White Knight Rising

[InkWren]

Sarah's nerves had only been jangled even more by his yelp. Her hands had darted behind her back in startled guilt only to be drawn into his robotic ones. Listening to his voice and staring down at his hands, she collected her wits. Missing the reassuring smile as he called her by name.

"Sorry. I don't know why they are." It was his warm breath on her palm that lifted her gaze back to his. THe tremble in her fingers stilled and moved to her expressive brows. "How did you...my name?" She felt strangely like a confused and frightened Madonna being visited by an angel who knew her while remaining an utter mystery. The simple truth of her own fame slipped into her mind and she blushed, tugging her hands from his lap into her own. "Right. Sorry. The face that launched a thousand dreams in one small ship." She tucked a damp lock of hair behind her ear ruefully.

Thoughts of that darkness and its demise caught her by the throat, but his words were a lifeline and she grasped at it eagerly, turning her back on those horrors and focused on the concerns of the present. "My pod has supplies. A stndard emergency kit. And the comm is intact I think." She was not an idle girl by nature and that ready energy ignited into quick action by his plan. "The cargo hold is above the waterline. With the pod, we could make do. I'll gather wood."

Sliding down the mangled nose, she dropped onto a torn scrap of metal that lay like a small bridge as part of the path back to the other half of the severed ship. She didn't want to be in the dark. So without waiting on his approval or command, she was picking her way carefully up a gnarled root what seemed to resemble shoreline.

 

[Muirgen]

John Paul watched her go, and smiled. He didn't bother to stop her - why would he? That was never his intention in the first place. For now she had a purpose, however straightforward, and a willingness to continue to survive. What more could he possibly ask of her right now?

Well, except for the opportunity to explain he didn't know her name because he was a fan of the show, one of those pablum-swallowers breathlessly following the face that launched a thousand dreams in one small ship or... Or whatever that slogan was supposed to be. His pride wanted desperately for him to claim he had been nothing but a reluctant viewer forced to watch reality television, that his sole purpose in doing so was to try to save her life based on the cryptic and desperate messages of his corporate spy ex-girlfriend planted on the ship by their multi-galaxy conglomerate. But the more he thought about those words, the more it all sounded like either 'he doth protest too much,' or some really cheesy daytime soap opera where she had a walk-on role.

And so he just kept his mouth shut, and lived with the stigma she probably believed - however unfairly - he was just another starry-eyed reality TV show fan. Better that, than being called out as a closet reality TV show fan, or a drama junkie or, worse yet? Like a man who just didn't give care that much whether Sarah Millson lived or died, when nothing could be further from the truth. John Paul smiled, and wondered how long the scent of Jasmine would last here on Er

With a pained grunt, he hauled himself from the floor - ceiling, he reminded himself - of the shuttle's pilot module. John Paul winced as he limped about its sad remnants, stiff and sore and, with Sarah gone to gather wood (or whatever the alien equivalent to dried kindling might be here on Er) he did not bother with the pretense of invulnerability. There wasn't an awful lot more in the shuttle than his sidearm that he strapped to his thigh, another emergency medical kit, some flares and the standard week's portion of freeze-dried food rations and potable water tablets, enough for a shuttle pilot and co-pilot. After tearing off one of the stuck hatches with a scream of steal and a tug of a prosthetic hand, everything from the kits was tossed over his shoulder on his back. Between the two of them, they might have supplies to last about a couple weeks...

John Paul's face was grim, far grimmer than he would ever allow Sarah to see. He wasn't going to bother with the comm's, because nothing in this galaxy could hear them (or at the very least, nothing they wanted to catch their notice). Their rescue was, in truth, left entirely in the ever-so-merciful hands of the Huang-Evans Corp - which meant the whims of calculating bureaucrats and pencil-necked button pushers calculating loss and gain against a rubric that had absolutely no value marked in the column for "human life." No one would realize this was THE Sarah Millson here on Er - much less that they had actually managed to crash land on this one blessedly inhabitable [so far] planet.

He had to admit, in his heart of hearts, the odds of a rescue arriving imminently were not exactly stellar, but he'd be good and damned if he'd say as much to Sarah. Not right now. She wasn't dumb - she'd figure it out in time.

"Hey Sarah," he called, climbing out of the pilot module, peering over the wreckage in the gathering gloom, trying to find the best piece of wreckage for them to try to shelter in tonight. More and more, the pilot's module still looked best of all the not-exactly-awesome choices, but he eased his way out gingerly, letting himself down on one of the many metal plates shorn off the shuttle, "How's the wood finding going? Anything dry?"

