1.4.1

The Weight of the Aldebaran

“Well look, I’m happy to help you where I can,” Tenya smoothed over. “We’ll need to train you fast.”

“I’ll need all of you to step up.” The captain waved over Romo and his companion. “Romo will conduct tactical training. He’s not often on the ground team but he runs the practice drills here. Rydell Davis is our technician. He works the computers, comms, tech gear, and oversees our procurement lines. I take it you’ll need access to batteries.”

Astrid blinked. “I will?”

The blonde woman, so far unnamed, gave a rough cough. “Sir.”

Yet, the captain seemed unperturbed by Astrid’s informality.

“Your Keeper explained you can’t generate energy, correct? Only channel it? So, we’ll need to keep you supplied.”

“I don’t understand. What exactly is it you want me to do?”

An odd look passed between the group that left Astrid unsettled. No one said anything for a moment, and she feared she’d somehow stumbled into a faux pas.

“Am I… not supposed to ask that?”

“We’ll get into that after you’re settled,” the captain replied. “You’ll be in quarters with Thompson and Earhart. Thompson, you mind showing her around?”

Tenya cheerfully agreed. “It would be my pleasure.”

“Good. Take her to Ishioka for a physical. I need to update the bridge and make sure we have things in place for our new addition.”

Captain London rotated for one of the staircases that flanked the cargo hold. Astrid observed how quickly he changed aboard.

“War Room briefing in thirty,” he called over his shoulder. “Anderson. Dell.”

Rydell Davis, and the aloof Lieutenant Reeves, departed to follow their captain.

Romo shrugged as Tenya caught Astrid’s elbow in her fingers. Her cheeriness relieved some of the severity of her compatriots as she ushered Astrid toward the stairs.

“Romo keeps to himself, but he’s a good guy. Anders, too. I promise, he’s not always so awkward.”

“I wish I could say the same of myself.”

“Oh, Kitten, you’ll warm up,” Tenya dismissed. “I can’t imagine this is easy. We must be quite a lot to take all at once.”

Astrid wanted to argue, as it would be the polite thing, but she was admittedly overcome.

“It’s a lot in general. The captain hasn’t exactly been forthcoming on what we’ll be doing.”

“We’ll be a team. That’s what we’ll be doing,” Tenya insisted. “Don’t worry about the rest. Even if it’s a bit much at times, we’ll help you through it.”

Tenya’s boots thundered in comparison to Astrid’s cloth loafers as they mounted the steps.

“I’m having a hard enough time keeping up with names. Commander Kendall and Agent Romo were with the captain when they came to get me.”

Tenya’s curls bobbed in approval. “That’s right!”

“And you’re Tenya… Thompson?”

“Right again!”

“And then there’s… Dell? Rydell?”

“’Dell’ is fine. He finds ‘Rydell’ a bit pretentious.”

“And… Anderson?”

“Only Captain calls him ‘Anderson’. Cap’ and the lieutenant's parents were friends when Anders was just a tyke, so he never really came around on the nickname.”

“And the last one, the blonde… I didn’t catch her name. I think the captain called her ‘Earhart’?”

Tenya snerked. “She hates it. Her family has a big name on Earth, but she’s super stubborn and a bit of rebel. I think Captain is a little proud of his black sheep. He does it just to rib her.”

“We all call her by her first name, though. Rue. Even Captain most times.”

“You’re more casual than I expected,” Astrid assessed when they neared the top of the staircase.

“It happens in covert-ops. We operate on a skeleton crew and spend months and months with only each other. You get to know one another pretty well.”

Astrid nearly staggered over the last step. “’Covert’. As in ‘secret’?”

Tenya winced. “I probably shouldn’t have said that. I don’t mean to hide things, it’s just… we have to be careful.”

The woman’s dark eyes flitted down the hall as Astrid pieced together insinuations.

“My recruitment was sanctioned. Right?” Astrid pried.

Astrid’s new friend looped her arm through the crook of her own before the Channeler could chase threads too far.

