Olivia looked at the unconscious girl lying on her hospital bed. It was a miracle, yet again, she’d survived; the wound had been a terrible one - deep into her back, puncturing her lung and pushing right through into her ribcage where the blade had finally stopped. If one of Mr Choudary’s marines hadn’t been in the next compartment and come running Harriet would have bled out and Sparrow would almost certainly also be dead.
In a way Harriet had saved all their lives, as without Sparrow there was no getting home. That might be the case anyway, the girl had been in hysterics afterwards and had to be sedated; she was currently lying in the next bed. So far all the doctors could tell was that there was more going on than the trauma of the attack. Olivia had a good idea what the something else going on was; she’d been watching them at dinner and it was obvious.
She pushed back her chair and pulled back the curtain surrounding the neighbouring bed. There Sparrow lay sleeping the deep but restless sleep of someone under sedation. Ms Liu sat by her bed scrolling through something on her tablet faster than she could possibly be reading.
“You haven’t found the answer then?” Olivia asked.
“No,” Ms Liu replied, her frustration writ clear in her voice, “I mean it’s no help that there’s absolutely no information on pilots’ mental health available. She’s undoubtedly traumatised after the attempt on her life and Harriet getting injured but the preemptive EMDR treatment she had been immediately exposed to should have prevented this total psychological collapse.”
“No treatment is hundred percent effective,” Olivia commented.
“I know, I know,” Ms Liu replied on autopilot now, “and we don’t even know if pilots’ brains are so altered our therapies won’t work on them.”
“I think Sparrow is probably wired the same as us, fundamentally just someone installed some weird software,” Olivia reflected, “in fact I think I can offer you an explanation. Although I must say I’m surprised you haven’t already thought of it.”
“Well what is it?” a deeply exasperated Ms Liu replied.
“They’re in love, well at least Harriet is, but I suspect it’s mutual,” Olivia announced. “Now this was all probably fine so long as Sparrow wasn’t thinking directly about it; but what do you think a girl who thought she was probably going to die says to the object of their affection before they do? I’d put good money on it that it was the first time Harriet expressed her feelings to Sparrow.
“I also expect Sparrow’s programming that was meant to inhibit both her emotions and behaviour means she would have trouble processing that notion at the best of times but combined with the trauma of the attack - well sometimes you need to shut completely down to work through all that.”
“They’re in love?” said a visibly shocked Ms Liu.
“Of course they are, didn’t you see them at dinner? Stealing glances at each other, the way they talk to each other, the way they find little reasons to touch each other.”
“Wow, I did not,” Ms Liu admitted.
“Wow, is that an admission of error from Ms Liu,” Mr Choudary announced as he walked into the room, “how are our two problem children then?”
“Harriet’s stable, Sparrow still sedated,” Ms Liu rushed out, “did you know they were in love?”
“You didn’t?” Mr Choudary laughed, “it was pretty bloody obvious. They’re teenagers after all, love at that age is deep, open, painful; much like a stab in the back I suppose.”
“How did I miss it?” Ms Liu lamented.
“Well you don’t exactly, you know, have much interest in romance from what I can see.”
“I’m a goddamn married woman,” Ms Liu spat back, “and you’re a fine one to talk Amir.”
“Enough,” Olivia finally shouted, “Christ, do you always just bicker like this. You know what, don’t answer that. Mr Choudary - you go and watch over Harriet and Ms Liu and I will work out if this new parameter can help us unravel Sparrow’s mind.”
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Amir sat by Harriet’s bed and stretched out. He’d been here a couple of hours. After the first the Captain and Chloe clued him in on their theory, which he was able to expand on with a few thoughts and observations of his own.
But now, sitting beside the wounded girl, he wondered: what had he done to the girl? Ripped her out of her bubble of wealth and privilege, got her beaten for weeks on end, maimed in a firefight, and now stabbed in the back. The decision to press gang her, he was pretty sure, had been his only option of escaping back on the Without. Still he felt bad about it.
