Lieutenant JG Roy Bancroft - The 1:1 Ratio

[Carter Schimpff]

((( OOC: I’ve left Sil and Jovenan’s dialogue in my sim, but Roy is not overhearing them. )))

(( Deck 4 – USS Karnack ))

Jovenan: I’m terrified. Mostly for you. For what changes are happening. If we get out. But, um, I’ve also been terrified this whole time, before we even encountered the Dark Things. I’ve been imagining things, seeing movement at the corner of my eye or hearing people whispering. It didn’t start here either, but on the Frontier Day. This happens every time when I’m somewhere dark and restrictive. I haven’t been able to trust what I see or hear. I… I just wanted you to know. In case I start shouting but there’s nothing there.

Silveira: Nan…

Storm finished the weld and killed the torch for a breath. The sudden absence of the flare made the corridor feel, briefly, almost sane.

She peeled her helmet off and wiped at her face with her sleeve, a quick, practiced gesture that didn’t hide the way her breathing hadn’t quite found a normal rhythm again. Roy couldn’t see her mouth in the half light, but he could see the fatigue around her eyes – creased at the edges, sharp at the center.

Storm: This one’s done.  I think we should move on to the last hole.

Bancroft: ::low and steady:: Copy. You set the pace, I’ll keep us safe.

He took the briefest moment to reflect on the absurdity of that statement – the doctor telling the tactical officer that he’d be the one keeping them safe. 

Storm moved, torch in hand, and Roy moved with her – half a beat behind, the extinguisher now in both hands, ready to turn cold into a weapon if the Dark Things decided to come back for seconds. The corridor ahead stayed empty. Too empty. Roy didn’t like empty corridors on Callis I. He’d learned that emptiness, peace, and quiet were merely lies meant to lure you toward your death.

Jovenan’s voice rose again – something about being done, moving to the middle – and Roy heard that clearly enough. Operational words cut through. The rest didn’t.  

Jovenan: Okay, I’m done here. Let’s move to the next hole in the middle.

Storm paused near the fallen metal plate meant to cover the last breach. She leaned back against intact bulkhead for a heartbeat too long, as if her body was taking that second the way drowning people take air. She tilted her chin toward him. 

Storm: Feel like giving a girl a hand lifting this next piece?

The words were light. The ask wasn’t. Roy caught it in the stiffness in her shoulders, the careful way she kept her stance – like if she shifted wrong she might tip into the spin she’d been fighting since the helmet came off.

He stepped in without hesitation. His shoulder protested. He ignored it with the same quiet ferocity he’d been ignoring it for two weeks.

Bancroft: ::without missing a beat, moving in beside her:: Yeah. On three. And if you start seeing stars, you tell me before you meet them.

They got their hands under the edge of the plate. Metal scraped against deck plating with a sound that made Roy’s teeth ache. He could feel heat radiating from the hull around the rupture, like the ship itself still remembered being torn open.

He lifted. The shoulder flared. The world narrowed to breath, weight, and keeping his voice even.

He didn’t look at her face; he didn’t need to. He could feel the way she was compensating, the way her grip tightened a fraction too hard.

They walked it into position together, inch by inch, muscle by muscle, until the plate met the torn edge of hull and settled with the dull, satisfying thunk of something finally fitting where it belonged.

Storm redonned her mask, visor lowering again.

Silveira: I love you.

Jovenan: You too, Commander.

Silveira: Good work. I think we can break that time Alex.

Storm:  Not yet, Sil…

The muted words escaped from under her mask.  

Storm:  I need to finish up this last weld.

Bancroft: ::quietly:: Easy does it.

As soon as the helmet was in place and the torch was heated up again, the sauna returned.  Holding the torch with one hand and the piece of metal with the other.  Each breath felt like she was sucking it through a superheated straw.  For a brief moment, her head began to spin, she let go of the torch’s trigger and pressed her other palm into the metal to steady herself.

Silveira: We can do this.

Jovenan: Yes we can. ::to everyone:: Status? Any signs of the Things yet?

Storm’s visor lifted a fraction as she drew in a deeper breath, trying to steal a mouthful of cooler air. Roy didn’t have to see her eyes to know she’d closed them for a second. He could tell from the way her shoulders dipped, the way her head angled like she was listening to her own pulse.

Storm:  I’ll be okay.  I’m just a little lightheaded.  It’s likely just the heat under that helmet coupled with dehydration.  I’m not sure where I put my water bottle.  But that’s a ‘later’ problem.  ::Turning to Jovenan:: I don’t think it’s the Things. ::Taking another long, slow gulp of cool air::  I don’t sense them at this moment.

Roy’s jaw tightened behind his mask.

Lightheaded. Dehydration. Words that sounded reasonable given their situation but still set his instincts on edge, because the body didn’t always play fair when something else was in the room.

Alex was telepathic. The Dark Things were… whatever they were. Roy didn’t have data for a diagnosis. He just had a doctor’s gut and a growing list of things that didn’t add up.

He kept it to himself.

He didn’t steal her authority with panic. He didn’t put fear into the air while she needed calm. He made a mental note so sharp it might as well have been written in ink.

Bancroft: ::measured, professional:: When you’re done, you drink. If we have to go hunting for your bottle, we will – but you don’t get to cash out on me. ::grinning:: Chief Morgan would have my stethoscope if I let that happen.

