THE SPACE NAVY AU (18+)

"Oh," she says, brightening immediately. "Lying. You should have said so. I'm so good at lying, I don't know what the truth is!" She laughs at herself, loud and unrestrained, then trails off. She looks at Bel again as if he just now appeared.

"Commander Kadros," she recites, and pats testingly between Bel's horns. "Yep. But you're usually taller."

 

You chuckle and stand up. "I feel like running the rest of the way. Want a piggyback?"

 

She jumps back. "I can run! My brain's busted up, not my mobility noodles. I can race you, Commander. Where are we going?"

 

"Medbay! Ready, set, go!"

You don't try to outdistance her; her legs might be technically fine, but she's still recovering from malnutrition and muscle atrophy, and also she's liable to forget where you're going again. But since she wants to stretch out and push herself, you'll give her something to chase.

 

The girl dashes after Bel down one hallway, around a corner, and a good way into the next until she's starting to struggle for breath too much to keep close. When Bel slows down for her, her eyes narrow as she realizes she's being condescended to— then glow pink. She takes two long, skipping steps and lifts off the ground, then blows past Bel in a blur that frizzes his hair with wind and static shock.

"Last one to Medbay's a rotten egg, Commander!" she yells triumphantly over her shoulder, then bowls a hapless ensign right off his feet as she zips by.

 

"Cheater!" you laugh, and start sprinting for real. You start to close the gap, but you're actually having to work for it. Plans for a running track in the rec area start to take form in your mind. "Sorry, Ensign!" you add as you pass the poor guy she knocked down.

 

Twitch pulls up sharply just outside the Medbay area, and touches down on her feet. She gestures elaborately ahead of her to Bel as he reaches her.

"After you, Commander Kadros," she says sweetly.

 

"Thank you, Princess, but first -- fistbump for the winner." Fistbump accomplished, you go into Medbay, which is starting to feel unpleasantly like a second home.

 

The Medbay has been expanded to four times regular floorspace, and Sal looks exhausted, though he's running half a dozen trolls around. The badly mauled are laid out on cots, poking at tablets or sleeping, and the survivors of the Zero-Sum seem to be making friends and enemies nicely. One of the Zero-Sum's crew is busy over-saturating a series of empty recuperacots, to the idle encouragement of a few of the Sunslammer's wounded. After some aimless milling about, Twitch goes to help.

The blood-filtering machines are laid out in another part of the bay, chairs and stools and cots all scattered around, and Bel is led there by a tired-looking Lieutenant who normally works in the green spaces.

"Have you had dialysis before, Commander?" she asks.

 

"No. Do I need to do anything except lie here?" You shed your jacket and roll your sleeve up.

 

"Don't throw up or bite anyone," the Lieutenant says. "Also make a fist now. Also, get a phone game you can play with one hand. Okay, needles going in now, if you cry I'm going to make fun of you."

She pushes needles into artery and vein, tapes them down, and gets the tubing settled.

"Yell at one of us in four hours. Don't try to disconnect the needles yourself. If you feel nauseous or headachy we can bring you water, but you're shit out of luck on painkillers. Okay, bye."

She strides off to go yell at the cupe-saturating patient and herd her back to bed.

 

You set your phone alarm for four hours, and then get busy trying to administrate from bed. It's more doable than you expected, because there aren't any ships docking -- obviously, since you're quarantined -- so it's mainly crewmen asking questions about problems that aren't going anywhere. Stuff like what to do with the damaged cargo that was used as a barricade, how disinfected does the Zero-Sum need to be, what to do with the bodies. You order full hazmat gear and biohazard protocol. As for the bodies, though... you have a feeling that the order you'd give is probably callous in a way that isn't necessary in space the way it was when you were rockboound.

You decide to consult the captain. "Four hours I'm stuck in this medbay cot. What are you wearing?"

 

"Frilly panties and an unsettlingly realistic hoofbeast mask," you say promptly. "You know, Commander, sexting is generally done over text. Hence the term. How are you to send me a picture of your bulge over a voice call?"

 

"Sorry, Captain, if I whip it out here the entire remaining crew of the Zero-Sum will faint, and the medics are already overworked as it is." You catch one of the aforementioned survivors staring, eavesdropping, and have to fight the temptation to wink. "No, I'm not calling for phone sex, unfortunately, it's the middle of the work night. I just wanted to run a couple of decisions past you before I kick it down to the department heads. Unless you'd rather handle things in person? You'd have to wear hazmat gear, though. I don't think that really goes with frilly panties."

 

"What? No, frilly panties go with everything, don't be an idiot. What decisions are you deciding on?"

 

"What to do with the bodies. Um. Sorry for the mood whiplash."

 

"Oh, right. No, no, I suppose we can't throw them in the matter reclamators like usual, we'd better toss them out the docking bay. The nearest star should take care of them... I say, do you think we could let the survivors loot the corpses before they're chucked? Might be some tokens they'd like to keep, and all."

 

Your eyebrows go up. "Okay, I was thinking my answer would be too callous for you, but it was actually more respectful than that. I was going to say, take a DNA sample to confirm ID, then incinerate them. But yeah, there's no reason to burn their sylladexes along with them."

(does anyone know what happens to a person's inventory when they die in HS physics? is it lost forever, or can it be accessed somehow, or...? idk, we should pick something)

 

"I don't like the idea of messing around with blood that contaminated," you say uneasily. "Do you think you could manage with a photograph of the head and horns, to match up the fellows with their profile pictures?"


((trolls have no death rituals concerning dead bodies. they didn't know what funerals were, in homestuck... as ferociously as erskin protects the lives of trolls, once they're dead their body is just meat to him. dangerously contaminated meat, in these guys' cases. as for inventories, i think sylladex cards are as recoverable as any other object, just in a weirder and more metaphysical way.))

 

"It can be done without spreading contamination," you assure him. "It's what we did planetside, because there wasn't always enough left of somebody for visual identification. I think the reason for it being standard involves identity-theft shenanigans, some clever bastards pulling multiple pay chits under different names. Anyway, you use one of those disposable punch-needles and pop it in a vial, seal it up, nobody has to touch the blood."