8. Ascension
EIGHT
ASCENSION
Jere left three months ago. Elena disappeared over a year ago.
Vessi had been in her new post for some time now.
And Reyna was doing everything to not let the fact that she'd lost the three people she loved most in the span of a season caused the Emberkind to suffer under her captaincy.
But one thing she needed to fix immediately, was pulling the ship out from operating at reduced capacity.
Or, in other words, on a skeleton crew.
The ship's corridors had become quieter than they had been since Elena first took command, and the Habitat Wing had gone from Jere's personal symphony of birdsong and chatter to the low hum of automated feeders and environmental regulators doing a competent, but soulless, impression of care.
Reyna ran the ship and did it well. Despite the reduced staff, it operated, fulfilled its mission, and took care of its crew, all with Reyna behind the helm.
If she were honest, she'd admit that the requirements of captaincy helped steer her mind away from her thoughts and emotions.
Right now, that was what she needed. Desperately.
Tavi Breck was still here.
Elena's last hire, the Tessarae software engineer who had been aboard for barely a year before everything fell apart, had stayed on board the Emberkind. When asked his choice, he'd made it clear there was only one option.
"I'm here, Cap," he'd said to Reyna the day she was taking stock of crew members that wanted to request transfers. "I'm not going anywhere." Then he'd smiled warmly at her, given her a salute, and made his way back to Engineering before Reyna could even respond.
Reyna figured he was too new to have known Elena well and too junior to have met Jere during his time on the ship.
Those must have been the reasons for him to elect to stay, because Reyna was in the midst of dealing with so many requests from newer crew members that she was utterly surprised when he made no motion to leave.
Many years later, Tavi would tell her that he stayed because the ship's systems still required maintenance, and he wasn't modest to admit that he could maintain them with a competence that almost surpassed even his own personality.
But, mostly, he stayed because the Emberkind was his reef now, and Tessarae did not abandon their reefs.
Reyna didn't know him well enough yet to trust him completely.
But she noted that the Engineering Bay felt different when he was in it.
Warmer and livelier, and a bit different with his presence around.
If anything, Reyna could recognize what he was bringing to the department during the ship's time of grief.
Certain senior members of the Emberkind crew took notice of their new captain's change in emotion. Orion Calev, the Veladris who managed, collected, and organized data and knowledge as the Emberkind's librarian, was the first person to pull the captain aside, sit with her, and try to help.
The Veladris were quiet by nature and deliberate by culture.
They were a people who believed that the highest calling wasn't leadership or combat or discovery, but tending.
Not to anything specific. To anything. People, creatures, plants, machines, technology, or libraries They called the role a Tender, someone who listened, observed, and carried the stories of the people around them.
Veladris biology didn't compel him to. He wanted to, and the Veladris had decided, as a civilization, that the someone should be trained for it in a formal capacity.
Orion had trained for it his entire life.
As Elena's last hire before her disappearance, he was brought aboard to manage the ship's growing library and data archive.
But he was also an observer by nature as a Veladris, an unsanctioned function he would bring to the Emberkind.
But he handled everything with grace, small and meticulous with how he carried out his tasks, and catalogued not just the data contained within the Emberkind and its research on the animals it rescued, but also its people.
His memory of Elena and Jere stayed because he refused to let them go.
Every story he wrote down and every voice recorded in his notes was every detail preserved through a deliberate act of choosing to contain their memory, even in the records of a Coalition spaceship.
As Captain, Reyna immediately admired him for the positive work he completed while the ship had gone through some radical changes during the beginning of his tenure, especially as he never mentioned the dynamic shift the Emberkind underwent since his arrival.
And when it came to Reyna herself, Orion didn't offer comfort or solutions or even an entirely well-meaning, but overwhelming, instinct to make her feel better (something that usually made Reyna want to leave rooms when other people attempted just this).
But one night, when Reyna was researching the species they were collecting the next day in their forthcoming mission, he did appear in the library and settle himself at his desk with his cataloguing work, and stayed.
He didn't converse with her, or even approach her.
He was nearby and smiled at her when she looked up at him.
The sound of his stylus on his datapad was the only noise filling the room with a certain kind of quiet, but one that still felt comfortably occupied.
This made it so Reyna wasn't alone in those moments. His quiet presence, without expectation or confrontation, made Reyna feel at ease. Acknowledged in the quietest way possible, just to show she didn't have to stay alone.
Reyna came to the library most evenings now. Orion would bring her tea without asking, placing it quietly at the edge of her console, within reach but not in her way, and then return to his own work. And he never left until she did.
One night, Reyna was in the library very late, and at one point, she looked up from a report she'd read three times without absorbing any of the information, and found Orion watching her. When she saw him, he smiled at her.
"Can I get you anything, Captain? More tea?" Orion asked gently.
"No," she responded. "No thank you, Orion."
He smiled at her again, then turned his head down, back to his own work. She watched him.
"You don't have to stay," she said.
Orion looked back at her, his smile still present. "I know," he replied. "I want to."
"You do?" Reyna asked.
"Of course."
"Why?" Reyna asked softly.
Orion's eyes warmed on her. "Because everyone deserves compassion, Captain." And then he returned to his cataloguing.
She watched him for a few moments, appreciation for him blossoming within her chest. Her emotions stayed stable, but her heart was affected by the generosity of this man. And so, she stayed, and he stayed, and the library was a quiet haven for both of them.
Borran also took to looking after Reyna, much in the same way he always had, but with pointed determination now.
He had been aboard the Emberkind longer than anyone, longer than any captain or crew member, his career spanning decades.
Borran had fed every version of this ship's company, and he knew how to spot someone that needed extra care.
He began making food Reyna could eat without sitting down, left plates at her door when she didn't come to the galley.
He adjusted the seasoning to things that required no thought to consume, because he understood that grief took appetite and attention simultaneously, and a person who couldn't think about eating could still eat if the food was simple enough to bypass the machinery of decision.
The first time Borran called her "The Wee Captain," Reyna had been standing at his counter reviewing a crew manifest when she'd looked up so sharply that her datapad nearly slid off the surface.
"I'm not wee," she said.
Borran looked down at her from his full seven feet keeping his mouth shut and not saying anything.
"Fine," Reyna said, the word dragging as it left her mouth. "But for the record, I'm average height for a Kaelari."
Borran handed her a plate and Reyna ate her food without arguing further since arguing with Borran was like arguing with gravity about the direction of down.
He never used his words to ask how she was, and never uttered Elena's name, or Jere's. But he put food in front of her and stood at his counter until she ate it, and that was everything she needed.
Reyna ate because she didn't have the energy to refuse, and because somewhere in the back of her mind, underneath the reports and the staffing assessments and the daily effort of commanding a ship that had lost its way, she remembered that this was how you cared for people.
You made sure they ate, that they continued on, and that you gave them what they needed, even if they didn't know how to ask for it themselves.
She had learned these lessons with Elena and Jere, and even with Borran as well.
The lessons had survived the people who taught it, which she realized was entirely the point.
? 1979 / CYCLE 489 | EMBERKIND CV-0417, SECTOR CASSIA ?
Later that year, after a rescue mission brought them close, the Coalition invited Reyna and the Emberkind to Concordia to choose the replacements for the open positions aboard.