Quiet Time
June 10, 2521
In Flight to Blue Sun
Bridge of the Summer's Gift
It was almost a relief to be back in the Black. No... scratch that. There was no 'almost' about it. Nika was more at her ease out here in the Black than she was anywhere else in the Verse. It was simple out here. All she had to worry about were verifying the course setting periodically. Being sociable at the dinner table or during the random card game. Taking her turn at dishes in the galley. Sure, living in the Black could be dangerous. Explosive decompression, engine failure, getting hit by a random meteor, Reavers. But there was a kind of peace to the silence, too. A simplicity to the routine that were soothing when there was much on a mind. And she had a lot of things on her mind lately, that was for sure. Not the least of which was the realization that she'd somehow made the step from wishing constantly for the adrenaline rush of adventure to merely being nostalgic about a lot of it. Nika laughed slightly at herself as she rested in the pilot's chair with her head back and her boots up. Not that she didn't thoroughly enjoy the adrenaline spikes -- cuz damn, they were fun. But with nowhere to blow off the steam afterward, she found herself more and more often in the gym beating on the bag. Her form was getting back to what it had been under Harry's tutelage.
--
Joshua's head was just about ready to crack as he left his room. He had been digging through that damn chip of his for three hours straight with next to nothing to show for it. It was going to be a long process and he knew it. That didn't mean he could concentrate any more on the corrupted lines of data. At least not today.
As he was thinking, he found himself heading towards the bridge, almost unconsciously. His brain perhaps knew what was best for him, he thought. Talking with the passengers would be a struggle. Arden was hanging out with Kiera at the moment, which ruled him out. Rina was always a possibility, but no matter what they did or talked about, it was rarely a peaceful situation. They had energy to spare together, but that wasn't what he needed right now.
As Joshua quietly pushed open the door to the pilot's cabin, he realized he had grown very fond of the peaceful nature of the space. With or without Nika, it had a soothing nature, especially now that he had grown comfortable with all the readouts. Instead of a blinking mess of lights that had confused him, now they told him a story of their path through the Black, which was soothing. As he looked in, he saw Nika in her usual spot, and he acknowledged her presence with a quick nod of his head and a brief greeting as he sat down in his chair on the other side. "Hi, Nika. How's she treating you?"
--
She barely glanced up when he stepped in. The room was almost as much his as hers these days. Nika smiled faintly, though, turning her head lazily on the head rest. "She's doing her thing," she replied easily. "We'll get there in plenty of time." She seemed unconcerned about it, so that was always good. "What's going on down back?"
--
He smiled as he pictured the scene. "Our two passengers are playing cards with Arden. Somehow Arden is managing not to get sharked by either. Beginner's luck, I would guess." When he had passed by the lounge, Kiera had been giving Arden a rather evil stare as he raked in another pot with what looked to be a less than stellar hand. She'd eventually learn that bluffing Arden was a losing cause and make up her losses, Joshua was pretty certain.
He leaned forward to check out the sensors. "And Rina's in her engine room, tweaking some things and bitching about how we need to replace these." He tapped one of the sensor monitors with his index finger. "It's Wednesday, after all."
--
Nika laughed. Indeed. It was Wednesday. She rolled her head back to its previous position and closed those brilliant blue eyes -- not to ignore him, but simply because she was that comfortable with his presence in the bridge. "Glad to hear everything's status quo," she commented mildly. She didn't assume that he had something that required her attention -- whenever he came in like this, it was usually simply to sit. She did ask, however, "How're you doing?"
--
He thought about it for a moment, not afraid of the silence. One of the nice benefits of sitting with Nika - silence had its place. "I think I'm okay. My head is killing me, but that will fade. Passengers are calm. Galley is clean. Rina and I are at an understanding. I feel strangely stable, if that makes sense." Joshua wasn't sure he could remember a time when he had felt so in place with who he was. A lifetime ago in Blue Sun, he had been given a job, but it certainly had not been a stable one. Then the chaos of everything as he struggled to find his way in the Verse free (mostly) of his former employers. Stability was a new feeling for him.
