The Captain's Heart CH 68 (Patreon)

Jeremy pushed himself deeper into the water, following the side. When he reached to bottom, the limit people could swim in. He was

Jeremy pushed himself deeper into the water, following the side. When he reached to bottom, the limit people could swim in. He was surprised at how smooth the surface was, or how little suction he felt with his hand resting against it. It certainly wouldn’t hold him down if he stopped swimming. He hadn’t considered the logistic of water exchange in a reservoir people swam in, especially furred people, but a harsher system had been what he’d expected.

Something twinkled in the distance, and he swam toward it.

Another aspect was how gentle the water was. Unlike the pool on Einstein, keeping his eyes open didn’t cause him problems. He supposed that since this was the water they’d ultimately drink, over treating it wouldn’t be advisable.

The item was tablet. It had no visible damage, but wouldn’t turn on. Power probably didn’t reach this deep. Or covered this part of the room at all. There would be no need to maintain a charge in the middle of the reservoir.

Another item turned out to be a collar. The attachment point had broken off. Further away was an earing. It surprised him. He couldn’t remember seeing a Kelsirian wearing jewelry. There was something else, but his lungs were demanding air. He controlled his rise to avoid damaging his ear drum. He’d never been much of a diver, but he’d received the usual warning back on Earth about how too fast of a change in pressure could cause damage.

It would suck to have to end this enjoyable outing with a visit to Medical because he’d been careless.

He broke to the surface and took a deep breath. He’d pushed further than he’d expected with his underwater exploration.

“Jer!” Gralgiran yelled, and he saw how far he’d moved from most of the swimmers, and his Heart. The panic in his voice registered after the Kelsirian was swimming in his direction. Others were pointing at him.

Had something happened?

Gralgiran grabbed him, his momentum causing them to spin. “Are you alright? What happened? You were gone so long. Why did you swim so far?”

“I’m fine,” Jeremy replied with a chuckle. “I just wanted to see what the divider was like. Then found a few things.” He raised the tablet, collar, and earrings. “There’s more down there, if people are looking for the stuff they lost.”

“What were you thinking? You were under there for more than two minutes. You could have drowned.”

“Closer to five, by the way my lungs felt when I surfaced.”

His Heart stared at him. “You could have—” He considered something. “How long can you hold your breath?”

“A good five minutes, maybe a bit less. I didn’t bother with breath-holding exercises while on Einstein. What’s going on?”

“Let’s swim where we can have our feet on a solid surface.”

“What about these?”

Gralgiran shrugged. “You can drop them. There’s an automated sweep every week. Maintenance will see about returning them. Or you can leave them in the lost box in the undressing room.” He pushed Jeremy toward the shore.

Once he had his feet under him, he turned to face his heart. “Okay. How about an explanation?” He looked around at the awe that was directed his way.

“You were underwater so long.”

He laughed. “Come on. It wasn’t that long.” Disbelief met his statement from more than Gralgiran. “Okay. How long can you hold your breath?”

“I don’t break a minute,” his Heart answered.

Others give their own answers and most were in seconds, with only the occasional one above a minute.

“The record is two minutes, eight seconds,” someone yelled.

“No,” he replied in disbelief. “I think the record is somewhere close to thirty minutes.”

The silence was such, Jeremy realized the ventilation system made a soft hum.

“Do all Earthers hold their breath as long as you?” Gralgiran asked.

“No. Breathing training came as part of all the swimming I used to do. I think the average is around three minutes. Are you seriously telling me a minute is as long as a Kelsirian can hold his breath?”

“Not even that, I expect.”

People gave numbers, and as best as Jeremy made out fifty seconds seemed to be the agreed upon one. It left him stunned. They all looked fit and their chest were no smaller than his.

The rest of the swim, he had to fight the urge to vanish underwater as a response to how protective his Heart became.

When they had enough, they headed to their quarters, where Jeremy let Gralgiran know he wasn’t in constant need of protection. Then, they made up.

