Bones in the Stars ( Miraj's Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day (Part 3 of 4) )

Posted on Tue Mar 28th, 2023 @ 6:49am by Lieutenant JG Miraj Derani

Mission: Season 6: Episode 2: Survival
Location: The cavern entrance
Timeline: MD 02 2300 after The Igloo)
1544 words - 3.1 OF Standard Post Measure

Miraj left the Igloo, nibbling on her cupcake. She didn't want to go to bed, even late as it was. She just couldn't bring herself to settle in her cold and lonely bed. She mentally slapped herself for the thought. She was being selfish. So many people now had cold lonely beds, and real loss as well. But she had thinking to do, and doing it in her cold shelter seemed like a bad idea.

She still had the bottle of rum she'd liberated from The Igloo. Looking at the label, a barquentine in full sail picked out in gold foil, a thread of music ran through her mind. She hummed the slow melody to herself. It sparked something in her, a call to the sea, the stars. She pulled her parka tighter round her body and walked back to the shuttle staging area, still humming.

Walking amongst the sleeping jolly boats towards the cave entrance, the sky came into view. In the far distance, the Rin Tower was a black gap in the starfield pointing to the beauty that weaved among them. An aurora. The ribbon of cyan and azure blue wound its way amongst bright stars in unknown constellations, like a slow current in a fathomless ocean, and the words to the melody broke free.

𝅘𝅥𝅮𝅘𝅥𝅮"Oh, I bid farewell to the port and the land, And I paddle away from brave England's white sands, To search for my long ago forgotten friends, To search for the place I hear all sailors end." 𝅘𝅥𝅮𝅘𝅥𝅮

She let the last melancholy note fade away. The acoustics in the cave were gentle, not amplifying or echoey. She wouldn't be disturbing anyone, unless they came right up to the entrance.

𝅘𝅥𝅮𝅘𝅥𝅮 "As the souls of the dead fill the space of my mind, I'll search without sleeping 'til peace I can find," 𝅘𝅥𝅮𝅘𝅥𝅮

Did she deserve peace? The commodore said no one was to blame. The Bartender had said it wasn't her fault. She wasn't so sure. She could have stayed out of slipstream. Chances are they would have lost the back half of the drive section, the nacelles, and there was a very god chance the SIF would have failed completely. But they would have been close to rescue, their position known, emergency beacons would have reached any one of a dozen potential rescue forces.

𝅘𝅥𝅮𝅘𝅥𝅮"I fear not the weather, I fear not the sea"𝅘𝅥𝅮𝅘𝅥𝅮

Was that the problem? She was too comfortable in space, too much at peace with the dangers that she didn't fear them and that made her...cavalier, like the other pilots had said?

𝅘𝅥𝅮𝅘𝅥𝅮"I remember the fallen, do they think of me? When their bones in the ocean forever will be."𝅘𝅥𝅮𝅘𝅥𝅮

The young woman stood at the cave entrance, feeling the blast of the icy night breeze threaten to turn a burgeoning tear to ice before it could even fall. Then she turned to the nearest shuttle, climbing up the outside to sit on the roof. Acheron was slightly warm to the touch, kept at idle like all the shuttles to fend off the cold.

𝅘𝅥𝅮𝅘𝅥𝅮 "Plot a course to the night to a place I once knew, To a place where my hope died along with my crew," 𝅘𝅥𝅮𝅘𝅥𝅮

She pulled the cork out of the rum bottle and she settled on top of Acheron to gaze at the endless stars, and took a swig. Nine out of ten of her department was gone. The rum burned on the way down, warming her against the chill.

𝅘𝅥𝅮𝅘𝅥𝅮"So I swallow my grief and face life's final test, To find promise of peace and the solace of rest. As the songs of the dead fill the space of my ears, their laughter like children, their beckoning cheers, my heart longs to join them, sing songs of the sea.𝅘𝅥𝅮𝅘𝅥𝅮

It would make things simpler, let people who knew what they were doing take over.

𝅘𝅥𝅮𝅘𝅥𝅮 "I remember the fallen, do they think of me? When their bones in the ocean forever will be?" 𝅘𝅥𝅮𝅘𝅥𝅮

She toasted the stars with the neck of the rum bottle, a toast to the dead. A toast to the bones in the stars, and kept singing.

