NOVEL NEXT Chapter 27 Bis: A Bittersweet Goodbye
Even if my body still wanted to, I just couldn’t cry anymore, at all. It was as if my tear ducts had completely dried up. It had managed to give me a banger of a headache, though. At least Lauren had been incredibly kind to me, staying with me when I asked her too, taking care of me, giving me my special painkillers. And now she was sleeping on me. It must have been so exhausting for her as well. Appearing strong in front of everyone was probably a lot harder than just letting your emotions run loose. My head was still hurting a lot, but I felt the painkiller starting to take effect. I didn’t want to wake Lauren up, so I just leaned back and grabbed my plushie shark to rest my head on top off. After that, my lights went out pretty fast.
“Oh, for fucks sake, my back.” I woke up to Lauren’s groaning. “Shit, did I wake you up?” She must’ve seen me move a little.
“No…” My voice was still pretty much gone.
“Sorry.” She saw through my little lie. “I think sleeping in that position kinda fucked up my back.” Lauren sat upright on the side of the bed, her hand on her lower back.
“What… what time is it…? I managed to ask.
“We’ve only been asleep for a couple of hours, you can go back to sleep again.” Lauren got up from the bed to stretch her back a little. When she did, I heard it crack quite clearly. “Ouch...” She then moved her hip. “Well, at least it’s loose again.”
“Come… sleep some more too…”
She turned around to look at me, she smiled. “I will, I am just going to get some layers off.” She then proceeded to throw off her pants and the top of her uniform.
That was probably not a bad idea. I slowly managed to get out of my own clothes as well, I just threw them behind the bed. It was the same thing Lauren was doing, after all.
“Is your head still hurting?” Lauren had already turned back around and was looking at me.
The pain had subsided quite a bit but I didn’t really feel that good, but I guess that was normal. But to put her at ease, I just nodded.
“Alright, I’ll refill your glass of water and then I’ll join you again, if you’d mind scooting up a bit.”
I gave her another nod and watched her as she took my glass and headed with it to the tap. She stood by it to drink a bit herself before walking back over. In the meantime, I had made some more space for her on the bed.
She handed the glass to me and then got in bed beside me. “Drink up. It’ll help. Crying dehydrates you a lot.” She said in a semi-commanding yet concerned tone.
I dared not go against her wishes, so I did as she said. Water was not my favorite drink but it was the best at quenching thirst, that’s something that no one could deny. I finished off the glass and handed it back to her. She looked pleased about that and put the glass away on the bedside table. Lauren then just laid down and looked at the ceiling. So I just did the same, with my shark in my arms.
“What are we going to do tomorrow?” I asked.
“Keep jumping as far as we can, I suppose.” She replied. “I should also think about doing a remembrance service… But first we need to get as far away from this ‘Empire’ as fast as possible.” Lauren rolled on her side so she could look at me. “But those are questions for tomorrow, right now, get some more sleep.” She smiled.
The Empire… this mess was all their fault… But I guess now I knew for certain that the humans were definitely not involved with them. Or at least not on this operational level. I’d stuck out my neck a couple of times today to help Lauren make the right decisions… but it still felt really bad having to keep this all away from her. Maybe I wasn’t cut out for spy work after all.
“Luna?” Lauren poked me softly on my cheek.
“Hmm?”
“Weren’t you listening?”
“Sorry… I wasn’t…”
Lauren smiled. “That’s fine. I just wanted to thank you again for being here for me.”
“Y-yeah… no problem…” Her impeccable timing made me feel even guiltier.
She kept looking at me as if she wanted to say something but after a couple of seconds she just shook her head and then rolled back on her back. “Have a good night, Luna.”
“You too… Lauren.” I squeaked and hugged my shark a little bit more to hug away the awkward silence that had suddenly grown between us.
When Lauren clicked out the lights, it didn’t take very long for me to fall asleep.
The next couple of days were spent jumping from star system to star system, really pushing our engines to the limits. We normally had a bit of downtime in between jumps, but Lauren insisted on creating as much distance in as little time. I couldn’t say I disagreed with that. The Empire was a dangerous foe, and even more so for one single ship. In the meantime, the repairs went on without stopping, too. Meaning that after four days, there was barely any evidence left that there’d been heavy fighting aboard. Life aboard the ship slowly but surely returned to usual, which is the exact reason why Lauren decided now was probably the best time to mourn our losses. In total, we lost fifteen crew members to the attack. With their bodies temporarily preserved, the time had finally come for them to get a proper burial.
The Commander’s speech at the funeral was beautiful. She’d deliberately put the emphasis on the happy times we’d spent with the people who we had lost. She’d gone on, collecting stories from other crew members, and had worked those beautifully into her exposition. One of those stories she’d told was the events at the gym where I’d met Corporal Sparks for the first time. Her speech distinctly lacked any jingoistic rhetoric towards the Empire, which surprised me quite a bit.
After the ceremony, when the bodies had been cremated, our little group gathered at the officer lounge for a drink.
“Lauren, I expected a bit more military bravado from your speech.” Eva commented, I was clearly not the only one who’d noticed.
“I know.” Lauren took a sip from her glass of whiskey. This was her first glass of alcohol since the attack. She’d asked for my help keeping her straight and I had been doing so, she asked for an exception just for this sole glass. I saw no issues with that. I even got a glass for myself as well, albeit very watered down. “I have rewritten that speech so many times but I think it is best like this.”
“Don’t get me wrong, I like the peaceful approach a bit more. The tension amongst the crew was pretty high but I have noticed it dropped down a little.”
“Mhmm.” Lauren nodded. “I mainly wanted to avoid people going out to form a lynch mob to hurt the prisoners.”
“What are we going to do with them in the long run?” Gunny asked. He’d just taken a normal beer. “We can’t keep them forever, can we?”
“That’s true but I’ve not really decided yet.” Lauren replied. “The only thing I don’t want to do is outright kill them.”
“We can drop them off on some suitable planet with a couple of starting supplies.” Yuki proposed.
“That’s a possibility but has its disadvantages too… I’ll have to think this through a lot more but now is not really the time for that.”
“I think we all understand that.” Eva smiled and tipped her cocktail glass just a little before taking a sip from it.
The day ended with a huge karaoke scene. Apparently one of the people who had passed away in the raid was a big karaoke fan and to honor him, some others had decided that the best way of doing that, would be to hold one big karaoke party. Lauren, Yuki and Gunny all agreed to join in too, and despite my best efforts to politely decline I was dragged in as well. But in the end, it ended up being quite fun. And it was good to see everyone smiling this much, although nobody could keep it quite dry either.
On our way back to the cabin, Lauren chuckled a little as she pressed the elevator button. “I never thought you would be such a Pimsey fan.”
“I just didn’t know any other songs.” I pouted.
“Hey, it was cute, so I didn’t mind. Are you that much into fairy tales and stuff like that?”
“Hmmm.” She asked a pretty good question. I’d never really thought about it but I guess the Pimsey princesses did speak to me in a way… just as much as cute plushies and cute clothes did… “I guess so…”
“I’ve never really watched any, so if you have any recommendations, we can maybe watch one together? Our media library has all of them, or should have at least.”
“I’d love that.” I smiled as the elevator reached our floor. “I already know which one to watch first.”
“I’ll be waiting with high expectations.” She winked. And yet again, she’d managed to make my heart skip a beat…