At least she proclaimed she was happier here. Probably not right at this moment, but generally. That was something, although the part of him that was still a mere citizen couldn’t fathom how you could not be happy with all the luxury and comfort of even the lowliest of Honourables. Maybe that part of him had made up his mind about conscripting her, the chance to bring low a stuck up Honourable brat he’d been babysitting before everything went to shit. He hoped not, especially now he’d grown fond of her. He was getting sentimental in his old age. Beside him, Harriet was stirring.
“Don’t even think about trying to sit up,” he barked at her.
“Mr Choudary?” she managed to utter.
“In the flesh which means, no you’re not dead but it was a damn well close thing,” he replied pre-empting what he thought would be her next question, “you should really stop this whole nearly getting killed. When I lost the leg you know, I just decided enough was enough and either let Allah take me or leave me unscathed - no more half measures.”
“Sparrow?” she whispered desperately, ignoring whatever he had just said.
“Next bed to your left, she’s not physically hurt but she has been psychologically traumatised. Chloe and the Captain are with her right now trying to work out an engineering solution for a medical problem.”
“Fuck off, Amir,” came Chloe’s voice through the curtain, before adding, “glad to see you awake Ms Ellis.”
“Me too,” the Captain added.
“Right, ignore them anyway,” Amir said, turning his attention back to Harriet, “the other things you might want to know? Well you’re going to be here recovering for a few weeks. Corporal Atkinson shot dead your assailant and administered first aid on your wound that probably stopped you bleeding to death - you should buy him a drink sometime. The PO who attacked you was a former member of the police unit. We’ve got surveillance on the other former members of the unit, although with no internal monitoring now, we’ve just got my tactical cameras and old fashioned hiding behind corners and tailing them to go with.”
“Sparrow,” was all the other girl managed to whisper back.
“Sorry, I don’t have much to give you. From what I gather the doctors don’t know how her own personality and her programming are interacting. The Captain thinks her ego is asserting itself over her programming, which is like an uber-superego keeping her second guessing herself; expressing her emotions for all it seems to have come naturally to her probably took her considerable mental strength.” He paused, trying to think if what he planned to say next would be a cruelty or a kindness. Genuinely he had no idea so he did what he normally did in these situations which was to press on regardless. “And then you, lying in a pool of your own blood, told her you loved her didn’t you?”
“T’at obvious,” she managed to mumble.
“Incredibly,” Amir laughed. “You know you’ll need a new detail.”
Harriet looked at him quizzically.
“You don’t want to date and work together, trust me. Besides, it's just not a good look for either of you.”
She nodded slowly.
“I’ve got openings if you fancy being a marine.”
Harriet shook her head perhaps a bit too vigorously if the wince that accompanied the action was anything to go by.
“Well no matter; you want to see her?”
This time the nod was so vigorous it elicited a little whimper of pain from the girl as she moved her body too much.
“Take it easy,” Amir urged, “you still have a lot of healing to do. Anyway I’ll wheel you over, just need to check I don’t leave your O2 supply behind.”
Amir pushed the injured girl, sweeping the curtains between the beds aside, so her bed was side by side with Sparrow’s.
“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Chloe asked.
“Can’t see why not?” Amir replied.
Amir watched as Harriet turned to look at the other girl very slowly.
“Wake her up?” she managed to force out.
“We can,” the Captain said hesitantly, “it will take a while for the sedatives to wear off and she was very distressed when she was sedated. She might still be when she awakes. You understand right?”
Harriet nodded.
“Ok then,” the Captain said, “I’ll get the doctors to cut off the sedatives.”
A few minutes later a doctor came in and did just that.
“Come on,” Amir told Chloe and the Captain, “let’s give them some privacy.”
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Harriet watched the three leave and turned her head slowly, every time she moved she hurt; she guessed she’d probably spent a lot of time heavily sedated when she was recovering from her burns. This time no such luck. Finally, she managed to turn her head enough to see Sparrow. She was still asleep, although her fingers were beginning to twitch. Sparrow’s curly hair was flat and dull, much like it had been when she’d first left the pod. She probably looked even worse, she figured.
