Aurelia

I just want to go home.

What home?

I want my old life back.

What life? This is your life now.

I just need someone to tell me everything’s going to be okay.

Hah. I can’t even lie about that if I wanted to.

How can anything be okay when the Zyxien are slowly invading every planet?

How long will we be safe, even on the Central Planets?

What sort of life will I have on the Central Planets?

Will we even make it there in one piece on this rotten starliner?

“Aunt Meril and her husband just offered us to stay at their place.” Enea mutters, tapping at her phone screen with her spiky nails, “I got a message.”

“Don’t they live on the Central Planets?”

“Yeah, Kotara.”

I lean back against the end of her bunk and let out a long sigh, “for how long?”

“It says a year or more if we need.”

“Thank the gods.” It’s like a heavy weight has been lifted off my neck. For once we might have something to look forward to.

Enea leans across the bed, flipping her phone screen to show me pictures, “their house is classy. I bet she throws great parties.”

“I bet.”

It does look classy; but I can’t stand to look at more than a pictures of mahogany furniture and grand pianos before the reminder sets in that we haven’t made it yet.

And for now, we’re stuck in the Marillion with all its pastel hues and rainbow floors, and ugly green bedframes and horrid floor levels that people go missing in and…

“How’s Illion?” The question catches me off guard, and I stare at her for a very long minute.

“He’s good.”

“Details, Auri.” She’s not even looking at me, she’s too busy tapping away on her goddamn phone.

“He’s fine.”

Enea huffs and peeks over the rim of her phone to give me a stink eye, “you hear all the details of my dating life, every bit, embarrassing included.”

“I bought him flowers last night. I think he liked them.”

“You bought him flowers?” She gags on her own words, “bitch, what the fuck?”

“His room needed some life and colour.”

“It’s not a toddler’s paint palette like the rest of the ship?” She scoffs, “that’s a shocker.”

“No, no, it is…but…” I can’t seem to find my tongue, “I don’t know. I thought he might appreciate it.”

“Mhm.” She’s smirking as she stares at her phone screen, but by her tone I can tell she’s fully focused on me now. “What else?”

“What else?”

“Come on, Auri, don’t give me that. Spill the tea!”

“There’s no tea!” I’m not about to tell her about the embarrassing incident with the cold shower. Or hugging Illion to sleep; my personal teddy bear.

My personal what?

“Aurelia.” Enea hums in a sing-song voice, “why are you turning red?”

“No reason!” I squeak, defaulting to nervous laughter.

“Bitch, spill the beans!” She lunges at me and grabs me by the shoulders, wrestling me onto the bed, “spill the beans!”

“No! I can’t!” I’m laughing so hard that tears are running down the sides of my eyes. My cheeks are burning up and I cover my face.

“Spill the beans!” She shakes me aggressively and I only squeal louder; people on the other cots in the barracks are starting to look at us now.

After another minute of her begging me to spill, I relent, and she lets me go with a victorious smirk.

“Okay, but you can’t tell anyone!” I lower my voice to a whisper, “not even Lolli-N.”

“Pinky promise.”

“Pinky-super promise?”

“Just tell already!”

“It’s…” I trail off, trying to find the right words without giving too much away, “so I got caught in the cold showers, right?”

“Oh!” She exclaims, “I know some people in here did too! They came back shivering all night!”

“It was fucking cold!”

Her eyebrows knit together, “so what happened?”

“Guess who-”

“Who?!”

“Let me talk! Gods.” I put a hand to my forehead, “guess who let me hug him all night because I was freezing?”

“No!”

“Yes!”

“No!” She yells so loudly the whole room and can hear and everyone’s looking at us again. She lowers her voice, “did he really?”

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“Yes!” And now my tongue can’t stop itself. “All night! And he’s got some sort of high brand shampoo or something because his hair smelled amazing. And he’s really shy when he’s awake but as soon as he fell asleep, he had his arms around me.”

