star finder

Skyler listened and nodded. “Yes, mainly. We’ll have to travel through this carefully, and manually, which is my part. This is why I need you to make the perfect map for this journey across it. For me to pilot the ship safely into it.” he explained. “From what I studied, it exists because of a star’s death from another star. there would be some debris I’m afraid.”

Lara glanced sideways at him, giving a sharp nod at his instructions. She knew the expectations of her job, but she still appreciated being told what to do. It felt somehow reassuring, like she wasn’t alone in it. “There’s going to have to be some mapping as we go as well, the sensors can only go so far at a time.” Lara advised, bringing up a different radar and using the information to start plotting the initial points he would need to avoid.

He shakes his head. “Not really, but I suppose I don’t send any first, so maybe that’s my fault.” It doesn’t bother him anymore, like it would have a couple years ago. “Oh, really? I hear everyone else complain about how hard it is! Yes, a tournament would be fun." 

“Do you want to record one now?” She dragged out the question, because he clearly hadn’t for a reason. It saddened her though maybe meddling was a bad idea. Close quarters escalated things. “Well, it is hard and I’m not great at it, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t have a tournament.”

“That’s the spirit “  Jeremy continued to smoke.  “So how’s the mapping going ? “

“Stressful.” Lara told him, pausing to blow smoke up and away from them. “This whole nebula thing, god. And being the cadet.” She just rolled her eyes, figuring he’d get it.

Skyler had his eyes focused on the undetailed map in front of him. Even in hologram, this nebula seemed tough enough to go through. Even him, as confident as he could be had a bit of worry. He had to. Some said there was no bravery without a bit of fear. The arrival of the map maker of the ship through his hologram caught his attention. He let her sat next to him before speaking. “Nebula cloud it is. And with that, I hope you’ll be on time next time, Cadet. We really need to be focus here. We could actually… die here.” he told her making eye contact before pointing the said nebula. “But if we don’t want to be… we’ll need to know exactly in what -which I already cared about- and where we’re going through.” 

“I am focused,” Lara told him, “That’s why I’ve got the coffee. But yes sir, you got it.” She nodded her agreement, biting her tongue from pointing out that the announcement over the speakers didn’t really specify a time for them to get there. “Alrighty,” She wiggled her fingers as she stared down at her screens, taking in the minimal information that was recorded. “So, it appears to be mainly made up of hydrogen, not a big surprise there. I’m also detecting higher levels of gamma radiation. We definitely need shields up.” 

Artyom scoffs, throwing one hand to his heart (ribcage) to exaggerate the gesture. “You get messages from home? And you think they aren’t as important as me playing the game on there with the dots? I’m flattered.”

Lara laughed at the dramatic gesture, but paused and cocked her head to the side and the sad revelation. “You don’t get messages from home?” She asked, suddenly feeling incredibly bad for him. “I love that game, we should have a tournament some time.” 

“Oh, don’t worry about it. I wouldn’t offer if I was doing something important. Besides, it’s not as if I haven’t got plenty of time to use them later myself.”

“Well this isn’t very important either, just a message from my friend back home.” Lara told him, resting her hands in her lap as she swung side to side in her chair. 

“Oh I’m sure I did read your actually. I quite like reading the shorter ones first. They’re a godsend,” Siofra said with a bright smile.

“Maybe I’m just simplifying things or whatever cause I’m just from Earth, but I imagine that human things are easier?”

Kishna was confused on this one, so much that her whole body changed color to ask a silent question, like blurting it out without meaning to. But Lara might not understand it, she thought, so she made the effort to translate it into words : “People might get offended, so it’s an insult, but you love being told that?” 

Lara paused her laughter for a moment, realising that her comment hadn’t clarified things for Khishna at all. “Yeah, when you’re friends with someone, sometimes an insult can actually be a term of endearment. Like ‘Hey bitch!’ ‘What’s up slut?” She angled her body with each sentence, cheerily leading a conversation between herself and a fake other person. The demonstration would surely help.

“Well …here goes the psa, you can get cancer …but you also a free individual who is big enough to make decisions ….and I’m on my break so I’m no doctor right now. “

She smirked as he spoke, holding off on commenting before giving a satisfied nod. “One won’t kill me.” Lara eventually told him, lighting up and bringing the cigarette to her mouth. 

“I ask for updates roughly once a year and I always like to review them when we start going somewhere new. Makes sure that everything is fresh. But no it wasn’t like this when I first arrived. The doctor before me was a disorganised mess.”

“Always seems to be the way.” Lara rolled her eyes and tutted, though on her side it felt more like she had large shoes to fill, than to stretch out. “I don’t know if you’ve gotten to mine yet, don’t think there’s much interesting in that. Chicken pox at age seven, on and off tonsilitiis in my teens.” 

“I guess you have to decide whose standards you’re going by of it being fixed.“ Though it seemed his attempt to help out now wasn’t doing much. The error message still glared annoyingly back at the both of them. “I got the error message to stop on the tablet, I mean, yes it was in a few pieces afterward, but…” He trailed off shrugging his shoulders. He wasn’t much of a technology guy, at least not in the way of computers and electronics. Give him a high tech weapon and then they’d be talking. “Don’t feel bad, you and I are in the same boat on that one.” He watched her cancel out of the program from the computer, “Sorry I couldn’t be much help. Hopefully, you’ll be able to get back to whatever you were up to later.”

Lara narrowed her eyes slightly, “I think useable is my definition, which may not be your definition.” She laughed and nodded along, “So we can get the error message to go away, but whether I can still watch my message is in question.” Back on Earth, pre Circle, she thought she’d been quite current and techy, but when she enlisted she had very quickly realised she was out of her depth. Her own consoles, charts and buttons sure, but the rest felt something alien. Which it could actually be, technically. “Don’t worry, it can always wait.” She logged out of her messages completely and huffed out a sigh. 

He smiles sympathetically and shrugs. “Hopefully, yeah that’s all it is. But hey, if it isn’t, I’m not really using this one, so you’re welcome to it." 

“Are you sure?” Lara asked, not wanting to kick him off whatever he was doing because she wanted to watch a message, it could always wait until later. “I don’t want to rush you off.” 

“I do hope your not seriously asking me.” He said looking over her shoulder to the error that flashed across the screen. In an attempt to help he tried a could light love taps at the top of the monitor. No change. “Those engineering guys hate me, my idea of fixing something is hitting it a few times, and if that doesn’t work, turn it off and turn it back on. And if that doesn’t work, well, let’s just say I’ve taken one of those tablet things in pieces to be fixed. Will just leave it at that.”

Lara chuckled and shrugged her shoulders, “I’ll take anyone’s help right now. Even yours.” She teased, even though she still held some hope that his knocks at the screen would fix things. “Hm.” She pursed her lips when it didn’t just spring back to life. Lara laughed properly at his confession, raising her brows in amusement. “I’m guessing it didn’t actually get fixed in the end?” She asked, cancelling out of the error message and feeling like she should just leave it for another time. “Sometimes I think electronics just don’t like me.”

Jeremy handed her the pack.  “ Knock yourself out”

“I feel like you should be telling me not to do this.” She commented, “You know, as a doctor and all that.” 

“I’m here I’m here I’m here,” Lara yipped as she rushed into the room like a whirlwind, speaking quickly to quell any protests of her ever so slightly late arrival. Circling the console she set down her coffee cup and sat, cross legged, in her seat. “So what’ve we got? I heard nebula cloud?” Sure Skyler would be the one piloting through the unknown, but Lara was right there with him. There was something scary about their jobs in the front of it all, but gods if it wasn’t pretty.