By Li and Liz (Lokaia and SilvyrWing)
This story was written by two people. It is hopefully integrated enough so that you won't be able to tell who wrote which part! Enjoy!
According to the Christa's clocks, which had been sychronized with the most recent planet at which she'd been docked, it was quite late in the day - approaching midnight, even. No one had quite figured out how to turn off that sychronization feature, and Thelma didn't seem to be talking, which meant that the students ended up doing certain things at odd times on occasion. Having breakfast at eight in the evening, for example. Or going to sleep in the middle of the afternoon.
Or repairing the Starlings at midnight.
The Christa's main docking bay was glowing from the light of eleven escape pods, all of which were docked at various points in the hangar. There were actually spots for fifteen, but no one was quite sure where the missing ones had gotten off to. There was speculation... After all, the Christa had arrived at Starcademy devoid of any life. It was possible that the pods had been used for escape. Alternatively, it was possible that there were just empty docks. It was also possible that the absent Starlings had changed into mice and scampered away; as Thelma would say, it was an exciting Cosmos.
Unfortunately, the task of maintenancing the Starlings often fell to the two most technical minded of the crew - Suzee and Bova. It had been exciting at first, but now it was tedious. Boring. Routine. And more often than not, Bova was famished in some way, shape, or form, even if he'd eaten twenty minutes prior. When he was busy being bored, he'd complain about it, and Suzee would unfailingly reply with a snappish retort, or by rolling her eyes. Today wasn't an exception.
"Next time, pack a lunch," she muttered as she checked the wiring to the oxygen system on one of the ships. She was perched atop the one numbered "Ten." Docked not too far away was Starling Nine... A ship that was permanently damaged and no one ever bothered with anymore. It had almost killed two of the crew at one point.
Starling Nine was not powered up, nor would it ever be again.
"Hey, I'm just tryin' to make conversation," Bova returned, leaning on the pod.
"The sooner we get this done, the sooner we can leave," the Yensidian replied. She tugged on an access plate, and it came loose, falling out of her hands and clattering to the docking bay floor at Bova's feet.
He stepped back from the plate just quick enough to keep it from landing on his toes. Crouching down, he picked it up and inspected it for dings or scratches. If there were any they would have to be smoothed out before the plate was replaced.
As for Suzee's words of leaving soon, both she and Bova were fully aware that they had nothing better to do. More likely than not, Bova would find his way to the mess hall and Suzee would wander off to the engine room.
Exciting.
"I could pack a lunch, but then, after I ate it, I'd say something about still being hungry and we'd be right back where we started." Bova said this in a quiet undertone, not really paying attention to the conversation. There were a few scratches on the plate and he ran his fingers over them.
The Yensidian above him let out a bit of a growl and snapped, "Fine. Then why don't you work somewhere where I can't hear you whine about being hungry? That'll solve both of our problems."
Bova lifted the plate up to his antennae, emitting enough electricity to warm the plate and begin smoothing out the scratches with his fingers. "Actually, it'd only solve your problem. I'd still be hungry."
Suzee growled again.
"Look. Just..." She pointed a cluster of cables toward Starling Six. "Check on the com system in there. We didn't do that last time." Of course they hadn't. They'd been cutting corners because this job easily put Suzee to sleep. There were a thousand things she could be doing, like hanging out with Rosie. Or maybe just sitting alone in the bunk room, talking to Cat.
She pondered for a minute. "Come to think of it, I don't think we did the com check on Three, either." She went about reattaching the cable cluster she'd removed, noting that there was absolutely nothing wrong with it, whatsoever. Meanwhile, Bova stood there and stared up at her.
"The com check isn't technically my job," he noted. "It's yours today. I'm in charge of the life support - which you're doing right now - and landing and docking gear. You're doing my work."
Suzee ignored the fact that he could have been working on the life support systems on the other pods, and cut right to "...Are you still standing there?" She looked down at him, frowning, arching her eyebrows. For emphasis, she tapped her fingernails against the Starling's metal hull. "Because I'm pretty sure I told you to go check the com system on Six. Unless you're telekinetic - which you're not, you're wasting time."
Bova let the slightly electrified plate drop to the floor, and he shrugged. "Fine."
Angrily, Suzee banged her fist on the Starling. "You could at least hand me the damn access cover!"
Feeling smug, Bova continued on to Starling Six. He probably would have just handed the thing over to the Yensidian, if she hadn't acted like her word was law.
Bova was very tempted to tell her how much she sounded like Ms. Davenport, and refrained in concern of his own well-being.
Suzee had jumped down to retrieve the 'damn access cover' and scrambled back up to replace it, just as Bova entered S6. He glanced at the com system and was already fairly certain there was absolutely nothing wrong with it.
However, he was also fairly certain that saying so would not get Suzee off his back.
Suzee, meanwhile, had replaced the plate and was making her way to S3. She, too, could see that the com system was fine. However, now that she had basically ordered Bova to check on the other one, she wasn't about to give him a chance to get out of the work.
Even if it was entirely pointless work.
With a sigh, Suzee began to unscrew the plate over the com system to check the wires that had no problems.
Dropping the plate (loudly) on the floor, Suzee stared into the console at the mess of alien-colored wires. Where a normal person would have color-coordinated them in blacks, reds, and blues, the Lumanians had, somewhere along the line, decided against normalcy. There was a whole tangle of pinks, lime greens, electric blues, and silvers... Not to mention the occasional orange... staring back at her from inside the panel. Of course, that could have been normal for a Lumanian, but it just made Suzee furious.
Of course, she'd come to almost understand this method of disorganization. And the fact was, it LOOKED fine, though at least she could add a mark on her checklist that she'd tested it. Picking up the com, she called over to the Starling 6.
"This is pointless. It looks fine."
Bova, who'd been quietly disconnecting and reconnecting something random under the main panel, was startled by the voice. He jerked his head upward, and consequently bashed it against the main core line. Snapping up the com from its receiver, he spoke into it as sharply as hi could - Which really just sounded bored. "Was that necessary?"
"Of course it was necessary," Suzee replied, wondering vaguely what the crashing sound had been. "What if there was an emergency and we all had to pile into the Starlings? We wouldn't be able to talk to each other if the coms weren't working."
Bova touched his forehead gingerly where he had slammed it against the wall. "Fine. Let's just get out of he-"
Having spent quite a bit of time getting to know the Christa, as well as her inner-workings, Bova and Suzee recognized the slight clicking sound that signaled what neither of them had ordered the Starlings to do.
They also recognized the sort of 'swoosh' noise the doors created as they slid smoothly closed.
There was a pause as Suzee stared in a sort of transfixed confusion at the doors before Bova's voice flooded into the pod again.
"Well, it's a good thing we checked the com systems, Suzee. Otherwise I wouldn't be able to tell you what a bad idea this was."
"...What th--" Frustrated, Suzee attempted to pound on the lifepod's hatch. However, the only thing she ended up accomplishing was bruising her hands, which was, to say the least, not helping anything. She grabbed the com unit again. "What did you do?!" she demanded. Her voice wasn't panicked, just... Well. Severely miffed, to put it mildly. As a distraction to herself, she started hitting just about every button and pulling every lever she could reach.
And suddenly, the lights in the docking bay went out. That wasn't quite what she expected.
"I think a better question here would be 'what did you do," Bova droned. Now that he couldn't see and couldn't escape, he figured he might as well do his best to make sure Suzee was equally uncomfortable. Misery loved company, and all that. Granted, he could probably just short out the controls and get himself out of the pod, but the resulting electrical surge could possibly cripple the Christa and kill the crew.
Not fun.
But then again, what was?
"I didn't do anything. I think I--" Suzee fiddled with the wiring. She couldn't exactly see what she was doing anymore. "--Know a lot more-- About this than-- Aah!" As she crossed two wires that weren't meant to be crossed, she found herself experiencing a mild but painful electrical shock. "Grozit. Well, at least we know the electrical's not down."
"Maybe you should leave the electrical to me," Bova suggested helpfully.
"Maybe you should stuff it," Suzee returned.
Bova decided it would be a good idea not to reply to that and instead emitted enough electricity from his antennae to light up the pod. Once he could see again, he began fiddling with the control box in an attempt to get all the lights up again.
"Do you think you did this to just us or to the Christa as a whole?" he wondered aloud as he worked.
"I didn't do anything," Suzee snapped from the com.
