I awoke to Blue's hands shaking my shoulder. "Hey, kid, time to get up to start our tasks!" He explained as I got up groggily.
I stood up in my filthy maroon suit, bonking my head on the now empty top bunk. The Dorms were empty. Blue led me out into the Cafeteria where many crewmates with clean, broadly colored suits sat waiting for me. I must've looked quite like a runt in my dirty suit, vision thin, and dreary expression, with Blue pulling me along.
Before I or they said a thing, Blue pulled me from the Cafeteria and down to a small sanitary room to wash my suit and get cleaned. Blue said this place was Medbay, and there were lots of tubes and beds and screens everywhere, so I guess that sounded right. I threw my dirty equipment into a washing machine and then found a spare maroon suit that was a tight fit but was clean, so I gladly made the trade. Blue showed me this printing machine that produced labels, so I punched my ID code in through the keypad and out came a label with my ID on it that I promptly stuck to my suit. Blue had my air tank get refueled in a room called O2 and then brought me, practically a truly worthy crewmate of The Skeld now, back into the Cafeteria. He and I sat down at this long lunch table everyone was at, the same one with that Emergency Meeting button on it. It still gave me shivers, oddly.
"Hey, everyone, this is our new recruit Maroon!" Blue announced, patting me on the helmet like I was his son on the first day of school or something. Some crewmates waved, said hi, or just ignored me. Some studied with their gazes, some glared, some looked through the transparent ceiling of the room at the stars and that nebula.
Then, a green crewmate leapt up. "All you crewmates, please get up and say something about yourselves! Then we can get started with today's tasks," they sounded up and ready. "I'm Green, in charge around here, of course, and prefer the pronoun "they" instead."
The person next to Green then went, and so on.
"I'm Yellow, and I'm funny. Oh, Green isn't in charge! No one is." I thought she sounded more annoying than actually funny.
"Hullo, I'm Orange, I like food and sleep." Lazy!
"The name's Purple, I know how to get 'em tasks done and ta make 'em fun!" Sounds overoptimistic. Maybe helpful, though.
"Hey. I'm Red. I like getting work done. Yeah." Seems boring.
"I'm Brown. I think that Imposter crap is all fake, crew!" I agreed with that.
"My name is…Cyan…I get nervous easily. Sorry." He sounded like me. A bit wimpy.
"Hello, everybody! My color's Banana, as you can see, I'm friends with Orange and I like bread and noodles and I like to be positiveandcheerfulsohavefunand-"
"Shut up," commented Yellow narcissistically. Red chuckled at that.
"Alright, Blue?" Green asked.
"Oh, yes, I'm Blue, I just met Maroon. He thinks this Imposter stuff isn't real, but I don't know or have an opinion. I think we can do these tasks and just chill."
Then I guess it was my turn to go. "H-hello, crewmates. I've had a tough life before coming here on The Skeld, and, I-I guess I'm glad to meet you all. Yeah. Blue's my acquaintance." I took deep breaths while I traced my hands with my opposite fingers. Most of the crew seemed understanding or intrigued, but Orange was half asleep, Yellow was chatting with Red, Blue didn't understand personal space, Banana looked like she couldn't comprehend what "tough life" meant, and Black looked creepy…wait, Black?
There was a Black crewmate curled up in his chair, looking antisocial and crippled. I gestured to him, and Green shouted at him. "Black, you need to be social and outgoing, remember? C'mon, introduce yourself!"
Black groaned something like "you just introduced me in a nutshell," but at least he was sitting up now. Not necessarily straight up like Green seemed to want, though.
"Black…?" It was Green, painfully urging him.
Black forced a wave. "Ho. I'm Black. I didn't want to come. Here. At all. So don't expect me. To be happy. Like Banana. Ho." Then he laid his head back on his chair.
"Yaaay, Black!" Banana squeaked with furious clapping and cheery visor. Green looked disappointed, and some bad joke was brewing in Yellow's mind.
