Chapter 14
Jordy Venture and Adam Row were happy to finally have a chance to relax and get some food in the Yamato's mess hall. They weren't the only ones; the room was just about filled to capacity. They had to inch their way past standing and sitting crewmembers to get their trays.
The next step was easy, they simply set their trays down and allowed a conveyer belt to carry the trays under a series of machines that automatically deposited pre-measured food amounts in each of the tray's slots. "Is it my imagination or is this the same stuff they served us last meal?" Venture asked.
"No, that was Meatloaf. The menu says this is Salisbury Steak," Row replied.
Just in front of them, Eager looked back at them. "Don't worry about it, tomorrow they will chop the meat up into smaller pieces, mix it with noodles and call it beef stroganoff. "
"Hey, Eager," Venture called, "with menus like that, what is the longest you have gone without someone killing the cook?"
Eager just laughed, but Lucas tapped Venture on the shoulder. "I wouldn't try it. I hear cooks specialize in hand to hand combat, just in case someone doesn't like the food."
Dr. Sane's voice rose up to be heard over the crowded dinner conversations. "Knox, that wasn't pudding, that was Mimi's cat food!"
Finally their trays reached the end of the food line, leaving Venture and Row standing in place, looking for a place to sit. Eager had long since disappeared, joining a group of veteran crewmembers. A second later, Lucas was standing right next to them, looking just as lost.
Orion noticed the plight of the three young crewmembers just as he was finishing the last of his potato salad. Checking that the three engineers he was sitting with were also done, he waved them over. "Hey, Venture. You can have this table, our shift is about to start."
"Thanks, Orion," Venture replied, and gave a nodding thank you to the other engineers who were giving up their seats for him, Row and Lucas.
The food certainly didn't taste any different from the previous meatloaf.
Row looked up from his meal, and nudged Venture, gesturing towards Yumi who stood, holding her tray and looked just as lost as they had. Venture was strangely quiet, so Row stood and waved her down. "Hey, Yumi, over here!"
Smiling, Yumi brought her tray over and joined them at the table. "Thanks, Guys," she said. The three men were more than willing to make as much room for her as she needed.
Unnoticed by any at the table, Kei took her own tray and walked through the cafeteria, finding a free seat at another crowded table, but somehow still managing to eat alone.
"You guys did really great during the battle," Yumi said, then took another bite of what they assumed to be mashed potatoes.
"Thanks," Row said with a big boyish grin, while Lucas only nodded.
"uh.. Yeah, Thanks," Venture added a second later. For some reason, he just was not able to get his voice to work around her.
"Isn't our captain great?" Yumi added a few seconds later.
Suddenly, Venture found that his voice hadn't gotten away from him after all. "What do you mean?" he asked with a hint of anger in his tone. "What's so special about HIM?"
Yumi tilted her head to one side, not quiet understanding or maybe not noticing Ventures reaction. "Well, everything. Didn't you see him? The way he was in complete control. His every word, every action was so completely controlled."
Row tried to lay a calming hand on his friend's shoulder. Softly warning him, "Relax, Jordy."
Jordy Venture was already on his feet. "There is nothing great about him! Sure, he may win a lot, but look at the cost in lives! I really can't believe you, he has you totally fooled!"
"Jordy," Row said, louder this time, trying to distract his friend before he made a complete fool of himself.
Yumi completely missed Venture's outburst, her attention was fixed entirely on the door to the mess hall where the door was open to reveal Wildstar talking with Sandor. Their conversation came to an end and Wildstar walked in and grabbed a tray.
Standing, she called out to him. "Captain! You can sit with us!"
"Ok, that's it. I'm going to lay down." Venture said, walking away from the table in disgust. Row watched him go, and just sighed.
Wildstar didn't make a move to indicate that he even heard Yumi call to him. He simply made his way over to sit with a group of officers on the far side of the room.
"Where did your friend go? Is he OK?" She asked Row.
"Well, you know… its juts one of those things with him. He just needs some time to cool off. Do you have any after dinner plans?"
Yumi smiled and gave Row an appraising look. "What did you have in mind?"
"Well," Adam Row said, "I hear the upper observation deck is rather romantic."
"Sounds nice," she said with an even larger smile.
