#captain/head engineer | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

theknightmarket · 15 days ago

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"You're alive!"

In which Engineer engineers something more political than a ship. TW: swearing, description of wounds (not graphic), mentioned violence Pages: 24 - Words: 9000

[Requests: OPEN]

When you had been the captain, you had seen Mack in the hallways of the ship. He was always repairing something, fiddling with the screws of a vent or tapping away at a diagnostic pad. When he was on his break, which only lasted ten minutes at his own request, he talked non-stop about ways to improve. Although Mark had built the Invincible II, you had no doubt Mack tended to much of the general upkeep.

In simple terms, you liked Mack. But you placed great emphasis on the past tense.

That was before he completely took over the colony – your colony – and designed it in his own image. That was before he overrode any semblance of your control and made you his ‘personal assistant’. That was before you spent the nights awkwardly stretched over a dog bed, plucking at the stitched letters that spelled out ‘Lil Cappy’ and hoping you would, for once, wake up without a crick in your neck. That was before Mark disappeared.

You didn’t know where he went. Even though it was an alternate universe, you were certain that he had been around. At least, initially. You had seen traces of him scattered across the ship, ones you were certain could have only come from him, and some of the colony’s technology had his trademark techniques. It was mainly the explosives, but you were glad you had been allowed access to them long enough to figure it out.

Mack had stripped you of any and all of your personal freedoms. A dictator through and through, but he had apparently fostered a grudge against you in this timeline, and, given the evidence, it was an old one. It had time to fester, and it was just your luck to be caught in the crossfire when he eventually gained enough power to unleash it.

How he became the Head Engineer in the first place was beyond you. Maybe the actual captain of this universe deserved it for their poor thinking, or maybe you were just feeling petty. You had a lot of time to think things over, and your moments of boredom normally resulted in one of three thought processes. One, you hated Mack. Two, you hated the captain. Three, you missed Mark.

But you would inevitably be dragged away from your meaningless deliberations, sometimes figuratively, sometimes literally. This time, thankfully, it was the former; you’d had quite enough of the handcuffs recently – something about missing a quota that you hadn’t been aware of. That was a common occurrence, though, and you were half sure your wrists evolved to be thicker every time.

No, they didn’t. You had permanent crimson rings mirrored on both arms that burned every time the metal clanked roughly against them, the skin peeled and rubbed into flaky epidermis.

The guards didn’t give you time to dwell on it as they yanked you up by the shoulders. You stumbled when you were dropped onto your feet, only getting a few steps forward before your elbows were pulled from your sides. Paralleled, you were forced to walk.

You were never told what you were doing each day, but a pattern of degrading servitude had long since been established. Bleach made your wrists worse, though the smell of the sewers wasn’t kind either. They weren’t rats, per se, being the size of dogs and possessing the biting force of a hydraulic press, but they had to be removed from down below regardless. That had been your job the last time you tried to leave the building without permission.

However, instead of turning left in the direction of the Department of Hygiene, the guards shoved you down the right-hand hallway. That was okay. There were plenty of offices on this side of the complex. Most likely was the Department of Agriculture, from where you had been ordered to assemble the tractor-like machinery developed for the unfamiliar crops. You had actually quite enjoyed that, which was probably why you only ever did it once.

The more turns you took, the more branches you checked off your list. Each room passed by like sand falling in an hourglass. You could see each grain absorbing into the mass in your mind’s eye, the steadily emptying top that marked your inevitable demise.

No, not demise. There were other places left. His office was right next to the Department of Engineering. You had never stepped foot in there, but you still had a chance. Maybe they wanted you to meticulously redraw the blueprints as the copier next to you worked five times as fast, maybe they wanted you to spend hours upon hours shredding old documents without getting up from the floor, maybe, maybe, maybe—

The guards came to a stop in front of a towering pair of doors.

Maybe not.

The sensor would tell Mack when there was someone to see him. Receptionists weren’t his style, and he much preferred the momentary terror slapped onto a person’s face as the red beam drifted over them at a leisurely pace. If you weren’t who he wanted, vaporization was in the cards, though that was only a rumor you had overheard from other staff.

With a debatable amount of luck, the doors swung open in tandem to reveal the hall that Mack had taken for his office. It stretched 45 feet, a distance you were soon crossing on a crimson runner rug, with a desk at the very end against the backdrop of the skyline. Even from the exit, you could see those silver pillars and the sunlight that reflected off of them. You remembered the plans for the main city just as vividly as the sight in front of you.

Envy and disgust made your stomach churn when your eyes landed on the man standing now just a few steps away from you. His back, more precisely, as he took in the view like you had been.

“Marvelous, isn’t it?”

Mark had always been the more academic out of your pair, but you tried to calculate how much force you could run at him with and the tensile strength of the glass. Adding in your likelihood of survival made it a morose thought, though a little heroic sacrifice was not a scenario you were hesitant to consider.

Mack turned around and flashed you that smug grin.

Roughly 1000 newtons, which seemed achievable.

“This empire I’ve built.”