    *

Jeremy had refused Thuruk and Prertiros’ invitation to relax at a club when they left engineering. He knew why they made the offer, and he probably needed the distraction after the shift he’d had—the Engineer had been unusually unreasonable for some reason. It wasn’t like Jeremy had suggested they overhaul his precious reactor. He’d just pointed out a more effective way to distribute power. And in response, he’d gotten the ‘you’re not the Engineer’ speech. Then ten minutes of how those changes would remove space. And it had been all he’d been able to do not to snap. It was empty space. It wasn’t like someone lived there.

His mood hadn’t improved over the hours until the shift ended and now all he wanted to do was—

“Xeniila does love me,” someone said. “I was hoping to come across my favorite Earther.”

Stifling the sigh, Jeremy turned to face the speaker, then let the sigh out. “I am in no mood, Quartermaster.”

The Kelsirian raised his hands, smiling and looking around nervously. Although Jeremy was starting to get the sense, it was just how the guy was. Too much energy or something.

“I have no plans. I just wanted to give you something.” With a flick of the hand, he had a datachip between two fingers.

Jeremy’s wonder at the act of prestidigitation quickly gave way to suspicion. “What is it?”

“It’s come to my attention that you were missing another Earther drink.” He offered the chip. “It’s the print recipe for Scotch.”

How did he even know about that? He was certain Gralgiran wouldn’t have told him, and his desire for the drink couldn’t have come up more than twice in public, and Jeremy was certain the guy hadn’t been around either time.

Still, he’d come through with coffee. “What’s the price.”

“Nothing,” the Quartermaster replied, sounding offended.

“I’ve been warned to never trust gifts from you.”

The guy grinned. “You Heart and I have a complicated relationship. It makes him not see the best in me.”

“Other have corroborated his warning.”

He sighed. “As Xeniila Haran watches over me, I have no ulterior motives with this gift. Think of it as one expatriate officially welcoming another to the ship. I know how difficult it can be.”

Jeremy pause in reaching for the chip. “You’re Kelsirian. How difficult could it have been?”

“I’m Ta’halan,” the Quartermaster countered. “It leads people to think all sorts of wrong things about me and my intentions.” He grinned.

Jeremy worried about that smile. But for Scotch? He’d take the risk. “Thank you.” He took it.

“It is my pleasure.” That grin again. Then he turned and walked off. “Remember, Jeremy Bradshaw, whenever you need something to help you deal with the stress of your life, I’m easily found.”

In your dream.

    *

Jeremy sighed as he sipped the drink and let the alcohol burn on his tongue. It burned in just the right way as it went down his throat and warmed the anger away.

He’d have no choice now.

He’d need a way to properly thank the Quartermaster.

Not that he’d tell him that. He was sure the man had many suggestions as to how he could do it.

    *

Jeremy watched the Kelsirians walking on the treadmills. And they were all walking. None of them seemed to raise the speed above a brisk walk, and when they did, within five minutes, they ended the exercise, winded.

He checked the machine and it could go up to a moderate running speed for him, and since the person from Custodial wasn’t there yet, and he was dressed in loose pants, he got on and started running.

The woman next to him nearly tripped off her treadmill when she glanced in his direction.

“I’m well,” she said when he started asking. The awe in her voice made him consider stopping, but others were already watching him.

There was something…empowering about being looked at with a mix of awe and envy, he realized. If the machine could go faster, he expected he’d set off at a sprint. Someone stepped onto the machine on his other side and matched his speed, but stopped after less than three minutes. Someone replaced them.

He found it hard to fight the sense of superiority as Kelsirian after Kelsirian stepped on the treadmill at either side and failed to keep up, while he barely felt winded.

He wasn’t better; he reminded himself. Just different.

But after noting all the ways in which Kelsirians out performed him, it felt good to find one they couldn’t even approach him at. He didn’t keep solid track of their times, but the longest lasting was a woman with the tight physique of someone who worked out hard. Which, for Kelsirians, would mean she fought a lot. She had to stop somewhere around four minutes.