**********

It smelled really, really bad, and the rumble in his thorax snarled a symphony of distrust into his instincts. It did not smell of prey, but it moved like prey without even the protective carapace to keep it safe. So like a larva it was, a delightful morsel on most days but today? Today the not-prey-not-larva fell out of the sky with a roar that rumbled through the homelands, that set the waters to rippling like the challenge of a new Queen - but all that discharged, was a couple larva who smelled almost as horrible as their ship. Was this how they defended themselves, with odors that promised the eating of them would be an unpleasant - perhaps even poisonous adventure?

He settled back on his haunches, silent in the branches as they swayed overhead. He was a hunter, a brave hunter drone with his pack and the only one bold enough to approach the challenge of fire and roaring and terrible smells. No, he might not eat them, but that did not mean they were immune to death to keep their hive safe and whole.

 

[InkWren]

Sarah moved into the overhanging undergrowth. Keeping a grip on trunks, vines and branches, she worked along the end of the crash trail. Lessons learned long before her "fame", when her Dad was alive and well and they went on camping trips.

"You need to find three things for any campsite. Water, Fire, and a good stick." Her father's voice was low in her ear and it steadied her. They'd been a team on those little adventures into the backyard and then into the backwoods of their mining planet. She knew things. How to find safe food. How to snare animals. "I don't care what you become, baby girl. But never forget how to survive." Her full lips pressed into a hard line. He might not have meant surviving a crash landing on a weird alien planet, but he'd given her tools.

Her rescuer. John Paul. J.P. knew her. Or thought he did. She looked up. Strange twisted vines brushed across her face. They felt dry and she pulled her blade, cutting lengths of it and draping them over her shoulder. Yeah, she knew what she was doing. She wasn't just a pretty face. A laugh escaped. Pretty. Right.

She glanced back and made sure the wreck was still in view and carefully moved a little deeper. On the slick truck of the a tree to her right a black substance oozed. A grin spread across her dirty face. "Pitch burns." She tested at it with her knife and nose. It smelled bitter. A good sign. Looking around, she absently answered the call from the wreck. "J.P. Ahhh-oooo." She fell easily into the old call she had shared with her father.

Visibility was fading fast and so she resorted to scrapping the sap and smearing it over the vines dangling from her shoulder. A fire had to get started, but now she needed fuel. Turning at an angle just a little deeper into the undergrowth, she found a tangle of that lay above the boggy water. The roots weren't large and she tested them with her boot. They snapped easily and disguised the dry sound of something watching above her. Laying her kindling aside, she began tearing at the roots of the dead tree. Her hands were cut and she grimaced but kept going.

Binding the dense bundle with her roots, she took a breath and wrinkled her nose. Sweat dripped down her aching back but she managed to heave her burden to her back and angle back the way she had come. Had she known the danger eying her from above, fear would have added a new scent to the air, but she was unaware and encouraged by her success. The failing light and firewood made her steps more cautious but step by step she worked her way back into the open.

She'd seen nothing she could call wildlife, but suddenly something leapt up and bounded away on a set of three legs, springing from roots to trunk like a mad ping pong ball into the deeper woods. It made her think of a kangaroo she'd seen at Angelos Station Space Zoo. But instead of long ears reaching upward, the glimpse she caught was of slender twisted horns and no visible ears at all. Catching her breath once more, she considered their situation. There was wildlife of some kind. Easily spooked tree-roos. It's swift retreat warned her subconscious that the little creature had a flight instinct. Flight instincts developed when there were predators.

A place like this had to have insects. Grubs were usually a safe food source. And fish were possible. Though swamps tended to favor the poisonous. That was going to be the tough part. Knowing safe from poisonous on a strange planet, but her dad had told her there were universal clues. She was just gonna have to remember. He wouldn't let her down. He was with her. He knew her and she knew him. As for her rescuer, she didn't know him and he only thought he knew her. They were stuck here for who knows how long.

The man might be a real prick for all she knew. The memory of his warm breath over her palm as he cradled her shaking hands with his cool prosthetic fingers came back to her then. He had the easy smile of a flyboy and gravelly voice of a leader. If she was honest, her first impressions of the man were good. He reminded her of her dad, but those were gonna be some seriously godlike boots to fill and who knew how impressions would change over time. She eased across smoldering debris toward the cave-like opening of the cargo hold. "Hunny, I'm hooome."

