Lieutenant JG Roy Bancroft - The Oldest Trick We Know
Carter Schimpff
(( Campsite – Inside the Cliffs – Callis I ))
Bancroft: ::softly, not looking up:: You think we were the only ones who made it? Or do you think there are others out there somewhere?
Roy kept his eyes on the tent strut he was coaxing into place, fingers stiff and clumsy from a day that had gone on far longer than his body had signed up for. The chemlight clipped nearby cast his hands in a sickly green that made his knuckles look bruised even where they weren’t.
He hadn’t meant the question to land so heavily. It had just… slipped out. The kind that did when the noise finally dropped low enough for real thoughts to get through.
The waterfall filled the cavern with a constant roar, loud enough to blur the edges of silence but not loud enough to drown it out entirely. Everything else – the damp air, the smell of wet stone and unwashed bodies, the faint chemical tang of chemlights – pressed in close.
Roy rolled his shoulder once, carefully. It protested. He ignored it.
Bergmen: I don’t know. (beat) I hope. ::moment of silence:: The escape pods are built to survive even the harshest of possible planetfalls. But depends on where you land. Acid lakes or lava are the end of the way. (beat) And even if you land on a hard surface, you still need to drink, eat…and without any emergency equipment, anything hungry and big enough can kill you in a moment if you have nothing to defend. (beat) You and I, our species, we survived because we were smarter to evolve and invent tools and pointy sticks, not because our claws were bigger than those predators on our planet… (beat) So, I hope so. I hope they will land safely. I hope they found water and food. I hope they found sticks to sharpen. I hope… ::sighs:: Because what else can we do, right?
Roy listened without interrupting.
He let the words settle the way he let a patient’s vitals settle – watching for the places they spiked, the places they trailed off. Ollie wasn’t spiraling. He was bracing. Drawing lines around what he could afford to think about and pushing everything else out past tomorrow.
That made sense. Roy was doing the same thing. Just with better posture.
Bergmen let out a frustrated sigh that echoed off the stone and tossed another useless tool onto the growing pile. The sound of it clattering against rock landed harder than it should have.
Roy finished securing the tent and sat back on his heels, dust clinging to his palms, sweat drying into a sticky film along his spine.
Bancroft: ::nodding:: I hope you’re right. ::a beat, gentler:: How you holding up, by the way? Not just the injuries – I know about those. ::tapping the side of his head:: How’s it going up here?
He kept his tone even, conversational. This was a check-in, not an intervention.
Bergmen: ::shrugs his shoulders:: I’m fine. Good. ::stand up and glance at Bancroft:: You?
Roy huffed out a breath that might have been a laugh on a better day. He stood, stretching slowly, vertebra by vertebra, feeling every mile he’d put on his legs since the Karnack had gone quiet.
Bancroft: ::after a moment:: Functional. Tired. Still upright. ::a small, lopsided smile:: Which I’m taking as a win, for now.
It was the truth, trimmed down to something he could say out loud without handing Ollie something heavier to carry.
Ollie laughed, but there was no real humor in it. He shook his head and moved toward the shallow pool at the base of the waterfall, crouching to pry damp moss from the rock with careful fingers.
Bergmen: That’s right, hm? That we're supposed to say - I’m fine, keep on moving. That’s what we all say. ::sighs:: So… truth now? I don’t know. So far, so good, I guess? We have shelter. We have water. We have food for a couple of weeks if we ration. Whatever is more distant than tomorrow, I’m trying not to think about. Anything after is a problem for future ourselves. (beat) That’s an honest truth.
Roy watched the way Ollie moved as he worked – steady, methodical, just a touch too deliberate. He understood the impulse. Thinking too far ahead right now was a fast way to break something important.
Bancroft: ::quiet, approving:: That’s not avoidance. That’s triage. You focus on what’s bleeding first. Everything else can wait its turn.
He wiped his hands on his pants, leaving pale streaks of dust behind, and leaned back against the rock wall. It was cold through the fabric, grounding in a way he welcomed.