She wished she could reach out to Sparrow and take her hand but she was lying with her injured left side next to her and there was no way she could move her left arm. Frustrated that all she could do was stare at her. She would save her voice, such as it was at the moment until Sparrow woke up. All she could do for now was watch the other girl slowly breathe.
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At some point she must have fallen asleep. As she awoke to Sparrow letting out a scream. Her first instinct was to leap up; but of course she couldn’t. Instead she forced her eyes open and her head to turn to her left again. There she saw Sparrow sitting up in her bed howling, her eyes scrunched tightly shut.
“Sparrow,” she managed to mumble. The other girl didn’t seem to hear. She’d have to try and speak louder somehow. Breathing deeply in preparation she mustered what little strength she had and made herself somehow shout: “Sparrow I’m here.”
Immediately the other girl whipped her head round and opened her eyes.
“Harri!” she exclaimed, tears streaming down her face.
“Hey,” she whispered back.
“I thought you were dead,” Sparrow said, choking back her sobs.
“Still here,” Harriet managed, “har’ to talk though.”
Sparrow cracked a teary smile and then scuttled over in her bed so she was close enough to take Harriet’s hand in hers. They lay for a while like that as Sparrow calmed herself down. Harriet watched as the other girl struggled to control her breathing - all she could do to help was lightly squeeze Sparrow’s hand. After about half an hour Sparrow had managed to stop sobbing and start breathing normally.
“Harri,” Sparrow began, composing herself, “you must never do anything like that again. It’s not worth it. I’m not worth it.”
“No,” Harriet said as firmly as she could manage.
“You must.”
Harriet shook her head again. Then she pressed the button to release another dose of painkillers and then mustered herself to say more than a couple of words.
“No, you’re the one who needs to be protected. Without you no one gets home. Besides I’m just some fallen Honourable girl; I’m nothing special you know, not compared to you.”
“You are special,” Sparrow said, tearing up again.
“I’m just a spoiled little rich girl who got lost,” god this was hard work, Harriet thought.
“Not anymore,” Sparrow replied in her earnest manner, “that’s not how I see you.”
“How do you see me?” Harriet questioned.
“Brave, funny, beautiful, you never give up and you hold your pain deep inside where no one can see it,” Sparrow spurted out.
“That would be nice, but honestly I’m not any of those things,” she said struggling over the words, “I’m mean, naive, maimed, scared witless half the time, and the pain inside me just makes me poisonous. I really don’t deserve to have you as a friend, especially given how I was when we met.”
“I don’t care about what you were like when we met, I’m talking about who you are now. You’ve changed a lot you know,” Sparrow said, the words practically falling off her tongue in the hurry to get them out, before adding more reflectively, “I guess we’ve both changed a lot.”
“I guess we’re both finally free in a way, me out of the pod, you out of the expectations of being the Mayor’s daughter.”
“Uh-huh, you could say that,” Harriet conceded. “I am happier here, I think, and a big part of that is you. You make me happy Sparrow, being with you makes me happy. So that’s why I’m always going to protect you no matter what.”
“Well, I’m going to protect you too because that’s how I feel as well.”
“How do you feel, Sparrow?” Harriet asked nervously, “I mean you know how I feel now.”
“I honestly don’t know,” Sparrow began, “my programming was meant to stop me getting attached to anyone. Everytime I try and think about what you said it pushes back hard, I can’t even manage to say the word.”
“Well can you tell me how you feel,” Harriet asked, “about me I mean?”
“I think so,” Sparrow nodded, “I’m always happy to be with you, but I’m even happier when it’s just the two of us. I miss you when you’re not there. I am sad that you’re lying in a hospital bed. I loathe that it was because of me you got hurt. When you touch me I feel calm but also excited. I’m confused. I don’t know if what I’m feeling is, you know the word I can’t say, or something else; I’ve got no reference data.”
“Do you want to kiss me?” Harriet whispered very quietly.
Sparrow was still for a few moments mulling over Harriets request. Harriet herself had never been so nervous in her life.
“How do I do it?” Sparrow asked finally.
“We’ll work it out I imagine.”
“Don’t you know?”
