Chapter Text
“Oh my..” I stood there fumbling my helmet on and taking in the view.
In front of me, out to a distance, was the giant spaceship parked in the center, decorated with metals and lights. The Skeld . I’ve seen hundreds of the ship’s pictures back when I was in school studying its layout and mechanisms, but none of the pictures can beat the view in person, not even from a distance behind all these cargo-movers and engine-checkers. They were working hard to prepare for the Skeld trip to Polus and back. The trip I will be taking a part of.
It was a miracle how I got on the crew, really.
A week ago, communications came from the research outpost on Polus. They were ransacked by a shape-shifting alien that sabotaged the facility and murdered half of the crew. According to the story, the alien mimicked the behavior of a crewmate, so well that the crewmembers couldn’t catch the alien until it was caught red-handed. Then, the impostor was promptly ejected into the lava.
Now with all the damages, Polus outpost is asking for shipments of supplies and crew to keep the facility up and running. When the previous Cyan was assigned to the Skeld trip, she promptly quit the job.
The news was all over it, “Cyan resigns over Polus ransacking”, “Skeld trip highly dangerous?” were the headlines.
But the trip would be fine , MIRA said. It has never happened before, only a one-time thing. The impostor tried to infiltrate, but they lost, and there’s no way they’ll come back again once they have had a taste of how competent MIRA’s crew is. Plus the job would pay generously and be wonderful on my resume.
And that was how I, fresh out of training, became Cyan of Skeld.
My first step into the world.
Then, the speakers hanging off of the glass dome ceiling started buzzing.
“All crew members prepare to board, I repeat, all crewmembers prepare to board.”
And so I headed for the boarding entrance.
Some other crew members were already there. One of them had a purple suit on, so it must be Purple. Sometimes our suit’s colour-coding is pretty neat, not needing to ask names and all.
Waving to Purple, I gave them the friendliest smile I could muster.
They ignored me, continuing to lean against the wall. Or maybe they had their eyes closed and didn’t see me. You can’t tell the difference at this angle with the helmet on.
I made my way to them, thinking of something to initiate a conversation. Their name? That’s just stupid. Where they are from? We’re not allowed to ask that. The weather? Favourite colour?
“Hi I’m Cyan. I was wondering, if you are a boy or a g- '' I stopped midway out of embarrassment.
They looked at me, but didn’t say anything. Maybe I was a little rude. Fair enough. Time for plan B.
“Haha…. Sorry about that,” I said scratching my rubber helmet, “But the weather’s pretty nice eh? Big... bright sun.” They raised their hand.
They spoke, with a voice much like a girl’s.
“Just stop.” She said in a tired voice, “You’re giving me a headache.”
I opened my mouth, but then decided against it.
The takeoff was a pretty scary thing.
The ascending thrust will place a huge amount of gravitational force upon the passenger’s body throughout the duration of the ride until we’ve escaped from the planet’s orbit. From what I’ve heard by word-of-mouth, it’ll probably be like a full-body muscle cramp, but add in the liquids and ringing ears. Everyone here had better be in amazing shape.
“W-what if someone passes out?” I asked Black, who sat buckled in beside me.
What if I don’t make it?
“If you pass out, I’ll tickle you until you wake up laughing,” He said.
“How are you going to tickle me when I got my suit on?” I giggled. Black’s funny, even if I don’t think it’ll actually work. Still, it helped to calm me down.
“I’ll find a way. Don’t worry.”
And so I didn’t worry. I fastened my seat belt, held tight to the bars, and waited for the countdown to be over.
He’s a pretty nice guy, Black. Shame I didn’t talk to him earlier before we got on. He was in a conversation with Red, some kind of pep talk? I think they are friends. It’s more intimidating to approach two people than to approach only one. I’m not that brave. But technically I already had a convo with him so maybe we can all be friends after? It might work. I sure hoped so.
And then I felt the crushing impact. I would’ve totally screamed if I was able to.
I looked out the window and watched as the clouds faded in and out of view, and the clear blue sky was gradually replaced with twinkling stars in deep-black space.
My home sure looked small from this far out.
I didn’t end up finding the chance to chit-chat to Black right after the launch.
Right before the ship had even completely stabilized, the lights suddenly started to flicker, and seconds later they completely shut off. This wasn’t in the job memo? The loud engines were still buzzing and thundering from the launch, which buried what seemed to be shouts during the confusion. I called out for Black, and tried to blindly search for him with my arms, but it was empty.
