I figured seeing as the prologue was so short, I might as well put the first chapter up at the same time :) Hope you enjoy.

Act I - Radioactive

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Russ woke up. This was unexpected because a) he wasn't floating in space anymore and b) he was still alive.

"Good to see you're still with us, Lieutenant. You had me worried for a bit."

Russ tried to open his eyes, but there was something, some fabric, holding them shut. The voice was familiar, yet not. Another clone then, but someone he didn't know. He reached up, but his hand was intercepted.

"No can do, Lieutenant," said the mystery man. "You've busted out most of the capillaries in your eyes, even with bacta, they're still healing. Not to mention that you've got type 2 decompression sickness, that's not something to be sniffed at."

It was during the listing of his medical woes that Russ pegged that he was in a med bay of some type, talking to a medic. No wait, he was talking to Sergeant Soap, one of the Fearless's medics.

Russ lifted his head and something brushed against his mouth. Russ investigated with his lips and found it was a straw. Cool water filled his mouth and he drank greedily.

Soap kept talking. "You're in Fearless's med bay. You've been bacta for five days now, so take it easy. As you may've guessed, the ship's still here. Our friends turned up to give us a hand: Implacable and Demolisher. Just as well they got there when they did; they scooped you out of the black neat as you please. Another minute and you'd have been a goner."

Russ paused. "And the commander?"

"Alive and well, along with most of the bridge crew. The clankers sabotaged the on-board comms system, so they were shouting themselves hoarse in there trying to talk to the rest of us."

Russ couldn't believe it. Commander Gett was alive that whole time? Then he'd gone and subverted the chain of command and killed his shipmates, perhaps needlessly. Russ sank back on the bed. There was one more thing he had to ask. "The other men, the ones who were in the hangar. Did they make it too?"

"You should get some sleep, Lieutenant. You'll be in here for another week, with regular check-ups for a while after that, so there's no rush." The medic sidestepped the question and Russ felt his blood turn to ice.

It happened again, in the mess hall this time.

Russ had filled his tray, left the queue in front of the warming trays, and was casting around for an empty table. That was when someone jostled him from behind. He caught himself in time, but unbalanced by his sudden lurch, half his dinner went flying to splatter on the floor at his feet.

"Sorry about that, sir."

The voice wasn't not at all contrite or sorry. It was about as disrespectful as you can get without being pulled up on charges. Russ didn't bother to look around to find the culprit. He knew the other men would just close ranks and the speaker would slip away into the crowd. Three weeks of experience had taught him that. He retrieved a scrap of cloth from the bench and started mopping up the mess.

"You on a diet there, ner vod?"

Russ looked up to find Cam, the last person he wanted to see right now, frowning down at him, tray in hand.

"Just an accident," Russ said. He'd been lucky today—he had most of his meal on the tray.

"You seem to be having a lot of those recently." The frown didn't budge from Cam's face. "Lost a bit of weight, no?"

Russ dumped the cloth into the waste receptacle and headed for the least empty table in the room, Cam following him like an unhappy shadow. As Russ approached, the other men got up to leave, uneaten food still on their trays. None of them looked at him. Cam saw it all.

Russ started shovelling down the remains of his meal as fast as he could. The sooner he finished, the sooner he could leave.

Cam glanced around surreptitiously and lowered his voice. "Heard from… you know… recently?"

"No," Russ lied. He didn't feel much like talking about Orin with Cam, much less unravelling the complicated reasons why it would be best for both of them if she stopped trying to contact him. "It's better that way," he said brusquely.

Cam stopped eating, pushing today's mystery goop around his tray with his spoon. "Russ…"

"Don't."

"But—"

"Just don't."

For the first time, Russ was relieved that he didn't have much on his tray. He'd asked to be on a different shift from Cam for a reason. He knew what was coming now: Cam would try and tell him that it wasn't his fault, that he couldn't have known and he should talk to Orin. Or he would have another rant at everyone in the mess hall for treating Russ like he was radioactive, in turn making things that much worse. He didn't need this. He stood to go.

Cam looked at him blankly. "But you haven't finished."

"Not hungry."

Before Cam could object some more, Russ tipped out his tray and left.

"Incoming message for the Commander," Russ said, his fingers flicking over the console as he verified the security tags for the fourth time. "It's Kuat."

Commander Gett nodded. "Very good, Lieutenant." He crossed to the console, ready for whoever was calling.

Russ fed the message from the Fearless's com centre to the command console, making sure to buffer the vid feed and the audio; it wouldn't do for the signal to flicker or cut out. It could be a message about nearby enemy ships, a Code Four—an urgent call for immediate assistance, or a warning of a Separatist offensive. Lives could hang in the balance.

A blue figure sprang to life in front of the Commander, strong and vibrant, and began talking about personnel requisitions and ship modifications. Russ let out a small sigh of relief: no life and death scenarios and the message was coming through perfectly.

He turned to hand control of the message to one of his junior communications technicians. Regs said that the Comms Officer didn't have to initiate each message, but Russ preferred to. This was his job, his post, so he was damn well going to make sure it was done right every time.

The take-over man, Link, nudged him subtly. "Good job, ell-tee," he whispered.