"Other than blind us, you mean."
Suzee was silent, but Bova knew her well enough to understand that meant basically nothing. After a few more minutes of fiddling, he was able to fix whatever Suzee's abuse had done and the lights slowly flickered back on.
Looking around the pod for a moment and finding nothing helpful, Bova sat down. "So? Now what?"
Suzee totally ignored the fact that Bova had the lights working again. She merely sat back in her seat, getting as comfortable as possible (Which wasn't very) while inspecting the damage she'd done to her hand. It wasn't that bad. "If you hadn't noticed, the oxygen isn't working in the pods. So I guess we just sit here and suffocate."
Pause. "Christ. Now I sound like you."
A split second later, the life support systems in the pods came online, including the oxygen. It would have been funny almost, if not for the fact that the pod doors still weren't opening. Pushing down the button on the com, she spoke into it. "Okay, Harlan. Very funny. You can let us out now."
But the silence remained. "Alright. This is really starting to annoy me."
"What doesn't?"
Suzee rolled her eyes, and flipped off the com unit. Hopefully it would STAY off, and she wouldn't have to listen to Bova anymore.
Bova's reaction to the slight click as Suzee turned off her com was to sigh. He stood from the floor and began inspecting the door. There weren't any lose wires, no markings that signified any sort of damage - basically, there appeared to be no reason at all why neither he nor Suzee could open the Starling doors.
Other than the fact that they weren't opening, that is.
"Fine... leave me all alone... no one to talk to... just me and the computer and the ten year supply of oxygen."
"-Supply of oxygen."
Bova jumped, his head snapping back to slam into the wall behind him. Very near angry, he stood to press the com button and snapped, "Would you stop doing that? I'm going to get a concussion here!"
Suzee, meanwhile, was staring at the com unit in surprise. She paused for a moment and then glared at it, pressing the button to speak. "How did you do that? I turned the com off."
"I didn't do anything." The heavy emotion was gone from Bova's voice now, though there was a hint of curiosity. "You didn't turn it back on?"
"...No." Suzee frowned and pulled the panel from the com unit. She could still talk to Bova, but at least now she could see the wires, too. "Nothing looks out of place here," she muttered absently. "There's no reason why it shouldn't be able to turn off."
"Maybe you broke it."
"Maybe you should-"
"Stuff it, I know."
"No." Suzee's voice was terse. "I was going to suggest that you check the uplink to the Christa from your pod." She let go of the button as she dug through the Starling's wiring again. Oddly enough, she found that when she reached the end of the prime cable, it wasn't plugged in! There was absolutely no way they could be communicating between the pods! Of course, on one hand it was good that Suzee had located the potentially deadly problem. On the other hand...
What the hell?
Forgetting that the Starlings were still communicating with each other, she turned to Catalina, whose half-phased form was sitting at the other side of the pod. "Cat. Check the connections from Three to the mainframe. See if the Christa's hooked up to--" She paused. Looked at the com unit. It was still active.
"What'd she say?" Bova wondered with almost genuine interest. Almost genuine, because Bova wasn't really genuinely interested in anything.
"Nevermind," Suzee muttered, acknowleging Cat's reply with a nod. Then she realized that her intentions were to transmit what Cat told her to Bova anyway. "Alright. Fine. The only reason we're able to communicate between pods is because the power supply's hooked into the ship. And I'm guessing the com is a primary system, not a secondary."
"Is that what she said?" Bova wondered.
Suzee remained silent.
"Or did you figure that out on your own? Taking credit for Catalina's work, hm? Well, I'll just call you Harlan from now--"
"NOW you can stuff it!" Suzee hissed.
Boredom has a way of making people say things they normally wouldn't. Things like comparing Suzee to Harlan and not realizing Suzee would find that offensive.
Bova frowned slightly at the com, chastising himself inwardly. Neither of them had any idea how long they would be stuck in the pods - the worst thing he could do at this point was alienate her.
He sat in the pilot's chair and sighed. "Look, I'm sorry. You're not like Harlan. Now will you tell me what Cat said?"
It wasn't great, as far as apologies went, but it was an apology from Bova and that set Suzee back a bit. She actually stared at the com in surprise until Cat prompted her to answer. "...That is what she said. I wasn't lying to you." She seethed inwardly at the accusation and snapped, "I'm not Thelma either, in case you were wondering if I was malfunctioning."
"It crossed my mind."
"Shut up!"
"Alright," Bova said, even though he really had no intention of shutting up. In fact, the silence between the moment he finished speaking and the moment he started again was less that a second. "I was just asking, anyway. It's nothing to get worked up about."
"I'm not," Suzee replied. Then, before Bova could say anything, she snapped, "I'm not! Everything's fine."
There was a span where Suzee didn't say anything. But as soon as Bova opened his mouth to reply, she was talking again. "No, those wires. I checked those. That's not connected. See? Let me show you."
It actually took the young Uranusian a second to figure out that Suzee was still talking to Catalina. At first, he'd been sure she was talking to him, though he couldn't explain why since she couldn't see the progress he'd made on his own com unit... Which was pretty much exactly as it had been before. After all, there really wasn't any reason to move anything around, was there? "Suzee. Cat." It was oddly not strange at all for him to address the invisible crewmate. "Just let it be. It's her."
Suzee stopped talking to herself. "...What?"
"The Christa. She's got us closed in here for some reason. Maybe there's mutant plagues running around the ship, and she's sealed us off. See? She actually likes us."
Suzee settled back, finally confounded enough to not even want to try to figure anything else out. She stared across at Cat, then looked at the com unit. "We didn't find anything anyway."
"She wouldn't really leave it for us to find, would she?" Bova began replacing the com panel, hiding the wires from his view. "She's got us in here for some reason."
"Yes, but what reason?" Suzee asked. Her tone was quiet, voicing more of an idle thought than an actual question.
Bova opened his mouth to reply when Suzee suddenly spoke again. "No one's attacking the ship. There would have been alarms or something."
"I wasn't going to say the ship was being attacked," Bova replied. "We're in the middle of nowhere - no one's there to attack us."
No sound came from the com for a while - enough time that Bova began to suspect Suzee had managed to shut hers off.
"Suzee?"
"I wasn't talking to you," she answered quietly. "I was... it was Cat."
"Oh." Suzee had never talked for Cat the way the Saturnian had for her - before the switch. Most of the crew assumed this was because Suzee's flirting with Harlan would be ruined if Cat constantly interrupted. Bova had a few other theories.
Of course, he didn't completely count out the flirting one.
"So... how's Cat doing?"
"She's fine." Suzee chuckled. "She misses you guys. Though I still can't understand why anyone would want to be stuck out here with--" She cut herself off before she said anything else. Really, Suzee liked the people. It was just the fact that she was stuck in the middle of nowhere without her friends or her books or anything. It wasn't home to her. It wasn't home to Catalina either, really, but at least it was something along the lines of what Cat wanted to do with her life.
"You think we'll ever get back?" she said. "I mean, sometimes it seems like-- You know. When we went through the White Circle that second time. Or... You did. I guess I wasn't really around then." We. When did she start thinking of herself as part of the crew?
"I forgot you were around," Bova muttered.
Suzee inwardly bristled. "Of course you did. At the time, you thought Catalina was crazy."
"She was talking to thin air."
"Point." Pause. "I was defending you! No, I don't think you're crazy."
They're both crazy, Bova thought, as he kicked at the front console. It really wasn't doing anything remotely useful. "Hey, do you think we should try to contact the others?"
"And say what? That we can't find our way out of the Starlings? No thanks. I'd like to keep my dignity."
"The oxygen'll run out in seventy-two hours, and trust me, I'm an expert at knowing how much oxygen these things hold." He eyed the gauge. "But anyway. They'll probably start to miss us anyway, and then they'll come looking, and then we'll get yelled at. But hey. If you want to get chewed out in front of the rest of the crew, that's fine by me. I don't really care."
Suzee sighed and tuned the com to the Christa's main frequency. "Rosie, this is Suzee. Are you there?" Almost a full minute passed before she sent the same message. Addressing Bova, she pondered out loud, "I don't think the message is going through."
Bova groaned inwardly. He'd suspected it. Sort of, anyway. "Figures," he mumbled.
"There's no way you could have known that," Suzee told him flatly. She was always so dead sure she knew what he was thinking. It was when she was right that Bova started worrying.
