Original Ficlet: Ad Astra
Dec. 24th, 2021 08:00 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kat_lair***
Happy Christmas? This isn't a particularly Christmassy ficlet but the timing of the posting makes it the closest you'll get to a Christmas gift... So...
Title: Ad Astra
Author:kat_lair / Mistress Kat
Characters: Original Female Character, Original Alien Character
Tags: Spaceships, Outer Space, Science Fiction, Mortality
Rating: T
Word count: 632
Summary: “I’m sick and tired of being called ‘mortal’. I’ve never died, not even once. Nothing’s been proven yet!”
Author notes: This little ficlet was written about six months ago, as part of the fangirl weekend withpushkin666 and dreamersdare . It was a response to a prompt, which was the opening/summary sentence.
Ad Astra on AO3
“I’m sick and tired of being called ‘mortal’. I’ve never died, not even once. Nothing’s been proven yet!”
Arcadia crossed their arms and refused to budge from their position between Lieutenant Ives and the airlock controls. “Today is not a day to test that. Not when your experimental hypothesis is shakier than a drunk garlag.”
“Fuck you and your holier than thou blue ass!” the Lieutenant cursed. “Stand down! I outrank you.” She actually tried to physically shove Arcadia aside but considering they were a good two feet taller and wider and the human officer’s movements were clumsy thanks to the heavy duty spacesuit she’d already donned, that course of action didn’t really result in anything except some awkward shuffling.
Finally, Arcadia put one set of hands on the Lieutenant’s shoulders and gently pushed her back, before hastily pulling back. The cultural briefing had been very clear on this point: humans were tactile creatures but the rules of when and how touch was an accepted or welcomed way of communication were complex and easy to get wrong. It was always best to err on side of caution.
Finding the ship’s fifth ranking officer about to launch herself into the cold vacuum of space had made Arcadia extremely cautious. Especially when their perfectly rational risk assessment was met with some vehement, albeit incomprehensible, objections.
“As one of the ship’s Medical Officers,” Arcadia pointed out, “I outrank everyone in certain circumstances.”
Lieutenant Ives’ face took on an interesting, deeper, hue. She looked a bit like a pot of teip about to boil over.
“Lieutenant Ives,” Arcadia continued, trying to prevent such an outcome. “Why are you doing this?”
“Someone has to.”
“Yes,” Arcadia agreed. The ship’s hull had a hole the size of a small asteroid that had hit them five seconds after the Captain had called the decision to hide in the Gaius Belt a success. It could only be fixed from the outside. “But statistically speaking that someone should not be you.”
“Statistically!” The Lieutenant spat out a string of words that the ship’s translator did absolutely nothing to translate. It had only been programmed with the five most common human languages. Lieutenant Ives, Arcadia knew, spoke eight.
“Look, doctor…”
“Knitter,” Arcadia interrupted.
“Knitter Arcadia,” Lieutenant Ives relented. Her mouth, turned down in anger, actually twitched upwards in what Arcadia interpreted as amusement. “I know that’s the term you prefer. One day I’m going to explain to why that’s funny to humans but right now I need to get into that airlock and then onto the hull with this repair kit,” she hefted it illustratively, “before everyone’s mortality is put to one hell of a test.”
She had a point.
So did Arcadia. “Out of all the species on this ship,” they said, “humans are the least equipped for spacewalking or external repairs.”
“True. But right now?” the Lieutenant pulled herself up to her full, not terribly impressive, height and stepped back into Arcadia’s personal space. “We are the most available species on this ship, the most expandable.” She glanced at the rolling display of personnel availability on the nearby console: free, assigned, injured.
Dead.
“Knitter Arcadia,” she said, quieter this time. Less angry, more… resigned. “Stand down.”
Arcadia watched the last number on the display tick up by one more. Then another. The ship shook like a yeun flower in a storm.
Silently, Arcadia punched in the code and the air lock doors opened with a pneumatic hiss. Lieutenant Ives secured her helmet and stepped inside.
Arcadia pressed their face into the window, wanting to see but unsure why. Lieutenant Ives turned and waved as she floated out. For the three seconds before the hatch closed, she was smiling, wide and fearless; suspended and immortal against in the infinity of the universe.
