Three - Priest
Previous Chapter: Two - Captain Coma
The ISS Hyperion arrived at the un-hospitable Nyx. Captain Reeves awoke from neuro-sleep to find a message waiting for him.
Priest
The distinctive scent of antiseptic and metal is the first thing I notice as I blink away the thin layer of frost clinging to my eyelashes. Fighting back a wave of nausea, I wrap myself in a thermal blanket, pulling it tight around me. Damp hair clings to my face in messy tendrils, and I try to blow a strand out of my eyes.
"Christ," I say, intended for myself, "I forgot how much I fucking hate stasis."
Torres laughs one of those deep, vibrating laughs. It sounds forced. "Quite a vocabulary you've got there, young lady," he says. He immediately pisses me off. His tone, the patronizing smirk – it screams that he sees me as some rookie he can push around. I hold my tongue. Note to self: Watch him. That condescending attitude could spell trouble down the line.
Another wave of nausea hits. "Shit, I think I'm gonna—"
I barely make it to the corner of the room before emptying the contents of my stomach. As I straighten up, the thought of every microbe now coating my mouth, breeding on my tongue, flashes across my mind. The need to rinse, sanitize, to scrub until I'm clean burns almost as badly as the acid in my throat. But all I can do is wipe my mouth with the back of my hand, trying not to think about the bacteria transferring from skin to lips.
I catch Torres watching me. I'm not sure whether he's concerned or just laughing.
My cheeks warm a little. "Some genius medic Reeves recruited, huh?" I say, my voice hoarse from lack of use. "Can't even handle a little nap without puking my guts out."
Torres shrugs his massive shoulders. "Just don't go barfing on anywhere near my kit." Prick.
I look around the room, taking in the faces I'd met briefly when I joined this crew. Names, roles, and details flood my mind, the curse of perfect recall.
Across the room, Novak, our engineer stumbles as he climbs out of his pod. I see his hands tremble as he grips the edge, his breath short, panicked gasps. He prefers to be called 'Chief Engineer.' I’m not sure if he’s pretentious or has an inferiority complex.
"The maintenance shaft," eyes wide with residual fear. "I was trapped in Number Six. Couldn't move, couldn't breathe." Everybody blanks him. I feel sorry for the old boy.
"It's okay, Novak. It was just the neuro-creeps." I walk over to try to calm him, not wanting him to drop with a heart attack or something. He may prefer being called Chief, but he's our only engineer. Indispensable in a wreck of a ship like this.
"I know, but everything about it was so real," he says. He looks - needy.
I hesitate, then pat his shoulder gingerly, immediately staring at my hand afterwards. Lord “knows what I just picked up. Don't worry about it. It's probably your implant acting up. One of the joys of travel. I'll take a look at it later."
"Asshole," a gravelly voice cuts through.
I turn to see Khatri, her scarred face impassive as she checks her teeth in a small mirror. Even Torres looks uneasy. I hadn't spoken to her yet, but she seems like she could suck the warmth from a heated room.
"Implant my ass," Khatri continues, her voice a low growl, “It’s just you shitting yourself. The real monster is inside you, Novak. Eating your old flesh." A smirk twists her lips.
She closes the mirror shut with a sharp click that somehow makes the room flinch. Marks mutters something under his breath, and Khatri's head snaps around. "What was that?" she asks, her voice soft and at the same time menacing.
Without breaking her gaze, Khatri points at Marks. Her lips curl into a smile that doesn't reach her eyes. I try not to take an instant dislike to anyone, but in her case, I'm happy to make an exception. Note to self: Bitch.
Rodriguez steps closer to Khatri and offers a fist bump, which Khatri returns without hesitation. "That's my girl, Aisha." They both laugh, but an uneasy silence settles in the room. Note to self: Bitch's bitch?
My mind catalogs the details of the exchange and my instincts scream at me to stay out of it. I have only spent a day with them, before embarking, so I have to figure out which of them are the vipers. That's a shitty part of this business. There are always vipers. Vipers are the reason I prefer to work alone. I'm already regretting my decision to join this crew.