"Think about it: Christa shut us both into pods, won't let us open the doors, opened the communication channels permanently and won't let us contact anyone else." Bova began drumming his fingers on the countertop. "She's got a plan and I don't think she wants anyone else in on it."
Suzee let out a breath. "I'm really starting to hate being on a sentient ship," she grumbled. "It was fascinating at first - now it's just annoying. What does she care if you and I bond or whatever?"
Bova shrugged, forgetting that Suzee couldn't see him. "Maybe she wants a happy, well-adjusted crew. She might have done the same stuff to the Lumanians before they disappeared."
As soon as he said that, Suzee had a sudden flash of where Starlings twelve through fifteen had gone. "What if... what if Christa trapped her last crew in these pods and then ejected them?"
"It's a possibility," Bova replied, sounding thoughtful. "But I don't think that's the case here."
Morbid as the thought had been, Suzee bristled inwardly at how quickly Bova had shot it down. "Well, why not?" She paused as Cat spoke and sighed. "No, of course I don't want them to have been forcefully ejected from the ship, I'm just wondering why he's so sure I'm wrong."
Bova waited until she had finished speaking to the Saturnian, still slightly surprised Suzee was talking to her at all. "I'm not saying you're wrong - I'm saying it's unlikely. If she was going to get rid of all of us, the whole crew would be in these pods. Instead, it's just me and you. And if she just hates us, she's going about it the wrong way since you and I are the only engineers onboard."
"Oh."
This was starting to get downright boring. In fact, it had really started to get boring as soon as the Starlings had decided to close up. No... That wasn't entirely true. First there was the panic, then there was the rage, now there was the boring. Suzee couldn't help but wonder if they'd skipped a step somewhere. Oh. Yeah. The Logical Reasoning.
Well, no one needed that anyway.
She looked at her hand, noting the fine, faint electrical burn that crossed it. It stung, and now that she had time to think about it, it was kinda annoying. And it still burned if she opened or closed her hand. "Nothing burned or hurt on Yensid. It was all perfect. I mean, I broke a bone when I was six and it was healed twenty minutes later." She had absolutely no idea why she was saying what she was saying. Perhaps it was just to pass the time. "...It was boring."
"Yes. Umbriel was just a pile of laughs. You have no idea." Bova eventually decided that kicking the front panel was getting old. "It was grey everywhere. And do you have any idea what it was like to have to walk to your neighbor's dome colony? We had to put on a space suit. No, of course you don't know what that's like. You have gills."
Suzee rolled her eyes. "We evolved that way for a reason."
"To look freakish and weird in your best friend's dimension," Bova surmised.
"...Besides that."
"Hmph." It wasn't that Bova wasn't just as bored - just that he had never been much for small talk. Especially when said small talk surrounded his home planet or family. There wasn't much to say, and what there was to say, he wasn't in a hurry to talk about.
"Why did you bring that up anyway?" he asked suddenly. "Did you hurt yourself?"
"A little burn from before. Nothing bad, just annoying."
That statement made the fact that Bova was trapped in a Starling even more annoying. While he didn't have the healing expertise Rosie did, he could absorb back the electricity that had burned Suzee and that would lessen at least some of the pain.
Oh well.
He began rotating slowly in the pilot's chair. "What was Saturn like?"
Idle conversation wasn't his forte, but if it was a choice between perfect silence and small talk, he'd take small talk.
"Titan, actually," Suzee responded. "One of Saturn's moons." As Cat spoke next to her about living at home, Suzee relayed the message to Bova. "Cat hated it there. It was pretty much like every other moon in the system - Dead and grey. They were trying to terraform it, but the plants would die before they could make any oxygen. There just wasn't a stable enough atmosphere." There was a short beat as she contemplated for a moment. "...We could have done it." She paused, waiting for Catalina to reply, then said, "We could, too. It's just that no one actually believes we exist."
Bova did. Now, anyway, though at the risk of sounding redundant, he decided not to say as much.
"There was a nice view of the planet from Catalina's house, though. It's huge... It's like, you can see the sun, and it's just this little star on the horizon. Then there's Saturn. Bam. And about five of its moons."
"I didn't really have a view. Our domes were opaque. And we had colonies underground." Not that Bova really cared. A sky was a sky. A house was a house. Dirt was dirt, et cetera. He was somewhat curious as to what the view of Saturn would have looked like from Titan, but mostly for scientific purposes. Studying how one race lived in relation to another.
"Is that why you went to Starcademy?" Suzee quested.
"No. I went to Starcademy because my parents wanted to get rid of me."
Suzee snickered. "That doesn't sound right. Your dad looked pretty happy when he got to talk to you through that buoy we found. Well. Relatively speaking."
"Obligation," Bova replied.
There wasn't really anything else left to do except wait now, though it felt wrong. Suzee felt like she should be doing something, so she decided to start dismantling the navigational column. "Got any fun stories to share from school?"
"No." Bova slowed the spinning of the chair as he became dizzy. "Class there was basically like class here."
"After class stuff," Suzee clarified. "I don't know - pranks on the teachers, stuff you did with your friends. Stuff like that."
"No friends," Bova told her, falling back to kicking the cabinet again. "There were pranks, but none of them were particularly good." He paused for a second to sit up then resumed kicking. "What was school like on Yensid? Or did you have school?"
Suzee disconnected one of the wires in front of her only to hold it for a moment and connect it again. "Of course we had school. Not like the Starcademy, but there were classrooms and professors."
"So, what was different?"
"Mainly, the curriculum." Suzee poked at a few more wires. "I used to get so bored during Cat's classes, I'd start talking to her, trying to make her laugh." Suzee smiled and then laughed out right. "Well, I thought it was funny. And after class, you did, too."
"Was this before or after we got put into the 'specialty class'?"
Suzee grinned. "Before, during, and, of course, after."
"It ever occur to you that maybe the reason Cat was in that class in the first place was because you were distracting her through her regular classes?"
Suzee rolled her eyes. "Yeah, Bova, it was--" Hm. She had a whole biting remark prepared in her mind, but she didn't feel right finishing it for some reason. "...Yeah. It was my fault, I guess. Our connection was temporary. Some sort of phenomenon... I just... At first I wanted to hold onto it and study it. Then when I tried to let go... I was so angry when we found out it was permanent. And I remember... I was like... Six or seven years old, and Catalina says, 'I thought we were friends.' And it hurt to see her upset. But she was right. I realized she was right. I don't even remember why I was so angry in the first place."
"Because you wanted to be perfect. And perfect people don't have imaginary friends." Bova knew he was right.
"...Invisible. Well, technically 'dimensionally displaced.' Alright, fine, Cat. Invisible works." She laughed. "I just didn't think I needed anyone. Or wanted anyone. Anyway, she bothered me in my classes, too. You have no idea what it's like to be in the middle of Industrial telephysics, and have your friend approach you with Protomix problems. I swear, she picked the worst times."
And then she said something that Bova never thought she'd say. "I was in the bottom of my classes, too. I guess I was a-- What did the Commander call you?"
"Space Cases," the boy said. To his credit, Bova didn't laugh, or express any other sort of amazement. He simply replied, "You would have been at the top at Starcademy. You could have taught there."
Bova had intended it to be an expression of fact... He respected Suzee a lot more than he respected some of the teachers at school. However, Suzee took it as a compliment. She smiled, though she was glad Bova couldn't see it. "Why do you think I made fun of Cat's teachers? We learned half of that stuff in our second year. Besides, afterward, I'd go over the lessons with her. She was fine. You know why she ended up in the remedial class, don't you? It wasn't because she wasn't smart."
"Because she was talking to you."
Suzee smirked. "You got it in one."
Bova actually managed the tiniest of smiles; a rare feat for him. "So that was just the long way of saying that I was right, then."
Suzee laughed. "Basically, yeah." She replaced the cover on the navigational console and leaned back against it. "Everyone talks about how egotistical Harlan and I are - you're just as bad. You just don't show it as much as we do."
"Hm," Bova replied with a noncommital shrug. "I figure most people have enough reason to dislike me without adding in 'show-off'.
"Nobody-" Suzee paused. She certainly didn't dislike Bova, and neither did the rest of the crew. But he had a point in the sense that it was annoying being told you were going to die all the time.
Bova managed a humorless smirk the Yensidian couldn't see. "See?"