Russ nodded and the other man slid into place, smoothly catching a tremor in the signal and modulating it into nothingness. Russ watched for a moment more to make sure that Link had everything under control, and then went back to helping Zine, who was new, with the larty com system upgrade. Four-Four, who maintained he didn't want a name, was working on the other console, monitoring shipboard comms.

"Lieutenant."

He looked up to find Cam there; it must be getting near shift change. He gave a nod in acknowledgement. "Lieutenant."

"Quiet shift?" Cam asked.

Russ handed over the datapad that contained the shift report. Everything that had happened in the last six hours, all communications, issues, and work done were logged there so that the comms officer of the next shift could bring himself up to date.

"Four feeds, twelve squawks," Russ said, slipping into com centre jargon as Cam accepted the report. "Com system on Deck Four went down, but that's been fixed." Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Zine's face crinkle up in confusion. Cam saw it too.

"Feeds are messages that involve holographic images," Cam clarified. "Squawks are text-only messages."

Zine looked mortified that he'd managed to come to the attention of not one, but two officers. "Yes, sir."

The Fearless's computer chimed three times: end of another shift. Cam's team filed into the communications centre, taking over from Russ's lot. All around them, the bridge crews were also changing over and a growing number of men were beginning to crowd the exit. On the catwalk, Commander Gett was handing over to his second in command, Major Nies.

Russ followed the crowd out of the bridge and towards the turbolifts. Small conversations started up as the tension drained away. Everyone had sat their shift and done their duty. Now it was time to kick back and relax—right after they managed to get in the turbolifts and get out of here. Small dings signalled the arrival of all three turbolifts. There was a surge as everyone tried to get on at once

"Hey ell-tee!"

Russ turned to see Link waving at him across the sea of faces.

"You wanna get some chow then go a few rounds in the gym?" Link called, as the press of bodies carried him away.

Good old Link. He just didn't seem to get that spending time with Russ would be social suicide. Russ forced a smile. "Another time maybe."

Link beamed. "Sure thing, ell-tee."

Link crammed into a turbolift along with Four-Four, Zine, and a crowd from Weapons and Tactical. Russ heard one of the weapons team hissing at Link: "Whad'ja wanna hang with him for?" Then the doors slid closed.

The noisy chatter backed right off and Russ realised with a sinking feeling that it was just him and Commander Gett left in the corridor waiting for a 'lift. He could fob off Cam, they were friends and the same rank to boot, but Commander Gett was, well, the commander. Russ didn't have the same manoeuvring space with him. He picked a spot on the 'lift controls and stared at it in the hopes that the commander would take the hint that he didn't feel like talking.

"So, I take it you're still persona non-grata with the rest of the crew, Russ?"

Nope. The commander either didn't get the hint or had gotten it and promptly decided to ignore it. Russ suspected the latter. If it had been Cam, Russ would've just given him the silent treatment, but he'd been asked a direct question by his commanding officer. Shab.

"It's true that I'm not particularly popular amongst the men, sir," Russ said reluctantly, still starting at the control panel. "Rest assured it will not affect the performance of my duty."

"I didn't say it did. But I can see that it's affecting you."

Russ didn't say anything.

Commander Gett sighed. "Look, Lieutenant. You and I both know that it wasn't your fault. Had I been in your position, I might've made the same call—"

"But you didn't!"

Both of them fell silent, stunned by Russ's outburst. Russ couldn't believe it—he'd interrupted his CO mid-sentence, yelled at him even. After all the commander did for him, how he explained to the whole ship that Russ had done 'the right thing' and tried to smooth things over, Russ had just turned around and yelled at him. He felt sick. The silence stretched, becoming awkward. Any moment now, the commander would recover and try to talk to him. Russ couldn't bear it.

He blurted out the first excuse he could think of. "Excuse me, sir, but I seem to have left my cap on the bridge."

Snapping out a salute, Russ strode away from the lifts and his CO as fast as he could. He waited in a dead-end corridor until he was sure that the commander had left, then he retraced his steps and rode the 'lift back to his quarters.

The room was deserted, just steel-grey bunks and dark grey bedding. There was no one around, just the echoes of four people's lives stacked into a small space. No one to look at him with distaste, hatred, or worse—pity. Russ flopped down on his bunk and dug around under the mattress until he found his datapad.

It woke up when he touched it and a small reminder popped onto the screen. He was supposed to send a squawk Orin's way. Russ deleted the reminder. He hadn't sent her anything since… He felt a small twinge of guilt. She would probably be worrying at this gap in their—until now—regular communication, but he pushed it aside. She was probably better off forgetting about him.

He brought up his latest study materials, a schematic of the Fearless's electrical systems, and set his alarm. He needed to be out of here when Cam got off-duty, otherwise Cam would frown over him until he agreed to get some sleep. Russ snorted. He didn't need sleep, he needed to never make another mistake again. If that meant sacrificing a few nights of sleep to memorise everything perfectly, then so be it. He would never get anyone else killed again, this he vowed.

Soundtrack/prompt for this chapter: 'Radioactive' by Imagine Dragons.

About the posting schedule - this is just a short four-chapter mini-fic, so next week will be part 3, and the week after will be the conclusion.