𝅘𝅥𝅮𝅘𝅥𝅮 "When at last before my ghostly shipmates I stand, I shed a small tear for my home upon land, Though their eyes speak of deaths filled with struggle and strife, Their smiles below say I don't owe them my life.𝅘𝅥𝅮𝅘𝅥𝅮

That was a lie, she knew. She was supposed to be the best. She had all the academy records, and several of the fighter school ones too. Ones that didn't involve shooting at any rate. And she'd piloted them straight into destruction and out into desolation. But...

But they weren't destroyed. And whilst they were far from home, they weren't marooned. How many ships encountered a quantum filiament and lived to tell the tail. Not many. How many ships had been blown far faw away and made it home by itself. So far just one. But they could be the second, with the right hand on the tiller....

𝅘𝅥𝅮𝅘𝅥𝅮 "As the souls of the dead fill the space of my eyes, And my boat listed over and tried to capsize, I'm this far from drowning, this far from the sea." 𝅘𝅥𝅮𝅘𝅥𝅮

Would it be easy to let go, if it happened? could she just sink down, or would she fight for the surface. She'd fough with every breath to get this far. Could she let go, if the choice came?

𝅘𝅥𝅮𝅘𝅥𝅮 "I remember the living, do they think of me? When my bones in the ocean forever will be." 𝅘𝅥𝅮𝅘𝅥𝅮

She remembered the living. Her father, his warm eyes, his enormous hugs that made her so safe. Would he look for her, or just accept that she was gone, never to come home, at peace with the odds of recovery being next to zero. He'd named his ship, her home, the Forlorn Hope for a reason. Lost in space was to be lost forever, in an endless liminal space between hope and knowing, not amongst the living, but never a death to mourn. And what would Mal do? Go quietly mad, or do something hedonistic and destructive, do something dumb and leave her father to outlive them both?

She blinked, and a fat tear rolled down, but Miraj realised she wasn't sad. Her father had his crew, and Mal had his. They'd look after her family. And out here, even if she never got back, they'd always be safe in her mind, her father finding the lost, and bringing closure to others if not himself, and Mal off doing whatever it was he did and never told her about.

And the crew here needed her too, if they wanted to get back home in their own lifetimes, they had to get the QSD running, or something else equally fast, that would need only the best pilot in one, and now possibly two, galaxies.
Between here and home were dangers unknown and hardships unnumbered. They would be sailing the finest line between an infinite Sylla of uncharted space and the unending charybdis of thier own dwindling resources. A needle only the steadiest hand could thread.

𝅘𝅥𝅮𝅘𝅥𝅮 "Now that I'm staring down at the darkest abyss," 𝅘𝅥𝅮𝅘𝅥𝅮

The note drew out, hung in the silence of the cave. and she smiled and her voice lifted with the tune

𝅘𝅥𝅮𝅘𝅥𝅮 "I'm not sure what I want, but I don't think it's this." 𝅘𝅥𝅮𝅘𝅥𝅮

And that was the truth. She was looking into The Abyss. And the Abyss looked back. But it offered no solutions. It didn't need to. She'd brought her own. She'd been singing her way up to it. To the answer.

𝅘𝅥𝅮𝅘𝅥𝅮"As my comrades call to stand fast and forge on, I make sail for the dawn 'til the darkness has gone." 𝅘𝅥𝅮𝅘𝅥𝅮

The stars twinkled in the firmament, the aurora flickering. It was peaceful and she felt steadier. Maybe it was the rum, but maybe it was the night and the ships around her, reminding her that even with everything, this was what she was meant for, sailing the uncharted waters, come what may. She was a pilot.

No.

She was the pilot. Unparralleled. Unequalled.

And she had a job to do. Regardless of how they got here, and where the heavy hand of blame rested, she had a ship to see to port. Her hand on the helm would see them safe. All the way, whatever it cost.

She would hold the course, and bring them home

𝅘𝅥𝅮𝅘𝅥𝅮 "As the souls of the dead live for'er in my mind, As I live all the years that they left me behind, I'll stay on the shore but still gaze at the sea, I remember the fallen and they think of me, For our souls in the ocean together will be,

I remember the fallen and they think of me,

For our souls in the ocean together will be. 𝅘𝅥𝅮𝅘𝅥𝅮

---

Bones in the Ocean is a beautiful shanty by The Longest Johns

 

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