 

[Muirgen]

"Oh sweetie pie you just come right on in, and let me get your slippers!" John Paul grinned as he pushed back the 'curtain' of the little makeshift doorway, watching Sarah make her way back into the makeshift shelter they would be using tonight in the bay. He was actually a little proud of what he'd managed to jerry rig together while she was out looking for something flammable. The silvery glint of the reflective thermal blankets shone dully back into the brackish swamps, strung up along some now-useless wring he had torn out of the circuitry boards inside.

He had even managed to uncover one small advantage to these prosthetic limbs of his. John Paul had managed to rip the cushions out of the shuttle pilot chairs, and from the escape pod chair, creating something sort of like a bed... If you squinted, he supposed. Not big enough for two, no, but he'd slept on far worse than the ceiling of a shuttle bay - yeah, he'd be fine. John Paul had even managed to small pieces of metal into something like plates, pots, and even little scoops like spoons.

Was he being WAY optimistic at this point? Hell yes he was - but what else did they have?

"Here, let me see what you got there little Wolf," he said with a grin, stepping out and walking to help relieve her of the pitch-covered foliage she had looped over her shoulders. He sniffed at it, noting what she had and nodding his approval - and then he caught the question in her eyes. "'Little Wolf.' You know, 'ahhhhhhh-oooooo.'" His imitation of her call wasn't the best, but he was sincerely trying, so that had to count for something.

He hoped.

John Paul hoped a lot, actually. One other thing he'd done while Sarah was off on her fire-making mission, was find the shuttle's equivalent of a 'little black box.' It was neither particularly little, nor black, but the two inches of tempered steel from the pilot's console still contained the one device that would ping beyond Er's atmosphere - and it was still functioning. There was nothing little in his thankful prayer after that, either.

"Dinner's not quite ready yet... Obviously," he said as he yanked off a couple of the ceramic heat tiles that still perilously clung to the shuttle's mangled exterior, arranging them easily into a square large enough to, he hoped, hold some kind of fire. "But as soon as we get some water that won't kill us in a single drop? OH have we got choices! Freeze dried peaches, reconstituted space ice cream - vanilla or chocolate, your choice! Walk on the wild side - chocolate's way more decadent."

John Paul set the vines next to the ceramic "hearth," and reached to pick up the emergency food supply packets, dangling them with a mischievous waggle of his eyebrows. "Then? Then we got chicken cacciatore, or vegetarian omelette. As a former Colonial Marine?" He tossed the grey packet marked 'omelette' over his shoulder to skitter across the 'floor' and into the shadows.

"I'm going to tell you right now, that's no kind of choice. If it's marked 'omelette' and is some kind of military rations? Don't do it Sarah. Just. Don't. Do it... "

 

[InkWren]

The cheerful grin on J.P's face brought a tired one in response. The day was over. It had felt eternal, a lifetime of fear and trauma and confusion, and she'd lived. More importantly, she thought as she shrugged her burden to the floor of their makeshift home, she was not alone. She noted the bed in the gathering shadows, the dishes.

"Homey, wife. Real homey." The words were spoken with simple sincerity and only the twinkle in her eye gave it away that she was teasing. In the clear light of day, it might have depressed her. Even horrified her with the desperate state of their circumstances. But now in the softened light of the end of an alien day, it truly looked homey. She brushed her hands off and looked about. Kind as the light was, they needed the fire. Glancing out beyond the silver curtain, she saw a chunk of rather rectangular metal. She looked back at him over her shoulder and for only a moment, pain was etched in her features. Her father had called her something close. "Wolf-pup, you will be a mighty beast one day." Then he would pin her down on the battered carpet and growl with his rough whiskers all over her face and belly till she begged for mercy.

But the look came and went again. She blushed sheepishly. "It's the call my father would use when we camped to keep within earshot." She motioned outside. "You think you could bend that piece there like this? The tiles would be better as a cooking surface, and you look like you are strong enough."She lifted a "plate" with a smile. The place he had chosen for the fire was a good one, so she knelt at the place and listened as he described their food. It all sounded so wonderfully familiar. As he adviced her on the menu, throwing the omelet into a corner, she couldn't help smiling quietly.

She carefully build the fire in its layers. "I saw some signs of bugs in some of the undergrowth. They might make good eating..." Rising, she looked around for the med kit and finding it set carefully aside, she took it back to her fire and removed some gauze and two small containers. One of glycerin and the other of potassium permanganate. Working carefully with the purple powder, she added a small amount of glycerin on the gauze in the small space beneath the conical pile of wood. Sitting back, she watched breathlessly as the long ago remembered bubbling occurred. Another moment and flames erupted.

