Breaking Bough
I just couldn't resist doing an RP once the crew got on the ground and apparently neither could Andy. LOL. Thanks, Andy.--Maer
Day One, Post Ambush
Somewhere on Meadow
Nightfall
I paused in harvesting conifer branches for pallets and took in the view. The taiga and tundra of Meadow rolled on before me, deeply cloaked in snow. The sun was setting and the clouds hung low, yellow and purple like a bruise. The snow bled gold where the light hit it, smoldered a deep blue where the shadows held sway. It was stark and it was beautiful and it was likely the eighth sunset left to me before I died.
Morbid bitch.
I turned my back on it and hacked another bough free and threw it on the pile at my side. I judged it deep enough and slipped my knife into the band I’d tied around my waist to hold it. It was one of Joshua’s best chef’s knives—Beglan had the other one—and I regretted the abuse I’d heaped on it. Still, as much as Joshua loved his knives, he loved us more, and since sleeping on the bare snow was courting suicide, he gave them up for axes. I gathered the greenery in both arms and sloughed through the snow to our camp.
The snow was deep where it drifted and only up to my knees where the wind had worn it away. It made for a decent workout as I plowed through the tree line and I had the dubious pleasure of sweating and freezing at once. I cut deeper into the forest and the canopy overhead blocked the sky. About fifty yards in I saw our camp and gratefully made my way toward it.
As camps went, it wasn’t a pleasure resort, but it was shelter. We’d come off the hill into the tree line and found a stand of evergreens with their branches weighted to the ground by ice and snow. Crawling underneath revealed a cave-like space big enough to hold all of us if we didn’t mind getting cozy. With the temps dropping below freezing come nightfall, I doubted anyone would complain. So we hacked and harvested and piled the branches high to keep us off the snow and to give us insulation from the cold. Beglan and Joshua had banked the snow into a windbreak before the entrance of our cave and coming around it, I saw the Irishman tending a fire in the pit he’d made. With luck, the windbreak would reflect some of the fire’s heat back to us but still be far enough to keep the snow above our heads from melting.
Huh. Clever. I wonder if the snares we’ve set have caught anything yet.
I gave Beglan a nod, my hands being too full to deliver a proper thumbs-up, and ducked under the branches with my load. Joshua had salvaged a battery lamp from our girl and by its light I saw Arden had settled Nika on her pallet where the cover was thickest, toward the back where the trench we’d trampled into the snow ended and the resulting platform was deep. Beglan had also done what he could for her comfort—a smaller fire flickered at Arden’s feet and he was busy rigging up a screen of conifer branches to bounce the heat Nika’s way. The fire sat on the bare ground of the trench and I had no fear of burning in our beds—the ground was too wet to let anything catch. I spread my branches over those already lying on the platform and as I folded and tucked and snapped off stray boughs to make the covering denser, the cynical voice inside me wondered why it mattered where my body lay or how neat the funeral bier was.
“It matters because it matters,” I muttered and tucked and folded some more. Catching Arden’s look askance from the corner of my eye, I covered my slip by asking, “You seen Joshua anywhere?”
For an answer, Arden pointed deeper into the trees on my five. Knowing I’d only reduce the bedding to splinters if I fiddled with it more, I nodded my thanks and left. If I recalled correctly, Arden had pointed the way toward the trap line Beglan and I had hastily set. Dusk was a favorite hour for small game to move about, using the uncertain light to foil predators. If we were lucky, we might have caught something. It would make the supplies we’d pulled off our girl last longer if we could supplement them with game and I briefly wondered if Joshua knew how to dress anything we’d managed to catch. I also wondered if he had the stomach to end anything our snares had trapped alive.
Only one way to find out.
I had no trouble following his tracks deeper into the woods and was glad we’d had the foresight to cover our traces off the plains. While I knew it was practically useless—anyone with an infrared scanner could see our heat signature for miles—we maintained what stealth discipline we could. If we somehow managed to get the drop on Potemkin by doing it, it would have been worth the effort. If not …
It’s still good practice and it gives you something to do while you’re waiting to die.
Shut up.
The shadows made it difficult to pick out Joshua from the trees. I spied his blanketed shoulders moving ahead, a darker grey in the murk, and quickened my pace. On the off-chance it wasn’t him but someone hostile, I drew my knife and held it ready as I closed the distance. I kept the trunks between me and the man ahead and as I came closer I heard a thread of sound. A snatch of song drifted back to me in a soft tenor I instantly recognized and I relaxed. I sped up again and turned round the last trunk and spied him kneeling in the snow. I called out to him, my voice pitched low to avoid carrying too far, and waited for him to turn.
“Joshua.”
---
He couldn't help but sing. Joshua really knew he shouldn't be happy, shouldn't be singing, should be depressed about the turn of events. But gorram, they were alive. Casino oddsmakers wouldn't have given them 1 in 50 to survive everything that Potemkin had thrown at them and yet here they were, making plans and moving forward. Hell, they had even managed to keep the passenger alive.
He had been walking through the trees, checking their trap line when he had seen movement in one of their traps and went to check it out. He looked at down at the rabbit they had managed to catch in their crude snare. It was still alive, but barely struggling. He kneeled down and petted the silky soft white head fur.
Sorry, little guy, I wish we didn't have to do this but we need food. He stopped singing long enough to reach down and snap its neck.