***
Happy Christmas? This isn't a particularly Christmassy ficlet but the timing of the posting makes it the closest you'll get to a Christmas gift... So...
Title: Ad Astra
Author:
kat_lair / Mistress KatCharacters: Original Female Character, Original Alien Character
Tags: Spaceships, Outer Space, Science Fiction, Mortality
Rating: T
Word count: 632
Summary: “I’m sick and tired of being called ‘mortal’. I’ve never died, not even once. Nothing’s been proven yet!”
Author notes: This little ficlet was written about six months ago, as part of the fangirl weekend with
pushkin666 and dreamersdare . It was a response to a prompt, which was the opening/summary sentence.Ad Astra on AO3
“I’m sick and tired of being called ‘mortal’. I’ve never died, not even once. Nothing’s been proven yet!”
Arcadia crossed their arms and refused to budge from their position between Lieutenant Ives and the airlock controls. “Today is not a day to test that. Not when your experimental hypothesis is shakier than a drunk garlag.”
“Fuck you and your holier than thou blue ass!” the Lieutenant cursed. “Stand down! I outrank you.” She actually tried to physically shove Arcadia aside but considering they were a good two feet taller and wider and the human officer’s movements were clumsy thanks to the heavy duty spacesuit she’d already donned, that course of action didn’t really result in anything except some awkward shuffling.
Finally, Arcadia put one set of hands on the Lieutenant’s shoulders and gently pushed her back, before hastily pulling back. The cultural briefing had been very clear on this point: humans were tactile creatures but the rules of when and how touch was an accepted or welcomed way of communication were complex and easy to get wrong. It was always best to err on side of caution.
Finding the ship’s fifth ranking officer about to launch herself into the cold vacuum of space had made Arcadia extremely cautious. Especially when their perfectly rational risk assessment was met with some vehement, albeit incomprehensible, objections.
“As one of the ship’s Medical Officers,” Arcadia pointed out, “I outrank everyone in certain circumstances.”
Lieutenant Ives’ face took on an interesting, deeper, hue. She looked a bit like a pot of teip about to boil over.
“Lieutenant Ives,” Arcadia continued, trying to prevent such an outcome. “Why are you doing this?”
“Someone has to.”
“Yes,” Arcadia agreed. The ship’s hull had a hole the size of a small asteroid that had hit them five seconds after the Captain had called the decision to hide in the Gaius Belt a success. It could only be fixed from the outside. “But statistically speaking that someone should not be you.”
“Statistically!” The Lieutenant spat out a string of words that the ship’s translator did absolutely nothing to translate. It had only been programmed with the five most common human languages. Lieutenant Ives, Arcadia knew, spoke eight.
“Look, doctor…”
“Knitter,” Arcadia interrupted.
“Knitter Arcadia,” Lieutenant Ives relented. Her mouth, turned down in anger, actually twitched upwards in what Arcadia interpreted as amusement. “I know that’s the term you prefer. One day I’m going to explain to why that’s funny to humans but right now I need to get into that airlock and then onto the hull with this repair kit,” she hefted it illustratively, “before everyone’s mortality is put to one hell of a test.”
She had a point.
So did Arcadia. “Out of all the species on this ship,” they said, “humans are the least equipped for spacewalking or external repairs.”
“True. But right now?” the Lieutenant pulled herself up to her full, not terribly impressive, height and stepped back into Arcadia’s personal space. “We are the most available species on this ship, the most expandable.” She glanced at the rolling display of personnel availability on the nearby console: free, assigned, injured.
Dead.
“Knitter Arcadia,” she said, quieter this time. Less angry, more… resigned. “Stand down.”
Arcadia watched the last number on the display tick up by one more. Then another. The ship shook like a yeun flower in a storm.
Silently, Arcadia punched in the code and the air lock doors opened with a pneumatic hiss. Lieutenant Ives secured her helmet and stepped inside.
Arcadia pressed their face into the window, wanting to see but unsure why. Lieutenant Ives turned and waved as she floated out. For the three seconds before the hatch closed, she was smiling, wide and fearless; suspended and immortal against in the infinity of the universe.
***
no subject
on 2021-12-29 05:28 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2021-12-31 08:22 am (UTC)