What Lies Beneath?
Sunday, 23 Nov 2520
Kuiper II class, Summer’s Gift
La Grange Point, Muir
Blue Sun (Qing Long) system
1540hrs, ships time
Joshua stood in front of the counter, staring blankly at the cabinet of canned food. He didn't know how long he had been staring when he finally shook his head and snapped out of it. He had thought that he would've adjusted by now to those horrible almost-whispers of the Orcus, the psychic underpinnings of the hideous deaths that happened there. But it had gotten worse, not better. In any spare moment, he kept drifting out of reality. And in the focused moments, the idea of ghosts in the walls still haunted him.
In other words, he thought, I'm not exactly at my best. He took a moment and lightly slapped himself on the cheek, trying to snap himself back to the task at hand. Dinner's not going to cook itself, you know.
--
When Nika stepped into the galley, her blue eyes sharpened on Joshua. He had that look on his face again. The blank one. She didn't like it, and it was happening more often. When he snapped out of it, the blonde gave him a moment to compose himself and then made just enough noise at the door to alert him that she was stepping in. She had her coffee cup in her hand and headed for the pot. "You're going to tell me if it gets bad, right?" she asked mildly as she poured herself a refill.
--
"Gets bad? We've long past that point, Nika. But I'm functional." Joshua silently thanked Nika for making some arrival noise. These days, he jumped at anything unexpected. If he was packing like Rina's standard, someone would've been accidentally shot by now, he was sure. Joshua turned around, looking at Nika casually, doing his best to gauge her mood and state of being without being obvious. Rina had asked him to keep an eye on her and so he would, but he didn't want Nika to feel like she had an ever-present watcher. He leaned up against the counter and said, "As long as I stay busy, I do okay. Repairs are plentiful, so I have lots of opportunities to keep myself occupied."
--
"We'll be out of here in a day, maybe two at the most. We don't have the time to dawdle anyway," Nika replied quietly, leaning her hip on the counter. As has been the norm with her of late, her outward appearance is calm and without much in the way of stress. She seems to be taking everything in stride, watchful without being overly paranoid even at the accusations hurled Joshua's way. "The cargo's overdue, but I think it'll come out in the wash since we won't have to buy parts."
--
"And thank God for that. I don't want to have to spend any more time here than we have to." She looked fine, or at least calm, and that was about as far as he was going to get. He wasn't a Companion, and even if he had been, he wouldn't be in the mental state to be able to figure out what was going on under her exterior. He could Read her, but beyond the fact that he didn't do that to the crew, he was afraid of what might happen if he opened up himself to Read someone. What might slip in while the door was open?
"We'll manage with the cargo," Joshua said quietly. "I can probably talk them into not stiffing us altogether. Anyway, how are you? Okay?" He kept his tone casual, one friend just inquiring about the other, a causal office conversation. Of course, this conversation was happening next to a haunted ship, which explained why a slight quaver entered his voice when he asked.
--
Nika's lips quirked into a faint smile. "I'm fine, Joshua." Her standard answer. "Being late's our own problem. It'd be nice if they didn't stiff us altogether, but we'll have to take lumps on this one." Her tone is matter-of-fact, and she lifts her coffee to her mouth to take a swallow.
--
"I looked over the finances last night before bed, Cap...Nika." He stopped himself before calling her Captain. If Rina was right, he didn't need to be encouraging Nika to wall herself away behind the role of captain. "We're doing okay. We'll bring ourselves up to about 650 credits, but we'll need to stock up on food and fuel, do maintenance, and replace the staircase and the gator. And medical supplies. And my floximopan, if we can find any." He was running short, but his drugs needed to be the last on the list of supplies, especially as they were tight on cash.
"My recommendation, if you want it, is we stick around Blue Sun, see if we can find some in-system cargo. We'll avoid Muir, to keep Rina from killing us. And avoid Shepherd's Moon so I don't have to be reminded of Iskariot and this hell hole of a salvage job."