"Oh, shut up." Suzee stood to examine the piloting controls, looking for problems she could fix. When she didn't find any at all, she opened the console and began fiddling. "So tell me the truth this time: why'd you go to the Starcademy? I know there are academies on Umbriel."
"First off, would you want to be in a school made up entirely of Uranusians? Second, I already told you why I left."
Suzee sighed. "You told me your parents wanted to get rid of you. Knowing you, that's a huge exaggeration. What's the real reason?"
There was silence for a few moments, other than the rhythmic thumping of Bova's foot against the cabinet. "It's half right," he said a bit later. "They wanted me to go and I was good at tactics. Starcademy was the only place I could train as a T.O."
"Okay, see, that's entirely different from what you said before," Suzee chastised him. "You made it sound like they demanded you get out of their home."
"Well, they did, Suzee," Bova replied in a 'are-you-actually-this-dumb' tone. "I was old enough and I was talented enough. It didn't matter if I went to the Starcademy or one on Umbriel - either way I was moving out."
Suzee sighed, exasperated. "Bova, I'm trying to have a conversation here."
"So I noticed."
"Well, just tell me the truth then! Did your parents actually kick you out of the house when you were fourteen?"
"No."
Suzee smiled, triumphant and went back to the panel she had been neglecting while arguing. "Thank you."
"I was eleven."
"Er- That's... I still think you're exaggerating." Whew. Nice recovery, she thought. "At least they wanted the best for you. And I guess Starcademy is one of the best." She made a very obvious cough into her sleeve. At least she got to wear the jumper when she was on tech duty, and not that uniform. It was a whole lot easier to breathe. "You don't seem so bad, though. I mean... You're no Rosie. But you aren't as bad as..."
Subject change. It was time to one-up someone. "My parents really loved me. Seriously. They spoiled me. But every chance they got, they'd make me feel stupid. I don't think they did it intentionally..." As she thought more about it, maybe life on the Christa wasn't so bad. As least she was the most intelligent one there! Well. Everyone had their strong points, she supposed. Like, Suzee knew how to navigate from reading about it, but she probably couldn't actually do it to save her life. And she certainly wasn't medically inclined, like Rosie, or coldly tactical, like Bova. Thank the gods she wasn't hysterical and uptight like Miss Davenport. They only needed one of those on the ship.
She was starting to make the mental connection that her and Bova were really similar... Though she didn't actually want to admit it. The problem was, Cat had also noticed, and the Saturnian was being quite vocal about it. Thankfully, Bova couldn't overhear.
"Er... What do you think I've been saying?" he asked. When he spoke again, it was slowly. "My parents wanted me gone. They had nothing civil to say to me. So I--"
"Would you SHUT UP?!" Suzee suddenly demanded.
Bova was speachless for all of two seconds. "Make up your mind. Do you want me to talk at you or not?"
Suzee sounded livid. "Not you. Her!"
Bova was quite possibly as shocked as he had ever been in his life. The rage is Suzee's voice was borderline homicidal and he was suddenly thankful he was three full Starlings away from her.
"Her?" he repeated. "Oh, Cat? Er... what's she saying?"
Suzee's face was burning and she, too, was grateful she and Bova were seperated. "Nothing. She's just being stupid." She made a murderous face towards her best friend, who was currently singing a song that included two people sitting in, of all things, a tree and the spelling of a word Suzee was not inclined to agree with.
Bova decided to leave well enough alone and put the subject back where it needed to be - anywhere else. "Okay, so your parents made you feel dumb. How?"
It wasn't the best way to start a conversation, but the factual way in which he said it surprised Catalina enough to shut her up. Suzee was so grateful to the Uranusian, she actually answered the question. "It wasn't that they did it on purpose... it was just that... well, nothing I ever did seemed good enough for them." She stretched her legs out as far as they would go on the floor - which, really, wasn't very far - and sighed. "They were both geniuses. I mean, I know that doesn't sound like much... I'm a genius to you guys, but my parents..." She waved a hand he couldn't see, dismissing the topic. "They just expected more, I guess."
Bova was silent and Suzee appreciated it. Aside from Cat, she'd never confessed that information about her parents to anyone. Maybe it was because of the connection Cat had made to how alike Suzee and Bova were. Then again, maybe it was just the boredom. Whatever it was, she didn't regret telling him.
"They'd be proud of you, though."
Suzee started. There had been a tiny bit of compassion in the boy's tone. Scary. "For what?" she demanded with a bit of a scoff. "I haven't done anything."
"You've saved our lives," Bova continued, using the same unnatural tone - for him. "If you want, you could look at it like... well, like you're helping out people less fortunate. Community service or something." He paused and shrugged. "Or something that makes us sound less like convicts."
"You're not less-fortunate," Suzee muttered.
"You know what I'm getting at." He sat cross-legged on the chair. "I think Christa is better for all of us - maybe even you. I mean, you can't possibly feel dumb with all of us around."
"You're not less fortunate," she repeated. "You're just... backward. A little." She looked down, trying her best not to smile. Cat puzzled at this, and felt strangely compelled to keep silent. She was enjoying the show. "So I went overboard a bit. I was suddenly the mysterious genius friend that was actually real. I had a STARSHIP to play with. I had people that wouldn't look down on me. What else was I supposed to do when I got here? Just... You know what I mean. I guess it was fun to be able to use what I knew. Back on Yensid, people could just figure things out in the time it took to blink. There was nothing anyone didn't know. See, it's different with Cat. She's an alien to them. And that's okay. They don't expect her to be Yensidian."
"It'll wear off sooner or later." Bova yawned. "They'll get sick of her. Then they'll have to send her back. Which begs the question, what do we do with two headstrong engineers on board?"
Suzee actually chuckled at that. "You know, I wouldn't be surprised if they could figure out dimensional travel in a heartbeat. I wonder why they haven't."
That was an easy answer. "Maybe because it involves explosion and danger. Not a great combination. Especially when you're in a lab planetside." He paused. "Hey, you know what I noticed?"
Suzee remained silent, waiting for him to continue. After a brief moment, he did. "When I said that part about having two engineers on board, you didn't say anything about going back."
Honestly, she hadn't even thought twice about it. It was just one of those things that slipped past that Suzee wasn't concerned about in the least. Did she want to go home? Of course! She missed her mom and dad, and her sisters, and her cybernetic dog. She missed her friends and hangouts. But it came down to the question, which family would she miss more? "I'd... be on training for at least ten years before I was assigned to a Starship post," she offered as an explanation. "if I was even able to qualify. Who'd want that after this?"
"Good point," Bova offered.
"And Catalina... Yeah, she missed it. But she's currently one of Yensid's only talented artists. There's so many scientific careers there. No one thinks about the other stuff. I bet you didn't know Cat could draw, did you?"
"No, I didn't. The Starcademy's a military school, you know. No room for anything else." Maybe a little constricting in that, but then again that was why they had all gone. To be in the military. Yay. "I'm surprised she didn't keep a sketchbook."
"Oh, she did," Suzee replied. Even though the conversation revolved around her, Suzee had practically forgotten Catalina was there beside her. "It's probably still in her dorm, actually. She didn't have it with her when you all boarded the Christa. Plus, she never showed it to anyone."
"Why not, if she's so talented?"
This time it was a conscious decision not to look at Cat as she spoke. "Same problem as you, really. No friends - no one to show it to." Suzee began picking at lint that had gathered on her jumpsuit. "She never showed anyone at home because of her aunt."
Bova had known that Cat lived with her aunt on Titan, but had no idea what had happened to her parents or what Cat's relationship with her aunt was. "What, her aunt hated art or something?" he asked.
"Sort of." Suzee immediately frowned at the mention of the Saturnian woman. "I hated her. Cat 'disliked her', which is a nicer way of saying she hated her." Suzee's frown became more pronounced as she remembered how Cat had been treated there. "But whatever. Let's change the subject."
"To what?"
"To anything. I don't care." Suzee thought for a moment. "You said you didn't have any friends at Starcademy. What about in Umbriel?"
Bova shrugged. "Not really. It was such a pain to get to someone else's colony, everyone mainly kept to themselves. Besides, the majority of Uranusian's aren't much for socializing."
"So, you never had contact with anyone?"
"Some people. My parents, yeah, and my teachers."
Suzee was running out of things to talk to Bova about. "Well, what about siblings?"
