A TALE OF BROTHERS

— by Jeff Karamales

Chapter 7
 

  Third watch was the least desirable shift for most SPF personnel, though the awkward duty cycle seemed less onerous onboard a ship as the concepts of night and day were moot with access to artificial lighting that could be set to simulate a number of different types of suns depending on where a particular individual was raised. For Elias it was a quiet period with only a fourth of the ship’s crew moving about in their various functions, and he liked to turn down the bridge illumination and look at the stars. If anything it was the fox’s preferred shift as it gave him time to think, and there was something about having the bridge of a starship all to himself that he found extremely appealing. Or mostly as there were two other individuals that were on watch as well.

  Lex Marsten was the ensign assigned to the weapons station, though the koala fought his boredom by listening to language lessons while playing a puzzle game that seemed to be all the rage at the moment. As far as Elias was concerned it seemed that the diminutive SPO would have been more at home in a lecture hall or classroom. It was always amusing to see the scholarly Lex on the practice mats or the range, the koala surprising most with his ability at weapons handling or hand-to-hand combat.

  The only other individual on the bridge was SPO Vanna Perrins, recent Academy graduate on her apprentice cruise, which meant she automatically drew the short straw for all of the least dignified duties that could be found for her. Despite her quiet, unassuming nature, the mouse did everything she was asked or told without complaint, and like Lex seemed the least likely candidate for Spatial Police Force. Vanna was, in Elias’ mind, far too gentle and, though he hated to use the term, soft.

  Elias smiled at his first encounter with the lithe rodent, her fur the exact same shade of grey as the SPF uniform, so that if it weren’t for the crimson piping and boots, he’d have thought she were nude. Apparently she’d heard this from others as well and had been tending her fur with a shampoo that was designed to lighten coloration. Lighten it the soap had, though it had had the unexpected side effect of turning her normally chestnut hair an odd shade of grey-brown with a very distinct green tinge. While the SPF had regulations on artificial coloring of hair and fur, it wasn’t unheard of for some individuals to adopt interesting and unique shades, within limits. Vanna, however, had been mortified and came extremely close to shaving herself completely bald before being talked out of it by Alistair of all people.

“Chief? Would you like a cup of coffee?” Vanna inquired in her high, soft voice, her question almost lost amongst the background noise of the bridge.

“Hmm?” Elias intoned, his ears perking up as he turned to see the mouse holding out a mug, another in her other paw for herself. “Maker, yes. That’s just what’s called for. Thank you.” Vanna smiled shyly as she passed the cup to the fox, waiting to see if he approved. “Wow. Right amount of everything. Thanks, Vanna.”

  “You’re welcome, Chief,” she replied and began to turn away.

  “You know, if you want you can take the nav seat. We can switch comm to that console. It’s better than sitting at the back of the bridge all by your lonesome.”

  The brightening of Vanna’s dark, almost completely black eyes was immediately noticeable and her long, pink tail lashed happily. “Y-you don’t mind?”

  “Not at all,” Elias told her with a grin as he switched functions on the navigation board. “That’s the thing about all SPF ships. You can bring up any station to any other console, even flight controls, though it’s a little awkward. That’s what makes our ships so tough, but more likely to make it back to a port if something happens.” He watched as the mouse slipped into the seat and looked out of the forward viewports. “Spectacular, isn’t it?”

  “It sure is, Chief! I’ve always wanted to travel the PA, to see as many of the other worlds as I could!” Vanna sighed almost dreamily. “It’s so lovely.”

  “Well, we do have another six and a half hours on this shift, so having a nice view helps.” The fox hid his grin by taking a sip of his drink as the mouse nodded vigorously in agreement.

  They sat for several moments in silence, the only other sound besides the normal noise from the frigate being the occasional clicking that Lex made when the game he played frustrated him. Elias had spent the first portion of the eight hour shift wondering what Ilsa and Annie were doing at that moment, neither female having sent a reply to his latest messages and it made the fox rather desirous of non-duty related interaction to stave off the slight depression he was feeling.

“Vanna? Do you mind a little conversation?”

  The mouse whipped her head around to look at the young Warrant Officer next to her, her eyes a little too wide as if she’d been caught doing something. “S-sure, Chief. If…if you want to…”

  “You know, when there’s no one else around, you can call me Elias. I promise it’s alright.”

