Still Hurts

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The Bridge of the Sunspire was cramped. More so than a typical cargo freighter would be, as this freighter had its bridge securely nestled in what once was the mess hall. For a ship only meant to house at most ten crew, the mess hall itself was cramped even before they shoved terminals, chairs, and readouts into every available space. When the monitors and camera feeds were slotted into the ceiling, the crew had to start stooping to get around and under all the hanging instruments and jutting terminals.
When they were sitting at their stations, however, five people could comfortably stay in the mess-turned-bridge with little problems, provided they could handle enclosed spaces.
One of the three doors leading into the bridge hissed open, and in stepped a stately woman in a pressed uniform, carrying a stainless steel coffee mug, still steaming. She took a bow as she stepped in, ducking under a vent unit and walking over to the empty chair in the middle of the room. No more than a few inches between the arm rests and the start of her command console, Elizabeth sat on the creaky leather and sipped her instant coffee with a sneer.
“How are we doing, today?” she asked.
One of the other three people in the room turned around. A portly sort of man with a shock of red hair atop his head. He smiled. “Same as ever, chief. Half the crew on ice, half of us active, feelin’ like a real ghost ship here.”
“I guess that’s why they call it a skeleton crew, huh?” The woman to his side said, the corners of her weathered lips tilting upwards.
The man’s face fell to a deadpan and he shot her a withering gaze. “That wasn’t even remotely funny.”
Elizabeth furrowed her brow and looked over the bridge. Nav was manned, weapons were manned, sensors were manned, and she was in her command chair. There was one chair still left over, belonging to comms, and it was vacant, with the console in front of it winking on and off in idle mode. 
“We’re one short.” Elizabeth said. 
“Laura called off,” the second man in the room said, not bothering to take his bespectacled eyes off of his console as he spoke. “Said she wasn’t feeling well.”
Elizabeth tapped her console to bring up a readout, her coffee sitting beside it. Her intention was to check on the whereabouts of her fifth, but she paused when she realised the status update of the ship listed something she wasn’t expecting.
“We’re not in Slipspace,” she said. “Why?”
“Slip termination,” the redheaded man said. “We hit an eddy, and it barfed us out. We’re keeping a low profile until we can recharge and get out of here, but that means getting to the edge of a local gravity well.”
Elizabeth blinked and leaned forward in her chair, picking up her coffee. “When was this?”
“Some point last night. We didn’t wake you because,” he trailed off. The crew shared looks with one another, before the man reached up to rub the back of his neck. “Well, we didn’t think we had to.”
Elizabeth pursed two fingers over the bridge of her nose, then brought them forward in front of her to pinch at the air. “It was slip termination. You know what that means?” she paused, waiting, but no answer came. “It means we let out a burst of Cherenkov. Anyone with a pocket geiger counter could see us, and you thought that you shouldn’t wake me up?”
A silence passed over the bridge, punctuated only by the trilling beeps of consoles and alerts. 
The woman to her right put her head down. “Sorry, cap.”
Sighing, Elizabeth drained another gulp of her coffee. “What’s our silhouette like?”
“Minimal,” the second man said. “We’ve turned off everything but the coffee maker and oxygen. And, the freezers, obviously.”
“Right. And nothing’s showed up on scopes?” Elizabeth asked.
“Not so far.”
“Chief,” the woman said, “with respect the war’s been over for two years.”
“Do the Covenant still exist?” Elizabeth asked. 
Shaking her head, the other woman answered. “No.”
“Remnants do.” Elizabeth smiled at her. “Do those remnants still hate us?”
Sighing, her officer nodded. “Yes.”
“Would they kill us if they met us?”
“Yes.”
Leaning forward, Elizabeth dropped her voice to a level whisper. “Then the war isn’t over, is it?”
There was another bout of stifling silence over the bridge. Elizabeth stood up and stepped around her chair, towards the redheaded man’s console. 
“Where are we, anyway?” she asked, placing a hand on his chair and leaning forward.
“We’re just passing the gravity well of—oh.” His voice dropped like a weight.
Immediately Elizabeth was gripped with a palpable sense of dread deep in her heart. 
“Oh?”
He turned around to face her. “We’re at Immodeus.”
The clatter of a coffee cup hitting the floor split the quiet of the bridge and shattered it into a thousand shards. The spilled coffee would stain, but Elizabeth didn’t care. 
“Let me see it.” she asked. 
“Cap, you don’t have—” the man began.
“Let. Me. See. It.” Elizabeth repeated, a withering glare shot his way.
He turned, tapping his console, and bringing up a long-range composite of the nearest planet. A glassed, parched wasteland still criss-crossed with glowing orange lines appeared on screen.
Elizabeth choked back something between a gasp and a sob, before balling her fists so hard her nails dug into her skin. “That was my home,” she said. “And you weren’t even gonna wake me up.”
“Chief,” the man struggled to find the words.