The sentence for treason, blasphemy, being��honest, or whatever else it was branded as was about ten years in the prison system. Manual labor, usually, to build things that simply wouldn’t work, like canals too shallow for the boats to pass through or factories too unstable to support the weight of its produce. You had never been subjected to it, but who knew? Mack could have gotten bored of you and deemed you a threat despite your hands hanging on by a thread.

“Wouldn’t you agree?”

Listening was a good idea. It wasn’t as though Mack needed someone’s attention to talk, just the presence of an audience, but it always turned out better for you when you did. It was just so hard these days. Your focus would drift at the exact moment he would ask a question and if it was supposed to be rhetorical or you answered incorrectly, the corner of his mouth would perk up and he would tilt his head like he’d caught a misbehaving child elbow-deep in the cookie jar.

Except you weren’t a misbehaving child, you were the ex-captain of the first colony in space. And you weren’t elbow-deep in the cookie jar, you were enwebbed by a dictatorship run by a man you used to trust. And you weren’t going to be sent to your room with no dinner, you were going to be…

You missed Mark, so much. Everything would be better if you knew where he was.

“But you know what?” Mack dropped gracefully into his chair, one leg over the other. “It could be better.”

You stared at him, unblinking. Better? What could be better than having an entire planet at your beck and call?

“I want to ask you a few questions.”

Your surprise kept rising. He had never asked your genuine opinion before. Any questions were always in the company of others, whom he could either entertain or threaten at your response. But there, in his chapel, you were alone, save the guards that were nothing more than glorified robots.

Mack didn’t wait for you to respond, only rearranging himself in the chair so that he could plant an elbow on the desk to hold his head in his hand. You weren’t sure whether the interest was real, whether this was an actual conversation or just something to catch you out with. A trap that you didn’t have a choice in stepping into.

“Do you have the original blueprints for the ship?” he asked, all too casually for the dynamic between you.

Hesitantly, you shook your head. The Invincible hadn’t been your domain; your job was to take care of those onboard the ship and, upon landing, lead the development of the colony. You had failed at both. You were billions of years, light and Earth, away from your people, and even when you’d been granted another try, you’d gone and thrown it away. Some captain you had been.

As if he could see you were starting to drift, Mack spoke again. “I expected as much. It’s not a problem, of course. In fact,it gives us an opportunity to improve from stage one.” He hummed as he drew out a tablet from a drawer. “How expansive was the AI system?”

You paused, longer than at the first hurdle. The built-in AI was, as the title suggested, built in. It was part of the ship, not an external feature, akin to cryogenics and the reactor. From what you remembered, the computer chips and mechanics to house that system were detailed on the blueprints he had just asked you about. Did he think you were holding out on him? Did he think that getting more specific would incentivize you to give in?

Or, as it slowly dawned on you like dripping honey, did he not know at all?

“I’m on a strict schedule, here, so compliance would be appreciated.” Mack painted his voice with that faux nonchalance, but there was that ever-present reminder of his power in this situation. Realizing he was in slightly less control than you had once thought didn’t take away the cattle prods that he had at his disposal.

You shrugged. It was the truth. You didn’t know how expansive it was because you didn’t build the ship – and Mack didn’t know because he didn’t build it either. Not the one you knew, and not the one that belonged to this universe.

Desperately, you fought back a laugh. The Head Engineer of the first galaxy-fearing spaceship, and he didn’t know the first thing about it.

“Alright. Not a problem,” he said, his teeth audibly grinding together, “we’ll work around it. Protocols run smoother when they aren’t given dumb names, after all.”

That was the first time you felt like talking – or, more accurately, felt like launching a string of expletives at Mack for the smallest suggestion of removing the naming convention you held so dear. They were dumb, but that was good. When you were surrounded by fire and debris, the distant voice listing off the most inconvenient procedures made everything seem that much more optimistic.

But you held yourself back. Barely. You set your jaw, dropped your shoulders, and stared coldly at Mack as he tapped at his tablet.

When he was finished, he met your eyes. They were the windows to the soul, as the saying went, so you hoped he saw the bubbling urge to strangle him that overshadowed all your other emotions. You hoped he didn’t see your longing to see Mark again.

He didn’t react to either sight. No smile or frown. Just another question.

“How did you get here?”

Your heart stilled, your lungs shriveled, your eyes blew wide, your throat swelled. You froze.

No.

No, he didn’t know. He couldn’t know. Had this really been a test? Were you supposed to know about the ship, had the old captain known, had they built the Invincible, how absolutely, catastrophically cued were you?

You couldn’t tell him. Physically or morally. Your mouth welded itself shut as tight as the pieces of the Invincible, and your mind bore visions of the horrors Mack would unleash upon the multiverse. You couldn’t tell him.

However, you didn’t have to.

Not a moment later, Mack was speaking again, tone betraying no lie. “The warp core is proving a pain to replicate. My engineers have devoted quite some time to figuring out the logistics, but their work so far has been… disappointing.”

His shadow propelled itself up the desk as he stood. The dark edge parallelled the tips of your boots where it stopped. You supposed it was meant to be intimidating, but the adrenaline was flushing out of your body, and there was no rush to replace it. Instead, you felt the sobering effects of a more positive outcome.

Making sure he didn’t find out was another problem. As long as you kept your mouth shut, Mack would stay safe in his assumption that the warp core only traveled in time and space, and your little universe-hopping discovery would disappear when you did.

