The Time Has Come, the Walrus said, To Speak of Many Things...

(With thanks to Terri for RPing this conversation with me. Thanks, Terri!--Maer)

An excerpt from Peripatetica, by M. K. Sebastien, Engr. ret.

Wednesday, 16 Aug 2519
Bivouac, Miranda
Blue Sun (Qing Long) system
15:30 hrs, local time

        Climbing under the dashboard of the shuttle to rewire the console again, Nika swore under her breath. "Stupid gorram place to put a circuit, you know," she groused. She lay on the floor wedged between the seats with her torso torqued around to reach what she was working on. "Whose bright idea was this refit anyway?"
        "If I recall, it was Christian's. You want me to slap him around for you? Or will that get me in trouble with Arden, too?" My injuries had put me on the ‘you don't climb under there, you let someone else do it and shut up about it’ list with Arden, and I was there strictly in an advisory capacity. I hated being sidelined and tried not to let it show when I answered her. I slouched cross-legged on the deck next to Nika, handed the woman the correct tools at the correct time and tried hard not to kibbitz. And failed. "And speaking of which, what Arden doesn't know, won't hurt me. Get out of there and let me take over, before you break something."
        "Oh hell no ... forget it. I let you in here, Arden takes a strip off my hide, and I ain't dealing with that crap on top of being trapped on this rock," came Nika's muffled reply. "When your arm gets a little better, you can climb under here and retweak it, but not on my watch!"
        I opened her mouth to snap back and faltered, the words trapped in a throat gone tight. I scrambled up from the deck and quit the shuttle. The sunlight was bright after the gloom inside and I strode blindly to the starboard strut without waiting for my eyes to adjust. I put my back to the metal and tipped my head back and strove not to cry in frustration.
        God, but we’re in a fine bucket of shit. Our ship was grounded, too damaged to fly. Our shuttle was all we had to evac or evade with. We were going to an island that may be crawling with Reavers, guided by little more than a circle on a map and a hunch. I was laid up with one arm practically tied behind my back and most of my options gone. If it comes to a fight or pulling a mechanical fast one out of my ass, we’re toast. So tell me again how we’re not going to end up on some cannibal’s menu?
        Further swearing from Nika drifted to me from the shuttle’s cockpit and my conscience stabbed again. There weren’t much of my insides it hadn’t already pincushioned but somehow it always managed to find virgin territory it hadn’t yet needled. It should be you in there doing your job. Not her, it whispered. No telling what she’d miss that you could find with your eyes closed. Something that would get her killed. Get all of them killed.
        Your fault.
        So went the train of my thoughts, the track well worn from repetition, and I closed my eyes and tried not to listen to it. The sunlight glowed red through my eyelids. The breeze whispered through the brushline twenty yards distant. Behind me I heard Nika cut loose with a triumphant ha! in the cockpit, followed by the clang of one of my tools hitting the deck. It wasn’t long before her boots grated on the ramp. Her steps rang on the metal, then paused before striding in my direction.
        “You wanna tell me what crawled up your shorts and died just then?” she asked mildly at my elbow.
        I thumped my head once, twice against the strut, then opened my eyes and slid a look at her, and told her the truth.
        “Feeling damned useless.” I moved my arm, trapped in its sling, for emphasis. “You know the joke, ‘one arm tied behind your back’? Trust me, this is worse. I....” I gusted a sigh and shook my head. I kept my eyes on the brushline and said, “God, I'm whining. Forget it, Nika. I'll be fine in a minute. I just can't stand doing nothing. Drives me bats.”
        I caught Nika’s faint grin from the corner of my eye as she leaned against the strut, chuckling. “Well, it is a little bit whining,” she drawled. “But I guess I can’t fault you much. You tend not to know what to do with yourself when you’re not tinkering. It’s just a couple of days, though. Arden said if you take it easy, you’ll be outa that thing pretty quick.”
        I pulled my shirt away an inch and checked my sutures beneath the gauze. Seeping, peppering the bandage with red. I let the dressings fall back in place with a grimace. I’ll have to get those changed again. And lie to Arden about it. Great. I slid a look at Nika. “Maybe. Maybe not,” I said, thinking back to other tours, other wounds. “At least there’s no infection this time. That’s a hard-assed bitch to shake.”
        “Talk to me about it when they crack open your chest, 'kaythanx." Nika snorted softly and grinned. “Get over it, girl. It's a cut. A big one, sure, but it's a cut.” She shrugged easily and glanced around. “Been kicking around whether or not we wanna refit the Gift or take a closer look at some of the derelicts. Several look to be in real good shape.”
        My damned conscience stabbed me again when she mentioned her chest and I was instantly contrite.
        “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—hell, I’d better stop digging while I can still see daylight. I'm sorry.” I sighed again, making it more akin to a growl and stared at the brushline. “Since you brought it up, I'd rather refit our girl than toss her out for something more shwai. I know she steers like a brick, but you've been able to do more with her than even her designers thought possible. I'm sure you can still pull that off, so why jump ship now? I’ll be honest—I wouldn't mind a little more horsepower for those fast getaways and a better sensor package. And while I'm at it, why not throw in a machine shop and a pony, too? But throw over our ship for another one? No.”
