Mettle

CH.10_ChangeInStasis

The grated floor of the cockpit bit a familiar pattern into the back of Jacq's hands as she lay gazing into the drifting motes of light outside. She'd lost track of how much time had passed since she'd stowed away on Perseverance; she ate when the hunger pangs became too much to bear, and she occasionally woke up either in her bed or on the cockpit floor which told her she occasionally slept. Her interface clock told her it had been five standards, twelve hours, and thirty-one minutes since she'd left Estermere.

She'd had to shut off her interface's sensory override to avoid permanently burning-out her sense of smell, grasping feebly at the settings in her thoughts with a mind that sloughed like wet meat through the hunger and poor sleep. The food was still nearly unbearable, but at least the scents of oil, rust, and general damp thickness of Perseverance's air helped distract her from it.

She spent most of her time in Jarett's company, though every sentence of hers was met with a paragraph from him. She'd learned about all she could about the pilot in less than two standards: Nudism was as common as it was controversial on Jarett's home world, since air conditioning was both expensive and necessary due to the high humidity. The expense, however, meant that many lower income communities found more cost-efficient ways to cool down.

The local authorities hadn't taken to the subversion of interplanetary decency, so depending on where you decided to flaunt your birthday suit you would either be arrested on site, or disappear into the crowd of naked bodies. Unappealing as both of those options sounded, Jarett made it clear that he favored the latter.

He'd been less knowledgeable about Nick and Leru, though they were the one topic he waxed poetic about more than himself: "They were definitely smushing each other on the regular at one point -- and between you and me, I'm pretty sure they still do."

"How?" A distant nebula entered her view beyond the window, a swirl of pink and gold stardust drifting lazily towards the wall on her right. "They actively avoid each other -- I haven't seen the two of them in the same room since I first got here."

Jarett's snort echoed behind the metal helmet. "That's cuz they're a couple of prudes."

Jacq watched the nebula begin to disappear around the wall, past her range of vision. "Wait, what?"

"Can hardly blame them," he sighed. "Given the circumstances, I could almost smush 'em both. If it weren't for their fatal flaws, anyway."

"What do you mean?" She couldn't count on two hands the number of flaws she'd found in any of the crew, but she hardly considered any of them fatal.

"Nick's got a tight bod, but he's an asshole, and Leru is all of that minus the asshole -- figuratively speaking -- but her vagina," He frowned audibly, morphing the final consonant into a groan. "I mean no disrespect, but that's a deal-breaker."

"And boobs." Jacq looked up from where she lay, towards the pilot's seat, switching feet as they rested atop each other.

"Eh, I don't mind a little jiggle. I'm not exactly a solid-body myself."

Jacq scrunched up her face as she looked away with a chuckle, and the ship drifted back to calm silence.

Hep walked through the door to Jacq's right some time later, meaning Nick and Leru must have been using the exterior halls to avoid each other. He kept his head down, traveling across to the opposite side of the room with muted steps.

"Hep!" Jacq jumped at Jarett's sudden enthusiasm. "How are you this fine standard?"

"Hi Jarett." Hep stopped briefly as he reached the far side of the room. "And Jacq." He appeared less than once per standard, and always disappeared as soon as he could -- Jarett said the quiet man had snuck onto the ship one day and just started fixing things, and nobody questioned him because, well...