“You wouldn’t be able to offer any guidance on that, would you? A little information to help us, help the colony, just like you’ve always wanted?”

You weren’t stupid, even if Mack thought you were. It wasn’t going to help the colony, only him and you didn’t give a damn what he wanted. There was no ideological internal debate, no what-ifs, no way in hell that he was telling the truth. Your mouth remained closed as you stared him down blankly.

“No?” he asked.

No.

“Fine—” He waved a hand for the guards to seize you, and they grabbed your arms like wasps swarming an attacker. “Take them to solitary.”

Your skin burned underneath the gloves, pulled taught and twisted in your struggle. Pulled back, you were forced to bend and lose your balance, stumble over your feet, scramble for purchase against the runner. Solitary was worse than a death sentence. Its Earthen namesake was a light slap on the wrist in comparison. You couldn’t go there, anywhere but there. Give you the rat-dogs, give you the bleach, give you anything but solitary.

By the time you were wrenched out of Mack’s office, you had gotten nowhere in your escape attempts. The guards simply grasped you tighter and held you further down, practically dragging you down the hallway and to the back of the complex. Solitary was no ordinary cell in a prison – it was a single room buried as close to the planet’s core as possible. The gates to hell. The belly of the beast. You felt like you were going to throw up.

Some part of you wanted to talk to the guards, beg and plead for them to let you go. But they were Mack’s lackeys, and you had all seen what happened to traitors. There was no point in playing on morals or humanity, so all you were left with was kicking and screaming.

When you heard banging from above, you assumed that backup had been called. Mack had long ago instilled in his followers the idea that you were dangerous, despite your apparent weakness. Siege mentality worked a charm in drawing attention to you at all times, because surely you were just pretending to be beaten within an inch of your life, and you would spring out to attack if anyone gave you the chance. Your current similarities to a rabid dog warranted more people with more weapons.

Wild as you were, you disregarded the inconsistency unbecoming of Mack’s troops. The volume of the sound was both too far away to be in the same corridor and too quiet to be on the floor above, but you ignored that, too. As the guards exchanged confused glances before stopping in their tracks, you preoccupied yourself with straining against their holds.

You thought you had broken free just seconds later with your resistance to solitary, and you prepared yourself to sprint as far as you could get before fatigue made you collapse, but a glance behind made you stop short.

The two guards, now merged into one small pile of uniform and indoctrination on the floor, were shadowed by another pair. You might have wondered how this happened in such a short amount of time had, one, it not been obvious from the sooty boot prints on the guards’ backs, and, two, you not been overwhelmed with relief.

Celci was the first to speak, stating, “No time to talk, we need to get out of here.” Her air of stern objectivity followed her as she began to march down the hallway, but you didn’t miss the look she sent back.

That left you to be straightened up with a slap on the back from Gunther. He shot you a lopsided grin, somehow managing to stay audible even with the cigar between his teeth as he laughed, “What she means is it’s good to see you again.”

Had you any energy left from your failed escape attempt, you would have tried to convince yourself that the water welling in the corners of your eyes was from the smoke. It billowed from the broken ceiling and provided a great cover story, but you didn’t have it in you to pretend. You relied on the vague shape of Celci and Gunther’s hand around your shoulders to guide you through the complex while you gave in to the silent tears.

You weren’t aware of where you were headed, but you trusted your companions. Wherever they were taking you, you were going – it took a few minutes for you to get your bearings, but you only registered the change in environment when sunlight warmed your skin.

A window was propped open with a spanner, letting in the mid-‘May’ breeze, which would be completely normal anywhere else. The fact that made your brow furrow was that the complex’s windows were nothing but see-through walls; they weren’t supposed to open.

Celci pushed the glass upwards, tilting the pane so that she could slip underneath and out. Your nerves exploded, and you launched yourself forward as her hand left the frame, but she didn’t fall. Leaning over the edge, you saw a cleaner’s scaffolding swaying side to side next to the wall, and you sighed.

Gunther nodded at you, so you took the cue to duck out, too. Immediately, you were overwhelmed by the sun on your skin and the coolness of the metal frame. Just being out there for a second without a guard breathing down your back was a euphoric feeling like no other. You hadn’t gone outside alone since…

Ever. It dawned on you that you had never stepped foot on this planet without an escort.

And, technically, you still had yet to. Gunther popped up beside you and aimed an ‘okay’ sign to the ground as Celci let the window fall shut again, making sure it was nice and quiet. The scaffolding was just the same, descending with little more than a momentary squeak. Given the height you were at, you had a tense minute. Though your heartbeat bashed your ribcage like a caged zoo animal, you were forced to wait in silence; any talking ran the risk of raising the alarm, and you would sooner have thrown yourself from the 450 feet you were currently at than go back to Mack’s office.

The only thing you had to bide the time was your thoughts, the company of which you had dealt with for far too long. No matter how hard you resisted it, however, the voice at the back of your mind reminded you that the Celci and Gunther beside you were not yours. They weren’t from your universe, they weren’t your crew, and you weren’t their captain.