“I didn’t ask. Either way, you’re one of us now. That means we’ve got your back.”

~~~

The ship felt much like a hive, as Astrid found herself enveloped in a constant hum. Even when not directly close, she could feel the Statics throughout the ship, like hearing the distant drone of bees just walls away.

It proved difficult to listen to Tenya’s tour when every turn made Astrid reset, steady herself, and reassess her surroundings.

“The engine room sits at the back of the ship and extends to all three levels, but access is through the cargo hold only. The doors between the stairs. You can take a look if you want, but they keep our resident grease monkey, Tilly, down there to supervise practically always.”

“Maybe not while it’s on,” Astrid responded warily.

“Despite Tilly’s frightening love-hate relationship with the thing, it’s just a giant machine.” Tenya shrugged, then continued. “Quarters are on this level, on either side of the ship, each with lavatories and recycled showers. In the middle lies the mess hall. Captain’s Quarters, and the Medical Lab are on the level above. Doctor Ishioka converted the storage space behind the Med Lab into her personal quarters, so there’s only about five of us girls below.”

Tenya spoke as if she recited a grocery list.

“There’s also the Tech Lab on that deck, where Dell does most his tinkering. In the center of mid-level is the War Room, where we do all our strategy talks and briefings. It also houses the stairs to the floor above, the Bridge. Strictly for communications, navigation, and ship-to-ship combat.”

Astrid’s head swam. All she caught of that last bit was “ship-to-ship combat”.

“Is that something that happens often?”

“Depends on what you consider ‘often’.”

Astrid almost rebuked with how little comfort that gave her.

But instead, she caught herself on the nearest wall and shut her eyes tight.

A few rooms over, two of the crewmen bickered. Astrid couldn’t make out their voices, but their energy, their static, beat wildly like the thrum of a dragonfly wings almost right against her ear. It threatened to tip the carefully balanced scales of Astrid’s sensitivity.

Tenya’s voice bounced onward, as if her words, her energy, their energy, meant nothing. But the noise of the whole ship and its inhabitants, the intense feeling of being pressed upon by all sides, made Astrid feel as though she would be ill.

Tenya, so bright and bubbly gave her something to identify. But even she proved outweighed by the beeping of machines, the charge of foreign technology, and the chattering of countless humans, unbridled in their nature. It all combined in a storm that rang through Astrid’s head like a concussion.

All at once panic set in as Astrid realized the obliviousness she displayed in her preliminary acceptance.

Her environment threatened to overwhelm. And she could not be overwhelmed.

“Astrid?” Tenya’s voice drew closer as though the woman just noticed Astrid abandoned their walk to anchor herself. “You alright, Kitten?”

Astrid’s eyes clamped closed.

She could only feel the crashing waves and the threat of what damage she could do to the systems assailing her if she couldn’t get herself under control.

Astrid removed her palm from the ship’s hull and from the lifeblood that thrummed just inside. She pinched the bridge of her nose for focus.

She groaned as realizations washed over her in a series of tidal waves, always chased by another.

She failed to account for so many. Or to consider the effects of the powered computers or electrical charges, prohibited in the Sanctuary, that now pricked her senses.

Astrid underestimated how much harder it might be to master herself when her entire surroundings consisted of machinery that, in space, she could break and kill them all.

Her pulse raced, and the heartbeat that surged in her ears only added to the strain.

“What is it, what’s wrong?” Tenya pressed. Her voice rasped, closer, tighter, as if the woman aimed to shield Astrid’s unrest from others.

“I need quiet. Away from everyone. A lavatory? A closet?” The Channeler managed to ask.

Tenya took her hand wordlessly, and Astrid, helpless to do anything but trust her, chased a brisk stride through the ship’s deck.

Astrid couldn’t take in anything they passed in her effort to keep a discharge at bay.

Thankfully, Tenya delivered her to a lone storage closet, well out of sight of the others. She popped the door open to reveal welcoming darkness within.

“Is this okay?”

“Yes, yes, this will do,” Astrid said quickly and stumbled through. “I need a minute. Please, I’ll be fine. I just need a minute.”

Astrid asserted as best she could through a trembling voice. Tenya’s forehead scrunched, but thankfully, with grace, the woman retreated.

“Alright. I’ll be right outside these doors.”