By SilvyrWing
"Radu? Suzee? You guys down there still?"
Suzee turned her eyes toward the com unit on the wall. They weren't really her eyes, technically, but seeing as she was having a bit of an out-of-body experience, Radu's eyes would do just fine.
"It's Harlan," Radu said with Suzee's voice. There was a slight hesitation to it, which was something Suzee wasn't exactly familiar hearing from herself. It was quieter, too.
Uncharacteristic for herself was the fact that she was speechless, and felt like the best mode of action would be to panic or something similar. She was Andromedan for crying out loud. And not only was she Andromedan, but she was Radu! As she attempted to reach the com, she tripped over one of the ion collectors, falling to her knees.
"…I'm a little clumsy," Radu said.
"This has got to be a dream. No way this is real."
Radu narrowed his eyes, watching as Suzee attempted to push Andromedan hair out of her face. He had to agree with her… It did seem like something right out of a nightmare. Standing, he realized that the effort to move was smaller. He felt a lot more graceful… Then the realization hit him that he was female. Female! And what was worse, he was wearing a short-sleeved T-shirt. Without gloves. That just didn't happen at all… He would have felt embarrassed, but as he was looking down at himself, he heard his own voice snap rather dangerously…
"Hands off."
"Suzee, I don't really think…"
"…What could have happened?" she wondered to herself, ignoring him and pacing back and forth on the side of the engine opposite where Radu was standing. She nearly tripped again, and Radu hurried to catch her, only to find out that she could no longer support Suzee's weight. It made perfect sense after they'd both fallen to the floor that he didn't have a quarter the strength he did five minutes prior.
"Reflex," he muttered, rubbing the bump that was beginning to form on the back of his head.
"Look, Radu…" She sighed. Radu could see the barely contained rage in his own eyes, which was, to say the least, uncommon. "I'll figure this out on my own. This… is way out of your league."
Interestingly enough, she could feel a quiet calm in her mind, almost as if it was a naturally occurring trait for Andromedans to be pacifistic. Endorphins, she told herself. Calming agents. Chemical make-up and type that had nothing to do with her own mind. She wasn't about to lose herself. She was also slightly apologetic at the hurt look Radu offered her, and it was with great effort that she resisted the urge to apologize.
On the other hand, Radu felt a lot more confident than normal, almost as if there were no shields to his moods. Nothing to carefully guard him from saying anything he would regret later. He stopped himself just in time from telling the Yensidian off. Instead, he offered something more passive. Something his mind was more used to dealing with. "…I'm guessing you're hearing everything right now."
"I'll learn to screen it out."
Radu shook his head. "It's not that easy."
They stared at each other for a long time, until finally it was Suzee that broke the silence. "What do you think we should do? We can't tell the others. They'll think we're crazy. I mean, it's not like they're not used to thinking their crew is nuts. Look at Catalina."
"Catalina wasn't nuts," Radu retorted. "Unless you're still imaginary."
Suzee took an involuntary step back, just as Radu muttered a rather quiet but contrite apology. "No," he continued. "We can't tell them yet. But we'll have to eventually. The problem is, I failed engineering back at Starcademy. I know you can probably navigate…"
Suzee averted her eyes. Radu paused, before questing, "You can't navigate? You can do everything else, but you can't… I'm sorry. I didn't mean that."
It wasn't like it was her fault. Though she'd read a lot about practical flight and space travel, she'd never navigated before. She'd never had any actual field experience. Which meant she was pretty much good for nothing when it came to navigation. Finally, she offered a rather loaded, "No. I can't navigate."
"I'm guessing we have each others' talents," Radu offered. "Which means you probably can, to some degree. Can you feel where we are?"
After a moment's hesitation and introspection, her eyes widened. "…Yeah, I can."
Radu smiled. "Good. You'll do fine. Navigational skills are something an Andromedan is born with…"
"…But engineering is something you learn," Suzee finished.
For the sake of driving the point into the ground, Radu added again, "And I failed engineering."
