A Pilot's Mind

Shutting the door of her quarters behind her, Nika leaned back against it and turned her face toward the ceiling, closing her eyes. She drew in several deep breaths. The past several days had been all too familiar in ways that she wasn’t sure she was too happy with. She'd fallen too readily back into the mindset of a soldier, and their new passenger? Yeah . . . guaran-gorram-teed he was going to be trouble.

Blowing a breath out softly, she looked around the small quarters. It was a damn good thing she didn’t have to share with anyone, cuz right now? All she wanted to do was hit something. Or someone. Her mind awhirl with questions that had no answers except those found in her heart, which could just as easily be wishful thinking, Nika moved into the room. Dropping to the side of the bed, resting her elbows on her knees, she buried her face in her hands and struggled with memories. Good ones and bad ones. Right now, though, they were mostly bad.

"Are you sure the message came from there? How do we know this poor man will even survive? Anyone fanatical enough to commit an act of terrorism is fanatical enough to kill a potential security risk."

Sometimes you just have to go with your gut. My gut was the only thing I had right now, and Christian's questions were making me question it. Had Shyla and Brian and Harry fallen in with the hardcore crowd? I couldn't even fathom that . . . sure, they were Independents. Sure, they'd fought in the war. But even in the immediate aftermath, none of them had been that kind of hardcore. We all did what we had to, what was needed. But we were soldiers, she thought. Not terrorists. On the other hand . . . I suppose one man's soldier is another man’s terrorist. Am I gambling their lives on a false belief in my friends? Is Brian going to betray me? After so many years trusting them, I couldn’t take the step sideways required now to doubt them. They saved my ass too many times to count. I’d fly through Hell itself to get to any one of them. I had to keep the faith with them; if I didn’t, the very bedrock of my life for the past ten years would quake out from under me. Three things I knew in the 'Verse: My sister would always be on my side; the Black was where I belonged; Shyla, Brian, and Harry would come if I needed 'em and not bother to ask questions.

"These people led us straight into murdering for them and now we're going to them for help."

Was Christian right? Oh God . . . I don’t know what to do. Please, give me something to go on here? There’s an ancient joke about a guy who goes to Heaven and when he gets there, he asks the Lord why He didn’t save the guy from some catastrophe. And God's answer was incredulity: I sent you a horse, I sent you a boat, and I sent you a freakin’ spaceship, how much more help did you want??

I want a gorram road sign, that's what I want. I don't know if I'm making the right choices here. I don't even know if I'm qualified to be the person making the choices, cuz Heaven knows I'm not the innocent.

"How many innocent people died in that warehouse, Rina?"

And therein lies the crux of all my doubts. In spite of the face I gave to the others . . . our actions caused people to die.

Screams. Blood. A boy no more than sixteen, holding his guts in and crying for his mother. The images haunt me. The huge barn out in the middle of nowhere was a stockpile for stolen weapons, and we didn’t know that the place had been compromised. The caravan of wagons that came through needed someplace to hold a wedding, and gorram it, we all wanted just a little bit something good to happen that week. Streamers hanging off the rafters, music just getting started. And then the explosions. The fire. The intense heat that seared the people closest to it.

When it was all done, we realized that one of the crates of explosives had been set off by a Fed mole. The fire was blamed on an Independent attack, we took all the heat for the deaths of 62 men, women, and children. And in truth? I think it really was our fault. We’re the ones who let them stay. The deaths of so many people who were just trying to live their lives amid the war rattled my conscience . . . And Christian’s accusations brought it all back. How many innocents died? Is this what it's come to? Working for people who would kill innocents in the name of a war that we'd already lost?

Nika laid down on her bunk, trying to wade through the morass of guilt and worry and fear . . . we were back on the radar of the Alliance, some of us had prices on our heads. And I don’t have a stinkin’ CLUE what to do next. Except that I gotta square things with Christian.

Truth be told, Christian doesn't spend a lot of time in his room. It has to do with division of labor. Rina takes care of the systems. Nika takes care of the flying. Arden takes care of the medical needs. Christian takes care of everyone. That means cleaning, cooking, and the like. Right now, though, he's in his room. He sits on his bed, eyes closed, as he listens to the strains of a kabuki opera.

There is a gentle tapping at his door -- soft enough that he could ignore it if he felt like it, but firm enough to let him know that the person on the other side would very much like to speak to him.

Christian glances up, staring at the door for a moment. He reaches over and taps a button on his cortex screen, pausing the opera. Christian slips off the bed and pads over to the door, drawing it open. Which means someone gets to see him in nothing but a pair of red, silk boxers.

Well, now.... there's something you don't see every day. Not in *her* world, anyway. Her eyes run up and down him briefly, and a faint smile quirks her lips. "Cute," she offers mildly. But her gaze is back on his face pretty quickly and his undergarments dismissed. "I was hopin' you might see your way clear to havin' a chat."

"Sure." Christian says. He steps away from the door, turning to walk across the small space to where a short robe rests on a hook. He draws it on and loosely loops the tie around the waist.

Taking the implied invitation, Nika steps into his space, closing the hatch partway behind her. She doesn't presume that it's okay to sit as yet, he hasn't invited that. She merely says quietly, "You're a part owner of this ship. And although we've all sort of been thrown together here, you're kinda growin' on me, Christian. So when you level accusations at me that we're going places you don't want to see us go... it means something. Tell me how I can make this right with us, cuz I don't want to see you jump ship. And I don't really want to do it myself either."