The voice that you much preferred pushed back against the first – they still saved you. Even though you didn’t know their history with the captain, it didn’t mean they weren’t there. You had to be thankful for that more than disappointed.

When you were close enough to the ground, you saw where the rope of the scaffolding trailed off to. Barely distinct grey lines led within the bushes – the kinds put near hospitals or business parks for a faux-welcoming atmosphere. It wasn’t the perfectly pruned leaves that had you grabbing the side, nor was it the evenly spaced roots that led you to vault over the side. No, what had you stumbling across the white concrete was the figure obscured by only one wayward branch.

You all but slammed into Burt like a torpedo.

Vaguely, you heard him groan, “Yup.”

Your arms wrapped around him without giving him a second to process, and, when Celci and Gunther got close enough, you grabbed them too. It was a veritable knot of limbs, and you were half sure you had caught the scaffolding’s rope in your little trap, but you weren’t about to let go to find out. For now, you just wanted a moment to relish the company of your crew leads.

That voice returned and was promptly banished to the recesses again.

This was good. Maybe it was selfish, but you didn’t want to ruin the moment yet, even if it meant being wilfully ignorant. Standing in the clump, awkwardly stretched around them, your eyes grew misty again. You’d missed human contact. Totalitarian regimes didn’t accommodate the human need for touch, and Mack went out of his way to avoid it altogether. Any physical interaction was through layers of leather gloves, and, for you, it had only ever been the vice grips of the guards.

The mental image of those two unconscious guards sobered you. You were still on Mack’s territory, after all, and time was of the essence.

Everyone peeled back from you, Celci catching your serious expression in her retreat.

“We have a headquarters set up in one of the disused factories. We’ll head there, patch you up, and plan what to do next.”

You stored any questions in the back of your mind for later, though one in particular fought back to the top multiple times throughout your journey. Every time you turned a corner, you expected to see another familiar face, and every time you were disappointed. Having seen Celci and Gunther literally drop out of the sky, it was hard to temper your hopes, and you had to force yourself to focus on anything else – the hard lines of shadows, the faint discussion of civilians, the rhythmic click of boots.

Gradually, the environment shifted. The painted buildings developed cracks and silence filled in between quiet directions. Two by two, you walked out of the edge of town and into an old industrial compound. You assumed it was old, at least, with architecture and wildlife left to rot. News never made it as far as you in the colony’s main complex, so you had to guess what happened here – from the craters in the middle of roads and scattered, smaller holes in the walls, it wasn’t difficult.

Eventually, after a good hour, Celci veered off from the main path, and the rest of you followed, you slightly more confused than the others. Most factories were linked up to the road, with the only exceptions being the very first ones. You assumed that this was one of Mack’s failed experiments to maximize productivity, now hidden behind abandoned streets and brutalist structures.

Everything was so rundown that you couldn’t begin to guess which one was the factory until you were standing right in front of it. That was good for a revolutionary base, but worry stirred in your stomach for its integrity. Your companions didn’t harbor the same fears, it seemed, as they guided you through the front door and into the main area.

The inside was just as bad as the outside, decorated with bits of rubble and rusty machines. The sight of it made you wonder if tetanus existed on this planet, though it wasn’t as concerning as the fact that it was empty. Was the resistance movement so small that you’d met all the members already? Celci, Gunther, Burt…

You shouldn’t have gotten your hopes up. For a force in the hundreds, or for just one more man. Getting away from Mack was good enough, you supposed, you assumed, you tried to convince yourself, poorly. It seemed so much more of an impossibility when there were just the four of you.

Distantly, metal slid against metal.

Your eyebrows furrowed.

Light tapping grew louder and louder.

You had the distinct feeling of déjà vu.

Somebody yelled indistinctly from further into the factory.

Your hopes soared through the ceiling as quickly as you sprinted towards Mark. He was already at full speed after skidding around the corner, so it was barely a second before you were throwing yourself at him, locking your arms around his shoulders with his around your waist, crashing to the ground in a tight ball.

Heart pounding in your chest, you registered little more than the sensation of touch. The pressure of Mark’s hold was the only thing keeping you together; not even the surprised stares cast your way prompted your composure.

Years ago, you might have grimaced at the thought of being so undignified in front of your crew, but now? Now, you didn’t bother to hide the soft hiccups of tears, too focused on the presence of Mark, your one and only Head Engineer. The grin that fractured across your mouth like a fault line was more becoming of you, and, although the nature of the emotion didn’t matter with formality, you kept both the smile and the tears.

Celci’s voice broke you out of your single-mindedness as she said, “Uh, Captain?”

Right. Despite doing away with regulation for the moment, you did still have an audience looking for direction. A proper reunion – preferably without the dull thump from landing on the floor – would have to wait.

A final squeeze of assurance was shared between the two of you before you staggered to your feet, taking Mark by the hand with you. It was only then, when you were both secure, that you cast a look over the group assembled. It was bigger than before, now comprised of your crew leads and whoever had followed Mark to the front room. Confidence was rising in you at every instance of eye contact you made, internally counting five, six, eight, twelve, twenty, all of your crew from your original universe were gathered on the factory floor.

The Invincible II was back.

