The Captain's Heart CH 103

Jeremy had worked out they’d reached their destination not through an announcement—the captain didn’t usually broadcast information about

Jeremy had worked out they’d reached their destination not through an announcement—the captain didn’t usually broadcast information about the hunts—but by the increase in power usage throughout the ship. It had initially taken him by surprise. The previous times the ship had stopped, there had always been a drop in it.

Then he’d remembered those previous times had been at stations, and this was out in the void of space. Where during those stops people who didn’t have to work could exit and pass the time there. This time, they needed to find their leisure on the ship. And with not having to go anywhere, he expected a good number of the crew didn’t have to work.

The increase was nothing that would stress the civilian generator, but it was enough to register on his board. He calibrated the transfer to level out the demand.

It also explained why everyone in engineering worked.

“Technician Jeremy Bradshaw,” the Engineer said as he finished the calibration. “You are in charge of Engineering.”

“Alright, I’ll get right on that once I’m—what?” He looked over his shoulder, but the Engineer was already in the hallway, hurrying. Looking at Prertiros only got him stunned confusion. The confusion was repeated on everyone, and Thuruk wasn’t present today.

He’d be part of whatever hunter work needed to be done.

Just what did ‘being in charge’ mean here? He knew what he’d do if this was his lab, but the Engineer had his own ways. He considered asking the Engineer what he wanted him to do, but a technician trusted the Engineer to know what he was doing.

Except there was something he needed to know.

Is there anything that needs being done?

He put his tablet away.

As quickly as he’d left, the Engineer would respond when he had the time.

Okay, so he was in charge.

He looked around. They were still waiting on him.

“Back to work, everyone. The power isn’t going to behave just because the human’s been left in charge. Let’s make sure no one is inconvenienced during this down time, shall we? If you need assistance, I’ll be at my board.”

And what was he supposed to do when the next shift started and the Engineer wasn’t back?

    *

It turned out, and this made sense, that the shifts where the Engineer wasn’t on duty had a lead technician. Basically, the same as the others, but with permission to contact the Engineer without expecting to be screamed at.

It had let him leave without worrying about abandoning his post.

Which meant he now had to get ready for the next challenge.

    *

He looked at the Kelsirians surrounding him and his uncertainty was reflected on the six young faces.

“I’m not sure about this,” he told the man standing just off the mat. His trainer, being a hunter, was busy with the reason there were out here.

“You have been training for over six months now. Hunter Brelendrirano Karotirekfrem thought it is time to evaluate you in something closer to actual combat.”

“I don’t want anyone to get hurt.” He’d taken on his trainer in their last session and she’d admitted he had surprised her with how long he’d lasted. And she knew of his higher stamina.

“The young ones are trained. For them, this is about learning to work together to take down a stronger opponent. Now, remember everyone, no claws. This is about taking the Earther to the mat, not eviscerating him.”

And for him, that meant not over-tensing his hands along with his fingers joins, which would cause his glove’s claws to extend. Fortunately, that was how he’d mostly trained until recently.

“Begin,” the man said, then turned and walked away.

Jeremy started to call to him about leaving them unsupervised, but one of the kids leaps at him. He turned, caught the extended arm, redirected the momentum and sent her tumbling on the mat. Then another ran at him. He dodged, and this one turned on the spot, with the help of claws holding him to the mat, and swung a leg that Jeremy stepped over. Then the kid was up, reaching to grab. Jeremy did the grabbing and pulled him, then held him against his body as the boy struggled for the seconds it took to finish exhausting himself.

He lowered the kid to the mat and stepped away in time for another one to come at him and almost distract Jeremy from her partner, moving to flank him. He dodged her, tripped him, then two more charged, only to bump into each other and trip themselves. There were actual growls exchanged as they got to their feet. Then their attention was back on him, ears and eyes flicking. A glance over his shoulder showed him his first attacker had regained her breath.

“Together,” the kid said, glared at the one next to him. “Apart.” The other one moved three steps to the side and smirked. Then they came at him.

He had no chance. Especially after a fourth joined in and tackled him at the knees. He’d been worried when he’d fallen back on her, but as soon as he rolled off, she got up, filled with pride.