She sat back on her heels and a sob tangled with relieved laughter in her throat. It had worked. The flames ate the pitched starter hungrily and danced through the temple of wood. Her fingers shuck as she pressed them to her lips trying to stifle the waves of emotion. She didn't want to shatter. Not now. She was stronger than this. Dragging in a rough breath, she spoke. "So, what's for dinner, J.P?"

 

[Muirgen]

"Not omelette. That at least, I know for sure." He heard the hurt and the fear and the strain in a tremulous voice that very nearly broke. John Paul saw the shaking of her fingers and the anxious cast to her face she fought to keep calm and strong. He fought back the sudden urge to pick her up, wrap his arms around her - however all prosthetic and non-human one of them was - and comfort her, whisper gentle things into her hair, soft murmurs as he rocked her...

Heh. Yeah, right... Somehow he did not think Sarah would really go for his being all super manly and gentlemanly, taking care of the sad, wounded and frightened little damsel-in-distress. She might even take the chance to knock him the hell back out all over again...

John Paul laughed. His smile for Sarah was sincere though, and appreciative, without even a hint of condescension or pity. Instinctively he knew how she would hate him for it and frankly, all her efforts to keep herself together to this point deserved far better than that.

He'd bent the tile for her as she asked, watching intently as she built the wood-like structure for there fire. Sarah made the spark they needed without wasting a single one of the flares he was prepared to burn if friction alone would not suffice on wet kindling, and he did not hide the appreciative nod for her ingenuity. Brilliant, that little piece of chemical ignition she had going there. Who knew there was a reality star in the known universe, with genuinely useful skills and knowledge? John Paul must have won the universal lottery of a lifetime...

Considering their current situation, the ridiculousness of that thought made him grin all the wider. "So I guess chicken cacciatore it is.... " He'd go back and retrieve the omelette packet he'd tossed earlier to see her laugh, and put it back safely into their kit. Sarah's talk of the insects they might eventually have to forage sobered him some. With no way to know how long before a rescue team made it to Er (because the thought one might never come at all was not one even he could entertain at the moment), her words were practical, and true, but something even he could not look forward to with relish - even if they were to find bugs that weren't pure poison to the human body. Any truly edible food they still had - even those damned omelettes - was going to be more valuable than gold.

"I'll cook, and you tell me where it is you learned that little trick with the glycerin and the permanganate... Oh, and make it a good story while I'm slaving away here over our dinner, would you?" John Paul winked slyly, shot her a devastating smile. "Something a little better than 'high school chemistry class,' even if you have to make it up from scratch - but I bet you won't have to. Do you and your father go out a lot, camping, I mean?"

**********​

He cringed in his canopy perch overhead, hissing softly as all his senses were suddenly stung by the needle sharp stab of unexpected flare of brilliant light and heat in the darkness. His tail lashed furiously, and he waited to see if these soft, smelly larva were about to be consumed by the flames as their cocoon had been when it struck - and yet they were not. A new thing. A strange thing. He did not like either new or strange things, and containing the urge to rend the vile larva limb from stinky limb had him shaking with an impotent need for violence, to protect home and the queen.

But he feared that sudden fire even more, the not-knowing of when it might strike again or even why the two larva did not flee it - and so he waited. He was a good hunter. The best, and it would be his seed carried through the generations with their queen, refined by a patient cunning that would be his legacy for all their kind...

 

[InkWren]

Sarah envied his easy smile, even if it seemed half the time he was secretly laughing at her. She fed a couple of the heavier pieces into the fire, before scooting back to the makeshift table with its scraps for dishes. Hugging her knees to her chest and resting her chin upon them, she watched him cooking dinner. "Nothing sexier than a man who can cook, or so...so Anne told me." Her mouth shut as made faces at herself.

Stars in heaven! What a lame thing to say. As if now was the time to flirt! It was his fault for being all smiley and winky and warriory. She rested her forehead on her knees for a moment and pretended to cough to hide her frustration with herself. She wasn't some emptyheaded Ginger. She was Mary Anne. No! She was....was the god damn professor!

"Well, Skipper." Her muffled voice could be heard in answer. She wasn't good at smiling and winking, which seemed to be JP's form of stress management. Her own face was expressive and she had no control over it, which sometimes irritated and sometimes frightened her. But, she had learned long ago that words were expressive and she could control them. She could use them as a shield or a sword to protect herself from people's opinions or prying, or to try to seem as ok as John Paul could with just a smile.

