I know, I know! I shouldn't be starting another project with one waiting in the wings. I'm a terrible person. I will take care of you guys, I promise. "The Gardener" will be updated soon. I just noticed that this needed to be sorely re-written, revamped, redone, re everything honestly. The old version is old, uninteresting, and unintelligible in certain parts. I owe you guys more than that.
Please accept this meager first chapter as my way of apologizing for the lackluster standard that I have perpetuated.
Amelia takes a deep breath inside her stateroom once the door is fully closed behind her. The sound the latching mechanism makes is wholly unique in that moment of tumultuous silence. It's a metallic whirring inside the casing, and she would give anything right now to only hear that one sound.
Her heart is thumping inside her chest and she can hear her own breath hitch and flow in waves as she fights off the emotions that she knows are coming. Breathing around the sobs isn't easy and she clutches his hat to her chest, heaving with quiet grief.
The chaos that the supernova had turned her stateroom into sorely needs to be addressed, but she can't be bothered with the sweeping or the sorting, or any other banal, arbitrary thing.
A man is dead.
He isn't just a man. Arrow was a fine, stand up gentleman, worthy of so much more than his lot in life. Arrow isn't just a casualty of someones waylaid dream, Arrow was a friend.
Was. The word speaks volumes in only a single syllable.
In the aftermath of a beautiful natural event, there had been only one casualty.
That black hole could have taken the midshipman, the helmsman or any of the other uncooperative souls aboard and no one would have taken notice. Instead, she is missing her first officer, and her best friend.
Remembering the hat she still had clutched in her hands, she brings it to her nose and sniffs at it tentatively. Chester's essence is all over this hat in it's smartly groomed corners and gold trim. His hat had been a gift, from someone very special she was told. Tailored by the finest quartermaster in the quadrant, Arrow had received it along with his own commission after the wars. But he turned it down initially, in favor of an early retirement from the Imperial Navy with his best friend, serving on the ship that had reunited them. The hat, of course had been given to him later as a formality. No one else could suitably wear it.
They had a good run together, and in the span of Amelia's life, she supposes that it's fitting she lose him. He was important, she relied on him. Of course he left her.
No, no it's not his fault. Amelia battles with her irrationalities as she sets the hat on the edge of the desk. It was that damn cabin boy, and there wasn't any amount of convincing by the young Mister Hawkins that would sway her. She had given him a job, and easy enough as it was, he had managed to muddle it so completely that the only person on this damn ship she needed, she lost.
Twenty four. Amelia is twenty four and grieving the loss of her only friend.
A knock at the door behind her back brings her out of her reverie and she walks away from the door. "Please, whoever it is just leave. I don't wish to be disturbed." Amelia sets his hat on her desk, perching herself on the edge.
Much to her disdain, the door opens anyway and Doctor Doppler shuffles in, careful to shut the door behind him. "I know I'm the last person you want to see right now, Captain." Doppler crosses the room, his feet crunching on the spare bits of glass that litter the floor in a broken mosaic.
"No, I don't want to see anyone. Now please," She gestures to the door with her left hand, rubbing the bridge of her nose with her right. "I need to be alone, Doctor." Her eyes close and she hears him putter out the door, shutting it on his way out without another word.
Had these been different circumstances, Arrow would be pouring brandy from the carefully concealed mini bar inside the globe, toasting to their success. He might have said something on the unusual nature of the winds, how they were different. How he would remember this one for a long time indeed.
Shedding her uniform into an unkempt heap, Amelia climbs into her bunk, a mess of shaking limbs and heaving gasps. Falling back on baser instincts, she closes her eyes and thinks of happier times.
Dawn comes in heavy thorough the atmosphere around the ship and Amelia squints into the artificial light with sore eyes. Through the holes in her glass windows, she can hear that life has indeed gone on outside on the deck of the ship, and Amelia despises it.
Her old uniform is set aside for her to launder later and a fresh one is pulled from her cabinets after a quick shower. The shower, however hot it was, was not enough to soothe the ache inside her.
Amelia pulls on her tan pants and black undershirt quickly, warding off the unusually cool temperature in her stateroom. A hand towel is scrubbed quickly over her calico skin to dry herself off before being hung to dry in her tiny bathroom.
Meticulously, she applies her makeup, covering splotchy eyes and uneven skin tone. Ideally, usually, it's just a quick swipe of mascara and eyeshadow and a quick smattering of tinted balm to protect her lips from chapping. Today, she looks awful. Red, splotchy eyes poke out from dark circles stark on unusually pale skin.
Just as she is reaching for her lip balm, a knock at her door brings her out of the tiny bathroom. "Enter,"
Doppler shuffles into the room, laden with two steaming mugs of coffee and all his usual gear. "Ca- Captain! You ah. You seem to be missing something." Doppler hides his face behind the mugs, waiting until she disappears into the other room. Doppler had seen the black tank top that had left very little to his roaming imagination, and he could feel the blush working up his cheeks.
"Hm. What's wrong, Doctor. Never seen a woman before?" Amelia's tone is low, and mocking as she waltzes back into the bathroom to finish her routine.
