Which is good as I'd rather brashly grabbed two boxes of computer parts and would probably have dropped them both had full gravity come on.
“Ma'am, what have I told you about leaving the suppressor field on?” Vitka says with a sharp sigh.
Captain Katherine is a tall woman, about the same height as Vitka. Her prosthetic arm is revealed from the shoulder down, as always. Her long hair is actually pretty neat and straight with the gravity holding it in place, and her expression is that usual cocksure grin;
“Lighten up, Vit, I've told you before, haven't I? A ship's crew aims to be one step behind their leader. If I humble myself too far, my men will feel like they have to go without as well. This amount of gravity is one small extravagance to maintain the crew's delicate ecosystem. Speaking of, afternoon, Crewman Kris!”
“Ah-h yes, ma-am! Captain ma'am!” I say back, wanting to salute but unable to with the boxes in my hands.
The Captain chuckles, “Come now, no need for that here. We girls should meet more often anyway. Actually, are you a girl? You're kind of pretty but also kind of androgynous, hmmmmmm?”
Vitka sighs as he lays down his box in one corner of the room. The space is smaller than I imagined, only around three metres by five. A bed is along the right side wall with a bookcase at its foot, and on the left side is a wall-spanning desk, most of it taken up with neatly organised paperwork and one corner being a little kitchenette. There is a nice chair, though the captain has chosen to sit on the edge of her bed. The whole room has pleasant lighting, owing to the ceiling covered in a suppressor field, the thing generating the light gravity.
“Their details were all listed on file,” Vitka says before beckoning me to lay the boxes on the long table and unpack them alongside him. The Captain, in a move entirely unsuited to someone her age, sticks out her tongue at Vitka.
“Bleh, I say! Like I read all that. Can you believe this killjoy is related to me, Kris?”
I shoot Vitka a surprised look, and he nods, “Twins,” he says dispassionately.
“But I'm the older of us, mind you,” the Captain adds.
I'm a little surprised, but looking at them in the same room, I can see it. Both have the same brown hair, eye colour and even height. They don't seem to be identical, but there is a resemblance there.
“Did you join Remembrance as officers together?” I ask and nearly bite my tongue. It is the height of rudeness to so casually ask such a thing of my superiors. To my relief, however, the Captain doesn't seem to mind.
“Not exactly. We joined training together and then got scouted for the intelligence bureau and special forces, respectively. Years later, Templar happened to come across us both. I was stranded, you see, bleeding out – He was quite the white knight for me,” Katherine finishes with a grin, flexing her mechanical arm, “And old grumpy-pants there had his unit deployed alongside the Caravel for a mission. The unit got wiped out, except for him, so we took him in like a stray.”
The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
Vitka doesn’t react to her story; instead, he turns to me, “Pass me the power lead, Crewman.”
“Oh yes-sir!” I reply quickly, fishing it out.
Still sitting as she watches us, the Captain speaks again, “Oh and here comes another of Templar's strays.”
Before I can ask what she means, something rubs across the back of my legs. I shriek in surprise and turn to stare at the perpetrator; “A-a-a, there's a viver, a viver on a spaceship!!” I exclaim, altogether too dramatically.
The Captain bursts out laughing; “Bwahahhahahahahaha! I didn't know you had such explosive reactions, Kris! I gotta’ spend more time with you.”
I blush, but I wasn't wrong. There really is a little viver prancing around the room.
Viver are one of the few things that TSU ever did for us. When they founded Abahile around four-hundred years ago, they tried introducing multiple biologically engineered animal species that might suit the climate better than those found on Bhaile. Almost all of them failed and promptly died out, but the viver, a cross of two household pets with just a touch of arctic fox, has prospered.
Of course, the species is literally a biologically engineered domestic pet, too small for guarding or hunting game. It is useful, therefore, for nothing but keeping down rodent populations. Still, the viver are unique to Abhaile, and that has created a general fondness for them amongst the people. They were the official national animal of Abaile before the occupation began.
But all that aside, to find one on a spaceship is not normal. This particular viver is pure black, lithe build with the signature oval-shaped ears and tail of its kind and a small round face. It purrs while continuing to circle my legs.
“Bu-but why is it here? Doesn't it get confused in the lack of gravity?” I ask, genuinely bewildered.