"Before I was stranded on this uncharted desert isle..." She let the ancient reference hang for a moment before lifting her head to continue. "I lived on a mining colony. My dad liked to take me out camping when I was younger. He said those trips made crawling down into the dark bearable. I learned all kinds of things from him. How to build fires and make snares. Fish. He loved the old stories of Crusoe and the Swiss Family Robinson. We built forts in caves and trees. But...there isn't much need for such skills anymore. Until now. Lucky for you, I'm more like the Professor than the movie star."

Her protective posture uncurled a bit and her head lifted. Her grey eyes met his expressively; willing him to see she wasn't gonna be any flyboy fantasy. She'd had her fill on the Frontier, and if there was one thread of silver round this dark cloud of a circumstance, it was that at long last she could be herself. And if he didn't like it, when he could see how long he lasted.

"The professor made far better use of his coconuts than Ginger ever did. Don't you think?"

 

[Muirgen]

John Paul did not answer her right away, but instead simply frowned as if deep in concentration as he looked down to his belly. Makeshift plates and utensils ignored as the chicken cacciatore mixture steamed lightly about the edges over the fire, he only gripped the edges of his stomach wonderingly with both hands, pinching the flesh there tentatively over his flight suit.

"So how did I manage to go from sexy chef guy to the Skipper?" he asked with a pout, poking his belly with his fingers now. "Hardly seems fair... " His voice trailed off for a moment. "Really, does this flight suit make me look big?"

Suddenly, John Paul's face grew wide and brilliant, his smile lighting up the Erian night even brighter than their campfire. "Although... If you're one of those who thinks girth is sexy?" He laughed, grinning wickedly as he waggled thick black eyebrows at the young woman beside him. "I'll be your Skipper then - though honestly I don't remember a darn thing about the Professors' coconuts, or Ginger's." He shrugged lightly. "I was always a way bigger fan of Mary Anne, truth be told."

John Paul picked up one of the plates, and began scooping about half their 'dinner' onto one of the plates, peering over the makeshift pot to the water he set boiling. "Almost there," he said, handing over the plate to Sarah, along with one of the scoop-like utensils. "The water I mean, but I'll still use the iodine tabs when we're done. It'll taste awful, but... " He shrugged all over again, helplessly. He felt sure Sarah would understand, it was far better to drink funky-tasting water that was safe, than to die of thirst or be turned gut-sides out by some nasty alien disease.

"Wow... " he said after Sarah took her plate and he finally began to scoop his own share, "I haven't thought of that ancient show in... Years. Seriously, just years." John Paul laughed easily, seeing Sarah unfurl herself like a defiant banner, and was glad for it. "A mining colony then?" He nodded appreciatively. "Your father sounds like a pretty amazing man, Sarah. And I'm eternally grateful he taught you all those skills. Not everyone gets to live on board space stations, be pampered by technology and androids and the like. If you ask me, space travel hasn't changed the human condition for most people all that much at all... "

"Well, not that you were asking, but hey, dinner conversation? I'm good sticking with family, but we sure can move on to religion and politics if you like?"

 

[InkWren]

He was flirting with her. That rough and ready smile, and the joking around. Did he really think she could be so easily distracted? So....unproductively distracted from their situation? Sarah still smiled. After all, he'd gotten the reference at least, but he hadn't won her over into "devil may care" sexy Skipper camp. No, siree. She was no addlepated bleached-brain thruster-bunny!

But, where his smile and humor had kept her detached and mildly exasperated, the compliment about her father won him back some points. So, her answer was less prickly than it might have been at first.

"Look, Skipper." She rocked back and drew her knees to her chest. "I know what you are doing. And maybe it works for you. I have an arsenal of elephant jokes if you ever need distracted from a situation." She plucked debris from her pants and rubbed at the dried gunk there. "But, I'm more...practical. And I feel safer when I can set my eyes on a goal. Especially if there is something nasty behind me."

Her eyes had dark circles of mental and emotional fatigue around them and her freckled skin was pale. "I'm not ready to talk about the past or politics and religion just yet. So...would you mind if we talked about the future?" She looked at the fire and then back at him. A smile, one that begged to be understood, tugged at her mouth. "When we went on our trips into the woods, there was no going home. It was about discovery and conquest. And the first things we'd do is name base camp. As if one day it was gonna be a city with statues of its founders."