"No, I assure you, it's not that." The coffee is set on the table and Amelia can hear the Doctor shuffling around the charts on the table.
"Fascinating," It's hummed under her breath, almost like an after thought as she tucks in her long sleeve shirt.
"What is that supposed to mean?" Her footsteps crunch as she walks back into the main area, pulling on her jacket.
"Oh, nothing." Before Delbert can see what she is doing, he hears a quick snap as she turns a picture frame on it's front and he can only assume it's a photo of her now late first officer.
"You know, if you need to talk to anyone." It's probably the worst idea he has had yet to mention this before she has had her coffee, but he is rewarded with only a sharp glance that he has rather gotten used to.
"Suppose not, then." Doppler buries himself in his charts, taking out the compass to chart the distances on the worn parchments pausing only to sip from his coffee.
She is pacing now, through the shards of glass and the chaos that still litters the floor of her stateroom. Doppler can only guess at the emotions building under the surface until he watches her pick the picture frame up. Something foreign flickers in her eyes before her gaze goes hard and she smashes the glass frame against the wall. The cry that escapes her is something that Delbert remembers hearing a lifetime ago and he bolts from his chair, catching her around the waist. The glass joins the mosaic of swirled window panes on the floor and the photo lands face down.
"How dare he leave me like this?" She breaks from his grasp, taking deep breaths and kicking at the debris on the floor.
Doppler doesn't have an answer for her, and he stands in the middle of the chaos he had miraculously not tripped over thus far.
"I'm done. After this, I'm finished." Amelia sits in her desk chair, her thumb and forefinger going to the bridge of her nose.
"Finished?" Doppler stands behind her, his hands working on her neck much as he had so many nights ago.
"I cannot possibly continue without him. That crew is, bloodthirsty."
From outside, the crew has started up something fierce and she stands up, looking out her shattered window panes. Sure enough, if she cranes her head out far enough to the side, she can see the planet's famed green rings and lonely meteor belt.
"Imagine that, Doctor. We're there."
Almost on cue, Jim bursts into the room, throwing the lock behind him. A look of panic is evident on his face and it takes Amelia only seconds to discover what has happened on deck.
"They're- its!"
The look of anger that crosses her face is fierce and she leaps over the desk and towards the locked cabinet on the other side of the room.
"Pirates on my ship, I'll see they all hang." Venom drips from words out of gritted teeth and she tosses a pistol towards the Doctor. "Doctor, are you familiar with these?"
Behind her, the Doctor fiddles with the gun before misfiring into her celestial clock, destroying the brass and glass fixture with a sheepish smile. "Ah no. No, no I'm not."
Rolling her eyes briefly, Amelia reaches for the brass map nestled inside the velvet box and tosses it towards Hawkins.
"Mister Hawkins, defend this with your life!"
Looking up from loading her rifle, she finds the lock on her door has started to spark and heat up, a sign of manipulation from the other side. They needed a way out, now. She could climb out of those windows and do something on deck to stifle the rebellion. But that would leave the Doctor and Jim behind, and on their best of days they didn't stand a chance.
Well, Jim might be able to reason with the brutes, he had been spending an awful lot of time around the crew. But Doppler, for all his knowledge about the stars, and for all his good intentions would be no match for a gang of mutinous pirates.
Surrounded by pirates and out in the middle of nowhere, there was scant little she could think of. The shipping lanes ended days ago and at their highest speed on a scout ship, she could not reach them before they ran out of supplies.
The scout ships! Of course, it's just harebrained enough to work.
"Stand clear!" Amelia takes aim at the floorboard, her finger curling around the trigger before squeezing and blasting a hole through to the passageways crisscrossing below her rooms.
The hole would be just big enough to fit even the Doctor through and after taking a quick look around her room, she jumps into the hole. "Step lightly now!"
Jim and the Doctor struggle to keep up with the Captain's long legs and it isn't until they reach the docking bay that they realize what they are doing, and how very out of options thy are.
"To the longboats quickly!" Her voice sings in the bay after she burns the lock on the doors, tossing the rifle into the first available boat. The stubborn lever to control the hatch is finally operable and underneath them the atmosphere of the planet begins rushing in.
In what seems like seconds, Jim has jumped towards the boat, which once clearing the docking bay enters a free fall.
Activating the ship takes all of seconds and the sail bursts to life, stopping the falling but aleviating none of the threat of the plasma cannons charging from the ship.
"Parameters met, hydraulics engaged..." She is talking more to herself at this point, it's been ages since she has piloted one of the scout ships and she can scant remember how to do it properly. But under duress is when she performs the best, so she has no real concerns until the Doctor shouts something unintelligible and covers his head.
It's a white, hot sear that takes out the sail and most of the rudder, leaving a skeletal tiller in the hands of a Captain who has reached her end.
With nothing to steer with, she jerks the tiller to the left, hoping to miss some of the larger pieces of foliage now coming dangerously close to the life boat. They manage to miss most of them, until they rip through the center of a large green spore, sending moss and discarded vegetation spewing into the lower canopy of the dense jungle.
After the bow snags on a vine, the boat tilts before slamming into the jungle floor face down, skidding until it comes to a complete halt in the now silent forest.