She dropped her visor again.

Silveira: We will do this.

Jovenan: When we’re done here, we get back to the Jefferies tubes together. We have to be mobile.

Storm:  Shouldn’t be long now.

Bancroft: ::to the corridor at large:: Yeah. Short is good. Let’s make ‘short’ the theme of the evening.

Silveira: Response

The torch traced its slow arc around the patch. A quarter turn. Half. Roy counted it in his head like a pulse check.

Storm faltered – not much. Just enough that Roy saw it: a flutter in her focus, a tiny stagger in the rhythm of her breath, a hand tightening like she needed to remind herself she was still holding something solid.

His fingers flexed around the extinguisher handle.

Jovenan: Done!

Storm:  I’m getting close

Roy didn’t move. Moving would make her look. Moving would make her think. She didn’t need distraction; she needed to finish the job.

But his voice – his voice could be a hand on the back of her neck, steadying without touching.

Bancroft: ::even, controlled:: You’re doing fine. Don’t chase it – just finish the circle. One inch at a time.

Silveira: Response

The last inch took everything out of her. Roy saw it in the way her shoulders rose, the way her hand tightened, the way the torch nearly dipped.

Then it was done.

Storm stood, helmet coming off, breath finally finding a little room.

And the universe, as always, chose the exact second relief arrived to remind them it didn’t care.

Jovenan had moved toward the Jefferies tube hatch again, starting to talk – something about Deck 3, airflow, bulkheads. Roy was half listening, half scanning the rest of the corridor.

Jovenan: Deck 3 has sections that let the air flow to the multi-deck facilities. We have to fix those if there are ruptures, but otherwise it might be enough to see that the interior bulkheads are—

Storm’s hand came up to her face, pressing the heel of her palm into her eye socket like she was trying to push the dizziness back where it belonged. Her other hand grasped Roy’s shoulder for support.

He knew what that meant.

There was no space between instinct and action. Roy’s hand closed around Alex’s upper arm and he hauled her backward into the open Jefferies tube, the movement firm and unceremonious – a field extraction, not a suggestion. Metal scraped under their boots as he maneuvered her inside, placing his own body between her and the corridor without ever consciously deciding to.

Storm:  Close the hatch.  Quickly!

Roy slammed the hatch shut hard – white heat flaring down his arm as the metal rang beneath the impact. He swallowed the pain whole, spun the locking mechanism, then gave it an extra wrench for good measure.

The clang that followed from the corridor side reverberated through the steel and into his bones.

He didn’t look back.

He guided Alex forward, one steadying hand at her back, until they reached Jovenan and Silveira farther down the narrow tube. The air inside was cooler, thinner, tinged with dust and insulation and old circuitry – but it was shelter.

For now.

Bancroft: ::grim:: Hatch is locked. They didn’t breach it last time – I doubt they will this time.

Silveira: Response

Storm: They’re back.

Roy gave a short nod, jaw tight, extinguisher angled back toward the hatch as though the metal might turn transparent at any second.

Bancroft: ::unsentimental:: They’ll keep coming back until we give them a reason not to. ::a breath through his nose:: And I would very much like that reason to involve something with a trigger.

Come on, crew. Get those forcefields up. We need the help.

Silveira/Jovenan:  Response

Storm:  Where did they come from?

The question barely left her mouth before the tube shuddered.

The impact was louder this time – not exploratory. Intentional. The vibration shot through the hull, into Roy’s boots, up his spine. Somewhere behind that hatch, something heavy had thrown itself against the barrier with purpose.

Bancroft: ::tersely:: No way to know for sure, but at the very least I don’t think they can fit into these tubes. Not the ones I’ve seen, anyway.

Silveira/Jovenan:  Response

Storm:  There’s something different this time…it feels … deliberate.

Roy’s eyes flicked to her – not dismissive, not skeptical. Measuring.

Deliberate meant learning.

Deliberate meant pattern recognition.

He did not like predators that learned.

Bancroft: Deliberate how? Directional? Coordinated? Are you sensing intent, or just proximity?

Silveira/Jovenan/Storm:  Response

Roy shifted his stance, bracing one shoulder against the tube wall to ease the strain on the other. He catalogued his team the way he catalogued patients: airway, breathing, circulation — stability.

Storm – lightheaded, overheated, flirting with incapacitation from whatever those things did to telepaths.

Silveira – steady on his feet, but something under the surface – something Roy couldn’t name yet. A tension in the musculature that didn’t read as simple fatigue.

A 1:1 healthy-to-compromised ratio was not sustainable in combat medicine. It turned response into triage, and triage into loss.

He would not let that math win.

Bancroft: We need to move up to Deck 3 quickly. We’re running low on time. We have to get that deck squared away before– ::licking his lips:: Well, before anything happens.

Silveira/Jovenan/Storm:  Response

Another dull thud reverberated through the tube. Testing. Measuring.

Roy’s fingers tightened around the extinguisher canister until his knuckles whitened. The cold release valve sat beneath his thumb – a promise… or a last resort.

His eyes hardened.

Bancroft: No time like the present. I’ll bring up the rear.

Silveira/Jovenan/Storm:  Response

TAG/TBC!

===

Lieutenant JG Roy Bancroft

Medical Officer

USS Artemis-A

A240205RB1