IV || [MxM, Sci Fi]

The Ghost | 6

"Rica."

Ray shuddered and turned over the shoulder at the sound of his voice. The way Iv said her name, it sounded...very gentle.

"Have you met her?"

"No. He used to talk about her a lot. He often called her 'my angel."

"Angel?" Ray frowned. Quite a stretch coming from Damian-the-Militant-Atheist-Silver.

"Keep the photo. Is there anything else? I found only one box with nutrients; if you need more, I will ask June for them."

"No, there's enough for several months. I only need one capsule a week." Iv strolled to the wall and dialed the code on the safe box, taking out of it a small white container with an iridescent logo. Ray's curiosity took over and he came closer.

"My factory settings and certificates," Iv replied ahead of the question. He took Ray's hand and placed a small chip with Aura Corp logo on his palm. "Please keep it safe."

Ray stared at it for a moment, then at IV picking boxes from the bed, then back at the chip. "Well...let's go," he squeezed out, picking up his stack.

He put his best effort into replicating the formulas from the tablet's screen on paper; while taking notes on the side with the red pencil, Ray noticed Iv watching him closely from the workstation where he was charging. In casual uniform, the android almost blended with the white and grey interior of the lab.

The last batch of formulas got transferred to the paper, and he compared it to the data he smuggled from the med bay's computer. Save for minor differences in radicals, Iv's sample featured a complete list of known hormones and neurotransmitters. Ray frowned.

The other day, he bugged the medical officer until she finally allowed him to inspect Unit V from the med bay; it was a newer gen, and the AI was impressive but nowhere close to Iv's. It had the latest version of Euclea, which featured one level and used twice as many resources as him....while Iv was operating 28 levels, and Ray wasn't sure if there weren't even more.

The data from that factory chip added little to the picture, except for confirming all legal papers were in Damian's name.

Ray scratched his chin with the pencil, going over the biochemistry report once again. But what bothered him the most was the fact that nowhere in Iv's scraped data was a single record on plants.

He met Johanna on his way to the bridge, and for a while, they walked side by side in silence.

Like most of the crew, Ray knew little about her. Everyone on board who wasn't an astro-something scientist was military personnel. Ray never bothered with the backgrounds - most of his interactions were occasional, save for Max, Amy, and Trent, - he only knew Johanna was in some kind of peace enforcement before joining the SRA, and that the entire tech team revered and dreaded her at the same time.

Aside from being the Third Officer and Chief Engineer, she was handling scouting missions just like Damian, with a smaller ship. His tasks were mostly mapping and proofing routes, and Johanna was in charge of security and risk assessment, making sure both the main ship and smaller vessels stayed away from dangerous or potentially dangerous areas. 

It was hard to tell from her scrupulous façade, but Ray could guess Damian's death was a big deal for her too.

On the command's side, it was only Rachel this time. Ray made up the excuse he hadn't finished the scraping yet, Johanna had nothing new to add regarding the cause of the crash. 

However, she brought some input on the outcome. As an ex-jet pilot, she was certain Damian was desperately trying to crash land - and he would have succeeded if only there was any atmosphere to brake. Ramming into the cliff to gain friction, and halving propulsion by destroying one engine, Damian prevented the ship from hitting the surface at full speed. But it wasn't enough, and the speed was still too high upon final collision.