Chapter 8
Captain Noble awoke with a start, and found himself staring up at a strange ceiling. Worse, the ceiling's architecture indicated it was definitely not of Gamilon design. He must have been captured.
"Where am I? Why are you holding me?" he shouted. "You can't hold a Gamilon officer captive, and not expect to pay the consequences!"
A short, round, balding alien wearing a white outfit with a red cross rushed over to him, followed quickly by several other aliens wearing similar outfits. Noble realized, that these aliens who were holding him were Humans. It figured, he knew they were behind the attack.
"No, no, you don't understand!" the short human was saying, "You were hurt when you ship was destroyed, you are a guest on board the Yamato."
Lies, nothing but lies from the alien trash. "Yamato?! How do you expect me to believe that, when we all know that ship is little more than scrap at the center of a giant ice ball. I demand to speak to your Captain."
"All right, the Captain has already been informed. He will be here as soon as he can."
Noble gave the Doctor a scowl that seemed to say "He better not make me wait," but the Doctor's return scowl was fierce enough for Noble to reconsider waiting.
The corridors were just as Wildstar remembered them. The grove in the walls where the interlocking blast doors could close the section off; the directional arrows on the floor that were so often ignored during alerts; and the moving floors that spent most of their time inert, they were all just as he remembered them. Only the placement of the rooms seemed to have changed somewhat.
"The layout sure is different here, Sandor. Are you sure the sickbay is on this level?"
Sandor was walking beside his captain, and was also admiring the hallway... although he was more on the lookout for potential problems that simple nostalgia. "When the Yamato self-destructed, the internal explosion destroyed everything below the second bridge completely. Only the shattered outer hull remained. I tried to fix as many of the original design flaws as I could in the reconstruction, so there are quite a few changes."
Wildstar gave a vocal acknowledgement to the statement, but decided to reserve judgment on the changes until he saw if they actually were improvements or not.
It was too much to take in all at once, really. The attack on Earth, the rebirth of Yamato, and just down the hall, a very arrogant Gamilon was waiting to meet with him in sickbay. Wildstar was fairly certain what all the Gamilon was going to say, but he had no idea what to say back to him. It was potentially a very volatile situation.
The two marines stationed just outside sickbay, Wildstar was sure, would not make the situation any better, but at least they would prevent things from getting too out of hand. Oddly enough, Wildstar could swear one of the marines looked a lot like the late Sgt. Knox. He vaguely recalled something about that in one of the personnel reports, but made a note to recheck the records in case there were any other surprises in store for him.
Steeling himself, Wildstar took the step that would activate the doors.
Captain Noble stood before him with fire and anger in his eyes, full of pride, and doing his best to make the surgical gown he was wearing look like a proper uniform. "Return me to my ship."
"Your ship was destroyed by the same force that just attacked our fleet and Earth."
Noble was impassive, his pride not letting him express the anger and hatred boiling just below the surface. "Then you will return me to my people."
"I will. We have already set course for Gamilon."
"Very good then." Noble seemed slightly disappointed not to have to fight to win his way, maybe these Earth people were finally ready to become part of the Gamilon Empire.
"But know this, Captain. I am not going there because you want me to. I am going to Gamilon to try and learn what happened to your home fleet. You may come along because it would save time… and you may want to help out. You want to know what happened as much as we do."
"I will not help you. I remain loyal to my Nation."
Wildstar nodded, not expecting anything different. "I will see to it that you are given quarters, but try to stay out of our way."
Without waiting for a response, Wildstar rejoined Sandor in the corridor.
Wildstar waited until the door closed tightly before turning to Knox. "See to it that the Gamilon gets some comfortable quarters. Make sure they have a lock we can use to keep him inside in need be."
The large marine nodded, and Wildstar moved on with Sandor to continue his ship inspection.
Kei found activity reassuring, it finally allowed her to expel some of the pent up energy left over from the attack. She had unpacked her bags in her room, which she was sharing with some girl named Yumi. She hadn't seen her yet. Yumi most likely first got to see their room a few minutes after Kei's own duty shift started.
For some reason Kei felt more at home here in the hydroponics garden. She would be responsible for its upkeep, producing as much food as possible for the galley, to say nothing making sure hydroponics was properly interfaced with Life Support for CO2 recycling. On top of that, she also had to do the Laundry and look after the water recycling. A busy schedule, but she was looking forward to it. Well, maybe she wasn't looking forward to all the laundry.