Ramos hops out of his pod with surprising energy. "Good morning." Ramos is one of those overly happy people. You know, the kind you just want to punch. He seems okay though.
Volkov snorts, pushing his glasses up his nose with a precise motion. "The concept of 'morning' is meaningless in deep space, Ramos. Our circadian rhythms were artificially suspended during stasis. The human body's natural wake-sleep cycle becomes essentially irrelevant during long-duration space travel." He manages to make even basic chronobiology sound condescending. Volkov is a pale, skinny guy, who looks like a librarian. There is something of the night about him. Note to self: Find garlic.
Anyway, I can't help my stupid self. "Jesus, guys. We've been awake for all of five minutes. Are you always like this after stasis?" I can be a bit like that - act first and then regret it.
Ramos laughs but Volkov gives me a dirty look. Additional note to self: Volkov doesn't handle criticism well.
"Back off, germ girl," Khatri says, almost snarling like a dog. "We don't want a peacekeeper."
I'm totally thrown by her intensity and stand there with my brain doing some weird kind of buffering. She thinks she’s tough. The girl doesn’t know what she’s messing with.
Sawyer steps towards me, breaking my daze, and offers me a sanitizing wipe with a shy smile. "Here, Sarah. Thought you might want this."
"Thanks, Olivia," I say, snapping out of it and accepting the wipe gratefully. Sawyer is our primary navigator. Well actually, ARIA is, so I'm not sure what her role in all this is meant to be. But that was how she had introduced herself - Olivia Sawyer, Navigator.
I wipe my hands carefully, making sure I run the wipe along my palms and in the gaps between each finger. I‘m certain that Khatri is staring at me but I don’t give her the satisfaction of engaging.
"A germaphobe medic. Isn't that like an acrophobic pilot?" Glover laughs. He’s one of the ex-military gang of four - Glover, Khatri, Rodriguez, and the big guy Torres.
"Nah," Khatri says, this time her venom directed at him. "It's a pussy like you being a mercenary." Khatri sounds ready for a fight, risky I think, given that Glover looks even crazier than she clearly is.
"In my line of work, a healthy fear of contaminants might just save my life one day," I say, hoping to deflect the dark mood of violence that is building. Inside I’m cringing at how lame I sound.
Glover looks like he's going to kill Khatri, but before he can, ARIA's voice fills the room. "Attention me hearties. Our fearless Cap‘n Black Beard is awake and will brief you in sixty. And before you ask, yes, we have arrived."
My stomach turns a little.
"Well," Tanaka says. She speaks so quietly I struggle to hear her. "I suppose that's just enough time to grab some chow." Tanaka's our computer geek. She's another one who looks like she doesn't belong here. She has a permanent expression of terror on her face. I’d swear that breathing scares her. Where the fuck did Reeves get this crew?
As we file out of the stasis bay, Novak falls into step with me. He's the old man of the bunch, probably late fifties, and fond of talking. He’s the lonely guy you don’t want to be sat next to at the table. When he introduced himself he told me all about his life, and I mean, all.
"You really think it was just the implant? That dream... it was more like real life." He's still worried.
I give him a nod to reassure him, trying to hide a hint of doubt. I have no idea what had caused it. How could I? "I'm sure it's nothing to worry about."
"Can you look at it now? I mean, we've got time. Just to be sure." the poor old boy is almost pleading.
"We can do it later Zac, you’ll be fine."
"No doc, please. Let's do it now." He grabs my arm and firmly steers me down another corridor. It was always going to happen. I just hadn't thought it through. I told you - I’m an act first and then regret it kinda person.
I'm way over my head. I needed this ride and would have said anything to get on board. And I did. I have lied about being a medic. Bluffed my way in. I feel bad about it, but I have to remind myself why I'm really there. What's at stake. I need to get down there as soon as possible.
First thing first, though. How the fuck am I going to fix Novak's neural implant without turning his brain into mush?