Not So Civil
"So we're being sent a goodwill mission?"
"Yep."
"A mission to promote relations between humans and transhumans?"
"Yep."
"Not to unite against some alien threat that'll make humans and transhumans put aside their differences and eat crumpets, but the mission that says 'look at us, we're friends now because we can work on the same ship without killing each other?'"
"Yep."
"Oh. Just checking."
Antonio was tempted to ask Methuselah whether it would be possible to answer a sentence with more than one word. Or ask whether if it had to be one word, if it could be a word other than "yep." But he chose not to. Because already he had come to the conclusion that trying to make a transhuman laugh was a wasted endeavour, because they couldn't laugh. That, and it ran the risk of pissing them off, when the transhumans had gotten so pissed off that the result was an intergalactic war, the effects of which were still being felt decades later. So in the knowledge that a giant like Methuselah could break his neck with his pinkie, he murmured something non-committal and moved further along the engine deck.
"Methuselah got you spooked?"
He didn't glance at Erika and kept walking for the few steps it would take him to get to the latest malfunctioning valve. On the surface, Defender was a top of the line starship – bright, shiny, and the type of thing the news couldn't get enough of. Beneath that exterior however, it was as dark, cramp, and dirty as any other starship.
"You listening?"
"Yep."
"Crap, he's got to you as well."
"A seven foot freak, getting to me?" Antonio cut off flow to the valve so that when he removed it, he wouldn't get a burst of steam to his face. "Whatever gave you that idea?"
"Well, the fact that you just called him a seven foot freak might be the first hint."
"That's not a hint, that's a fact." Antonio removed the valve. "Transhumans are freaks. Seven foot tall freaks at that. That's a completely impartial observation."
"Oh. So losing your brother isn't part of that assessment?"
The valve was dropped on the floor with a loud "clang." Antonio's hand had gone numb. He slowly looked at Erika.
"Just asking."
Just asking. The way the captain had just 'asked' for this goodwill mission. The way the transhumans 'asked' for clemency when Homo sapiens sapiens started kicking the arses of Homo sapiens invictus, who were anything but victorious. And for the next year, he'd be forced to work with one of the freaks in his midst.
"They've started calling it a civil war, did you know that?" Antonio murmured, going down to retrieve the valve. He put it in his toolbox, the part reserved for malfunctioning equipment. "Not a species war, or a galactic war, a civil war."
"Well, that's technically true," Erika said, fishing out a good valve for him and handing it to the engineer. "If you look at the conflict from a historical point of view, you'll see that the conflict wasn't split down species line, but rather-"
"Bullshit," Antonio murmured. "Absolute bullshit." He fixed the valve on. "And besides, 'civil war' is a misnomer anyway. There's nothing 'civil' about war. Heck, a 'civil war' is even less civil than a one between two states most of the time." He let the steam run through. Hot air, like that coursing through his mind. "But like I said, it wasn't a civil war." He looked at Erika. "So we're both stuck on this mission, and we're both forced to work alongside the people who tried to kill us."
"Actually, they never tried to kill me," Erika said softly. Antonio opened his mouth but she beat him to it. "Fine. It wasn't a civil war. But since we're talking about civility, the least you could do is try to be civil yourself."
"I am being civil."
"Then keep at it."
Antonio remained silent and picked up the toolbox. More work to be done. More work he'd be doing on his own – engineering was built for humans, a.k.a. people of normal size. All the transhumans were on the upper decks, to give the impression that everything was fine and dandy.
Still, at least being down here, he didn't have to deal with them.
"Need a hand?"
He looked at Methuselah. Somehow he'd come up to him without making a sound. Somehow he'd expanded his vocabulary by three words.
"No," Antonio murmured. "I don't."
And he walked off.
Alone.
A/N
I'm inclined to believe that Defender isn't ever going to see the light of day. To be snarky, I guess I could comment that it's basically "Andromeda 2.0." Both are produced by Robert Wolfe, both involve a conflict between humans and transhumans, both feature a starship where former enemies are forced to learn together. Go figure.