--
Pursing her lips, Nika opened her eyes to slide her gaze to him once more. For a long moment, she studied him and then nodded. "You look better," she decreed. Better than he'd looked in a while, truth be told. In spite of the headache. She remained comfortably slouched and went quiet again for a while before speaking up. "I'm ... equal parts looking forward to and dreading our arrival," she confessed softly. "Been sitting here trying to figure out what I'm even thinking."
--
"It's complicated," he agreed. He leaned back a little from the sensors, and shrugged his shoulders as he got comfy in the chair. "But then again, we're usually short of simple on board. Anything I can do for you?"
--
"Nah," Nika replied with a shake of her head that rolled it back to its resting position. "Ain't anything to be done, I don't think." She paused and commented, "Aside from keeping Rina from going off the deep end when we get there, regardless of outcome." Her tone was dry.
--
He gave thought about mentioning the massive Mike Carter timeline Rina had stretched across her quarters, but decided against it. It felt private and it wasn't going to change how Rina reacted when they reached Blue Sun. In fact, it was probably an outlet that she needed. Something she could control. Hadn't he just been saying something about stability? Rina had her world turned upside down and if a timeline gave her something to grasp onto, there was nothing wrong with that.
"She'll be fine," he said, trying hard to mean it. "We'll keep her from getting herself killed from the craziness."
--
Something in his tone told Nika that he was aware that his own words were hope, not necessarily reality. But she merely smiled faintly. From his lips to the Verse's ears. "Making any progress?" she asked him, knowing that he'd been working on the chip for a while.
--
He shrugged. "Very little. Much of it seems to be completely borked. Came upon something about exothermic hyperthermic therapy and enhanced synethesia today." Whatever those meant. "I might see if Arden knows what those might mean."
He thought about it and sighed. "I know I shouldn't complain, but we went through so much for this damn chip, and there's nothing on it. I feel like I let everyone down by making them go after the info. Putting them in danger for no reason. " He held his hand up to cut Nika off before she had a chance to interject anything. "I know, I know. People make their own choices. Doesn't stop a little irrational disappointment, I guess."
--
In actuality, she didn't attempt to reassure him. For a change. Nika merely said, "We all have things we need or want to know, Joshua. You were handed an opportunity to find it out, and it would have been both selfish of us and wrong to not follow through on it. I think part of what keeps us together is that when push comes to shove, the individual's needs *can* be made priority. When Arden got word that some of his own information might be found, we went after it. When I needed to go home, we went. This was the same."
She paused and said, "Finding one answer unfortunately usually leads to more questions, I guess. Disappointment often seems part and parcel of what we find."
--
"I have a hard time thinking about myself, you know." Like she didn't know that already... "But that helps. Thanks." Joshua looked around the bridge that had become his second home as of late. As he stared up through the window into the Black, he realized purpose had snuck up on his life unexpectedly and without remorse. If he didn't find any answers on the chip, he'd still be happy. Hooray for unexpected happiness, he thought. "And while I'm thanking you, thanks for this." He slowly waved his hand in a semi-circle, pointing to the bridge. "One of the best gifts you could have given me."
--
"Mmm," Nika replied with a wicked twinkle. "Tell me that when you're trying to outfly pulse torpedos." She shook her head, remembering the adrenaline of *that* run with a certain amount of fondness. Time and distance were definitely healers -- the terror of that moment had faded to the point where she could view that crazy flight with something akin to affection. "But you're welcome," she added after a moment, her expression softening slightly. If she'd given this man nothing else, she was glad that she could give him something he deemed worth having.
--
"I run from guns now," he joked. "Imagine how fast I can move when it's a torpedo instead."
--
She laughed and nodded as she did it. "Yeah... I suppose there's something to be said for that. Though how fast you run hasn't a thing to do with it," Nika retorted in amusement.
