Alex

Thank God that I was done with all of the repairs I needed to do to get this thing as close to fixed as I could get it. And thank God I wasn’t talking to that Uzhin guy, all he did was remind me how much I hated engineers. Those pricks always thought of themselves better, just because they designed the shit that we used so frequently. Except David, of course. He was the only one that I liked and could tolerate for any amount of time greater than ten minutes.

But I’m getting off topic here. I was rolling along, no longer having to manually push the wheelchair along. God bless automation and the technology that allows us to have such automation. I thought to myself as I passed by crewmate after crewmate that continued to stop and stare at me as if I was some kind of spectacle that they’d pay twenty credits to see in some freak show. Not wanting to waste time, I pulled out my phone and requested a call with the captain. It rang for a few moments until I finally connected.

“Yes, Alex? What is it you need?” she asked in her customary briskness.

“Well Ma’am, the mech is fixed to the best of my abilities, and I am now ready to report to my new assignment.” I thought for a moment. “Well, I would like to get lunch first, then I can start working on the bridge.”

She thought for a moment before speaking again. “That is acceptable, so long as you can start today. Jumac is irritable enough as it is without the delay.”

I shook my head dismissively. “I’m sure he is. The hell’s that dude’s problem, anyways?”

There was a long sigh. “Yesterday was the first time since coming on as head of security that there has been so much as a breach in the hull. Not only did the situation resolve itself before he could personally intervene, but it was you specifically that fixed the problem before it could get any worse. He was already a prideful man, but the reveal of what you are was a bit too much of a blow,” the captain explained.

“Oh,” I said. “So, he’s taking all of this out on me. Just let him know that if he keeps pushing me like this, I’ll make what happened on the Indomitable Crusade look like a joke.”

There was silence for a moment as the captain tried to figure out how to properly respond to that threat. “I don’t think that he’d respond very well to such a threat, but if you insist on me giving that message, then I’ll do it.”

“Oh no, that wasn’t a threat, that was a promise,” I said with as much seriousness as I could muster. “If there’s one thing that Terrans hate more than anything else, it’s assholes in positions of power.”

The line went silent once more. “I’ll pass that on, hopefully he doesn’t feel honor bound to duel you or something like that. When can I expect you on the bridge?” she asked.

“Oh, I’d say in about an hour or so. I’m not feeling very hungry right now, but I still should take the break to recover talking to one of the engineers,” I said, letting how tired I was seep into my voice.

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“Oh Tribunal, who were you talking to? There are absolutely some irritating engineers down there,” she explained.

“Just some Orsier named Uzhin, or something like that,” I answered.

I heard a hearty slap emanate from my phone. “Oh, Tribunal he’s one of the worst ones. Don’t get me wrong, he’s a great engineer, one of the best we have on the crew. He just loves talking your ear or equivalent off whenever he has the chance. He’s a good kid, just a bit excited when it comes to new things. And you are by far the newest thing on this ship.”

I gave a small chuckle. “He was more interested in the mech than he was me, but either way he was super annoying.” I stopped short of my door. “Well, I’m at my door, so I’ll let you go so I can eat some food,” I said as I keyed in the code for the door.

“That is acceptable. Enjoy your mid meal,” she said before hanging up the call.

“Thanks,” I said as I rolled into the cabin, once again much the same way that I left it this morning. I’ll clean it up tomorrow at the very latest, I thought to myself, knowing damn well that I wouldn’t do it tomorrow. I flicked a few switches in the cockpit to open the hatch and heard the telltale hissing that told me the whole thing was working as intended. There was the familiar rush of air as the whole front of the cockpit folded in on itself and revealed me to the outside world. I climbed down the face and chest of the mech until I finally got down to a point where I could use the elevator.

One short elevator ride and a walk to the closet, and I found myself in the kitchen portion of the closet, that held enough rations filled with enough preservatives to last me from now to the heat death of the universe. “Now let’s see here, what to have, what to have?” I asked the empty room as I rummaged through a box of MRE’s. I finally pulled out a meal kit for chicken curry with rice. “You know what? Good enough,” I said, tearing open the package and dumping the contents onto the counter.

I had been eating nothing but these MRE’s for a little over a month now, and I can honestly say that time did not improve the taste of these things. Sure, there were some breakthroughs since it’s invention God knows how long ago, but that didn’t mean that it was any more palatable now. While I waited for my food to heat up, I looked at my phone for any more updates about the war going on. Of course, the only thing that the Terran government would tell anyone right now was that the Terran flagship, The Big Stick, and its escort group, was making good time to the Yalayan home world to blockade it and extract a surrender. Damn, already, huh? I thought it would take at least three days to get that all sorted out. But then again, the military hasn’t really been used for much since Terra stopped having wars ten years ago.

I looked down at the MRE to see that it was already done cooking. I put down my phone, pulled out a fork and knife from one of the drawers nearby, and opened the pouch, recoiling slightly as the steam hit me in the face a bit too quickly. I halfheartedly stabbed my fork into the bag and put it into my mouth. The fruit that I was having may have been nice, but that didn’t change the fact that I needed more protein in my diet. The meat in the cafeteria could have been ok for me to eat, if it wasn’t seasoned with things that would probably kill me if I ate in amounts that would leave me full. I looked down at the MRE that I was eating, fully aware of the irony of that statement. I ate the rest of the pack quickly as I continued to scroll through the news coming in from Terra.

Fifteen minutes later, I was out of my cabin and wheeling myself closer to my new goal, the bridge. I would say that it got easier being the subject of everyone’s attention, but that would make me a filthy liar. And besides, I’ve told enough lies aboard this ship to last me a lifetime. A short elevator ride later and the elevator doors to the bridge finally opened, once again revealing the organized chaos that was the bridge of The Shooting Star, with the captain at the center of it all.

I wheeled myself over to her where I saluted her and said, “Reporting for duty, Ma’am.”