"I'm an only child," Bova replied. He wasn't trying to shoot down Suzee's ideas, there just wasn't much to talk about concerning his childhood. "Most Uranusians are, actually, unless they're twins or triplets or whatever. Even then, they might be split up." He almost felt guilty for not being able to move the conversation along. Hoping to get somewhere, Bova moved the conversation back to Suzee. "What about you? Do you have any siblings?"
"Zoe, she's my younger sister." Suzee almost sighed in relief for not having to talk about what seemed like a typical depressing Uranusian childhood anymore. "She's the pride and joy of the family." Suzee paused and then smiled. "But I like her anyway."
"She sounds like a brat," Bova noted.
"She was, a little bit," Suzee admitted. "Always got top marks. She didn't even have to try. I was always so jealous. But she couldn't jump."
"...jump," Bova wondered aloud.
"Yeah. She couldn't pitch consciousness. It was some sort of allergy she had... It wasn't pretty." Just thinking about it caused Suzee to shudder. "She's supposed to grow out of it, but hasn't yet. I know... She used to practice on me. Something in her brain is off. She used to get stuck in my mind for hours."
Bova said nothing at first, mostly because he really couldn't believe Suzee was talking about telepathy like it was just an everyday thing. Telepathy was something that was just... Unfathomable, really. Except if you were talking to a certain Spung princess... But then again, Elmira was just weird anyway. "That's... annoying."
"You have no idea."
"I wasn't aware there were any downsides to it," he remarked. "I mean, with me, heh, if I'm not careful, I can kill myself. It's not like it takes no energy to generate electricity."
Suzee snickered. "I thought you were of the opinion that everything would kill you."
"That's beside the point," he said. Something crossed his mind. Something he'd been thinking about for a long time. "If you're so stupid where you're from, how'd you come up with a way to switch dimensions when no one else could? That's gotta count for something."
Suzee shrugged. "It probably does count for something. Actually, it probably counts for a lot. The only problem is, I'm not there to get any of the credit." Cat was, though, and Suzee knew she had told the entire story.
That was comforting. Though, it would probably be more comforting if Suzee herself had been there to get the glory.
"Hm. Must be nice to know that everyone back home respects you, though," Bova told her.
Suzee shrugged again. Both of them had long forgotten the other person couldn't see their actions. "Well... what about you? You've done a lot more on this ship then you ever would have done at the Starcademy. That should get you a lot of respect once you get back to Umbriel."
Bova scoffed. "Not likely. My parents already think I'm dead, which means the rest of the colony does, too. My surviving will raise a little interest, but not much else."
Suzee paused, her brow furrowing. "You're a weird race, you know that? You Uranusians. It's like you exist to make each other feel bad. A whole race of pessimists."
"We're not pessimists, we're logical." Bova smiled slightly and teased, "There's a difference."
There was shocked silence before Suzee began to chuckle. "Was that a joke?"
"Don't tell anyone."
"I won't."
"In any case, it's the truth - logic, not pessimism." Bova shook his head. "Just think of all the trouble this crew would get into if my logic wasn't around?"
Suzee smiled, rolling her eyes. "Egotistical."
"Doesn't mean I'm not right."
"Touche."
"Besides," Bova added. "You really don't have too much room to talk. You're walking that fine line between 'genius' and 'evil genius.'"
"Well, I-- Wait." Suzee narrowed her eyes at the com unit, which had literally become the only representation of Bova there was. Granted, he was in the other pod several dozen feet away, but it didn't seem right to turn and narrow her eyes and the electrical router. "...We keep going back to me. And where I normally wouldn't complain, we seem to be avoiding the subject of you altogether. That's not fair."
It wasn't? He didn't want to talk about himself. What was the big deal? He wasn't exactly the most interesting person. In fact, he was pretty boring as most things went. Besides, people seemed to get tired of hearing about his failures, and he'd learned long ago that it was easier to acquaint yourself to people if you weren't telling them how much of a downer you were. "There's nothing to say."
"I don't believe that." Her tone was insistant. "C'mon. Who are you? Who is Bova?"
He rolled his eyes, flopping back in his chair and remaining stubbornly silent for a while. "I'm being serious. Look, last time you tried to call me on my own life, I ended up being right. About my own life. I think I know what I'm talking about, and I thought you didn't like being wrong."
"I figure if I'm wrong enough times, I'll come across something I'm actually right about," Suzee explained. "And I think I just hit on something. What did you do for fun?"
They'd already been over this. There wasn't any room in his life for fun. "Well, there was Lineland. That just played on the fact that anything anyone does for fun is just really wasting time."
"We've heard all about that," Suzee grumbled.
"Fine. Fine. There was one point in my life I wanted to get into chemistry and physics. I like science." Bova rolled his eyes.
Suzee smirked. "Go on."
"I can practically hear that smirk, Suzee," Bova told her tiredly. "And that's all it was. I did experiments all day every day for about a week."
There was a pause as both waited for the other to speak. "And?" Suzee demanded.
"And what? That was it."
"The only thing you had fun with, you only did for a week?" Suzee glared at the com again. "Come on. I told you the truth."
Bova frowned, annoyed. "Why do you always think I'm lying to you? There's nothing for me to gain from it - I'm telling you the truth. I was really into chemistry and then I wasn't."
"Well, why weren't you?" Suzee pressed. "What changed?"
"Nothing changed!"
"Then why did you stop?"
"Maybe I stopped liking it."
"Now you're lying to me again! You've done experiments on the Christa, too!"
"Damn it, Suzee, I'm not lying!"
"Then why did you stop doing experiments?"
"Because I was asked to!" Bova shouted. "Because I was going to be a tactical officer and tactical officers aren't scientists - they're tactical officers! I had a job planned and it wasn't to do experiments all day!"
A stunned silence followed in which both Suzee and Bova regretted how far the conversation had gone. Suzee, because she had gotten Bova emotional to the point of cursing and shouting at her. Bova, because admissions like his incurred pity from others.
"I like to read," he said finally.
Suzee didn't exactly have pity on her mind, though. She was at that almost-furious-but-not-quite point that made her sound like a know-it-all. But she was also incredulous. "...Bova. Suck it up and do it anyway. There's no law that says you have to be unhappy, you know. Yeah, you're a great tactician, and you can still do that... I mean, gods, you point out things that could go wrong before they happen. That's invaluable. But if you don't enjoy it, don't do it."
Bova wasn't sure what to expect. It wasn't that, though, and he was almost grateful that she was angry instead of sorry. Still, he wasn't quite sure it was her right to tell him about what he could and couldn't do. "...I said I like to read."
The Yensidian's tone was still tense. She hated the fact that he was just brushing her off, yet at the same time, she didn't want to call him on that. Didn't want to alienate him. "What do you like to read?" she asked.
It was almost as if both of them had forgotten they were stuck in the shuttles. Both were equally interested in what the other would say next. Subconsciously, maybe, they didn't want to be found, even though neither would complain if Christa suddenly decided to open the Starlings' hatches. "Just about anything," Bova finally replied. "Science. Mystery. Science fiction. Horror. Whatever happens to be lying around."
"Romance?" Suzee ventured.
Bova paused. Yes, he'd read romance. He just didn't really want to admit it. "...You'd know a lot about that, wouldn't you?"
It could be taken as an insult, and the way Cat was tensing, Suzee figure that's how the Saturnian thought she would take it. Suzee surprised even herself, however, when she laughed out loud. "No, not really," she told him, her tone slightly sheepish. "I know I make a point of flirting a lot here, but... back home, I wasn't all that popular."
"Taking advantage of easy marks?" Bova suggested.
Suzee laughed again. "Bova, honestly, the way those two dote on me is such an ego boost."
Bova smiled a bit himself. "An ego boost. Just what you need, right?"
"Well, maybe not, but still, it's nice to have--" Suzee stopped and frowned. "You did it again!"
"Did what?"
"We're talking about you here, not me." Suzee made another attempt to glare at Bova through the com. "What about you? I've never seen you flirt, but you must have been interested in somebody at some time."
Bova groaned almost inaudibly. He hadn't consciously changed the subject, but he was more comfortable with it being on Suzee than on him. "I don't know," he answered noncommitantly. "Not a lot of Uranusians have relationships, per se. Not like humans or Rigelians do. Some people fall in love, but it's on a ratio that's something like one to one thousand."
Suzee rolled her eyes, exasperated. "You're falling back on your peoples' beliefs again and I didn't ask about them. I asked if you liked anyone."