Bergmen: So, with the truth out there, we should feel better, right, doctor?
Roy considered that for a moment, eyes drifting to the chemlights marking the edge of their little pocket of safety. Beyond that glow, the cave swallowed everything without comment.
Bancroft: Better than we were an hour ago. ::a beat:: Not fixed. But… better.
He didn’t dress it up. Didn’t pretend that “better” meant “safe.” It just meant they’d bought themselves a little more time.
Ollie set the moss down near the tents and went still. Roy saw the moment before the idea landed – the pause, the tightening around the eyes, the sudden spark that cut clean through fatigue.
Bergmen: Dînêo! Erê, divê ez li ser wê bifikirim!
Roy straightened reflexively, attention snapping back into place as Ollie looked up and flashed a sheepish thumbs-up. He had no idea what Ollie had said, but the tone with which he said it was unmistakable.
Bergmen: Eeeeh… (beat) Chemlights! They are full of butyl lithium. Why didn’t I think that sooner? That thing reacts with water and creates flame. We know how to make flame, doctor!
For just a second, Roy forgot the smell of damp stone and sweat and exhaustion. Forgot the darkness pressing in beyond the glow.
Then his mouth curved – slow, genuine, and impossible to stop.
Bancroft: ::soft, impressed:: Well… I’ll be. That’s great thinking, Lieutenant.
He took a step closer, already running through the implications—heat, light, morale, risk—but didn’t voice them yet. There was time for caution. This moment deserved its own space.
And for the first time since the Karnack had gone silent, Roy allowed himself a quiet, dangerous thing.
A little relief.
Bergmen: Response
(OOC: Leaving room here for Ollie to build the fire.)
The light in the cavern changed first.
Not suddenly – it was nothing dramatic – but enough that Roy noticed it before he meant to. The chemlights no longer felt like the only thing holding gloom at bay. Their green glow was still there, still wrong-looking against skin and stone, but now it had competition: a warmer flicker that softened the angles of the cavern walls and made shadows behave in more familiar ways.
Fire had a way of doing that – of lying, gently, about safety.
Water thundered down the rock face in a constant white roar, breaking into mist before it struck the pool below. The air felt alive because of it – cool currents brushing past his neck, tugging at sweat-stiff fabric, never quite still.
That mattered.
He inhaled slowly through his nose. Smoke wasn’t immediate. That was good. The waterfall pulled air toward it the same way a doorway pulled a draft, and the memory of the wind earlier – violent and directional – replayed itself in his mind.
This cave could breathe.
Fire here wasn’t ideal.
Fire anywhere underground never really was.
But fire with air flow was at least survivable.
Bancroft: Let’s keep the fire small, yeah? Enough for heat and light, but not much more than that.
Bergmen: Response
He crouched and dug into his pack, tearing a narrow strip from a spare dressing with his teeth. He tied it off to a jut of rock a few meters from the fire, then another closer to the waterfall, watching how the fabric lifted and fluttered, how it never quite hung straight down.
He straightened and rolled his good shoulder, feeling sweat cooling on his back now that adrenaline was finally loosening its grip. He was acutely aware of his own body again – the grime on his skin, the stiffness in his legs, the faint sour smell beginning to linger on him.
Bancroft: ::seriously:: If these strips stop moving, or start drifting back toward us, we need to kill the fire and get out. Deal? ::softer, with a smile:: Fantastic work, Ollie. ::raising hand for a fist bump:: Welcome home, eh?
Bergmen: Response
Roy’s gaze flicked, unbidden, to the darker reaches of the cavern beyond the firelight. The places the light refused to go. He didn’t expect to see anything there – but expectation had very little to do with survival today.
His eyes flicked back to his two ‘alarms,’ still swaying gently, obedient to unseen currents.
He allowed himself a small, careful breath.
Not safe.
But safer.
For now, that was enough.
TAG/TBC!
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Lieutenant JG Roy Bancroft
Medical Officer
USS Artemis-A
A240205RB1