On Steel Wings

Illia was... well, waiting. More precisely, she was lurking right outside the mess. More precisely, she was working up her nerve to go INTO the mess. Today had been among her most social days in the last year, even with her spending most of her time being embarrassed and avoiding others. Her thoughts were diverse and disorganized-- a thousand incoherent cogitations echoing and rebounding, keeping her from pulling herself together.

Wisps of the conversation inside floated through the thoughts clamoring for attention, but she didn't pay them much attention: become invincible, help a breakthrough, not a VI, scrap of fle-- Not a VI? But that would mean... That VI from earlier... That's a... WHAT.

Curiosity banished fear (for about thirty seconds) and she scrambled into the room with all the enthusiasm-- and composure-- of an excited puppy. Then fear flooded back like a tsunami, and she froze, waiting for someone to start laughing at her entrance. Thankfully, they all seemed rather too preoccupied with the V-- the mechanical's announcement to notice her. Nobody burst into laughter, at any rate.

No turning back now...

After half a beat's pause she went the rest of the way to her seat in what she pictured as a rather calm, cool manner. She took a seat opposite a man who appeared to be a doctor-- she vaguely remembered passing him when she was searching for the Captain, but was certain she didn't know his name. Or anyone's name, for that matter. The man to her carried himself with the kind of composure she'd only really seen in off-duty soldiers-- a sort of self-assuredness that yes, if worst came to worst they could fend for themselves against everyone else in the room. Beyond him was the mechanical man, whom she studied with all the subtlety she could manage. On her other side was Archie, and she assumed Oddie would be found by his side as well-- but she truthfully hadn't spent much time looking in that direction.

Shaking her head to clear her mind, she turned her attention to the empty plate in front of her. She began filling her plate from the dishes laid out on the table. While her hands were busy, she was mentally working out all the possibilities for the mechanical man-- unlikely as it was, she could only imagine he was an AI. Sure, a VI advanced enough to pass as an AI was hypothetically possible, but the Captain seemed smart enough to know a few screening tricks.

She began to eat, slowly, and gave the table another glance. There were two other women on board-- a thin girl and a miner with a robotic arm. Despite their differences, Illia felt a strange bond of companionship with the miner-- after all, she was born and raised on a mining ship. If not for the attack, well, Illia would probably have ended up like her. Hopefully plus an arm, but still like her.

Remembering the voice on the speakers earlier, Illia decided that the odds were in favor of the thin girl being the speaker-- she just couldn't imagine the miner talking about cute puppies. Remembering the bitterness she had felt then, Illia found it almost impossible to be angry at the girl in person. She was simply too upbeat, and Illia was simply too shy. Still, she made a mental note to talk to the two other girls later-- or at the very least the miner. Maybe she could do without the hyperactive one.

It was about then she realized that she hadn't yet spoken a word. But what could she say? Why hello, I'm the crazy girl who's been lurking in her room all day! After considering several (similar) possibilities, she deemed it best to simply eat in silence and hope nobody paid her too much attention. Attention brought embarrassment and embarrassment made her stupid. She just focused on her meal, and ate.

Feralon glanced up at the intercom as the message about dinner rang through the halls. Feralon though for a moment, dinner sounded wonderful, but the auxiliary flux control also needed a bit of a tune up. Nothing serious, really, but Mercury’s Dream would fly about four percent more smoothly if Feralon adjusted the part. It was a tricky decision, but Feralon really wanted to help the ship sing, so after the peculiar old human dismissed himself, Feralon scurried down to the engine room. As Feralon worked, he mused about the older man. It was refreshing that someone could speak Thresh even if the man’s understanding of the language was rather poor. Feralon should have simply replied in English, at least Feralon had a grasp on the language, not an amazing grasp but it was enough. Instead he had simply stood there like an idiot, especially after the doctor uttered a phrase in Thresh, even though that was one he simply committed to memory because of his job. Either way it had shocked Feralon that two people knew at least a bit of his native language, and Feralon didn’t know quite how to react. In his time living in human colonies he had only met one other person who knew Thresh, although that man had a much firmer grasp of the language.

Feralon laughed lightly as he realized that his musings about the two humans had occupied his mind enough that he had finished the tune up without really realizing it. That was a bad thing. Sure it was a minor adjustment that Feralon could probably make in his sleep, but he felt that he needed to be fully aware of everything that went down in that engine room. It was important to stay alert even on the minor things, and so far Feralon had let his thoughts and musings dull his senses. It was fine to think about other things while working, but the work had to remain priority number one until the job was finished. Feralon sighed; it also wasn’t good to be hard on one’s self. The adjustment was now in the past, and it was time to move on to other things, mainly dinner. Now that he was done working, Feralon noticed that there was certainly a gnawing hunger in his stomach. It would be best to go up to the mess and join the others. He was probably late enough already.

As Feralon stepped into the mess, he felt as if all eyes were on him. That wasn’t exactly true, however. Most people gave him either a glance or a nod, but the pilot stared him down in silent fury the moment he stepped into the mess. They were going to have to become friends at some point. An engineer and pilot should be the two closest people on the ship, although Feralon didn’t know how to make that happen. Her racism was burned deep into her by her family, and it would take quite a bit to resolve her issues with aliens.

“I sorry. Got distracted in enigine room. Not again.” Feralon winced inwardly. From the look on Yoshi’s face he had butchered those few words. It seemed that he had to practice more. Earlier he felt fine speaking English, but from her reaction his English was probably horrid. Not bothering to say another word, Feralon slipped into the open seat, which was much too big for him, and began dishing himself up some of the food, albeit in much smaller portions than the rest of the crew. Feralon took a bite of the food upon dishing himself up, and attempted to hide any look of disgust that might have made its way to his face. He surely didn’t want to offend the cook simply because his taste buds did not enjoy the mixture, and everyone else seemed to enjoy it, so Feralon took a few more bites. Perhaps it was simply an acquired human taste, but all he knew was that for the moment his Kiri’ava taste buds were not fans of the noodle dish.
“Yoshi, this food is very nice.” Feralon said, after swallowing another mouthful. Sure, he didn’t actually like it, but Feralon felt that he had to at least make an attempt to make friends with Yoshi, and he found that a great way to get someone to like you was through compliments. Hopefully this one would work, because Feralon dreaded further missions with a pilot that hated him. Feralon also wasn’t completely lying, for he found a few moments later that the dinner rolls were actually rather good, and that if he took a bite of one before the noodles the flavors mixed to make something at least half decent. While waiting for a reply of some kind, Feralon dug through the noodles to see what Yoshi had added, and he came upon something rather disturbing.

“Is there eggs in this?” Feralon said going slightly wide eyed. Sure, it wasn’t like he was eating Kiri’ava, but the idea of eating a bird was disturbing to him. It seemed slightly too akin to canabalism for his tastes. Feralon then winced as he realized that saying that might offend Yoshi, undoing anything he many have done to help build a friendship. “I… uh… no, is fine.” Feralon now felt as if everyone really was watching him.

Perfect, Feralon. Ask if the food has eggs, and destroy the bridge you are trying to make with Yoshi and probably make the whole crew think you are strange at the same time. This is so going to end well.