Bova could think of very few things he would dislike discussing more than this. He sighed and looked away from the com. Somehow, if he wasn't looking at the com then he wasn't really looking at Suzee, and that made it better. For no logical reason at all. "Yeah... sort of... she wasn't Uranusian, though. She was in one of my classes at the Starcademy. But, well..." He sighed again, though inaudibly this time and in frustration more than anything else. "Non-Uranusians aren't big fans of us, or our pessimistic mindsets."
"Did you ever talk to her?" Suzee demanded. For some reason the topic of Bova taking chances on a girl that had, most likely, completely forgotten about him by now, was very important to Suzee.
"No, I didn't talk to her. Not about that, anyway."
Suzee frowned, annoyed. "Well, that was stupid," she said flatly. "Now you'll never know if you had a chance or not."
"Look, I'm not as absorbed in who-likes-who as some people are. I realized it wasn't going to work, which means that asking would have been a waste of my time. And she was out of my league anyway."
Suzee just thought that was incredibly sad. Nevermind the fact that they both seemed to have trouble with the opposite sex... At least she'd asked people. Perhaps she was a sadder case than Bova. "It wasn't Rosie, was it?"
"No," Bova replied. "Not Rosie. Rosie and I... We're fr- We understand each other, but she's not what I'd call an ideal partner. No... She was Saturnian. Green and yellow hair that she always had back in a ponytail... It wasn't short like Cat's. I don't really like short hair."
Suzee idly twirled her own hair around her fingers... It wasn't that short, really...
...What was she thinking? She shook her head. "Cat wanted you to know that her hair isn't short anymore."
"I'm not interested in Catalina."
Suzee snerked. "She says that's just fine with her, and that she's glad you understand each other."
"Good."
"Good." Suzee pondered continuing along the same vein. She was kinda interested in where this conversation was going now, though she could tell Bova was uncomfortable with it. She figured his suffering was a small price to pay for her own entertainment. "...What was she like? What was her name?"
"Tatiana. She was a year ahead of me, and she was going into orbital specimen reseach. To me it always seemed like a REALLY specialized field, but when we talked about it, she--"
"Ah! So you did talk to her!"
Annoyed, Bova sighed. "Yes. You asked if I asked her about any romantic interests I may have had. I told you the truth, which was 'no.'"
"You also said--"
"And no, she wasn't a friend. She was a lab partner. And she was... She was smart. She wasn't overly friendly, and she just... Why are we talking about this again?"
"To make you uncomfortable."
"I thought so."
Suzee smiled. "Oh, come on. It's not that bad, is it? Come on, tell me more about her."
Bova suddenly realized he had an expression on his face like he had just swallowed a lemon, and it had been there for about ten minutes. "She... she was smart and... and kind - but not Mercurian-kind. She knew when to tell people to... you know, stuff it and when to be nicer... she didn't treat me like a little kid just because I look like one." He looked away from the com, not really speaking to Suzee anymore. "She was a good person."
Suzee was quiet for a bit, lost in her own thoughts. "The way you describe her," she began thoughtfully, quietly, "it seems like you wouldn't be interested in a Uranusian anyway. You're looking for emotion."
"If I was looking for emotion, I would have pursued Rosie."
"I'd pay money to see you try and kiss her."
Bova shuddered before he could stop himself. He couldn't be burned electrically, but pure heat like that would hurt. "You're missing the point."
"Which is what?"
"Which is I'm not completely emotionless or soulless or whatever else anyone thinks."
Suzee frowned and finally some of the pity Bova had previously expected her to show came out a bit. "...I don't think you're soulless."
"You're missing the point again."
"I don't think I am."
That set Bova back a bit. "Okay... then... what's the point? To you?"
"The point is--" Suzee needed something to do. Fast. To distract her from what the point actually was. "The point is that we've been sitting here for almost an hour and we're still not out of these pods." She slid off her seat and onto the floor, then proceeded to stare at the same coil of electrical mess she'd been looking at the whole time already.
"I told you to leave the electrical to me," Bova said. His voice was eerily calm for the realization he'd come to.
Suzee eyed the red, streaked burn on her hand. "Yeah, I know. But if I could just reconnect this..."
"It's the com unit, Suzee. It's not going to open the doors." It was Bova's turn to be vaguely amused. Seeing Suzee uncomfortable was a rare thing. A thing to be valued. A thing to write home about, if he thought his family would care. He expected her to respond to him, but instead, she only muttered something to Catalina. He couldn't quite make it out.
Meanwhile, Suzee was seated on the floor of the Starling, knees up to her chest. She was still staring at the com, not moving, as if she was a deer caught in headlights. Catalina wasn't really joking anymore, especially since, like Suzee and Bova, she knew exactly what the point was.
Bova didn't want her to stop talking. He had to prompt her somehow. "...There could have been a short..."
"You were describing me," Suzee said, quite suddenly. Then she instantly regretted it. What if he hadn't been? She'd have to add embarrassment to her repertoire of unfamiliar emotions for the day.
It was the sort of surprise one felt where their eyes grew impossibly large and they backed up three feet.
However, the Starling only allowed Bova to back up about twelve inches.
"I..." His brain wasn't functioning and that was a problem. He gave it a moment to readjust itself and then attempted to speak again. "I wasn't describing you."
In her own Starling, Suzee felt as though something had cracked inside her. For someone who hadn't realized what all this meant this morning, it was hitting her awfully hard right now. "Fine," she said tightly. "So, you think something shorted out?"
"Suzee-"
"What do you think it was?"
"Suzee, I-"
"Maybe it's the main cable drive."
"Will you just-"
"It's been fritzing a little in the Command Post anyw-"
"Are you going to let me defend myself or not?"
"Defend yourself from what?" Suzee spat. Her pride had been wounded and that meant someone else had to be wounded, too. "I made a mistake, so what? You're the first one to point out when I have."
"If you'd just let me speak for two seconds, I could-"
"SO THE MAIN CABLE DRIVE," Suzee shouted, drowning out Bova's voice. She could already feel a burning sensation that signalled tears and fought them down. It was bad enough seeing Cat's face, already voicing pity, without crying, too.
She didn't expect Bova's next words.
"I WASN'T DESCRIBING YOU BUT IT STILL APPLIES."
Suzee stopped, simply staring at the com in silence. Bova cleared his throat and moved closer to the com, the clarity of his voice letting Suzee know he had moved.
"You... you do remind me of Tatiana," he said quietly. "Not from the beginning, but recently. I mean, you're egotistical and flirty and sometimes really annoying-"
"So, the main freaking cable drive-"
"BUT," Bova interrupted loudly, "you're still a lot like her. You... you don't treat me like a child. ...Anymore. And you're kind when you want to be. You know when to tell someone to shut up and when to stay out of it." He sighed a little, incredibly uncomfortable. "I was thinking of Tatiana when I described her, but... the description... it applies to you, too."
She suddenly didn't feel very good. What had she gotten herself into? Why had she even said anything? "I really wish--" What? That the com system had gone out, too? Then she'd be complaining about being bored later. She swallowed, finding that her vision really wouldn't focus on any one particular thing. And she was thirsty.
This was so easy with Harlan and Radu, she thought. But then again, they weren't really like her. Harlan was... Harlan. They were too much alike for that that relationship to go anywhere. And where she valued Radu's softspoken intelligence and empathy, he was also one of those people that was just a friend to her. All that translated into the one fact that they were easy to lead on, but not so much her type. She looked at Cat, offering the Saturnian an expression that said "I need to get out of here. Now."
Catalina hurriedly went about trying to find a way to open the pod.
The silence on Suzee's end, to Bova, was disconcerting. "...You still there?"
"Yeah." Her voice cracked. "...I thought that... Maybe..." She sighed. "I'm sorry. I don't know what to say."
"...There's a shocker."
For once, she didn't tell Bova to shut up. In fact, it almost seemed as if she didn't hear him. Had it been the wrong thing to say? Bova couldn't help but wonder. Talking to Suzee, though, was like skating on a lake with paper-thin ice - You knew you'd fall through, you just didn't know when. And in all seriousness, what else COULD they say that wouldn't embarass them further? Or sound cliche? He leaned on the front console. "I mean that, too. And despite the fact that you think I've been lying about my life to you this whole time... I haven't been. And I'm not about to start now."