“Oh my gods!” She grabs me by the wrists and starts bouncing up and down on the bed, “oh my gods, he’s smitten, Auri! Smitten! Head over heels! Out of this world madly in love!”

“It was just one night!”

“Or will it be two?”

“No!”

“Why not?!” Her face melts into a wicked grin, “accidentally get caught in a cold shower again. Problem solved. And after a week maybe he’ll even do it again without the excuse.”

“But those cold showers are miserable!” I wail, and pull away from her grasp, “I’d rather take my chances without. I was actually going to die of hypothermia if he hadn’t…”

“Hypothermia and hugs or lukewarm and lonely?”

I fall back against the back of her bunk with a groan, “I don’t want to think about it. I’ll take it as it comes. Every night can’t be a win.”

“Why not?”

I shrug loosely, “I don’t know. It just feels…do I even like him? I don’t know.”

“You don’t like him?” Enea looks me up and down with shock.

“No, I do! But…like, not maybe, in that way? I don’t really know him.”

With a sigh I lean my head on the bed post and Enea goes quiet.

I really don’t know him. He’s not who I think he is, no public figure is. He’s got his persona; the Captain of the Marillion, fearless and charming and wild. But who is he truly?

Spotting the cracks in a persona is tricky, but it’s possible. If you’re careful. If you’re clever; it’s there. It’s always there.

Illion

“Medbay says no more sugar for the rest of the voyage. It’s heightening your emotional drive, and we can’t have that.” Lolli-N snatches the milkshake out of my hand as I lean over a map of the star system.

“What emotional drive?” I mutter, and I pretend not to care that she’s ripped my drink away.

According to the star system map, and our current calculations based off the known travelling speeds of the Zyxien ships, we should reach the asteroid belt a day before them. It’s a tight call but manipulating the ship through the belt will be even riskier.

“Medbay’s processed your genomics data through the Little Brain, and apparently in cryosleep some mutations were induced which led to hypersensitivity to sugar and can cause emotional regulation issues.”

“I need the sugar and amphetamines to concentrate.” I let out a slow breath, and stick my hand out to her, “give the milkshake back.”

“No.” She takes a step back, clutching it to her chest. “Medbay orders.”

“Do you want a captain who might be a little happier than usual, or a captain who can’t focus when we’re being hunted by a fleet of starving aliens?” I snap, “give me the damn milkshake.”

“Sugar is more likely to cause extreme heightened emotional responses.”

“Don’t make me ask again. This ship needs everyone to cooperate. That means I need you on board with me, not free floating in space.”

With a grumble, she passes the milkshake back, “whatever you say, sir.”

****

Shift is over. The Cybernetics have successfully been ejected from the ship, and a current clean up project on floor two is underway. It should be in working order in a few days, and then maybe the tension onboard will ease up a bit.

Everyone’s still torn up about the invasion. There’s a hushed atmosphere as I descend from the bridge to the confectionary hall. They don’t look at me, I doubt they even notice me.

Tequila is free today, and from the reports I’ve heard people are going to the bars, drinking as much as they can, and then going to sleep wherever they can find room. And if they don’t go to sleep, they fight until the homebots break them up. And if they don’t sleep, and they don’t fight, they wander about in a half-dazed state talking about anything and everything besides the invasion.

A common emotional response to trauma. It will fade in a few days, provided they have something new to focus on. That’s my job to provide.

Floor two will be that distraction.

But for now, I have eight hours until my next shift. Lolli-N is adamant I should text Aurelia, but staring at the empty chat in my messages scares me. I think I’ll pass.

“Captain, hey captain.” A man with spiky blue hair grabs my arm suddenly as I’m passing a confectionary stand. “Hey, motherfucker! Are you the one who runs the lottery to this ship?”

He’s drunk; his breath reeks of vodka, and he towers over me by at least a foot. I’m a shrimp next to this guy.

“Sir, I need you to calm down and release me.”

“I need you to…to release the fucking beer!” He slurs, cackling like a witch on Halloween, and squeezing my arm even tighter, “and release the good women! All the women here are fucking ugly!”