One thing she was looking forward to was the chance to use one of the Holography Rooms. She wanted to play one of her memory tapes, or maybe one of the other programs. She wouldn't mind some target practice either for that matter.
Until then, she had to do what she could to make sure the tomatoes and other plants were ok.
Yumi couldn't believe it, her roommate had to be some total dork. The woman had arranged everything so that it looked perfect. No sign of spontaneity anywhere. She had folded her socks and underwear and placed them in neat rows, all color coordinated. Her shirts didn't were all plain, with no since of style at all. At least she had left the better closet and dresser open for her.
Yumi unceremoniously dumped her belongings into the free dresser, without bothering to sort or fold anything. There would be time for that later. Besides, as long as her uniforms looked nice, what did it matter what the rest of her clothes looked like. Besides, she had better things to do. She couldn't wait to check out the main communications room, where all the real equipment was.
Oh, great. She should have known. Her roommate had a bonsai tree sitting on her desk. How typical.
Dr. Sane was worried about Mimi. He really wasn't sure the little cat would be able to survive the trip. He probably should have left her behind on Earth, but he couldn't do that. He remembered how hard it was on him when Mii had died while he was away on his first voyage. He couldn't do that again. If Mimi died, at least he would be there with her to comfort her during her final days.
He would put such thoughts out of his head, he had to be strong if he was to do his part to hold the crew together. He couldn't be worrying about such things, when he had to be here to help the crew once they realized that their own loved ones would surely be among those taken by the alien forces. That would hit the crew hard, and when it did, he had better be in good spirits to keep them from getting too down about it.
And if that didn't work, he would double check the condition of his liquor cabinet to make sure it would be ready if worse came to worse.
"This looks like it," Wildstar said to himself as much as Sandor. It had been a long tour, and he still hadn't seen everything, but all he wanted now was to rest in his own quarters, and he had finally found them.
"Wait." Sandor tried to stop him, but Wildstar had already pushed the button, opening the door.
Inside, Jordy Venture and Adam Row were just as surprised to see their captain step inside their quarters unannounced.
Row jumped up and saluted, while Venture stiffened in an effort to bite down the hate he held for the man.
Wildstar covered his surprise well, and nodded to each of them, his eyes scanning the room, before finally fixing themselves upon an object on the desk.
Venture spoke first, "Is there anything we can help you with, Sir?" biting off each word.
Finally Wildstar was able to get out an "At ease."
Row visibly relaxed.
"I just stopped by to see how you were settling in. Is everything Ok, any problems?" He said the words to the two men in the room, but Wildstar's eyes were firmly fixed on the picture resting on the desk. It was a picture of his best friend, Mark Venture, with black ribbon wrapped around the corners of the frame. It had been along time since he had looked upon the face of his friend.
"Everything is fine, Sir. Yamato already seems like home." Venture bit off.
The bitterness in Ventures voice pulled Wildstar's gaze to him, away from the photograph. "Good. I'll see you on your next shift then."
As soon as he was safely back in the relative safety of the corridor, Wildstar turned to Sandor. "Ok, Sandor, what have you done with my quarters?"
Sandor had a hard time not laughing, and was unable to keep the grin from his face. "You are the Captain now, Wildstar. You sleep in the captain's quarters."
Wildstar did not like the sound of that. Those rooms had always been empty… except when used by the occasional visiting captain. But to Wildstar, they had always been Avatar's quarters. No one else's. He was not sure he wanted to take that step. But if he was to take that step, this was as good, or as bad a time as any to do it. He joined Sandor in an elevator, and let Sandor press the button.
"What about the carved portrait of Avatar? Why is it not hanging in the bridge?"
"Avatar was the guiding light of the Star Force, especially on our first journey, but most of our current crewmembers, weren't with us while Avatar commanded. He is no longer our guiding light, Wildstar, you are.
"You are who the crew looks to now, even us old veterans, and you have proven yourself worthy of our trust time and again. But don't worry, I realize that sometimes you will need a guiding light as well."
The elevator doors opened onto the captain's quarters. There was the anchor symbol molded into the door, the bookcase with assorted reference and inspirational books, the fold down bed, a mini control panel that had duplicates of the most important of the bridge readouts… and there, above the work desk, was the Avatar portrait.
"Actually, it was Dr. Sane's idea, but it seemed the best place for it."
Wildstar couldn't speak. There was a lump in his throat, and tears in his eyes. He was home. "Thank you, Sandor."