Chapter 8: Chapter 2 – Part 2

Wren was sitting in the middle of the mess that was her once and future work space, staring blankly at a burned-out brushless motor, when she heard footsteps out in the ship.  She made no move to protect herself.  Bonnie had still been unconscious when Wren drifted past the bathroom earlier, and she’d left the door unlocked.  She half-hoped that Bonnie would arrive with a magazine full of righteous fury so she could stop seeing the twisted, broken wreckage every time she closed her eyes.

 

In between one blink and the next there was a shadow in the door.  Wren looked over, from her spot in the middle of the floor, but could not look up.  The longer Bonnie stood there, the worse it felt.

 

“I… um...”

 

The silhouette in the door remained still and, after a few seconds, even staring at her boots was too much.

 

“I had a weird day today.”

 

Wren found herself staring at the brushless motor again, and for at least the fifth time since picking it up she twisted off the aluminum casing.  The motor itself was fried, and had been when she’d initially found it, but she often took it apart to stare at it.  It seemed like such a small distinction between working and broken.  A little bit of carbon scoring here, or too little flux there, and suddenly this wonderful piece of technology was a literal waste of space.

 

Movement in her peripheral vision.  Bonnie brushed her booted foot across the floor, sliding an assortment of hand tools and a broken soldering gun aside, and promptly sat down in the cleared area.  Wren ran the tip of her fingernail through a groove.  The coils in the motor were brittle and flakey.

 

“Are you familiar with the term ‘catastrophizing’?”

 

Bonnie shook her head.

 

“It’s a cognitive thing,” Wren said, tapping her temple with an extended finger.  “It’s where something happens, something small, and we fear the equally-small repercussions of this small thing so much that we extrapolate even worse outcomes that could potentially be triggered by this initially small thing.  It’s a paralyzing problem.  Ask me how I know all about that.”

 

Bonnie licked her lips and waited.

 

“That kind of happened, and I think I killed a lot of people today.  Like, a lot of people, and… and at each step it felt like I was doing the only thing I could.  You know?  A completely logical progression of worst case scenarios.”

 

Bonnie tucked a few stray red hairs behind her ear and smiled, but that brought the bruise at the corner of her mouth into stark view and Wren had to look away.

 

“It’s not like me to be so down on myself.  Not anymore.  That was… that was old Wren.  And… and new Wren is saying ‘oh yeah, well what about the fact that a lot of people were trying to kill you today?’  And… and that’s valid too.  I don’t have an answer for that.“

 

Wren twisted the aluminum casing back onto the motor and held it in her palm.  Some oils had transferred from her fingers to the smooth outer shell, and she fretted for a moment while brushing it clean with her shirt.  Suddenly Mr. Cat was there, nudging his way under her arm and into her lap.

 

“I don’t really know what to think right now.  I kind of... don’t want to think right now.”  She brought her hand in to stroke the orange tabby, and when she couldn’t quite bring herself to comfort another living creature the cat took it upon himself to lean into her palm and do it for her.

 

“How damaged is your ship?”

 

Wren blinked.  “Umm…”  She swallowed hard and turned, looking around.  “I need to replace a few hundred ablative shards.  There’s… uh…”

 

After a few moments of quiet, Bonnie asked, “Do you have the materials to do that all by yourself?”

 

Wren shook her head.

 

“Okay.  Come on.”

 

Wren was surprised that Mr. Cat did not immediately leap out of her arms, and instead curled into her body as she stood.  It took some awkward leaning to and fro to get to her feet using only her legs, but she had learned long ago that her feline companion was not easily swayed once he picked a place to squat.

 

“I tried to turn you in,” Wren croaked.

 

You are reading story Long Haul at novel35.com

Bonnie stopped, just outside the workshop, and gave her an unreadable look.

 

“To Jyi Bao.  So they’d come and… and I’d…”  She shook her head as words failed her.  “You should know.”

 

“And that didn’t work out very well?”

 

Wren shook her head, and she followed when Bonnie started walking again.  Up the stairs, through the galley, and into the cabin.  Wren slowed to a stop a meter behind the pilot’s chair and focused on running her fingers through orange fur.

 

“Okay,” Bonnie said, as she sat down.  “Now.  Where are we?”

 

It was rhetorical, and Wren knew that.  On a different day she would have started explaining what the displays were already very clearly telling Bonnie.  

 

“Wow, we are in the middle of nowhere, aren’t we?”

 

“Mmm-hmm,” Wren said quietly.  She held off on calling it ‘her little piece of nowhere’.  It didn’t seem like Bonnie noticed the four parallel blips parked in a row ahead of them, and they certainly weren’t visible to the naked eye.

 

“Alright.  I know a port that can get you patched up.  No one will know you’re there.  It won’t be cheap, but I think I can pull in a favor or two.”

 

Wren nodded quietly.

 

Bonnie punched in some coordinates.  On a different day, it would have annoyed Wren to watch the redhead hunt and peck with two fingers.  Eventually, the galaxy map zoomed out to show the rough path it was calculating: a zig-zagging route to a bright spot further out on the Orion spur.  It would take days, at least.

 

“And then I need you to confirm this, I guess?”

 

Wren shook her head.  “I was bluffing when I said everything in here had biometric scans.  Just push that… um...”

 

Bonnie nodded once.  And then, before she knew what was happening, Bonnie was beside her.  Ushering her back through the ship.  Through the galley and into her quarters.  Wren unfolded her arms beside the bed, but as soon as she laid down on her side Mr. Cat curled up against her middle.

 

“Now,” Bonnie said, as she sat down on the side of the bed.  “You’re in shock.  It’s not going to help you to tell you that you’re in shock, or to explain what that means.  It just doesn’t.”

 

Wren nodded slowly.  It occurred to her that nodding while laying sideways produced a kind of skull movement that more closely resembled shaking her head than actually nodding, but nodding would require a range of motion her neck simply was not capable of producing.

 

“So instead, I’m gonna talk for a while and I just want you to listen.  Do you think you can do that?”

 

Wren nodded again, and again found herself thinking very hard about the physiology of necks and spines.  Disks.  Shoulder musculature.

 

“I enlisted when I was 18.  As far as I’m concerned, that’s when I was born.  I don’t count the years before that.  When I enlisted, I found my family.  I found purpose.  I found…”  Bonnie took a deep breath and shook her head.  “I found myself the first time I held a rifle.  I didn’t even know I was missing.

 

“Now, I’m not saying I took to it right away, or even all that well. 故事可多了...”  She paused to laugh and shake her head.  “I was hungry, tired, and alone when I got there, and I’m pretty sure just about every other recruit in my unit was the same.  We came together, right?  Do you know what I mean?”

 

Wren nodded.

 

“Our unit was outfitted by Chandless Industries.  They’re a heavy construction equipment conglomerate out of the Regulus system, and I remember the first time their guy came in the room with us.  We’d been there… I don’t know.  Three weeks?  We were all starting to come together in basic, and now here’s this haircut and a suit and he’s talking to us like he’s one of us.  We were having none of it… at first.  He starts showing us our equipment, standard issue stuff yadda yadda, and then the sergeant gets called away.  It’s just us and him, and he starts talking lower.  Conspiratorially.  Hey guys, he says, I want you to know that Chandless is gonna take care of you guys.

“And we were like wait, what?  Extra body armor, he says.  Deadlier munitions.  Top-of-the-line frigate.  You’ll be one of the best equipped units in the Navy.  And we believed him.”

You can find story with these keywords: Long Haul, Read Long Haul, Long Haul novel, Long Haul book, Long Haul story, Long Haul full, Long Haul Latest Chapter