        I let my head roll against the strut and looked at Nika.
        “Loyalty means a lot to me. Friends, family, and ships. I can’t ditch her now. It’s betrayal and you know it. ‘You’re banged up to shit, no good to me, bye, nice knowin’ ya,’” I added, the prospect of leaving the Gift behind making me bitter.
        Nika flapped a hand at my tone. “Pphhtt. A well-deserved retirement, some would say. She's brought us through a lot, but unless we can do something about making her handle better, she might just be better off for now, Rina. If we're gonna be out there playing tag with Reavers, we really need a little more maneuverability. The things she's done for us? I don't know how many more saves she can manage for us." Nika shrugged again. "But all in all, I'm game either way. If we live long enough to refit her. Not even sure anything else around here is spaceworthy anyway."
        If we live long enough…. Leave it to Nika to articulate the thing that had me tied in knots. If I’d been in fighting trim, our current situation wouldn’t grate on me as it did. But I wasn’t, and it did. Beside me, Nika waited for a response and I picked up the thread of our conversation.
        “I’ve worked salvage yards before. I could take a rifle, hotwire a mule, and go take a look. Could be there and back in an afternoon. And before you say it, yes, I’ll take a radio and someone to ride shotgun.”
        I squinted at the landscape.
        “If I recall correctly, there was a Scarab model out there that might be good enough to use. Saw a Firefly, too. Both might suit.” I stood silent a moment, mentally cataloguing what I’d seen, but my heart wasn’t really in it. “No matter what I think, it’s not something you and I can decide without the others. Have you talked to Arden, Christian and Rick about this? Or are you just jollying me out of an ugly mood?”
        "I wasn't suggesting we decide anything.” Nika rolled her eyes. “Except whether to bring up the possibility of leaving the Gift here. Right now, she's salvagable.... maybe. If there are enough parts over in the boneyard to fix what's wrong with her. But I brought it up to you first since you seemed to need something to brood over," she admitted.
        ‘Brood over’. She got that right. Put it to bed. Just say it.
        I stared at the landscape and spoke to it, my voice low.
        "Don’t bullshit me. What do you think our chances are?"
        “Of surviving on this rock if we can't get our ship up?” Nika asks mildly. “Not too bad .... if the ground water and the soil aren't contaminated with that shit, we can grow food, hunt animals, and survive indefinitely -- assuming we have enough time left right now to get a growing season in and do some harvesting." Nika purses her lips. "Of surviving the hurricane when we try to take the shuttle in? Hard to say. If the winds are semi-predictable ... as in a normal hurricane.... I think I can get us in there alive. Out? Eh... If the winds aren't predictable, I don't think we'll have much time to worry about it.”
        Her honesty, grim though the verdict was, soothed. I hated the uncertainty of our situation but hearing her catalogue the pros and cons settled me. One of the items she mentioned nagged for attention.
        "Those weather readings were weird, if you'll recall.” I remembered the report from our initial fly-by. “Got any thoughts on that?"
        "That we're screwed eighteen ways from Sunday,” Nika replied succinctly. “And not in the screaming orgasm kind of way."
        "Not the image I wanna carry in my head before I die, thanks.” I grimaced and cuffed Nika lightly on the shoulder. “God, woman, the crap that comes outa your mouth sometimes." Nika laughed and I couldn’t resist adding, "But if it comes to that, you'd have no lack of partners."
        She laughed again and bumped my arm and I grinned back at her as she answered me.
        "If we wind up stuck on this rock indefinitely, I'm thinkin' we better team up and ALL of us keep it in our pants, eh?” she said. “Cuz that's the fastest way I know to start a massive brawl. Two women, four men, maybe never getting out of here? No one's gonna be getting any in that case -- seriously. Too much potential for rivalry, I'm thinking," she says with a smile.
        "Yeah. I'm really looking forward to that happenin'." My grin faded and I looked away, then faced Nika square and broached the unspoken matter that hung over all of us. "Answer me something. If we're down to the last bullet and the Reavers are going to win, do you want me to end you? If you need me to, I will."
        I got nothing but silence from her. Its tenor was thoughtful rather than shocked and I knew the rest of the crew must have considered this scenario already. She stirred and looked at me.
        "If I get down to my last bullet,” she said evenly. “I'll eat the damn thing so nobody has to make that choice.
        "Then give me your grenades before you do. I'll make them count."
        "Let's just make sure if we gotta go down, it's fighting, okay?"
        “Always.” That’s a promise. Something inside me eased and relieved of its pressure, I gestured at the shuttle’s bow. "Ready to go back? It's only another ten minutes' work."
        Nika turned on her heel in tacit agreement and headed back to finish the work she started. She said over her shoulder as I pushed off the strut, "Tomorrow, maybe, you can climb under there yourself and make sure I did it right."
        "Why wait? Last I checked, my eyes work just fine." I caught up with her on the ramp. "I won't tell Arden if you won't."

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