For the next four hours, you were taking stock of everything and everyone that the group, this resistance, had. The majority of it was weapons, which also meant the majority of it was useful for an all-out offensive but not for subtle tactics. You were pretty sure you knew why explosives were so plentiful if Mark’s sheepish look as he checked off another shipping container of mines was anything to go by. You couldn’t bring yourself to do more than teasingly tut at him.

It was during those hours that you learned what you had been missing in your time as Mack’s PA. From Celci, you found out that the Earth-based Headquarters was completely disconnected from the colony after the warp to the current planet, which explained the incautious disregard for ethics and human rights. From Gunther, you discovered the routes they had established to steal from work sites, armories, and warehouses for all their supplies. From Burt, you were told just what had happened to your crew that drew them here.

Mark was gone even before everyone boarded the ship for the first time. Nobody knew why, and he hadn’t told them in all the time they had worked together – Burt presented this in his usual poetic fashion, making it out to be a tragedy of emotional guardedness, but you knew it was because Mark wasn’t the one present for his own removal. Another Head Engineer took the brunt of that punch, and you knew intimately how not knowing your own story would put someone on guard.

He went on to tell you what he did know, though, and that, surprisingly, started with Celci. Questioning Mack’s decisions had come at the cost of her position. Not respecting his authority given by the Captain, as he had described it to the other leads, or backtalking, as Burt then called it. She was soon shipped back off to Earth, but it hadn’t been quick enough to stop word of mouth. Rumors spread on the ship, crew members started ‘failing’ tasks that they had completed hundreds of times before, the shuttle back to the planet took more and more each day until near everyone was replaced.

Burt and Gunther had been among the few originals still standing on the ship, but it wasn’t for long; poetry was Burt’s downfall because Mack, ever the STEM addict, took no more a liking to his metaphors than he did you. He was gone the second the last syllable left his mouth, sent back to Earth to join his oh-so-traitorous compatriots in, apparently, gearing up for another flight.

Burt told you what he had been filled in on, and, before you could be lost in the he-said-she-said of it all, you learned of Earth’s backup shuttle that they sent to check up on Mack. The sudden transfer of power was jarring and definitely not state-approved, leaving HQ little choice but to send a team back after them. Who better than the people who were just there?

The last member to join the crew, with a smug grin despite having been fired, had been Gunther.

You had always wondered where Mack’s bullet-sized scar came from.

The story was wrapped up with simple luck. It was chance that the old crew arrived back at the Invincible II just as the wormhole opened, able to tag along through to the next planet. If they had been a few minutes late, they would have never found the ship. They would have never found Mack. They would have never found you.

Even recalling the tale made you grimace. You tried to shrug off the shiver that sprang through your body as you cataloged the medical supplies, but, although it had been hours since your conversation with Burt, it was difficult. In this world, double the number of people got involved, and now you were carrying the weight of disappointing 600,000 more people. The captain had failed to keep everything together, and that meant so too had you. Everything that Mack had done up to this point was punishment.

Though, that thought was tempered when Mark emerged in the doorway, poking his head around the corner in the cautious way he always did and checking the room for anyone else. When the search came up empty, he crept in and closed the door behind himself.

You supposed now was as good a time as any for that ‘proper’ reunion – and yet neither of you spoke. The air between you was filled with distant clinking and hammering, chatter from every other member of the crew except for the two of you.

He looked good, for a rebel. He missed the grizzled war-veteran style of a true futuristic revolutionary, the kind you’d seen in movies with the eyepatch and prosthetic arm, but he did well enough with the specks of gunpowder and stubble. The sheepish grin that barely held back his excitement didn’t exactly help the image, but you preferred it to the stern stare he had been aiming at the crew while you counted equipment.

Mark took one step forward, waited, and then took another. He tentatively made his way in front of you, as if going too quickly would spook you into hiding.

When he was firmly placed less than an arm’s length away from you, he whispered a simple, “Captain.”

Your voice was rough from years of disuse; you’d actively avoided talking to anyone in the colony, but you had no reservations now.

“Mark.”

And then down came the wall.

You were back in one another’s arms in the blink of an eye, like you had never been separated in the first place. Being on your feet gave you the ability to spin around, a childish display but you refused to care, sending you off-kilter and forcing Mark to stabilize your pair by grabbing the edge of a container. When he pushed off, though, you were dancing across the room with reckless abandon, twirling, jumping, laughing so hard that you thought your lungs would explode.

“You’re alive!” he gasped.

Your shoes squeaked against the floor as you slowed to a wobbly stop.

“So are you!”

Another round of desperate laughter ensued, muffled only when you brought Mark closer and buried your head in the crook of his neck.

“You’re alive,” you mumbled.

“So are you,” was his equally quiet reply.

To save yourself another repetition, you breathed the moment in. You’d missed this – you’d missed him – and suddenly, in this brief respite, nothing else mattered. You were back together again, and you weren’t going to be leaving any time soon. With the way that Mark secured his arms around you like a seatbelt, you imagined he felt the same.

“Where did you end up?” you asked. Had you been able to see his face, you might have noticed the red rising in his cheeks from the feeling of your lips batting against his skin.

You did notice the shaky breath he let out. You attributed it to the memory of his arrival, which was not all the way incorrect.

