Board Thread:The Mech Bay Bar'n'Grill/@comment-24930445-20140526230330/@comment-24866242-20140614015924

Departure from Scott's World

"Korbin is in the cargo bay, digging through every last artifact they snagged," Sandy told Ben as she slipped into the pilot's seat to his left, "and Kat has Jarrid replaying the audio of your little trip."

Ben had taken the controls for the launch and left her to deal with getting everyone else squared away. "Captain's prerogative," he had told her. She hadn't put up much of a fight, and had set about getting their cargo and passengers settled, more or less, while he ran through pre-launch. That taken care of she could take a moment to relax, just the two of them, while she gathered her situational awareness from the various readouts on the control panels in front of her.

"Take a look," Ben told her.

She glanced up at the planet. Ben had inverted the ship shortly after launch and the surface of Scott's world sped by above them as he circularized their orbit before moving far enough away to make their hyper space jump. The planet still looked dark and dirty, like someone had smeared charcoal all over the surface, but the flashes of lightning and the thick cloud cover that had greeted them on their arrival had begun to clear.

"I wonder how long it will take this place to recover?" She wondered.

Ben glanced up at the scenery above before returning his focus to the controls. "It's going to be cold for a while I think, but life will hold on. It usually does. Come back here in five years and you'll see forests popping back up all over the place."

Sandra nodded and they worked in silence for a few minutes. The planet drifted away as the Darwin accelerated. The planet left their field of view and rapidly shrank behind them. Their course took them deeper into the star system, past the sun before bringing them out to the higher orbits where they could safely activate the hyper drive. While Ben handled the sublight maneuvers, Sandra was feeding data to the navigational computer.

"Maintain your current heading," she told him. "Four hours to safe jump distance."

Ben nodded. The solar filters on the forward windows turned themselves up automatically as the star swung ahead of them. In a few minutes they would be past it, but for now the cabin filled with its deep orange glow.

"So..."

Ben glanced sideways at Sandra. She was focused on her control panel. "So?" he prompted.

"So that happened."

He nodded. "Yep." He stifled a smile.

"You want to talk about it?"

It was getting harder to suppress. "I'm good," he told her.

She nodded.

"Do you want to talk about it?" he asked.

"Kinda, yes."

"A little bit of a shock, maybe?"

"Hmmm..." she stalled. "No. Made me a little jealous maybe. Does she grab you like that a lot?"

"Not really. Less than five times I think. First time it happened I had no idea what was going on. It was very unsettling." The sun was directly above them now as they approached their perihelion.

"It seems very intimate. It would be nice to be able to share something like that."

He reached over and grabbed her hand, squeezing it and holding on, letting the ship fly itself for a moment. "If I ever share something like what you're thinking, I'm sure it will be with you," he told her. "With Kat it isn't. She's experiencing something and I get pulled along for the ride. There isn't any melding of the minds. The first time it was barely even a shared experience. I don't think she was even aware of me."

She looked at him, and smiled, shaking off her momentary insecurity. "Thanks," she told him and leaned in for a quick kiss. "I don't mind you being close to her though. I just got used to having you all to myself."

She stood up and stretched. It had been a long day of packing artifacts and moving the pedestal so it could be safely loaded onto the Darwin. "You good for a while? I need a shower. Not that it's going to help all that much. The whole ship still stinks of ash."

Ben nodded. "Go. I'll be down after the jump. If you don't come back first."

Sandra left the cockpit and Jarrid clambered up the ramp past her, plopping down in her empty chair. "That woman is insane!" he declared. "I don't know if I can take two days of this."

“What now?” Ben didn’t bother to look at him.

Jarrid shook his head. “Apparently I’m ‘Computer Operator’ Pallin at the moment. ‘Search for this,’ ‘Play back this part again’. Yeah, I know, I’m overreacting. She’s weirding me out though. She keeps adding some of that language… a word here or there. Then she gets irritated when I don’t understand her. It seems as though she doesn’t realize she’s doing it, but if I know her, she’s doing it just to irritate me. Got fed up and stormed out.”

Ben nodded. Jarrid could overheat, but he usually calmed down just as fast. Somehow he didn’t think Kat knew she was throwing out the alien language though, and that worried him.

“I should head back down before she gets lost or deletes something important,” Jarrid said. “You want anything? Coffee? Back in a minute.”