“Good,” the man said, back at the edge of the mat. “You, on the other hand, need to be more aware of your attackers.”

“This isn’t what I signed up for,” Jeremy said, getting up.

The man shrugged. “It is what I’ve been instructed to do.” He smiled. “You are welcome to have Hunter Brelendrirano Karotirekfrem come and tell me otherwise.”

“Do you enjoy telling others to do stuff you know they can’t do?”

He tilted an ear. “I instruct cubs. If they can’t do what I tell them, it is because they don’t know themselves well enough yet.”

“Did you just call me a cub?”

“Can you do what I told you to?”

“She’s somewhere doing hunter stuff. It’s not like I can—”

“Begin.”

And Jeremy was busy dodging overly enthusiastic kids who delighted in coming at him from all sides until, invariably, they brought him down.

    *

“Okay,” he told the technicians in engineering. “The Engineer isn’t back from where ever he went to yesterday. So we’re going to continue as yesterday. I’m lead technician, and we make sure no one is inconvenienced by power disruptions. If there’s something you don’t know how to handle, just call for me and I’ll help. Let’s get to it, everyone.”

    *

“Okay,” Jeremy said between bites, “one of you has to explain the looks you’ve been giving me all morning.” He pointed to Prertiros with his fork. “How about you, my friend?” The act attracted attention from the passing Kelsirian. He’d had to explain too often what a fork was, and now, if someone didn’t know, they could go ask someone else.

Prertiros looked at the other technicians at the table, but they didn’t volunteer in his place.

“You are acting like the Engineer.”

“He left me in charge.”

“He didn’t say to be him,” Technician Lrorfremir Asurdien muttered.

“I don’t remember yelling at anyone interrupting my work.”

“You made the decisions,” Prertiros said.

“He left me in charge.”

“To contact him so he can tell you what we need to do.”

“It took him well over an hour to get back to me yesterday. I don’t think anyone here wants to wait that long before dealing with an emergency.” The look they exchanged said they weren’t comfortable with that. “Would you really rather wait for his instructions, no matter how long it takes, than just deal with the problem?”

“We are technicians. It isn’t our place to act outside of our duties, without the Engineer’s instructions.”

“What do you do when he leaves the ship, then?”

“The Engineer doesn’t leave the ship,” Technician Erkrimtorim Frisgariak said.

“I’m pretty sure he isn’t on the ship right now,” Jeremy countered, and the looks he got in response said how unusual that was.

What could be going on that would take the Engineer off the ship then?

    *

“You know,” the man said, casting a shadow over Jeremy. “Someone might get ideas, finding a nice-looking body stretched on the sand like this.”

Jeremy gave Xenial the finger without opening his eyes, and the man chuckled. He had thoroughly explained the cultural significance of the gesture the first time his friend had pushed his luck.

He dropped into the sand next to him. “How are you holding up? The last time you tried coming to the reservoir didn’t go all that great.”

“The programming’s at the edge of my mind, waiting for some idiot to make an unwanted advance so it can sound the alarm and send me running off.”

“Unwanted? I see, so if I were to—”

“Don’t.” He focused on building the containment chamber in time with his breathing, ready to wrestle the programming for control of his mind.

“Sorry. You didn’t ask any of us to come with you?”

“Pretty much everyone’s busy. Thuruk’s still off the ship, so is Alixianakaran—”

“Oh, like he’d ever come here and relax. That male is a ball of nerves that needs to be forced to a bed to enjoy himself.”

“Speaking from experience?”

“Yes.”

“You two friends?”

“I still use his full name, so less than you.”

“Jurani Joramsjon, Atarikna, and Scarif Driguen, are also busy with what’s going on, and Leiha Tergrobar reschedule my appointment today, which is how I found the time to come here.”

“You didn’t contact me,” Xenial said matter-of-factly.

“Neither did I contact Prertiros. Although with him it’s because I see him every day at work. And you’re the Quartermaster. I figured you’d get pulled into whatever’s going on, too.”

“I do not get pulled into anything. If I do something, it’s because I want to do it.”

“Of your namesake tells you?”