  “I don’t know…” Vanna said with a slight frown and shake of her head. “I mean, you’re an officer and I’m just…well, until this is over I’m still technically a cadet. I don’t know if that would be right!”

  “It is if I say so.” He gave the mouse a smile and wink, the gesture causing some of the tension in the female’s shoulders to loosen. “I notice you’ve been hanging out with Alistair a lot lately,” he began, trying to get some kind of talking going.

  Vanna nodded a little too enthusiastically. “Alistair’s a great person, though it’s a little hard to understand him sometimes. His accent’s pretty thick.”

  Elias chortled and leaned back in his chair. “And it’s not nearly as bad as some of the other people from where he comes from, I promise you that!”

  “You’ve been to Earth?” she asked excitedly.

“Yup. Alistair and his family let me stay in their castle in Scotland. It was fun, though I think Alistair likes a lot of the pubs and bars there a little too much.”

  “Is it really like Tanthe? I’ve heard others say that it was,” the mouse told him, turning as much as the seat would allow so she could face the fox.

  Elias shrugged. “I don’t know. I haven’t been to Tanthe yet. I think Scotland has worse weather, though. To hear Alistair tell it, winters are really cold with lots of ice and snow or rain.”

  The mouse stuck out her tongue. “Yuk! I hate the cold! I just don’t have the fur for it, and it seems that no matter what I wear it just isn’t ever enough.”

  Elias again stuck his muzzle into the mug to hide a smile, having seen the grey furred rodent in the ship’s gymnasium, which was little more than a series of exercise machines, wearing a dark purple leotard and body conforming shorts. Needless to say it had been a rather interesting sight and Vanna had a little more in the way of gentle and very feminine curves than her uniform normally conveyed. “I don’t think it’s any worse than where I grew up on Alexandrius, I guess, but then I’ve never really had an issue with cold weather.”

  “If I had your fur, I wouldn’t either,” the female responded before her ears turned pink and drooped a little in what she felt might have been too personal an admission.

  They fell silent again and it was almost ten minutes later when the mouse looked pointedly at Elias, her bottom lip between her teeth. “Chief? I…I mean Elias? Can…c-can I ask you a personal question?”

  The scent and body language that came from Vanna changed enough to pique the fox’s curiosity. “I suppose so. I mean, if it’s too personal I won’t answer, but sure. Go ahead.”

  Vanna swallowed hard and regarded her own mug for several seconds before speaking and when she did was unable to meet Elias’ eyes. “Um, Alistair said that you…well, you asked another…um, that you proposed to one of your classmates, but she turned you down…”

  Elias felt a flash of irritation wash through him at his friend’s divulgence of something the fox felt was personal and no one else’s concern. “I really don’t think tha-”

  “When she said no,” the mouse continued on, showing enough temerity to cut the fox off, “well, does…does it ever stop hurting?” Vanna looked up with a tormented expression. “When the one you thought you loved just takes your feelings and stomps on them, does it ever stop being painful?”

  Elias watched as a single tear filled one dark eye before rolling down the sleek fur of her cheek to land on her tunic, turning the spot a darker grey. “In time,” the fox whispered. “I guess it really doesn’t go away, but it kind of loses its intensity.”

  “Ho-how long?”

  Suddenly Elias’ anger was back, flaring with an urge to do more than a little hurting to someone else of the physical kind. “Did Alistair hurt you?” he asked hotly.

  “What? Oh, no! Not Alistair! He…he was the one that s-said you knew just what I was feeling and that you had been through it too and I should talk to you!” Vanna responded quickly and recoiled a little in the navigator’s seat. “I…it was my boyfriend where I grew up on Crescentis. He…I got to go home for a little bit before getting posted here, and I…I caught him with…well, with my sister.”

  The tears from the mouse began to fall at a more steady pace and Vanna turned, huddling into herself as she faced the viewports. Elias nodded silently, knowing that what the quiet rodent had experienced was far more painful than what he’d endured. He also felt a pang of guilt at thinking that perhaps his friend had done something to the female. “Hey, Lex? You feel like getting us all some snacks from the galley? I can watch your board as well if you need to take a breather.”

  The koala looked up. “You sure, Elias?”

  The fox pinged the area around the ship with a high gain active sweep of the sensors. “Yeah. There’s nothing around us for as far as we can sweep. I got the con.”