"Okay, crewmates, thank you for listening to me as always," they shot daggers at Black. "So, I got contacted by Commander White with the list of tasks for the three week ride over to MIRA HQ. I've forwarded each of you your specific lists. Check your pads, then get started! Enjoy!"
"And watch for Imposters!" Snickered Yellow, walking away with Red. Purple and Brown got going, too, and Green as well.
I checked my maroon pad. It showed some tabs to click on, and I tapped the one that said something about notifications. Green's forwarded email was on there, and I found my list of tasks: Fix Wiring, Hallway; Download Data, Shields; Divert Power to Security, Electrical; Clean Filter, O2.
"Hmmm," I thought aloud. I flicked my screen onto the included map of The Skeld, specifically the Quarter 1 section. There was a button to transmit today's tasks onto the map, and upon clicking that yellow exclamation markers appeared on the map, at the spots where my tasks were located. I grinned.
"Hey, Maroon, I got a Fix Wiring Task, too!" Blue exclaimed, comparing task lists and maps to mine like friends comparing school schedules. "Not the same one, though. Mine's in the Cafeteria…but I also have a Divert Power one, which stems from Electrical! We can meet up there together, maybe?"
"Oh, yeah, sure!" I said. "I'll do that downloading task first, but then I can meet you?"
"Okay! I'll fix the wiring here," Blue said as he made his way to some panel on the other side of this big room.
The lights were mostly on in the hallways now, making them look bright and inviting. I used the map on my pad to find Shields; it stemmed from Storage, a big, darker room of crates and boxes and junk, which came from Cafeteria. Shields was in a small, cozy corner with a railing in front of a nice big window. Large lantern-like capsules ran along the walls, storing energy. I found a black disk to slide my pad into, and the machine said it was "downloading data." It took about 20 minutes to do so, during which I just stared out that nice big window. Very starry, but there wasn't a view of the nebula I really liked seeing. Outer space…so beautiful, yet so deadly. I think you could agree as well.
Eventually the disk bleeped and I pulled out my pad. It said that the data now needed to be uploaded to Admin, which partially branched from Storage, so it was easy to find. The room was stretched out and had reddish plating and a long, white table with a green map on it. The map displayed a map of Quarter 1, along with little crewmate holograms scurrying around. Those were all of us crewmates! I couldn't tell which, though, because all of the holograms had the same texture-a yellow crewmate. Then I heard a grunt of frustration and looked up from the map to see Orange struggling to swipe a key card through a reader on one side of the table. The machine kept beeping that the card was "too slow" or that it had a "bad read."
"Try doing it faster," I suggested plainly as I slid my pad into a giant disk on the wall to upload the collected data. Orange threw me a glance and then swiped that card through at extreme speed, back and forth angrily while the message produced pre-recorded woman's voice messages like an auto-read device. The messages didn't even finish before starting a new one based on Orange's performance, so it soon sounded like an annoying but slightly funny garbled mess. Finally, the machine produced a happy beep and Orange's pad said the task was done. He then promptly trudged out of Admin and down a hallway somewhere.
I sure hope I'm not given that task soon.
Once the data was uploaded and my pad displayed that my first task had been finished, I used the map to find Electrical just down the hall. The room barely had any light sources and was quite compact, with all kinds of boards and disks and panels displaying tasks and statistics and what not. Wires laid themselves along the walls, ceiling and floors, some leading nowhere. I heard the sound of levers being flicked, and I rounded a bulky corner to see Blue at a silvery, out-of-place looking panel with lots of little labels.
"Did it say to direct power to Admin or…yeah…"
"Hey, Blue."
"Gaaah!" Blue yelped and jumped upwards and turned to face me, waving his pad angrily like a madman with a fly swatter. "You almost made me rip right through my suit, kid!"
"Sorry," I responded sheepishly.
"I-It's fine," he reassured himself, checking his pad and then finally flicking the right lever.
"I need to give Security some juice," I said as I found the right lever on the panel and pulled it up with a finger.