Suzee brushed her hair back, again. It was a habit, Radu noticed. She was nervous. She played with her hair when she was nervous. There really was a good reason for her to feel that way, too; after all, they weren't exactly who they should be anymore. After a couple seconds of pondering, she began to pace again, casually removing Radu's gloves and placing them on a bracing beam that ran around the Protomix. It was quite warm in the engine room, and they'd both been down there a while. Still, the thought of himself not covering his skin made Radu shudder. Pocketing the discarded gloves, he, too, began to pace, if for nothing else to try to alleviate the stress he was feeling. It didn't really help him think of a solution, but at least it was easier to concentrate on how many panels there were on the floor than to think about how they were going to change back.
After a while, he leaned against the bracing beam where the gloves had been previously resting, and looked into the protomix casing just in front of him. There was a slight reflection, frosted and upside-down, and his stomach did a flip-flop when he realized it was Suzee looking back at him. Uttering a strained syllable out of surprise, he pushed himself back from the reflection, thinking it was perhaps better to lean against the wall.
Looking around the engine, Suzee was just about to ask him what was wrong when Harlan's voice came over the com again. "Guys. Commander Goddard is gonna come down there if you don't get your asses up here. Seriously. The engine can wait."
She paused, torn between asking if Radu was okay and responding to Harlan. Eventually, she opted for the com. Pressing the button, she replied to his message. "Harlan, I'll be up in a sec. There was some sort of electrical surge. Suzee's working on it."
"Yeah, we felt it a bit up here. Is it bad?"
"Not that bad. But a couple minor systems are down." She thought for a moment, then added, "She says… something's disconnected from the… I can't remember what it's called, but…"
Harlan interrupted her. "Don't worry about it. We just need you up here. We have no idea where we're goin'. Besides, I'm sure Suzee's happier down there anyway."
Temporarily distracted by Harlan's accusation that she wouldn't want to be with the rest of the crew, she faltered with the comlink, which resulted in the ComPost only getting bits and pieces of her message. "Alright… I'll… be right up. Su… Radu out."
She cut the connection. Almost immediately, Radu turned her around by her shoulder. "Are you crazy? I don't know what to do…!"
"They're less likely to see that if you're down here," Suzee replied, pulling her shoulder away with more force than she'd meant to. Radu nearly fell. "Look, you said it yourself. I should be able to navigate just fine… But you're going to have a tougher time hiding the fact that you're not me!"
"You did a good job."
Suzee arched her eyebrows. "What?"
Radu smiled a little. "…Being me. You almost had me convinced. You're a pretty good actor."
Biting her bottom lip, Suzee turned to leave. "To tell you the truth, I wasn't exactly trying…"
---
"There you are," Commander Goddard said as Radu finally arrived via the jumptube. The Andromedan stood there for a long while, staring at each of them in turn before heading to his post. Slightly confused, the commander turned to Miss Davenport, his eyes asking "What the hell was that about?" better than words possibly could. The teacher shrugged.
Harlan looked back at him briefly, too. "You alright?" he asked.
"Fine," Suzee responded, a little more snappishly than Radu would have. She stared at the navigation console as if it was something completely foreign.
Rosie approached, leaning on his console for a good half a minute without Suzee noticing her. Finally, she softly called Radu's name, and the Andromedan jumped back so far, she nearly fell off the seat.
"Rosie…!" Clutching her hand to her chest, she attempted to still her rapidly beating heart. "…Didn't hear you coming. Sorry… Something wrong?"
Again, they all stared. Suzee wondered if they knew…
"You couldn't hear me coming?" Rosie questioned.
Harlan turned to him again. "…You can hear everything, Radu. Something on your mind?"
There was, in fact, something on Suzee's mind. The fact that she could hear every single noise the ship was making, from the softest creak of metal to the loudest echo of the protomix. She had no idea how to screen it out, or how to deal with it. Radu had been right… She wasn't going to be able to do this alone.
Harlan's eyes narrowed as Radu simply stared at him.
Feeling the need to respond somehow, Suzee finally went for the easiest answer available to her at the time. "I'm really not feeling well… I'm hearing everything. I'm… having a tough time screening things out."
Rosie reached up to feel his forehead, chuckling after a moment. "Well, I guess I can't really feel if you're warm, huh? But your face is kinda red. Hey, Thelma?"
The android looked up from making adjustments on Bova's console. "Yes, Rosie?"