“Jeremy Bradshaw,” a woman said. “Did you ask for one of us so you should give us a sense of how much stamina you had?”

He had to catch onto the guards as the loud innuendo in her tone hit him. Then he stopped it and stepped off, his breath mildly labored.

“No, sorry. I got curious while waiting for you, and… I’m with Gralgiran, my Heart.” At least, with most Kelsirians, that was enough for them to stop with the hints.

“In that case, how can I help?” she was dressed much like other Kelsirians, a vest and pants. Hers in tan over her white fur. The one item on the vest of note was a banner over the right breast with the flower of Danirag on it.

“Gral said that I needed Custodial approval to set up my weight training machine.” He took out his tablet. “This is the closet leisure alley to our quarters.” He brought up the plans, with dimensions. It had ended up larger than those at the gym on Einstein, but it wasn’t like he’d had original plans to start from. There had been nothing about weight training within Kelsirian databases on the ship, so all he had was his memory and what he needed it to do. He’d be the only one using it, so it didn’t matter how streamlined it was.

“Weight training?” she studied the plans.

“They’re human exercises, with the help of weights. This machine will use gravity controls to let me adjust that as I need.”

She nodded. “You understand that by setting this up in one of the alley’s room, anyone will be able to use it. I mean that you might find the settings have been altered between your visits.”

“That’s fine. I’ll have a scanner compatible with the bracelets. It’ll memories where I’m at, and one swipe and it will reset everything there. I’m fine with others using it, although the sense I got from talking with my friends is that weight resistance isn’t really something of interest.”

“I expect that, other than a novelty, you will be the only person using it.”

“I’ll set it to only work after someone scans their bracelet, and to reset at zero weight if they don’t already have a profile. There won’t be any exposed parts, so there won’t be any danger of someone poking in and getting their fingers crushes.”

She handed his tablet back. “I see no issues with letting you set this up in the alley.” She took up to another room, with a mix of tables for games and a few treadmills. It felt to him no different from the previous one in how spacious it was, but she indicated a section in the corner and after entering something on her tablet, a space three times the volume of his machine was marked off.

He didn’t bother explaining he didn’t need all that space. It would let him store the printed components until he was ready to assemble them. Which meant, now that he had his space, he needed to speak with Mechanical about borrowing one of their large-scale printers.

    *

Jeremy couldn’t tell what had woken him, then movement brought him fully awake.

“Status?” Gralgiran said, collar held against his throat and earpiece in his ear. He nodded. “Alright. Full stop. Have the front-line pacts on shift go active, wake Beta Zorfiel. This will certainly need her pack involved. I’ll be there shortly.”

“The hunt?” Jeremy asked.

Gralgiran nuzzled him. “Yes. We’ve been following a trail of debris for a few days and long range sensors picked up something out of the ordinary. Go back to sleep. I’ll contact you with an update before your work shift starts.”

“Okay.”

Then, he was alone in the bed. Sleep didn’t return easily, without his Heart at his side, but eventually, it claimed him.

Outline section 

no Outline

Addition 

Jeremy side for the tail end of the swim, humans have a much larger lung capacity then Kelsirians

Xenial comes with a peace offering

Getting permission to install the weight machine.

Mainly have time pass in preparation for what Gralgiran will find.

This is the start of establishing how humans outperform Kelsirians. On the whole, I will be going with the general differences between ambush predators for Kelsirians and endurance predators for Humans. I will also add cultural differences, mainly in how research is conducted,with kelsirians seeing it more as an art, with the ‘master’ in charge and the technicians following their instructions, while the humans being more ‘science’ oriented.

The rest is touching on things I’ve been wanting to for a while, mainly Xenial behavior toward Jeremy. I need them to become friends, so I need to establish why Xenial comes to see Jeremy more as someone to treat equally, rather and a sort of mark.