Row stood with Yumi on the third bridge level. The bridge was empty, with the ship being run by the relief crew on the second bridge. Confused, he studied the back wall again. "I could have sworn it was on the bridge level. We took that elevator to here… how do we get to it?"
With a grunt, Yumi wandered over to check her station.
"Oh, there it is," Row said, while looking out of a rear window. "Its down a level."
"Forget about that right now, Adam," she said, "There is a message in the queue from Earth." She pushed a few buttons, and started printing a hard copy of the message, and looked over it as it printed. "We have to show this to the Captain. Now."
"Well, he might still be in the mess hall."
"That is too public." She hit the toggle for the intercom. "Captain Wildstar to the bridge, please. Captain to the bridge."
After paging the captain, she handed the message over to Row, who scanned the long list of names.
"Any one you know on there?" She asked.
"Yeah."
The elevator door opened, admitting Wildstar to the bridge. He looked around quickly to assess the situation, and seemed slightly surprised to see that there was none. "Yumi, Row," he said, looking at each of them in turn. "What is it?"
With careful precision, Row handed him the printout as Yumi explained. "We received a communication from Earth. The corrected warp trace of the enemy fortress… and a list of the missing people."
Sensing the unspoken warning of her words, Wildstar skipped down to the bottom of the list, only allowing himself a glimpse of the "Ws." The names he did not want to see were plainly visible on the list. He slowly paced over near his old station and traced the path to Nova's radar station. He didn't want them to see his face, in case he let something slip. No wonder Avatar always kept his hat down over his eyes.
"If there is anything I can do to help," Yumi offered her open ended offer for assistance, but Wildstar made no move to acknowledge it.
"Post the list for the crew. We won't change course until everyone has gotten the news," Wildstar said, then disappeared into the elevator.
The engine room wasn't exactly a quiet place to think, but it really wasn't that noisy either, at least not unless the engines were being stressed. It was mainly filled with the whirr of the two large fly-wheels that were constantly spinning on the main engine cylinder. Venture also found the gold color that dominated the engine room somewhat relaxing, so he found himself half laying, half sitting against one of the control panels of the main engine. He lost himself, feeling his mind waxing and waning with the sound of the engine.
"Jordy Venture?" The chief engineer, Orion, roused him back to the present. "What are you doing here?"
Without getting up, Venture craned his neck to look at the engineer. "I'm sorry, Orion. I just needed a place to think."
Orion smiled at that. "You feel more at home here in the Engine Room, do you? My dad always said you would grow up to be an engineer."
"What?" Jordy asked, genuinely surprised that this engineer, whom he didn't really know, had heard such an odd thing about him.
Orion looked around clandestinely, before going to a side work panel. Opening it, he pulled out an old framed photograph of a man who looked a lot like Orion, only with white hair, and less of it on top. "This is my Dad, he likes to keep an eye on me sometimes so I keep his picture near. He was the original chief engineer when Yamato left for Iscandar.
"He wrote a lot about you, Wildstar and your brother in letters that he sent to me and my niece, Cathleen."
Venture looked back to the flywheels, thinking some more. "What about you, Orion, have you served with the Captain long?"
"Yes, of course. I signed on right after my dad was killed." Orion replaced the picture, then pulled out his favorite wrench and set to work on a panel near Venture.
Venture was having a hard time controlling his emotions, attempting to decide exactly what to ask to find out what he needed to know. Finally he settled on, "What kind of a man is he?"
Orion peered around the panel he was working on to look at Venture, to judge exactly what he really wanted to know. Ventures eyes betrayed him. "Can't you tell? He is a very caring man. Sometimes he cares too much, I think, but he doesn't blame others when things go wrong. He just does his best to keep going on. We should all do the same."
It was not what Venture wanted to hear, they both knew that. He would be forced to come out and say it. "Why did he let my brother die?"
Orion stopped working, and found himself lost in a memory nearly five years old. "I don't think he knew," he said, "Mark didn't want any of us to know."
He stopped all pretence of work, and propped himself up on his elbows, "Jordy, the Captain has lost all the family he ever had. His parents, Captain Avatar, his brother are all dead. He was even forced to watch as his only niece was killed."