Elizabeth held his gaze with an unblinking, unfaltering one of her own. 
“I didn’t think—” he was cut off almost immediately.
“No,” Elizabeth said. “You didn’t. Otherwise you’d have realised that there’s another crewmate onboard that lived there.”
“Shit,” the other woman on the bridge muttered.
Elizabeth motioned down to the puddle of cooling coffee on the deck. “Clean this up. And get me another cup ready for when I come back.” She turned, marching back underneath the overhanging vent shaft towards one of the three doors.
“Where are you going?”
The door hissed open, and Elizabeth paused at the threshold, turning her head over her shoulder. “I’m going where you should’ve gone the moment you realised why Laura was calling in sick.”
She marched out of the room, and the door shut behind her with a hiss, and a clang of metal on the deck.
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The door to the bunk was locked. Elizabeth rapped her fist on the metal, producing dull-sounding thumps.
“Laura? Open up.” She waited for a count then went back to thumping on the door. “Laura!”
“Go away, Liz,” a muffled voice shouted from behind the metal.
“Not gonna happen,” Elizabeth said back. “I’m stubborn, you’re not.” Her fist met the metal again, but this time did not stop. Even until the repeated impacts began to produce a deep ache in her wrist and hand. “I can knock on this door for far longer than your patience can deal with it.”
As she pounded on the metal, the door clicked and unlatched. When it slid open, the room beyond was bare and dark, barren of everything except for five beds and eleven lockers. One of which was hanging open, revealing datapads and personal effects belonging to the woman sitting at the far end of the room. Her back was to the door, she was facing one of the walls, holding something in her one good arm.
Her prosthetic was draped over the bed, hanging limp to one side, straps tangled and fingers splayed out.  
Laura turned her head enough for ELizabeth to see her eye, but she didn’t bother looking at the door. 
“Go the hell away, Liz,” she said. 
Stepping into the room, Elizabeth just smiled, holding her hands out to the side. “Not a chance. The last thing you need right now is more isolation.”
Laura threw something at her. “Shove off.”
A datapad crashed into the floor, the screen cracking and winking off. 
“The hostility doesn’t work, either,” Elizabeth said.
Wheeling around, Laura’s face morphed into a scowl. She pushed herself off the bed, grabbing her prosthetic as she went, and brandishing it like a club. “What if I punch that smug look right off your face?”
Elizabeth turned to one side. “You are more than welcome to try.”
They passed into silence. Laura raised her arm, and Elizabeth clenched her fists. After a few tense seconds, Laura sighed and turned back around, hugging her arm to her stomach.
“Just leave me alone.” She sniffed. “Why won’t you just leave me alone, everyone else does.”
Elizabeth stepped forward and placed a hand on the other woman’s shoulder. “Everyone else didn’t know. But I do. And I say you don’t get to be alone right now.”
“Why?” Laura turned around. “I’m happy alone.”
“That’s not true, and you know it,” Elizabeth pulled Laura close and wrapped her hands around her. “Or you’d have gone back to your freezer.”
It took Laura a few seconds, but eventually she began to shiver. Then the shivers turned into wracking tremors, accompanied by sobs. “It still hurts,” she wept, burying her face into the crook of Elizabeth’s neck. “Why does it still hurt so much?”
“Shh,” Elizabeth dragged her hands up and down Laura’s back. “I don’t think it’ll ever really stop, just gets easier to deal with.”
“How?” she asked.
“Because there are people on this ship that care about you, Laura.” Elizabeth drew away and looked into Laura’s puffy red eyes. “You don’t need to shut yourself away to grieve, you’re allowed to do it openly, and you’ll be supported by the people around you.”
Laura continued to cling onto the other woman. “What if I need solitude?”
“Then they’ll give you space,” Elizabeth said. “We’ll give you space, if that’s what you really want. But I think the best thing for you right now is to stop closing yourself off.” She tilted Laura’s chin up slightly and smiled. “Remember, if anyone else onboard understands it’s me.”
Laura nodded. “I know. I think I still need some time.”
“Okay,” Elizabeth let her go and stepped back. “You take some time. We’ll be here whenever you’re ready.”
She turned around to head back towards the bunk’s door.
Laura smiled after her and wiped her eyes on her bare wrist. “Thanks, Cap.”
Stopping at the door, Elizabeth turned around and leaned up on the door. “Hey, you always have a family here. Never forget that, okay?”
Laura gave the Captain a smile. Strained, shaky, but nonetheless genuine. She nodded her head. “I’ll try.”
“That’s all I ask.” Elizabeth’s smile was much less forced, and she tilted her head. She turned around and stepped back out the door to the bunks, letting the door hang open as she went.
Laura looked out into the hallways beyond, thinking about the faces of the rest of the crew, and she sighed.
At least she wasn’t alone.
Standing up, she straightened her creased tank top, secured her prosthetic’s straps, and stepped out through the door.
Category:Short stories
Category:The Weekly