The Captain starts laughing again, “She's just something Templar picked up a while back, been here longer than Vitka or me. She's probably the fourth longest-serving member of the crew. As for why we keep her aboard, look at it like an experiment on the effects of space on house pets.”
As if on queue, the viver jumps off the floor and, in the weak gravity of the room, floats over to the nearest wall. Bouncing off this one, too and straight out the doorway.
“See? Eve does just fine around here,” Captain Katherine grins.
I suddenly feel a little overwhelmed by just the sheer weight of history on this ship. I'd come here to support Templar, but I've learned there are far more heroes than just him here. Even the stray viver has been following him for years!
Perhaps that awe has begun showing on my face as Katherine speaks up once more, and even Vitka seems to be looking at me from the corner of his eye.
“Hey now, that's a look reserved for the Master, ya hear? Me and Vitka don't need that sort of adoration,” she proclaims a little more sternly.
I’m somewhat taken aback by the bluntness of the statement. “I, sorry – I just thought you both seemed impressive and experienced, is all...”
The smile returns to her face, “That we are! Especially me, but we ain't 'heroes' or anything like that. Vitka spent most of his career as little more than a hired gun, and I was the one who used to set up those very murders. I understand hanging around Master Templar has an effect on people, certainly a young person like yourself – But keep in mind everyone can do good and bad, Templar included.”
I frown but don't argue back. Still, it doesn't sound quite right. I mean, Templar is so kind-hearted he even takes in stray viver! But that aside, even the Captain and Vitka seem heroic. Perhaps they ended up on the wrong track for a bit, and did things they regret, but watching them now, being kind to their subordinates, supporting each other and Templar alike; they must surely have always been destined to be heroes.
The Captain seems displeased with my train of thought, as though she’s read my mind. She leans forward, and her voice grows far sterner, “I’m not sure you quite get it Kris. I used to be someone whose entire job was hurting others. I would ‘interrogate’ my marks by any means necessary, without remorse or mercy.
I became arrogant enough to think I understood what pain was. I thought it was something I knew how to inflict. It wasn’t until I lost my arm that I realised what pain really is. How pitiful and meagre the pain I could inflict on others was. How terrible pain really is. My arm pressed under the unfeeling concrete of a caved-in ceiling, explosions and fire everywhere, enemy soldiers seeing me, watching me trying to free my pulverised arm while screaming from that pain. And they simply smirked before continuing on. Leaving me, an enemy, behind because they felt I deserved to bleed out slowly in the ruins of my own interrogation chamber.
The thing that really got me, Kris? Past the pain and humiliation, past losing my arm? It was realising they had every right to scorn me, that I had nothing to take pride in. I hadn’t ever known pain, and I traded my arm for a profession of hurting others that I couldn’t even take pride in.”
“Ah-h I, I–” I can’t find any words. Her bright, intelligent eyes stare into mine, forcing me to hear her story and not idolise it because to do so might very well be to belittle her; that's what those eyes seem to be saying to me in the soft lighting of the little box room.
The gravity level hasn’t changed, but I feel a whole lot heavier…
To my surprise, it is not the Captain who speaks next, but Vitka, “Crewman, at your age, it is easy to get sucked into one extreme or another. Pessimism was what I found myself attached to back then, and perhaps it is a type of optimism for you. You would do well to start learning that one has to work to become something greater.”
I blink, “Sir?”
He sighs, “Fold down the empty boxes. We're done here. Captain, your PC is reinstalled, and all files should remain. Please try not to break it again quite so fast.”
The Captain grins, all her earlier intensity gone without a trace, “Right you are little brother, thank you!”
Vitka cringes slightly, “Come along, Crewmen. I will escort you back and explain your tardiness to the Chief.”
“Oh, thank you very much, sir! Goodbye, Captain ma'am,” I say as politely as possible, this time able to salute.
She smiles fondly, the eyes of a loving parent rather than a self-described murderer, “Cya Kris, seems I'll have to keep a closer eye on you; ya’ pretty interesting. Oh, make up with Birgit, got it? That's an order.” The latter half is said just as the door shuts.
Vitka turns to me. For the first time I’ve ever seen, he grins in a similar way to his sister, “You heard her, better obey unless you want to be charged for insubordination. I'd first try an apology to young Petty Officer Birigit, always a good place to start when making up.”
I smile back weakly; the Captain’s story and her parting order leave me with a lot to think about. Daydreaming on the job really can be quite dangerous…
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