“I was in the storage hold. I would have come out, but I overheard some of the crew talking. About me. How- how I was apparently gone, and nobody was supposed to ask questions about it. CC was already gone by then.”

“She questioned Mack,” you filled in.

“Sounds about right. When I met up with her again planet-side, she refused to talk about it. Still hasn’t told me exactly what happened; she’s been preoccupied with all this revolution stuff.”

“All it took for you two to get along was a dictator and near-zero chance of survival.”

Mark chuckled, but it was weaker than before, and he didn’t say anything until you moved apart from one another. Enough distance was created for you to see the frown pulling at his lips.

“What’s wrong?”

It was somewhat of a dumb question given that you were standing in a disused factory amongst the beginnings of a revolt, but you both knew that wasn’t what you were talking about.

Eyebrows furrowed, he inspected your face.

“Your helmet.”

While the corners of his mouth dropped even further, you shot him a look of confusion.

“I don’t have a helmet.”

“I know.”

Ah. Yes. You knew you had forgotten something. Divulging the details of your time as Mack’s ‘personal assistant’ wasn’t something you wanted to do in that moment, but Mark had given you some background, so it was only fair to return the favor.

“A little after the colony was fully constructed, Mack fully stripped me of my title. He’d let me be a figurehead until then, but I guess he was tired of not getting credit for all his work.” You wanted to laugh. The stinging of your wrists stopped you. “He took my title and my helmet. I wasn’t in touch with the public anymore, but he pushed me into the spotlight just so everyone could see me… dethroned, as he put it.”

A sudden thought did get you smiling a little, though. “He had it put in a museum with the rest of my uniform.”

“I thought that was a replica.”

You switched back to confusion, which Mark noticed and responded to bluntly, “Reconnaissance.”

Even as you pondered the possibility of having seen him, he stayed staring at you. If this hadn’t been the first time he had seen your face, you might’ve been nervous.

Oh, who were you kidding? You were nervous. Beyond nervous. Was he mad at you? Disappointed? Did he regret placing his trust in someone who couldn’t maintain their position, let alone protect the colony they were hired to keep safe? Now he had to do it, shoulder your responsibility for you because you couldn’t—

“Hey, hey.” Sensation spurred against your cheek. “You’re okay. You’re back now. You’re safe.”

Mark repeated those phrases like prayers, one after the other, order switched around to the point that the words swam through your head and overshadowed every other negative thought. He gradually drew you to a nearby workbench and deposited you on the metal surface. Standing in front of you, he kept his hands firmly secured on your upper arms.

You were okay. You were back. You were safe.

You weren’t going anywhere.

“Captain, you need to go back.”

You flinched at the new voice, attention jumping to the door that had opened without you noticing. Mark had been so focused on assuring you that he too jumped, but he righted himself in a split-second and threw an arm in front of you.

When Celci marched into the room, your shoulders dropped, and your heart rate slowly but surely followed suit. The conditioning you received from Mack made your body register any surprise as a threat, but you weren’t sure what had happened to Mark for him to still be on guard as she got closer.

Gently, you pressed down on his arm, only managing to get it down a few degrees before your focus was redirected to Celci.

“Sorry, what did you say?” you asked as you pushed off from the table.

Mark repeated your words with a far more suspicious tone, bordering on a growl, “Yeah, what did you say?”

“You need to get back to the capital.”

“No.”

Your mouth was still open to respond when Mark’s single word registered, and it stayed open for the tennis match that proceeded between them. At each swing, they took a step closer.

Celci was the first up, saying, “We haven’t been able to get someone on the inside yet.”

Mark’s boot thunked against the floor. “Yes, we have. We have engineers and soldiers and doctors.”

“Nobody gets as close to Mack as they do.” Ten feet and closing between them.

“That only puts them in more danger.” Eight feet.

“He can’t afford to kill them outright. They’ll survive.” Five feet.

“Survival isn’t good enough. They were surviving before we got them out. They aren’t going back.” Two feet.

“We can’t throw away this opportunity to target Mack directly—”

“We’re not sending them back there, Celci!”

Your crew leads stood face to face like bulls trying to get the other to back down. Apparently, you had been wrong earlier; for them to get along, they needed more than a dictator and the constant threat of death.

They needed you to be gone.

And, from what it appeared, the rebellion was stronger when they did work together.

Placing a hand on Mark’s shoulder, you said, “I’ll go.”

You were surprised Mark didn’t break his neck with how fast he whipped around to look at you. You had to glance away before guilt could settle in your stomach.

“No,” he ordered, “no, you can’t.”

“Yes, I can. I can help more from inside than out.”

He huffed, spluttered, gestured vaguely with his hands. “Captain, if you go back, he will kill you.”

“Celci is right, he can’t do that without a good reason.”

“And he had a good reason for all the other people he killed?!” The yell echoed down the hallway, which had become noticeably quieter since Celci had arrived, but it faded out as Mark forced his voice lower. “Alright, okay, okay. Let’s say he doesn’t kill you. He has to do something to you. You won’t just get off scot-free.”

“That’s fine.”

“No, it’s not!”

“Mark, this is not your decision to make.”