Joshua started to remove the rabbit from the snare when he heard Rina call out to him from behind. He stood up and turned around in one smooth motion. "Report, Rina. What's our status?" His voice easily slipped into that calm, commanding tone he had come to think of as his "captain's voice".
---
“Bivouac’s done. Nika’s installed and Arden’s watching her. Beglan’s got a fire going.” I said as I approached. I didn’t miss his tone or his bearing and inwardly approved. “We’ll need eye protection.”
---
"Then work on putting that together for us once everything else is settled." He kneeled back down and carefully removed the rabbit from the snare, setting it aside. He then started to work to put the snare back together. He had studied Beglan long enough to let the little nanobots in his brain do their thing and rewire him with some survival skills. Which it looked like they would need.
He looked over his shoulder and motioned with his head for Rina to join him. He put himself out of captain mode for a little while. He had begun to understand why Nika got irritated when he called her Captain all the time. It made it hard to put it aside in moments like this, where he just wanted to talk to Rina as Joshua. "How are you holding up, Rina?"
---
"Well enough. Still a little sore." My hand twitched toward my gut and I ran it through my hair instead. Strands came away in my fingers and the sheer amount gave me pause. It's already begun. I tucked them into my belt out of habit. As a sign we were here, they were insignificant against our tracks, snares, and camp, but I held on to them. I'd toss them in the fire later. "You?"
---
"Physically, I've been better." He still had burns everywhere from the hydrogen flash fire. The ugly red dog bites on his left side and leg hurt when he moved. And to top it off, the bitter cold and wind caused his shoulder wound from the stitches to ache. Yeah, he had definitely had been healthier.
"But mentally, I'm surprisingly good. Coming out of that whole ordeal alive has my spirits up. And..." he paused and looked over at her secretively. "Can I share a secret with you?"
---
I knew he had to be hurting as I was, but I offered no comment. No point in emphasizing our injuries. It’s bad for morale. However, at the mention of the secret, Joshua quirked a brow at me and I couldn't help but echo it.
"Always," I knelt and nudged his shoulder with mine. "What is it?"
---
"I like being the captain," Joshua said, surprise in his voice. He hadn't thought he would. But he had felt useful and alive taking control of the situation on the Gift. "I want Nika to wake up. To be our captain again. But I'm not scared of it like I had been."
---
"I'd noticed. You certainly seemed more confident taking command this time around." I slipped my arm around him and gave him a careful hug. I leaned in and spoke softly into his ear. "It kept me focused and on-task knowing that. Thank you."
---
"If I look at it from a pragmatic perspective, being a good captain is about dealing with people, gathering information, and making decisions with that information. I'm good at those things." He shrugged a little and leaned over to kiss her on her cheek. "And you're welcome. My short lived captaincy will come to an end soon, so I'll take my kudos while they last."
---
"True. You are. You will," I said. Slipping both my arms around him I kissed him on the lips. Words no longer sufficed when it came to him. Joshua did that to me.
---
"We'll make it through this, you know," he said as he disengaged from the kiss. He knew how Rina thought sometimes. Right now, the Russian in her was bound to be speaking up, letting her know she wouldn't have a happy ending. Well, screw that, he thought. We didn't go through all that to be finished in the snow of the taiga. "The Black still calls your name, Rina and I'm not about to let some half-assed psychopath get in the way of that."
---
The Black still calls your name, Rina. In seven short words, Joshua perfectly described what I’d thought no one would truly understand and implicit in his statement was a promise I’d never thought I’d hear. Had I not already been kneeling, it would have brought me to my knees. Spilling tears, I could only caress his face and try, unsuccessfully, to breathe.
---
He wasn't sure exactly what it meant, but Joshua knew it had to mean something that he didn't even blink when he made Rina break out into tears again. Holding her tight up against him, he knelt quietly in the snow, just appreciating the moment. A day ago, he wouldn't have been confident that they would be alive today.
After she calmed down a little, he looked at her as he wiped away a tear from her face. "Ok, since it upsets you that much, I'll upgrade Potemkin to a full-assed psychopath," he joked.
---
I immediately saw the disconnect and choked out a watery laugh.
"It does call me. So much." I leaned into his touch and kissed his hand before he could pull away. "I could never make anyone understand that but you got it. Thank you."
---
"How could I love you and not get it?" he asked simply. Shifting focus, he reached over beside her and grabbed the dead rabbit he had put aside. Holding it up by the ears in front of him, he said, "Speaking of getting it, this rabbit needs to get it. Where it is the knife. Mind taking it to Beglan?"
---
"Not a problem." I took the rabbit and rose, brushing the snow off my legs. Futile effort: I was already soaked from the knees down. "You're two snares from the end. Want some company?"
---
"When it is you, of course I do." He reached out his hand and let her pull him up to his feet. "We're going to have a long, cold night with a bunch of us crowded together. Probably best to get some quiet time with you now while I still have a chance."
---
I gave his hand a squeeze. I knew it was dark and it was freezing, but inside I was warm and bright. It didn't matter we were on borrowed time. Death by disease and exposure couldn’t touch me now.
It won't last. Enjoy this while you can.
"Let's go," I said and let Joshua take me deeper into the trees.
---
Go back to: Timeline Season Four, April 2521 to Dec 2521
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