“Nope, my first time,” Harriet admitted, before explaining, “Honourable courtship is strictly chaste until all the contracts are signed.”
“What should I be feeling, I mean if it is the word I can’t say?”
“I don’t know Sparrow. All I know is I’m in love with you. The thought of you kissing me makes my heart race and my skin heat up. See if that happens to you.”
“My heart is racing already, Harri.”
“Well I think you should just do it then, now, before the painkillers properly kick in and I drift off.”
“Ok then,” Sparrow said quietly.
The next thing Harriet knew the other girl had scooted closer and was now laying on her side so close to her their noses were nearly touching. Harriet could hear Sparrow breathing hard again, she was sure her own breathing had grown faster as well. Ever so slowly Sparrow tilted her head slightly and closed the gap between them. Suddenly Harriet felt a soft warm pressure on her lips and it was as if her whole body lit up in response. She wished she was able to wrap her arms around the other girl and never let her go; she didn’t want this feeling to ever end. After what could only have been a few seconds, though it felt like days, Sparrow slowly moved away.
“So what did you feel?” Harriet asked after they’d lain in silence for about two minutes.
At first Sparrow didn’t respond, she seemed frozen, and then ever so slowly she nodded her head and smiled, and then, catching Harriet totally by surprise, she leaned in and kissed her again and it sent her happily away into painkiller induced oblivion.
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Chloe was worried, she’d tried to hide it earlier with Amir and the Captain but in her own company there was no ignoring it. The whole situation had spiralled massively since her original plan, the one she’d admittedly made up on the fly in the middle of a firefight, to fake Sparrow’s identity so she could live happily as a tech in blissful anonymity. But now the whole ship knew about her, she was diving into the slip again, and apparently she was in love - with Harriet Ellis no less. There was no way that could end well, could it?
Currently she was on the quarter deck installing a new station, the one the Captain kept referring to as the wheel, but really was pretty much a carbon copy of the shuttle’s flight deck. She and her detail probably had a day or so of work left to finish the install. It had already taken a long time as they’d basically had to reconfigure the whole layout of the quarterdeck to fit in the flight deck.
Chloe understood why the Captain was rushing this through, after her breakdown Sparrow needed to be observed when they were in the slip, not that she thought Sparrow would ever intentionally harm them but clearly the process of her asserting her will over her programming was an unpredictable one. Chloe wished she could think of a way to help her, to take control fully and then be able to utilise her programming’s capabilities as she saw fit. She just couldn’t think of one other than time. Time wasn’t something they had though. Although the crew understood that the flightdeck on the ship needed to be installed before their next dive; once it was done there was the expectation that Sparrow’s part of the bargain the Captain had made with them, to get them home as quickly as possible, would be fulfilled.
So they’d need to watch her, the Captain, or Officer of the Watch, could immediately end any dive thanks to the new control panel Chloe had personally installed on the Captain’s chair. Any sign she was cracking up and Chloe was reasonably confident now they could exit the slip before something smashed them to pieces. Harriet was a complicating factor though, she had no idea how it had happened, although clearly Amir and the Captain did, but she dreaded to think what adding the angst of a teenage romance would have on Sparrow’s emerging psyche. Still there was nothing to be done about it. They were teenagers afterall and unlikely to listen to any advice from her.
She had already decided she’d move Harriet into her own detail in main engineering - time to get her familiar with the drives and power plant for the ship. Sparrow would obviously be spending most of her time in the slip from now on. The Captain had come up with a schedule of two short dives each day, each three and a half hours long with an hour's rest in between for the pilot. Against her better judgement she had arranged Harriet’s shift pattern to align with Sparrow’s own so that they could spend some time together before the sleep shift started. They’d need to be strict about ensuring the sleep shift actually was used for sleeping now of course. The whole arrangement was designed to keep Sparrow rested and relaxed.
