They had only known each other for a few months, and yet the last thing she'd wanted to do was hurt him. She felt emotionally connected to him, even more than she had felt even towards Arrow. Perhaps it was the perilous circumstances that had brought them all together that had caused her to feel this way. But it hadn't been only she and him on this godforsaken voyage; Mr. Hawkins had been in the midst as well. In fact, Mr. Hawkins had been at the dead center of it all.
So why did she not feel this emotion towards James as well? It only made sense. He had been the one in the most danger, the one who had felt the utter betrayal that Mr. Silver had inflicted, and the one she had wrongly accused of negligent murder. And yet as the most exciting voyage she had ever embarked on came to a close, she felt no affection towards the boy, beyond the pride in his accomplishments that a professor might feel towards a pupil of theirs.
Yes, it was completely illogical. The man she felt the most strongly towards was not the one who had risked his life the most, not the one who had shown immense amounts of bravery in the face of adversity… No, this man had been the one who stumbled and fumbled his way through the journey, and had infuriated her to no end...until the moment where all seemed lost, when he stepped forward and became a vital key to her survival.
I suppose I have gotten ahead of myself. This story is more easily comprehended, and her conflicting emotions are more easily understood...when told from the beginning.
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It seemed that pushing off their unwanted voyages down to her… was the latest method of driving Captain Amelia to her breaking point that the Royal Navy had decided to use. Voyages usually assigned to officers beneath her rank were happily passed onto her, under the guise of being "morale building exercises".
But Captain Amelia knew what they were doing. She had been in this business long enough to know when her superiors were purposely bothering her. Being an upstanding captain who came from nothing was already a strike against her amongst her colleagues, seeing as most of them had basically been drafted into the Navy due to their families' well-established reputation in such circles.
Add on the fact that she was female, well respected by her crew, and very good at her job… Yes, her colleagues had good reason to be intimidated by her. And as a result, they tended to attempt to "put her in her place" with mundane voyages that any captain with a ship and an inkling of common sense could embark on.
Their attempts at dampening her drive were futile, as expected, since she treated each voyage as if they held the utmost importance... because she knew that to the one who had requested said trip, it did. This caused her to be seen as the most valuable captain in the Navy, with new requests for her services flooding in each day, which more than deliciously infuriated those above her in rank.
The day began like any other. Meetings in the early morning. A debriefing on the peace talks across the galaxy, a rundown of the latest news from the Admiralty, then off to her office to go through aforementioned voyage requests with her First Officer.
This is where she sat now, leaned back in her chair in her office on Montressor, sipping a cup of almost gone tea, chuckling to herself as Mr. Chester Arrow read through the various requests they'd received.
"Captain, I am not sure what lunatic walked in and handed some of these in, but I know they couldn't possibly have imagined we would accept their request." he sighed, his stony features crinkling into an image of mock-disgust before melting into a large grin.
Amelia chuckled, setting her cup down and sitting forward, taking the folder he was handing her and opening it. She ran her eyes over the summary, and couldn't help but smile as she closed it and set it off to the side.
"Perhaps they feel we have nothing better to do."
"It's almost insulting." Arrow muttered, grabbing another folder. "Like this one. 'Mr. Drake Corolla kindly requests safe passage for both he and his 37,000 ceramic ducks to his mother-in-law's house on Denobai'."
Amelia could only laugh at the irritated look on her best friend and First Officer's face, strategically pulling out a different folder from the bottom of the stack.
"Perhaps this Mr. Corolla really fancies his ducks. Safe passage for his precious cargo, my friend." she smirked.
She truly did enjoy the fact that she got to begin each day with her First Officer. It was always a very welcome reprieve from the haughty men she usually worked with, and she could always be herself in his presence. Arrow had known her since their Academy days, and knew the stress she tended to put herself under. And more recently, he knew the stress she was constantly put under by others, and made it his priority to keep her at ease whenever he could.
He gave her a smirk, rolling his eyes as he downed the rest of his own tea. Amelia smiled, turning her attention to the folder in her hands and opening it. Arrow watched her, his eyebrow raising when she went completely still and silent.
"Captain?"
Amelia blinked, shaking herself momentarily. She glanced up at him, her brow knitted in confusion. A bemused smile tugged at the corners of her lips, her eyes sparkling with barely contained laughter. She slowly closed the folder, placing it calmly on her desk as a small hum escaped her.
"It would seem that Captain Nathaniel Flint himself has commissioned us for a voyage, my friend."