--
There's a long pause as the blonde pilot fixes her bright eyes on the man. There's the hint of the Border to her words, though not a full-out drawl -- she didn't miss what he almost said. Any more than she's missed the fact that some on board are watching her more closely than she appreciates. "Unless something more lucrative puts itself in our path, a couple of in-system runs is fine. Whatever will net us the best income is what we're looking for -- we've flown closer to broke than this, but I like to have a little margin for unexpected breakdowns. Make sure your meds top Arden's list of requirements. If we can get it, that's a priority." Clearly she didn't miss the fact that some of his meds were used for the Muir stop either. Her tone brooks no argument from him on it. She doesn't want a crazy telepath on the loose -- even if he's pushing his dosages or whatever it is that he's doing.
--
He nodded, although he probably wouldn't say anything to that effect to Arden. Food and fuel and repairs came first. If he needed to stretch them 3 days between, he would. "We'll be fine, I'm sure."
He paused for a minute. "Can I ask you something?"
--
"You can ask," Nika replied in a tone that implied she might or might not answer, depending on the question. She didn't shove off the counter, though, or try to avoid him.
--
"Did what Iskariot said about me bother you?" As he asked it, he thought he heard something in the doorway. He started to glance over, and then forced himself to focus back on Nika. It wasn't real. It wasn't real. It wasn't real.
"I mean," he took a deep breath. "I don't believe that I'm some sort of evil spy out to destroy your hope. But then, I'm not the one who matters. I guess I just need some reassurance that the crew trusts me. The island of doubt is a lonely place to live on and my confidence is not being helped by this place."
--
Nika's eyes flickered toward the door as she considered the question. "Does it bother me? Yes," she finally replied simply, her eyes returning to meet his blandly. "But to be blunt about the matter, the possibility that you were some kind of plant has existed since the moment you came aboard." And considering the betrayal suffered by the Harbinger's crew at the hands of their last pilot, Nika would have to be eight kinds of fool not to have considered it.
"If you were put here as a deep-cover mole of some kind, there's not much to be done about it. You don't know that's what you're here for, and you won't unless or until they activate whatever programming's in place. Should I treat you like an assassin and put a bullet in your brain because you might be a threat? We ain't gonna get far in the Verse if I start pulling that crap." Not that she hasn't done it before.
She set her coffee on the counter and studied him. "You're here now. You've done everything in your power to help us, and I expect you'll continue to do so until such a time as the situation changes." Perhaps Nika learned more from Shyla Kramer's handling of Go Mifuni than even she herself realized. "Until you give me a reason not to trust you, I'm going to go with my gut, Joshua. To do anything else betrays everything I've believed and everything I've been taught over the years."
--
It hurt a little to hear her say that it bothered her. The logical portion of Joshua's brain reminded him that he had thought the same thing about himself many a time. You wanted a brain scan, remember?
But it still hurt, logic be damned. But that was life, and as he was discovering, life wasn't like the Cortex films. Everything didn't work out neatly and friends didn't always trust you completely regardless of the circumstances.
"But you don't think that I'm deliberately pretending to be this way, right?" It was important to him for her...for the crew to believe that if he was a plant, he was an unknowing one. "I mean, you don't think I'm consciously pretending to be your friend while harboring thoughts about spacing you, right?"
--
"No, Joshua, I don't think you're deliberately pretending." Nika smiled faintly. "I figure if you were looking for a chance to kill some of us, you'd have already taken it. So if you were put here, it was to gather intel first." She shrugged a bit and seemed to consider her words. "I already killed one man because he might have been a threat. I'm not comfortable with the idea of doing it again. If you prove to be a threat, then it'll be dealt with according to whatever's going on at the time. Until then, so far as I'm concerned, you are a friend and a crewmate." And choice of first descriptor should hold all the weight required to reassure him; he knows her well enough by now.
--
Joshua's shoulders, unconsciously tightened, now loosened as Nika reaffirmed their friendship. "Sorry to be such a wuss. We inhuman assassins of hope need all the comfort we can get in our downtime." He tried to lighten the mood, but the atmosphere of the ship and his edginess just caused the joke to come out flat and a little creepy.
"I suppose I had best get back to the job at hand," Joshua said to break the long silence. "We need dinner and Rina needs me back on task with repairs."
--
Nika took her cup with her and dropped a hand on his shoulder, squeezing lightly as she slipped past him on her way out. "See you later." Her tone was quiet, the touch a silent affirmation to him that she was not afraid of what he might become someday.
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