“Yes, it is!”

A tense silence flooded the room. A beat passed. His chest heaved while you tried to keep yourself in check.

Swallowing thickly and gritting his teeth, Mark said, “I know you’re the captain, but, while you have been away, I have taken charge. I can’t send you back into that death trap of a colony in good conscience.”

He sounded almost composed. Formal. Leaps and bounds different from the man who designed the ‘wakey-wakey’ protocol for the Invincible II. You might have liked to take credit for influencing him, but, if what he had said was true, he had been leading this group since he landed in this universe. You had no authority to challenge his.

But that didn’t mean you were going down without a proper fight.

“Mark,” you spoke softly, “I know you want to keep everyone safe, but you can’t do it all at once. Sacrifices have to be made.”

You held up a hand as soon as he opened his mouth, and, luckily, he closed it.

“Think of it as a long-term investment. If I go back and get you information, you can take down Mack quicker, and I’ll be back before you know it.”

“How are you going to get back? We broke you out, we can’t just break you back in.”

Ordinarily, you might have laughed at Mark’s puppy-dog eyes, but there was a certain desperation that went beyond the usual want. How you wished you could stay with him, how you wished you could just let it all go and stay safe – but you couldn’t. You had to prove yourself useful to this cause, or else what good was all this? What good were you?

You took a deep breath, just about coming to terms with what you had to do, and you secured both of your hands on his shoulders. It was more for your sake than his in order to ground you. If you stored up the lightning that was thrumming in your veins, you would surely burn from the inside out.

“Before Celci and Gunther knocked the guards out,” you started, “they were taking me to solitary. Mack no doubt knows I disappeared, but if they find me where I was meant to end up, it won’t be so bad.”

He squinted at you. “What’s solitary?”

“A cell beneath the main complex.”

His squint deepened. “And why is it called solitary?”

“There’s only one, and you don’t have any communication with anyone.”

That last bit wasn’t a problem for you – after all, this was the longest, and possibly only, conversation you’d had since you were dropped into this universe – but it was one of the few things about solitary that you were willing to share. If you were to divulge all the intricacies of the punishment, there was no way he would let you leave, and saying them aloud would force you to confront your future.

Still, his squint dipped even further, to the point that you weren’t sure his eyes were open, but then he switched his attention to Celci as if to confirm what you’d said. She only nodded, so either she was just as unaware as Mark, or she really wanted this to work. Knowing her, it was a 50/50, but you would prefer the former because it meant no crew member had been sent there yet.

When Mark looked back to you, he took a second to study your face. Expert liar as you were, he had the uncanny ability to tell when you weren’t being wholly truthful. You couldn’t have that, which meant you were quick to draw him in for a hug. It both hid your expression of dawning fear and let you get your last dose of human contact for however long you’d be in solitary.

But you could withstand it. Weather the storm, and all the other metaphors for staying stable in the face of life-threatening odds. For him. If you gave up, you’d end up separated again, and you didn’t know where each of you would end up – but if he stayed in this universe while you were thrown into another? You would never forgive yourself.

“Okay,” Mark whispered against your ear, clutching you tighter.

You returned the gesture in kind, assuring, “It will all end up alright.”

When you pulled apart, you kept one hand on Mark. Going too far risked slingshotting you back into the hug and getting out a second time would definitely prove harder than the first.

From the side, Celci said, “Thank you, Captain.”

You nodded your acknowledgment, choosing not to point out that you hadn’t done anything yet. Instead, you asked, “Do you have plans for communication while I’m in the colony?”

“Yes, but they’re tough.”

If she hadn’t said that, you might have figured it out from Mark’s huff. Clearly, whatever plan had been agreed on wasn’t satisfactory to everyone, but a democracy, as you’d experienced, was better than a dictatorship.

“We have some people working for us within the colony, but we haven’t been able to touch the main complex,” Celci explained, “which is why we need you. Whatever you find out, no matter how small it is, we need you to report it to some of our members.”

She went on to list the spies and their locations, ranging from some regular civilians to the most useful of postal workers and shipment coordinators. As she said, none were within the walls of the capital building, but she mentioned that the mailroom was soon to open as a drop location for information. That would be the link between you and the rebellion depending on who was assigned that route.

The first problem would be getting there. It wasn’t as though you were in any position to request a job, but you figured showing enough disdain for addresses and glue would inspire Mack. Too petty for his own good, and a way to prolong the pain with papercuts would meet the status quo.

The second problem was your supervision. Smuggling out information was going to be difficult with one of Mack’s lackeys breathing down your neck at all times, and any moment of your speaking would garner attention. This one relied on spontaneity because you would have to drop information the second the guard’s focus waned.

The third problem was the question of identifying who to talk to. Luckily, that was as simple as two code words, for the sake of avoiding a false alarm and blowing your cover completely. ‘Golden’ and ‘retrieve’ were those chosen, and your thoughts immediately drifted to the little space pup who had accompanied the Invincible II’s flight.

“Don’t worry,” Mark said, immediately noticing your far-away expression, “Chica’s fine. Mack doesn’t believe in emotions, so he pulled her from the ship. The next shuttle brought her back, though, and she’s been the best security guard since.”