"I know."
Bova would have liked very much to open the floor panels, crawl inside, and wait there until he expired. Recent realizations made that idea particularly appealing, even though Suzee couldn't see him and didn't seem to be in any sort of mood to talk to him.
"Why do you flirt with Harlan and Radu?" he asked suddenly. It wasn't a question that had bothered him for some time, just an idle curiosity. "I mean... if they aren't your type. Because we're nothing alike and-"
That was crossing into territory Bova did not want to enter, although stopping abruptly like he had probably didn't do any good either.
Suzee wasn't surprised by the question, really. She had been expecting it - just not now, not under these circumstances.
Hell, she hadn't even expected "these circumstances".
"I don't know," she admitted finally. "I didn't get a lot of attention on Yensid... it was nice to be... They fight over me, Bova. Like I'm some sort of prize or something." She shook her head, smiling a bit as she remembered the two boys' antics. "It's nice to feel like you're worth something, even if you know it isn't true, or it's not substantial or whatever."
"Oh."
It seemed like the right thing to say. Bova had always considered Suzee rather two-dimensional... Like those characters he'd read about in some of his books that just never changed. They were there for one purpose, and one purpose only... And that was to hamper the plot. Suzee... Was the engineer. She was there to make sure the Christa didn't fall apart. She wasn't supposed to jump off that page in her book and suddenly become a main character.
"Yeah. It was fun for a while." Suzee smirked a little at the memory. It still was fun, really. It was just getting old as both Harlan and Radu realized she was playing them both. Besides, Harlan was actually starting to miss Catalina, and that was Suzee's cue to back off. Not that he hadn't missed Cat before, but the suddenness of a stranger appearing on the ship in the middle of nowhere caught him offguard.
And Catalina was okay, anyway.
...And it was Harlan.
The biggest problem now was not that they had nothing to say. It was that both had just about too much to say and no way to say it. This was one of those... Relationships? No. It was just a "Thing" right now! It was one of those things where if had been so sudden and unexpected that neither of them really knew if it was real. They were LIKE each other?
Yeah. No doubt.
But did they LIKE each other?
And that, Shakespeare, is the question.
So Bova thought about it. He thought about his first impressions of Suzee, which included surprise, respect, and exasperation. Later impressions included even more surprise, more respect, and more exasperation. She was pushy and know-it-all, egotistical and far too sure of herself. She looked down on him. Of course, so did the rest of the crew, minus Rosie, since he looked so much younger than the rest of them. It was slightly better, though not much, when she ceased disrespecting him for his age and started up on his heritage instead.
Non-Yensidians being retards, and all.
He'd proved her wrong often, though. Surprised her with his electrical or tactical knowledge. His basic intelligence. Yensidian or not, he had shown her up before.
She wasn't great at losing, not exactly gracious. Then again, neither was Cat. And they both had their more endearing qualities.
Suzee had saved his life, mainly indirectly, more times than he could count. They'd known each other more than three years and in that time Bova had been forced to see all of the crew members as more than two-dimensional. This included Suzee, but... well...
Suzee, so far as Bova knew, had never opened to anyone like she was currently doing to him.
Cards on the table, then. She was brilliant, strong, capable. Egotistical, flirty, stubborn. Beautiful. Annoying. Kind. Snarky. Kind of a bitch...
...Basically, he liked her.
What an admission! One that Suzee wasn't privy to at all as she sat in her own Starling, knees pulled up to her chest as she rested her chin on one of her arms. She wasn't looking at the com anymore, mostly because neither of them had actually said anything in several long minutes, and partly because she didn't want to look at Bova... And right now, he was the com.
How had she gotten into this? She'd gone from being the happy, flirtacious walking snarkfest to actually being considerate of someone else's feelings. Granted, she was personally involved in said feelings, but that didn't really matter. Did she like Bova? Before today, she'd considered him to be "Okay." An equal in some ways, even. The more she thought about it, though, the more she realized she never really thought of him as a little brother, even though he was three or four years younger than she was.
Sigh.
Idly, she traced her finger along the red marks on her hand. It stung, but the pain took her mind off of That Question... Even though That would have to be answered eventually. And to think, all this uncomfortable silence could have easily been avoided if she'd kept her mouth shut.
...But he hadn't shut her down. Her confidence was returning. Suzee looked back to the com, offering it... and Bova... the tiniest of smiles. They were so much like each other! Why hadn't they seen it before?
Because That Person is always in the last place you'd think to look.
She hadn't really shown them herself since the first day she was on the Christa. What had she said? She'd been hiding behind the wall, trying to listen to them. Radu had heard her... It was humbling. Embarassing. Oh. Yeah.
"...So. Where do we go from here?"
"Out of these damn Starlings, with any luck." Bova was perfectly aware of the nature of the answer Suzee was looking for. He just didn't quite know what to say to her yet.
Better to let her handle it.
"Where do you want to go from here?" And at this point, Bova felt the need to smack himself because there is no doubt that his tone is guarded. He's protecting himself. And from what?
From his own admission. Great.
Suzee's smile dropped a bit and she turned from the com, almost frowning in thought. Where did she want to go... Of course, she hadn't actually admitted anything to Bova yet. The ball was in her court. There was a really great sense of power in that. She could agree with him, or shoot him down.
't she?
Bova wasn't Harlan or Radu. Suzee couldn't exactly predict what he would do when turned down. She couldn't really predict what he would do if she agreed with him either. It was a game of cards where Suzee knew what was in her hand, but not exactly what was in Bova's. Hell, she didn't even know if they were playing with the same deck.
It was a game of chance - of risks. But she was good at risks, and better at taking chances.
So now, the question became, was she ready to take this chance?
Maybe it would be better to just see what happened, Suzee thought to herself. Not make any demands. Not try to force an answer either way. They had at least a couple more years on the ship anyway. It wasn't like Bova was going anywhere. Besides. This meant she didn't have to admit anything where love - or at least like was concerened... And love could occasionally be taken as a weakness. Suzee didn't like to be weak.
Bova was thinking just about the same thing, actually. Except he was quite sure the world could possibly end any time before his pre-dinner snack. The positive side of that was that he wouldn't be alive to know where this whole thing would go, and he wouldn't have to worry about it. So, in theory, he could put it off to worry about for later, with the incentive that he might not have to worry about it at all.
See? He was starting to think positive! Rosie would be proud.
"Let's see if we can work on patching the radio into the network, alright?" suggested Suzee. "Cat can look around outside the Starling. Not far, but she can see if there's anything that we can re-route through the consoles. Damn. I wish there was a way the crew could see her. She could get us out of here." She reached above her head, flicking a few switches here and there, then shutting them off a moment later. No, no, no.
"Yeah," Bova responded, grateful for the change in subject. He began doing basically the same thing in his Starling, working with the wiring on the floor. It wasn't long before Suzee's voice came through thte com again.
"Hey, Bova?"
"Mnn?"
"...I'm glad we got a chance to talk."
Bova surprised himself with a smile. A small smile, unnoticeable to most, but genuine. "Yeah," he said after a while. "Yeah, me too."
Suzee smiled herself. This was good. There was an unspoken agreement between them. Unspoken and not exactly clear, but clarity could come later. No one needed it right now.
"Hey, Suzee?"
"Huh?"
"Just do me one favor."
Suzee's smile shrunk, just slightly, and she raised an eyebrow at the com. "...What?"
"Say it."
Suzee knew exactly what he wanted her to say and it annoyed her to no end. "Say what exactly?"
Bova sighed over the com. "You're still going to try and play with me? Now?"
"Well, why do you even need to hear it?" Suzee demanded, snappish. He was asking her to be vulnerable, asking to take the ball out of her court. The power was hers! Hers!
...Why couldn't it be hers for at least ten minutes?
"Ilikeyou," she muttered quickly. If there were higher beings out there and if they did like her the tiniest little bit, Bova would take that.
In his own Starling, Bova felt... validated. It was strange, to say the least. After a few moments, he nodded.
"Yeah. I'll take that."
Suzee rolled her eyes, shaking her head as she stood up as much as the Starling would allow. Boredly, she pulled the hatch off the overhead nav console and began pulling the coiled wiring out left and right until she had access to the computer terminal located therein. With a few quick adjustments, she had it patched into the Starling network. Too easy.
As she worked, she turned her head toward the com again. "Hey Bova?"