The memory cheered and excited her. Her limbs uncurled as she began looking around. "I'm not in denial. I know there's some...thing...up there and it might make it hard...for people to come back for us. I know my ship and maybe all her crew....is gone." Busy fingers found a sharp scrap of metal and a piece of insulative core board with the consistency of soft wood. "I know there's likely to be dangers out there worse than dirty water, but..."
She scratched at the board with her stylus. "Until our time is up, this is home." She could hear her father's laughing voice in her ear. *Until our time is up, this is home, Wolf-pup. So what are we gonna call it?*

She flipped the board so JP could read the words scratched there and grinned. "You can name the next one."

APHELION
Pop. 2
​

​

 

[Muirgen]

"Oh perfect... " John Paul laughed long and loud, shaking his head incredulously as he eyed the handmade sign appreciatively. "That is... That is hilarious Sarah. Just perfect... " He really did have to give it to the little lady, smart and funny and touched with just a little of the oppositional defiant disorder, he was fairly sure. He really didn't know why everything he seemed to say was more or less exactly the wrong thing with Sarah, raising her little hackles almost visibly like a prickly little pup - but thankfully J.P. really wasn't the dwelling type.

"Fine, fine, but you gotta promise the next planet we crash land, completely uncharted and humanity devoid? I get to name the wreckage."

He shoved some of his own chicken-like meal into his mouth and grimaced. It was warm, true, but as tasteless as he remembered. He leaned back some, reaching back into the meal packet he'd opened. One large hand rummaged around for a few moments until that wide, contented smile beamed brightly.

"And if you want to talk about the future Sarah? Good by me, let's talk about the future." He bit off the little plastic wrapper over the tiny red and green glass bottle, peeling it away before twisting the little red plastic cap away with the fingers of one hand.

"One thing you ought to know, before the night goes any further: you seem like a nice lady Sarah, and you're pretty too, but I'm not out to take advantage of you." John Paul tossed a few drops of the pungent sauce from the bottle over his meal, breathing in deeply and contentedly as the pungent scent of hot pepper-i-ness. "Sure, we probably are the last two people on this planet - well, the only two human beings ever." He shrugged helplessly at his own obvious truism.

"But if I ever treat you disrespectfully? You've got my permission to rip my arm off and beat me with it." One cybernetic hand patted his obviously cybernetic, eyebrows raised playfully. "And it's really removable, and I'll know I've got it coming."

"So yes, future... " John Paul sighed happily as he swirled his chicken-like with his makeshift utensil, swirling his meal until he could gauge just the right evenness of just the right amount of hotness. "I think you about summed it up right. H-E has known for some time, that there was something... Someone... Whatever the hell that was, destroying ships in this sector. That' s why our ship was cloaked before yours came in. No, I don't think many people but maybe you and a couple others made it off - and I am sorry. Really, truly sorry about that Sarah."

"This planet - I think my weapons officer is the only one who's given it a name, and he calls it Er. Aphelion works for me too - a lot prettier, and appropriate. Too bad neither pretty nor appropriate makes this place stink any less. So no, no idea when anyone will come - I say when, because my crew won't leave anyone behind. I know Danny, my First Mate... " John Paul laughed all over again. "Yeah, I have a First Mate - guess I am 'Skipper,' huh? Yeah, but Danny won't let it go - they'll be back for a survey at least, for the wreckage, but no telling when. We don't leave a man behind though..."

He shrugged again, offering her the little red and green glass bottle between thumb and forefinger. "Tabasco?"

 

[InkWren]

Sarah blinked when he began assuring her he intended to be a gentleman. In spite of his cocky smile and casual flirtation, she had not gone to the next step. What would happen when the lights went out? And now he was assuring her he had no intention of impropriety. Even though they were the only people on ...Er.

A laugh began to form behind her closed lips. As he spoke of using his arms for her own self defense, those full lips twitched. And when his eyebrows lifted, the laughter came pouring out, flooding the mangled begins of the once and future city of Aphelion. She had her mother's laugh, though her companion wouldn't know that. The tone was lower than her speaking voice, smoky and rich as good coffee and ended with a content sigh. She felt muscles that had been tense since, well, she wasn't even sure how long since; but now they let go.

