The Captain's Heart CH 12 (Patreon)

Gralgiran swiped his bracelet against the door’s sensor, then entered his authentication code. While he did this, Toom leaned against him

Gralgiran swiped his bracelet against the door’s sensor, then entered his authentication code. While he did this, Toom leaned against him, head resting against his shoulder. Unlike Gralgiran’s mane, which would be tangled until he took the time to straighten it, his friend’s fur already looked ready for duty, being so short.

“Did we really have to deal with this now?” Toom asked, then cracked a yawn that exposed all his teeth.

“You could have stayed in bed,” Gralgiran replied, as the door opened, revealing a narrow walkway.

Toom nuzzled his neck before he moved. “You too. I thought you had someone dealing with this.”

Gralgiran scratched his friend’s under muzzle so he could step away. “Except he was supposed to be here in the morning.” Hopefully, Toom, who was usually quite perceptive, was still too sleepy to see through the excuse. Not that he knew why the Earther was here in the middle of the night, hours before he’d said he would, but he’d just needed to see him when he’d been contacted about his unexpected arrival.

The walkway was so high against the wall that if he stretched and stood on tiptoes, his claws could scratch the ceiling. Ladders went up to it from inside the engineering room for when there was a need to access the conduits at this height, while the doors were for when it was quicker for a technician still outside to reach them.

As the captain, he had override authority over all locks.

Below, Thuruk was saying something to Jeremy as they approached the reactor.

“Why is this place empty?” Toom whispered.

“Middle of the night,” Gralgiran replied, studying Jeremy, trying to make sense of what he felt.

“It shouldn’t matter, shouldn’t it? There’s always someone on the bridge, even when we’re docked. Shouldn’t there be someone here in case something happens?”

He forced his attention away and to his friend. “The reactor’s been shutdown since it happened.” He refused to call it an accident, since that would shift the blame to Alix. “From what Thuruk explained, in this state, all they have running is basic monitoring of the civilian generator. Alix would probably put people watching that twenty-eight hours a day, but with being at dock, I decided to reduce it to the bare minimum and have all the technicians be with their families at night.”

Toom nodded and looked at the scene. Jeremy was passing a device over the reactor’s command board…or at least, it’s what Gralgiran thought they were. Alix had explained it when he’d taken over and rebuilt the previous reactor, but he wasn’t technically minded, so had only managed to absorb so much. And after years, even that couldn’t be relied on anymore.

“So, that’s the Earther?” Toom asked. “Why is he wearing…he’s an he, right?”

Gralgiran nodded, watching as Jeremy turned to take in the entire room. He wasn’t worried about him noticing them up here, not that it mattered if he did, he told himself. As captain, he could be where ever he felt like it.

“Why does he have so much on?”

“Lack of fur.”

“The Ridoshi don’t have fur and they wear less than we do.”

“They have an exoskeleton and probably a completely different biology. The Taournians wear whole uniforms.”

“They’re lizards,” Toom said dismissively.

“The Saladins too.”

Toom glanced at him. “Why does it sound like you’re defending him?” he nodded to Jeremy.

“I’m not.” The hope the defensiveness in his tone had been missed was dashed by Toom’s smirk. “He’s just a different species. We can’t expect him to be like us.” He wasn’t even sure why he’d been defensive.

Other than that feeling.

What were the gods playing at?

“And how different do you think he is?” Toom motion to Gralgiran’s groin.

His ears folded back, burning. “I don’t know.” How would he?

Toom chuckled softly.

What were the gods playing at? Even if… he was a different species. How could he be… This had to be Gezbiliam seeking to render him mad. Not that he thought sex was required. But if Jeremy really was…wouldn’t they…. It couldn’t be; it was as simple as that. Maybe it was simply time for him to consider the hunt for his—

“That can’t be safe,” Toom whispered, and Gralgiran focused down and stared.

Jeremy had climbed on the command board against Thuruk’s clear protests. He was scanning the column, pocketing the device, before grabbing a handhold and pulling himself up.

“What is he doing?” Toom looked at him.

Gralgiran shrugged. He had no idea. Jeremy paused to scan a different section before taking hold of it and pulling himself further.

“How can his feet grab onto anything covered like that?” Toom asked.

“Special materials,” Gralgiran answered. Not being part of the hunters, Toom had no reason to wear combat gear, so he wasn’t familiar with what could be done. Even the Kelsirians who wore coverings at their feet as fashion didn’t cover the underside. No one wanted to lose the sense of the ground under them. Even combat boots transmitted the sense of what they were on to the footpads.

“He reminds me of a shartiran,” Toom said. And Gralgiran had to admit there was something of them in how Jeremy seem able to just climb without claws, or with the same lack of care for his safety. A fall from that height would result in broken bones.

Still, there was something of bravery in how he held on with a hand while scanning the top and reading the results. He was an Engineer, so he had to feel there was a purpose to it, and he’d gotten whatever answers he needed himself instead of having Thuruk provide them.