"Can you take Radu's temperature? I think he might be a little warm." Glancing down, she noticed that his gloves were off. About to mention that, too, she caught the almost imperceptible shake of his head, signaling her not to say anything. Confused as she was, she stayed silent on the matter.
Thelma approached, extending the thermometer apparatus into Radu's ear. Suzee winced slightly, but remained as still as possible until Thelma read her verdict. "Temperature is normal for an Andromedan who has just been down into the engine room. However, I am getting a reading of a high level of adrenaline and other endorphins, indicating that he was just under a rather stressful situation."
The rest of the crew waited for an explanation. Finally, Suzee conceded, trying to sound as sincere as possible. "…There was a slight electrical surge down in the engine room…"
"I felt it," Bova said, speaking up without looking away from his post, nor offering any inflection whatsoever. "It shorted out my console. Of course, I'm sure my reflexively zapping it had nothing to do with the problem. Just one of those coincidences."
"And Suzee's known there trying to fix it," Goddard asked. He wasn't quite comfortable with the fact that Radu hesitated before he nodded.
"I'm fine," Suzee added quickly. "Just… Not feeling well." What would Radu say in this situation, she wondered…? By the time she'd thought of anything at all, the moment had passed, and Commander Goddard had turned away.
"Alright, then. Collect your wits and plot us a course, alright?"
Suzee nodded, not entirely convinced it was a great idea to masquerade as Radu. But she couldn't tell them everything… Not yet!
"You think you can handle that?" Harlan asked. The question was good-natured ribbing, though Suzee took it as an insult. Wordlessly, she proceeded to enter the coordinates into the console, hoping to whatever gods were watching over them that she was right.
A few moments later, Commander Seth Goddard looked between Radu and Harlan, then finally to Miss Davenport. "I'm going to go help Miss D. with that lesson plan about STARDOG history," he said, casually, tugging on her sleeve discreetly so she'd follow him. She caught his eyes for a moment, before nodding. He continued for the benefit of the others. "You all be good. I'll be back within fifteen minutes."
"Short lesson," Harlan quipped, smiling between the two of them.
Goddard rolled his eyes. Leave it to Harlan to think of that. Smiling and shaking his head, he simply turned and marched out of the Command Post, doors automatically parting as he reached them. The less he argued, the less likely Harlan's mind would continue on that line of thought.
As soon as Miss Davenport exited, the doors closed behind them, and Goddard led her a little bit further down the hall.
"They saw right through that," were the first words out of her mouth. "They know you're talking to me about something, and I don't think that's really fair to Radu."
"Harlan seems to think we're doing something else," he replied.
There was a brief comedic pause as she caught on to exactly what the other earther had been talking about. "You'll set him straight, won't you?"
Commander Goddard shrugged. "You worried about something? Cuz I'm not. I'm secure in the fact that I wouldn't ever…" Uncomfortable himself, he stopped in mid-sentence. "I didn't mean it that way."
T.J. Davenport chuckled, shaking her head. "Well, as long as we're clear on that, I'm fine. But we do actually have a lesson in a half hour, and I'm going to need to work something about the STARDOGS into it now. Thankfully it's a history lesson."
"What I need to say won't take long. Then I can tell you a couple things the kids don't know about the war."
"Alright. Fair enough. What is it?"
Suddenly finding himself faced with the task of addressing the situation so someone else, Seth hesitated.
"Time isn't a renewable resource, Commander," she reminded him after a long moment of silence. Unsure of how to begin, he rubbed the back of his neck, pacing up and down the corridor, back and forth, covering just a few strides each time he turned.
Finally, he figured out something sensible to say. "…I know that the kids on the ship are quite capable of thinking for themselves."
T.J. nodded.
"…But the fact is, this is still school. And there's still a set of rules that have to be obeyed."
T.J. nodded again. Seth could tell she was finally starting to see where this was going, because her nearly perpetual frown deepened. He continued. "…I think we're going to have to talk to Suzee and Radu about those rules."
She blinked. "You don't think they're… I mean, they… I might imagine Suzee, but Radu? You really don't suppose…"
He looked away from her. "Yes, Miss Davenport, I do."