Tiny little pebbles, bouncing

Posted on Sat Mar 11th, 2023 @ 4:13pm by Lieutenant JG Miraj Derani

Mission: MISSION 0 - History Speaks
Location: Elysium/basecamp
Timeline: Episode 1 md08 (backpost)
1024 words - 2 OF Standard Post Measure

Miraj had got an hours rest? two? She wasn't sure. Between the shuttling and the enormous, ever present ninety percent loss of her department that rattled round her head as soon as she lay down kept precious sleep at bay. But she also needed food, and she stumbled into the main mess, and stood in the queue for the porridge and whatever that the ops team assigned to the galley were offering. She collected a tray and a mug and bowl, and waited patiently as the line shuffled forward. Once she reached the big urn, she gratefully took the mug of tea. It was an earth brew, ready mixed with milk, and she couldn't wait to clap her chilly fingers around it.

Then she reached the porridge bowl. The petty officer blinked at her for a moment, then frowned and dipped the ladle back into the vat, bringing up a thick creamy serving of oats. Miraj's mouth watered slightly, the first hot food she'd had in a while, and held her bowl out.

The petty officer tipped the ladle, and it slopped out, half over the bowl and all over the tray where it slid over the edge and dripped on her boots. "I'm sorry," the other woman gushed, as the Porridge began to congeal in the chill air almost instantly. She didn't sound sorry. "I'm afraid its one serving per person only."

Miraj stared at the cooling feast. "Its okay," she said in a dull voice. "I'll make do."

She found a place to sit. A small group with mustard trim on their unzipped parkas sat at the other end of a table meant to seat 12. A she picked up her spoon they all picked up their trays. She didn't think anything of it until they walked past the reclaimator, and sat down at another table. She hunched her shoulders up and scraped the congealing porridge up as best she could.

Still hungry, she headed for Phlegathon. The first few trips of every shift was always busiest, but after days of taking down set-up crew, now he was bringing up repair crews, still crammed into the runabouts, standing room only, and it was every pilot to the shuttles. The ten minute trip up to Elysium was done in a hard, accusatory silence.

The trip back had been no better, the banter of engineers coming off ship dying out when they saw who their pilot was.

She didn't bother with the mess at lunch, and over-rode the survival protocol on Phlegathon to get a protein bar from his replicator.

After that, before the next round of shift changes and shuttle runs, he stared at the padd for Petty Officer second class Yantar Vorian. The Hekaran had been the first confirmed dead from flight control; his boyfriend had seen him pulled out into space whilst he himself was trapped behind the safety of the SIF. If Vorian had been standing two meters to the right, he would have lived. She stared at the service record for she didn't know how long, before he remembered to mark it, KIA. and slowly filled in all the terrible details.

The day got dark at only about 1600, and it was time to lend an extra hand to the shuttle service for the shift changes that would happen at 1800. At least the trip wasn;t dead silence this time, but the conversation in the back was stilted, and seemed to stop everytime she moved from staring dead ahead.

Hours later, when the shift change was mostly done, and she wasn't needed anymore, she thought about staying on ELy. she wasn't supposed to though, and a much as she'd rather hide up here, she had to show willing. So she took her place on Phlegathon again and went down for the last time that day.

She got a professional nod from Crewman Sto, who was marshalling at the cave entrance, and she parked Phlegathon for the night, waiting for her passengers to depart before she shut down.

She walked past the mess, not feeling the urge to eat, and went to her shelter. It was empty. She wasn't supposed to be sharing with Carly, but the lieutenant had found somewhere else to bunk and the shelter was dark, and cold. Turning the heat on seemed a lot of effort when she was going straight to bed, so she didn't bother. She shucked off her parka, hung it by the door, then just crawled straight into bed without bothering to change.

Rolling onto her side she pulled the blankets up, trying to sleep. She tossed and turned for an hour, the names of the dead circling around in her brain when she heard hushed voices outside. The shelters were solid enough to be not freezing, but they weren't sound proof outside.

"You can't just do it here." muttered one voice she didn't recognise,

"I can't hold it," whined another. "I'll burst before I get there."

"What if that's Captain Taylor's place? He'll string you up!"

"Nah, its Pinky's."

Miraj rolled over to face the door at that, not quite believing she was hearing what she thought she was hearing.

There was a moments pause, and the first voice said, "Oh, carry on then." And then there was a trickling sound pattering against her door. a few breaths after she picked up a acrid smell seepin gthrough the door, and even though it was shut, she saw a small damp spot in the crack between the door at the wall.

Outside there was a sniggering sound, and relieved sigh, then the sounds of people moving on.

Miraj flopped onto her back and stared at the ceiling. Wasn't that just perfect? Today just sucked. She thought thre was nothing worse than being stuck on a frozen planet a gajillion llight years from home with a barely functional space ship. Apparently there was, and that was being trapped on a frozen planet a gajillion lightyears from home with a bunch of people who hate you.

She shut her eyes and chased sleep. She had to hope that tomorrow would be better.