My other hand fumbles at the clicker on my belt, sending an alert to the Marillion guards. “Sir, there’s plenty of women on the Central Planets but you’re not going to make it that far if you break my arm.”

The guards are pushing through the gathering crowd; two men in pastel blue uniform with matching helmets and stun guns.

He leans in closely, so that I can smell his extra fermented breath in poisonous quantities, “fuck you, fruit cake.”

He throws me to the ground roughly, but the guards are on him in a second, pinning him against the wall as he howls and laughs and thrashes against them.

“Take him to the temporary containment centre.” I jump to my feet, brushing my suit off. “I’ll deal with him tomorrow once he’s sober.”

“Yes, sir.”

Head up, like nothing happened, like my arm isn’t about to fall off, I step away from the scene and take the short route to my room.

Fuck. That’s going to leave a mark on my arm.

I push the door open and find Aurelia sitting on the bed bundled under the quilt, watching reruns of an outdated broadcast. She looks up when I enter, and a smile melts over her face.

“Hey Illion.”

“Good evening.” I mutter, keeping my head down as I cross over to the closet, dig out a new shirt, and disappear into the bathroom.

It’s worse than I thought. Staring at my upper left arm, a purple bruise with green splotches is spreading up to my shoulder.

I’m not going to medbay for this. It’s just a bruise, and there’s so many other people who’ll be in medbay at this time anyway from all the post-invasion bar fights. It’s not really that bad anyway. It just hurts now, but it will be better in the morning. Everything’s better in the morning!

I make sure to put on a long-sleeved shirt before leaving the bathroom. I don’t need Aurelia asking questions.

“Everything okay?” She pauses the show when I step into the room.

“It’s all good. Just been a long day.”

“Yeah. It has been.”

I nod and cross over to my desk to put my red glasses back in their case. I can feel her eyes following me.

“Do you want to just watch something with me for a while? Or do you need to sleep?” She asks.

“I…” I hesitate, and glance at the frozen image of a homebot and an evil scientists having a karate fight on the TV, then back at Aurelia snuggled up in the blankets. “I suppose I can watch for while.”

“It’s a good show.” She smiles happily and presses play as I crawl onto the other side of the bed. “I think you’ll like it.”

We watch in silence for about ten minutes, before Aurelia decides to ‘generously’ share the blankets by offering me the corner end of her massive horde.

I accept out of curtesy.

Another ten minutes and she realizes she also has all the pillows (shocker) and decides to give me one of five.

Again, I accept out of curtesy. Goodness knows I own none of my possessions anymore.

And then, out of nowhere, she lowers the volume of the show and turns to me with a raised eyebrow, “did you sleep okay last night?”

“Just peachy!” It’s out of my mouth like a reflex and I wince inwardly. I can’t help but feel my cheeks heat up.

Memories of hugging her all night haven’t left my mind. I’ve thought about it more than I’ll admit. And now it’s all over my face, impossible to hide because my glasses are still across the room, and she’s staring holes into my soul.

“Honestly.” I mutter, “it was fine.”

“Same.” She lets it hang in the air for a second, then looks away and turns the volume back up on the show.

What in the universe was that about?

I stare at her, watching her facial expressions for any clues – she gives none. Deadpan, fully engrossed in the show, she’s like a beautiful bronze statue, except she’s alive. Obviously.

“Why are you asking?” I inquire.

Her eyebrows twitch for moment, and then she turns to look at me, finds me already looking, and quickly turns away.

“I was just making sure you slept well. We need a well rested Captain.”

“Thank you.” It’s the only safe thing to say. Short, sweet, polite.

We finish the rest of the episode in silence, and after properly dividing the blankets up, we retire to opposite ends of the bed. Well, as opposite as one can be, there’s not much space, a few inches at most between us.

Just as I’m about to fall asleep, her arm accidentally brushes the bruise on my shoulder, and I have to clench my teeth.

Hopefully it will be better by tomorrow.

Everything will be better by tomorrow.