As he spoke of his men and their likely return and the loss of her own crew, the smile remained but shifted to a thankful but almost guilty look. Her gaze dropped and she ran her fingers over the sign that still lay in her lap. "It hardly seems fair that I was one of the lucky ones." She shrugged a slim shoulder as she prayed Anne had been lucky too. "Thank you. For...well for saving me." Something cried out in the dark that had goosebumps crawling up her back as she set the sign aside.

Her smile was rueful as she shook off the sensation and poked at the strange "food". "Well, sorta saving me." Her eyes danced teasingly as he offered up the Tabasco. "It really does help doesn't it? Hang on." She found the one in her own packet and held it out. "Seeing as you appointed yourself camp cook, Skipper, I'll give you the bits I don't use for our little stockpile." She took the partially used one in trade for the full bottle, and doctored the contents of her own warmish dish. She had never been a big eater and he would notice sooner or later that the crackers and speards and even the candy would often be left after a meal.

"So, what you were saying earlier, about being a gentleman." She licked her spoon before continuing. "You assume I'm a lady, and I appreciate that. But what if my biological clock starts ticking?" She grinned wolfishly and wide. "You gonna beat me off with my own limbs if I get handsy?"

 

[Muirgen]

John Paul didn't miss a beat. "Only if you ask me to Sarah, nicely and sincerely. So long as it's consensual?" He shrugged helplessly, shooting her a wide, toothy grin. "I don't judge."

He scraped the last of his neatly spiced chicken-like dinner in the corner of his makeshift plate, ready to scoop up after he peered into the "pot" of neatly boiling water. "But between you and me, I'm really going to pray it doesn't come to starting a whole new human civilization on a planet that smells like the collection basin of a ship's waste plumbing. It's not you Sarah, it's this planet I'm ready to break up with here."

J.P. hid the grimace behind the mask of a grin before he turned away, snatching up a couple canteens he intended to fill. The young woman's talk of people she'd lost and his own thoughtless words about a break-up had put him in mind of Vin, and for the John Paul D'Angelo of late, that wasn't really the best frame of mind. No matter that she must have been one of the last people on the Frontier, Sarah couldn't know if she lived - or even if she knew who Vin was while she was aboard the Frontier. There was no asking after the beautiful, whip-smart and endlessly competent and confident lady whose face could still tear him up. It didn't matter he broke things off with her - not really. He didn't want her saddled with pity or a crippled man, and J.P. was far too observant to have missed that brief glint of relief in her eyes when he set her loose.

And now she might be dead... 'No, not "might,"' his thoughts ruthlessly corrected him. 'She is. Almost certainly she is... ' He sighed softly, and then forced that smile back on his face for Sarah. She'd lost her father some time ago - he could tell, just by the way she talked about him, always past tense. She'd lost whatever friends she'd managed to make on the ship that was supposed to bring her fortune, not this senseless tragedy. Heaven alone knew what Sarah had to have witnessed while she was up there in the belly of a doomed ship. Whining about the possible death of an ex-girlfriend in the face of all Sarah lost and endured up on the Frontier seemed... Well, it was selfish. Petty. Self-indulgent. John Paul really wanted to do better for Sarah. She was tough and funny and smart, and she had the most beautiful laugh, earthy and rich and so very alive.

She deserved better.

"I'm not going to say I know exactly how you feel Sarah, about the people on the Frontier and losing them. I don't. I can't. But I have an idea about that, what that guilt feels like." His dark eyes glanced meaningfully toward the outstretched cybernetic hand that carefully took that precious and full bottle of Tabasco from her outstretched fingers. "Still, I have an idea. I may not have a lot of wise things to say, or any answers, but I listen well if you'd like to talk about that. And if not?"

John Paul tucked the little Tabasco bottle back into the bag beside him to save for another day stranded on this planet. The canteens were in his hands, setting them beside him as he carefully lifted the "pot" to the makeshift funnels inserted to the neck of each in turn. "If not, I still make the best damned cup of coffee on Er." He held up a small packet of instant coffee, powdered creamer and sugar.

"Yes yes, I know - my talents really do seem limitless, don't they?"

 

[InkWren]

Sarah gaped like a big eyed fish out of water.

"I will not ask!"

Her mouth snapped shut and her face turned a soft shade of pink that set off her freckles. "I mean, I wouldn't *not* ask. Ah, fuck."

The profanity escaped before she could rein in her wayward tongue. His words overlapped her own and she hoped between them and his busy repacking that her awkwardness would go unnoticed. Her embarrassment eased when he turned away and she watched his movements. They were fluid, almost perfectly natural. But, she'd lived in a mining colony and was no stranger to prosthetics. His were nicer than anything the poor miners were fitted with when their work demanded more than sweat.