Toom leaned in and buried his muzzle in his mane. “Are you planning on spending the rest of the night spying on the Earther?”

“I’m not—”

Toom chuckled.

“I just wanted to make sure he wasn’t here to… the Earther commander doesn’t like us. I thought he might…” He had trouble seeing Jeremy going along with something nefarious. Not that he could explain where that came from.

“You wouldn’t have put that technician in charge of him if you didn’t trust him. We should go back to bed.”

“I’m not tired anymore.”

Toom nipped his ear. “Who said anything about sleeping?”

    *

“Captain,” Arferm greeted him as he entered her office. She glanced at the time on her desk. “Isn’t it your prerogative to get out of bed well after the gods?”

“That implies I was sleeping.”

She chuckled. “Overactive bedmate?”

“Toom’s active enough. Ship work interrupted our night, so we use of the time. I thought I’d check on Alix since I’m awake.”

She took her tablet and stood. He followed her into the main medical room, where three technicians were seated at a table, playing a game while a fourth was treating an injured male’s leg.

“Dock time’s always quiet,” she said when she noticed him looking. “But regulations require minimal personnel. Once they’ve gone over confirming the equipment is up to spec, I let them pass the time as they see fit. Artif is the game of the day with younglings.”

They didn’t look like younglings to him, but Arferm was nearly two decades older than he was. She might include him among them. Not that he had any idea what game Artif might be.

The tube in which the sandy furred Engineer rested was at the back, taking the place of one of the beds. It was large enough to fit three of the smaller male and he floated into the liquid, seemingly in a peaceful sleep.

“His condition hasn’t changed,” the medic said, consulting her tablet.

“Shouldn’t it have improved?”

“It improved drastically since being brought in, but he seems to have reached a pause-point. You need to remember that we’re all different,” she explained. “So the regeneration chamber doesn’t work at the same speed for everyone. Traditionally, it will work faster on someone like you, who is physically active, because you have trained yourself to have more energy. You’ve made it through an entire session without a pause-point. Nearly all hunters are like that.”

She consulted her tablet again and frowned. “Although, the Engineer seems to have kept himself in good physical shape.”

Gralgiran smiled. While not a hunter or even interested in fighting, Alix took to combat exercises with ease.

“He might have been overworking himself,” she said. “It would explain the need for this pause.”

Alix wasn’t prone to overworking. Gralgiran had had to field complaints from the Engineer about technicians who didn’t seem to understand that shift end meant they had to go home and do other things. Overwork lead to mistakes.

“Can it be the equipment?”

“That’s always a possibility, but it was inspected recently.”

“Meddling?”

She stared at him. “Right,” she said in that tone an adult used when indulging a child. “You’re a Traditionalist.”

He shrugged. It wasn’t something he hid, even if it wasn’t as popular is it had been in his grandparents’ time.

“I won’t comment on that. If the gods felt like meddling in our lives, I think they’d have more important people to look into.”

“Thank you. Let me know when you’re able to estimate when he’ll regain consciousness.”

“Just remember that the Engineer being conscious doesn’t mean you’ll get answers. It simply means we’ll be able to proceed with the next part of his recovery.”

Alix wouldn’t have answers for him, other than those he already suspected. The Engineer was also a Traditionalist, and it would take the gods Meddling to cause his reactor to behave in a way he hadn’t set it to.

He left medical intent on going to the bridge to see how the hunt was advancing, but found that his feet had a mind of their own.

Author’s comments

• What I had to work from

Outline section 

Captain Gral is checking up on his chief engineer in medbay. Basic scans indicate that Alix isn’t in any immediate danger, but they still need the invasive brain scans to check for damage, which they won’t be running until he wakes up, which hasn’t happened yet. The doctor assures him that the scans they have run would have told them if there is anything serious, but you need an alive awake mind to check for more casual brain damage and until they have that they can’t give Gral a timetable for when Alix will be up and running again.

Ultimately the delay is just one more straw that tells Gral that the gods are Meddling. From the moment the engine exploded he suspected, but at the time he thought they were working against him. Then he laid eyes on the human engineer, Jeremy and... now he’s all twisted in knots. Throwing himself into his job would normally be a good distraction, but this isn’t a normal hunt where he can take a team and lead it onto the human station and shoot something to clear his head. This operation is much more... delicate.

My additions

Gral trying to understand what it is about Jeremy that’s facinating him so much

As part of altering the pacing I took the medical section from Gralgiran's next chapter and added in having Gral look in on what Jeremy is doing.

establishing that not everyone on the ship has the same belief as Gralgiran isn't exaclty new, to me, but it was never something that made it on the page of the draft 0 or the outline. it's mainly about making sure the Kelsirian aren't a monolitic culture as well as establishing something for a potential future project (Oh, I've been thinking about this project all the way since ending draft 0. I even have a few stories written)