“Oh, he never bothers with telling. He just Meddles and I have to go along with it. Don’t you know why we’re here? Who we….”

“Don’t know. Don’t care.”

“Really?” his friend sounded dubious.

“I’m not a hunter, or someone who needs to know.” He opened his eyes and looked at Xenial. “Or someone who pokes his nose in stuff that doesn’t concern him.”

“If I go sniffing after something, it concerns me.”

“But yeah. I have enough to do, especially with the Engineer busy….”

“I don’t know about that one,” Xenial said. “But don’t you want to know there’s another Earther on the ship right now?”

The programming latched onto that information so fast, proclaiming ‘ally’, ‘rescue’, ‘run to them and escape,’ that Jeremy forced himself not to move. He was confident that person had nothing to do with what he’d suffered, but he’d stay as far as he could. He didn’t trust the program not to make him do something stupid if they met.

Outline section 

Jeremy first knew something was up when the ship reached a destination in the middle of nowhere and didn’t move for twelve hours. As an engineer Jeremy only cared if the ship was moving or stationary, and without Gral the only person Jeremy talked to were the techs, Alix, and Leiha. As much as Jeremy hates Omar, Jeremy is now reflecting on how much of his old social circle was of his design. His friends in school were all classmates and at work the only ones he made himself were coworkers... but that’s a distraction.

Second thing was when Leiha rescheduled his appointment from the morning to the afternoon. Given Jeremy’s condition and the fact they are in deep space at the moment, the human is left wondering what could be a higher priority. Did someone lose a spouse, and if so to what? Was there a suicide attempt? Do kelsiriran’s even get suicidal? These are not exactly questions Jeremy can bring up with his social circle without it getting very awkward...

...and then one day Alix puts him in charge of engineering with no warning, which as someone who has gotten to know him throws up all the red flags. Jeremy doesn’t shirk his work duties, particularly how demanding Alix is, but the second that the day is done he’s grilling Thuruk. What exactly is happening on this ship? Is there an invasion of the body snatchers they’re going to need to fight off or something?

Thuruk... doesn’t get the reference, but “movie” is all he needs for it to click... isn’t exactly sure what to tell Jeremy. They were on an information hunt, found their target, but came to the decision with the target that his position was compromised. So he’s currently a passenger; Leiha helping with his debriefing, while Alix and the doctors are going over some technical schematics he had for them.

Before Jeremy can probe more, Thuruk says that isn’t the big thing. Leading Jeremy to one of the recreation decks, Jeremy finds human media playing... not one of the recent movies or even a public broadcast, though. This is an old but not too old broadcast from Earth; everything is understandable, but even after such a short time there has been an accent drift from the English he currently speaks.

When asked, Thuruk will explain the informant they picked up is a deserter from they human military. He’s been spending his time in deep space “harvesting” old broadcast signals from Earth, reconstructing their media from before the propaganda when out of control. He has sixteen satellites strewn across a five lightyear box of space, all pointed to the Sol system and waiting for when Earth would be on this side of the sun. This particular position is currently receiving broadcast from [insert number here][[ I'm not sure where to put this myself, but we're looking for before the years of propaganda, so that would be the biggest concern.]] years ago, but he’s been at this for years so he has built up a lot of data. When he receives his cut from Xenial on the distribution of these recordings, he’ll be able to set himself up anywhere in the Federation with at least modest comfort. And that is ignoring the data disks.

Which of course raises the next question from Jeremy, what data discs?

Addition 

Something for Jeremy.

Definitely combat, months have taken place.

Show him eating with his utencils.

Work. What he knows of what’s going? Pull some stuff from 42, as it makes sense?

Just about everything from the outline was dropped except for Alix leaving Jeremy in charge. I sort of knew that was going to happen, so I'd set myself pottential stuff to fill the 'gap'. The fork thing shows up here for the first time because I kept forgetting to have the scene where Jeremy uses it at an eatery for the first time and keeps having to explain what it is. I'll add that in draft 2

the scene at the reservoir is sort of a similar situation, but I don't know if I'll be able to add Jeremy attempting, and failing, to go, in the second draft. the pacing doesn't really lend itself to putting that on the page