I woke to a glorious view from the port window. It was a screen, of course, but one luxury afforded to the bridge crew was a live feed from the bridge plastered on an LCD on the wall. I marvelled at the vastness of space as I switched off my alarm before it went off. My body was finally adjusting to the routine of the ship, which was nice.
I stretched and pulled on my uniform, pressed neatly into shape the night before. I collected a pressed fruit smoothie from the mini fridge and poured it into a mug, sealing the cap with a click. The door hissed and I checked both ways for Kohli, Drip and Mei, I really wasn't feeling an encounter with them this morning as the death rows of a hangover tugged irritably on the corners of my brain.
The hallway was quiet and I strode out, my legs felt a little wobbly as they tried to wake up. My head ached with that grogginess that comes from failing to nail your sleep cycles. I got a look in the mirror, braving it as I finished my morning shave. Staring back at me was the face of someone I barely recognised. Trimmed and tailored hair, equally neat facial hair, slightly pallid skin from so much time spent on Luna and inside this frigate. It struck me, as I buttoned up my uniform, just how much I was changing. Gone was the ragged hair, the rugged beard, and the farmer's tan. Gone was the boyishness that had often brought me so much doubt. I didn't want to even think it but there was almost some kind of authority about how I watched myself. Perhaps I was grasping at straws, but there was a change there.
With that unnerving thought hanging over me, I walked through the ship during the busy period of shift changes. I grabbed a small hashed potato thing from the canteen and munched it idly as I slinked through the crowds. I didn't care for food, generally speaking, I had dated a foodie once and it hadn't gone well. Either I lack the imagination to take the time to care about flavour, or my mind is too restless to slow down long enough to really appreciate it.
It was this that occupied my mind as I walked onto the bridge, wringing the grease from my hands on a paper wipe that was more like sandpaper than napkin. I winced, paused, and looked up at a looming shadow that seemed to eclipse me.
"S-sir!" I said, snapping to attention.
"At ease, ensign." he said, offering a hand towards his office.
His office, as it turned out, was a minimalist affair. Though whether that was because of the speed that we boarded the ship or because of the man's personal taste I wasn't quite sure. Sure, he struck me as leadership material. He had the presence of a man born to lead but I imagine that everyone who stood as tall and proudly as Captain Alex Harper, and the rest of their silver-fed family, earned that inherent quality. There was a lone family photo, with his grandfather cropped out of it; I could see his arm and shoulder in the edge of the frame. It was impossible to hide the Harper stature, it seemed to morph into the mahogany frame as though it were a part of the frame. Now, everyone knows the pair of them get along, and the family definitely have the money for a bigger frame, so a fella like me can only guess that the captain wanted no reminder of that connection on the walls of his quarters. Indeed, Captain Alex Harper was his own man. I could see that in the way his brow furrowed as he looked at his screen, he lacked the steeliness of the old Admiral. Where the old man was ice, the captain was fire, his blue eyes burned like frostbite in the glow of the office, his face was static and yet full of passionate expression.
"Well…" he said, not looking at me, "are you going to sit, or are you going to gawk at me?"
He looked up at me, meeting my eyes.
"Oh, uh, sorry, Sir." I stammered, taking the seat. He had an impressive ability to put you on edge.
"Good. Then we can start. I'm sure you've been told what this is all about." he said, sitting back in his chair.
"I try not to listen to rumour, Sir."
"This is me getting to know my crew and my mission, you're not on trial or under oath" he chuckled at the last part, "though honesty would be appreciated. I'd like to know what we're doing out here as much as you, to be honest."
"I'd have thought your grandfather would have told you" I said, nonchalantly. My eyes widened at the mistake and my cheeks flushed with embarrassment as I realised, I'd mentioned the elephant in the room. The captain seemed to wince a little at that, as though the connection physically wounded him.
He sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Family is complicated." he said, elusively, "one moment they are a constant and immutable force, the next…"
"They're gone, they're as stupid as you are, or they're hypocrites." I replied, bitterly.
"It's not pleasant. Finding out that they know as few of the answers as you do. We Harper's seem to find that out the hard way. For me, it was my grandfather. For my oldest sister, our mother."
"And so forth" I said, grimly.
"For you, it was your own father, I see." he said, thumbing through my files towards my family history. "Grew up on a commune, alternative lifestyle, stuck out like a sore thumb it seems."
"We were a bit eclectic, yes."
"A bit?" he smirked, "your father was a starving artist slash amateur drugs farmer."
"We grew vegetables." I replied, trying to remain unfazed by the probing.
"Laced with THC and a lot of other psychedelics."
"Daddy thought it opened the mind, gave you a window into a realm of pure art."
"Sounds eccentric" the captain noted.
"It sounds insane."
"Must have been hard when he started working with section two."
"I wouldn't call it hard. More like a joke." I spat. "All the shit I went through at school, about him being a wackjob, being the weird artsy kid, the drug peddler, or-or whatever. Dude used to preach to me about turnin' the other cheek and sticking to the gold rule. He said that 'art you paid for were false art' and he'd rather die than take money for his work."
The captain leaned forward, resting his arms under his chin. "Fathers have complicated relationships with their sons."
"Ain't that the truth. He was pissed when he found out I turned pirate…" I thought of something and laughed, "reckon he'd be even more mad now I'm a Naval helmsman."
"My dad didn't speak to me for nearly five years. I think I'd just graduated from Luna. We had a family retreat just after my first deployment in the mountainous national park. Man, the views there on Skopje…" he trailed off a little, "it was the last time my dad spoke to me until he sends a message the day he passed."
"You're lucky, your family was close." I replied, unsure of what the captain really wanted from me.