Well designed as they were, he couldn't have needed them without paying a terrible price. Sarah knew she could believe him and that he had to be hurting for his friends and possible family he might never see again, in spite of his reassurances to her otherwise.

Her voice was soft and her touch gentle when he turned back with the canteens. "John Paul." Where her tongue had failed her before, it failed her again, yet this time in silence. She rested her hands over his cybernetic ones holding the fixings for coffee. The coolness of them failing to unnerve her. She remembered the scars she had seen when trying to untangle him from the wreckage and all that memory, all the trauma of the past hours, all the loses, all the fears met in her eyes and translated into a shrug of one slender shoulder.

She drew back and tried to get comfortable. "If I drink coffee, then I can't sleep. I could take first watch." Her eyes were drawn to the void beyond the feeble walls of their shelter. It seemed to move, the darkness itself. Soft, strange sounds pierced by the night calls of alien creatures made the world beyond the fire seem a living breathing thing and one not to be trusted. "Seems like the kind of place for sleeping one eye open."

A yawn drew her lips apart and she yawned with the shuddering and rapid intake and release of breathe like one might see a small kitten make. Eyes tight shut and white teeth flanking soft lips. "Yeah, I can stay awake for a while longer with some coffee." Already she missed a warm bed with the safety of four walls around her.

 

[Muirgen]

John Paul was normally never without a quick smile, an easy joke tripping off his tongue lightly as a Valverdian Feather Dancer in molting season. But nothing would come to him now, not even some offhand quip about Sarah's almost comical use of foul language, and kissing someone somewhere with that mouth of hers. The words just wouldn't come, not with Sarah's hands laid so sweetly over his, so much smaller but still strong and doing her level best to be reassuring. For him. He had no words to fill that silence between them, any more than she did.

There was little feeling per se in either of his prosthetic limbs. Though the functioning of them was far finer than most anyone but an employee of H-E Corp or the obscenely wealthy of the galaxy could hope to use, John Paul was still a ship's captain, a pilot. Muscle and bone and sinew were recreated in near-perfect biolmechanical detail, with enough nerve interfaces to ensure all his lightning fast reflexes translated into appropriate action when needed. But sensation?

No, true sensation was not something that was deemed "necessary" for an employee of his stature - not even a junior executive after all - and worth the cost of an additional and outrageously expensive neural overlay. John Paul could feel pressure, yes - he could never have piloted without that sensation. But hot and cold were not necessary to the functions of flight, and even "pain" (or rather, any occurrence with the potential to damage his prosthetic) registered only a flashing red warning light along his optic nerve.

John Paul had never minded letting anyone who wished to touch his prosthetics, to feel the cool surface could hold nothing like true human warmth, or simply to stare in curiosity. He was a scarred and reconstructed oddity after all - he could hardly blame them. But just once, right this very moment, he wished for nothing more than the guts to ask Sarah to move her hands up over his prosthetic, to rest just inches above the biomechanical engineering marvel that was his left hand and remain - for just a few moments - atop his very real and human skin.

There wasn't a chance in hell he'd do that though, and Sarah saved him any further struggle by sitting back herself, and asking something or other about the coffee...

OH! Right, the coffee! Yeah, coffee...

John Paul got right back to the job he'd begun only moments before, his dark eyes suddenly finding something very interesting in the camp fire that required almost all of his most focused and undivided attention. "Up to you Sarah," he said softly, pinching the bags of instant coffee between finger and thumb and shaking them to settle the instant caffeinated goodness into the bottom of the packets. "Coffee doesn't do a thing for me - not when it's a good 50% of the blood that's currently coursing through my body."

He smiled weakly, peering at her from the corner of his eye. It didn't matter she had the cutest little breath of a yawn he'd ever seen in his life, so very like a kitten he wanted to scratch behind her ears to see if she might begin to purr. No matter what happened from here on out, so long as Aphelion remained with a teensy population of 2, there were going to be times when Sarah simply had to take point, to pull guard duty for their small but precious encampment. He couldn't stay awake 24/7 - or whatever the hell time frame Er rotated to.

"But if you're good to go? All right, take first watch is all yours. I'll go catch some rest then - or try."

John Paul shrugged his shoulders, both of them, and something of that cheeky light returned to his face. "I promise, I will leave our bed smelling just the way it did when I got in it. No warm and stinky guy 'under the cover' surprises - promise."