lr.5
MEGAZONE 23
"What we've got here is...failure to communicate. Some
men you just can't reach. So you get what we had here last
week. Which is the way he wants it. Well, he gets it. And
I don't like it any more than you men."
--Strother Martin
There was a knock on Zoner's door and it swung open.
That latch really needed to be fixed.
"You wanted to see me?" Jenna asked, standing in the
door to Zoner's room.
"Hmmm? Oh, yeah. Come in. " Zoner swept his hand toward
the one available chair in his room. The other was busy
supporting his box, which he turned down.
"What did you want to see me about?" Jenna asked,
closing the door.
"Well, first off, I want to apologize for dragging you
off into deep space like this."
"It's ok, it's not your fault."
"Yeah, right. Anyway, we have a large group of people
on board with out much order. So far we have a skeleton
crew for the bridge and that's about it. Most of the work
gets done in a haphazard fashion. Whenever something needs
to be done, whoever wants something to do does it. I think
it's time we tried to organize things. And to start I'd like
to make you Chief Medical Officer."
"Well, I guess so. But why me?"
"Because you have the most experience. You're in your
last year of nursing school and that makes you, by far, the
most qualified."
"Ok, but what do we have for equipment?"
"We have the standard stuff in E7 and M401, bandaids,
gauze, tape, cold medication, all of the basic stuff you find
in an apartment. Plus we have Jay's EMS bag for anything
major. But we don't have any real medical equipment, so I
hope no one really hurts themselves, or anyone else for that
matter. And we have ReRob, who has First Responder training,
and flots of us know CPR and basic first aid."
"Well, we'll just have to make do with what we have. Is
there anything else?"
"Well, yeah. I also want you to be in part of any
planetary exploration we may do. Your geology degree may
come in handy. Of course that's only if you want to do it."
"I guess it won't be any problem, it'll give me
something to do. But Zoner.."
"Yeah.."
"What's really bothering you?"
Zoner let out a deep sigh. "Everything, I mean I'm only
21 and I still don't think I'm mature, and I'm responsible
for nearly one hundred lives. I don't think I'm prepared for
this responsibility. Plus I feel responsible for all of
those lives lost in Worcester. And today Gryphon told me his
mother was in Worcester when it was vaped. Sometimes, I
don't know if it's all worth it. And I feel bad about
screwing up everyone's lives. Especially you and Matt. You
guys just got engaged, I don't think you or Matt are very
happy with this situation."
"Well, it is a little unsettling, but I'd rather be here
then dead. If we hadn't been involved with the Wedge War we
probably would have been at home, and our apartment was
vaporized. Don't blame yourself for the deaths, you didn't
do it. You couldn't control Coyle. I trust you, you have
always pulled through when you had too, I'm sure you will do
fine as captain. If you ever need to talk I'll be there."
"There is one more thing."
"What's that?"
"Yuri. I think I'm driving her away. I love her, but I
can't seem to deal with her. I don't know why, I think it's
because I've gotten so close to her so fast. I'm not used to
it, at all. You know better than anyone else how hard it is
for me to open up. You're one of the few who I feel I can
trust. I think part of it is that I feel we're all
responsible for the destruction, and I feel guilty about
blaming her. It wasn't her fault...."
"It wasn't your fault either."
"Thanks. Anyway, I have to do something. I'd better
talk to her."
"It's always best to communicate with those you care
about."
"Thanks, how'd you like to be Ship's Counselor too?
Just kidding, I would never drop that on you. And thanks for
your support. Just knowing you have confidence in me helps a
lot. Good friends are the greatest treasure a person could
ever have. Thanks for being there. And I'm here for you
too."
"I know, thanks."
"You'd better go find Matt, I think he's a little upset
with this whole situation."
"And you'd better talk to Yuri." Jenna and Zoner
embraced, and she left the room.
"Well, I feel a lot better now. I'd better go see
what's been going on for the past few hours. And I've got to
stop talking to myself," Zoner commented.
"Well, I can hear you," Logan mumbled from under his
covers.
"Xmas! How long have you been in here?" Zoner asked, in
a rather startled voice.
"All day, I was up all night playing Cosmic Encounter in
the Wedge."
"Sorry about waking you up."
"No problem, what time is it anyway?"
"Hmm, it's 10:37. What time did you go to bed?"
"About noon thirty, it's about time I got up anyway."
"Well, I'm heading up to the Wedge. See ya if you ever
get out of bed."
"Ok, see ya."
He found Gryphon and Kei asleep on the Fold-O-Couch-O-
Death MkII; the look of near-contentment on Gryphon's face
cheered Zoner somewhat as he went out the front door, slammed
it shut, and climbed the stairway to the bridge. Perhaps the
world wasn't as shitty as it seemed.
"Status report?" he inquired of q as he entered the
bridge.
"Like, not much is happening. We've got Truss
downstairs looking over the engines, and like Android came up
with an estimate of how long it's gonna take us to like get
where we're going."
"Which is?"
"Couple'a days."
"Ok, and I think we'd better make another announcement
to the crew. I recently realized that no washers or dryers
got included in this wreck. I have my closet full, but most
people only have the clothes on their backs. I noticed people
washing their clothes in the bathrooms. I have some extra
stuff, so I can lend stuff to others. Of course most of my
stuff will be a tent for anyone else, but at least they're
clean. Actually, everyone in E7 has a bunch of stuff, I'm
sure they'd be willing to lend stuff out. Anyway, the couple
of days will give Gryphon time enough to recover so he can
lead the away team, I hope. I want our first contact with
whoever we're going to meet to be with him; he's one of the
more stable people here when dealing with strangers."