Not knowing what to do, I sat in the dark waiting for the ship to finish launching, stabilize, and for the engines to quiet down.
And soon enough, it did.
I unbuckled myself and moved around. It felt so good to be alive again.
“Hello? Anyone here?” I asked the abyss. Nothing. I tried again.“Hi?” Still nothing. How strange, did everyone leave?
Sighing in the dark, I raised my hands and placed my palms in front of me. I guessed these were my eyes now. Like that, little by little I felt around the seats, the walls, the corners, trying to find the door out. When the lights came back up, I found myself in an engine room. So that was where the noise was coming from!
The engine was a giant piece of machinery made of many different parts. A bit of coppery flaps here, a bit of aluminum tubes there. It vibrated and whistled rhythmically, which felt kind of comforting to touch, somewhat like a cat’s purr. It had many holes and tubes of different sizes, although I was not sure what they are supposed to do. Curiously, I snuck a finger down one of them. It fitted snugly, almost a little tight.
“Hey!” Down the hall, a voice yelled at me. I turned to look. It was White.
“What are you d-,” He ran to me, “Keep your hands off that thing!”
I tried to explain to him how I got here while struggling to loosen my finger. It did loosen after much twisting, for the record, but I don’t think it was such a good idea to begin with anymore.
White read my file which was clipped to his clipboard.
“This is your first mission?” He asked, looking up.
“Yessir!” I smiled, “What do I need to know?”
“For starters, keep your hands off machinery you're not familiar with ,” White flipped a page, and I tried to look embarrassed, “But you seem pretty excited. Good.”
I continued to watch him.
“First things first, we need to get you familiar with the place. Do you know where we are right now?”
“Upper engines sir.” He seemed pleased.
“Correct. Your job and where it is?”
“Sir I am responsible for the oxygen filtration and replenishing system. It’s at the front of the ship between Weapons and Navigations.”
“You seem to know your stuff,” He placed a checkmark somewhere, “Alright, next we need to show you your dormitory. You’ll be sleepinging in the male dorm,” He looked surprised for just a second, “It’s the one with a triangle icon on the door. Do not go into any dormitory that isn’t your own.” He looked at me.
“Y-yes sir.”
He put down his clipboard.
“Anyways, you’ll be sharing the dorm with four other crew members. I’ll be in that dorm too. I can show you around if you’d like?”
He stopped because Lime came running into the engine room hurriedly.
“What’s the problem?” White asked, “Oh yea, Cyan, this is Lime, our electrician. Lime, Cyan.”
“Oh hey! White, um, Cyan, good to see you,” Lime smiled and waved, somehow he managed to do this nervously, “Do you know where the captain is? I need to tell her something. It’s urgent.”
“You can just tell me, I’m the CA,” White replied. What in the world is a CA?
“Um, ok.” Lime stopped and took a breath.
“The lights. It was definitely not an accident,” Lime looked at him dead serious in the eyes, “And I have proof, I know what caused it.” White fell silent.
“What are you suggesting?”
Absentmindedly I realised that Lime didn’t call White ‘sir’, or anything like that. Not even once. The pain of being new.
I just wish White had corrected me.
“Are, are you sure it wasn’t an accident?” I asked Lime, struggling to keep up with him and White as we paced through the hallway, heading directly towards Admin.
“One hundred percent sure, I tell you,” He nodded, “I’ve been repairing these ships for years now, I think I should know whether or not a black-out was caused by faulty wires or intentional sabotage.”
He nearly bumped into Green as she exited Admin. Looking at her I realised there can be a much easier method to tell a crew’s gender other than judging by voice.
“Did I just hear sabotage?” Her voice sounded sturdy, like it had been used often.
Lime jumped a little out of his skin. “Oh uh, yea, um, hi captain, we were just, yknow, chatting about..”
“Lime here thinks the black-out earlier was an intentional sabotage,” White supplemented. Lime nodded in agreement. “He claims to have proof.”
“Proof? Would you care to show me?”
He took something out of his pockets and held it up in his palms for her to see. She seemed to recognize it upon inspection.
“I see, thanks for letting me know,” the captain said grimly.
All three pairs of eyes were on her.
A meeting was called.