Maybe she was worrying too much, she thought, maybe her own feeling of groundlessness was colouring her judgement. After all she felt pretty rudderless at the moment. A few nights ago she came to the conclusion her marriage was over; she just didn’t miss him, she was barely even thinking of him. At least they were childless - it shouldn’t be too much bother to dissolve. Was she even bitter that the two girls had found each other whilst her own romance was ending? Was she even a bit jealous that Sparrow had less time to be her friend now, probably, she’d always been a bit possessive, but at the same time, worries about piloting the slip aside, she was also happy for Sparrow that she was making her own life for herself now. It probably wasn’t helping that some of the hostility that had been directed at Sparrow was now also being directed at her - she had been the one who had saved the girl after all. Ultimately, she was to blame for the whole situation after all.
“If you’ve got a minute Ms Liu, I’d like a word,” came the Captain’s voice from behind her.
“Sure thing sir, just let me finish tightening this bolt,” she said, tightening it with her spanner as quickly as she could, before carefully placing the tool back in its place in her toolbox. She stood up and followed the Captain into her office that was located just behind the quarterdeck.
“So I’ve got a rostering problem,” the Captain said, “quite simply I’ve not got enough officers. I’ve already promoted three sub-Lieutenants to Lieutenant and two midshipmen to sub-Lieutenant and I’m still short.”
“Sounds tricky,” Chloe agreed wondering where this was going.
“Specifically, though I’m short on officers who I can reliably leave in command, Desai and I can’t stand every shift and quite frankly I’m not sure how many other Henty’s are out there.”
“Amir’s a good leader,” Chloe offered.
“Amir’s a good leader or marines,” the Captain half-agreed, “but he has no idea about how to command a warship.”
“So what are you going to do?”
“I’m going to order you to do it,” the Captain smirked at her.
“You what,” said Chloe stepping backwards in shock, “I can't. I'm not an officer! It would be against regulations and your officers would never listen to any orders I gave them.”
“Quite frankly they’ll have to, and I couldn’t care less about Naval Regulations at this point, it’s just another inquiry hearing that won’t happen for years now,” the Captain explained, “look, Chloe you tick all the boxes - you know the ship inside and out, you’re used to command, you’re used to acting autonomously and you can make a good decision under pressure.”
“That’s all very flattering sir, but I’m really not trained for it. I’m a tech not a commander.”
“You just don’t realise you’re a commander, you’d have been a perfect officer candidate if you had been born an Honourable. Sadly, I can’t make you an officer or you’d already have lieutenant bands on your lapels. I can make you Officer of the Watch though; you know there’s nothing in Naval Regulations that specifically excludes a warrant officer standing Watch - probably sloppy drafting but it gives me the wiggle room I need.”
“I don’t know what to say,” Chloe said sagging, clearly this was happening regardless of what she said, “you know I don’t even know what the Officer of the Watch does.”
“You’re me, or at least my representative, whilst me and Desai have some sleep or eat or whatever. You’d be in command of the Whittington. You’ll approve her course, order corrections, make sure all the ship’s systems are functioning and take immediate action against any threats to the ship or its crew until such time Desai or I relieve you.”
“That’s a lot of responsibility,” Chloe said carefully.
“It is,” the Captain agreed, “I think you can handle it. I mean you already oversee the majority of the ship’s systems. You can absolutely do this.”
“I don’t have a choice anyway do I?”
“No not really, the requirements of the service and all that.”
“So when am I doing this?”
“Now, it’s the end of the second shift and I’ve not slept in 36 hours,” the Captain grinned as she walked out of the room, Chloe reluctantly following her out. “Right I’m off to get some sleep,” the Captain announced to the Quarterdeck, “Ms Liu, you have command.”
A stunned silence fell over the bridge, which the Captain ignored and simply pointed Chloe to her chair. Reluctantly Chloe sat herself down in it. “I have command, sir,” she said quietly, repeating the phrase she’d seen Desai and the senior lieutenants say when they sat down.
“Very good,” the Captain said as she strode off the quarterdeck leaving her alone, or so it felt.
Well if she had the Captain’s authority she could change that at least. She turned her gaze on a confused looking communications tech and said, “Seaman, would you be so good as to send Mr Choudary a message that he is required on the quarterdeck”. At least she would have someone to talk to now.