Note: This is just a quickie based around a major character after one of the film's most iconic events. Enjoy
"Mr Arrow …?"
I called out to him, my eyes scanning the deck for the one I'm looking for but all I see are the faces of the crew. Heads turn and a few others quietly call out for him but they too receive no reply. No deep voice came to make the rest of the ship stand to attention; no large, well-built and well-dressed figure came strutting forward to acknowledge himself. Nothing.
Where is he? I thought to myself, looking into the faces of each of the crew as if to find some kind of answer to his whereabouts.
My eyes fell on the young cabin boy and his large overseer, Mr Silver. Both of them gave me confused expressions in response to my inquiry. Why is she looking at us? We didn't see him when we were trying to save the ship.
Something begins to nag me in the back of my head, terrifying and yet almost launching me into an aggressive stance. I mentally took a deep breath. Remain calm. Stay composed. Any lack of self-control and it goes against everything that I've been taught.
I open my mouth to speak but movement from the corner of my eye makes me look down on the deck to see a spider-like creature ambling towards me. Mr Scroop. His gold eyes meeting mine in a look of … sadness? Why? I had never seen him like this before, usually he was so brusque and sarcastic and always strutted around as if he were some kind of thug (not that that meant he wasn't). To see him like this … I was lost for words ("A surprise if such a calamity were to occur!" Mr Arrow had previously commented).
It was when he was a few metres from the stairs where I was standing that I noticed he was holding something in his hand. It looked like a …
My world came to a screeching halt, everything becoming a blur to the point where I couldn't even see beyond that cap. Mr Scroop, the crew, Silver and Hawkins, they all seemed to disappear from my reality.
No! No, this can't be!
I wanted to rush over and grab the hat from his claw, desperation seizing my body. It had to be one of his spare hats, not the one he had been wearing when the supernova occurred. I even found myself taking a step forward as if to start running to Scroop, my arm raised in a motion that, given the circumstances, would grab hold of him and shake him as I would vehemently demand where he was.
But he beat me to it. A sad look on his face, he looked up at me: "I'm afraid, Mr Arrow has been lost."
His voice was as if he had lost a member of his own family; devastated, overwhelmed, completely and utterly crushed. His eyes drooped low into a sad expression and he held up the cap to me in a manner that made me think he was regretting to let it go. I would have done anything to trade my place for his.
I looked at him, my lips not moving an inch besides a quiver. But my face told him everything: No. He's not gone. He can't be.
Everything went to a blur this time, except that I felt my heart shatter. I-I couldn't even … He … He couldn't be gone! Not Mr Arrow. He was invincible! He had been with me for years, right from when I was merely a cadet to now. He had helped me, encouraged me, disciplined me harshly but for good reason when I had thought my intelligence and education bested his experience. Much of what I had learnt had been from him.
He had quite literally been a father figure to me, and now … now he was …
I look up at Scroop, my eyes only just holding back my tears as I can only think of one thing but had not the strength to say it: How?
Thankfully, he seemed to sense it because he told me solemnly: "His life line was not secured."
Life line?
My head, along with everyone else's instinctively turns to the one I had assigned to handle this duty; Mr Hawkins, the young newcomer, the Cabin Boy so to speak.
More like inconsiderate, disobedient oaf! How could he fail in this one simple task?! Even one of the crew members with no useful limbs could have carried out something so easy with no difficulty!
Were it not for Silver and Doppler's presence as well as the teachings put into me by Mr Arrow and the Academy, I would have thrashed him then and there on the spot.
Mr Hawkins' face lit up with confusion and disbelief, his eyes screaming at me that it could not be true that Mr Arrow's lifeline being unsecure was to blame for his demise.
"No, I checked them all!" he suddenly blurted out in an insisting manner, turning and pushing through the crowd to the mast where the lifelines had been tied to. He stopped dead, going still for a moment as if he had been turned to stone, then muttered something under his breath and looked back at me with a pleading look. Please believe me!
I glared at him in response, angry and disappointed that he had failed his duty, his tasks, his very self because of his disobedience. And it had cost the crew, the ship … me somebody very dear to me.
Internally, I sighed to myself, knowing that Mr Arrow would deserve an eulogy of sorts as a send-off. But for once, I found myself struggling for words. My normal quick wit and, to quote Mr Arrow "Poetic use of vocabulary", was gone as if it had been sucked out of me. Finding the words for a crew member was always so easy, but now …
I managed to pull myself together and then looked up at them, regretting every word I would have to utter.
"Mr Arrow was a …" I pause, holding back a sob. No, I had to go on. Be the officer that I was trained and taught to be. "A f-fine spacer. Finer that most of us could ever hope to be."
A few faces across the crew saddened as a result of my words. I couldn't blame them but they didn't know how bad it affected me.
C'mon, woman, pull yourself together. "But he knew the risks, as do we all." I hated uttering those words, which only seemed emphasised more by my clutching of his hat more, the pain needing to be released somehow. It wasn't fair, it wasn't right. But what could we do now?
He's gone, and that's the end of it.
The next words were both utterly destroying, yet relieving. "Resume your posts. We carry on."
Without another word, I begin walking back up the stairs towards the cabin, not meeting the gaze of anyone else on the ship. Although I didn't look at him directly, Doppler made some mild attempt to say something but stopped himself, either because he couldn't find the right words or he thought better than to try and make me feel better given such a loss as this.
Either way, I'm glad.
I reach my cabin, shut the door and walk over to the window, staring out into the wondrous expanse of space before me. Each light was no more than a speck in size, yet they held a level of beauty and mystery that made them exciting, intriguing and amazing. But I always forgot, or rather had to remind myself, of one thing:
Beauty does not always equal safety. Danger is cunning enough to lie within the folds of deceit.
And they had taken one of the most important people in my life from me.
I fall to my knees and turn my body so my back is resting against the wall below the window, clutching the hat close to my chest. I bring my knees up, trapping the hat between them and my torso. My eyes can barely comprehend that its wearer was … was gone.
After a moment, my head falls forward and, silently, I begin to sob.