Christian settles on the bed and touches the mattress next to him. "What happened on Beaumonde bothers me. Quite a bit."

With a slight nod to acknowledge the invitation, Nika ventures further into Christian's domain to perch on the corner of the bed, one knee pulled up to rest on the mattress. "I get that. Believe me, I'm not too thrilled about the innocents who died either. We took the job, and it sounded like the right thing to do at the time. We all agreed to do it. Then it went south, and Carter was grabbed because of us... and we all agreed that going after him was the right thing to do." She purses her lips a little and says in a quiet, almost sad tone, "But if you think that *any* of what's happened so far is _easy_, even for me, you'd be mistaken."

Christian motions with his finger, indicating that Nika should turn around and put her back to him. "I agreed to go after him because it was important to you and to Rina. The truth is, he put himself in that situation. We're, each of us, responsible for the outcome there. Myself included."

She gives him a somewhat puzzled look, but turns herself about on the bed so that her back is to him. "True enough. It was important enough to Rina that it *made* it important to me. And in all honesty... the man is someone I believe worth saving." She hesitates. "Christian... are you deciding that this isn't working because you feel left out of the decisions? Or is it something else?"

Moving slowly, Christian raises his hands and places them on Nika's shoulders. Assuming he doesn't get slapped silly, he begins to work at the muscles there. Putting that Companion training to work, one might say. The non-sex training, anyway. "We're on a dark path. When we reach your friends, whatever it is they ask us... I think it would be a very bad idea to say yes."

Nika stiffens instinctively when he puts his hands on her, almost drawing away. When she glances over her shoulder at him, though, and her suspicious gaze encounters no apparent actual interest in her, she relaxes a little. Although she still seems somewhat uncomfortable, she turns back around and lets him work on the tension that has her shoulders, neck, and back literally knotted into oblivion. "I don't know what they're going to ask... if they're even going to ask us anything," she tells him softly. "Look.... " She searches for the right words to talk to him. "Do you remember Summer's request? That we do good in the 'Verse with this ship? In spite of the situation on Beaumonde, Christian... I have to admit that I feel hitting the Alliance plants making this horrifying drug *is* doing good in the 'Verse. Do you *want* them using this drug on anyone they decide isn't toeing the line? Anyone who speaks out against the status quo?"

"No. Of course not." Christian says, "But... we messed up. All of us. Inexperience, I think.. I don't know." His hands work steadily, pressing into muscle just enough to break tension, though not so deep as to hurt. Nothing deep tissue here. "When the job was offered... the Beaumonde job... we should have discussed it as something more than a chance to earn money. We should have discussed, as a whole, how we felt about becoming part of this fight. The drug disturbs me. The torture chambers, too. I never thought about the Alliance as capable of something like that. Are we the ones to fight against that, though? And if we do... how? I can't be part of anything that thinks of what happened on Beaumonde as unfortunate but an acceptable loss."

"The Alliance capable of far more than that, Christian," Nika replies quietly. "Why do you think there *are* still people out here fighting?" She looks down, her fingers pleating the blanket in agitation. "There is such a thing as the greater good. How many soldiers have died fighting Reavers? And how many people died to get the Wave out?" She bites her lip, her head still dropped. "I stopped flying with Harbinger because.... it was getting too easy to lose sight of the human factor, Christian. And if, and it's a big if, *if* we decide to get into this fight as a crew... you may be the only thing that stands between me and a mindset like Nguyen's. Where 'the greater good' outweighs the inconvenience of trying, as an example, hit a plant in the middle ofthe night so there are fewer casualties."

Christian leans forward and kisses the back of Nika's head. "Okay." He says. His hands slide down her arms for a moment, then fall away entirely. He rises to his feet, moving out of her personal space.

Nika jumps a little, startled by his action. When he gets up and moves away, she turns to look at him with a puzzled frown. "Just... 'okay'?"

Christian smiles and nods. "If you like, I know a few sonnets that would fit this occasion. If I still had a mandolin I could unpack it and seranade you...."

She's a bit flummoxed, and it shows in Nika's face. "So.... we're okay?" She seems... uncertain what 'okay' actually means with him. And then adds, "I will never, ever understand Companions."

"Companions," Christian says with a laugh, "Are people. Regular people with some special training. Just like soldiers or pilots or doctors..." He motions with his hand. The "and so forth and so on and such" motion. "I would never have signed onto this ship after we found Summer if I hadn't thought each of you something extraordinary. Someone I could trust and be close to. Even Arden."

He pauses, the adds. "... don't tell me you've never had a fight with a family member before."

Nika grimaces. "The last family member I had a fight with... you *really* don't want to know about," she tells him. Moving to stand up, she looks at him. "All right, then. Neither one of us is talking about leaving the ship anymore, right?"

"You know.. the last time someone said something like that to me it had some very different connotations." Christian points out. "But yes. Agreed."

Nika eyes him and then shakes her head with a faint laugh. "Good... .now I gotta give Rina a week to settle down and realize for herself that we're not going to be of much use to Carter. He needs far more help than we can give him," she sighs. "Do me a favor, can you? Keep an eye on Rina, from a distance. She's.... this is gonna be hard on her."

"I'll do what I can." Christian says. "It might not be much. She's in love with a memory more than she is with the person. That's always hard."

"Let's just hope he comes out of it," Nika tells him softly. And then she grins a bit. "And if you ever wanna soothe away the knots in the shoulders again, feel free."

Christian winks. Perhaps its a bit saucy but, honestly, he hasn't flirted with anyone for days. He does have to keep in practice. "Part of the job."