--
He smiled. "Fair enough." He looked over at Nika comfortably resting in her chair, her blond hair, even put up, spilling over the back of the chair. It hadn't even been a year since he had come aboard and it already felt like a lifetime. "You willing to tell me the story of how you outraced them?" He settled back and closed his eyes, waiting for Nika to tell him the story. It was nice to have family, he thought.
--
"Sheer stupid luck," Nika replied succinctly. Though a faint smile quirked her lips, her blue eyes studied the Black in front of the windows. "A pulse torpedo is ... basically a torpedo that sits dormant, like a land mine, until it picks up a target," she explained quietly. "It tends to look like a sensor ghost because it's so small and unpowered. By the time it powers up, it's right next to you -- it goes to pulse literally just before it hits your hull. Completely rips the ship apart at the seams." She figured he might need the background, what with the fact that fewer than a dozen people in the Verse that Nika herself knew of had ever seen one and lived.
"I saw one during the war. It was... horrific," she recalled in a soft voice. "One moment they were flying near us, the next they were all but obliterated. And we never saw it coming." She shrugged a little. "Got lucky this time -- saw it on the sensors just as it powered up. I hit pulse and it chased us.... and it missed." Her words are far, far calmer than the situation actually was, and she didn't play up her part in getting them away. She remembered having the shakes afterward for a long time. And she remembered .... feeling so damn alive.
--
"Were you scared?" She had to have been. Otherwise she wouldn't be human. She never showed it at the helm though; to him she always seemed as calm as she was recounting this story. And this story was why, despite everything Blue Sun did, he still loved Borrowing. He could never imagine himself being there, doing that. But he could be someone else and experience it through them.
--
Nika laughed softly. "I had ... a half of a second of pure terror, some amount of time I can't remember living exactly of exhilaration, and hours of the shakes. Scared doesn't quite begin to touch my feelings."
--
"Do you miss it? Scared and all?" he asked. Joshua stared out into the Black, still painting the picture of it in his head, playing out how it would look in a pencil sketch. "I mean, we're not dull around here...but we're not outrunning mythical torpedoes. Ever feel piloting the Gift is not enough?" Joshua kept his tone casual so as not to betray his thoughts. The return of Mike Carter had him thinking about Rina leaving, which lead to thoughts about the rest of the crew leaving. He had just found a new family and the chip didn't seem to have any information about his former one, so he found himself a little twitchy about the idea of people leaving him.
--
Nika gave the question some serious thought. It was a long time before she answered, and when she spoke her voice was low. "I miss it," she admitted quietly. "But you have to understand that .... flying like that only happens at war. It's not the norm." She smiled a bit and looked at him. "Now admittedly," she drawled, "we been doing more than our share of crazy out here lately. So it ain't like I've had a lot of time to go missin' it, but.... " She trailed off thoughtfully. "I miss.... knowing for sure which side of things I stood on. I miss being certain of my path. Ain't nothin' black and white out here anymore."
--
She was right, of course. He hadn't seen any clear sides since he left Blue Sun. But it didn't have to be about sides. Not necessarily. "I'm maybe not the best source for advice, having only had a real life for about a year now," he admitted. "But you want to know what I think?"
He put his hand to his mouth as he thought about how to say it. "Just make sure you know what you believe in and always stand up for that. Define your own side. That's how I manage."
--
Nika's lips twitched into a wry half-smile. "And what you just concluded in the space of a few heartbeats is what I've spent the past year or more learning," she informed him mildly.
--
Joshua chuckled. "Well, I did have the perspective of not having any former life experience to weigh me down. Sometimes it is a disadvantage not knowing how the Verse works. But sometimes, it works out in my favor."
And with that, Joshua settled back in his chair again to enjoy some more quiet time with Nika.
Go to Joshua's Crew Page or to Nika's Crew Page
Go to CREW or TIMELINE
Go to Mutineers