The scene replayed itself in Orion's mind as he once again saw Sasha, who had asked to stay behind on the false Earth, as she pleaded with her uncle to use the Wave Motion Gun to destroy the base she was on.
He brought his mind back to the present. "In the end, the only family Wildstar had was Nova, the love of his life, and Mark, whom he loved as a brother. But Mark also loved Nova deeply. I think that was what kept Wildstar and Nova from marrying for so long. He didn't want to risk upsetting Mark by taking her for himself. In the end, it was Mark's final request that Derek make Nova happy, that got them to marry. He is trying to start a new family now, and its not easy on him, especially when they are so far away."
"Wait a minute, you said Mark? Mark Venture?" Jordy Venture asked.
"Yes. Dad said that Mark Venture and Derek Wildstar were almost inseparable even before they signed on the Yamato. I think Wildstar is the only person who feels as deeply about your brother's death as you do."
Venture stood his thoughts in more turmoil than before. "Thanks Orion," he said as he left the engine room.
Venture walked the halls of the Yamato, but his mind was nowhere near. It was on Earth, and several years in the past. He remembered playing soccer with Mark on the green fields. He remembered saying to his brother, "I want to join the Star Force, just like you. I want to fly in the Cosmo Zero, and fight to save Earth just like you." He had been so stupid back then.
His brother had smiled and chuckled at him, "Don't be so hasty, Jordy. There is more to it than fighting and glory. There are a lot of hard times too." Then, Marks voice got that far away feeling to it, "There are the lost friends, and lost loves." The smile returned, "Anyway, if we do our job right, there will be no need for Yamato by the time you grow up."
That had been a long time ago. How long, eight years? He lost track.
"Hey, Jordy!" It was a voice from the present that called to him. It sounded like Row. Looking up, he saw that it was Row, with Yumi beside him.
"Hey, guys." He said.
"We were worried about you," Yumi said. "Have you heard the news?"
"I'm OK now, I just had some thinking to do. What news?"
"We have gotten a list of people the enemy took. You may want to check it to see if your family is safe," she said.
Venture gave a morose half smile, "probably are, I don't have that much family left either. Where is the list?"
"Posted in each of the side observation decks."
Kei heard what sounded like a computer overloading, and was nearly knocked down by a rampaging IQ-9.
The robot then stopped in the middle of the observation deck, turned abruptly towards the door before charging for it at full speed. He did pause slightly to take the time to hit the wall next to the door before leaving.
She accepted an offered hand up, and paused to collect herself. It wasn't every day that she was run down by a mad robot.
Slipping back into the crowd she reached the front and skimmed the list. She felt a tightening of her stomach as she read down the list. So many names. She found a few that she knew. Based on how people were acting, she figured that just about everybody either had family or friends on the list. Kei found the name of her sister, which resulted in a tightened worry sensation on top of the already tight feelings of worry already in her stomach. She turned to go, and in the process nearly knocked Jordy Venture down.
Venture didn't notice, he was too busy with making his way to the front of the crowd to check the list for his own family names. Fortunately he didn't find any names that he knew directly. He did check the "W's" out of curiosity, and found "Nova Wildstar, Miyuki Wildstar, and Mark Wildstar" among the names listed. He didn't want to, he wanted to hate the man, but he couldn't help feeling sorry for his captain.
Sandor had already come by to express his sympathy, which was very considerate since Sandor tried to avoid interacting with his feelings as much as possible. But Wildstar found he preferred being alone.
The bow of Yamato stretched out before his cabin window, and the stars beyond were an impressive sight. It seemed to be lacking, though. He just tried to stand, looking out to find some sort of balance between the emptiness and worry he found within himself. Not far below that, he knew the anger was waiting. He did not want to give in to the anger, not yet. As a captain, he had to have a clear-cut plan.
Despite his best efforts his anger cut through the hopelessness and despair he had wrapped himself in. The anger cut through everything, dominating his very being.
How strange, it actually wasn't anger at all. Somehow the anger of his youth had become resolve. He would bring them home. He had to, there was no other option. He would bring them home, and he would bring them home alive. All of them. He would dedicate as much of his spare time as he could to devising plans that would bring that about.
Next to the resolve was the worry, and the question: Where was Nova and was she all right?