He smiled, interlocking his fingers and cocking a brow. "I would have thought your community was incredibly close."
"My community was a handful of drifters too old to keep drifting, paupers with no other choice, and a rotating gallery of faces never around long enough to care about. It was far more tragic than it was romantic. I used to bully the kids with the tightest families, I didn't want them to have what I couldn't."
"It's not all sunshine and rainbows, trust me." the captain chuckled, "between my joining the Navy, and my brother joining the Marines, our household was just a constant shouting match."
I paused for a moment, letting his wry and knowing smile hang in the air for a while. Then, against my better judgement, I leaned forward. "Your sister didn't make things any easier, I hear."
I wished I hadn't.
Within a moment, his face hardened. What had once been a smile that was understanding and warm became wild and predatory. His eyes raged blue, with a sardonic beat that mimicked a torrent of water.
"That's not a place you want to take this conversation, Ensign."
I swallowed but I was in for a penny, as the saying goes. "Sorry, Sir, I didn't mean anything by it, there was just a lot of rumours at the academy. I wish I'd seen the Viper fight in the pit back on Luna."
He just sat there, grinning. "And so, the actor reverts to type." he said, holding his arms wide, "See, I was beginning to think everyone lied to me about you. I saw no hint of the boisterous, immature, emotionally stunted criminal that everyone told me about."
"Everyone?" I asked, my mind racing to Valette and the others. "Everyone said that?"
"They said a lot of things but this crew is filled with misfits and criminals; those that aren't are sycophants. You, I thought, had just been unlucky. Born out of privilege, made the most out of the opportunities you had. You know, like in movies or books?"
"Is this going somewhere?" I replied, defensively.
"Yes, actually. It is." he stood up, walking towards the shelf on the far side of the room. "I see in you a man capable of so much more than petty crime and helmsmanship. Though each of your crewmates expressed their reservations, each of them respects your skill. Most of them respect your authority and some of them even like you as a person." He said that last part like it was almost funny. "You, for all our efforts, lack discipline. You still don't understand the cause or what it means to be a part of the UNSC."
"I was offered to do the one thing I like doing. I took the job because I hated the cell and I wanted to fly."
"What a waste that would be."
"Excuse me?"
"I said that it would be a waste." he scowled at me, "these combat missions were started because we need active ships with full crews in the fight. We're that desperate. They also serve to hammer out dents in the training programs. Dents" he said, running a hand through his hair, "like you." I shifted in my seat as he stood up, "I plan on seeing this crew reach its full potential but this mission we're on is as much a spook as my damned sister. It's going to get messy, Ollie. People will rely on you for more than your ability to fly before long. I hope for their sake you're up to the task."
I swallowed. What's a man supposed to say to that? The captain seemed to know his point had been made as he circled me like a shark and hit the button on the door firmly.
"Kohli?" He asked, his figure casting a shadow over the bridge as we strode out.
"Yes, Sir?"
"Your understudy will be either Ensign Liang, or Ensign Van Graff. Put them through the wringer, they both need to shape up before I consider them for a command."
The reaction was about as I'd come to expect, a hasty set of giddy thumbs-ups from Brettman and Valette, playful indifference from Brit, Daggers from Liang, and Drip, who looked awkwardly from myself to Mei and the others. I winced, Mei and Kohli would tear me apart. Surely the Captain knew that? Maybe that was his challenge. He'd thrown down the gauntlet, stacked the deck against me. Was I really stubborn enough to go for it?
I blinked.
Why do I even care? I only ever wanted to fly.
It was a good point. I'd never wanted that responsibility. I saw Alex watching me in the corner of my eye, his imposing figure cast shade over myself and Kohli, who was chewing on the inside of her mouth.
I'll wing it. The least I can do is piss the Commander off.
"Aye sir" she said, bitterly, "I'll have them ready to go."
The captain nodded firmly "Now then, time to sound alert, we're jumping out of system."
"Sir?" Mei asked, her brow arched, "we just got here, it's the Siege of Meridian we can't just leave."
"We can. The data packet we were beamed came from an ONI designation somewhere in this system. Ensign Liang. Set a course for Concord. It's only a few hours out."
《》《》《》
The bridge crew were assembled around the war table in the centre of the bridge, the black of slipspace enveloped them as the captain leaned forward, his arms tense as they rested on the table.
"It seems simple enough." Brettman noted.
"Nothing is ever simple when ONI are involved." The captain sighed, "We should have three ships but Fujikawa is still missing and Curran's ship is partially damaged."
"It'll give us a quieter signature," Mei offered, "One set of engines is less suspicious on scanners."
"If the Covenant are attacking en masse it won't matter" Kohli replied, "they'll blast us on site."
"I can handle that; I've evaded an entire fleet before. It's completing the mission that will be the hard part. Evasion is easy, extraction is a whole lot more complicated."
The captain shrugged, "You best be up to it."
"There are a lot of unknowns here, Sir." Drip said, wringing his hands, "I mean, the system has been dark for almost four months by my data and none of us can find anything about this Gamma Team in any of the records."
"We're dealing with some high-level stuff here, Captain." Brett said, running a hand through his hair.
"I'm well aware of that, Ensign Brettman." The captain sighed, "but we have our orders and we're a capable crew. It'll be hard. It'll be a close call; we can pull through though, if we set aside our differences and work together."
"Time to put all that first-class Academy training to good use, eh, Captain?" I said in a state of half defeated irritation.
"Exactly right, Ensign. We'll drop out of slip, send out some probes and try to gather as much information as we can. Ensign Van Graff, put us on a hard burn toward the northern pole the moment you're able. We do this quick or the Song will be our graves."
I swallowed. "Uh- Aye, Sir!"