"Like bullshit?"
"Okay...but it'll give him something to do."
"Like good point. Um, like, recover from what?"
"I don't know if he wants everyone to know or not...I
can't tell you. Sorry."
"No problem..."
"Where's Yuri?"
"Dunno."
"Has anyone seen Yuri?"
There were a series of NO!'s which did not in anyway
resemble a resounding chorus.
"Well, if you see her let her know I'm looking for her.
I'll go check E7 again."
"Kei. Kei. Wake up," Zoner said, gently shaking her.
"Mmmpphh?"
"Kei, do you know where Yuri is?"
"Yuri? Uhhh, no, why?" Kei responded sleepily.
"I need to talk to her."
"Well, you sure didn't want to earlier!"
"What do you mean?"
"She ran out of here crying when Jenna came to see you."
"She did? Why?"
"She doesn't think that you care about her any more."
"How could she ever think that? Of course I care about
her. In fact the reason I'm looking for her is so I can
apologize for the way I've acted the past couple of weeks.
Jenna helped me sort out my feelings about our situation."
"Gaaah...that's the captain of all `duh's," Kei observed
coldly. "Okay, let me spell it out for you: Yuri is
convinced that you don't care about her. When you let Jenna
in to see you right after you turned her away she was
convinced that you loved Jenna and not her."
"How could she assume that?? Jenna is a good friend. I
care about her a lot, sure, but I care about all of my
friends. I owe my life, and more, to her, she's earned my
trust and I enjoy talking with her. We're similar in many
ways. But we're just friends! Yuri is the one I love!"
"Yuri can be insecure sometimes," Paul said from the
sofa by the stereo.
"Paul!" Zoner and Kei exclaimed in unison.
"How long have you been over there?"
"..." was Paul's response.
"Mmmmmwuarrrrggh. What's all the noise? Who turned on
the goddamned light?" Gryphon mumbled.
"It's Zoner, I'm looking for Yuri."
"Oh are you." Zoner had the sudden feeling that Happy
Fun Gryphon was neither happy nor fun at the moment.
"Yeah, I want to talk to her."
"Hmm. Why the sudden change of heart?"
"I just need to talk to her."
"Oh, I see." Gryphon's voice dripped with disdain.
"Well, after you blew her off, she said she would, how did
she put it, `give you room'. See, she has a noble nature,
and she's insecure sometimes...she thinks you love Jenna, so
she's getting out of the way rather than tie you down to
something you don't appear to want. In other words,
bonehead, she left."
"Left? How the fuck can you leave a ship in deep
space--hold it," Zoner said, a creeping fear rising and being
quickly crushed as he ran to the PA box. "q, start a search
for Yuri. And... And have the crew check on all spaceworthy
vehicles."
"Like, will do. Any particular reason?"
"Yeah, I think Yuri may have taken one and left."
"Like, why?"
"Long story, I don't want to get into it now. Just get
on it. Ok?"
"Like, ok."
"How long ago did she leave?" Zoner asked, turning his
attention back to Ben and Kei.
"She left while you were talking with Jenna," Kei
answered.
"That was about an hour ago!" Zoner yelled, visibly
upset.
"Well, it's your own fucking fault she left," Ben
snarled. He was obviously very upset, and taking it out on
Mr. Convenient Target himself.
"Ben! How can you say that to him? He's upset enough
with things the way they are. He doesn't need you to rub it
in," Kei scolded. Yuri's departure was tearing her up as
well, but she had slammed a good heavy layer of fake
toughness over that--it wouldn't start to consciously bother
her for a good two hours.
"It's ok, Kei, I deserved that. It is my fault. If I
hadn't been so self-absorbed I would have noticed that I was
driving her away. The important thing to do now is find
her."
"Yo, like Zoner," q's voice called from the PA.
"What'd you find, q?"
"Yuri doesn't appear to be onboard, and.."
"And what?"
"It appears that like the Garland is gone too?"
"Shit! Thanks, I guess I'll have to look for her
myself. q, start transmitting on our communications
frequency. Send out the following message: `Yuri, I still
love you. Please return. Zoner.'"
"Like, I'll start right now. And Zoner?"
"Yeah?"
"Like good luck."
"Thanks, q."
Ben rose purposefully from the bed and pulled on his
shoes.
"Where're you going?" Kei inquired.
"Out."
"Out where?"
"Just out. Out the back door. I'd advise you all to
grab something anchored."
Gryphon rezzed up his GRF-3N Griffin III Armored Combat
Suit and walked to the back door.
"Oh shit, grab something!" Zoner yelled.
Gryphon opened the door and stepped out into space.
Accompanied by a large amount of kipple which was blown out
along with a good deal of air.
The PA blared to life. "WARNING! WARNING! HULL
BREACH! HULL BREACH! HULL--NEVER MIND. I'M GETTING SICK OF
THIS."
"Well, he isn't the only one who's going to search for
her," Zoner said as he grabbed his CVR-3 and took off at a
run for the bridge, slapping pieces of it into place as he
ran (an awkward task, to be sure).