“Sweet. There were some things I wanted to get from my cabin anyway,” the koala said as he stood, stretching a little. “Anything in particular you want from the galley?”

  “Some sandwiches and maybe soup,” the fox replied with a nod. As soon as the weapons officer departed and the bridge hatch slid closed, Elias turned back to the silently weeping mouse. “That gives us a few minutes, and if you want we can talk after our shift is over, but if you want to talk about it, I promise I’ll help as much as I can,” he told Vanna softly.

  Instead of speaking, which was what the fox had been expecting, the mouse launched herself out of the seat and into Elias’ arms, resting her face in the juncture of his neck and shoulder before weeping with all of the pain she felt. It took a few moments for the fox to return the gesture, his arms slipping tentatively around the mouse as she vented her anguish, hoping that none of the other officers came onto the bridge to find the two of them in such an unprofessional and compromising position.

  Once the initial storm had passed, Vann pulled away and resumed her seat, tucking one foot under her leg as her tail wrapped around her waist. “I’m sorry,” she murmured. “That…that wasn’t right of me.”

  “Hey, it’s alright,” Elias said and reached across the short distance to give Vanna’s shoulder a reassuring squeeze. “We are all here doing a tough job, and we have to be here for each other, right?”

  “I…I guess so,” she said in a tone that lacked conviction. “It’s just…why does it hurt so much and why won’t it go away?”

Elias shook his head slowly. “It will after a little time has passed. It hurts because I’m going to hazard a guess that you really loved this guy. And if you don’t mind me being a little blunt, he’s an idiot.”

  “Huh?”

  “Vanna, you’re one of the hardest working individuals I’ve seen on this ship. No matter what it is I’ve seen you doing, you give it your all. I’m going to guess that it’s the same way you deal with others. You give them your all. If this boyfriend of yours couldn’t see that, then he’s an absolute idiot.”

  The mouse blinked. “Alistair said the same thing. He…he also told me that I was…”

  Elias smiled. “Go on. He said you were what?”

  Vanna smiled as her ears again turned a deep pink, then giggled a little. “He said I was ‘a righ’ bonnie wee lass wha’ needs a good male tae show me how astonishin’ly beautiful ’ I am an’ tae romance me all proper like’,” she said with a fair imitation of Alistair’s Scottish accent, though much higher and squeakier in tone.

  “That’s Alistair’s answer to a great many problems!” Elias replied with a laugh. “He is right, though. You are beautiful.”

  Vanna ducked her head and her ears blushed harder. “No I’m not.”

  “Yeah,” the fox said, his voice dropping in depth as he tilted his head slightly. “You are.”

  “Now you’re just saying that to make me feel better.”

  “It’s the truth.” At some point Elias had taken the grey mouse’s paw and he was surprised to find that he was stroking the fur of her knuckles. “When you want to know the truth of something, ask your friends. They won’t steer you wrong.”

“Friends? Are…are we friends, Elias?”

“Yeah. I think we are.”

  Some of the pain fled Vanna’s eyes as she looked down to where the fox held her paw and fingers. “I think…I think I’d like that. Being friends, that is.”

  Before the fox could reply, the navigation console that had been slaved to the communications system began to chime with an incoming signal. Slipping back into her quiet but competent demeanor that she normally exhibited while on duty, Vanna brought up the message. “Oh, no! It’s a distress call. It’s coming from the Al-Myr mining facility. There’s been some kind of accident and the signal’s an automatic distress call!”

  “Let’s switch comm back to your console,” Elias said, transferring the reroute back to the mouse’s station before sending a recall to Lex’s DataCom to get him back to the bridge. “Send me the coordinates, Vanna,” he said over his shoulder as the mouse reclaimed her seat. Just before the koala reentered the bridge, dumping the food packets in his arms on his console, Elias toggled the intercom. “Captain, we’ve just received a distress message from Al-Myr mining and refinery station RS-32. Automated call.”

“I’m on my way, Chief,” Captain Palmers said with only a hint of drowsiness in her voice. “Make for general quarters.”

  “Aye, Ma’am. General quarters,” Elias said as he tripped the ship wide klaxon.

— NEXT CHAPTER —

Unless otherwise noted, all material © Ted R. Blasingame. All rights reserved.