Arrow picked up the folder, his brows knitted in confusion and mild concern for his captain's mental state.
"Flint? He has been dead for a decade." he stopped, reading over the contents of the folder. "... Treasure Planet?"
"Aye, it would seem that the ghost of Captain Flint has inhabited some poor fellow, and has forgotten the exact location of his treasure. He would like us to assist him in finding it."
When Arrow looked up from the paperwork, he was thoroughly surprised to find his best friend staring back at him, her cheeks turning red as she held back her laughter. A smile slowly made its way over his lips as he spoke, coughing around a chuckle.
"So, um...shall we discuss this obviously lucrative voyage?"
There was silence for a moment, the two of them staring at each other... until neither of them could contain themselves and fell into fits of laughter, leaving them both in tears. Amelia chuckled as she regained her composure, using her hand to push back a few strands of her auburn tresses that had come loose as she put the opened folder on her desk and leafed through the contents again.
"Now, in all seriousness…" she sighed. "This… Doctor Delbert Doppler fellow seems awfully convinced that this map he has found is legitimate."
"Besides the fact that his parents were obviously fans of alliteration…" this illicited a chuckle from Amelia. "I find it a bit hard to believe that a… what is he? An astrophysicist? Yes. Hard to believe a man like that would simply stumble upon something as rare as a map to the Loot of a Thousand Worlds." Arrow said, crossing his arms as he leaned back slightly in his own chair. "Especially considering how many spacers have been searching for said map."
Amelia couldn't help but agree with him. She respected the profession of astrophysics, but even she knew that those in such profession were not ones to hop on a ship to hunt for treasure. And that was why she found it so absolutely unbelievable that this obscure professor, who she had only seen in the newspaper once, had been able to find a legitimate map to the most sought-after treasure since the beginning of time. Perhaps that was why those above her in rank had passed this particular voyage down to her. It seemed more like the product of a child's imagination rather than a request for her services.
On a different note, she'd interacted with enough astrophysicists to know she was not necessarily a fan of spending weeks with them in space. They tended to be bothersome know-it-alls who didn't realize they didn't know every single thing about the Etherium.
But traveling to the farthest reaches of the Etherium would be a nice change from the mundane cargo runs Amelia had been subjected to. Even the entire voyage was almost guaranteed to be fruitless.
"Perhaps we should accept," she said, smirking at the surprised look on Arrow's face.
"Accept? Captain, as your oldest friend and First Officer, I must urge you to reconsider."
"Arrow, I must say I am appalled." Amelia raised an eyebrow in an expression of mock-surprise. "The great Chester Arrow running from a voyage? What happened to the juvenile delinquent I met at the Academy? "
"I am not running, Amelia, and you are one to call someone a delinquent, Officer Detention. You practically had an assigned seat in the headmaster's office." Arrow sighed, referring to her rather exciting first year at the Naval Academy.
"Oh, don't go there, Arrow. I shaped up." Amelia scoffed, mildly offended.
He reached forward, tapping his finger on the paperwork in front of her. "Amelia, I am simply urging you to think this through. A voyage to uncharted areas of the Etherium, with a map that probably leads to nowhere, financed by a man who has barely any spacing experience… All I'm saying is that it seems like something we should take our time discussing before we come to a conclusion."
Amelia thought a moment and realized he had a point. As satisfying as it would be to be able to lay claim to embarking on a "Treasure Planet voyage", they would be running the risk of finding absolutely nothing. That would not only be embarrassing but would only give her superiors a type of evidence that she was less of a spacer than they were. But the possibility that this map could be legitimate… The financier seemed convinced of the fact. Astrophysicists only became such after many years of studying star charts and the Etherium, he couldn't possibly be so daft as the think an obviously fake map was real. So perhaps he was right, and with that, there was the possibility of the adventure of a lifetime...
"Well, we cannot wait too long." Amelia sighed decisively, standing from her desk suddenly and placed her hat on her head. "This financier seems very anxious to get underway."
Arrow watched her for a moment, already knowing that she had come to a decision without consulting him one bit. He could see it in her eyes, she was ready and willing to embark on this voyage, no matter how skeptical her First Officer was. He simply grunted and stood, opening the door for her before he followed her out into the hallway and down to their final meetings of the day.
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A/N: Very short intro chapter, but I hope you all enjoyed! I'm already really enjoying writing this, so the next chapter should be up soon, and it will definitely be longer. :) Drop a review, let me know what you think and if I should change anything! Thanks! 3