Bova knew what was coming. But just because he was ready for it didn't make him any less compulsed to roll his eyes. "You're being horribly unoriginal for an engineering genius."
"Maybe I am. I wanna hear it, too."
"Technically, the--"
"Bova."
He grunted at the com, hoping that she'd take the noise as the statement she wanted to hear. After all, she might have been able to read minds - he'd have to ask her how she did that some day - but she didn't have Radu's hearing. It seemed to work for a moment, but then she spoke again.
"I can either patch us into the com network," She began in a sing-song voice, "or we can sit here 'til we run out of oxygen."
So much for the humility, Bova thought. This was the Suzee he knew. Well, that was actually somewhat of a relief. She wouldn't have been as appealing if she'd gone totally soft. "Fine. You're likable."
She rolled her eyes again, though this time she did so with a smile. Even that must have been hard for him to say... So Suzee could deal with that. "Right. Well. Christa's letting us into the network now. She must think we've talked enough. I'm wondering why she just doesn't open the door, though... Unless we shorted it out or something."
Bova grunted.
"I have to cut out our channel for a sec to call--" the Yensidian began. And then the com link between them went spontaniously dead.
Bova glanced at the com again, briefly, before turning back to kick at the cabinet. Suzee had a habit of turning off coms too soon. In fact, she was probably still talking in her Starling.
"-the rest of the crew," Suzee finished, still pulling at wires. Catalina was babbling something about how she had cut the connection to Bova's Starling too soon, which Suzee promptly ignored. She had a job now, and a job was good to keep your mind off of things you... didn't want your mind on.
"Ha!" The sound of success reverberated through the small ship as Suzee grinned at her work. "I knew I could do it," she told the Saturnian, and then ignored the following comment that she could have done it far sooner if she'd only put her mind to it.
Suzee eagerly turned on the now-ship-broad com. "Suzee to Christa. Anyone there?"
"Commander to Suzee. Problems down there?" Suzee breathed a sigh of relief before replying. No reason to let anyone know she had been worried.
"Yeah, Bova and I have been stuck down here for hours! I'm in Starling Six and he's in Three."
There was a pause before the Commander spoke again, and when he did it was with rich amusement in his voice. "You've been stuck this whole time and this is the first time you tried to contact us?"
Suzee scowled, perhaps even growling a bit, made all the more annoyed when Catalina began laughing. "Yes, sir, now would it be possible to get us out of here anytime soon?"
Now that the Starling was broadcasting through the Christa using the ship itself as a channel, Bova could hear the conversation... But he couldn't reply to it. He would have smiled if he thought it to be a time for smiling... Or if he'd been able to see the enraged expression on Suzee's face. However, he'd already used up his smile quota for the week, and he'd done it in one day. He remained stubbornly straight-faced.
"I suppose we can. We've been wondering where you were." Goddard's voice was no longer as amused as it was... That seemed to pacify Suzee just a bit. "We called down there a couple times, but no one responded. Harlan's been looking for you for a half hour."
"Check the bunkroom," Suzee muttered through clenched teeth. "He's in there playing video games." It had been a secret she'd intended to keep, but when she had to use it as a bargaining chip to get herself out of trouble, she didn't hesitate to do so. The truth was, if ever Harlan was excused from class or work for any reason, he'd go right to the boy's bunk and do exactly what he wasn't supposed to do. Well. Usually. It was almost a certainty in this case, or Suzee and Bova would have been found by now.
It was this coldness that disturbed Bova a bit. She was awfully calculating when she needed to be, when just a few minutes prior, she'd shown him a side of herself he'd never expected to see. Was she lying then? No. He didn't think she was. In fact, Bova knew that he'd actually finally met Suzee after all the nearly three years they'd been on the ship together.
He didn't know why, but for some reason, he felt honored. Special. Out of everyone on board, he was the only one that knew.
Goddard hesitated on the other end of the radio. "Alright. Rosie, go find Harlan. Radu, Miss Davenport, you come with me."
The line went dead. A few moments later, Suzee was patched back into the Starling Three. "Did you hear that? I wasn't sure if I'd included you in the feed."
"Yeah. I heard."
Suzee frowned. "You don't sound so thrilled."
"I rarely do."
Suzee laughed a bit. "Got me there."
Neither of them spoke for some time, sitting seperately in silence. However, it was a comfortable silence where neither of them were really compelled to speak and break it. While Bova was aware that he had seen a side of Suzee no one else had, Suzee was just as keenly aware that she had witnessed a 3D Bova the rest of the universe wasn't privy to.
It was a comfortable silence because, finally, after three years, they were distinctly comfortable with each other.
The silence actually lasted until the sound of their rescuers clunking around the Starling bay began. In their separate ships, both Bova and Suzee stood and moved closer to the doors.
Commander Goddard, standing closer to Bova's door, motioned Radu over to Suzee's. "Bova?" he called through the doors. "We're going to try and get you two out, all right?"
"Okay."
Seeing as how Starlings Three and Six were still linked through the com, Suzee heard Bova's near-bored response and rolled her eyes. But, at the same time, she was smiling. Suddenly, Bova's stoic-ness was an endearing quality, as opposed to an annoying habit.
Realizing this, Suzee frowned and attempted to get that thought out of her head. Surely the idea that Bova was annoying would never change.
It would just... alter slightly.
Meanwhile, Radu was already bracing himself against Starling Six's doors. "Suzee? I'm gonna open the doo-"
And just as Radu put the slightest bit of pressure on the doors, the easily slid open and allowed him to fall on his face.
Goddard, likewise, had just as easy a time opening the door to Bova's Starling, and while a stunned Suzee helped an equally stunned (If not more so) Radu to his feet, everyone just kind of stared at each other.
"...I thought the doors wouldn't open," Davenport remarked quietly from across the docking bay.
"...They wouldn't!" Suzee looked from Radu to the pod to Bova. As Radu reached out to take her hand and guide her out of the pod, she jerked it back in pain, hiding it behind her back so that no one would see it. "It was... They..."
"...Closed on their own," Bova finished. Suzee nodded to confirm this, and the Uranusian continued. "...It was probably a malfunction from the inside of the pod. It's a good thing we caught it, because now we can fix it. Of course, it'll probably happen again anyway next time we're out in them."
Goddard ignored him for the most part, relieved at least that the two of them were safe. "Well, at least it's a fixable problem," he said, peering into Starling Three. It looked as if it had been worked on a bit, but nothing was too out of order. It would be easily repaired. Heck, Thelma could probably do it.
For some reason, though, he also felt compelled to check Six. Mostly because Suzee was standing in front of it looking extremely guilty, and Radu was looking past her, into the pod, wearing an expression of something between revulsion and amazement.
For good reason, too. Because the Starling had become an absolute disaster area.
Goddard shut his eyes for a good, long time. "This Starling isn't flyable."
"Technically none of them are at the moment, Sir," Bova responded.
"And I know where everything goes," Suzee added matter-of-factly. She leaned back into the pod and started picking at the clusters of cables and couplings that were now attached haphazardly and completely randomly. At least she'd been able to turn the thing into a working broadcast unit. Who knows how long the Christa would have kept them locked up in there? "Seriously. It just looks torn apart. It's all a matter of putting it back together how it was. And that won't be hard at all."
Only Radu heard her whisper, "I think."
"Be that as it may," Miss Davenport commented, "Class starts in exactly twenty minutes, and you've already both missed Command Post duty today. I suggest you attend class and then catch up on what you missed."
Suzee rolled her eyes. Bova rolled his eyes. For once, they were in agreement.
...And it was right about then that they realized they were actually looking at each other as they stood there, and not through a com. Davenport expected them to argue with her orders... She didn't expect them to stare wide-eyed at each other as they were doing. "...Is there something wrong?" she wondered.
"No," Bova said simply. And without another word, he turned and left the docking bay. It was as if nothing had ever happened.
"Suzee?" Goddard prompted, pointing toward the exit portal.
"Yeah, in a sec," she responded. "I just have to clean up here a bit." She turned her back to them and made somewhat of a show of stuffing wiring back into its proper place, and she didn't turn around until she thought everyone was gone. Sitting down, she leaned agains the Starling and smiled. She couldn't believe she was going to do this. It was almost as ridiculous as talking to an invisible friend in public.
"Thanks, Christa."
Bova, quietly watching Suzee from the doorway, touched the wall and thanked the Christa, too.