"Got it," Blue said. "I'm actually almost done with tasks for today! I got the wiring fixed, straightforward, oiled the engines, simple enough, diverted power just now…last task is…"Recalibrate Distributors." Huh." He made his way over to a little panel in a wire-heavy corner and clicked some things, and then the lights of The Skeld just got a bit brighter. "Nice. I'm done!" He jumped up and down, putting away his pad.
"I still have some tasks to do," I groaned like Orange. "Now I have to have Security accept the diverted power, then Fix Wiring, and clean out a filter."
"We can partner up, if you'd like," Blue suggested.
"Are you still scared of that idiotic Imposter thing?"
"Well, Yellow cracked another joke about it when I passed her and Red earlier."
"Yellow, Red, whatever. Forget them."
"Well, do you want to team up?"
"Okay, sure."
I managed to find Security with Blue's help and tweaked some things so that Security got the power it needed. I saw some security monitors in there, but I had an ill feeling I might break it because it was too high-tech or something, so I didn't come near. Blue and I fixed those wires, which led to another spot that needed wiring repair, which in turn gave us a third location. Most of the work I really did was just hustling down the halls and saying hi to fellow crewmates I passed. Finally, Blue and I got to O2. The room was spick-in-span with little plants in special glass cases, with many large vents inside to get the fresh oxygen throughout the ship. We found Cyan in there, not doing anything.
"Hey Cyan," Blue waved.
"What task are you on?" I questioned.
"Empty Garbage," Cyan replied. "Just finished, so, so…I'm done with tasks now. Just hanging out. This room is pretty. And calm. Uh, refreshing."
Blue nodded, and I guess I did too. Not like I thought any of that Imposter stuff was real. I walked over to a tiny little door on one side and filtered out the dead leaves inside, tossing them into the nearby trash bin Cyan had apparently just emptied out. "I'm done with my tasks now! Blue, Cyan, do you guys want to check out this "food," or so, I guess. In the Cafeteria?"
The two similar colors agreed, and so we made our ways down to that spacious room. Orange, Banana, and Brown were there too, chatting and snacking. I found one of the food-dispatchment machines and clicked on a button that said: "spaghetti." A cooked, wet, steamy bunch of yellow-tan strands were deposited onto a clean white plate in front of me, and I picked it up cautiously. It got my visor foggy, but I found my way over to the table Blue and Cyan were at, eating something they called "burgers."
I slowly began using the fork that came included with a bottled beverage (I think it was flavored water or something) to eat those noodles for the very first time, slipping them under my helmet like my pad into those downloading disks. They tasted really good!
"I like these nadles a lot!' I told Blue and Cyan. "Wait, no, I mean nudles. No, noodles! Yeah, isn't that the right way?"
Blue nodded. "I see you didn't really have food as a "runt"?" Cyan figured out.
I explained to them all about my terrible times before The Skeld, before today, about whips and ships and being bottom-of-the-barrel ranked cannon fodder. I then talked about how I really appreciated Quarter 1, that the tasks weren't very hard and actually a bit amusing, and that the Imposter thing was another myth of Commander White's to make him seem more powerful than the arrogant astronaut he was; all the time, I was stuffing my face with water and spaghetti. I think my stomach didn't like it at first, but over time it would get used to spaghetti.
For the rest of the "waking time" Cyan, Blue and I hung out. Going around our Quarter to see what our fellow crewmates were up to, getting to know the place, plenty of me getting lectured about pronunciation or uses or something, the like. Eventually, once all of us crewmates had long finished our tasks and were fiddling with our pads and Yellow was screeching in her megaphone right behind you without you knowing, Commander White came over the intercoms and said that it was "sleeping time" and that he was going to dim the lights and expect us to rest. He didn't bring up those Imposters this time, though, which further proved my opinion as being right to the rest of the crew. We all left for the Dorms, ready to rest. It was a bit hard, though, because Banana was humming to herself, Orange snored loudly, and Yellow shined her pad in your visor at random. But sleep came upon me, eventually, after Yellow gave up trying to make a racket. The start wasn't so good, but the true start to the voyage to MIRA HQ was starting to look up to advertised scale. If only it would've gotten better from there…