Well, you were pretty sure Mack knew spite at the very least, but you were able to relax as Celci continued through the protocol. The only thing left after she was finished was to actually do it all, the first step of which was landing yourself in solitary. That was a hurdle you were going to deal with when you came to it, though you were sure you could convince a guard to chuck you in anyway with the infamy Mack had drawn up for you.

“Whenever you’re ready, find me at the factory entrance. We’ll drop you off at the edge of the city, but we can’t risk going any further,” Celci said, bowing her head slightly. She wasn’t one to apologize for things that weren’t her fault, but the disappointment was visible in her effort to avoid eye contact.

With a final nod in your direction that you returned, she marched off to prepare.

While you weren’t all too happy with this turn of events either, you were willing to postpone your freedom for the sake of the rebellion. The man who stood at your side, however, was less accommodating.

Mark’s voice was dull as he scoffed, “I can’t believe you’re just going back.”

“What else am I supposed to do?”

“Stay.”

Your gaze flickered to him. In your conversation with Celci, he had started fiddling with the medical supplies. A med kit was splayed open on the workbench in front of him, showcasing painkillers, scissors, bandages, and everything else a resistance could wish for.

“You know I can’t. I have to help somehow.”

“You’re the captain—” He stretched out a roll of gauze, “—you should just be the captain.”

“And what would that entail? You’ve been doing a great job so far; I don’t know how to do I would be better than you.”

“I’m an engineer, not a leader. Everything that I’ve been doing, I’ve just been copying you.” As he spoke, barely above a whisper, he cut through the fabric at a sizeable distance and spun on his heels.

“It’s called learning, Mark. Hands-on experience, and all that, and—and what are you doing?”

He’d stepped closer and taken your hands, neither of which you minded, but then he pushed up your sleeves and started winding the gauze around one wrist.

“If you’re going back, you have to be in top-tip shape… top-tip?” He had started strong, but, as he went to tuck the tail of the length between two belts, he began to mumble his words. He went back and forth between ‘top-tip’ and ‘tip-top’, testing them on his tongue, and despite his struggle being endlessly entertaining, you knew what this was.

With the opposite hand, you gently guided the gauze into place and tied it off. Mark followed along willingly, but a frown pulled at his lips.

“Do you trust me, Mark?”

There was no hesitation before he said, “Of course.”

“Then you have to trust that I’ll be okay. We’ve gotten out of worse scrapes than this, right?”

As if he had forgotten the reality of the situation, he sighed. Maybe he had gotten swept up in the revolutionary spirit, which wasn’t that hard given this was the longest you had gone without another wormhole taking you out. Briefly, you wondered what was so different about this universe that you hung around for so long. You hadn’t been given the opportunity to die, so that escape remained untested. With Mark still alive, though, you weren’t going to take that route any time soon.

“Just- just don’t do anything dumb.”

“What, like throw myself out of the airlock without a suit?”

He stared at you. You stared at him.

He did not laugh.

“I won’t. Buzzkill.”

“Speaking of buzzkills…” Mark trailed off, but he gestured towards the door. “She’ll get you back to the city, safe and sound. Your escape hasn’t been announced yet, so you should be able to get a little far in before someone finds you, if you’re stealthy about it.”

“You’re telling me to be stealthy?”

Pride swelled in your heart as he cracked a smile. It was small and dropped within the second, but it was there. You’d hold onto that for as long as it took to refresh the memory.

“Whatever. Just don’t be offended if they take off as soon as you’re at the edge.”

“You’re not coming?”

That prompted a grimace that he tried to cover up with a confident grin. You had to give it to him, he tried to keep it up even as you raised your eyebrow.

“Gotta keep the crew in line while the leads are gone. You know how it is, Captain.” He walked as he talked, guiding you out into the hallway with an arm around your shoulder. “Speeches of encouragement, separating fights, awarding medals of honor, all those captain-ly duties.”

You went along with his rant out of courtesy, and Mark was glad you did. He was already doing a poor job of hiding the real reason why he wasn’t seeing you off; if he did go with you, there was a chance he would lock the door and refuse to let you out or, failing that, follow you right into Mack’s office itself. Crying would occur in either situation, and the stirrings of a revolution were no time for that.

He'd have to save it for when you came back alive and well. Because you were coming back. Alive and well.

His heart stuttered in his chest as he shot you a sideways glance.

Alive and well. He was going to make sure of that.

Your escort stopped just before the entrance to the main factory floor. Now was supposed to be the cliché goodbye, the hugging, the whispering, the exchanges of ‘good luck’ and ‘be safe’. The phrases were baked into the look Mark gave you, which you returned in kind. Behind him, you saw familiar faces rushing around like worker bees, all contributing to the cause of taking down Mack.

You would not abandon this crew to a fate you forced upon them. You had failed so many times, you would not fail again. There was so much potential for this universe – the colony had been developed, food and fuel problems solved. All you needed to do was get rid of Mack and put the planet under the leadership of who it was meant to be led by. And then, maybe, you and Mark would get back home, too.

But there was still work to do first.

[Wherever you are right now, stay safe and pull through. Support friends and family, and make sure that you're okay. As always, thanks for reading]

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