Chapter 1
Chapter one: The Crash
WARNING! CRASH IMMINENT! TAKE UP EMERGENCY POSITIONS!
It all happened so fast, there was nothing they could’ve done to have prevented this. The only thing Sal could do was just hold Anya tight and prepare for impact. Of course this would happen, she knew taking this job was a bad idea. Something bad like this always happens when you’re surrounded by absolute morons. Well, aside from…
“Anya?”
Anya looked up at Sal who’s trying to somehow shield her from the impact that had just taken place.
“Anya, are you okay?” Sal asked, looking at Anya while trying her best not to freak out herself. She thought they were just about to die. Who knows, maybe they should’ve been, that crash was intense.
Anya didn’t really remember if she had the possibility to answer or not, because the next thing she knew, the attention was on Curly and keeping him alive. Amputating, burnmarks and the smell. He was being burned alive in that cockpit and his skin had pretty much melted off completely. He didn’t look like himself anymore.
They somehow managed to stabilise Curly after hours of working. Sal wanted to throw up, she did not like seeing her captain like this. Her body ached and the blisters on her hands from rescuing Curly didn’t make it any better. Nothing could make this better. She wanted to cry. She wanted to curl up into a ball and cry right there.
“Hey, Sal?” Anya asked, seeing Sal looking rather spaced out from… well, everything.
“Huh? Oh, what’s up?” Sal replied, looking over at Anya.
“You okay? I realized I didn’t get to ask you that yet.”
Sal scoffed softly and looked down at her feet, though it was more at herself for feeling too vulnerable at this time. She didn’t want to show that to Anya, though.
“How can I be? I don’t really know what to do with myself now. We just crashed.”
“... Sorry.”
“No, don’t be. It wasn’t your fault. It's just that- ugh, everything is such a mess right now.” Sal put her head in her hands and let out a small sigh. “I can’t believe what’s happening to us right now.”
“Yeah, me neither. First your nightmares and now this? This feels surreal.”
Oh, right. Sal had been having night terrors a few weeks before the crash. These really surreal dreams about everything going wrong. Sal wouldn’t go into detail about it, but Anya could tell they were pretty gnarly. I mean, it was pretty obvious by all the tossing and turning she could feel Sal doing at night. Sometimes she’d wake up with a foot or arm or something in her face, but she never felt like moving. I mean, it’s better than sleeping alone anyway, especially now when everything is so… complicated.
“No, I mean, why would Curly out of all people do this? I thought he didn’t like putting people in danger, since he's the captain and all. I thought that was, like, the number one rule when you have that position. To keep everyone onboard safe.” Sal said, uncovering her face and staring at the wall in front of them that’s now covered in foam.
“How do you know it wasn’t an accident?”
“The ship has an automatic system to steer away from masses and objects that can be perceived as a threat to the ship, it’s all in the manual. I read it back to back before this delivery.”
“Oh?”
Sal looked over at Anya while crossing her arms, presumably still feeling uneasy.
“So if anything like this would’ve even been possible in the first place, somebody would have had to deactivate that system because they wanted this to happen.”
Anya looked horrified at that information. Curly, her captain, her friend crashed this ship on purpose? And even worse, now Jimmy is in charge. That creep doesn’t even know what he’s doing half the time! And even when he was doing something, he was always pissed off over doing said thing. Anya isn’t even that big of a “wanna be in charge person” and even she thinks she can do better than him, because at least with the years of med school, she knows what it’s like to work under pressure.
“... I need to sit down.” Anya said, sliding down onto the floor just to sit there by Curly’s patient bed. Sal followed and sat down next to her.
“Too much?” Sal asked, cringing a little inside over maybe giving Anya a bit too much information to chew. She can’t quite help it, her filter kinda tends to disappear when things get stressful.
“Too much.”
“Yeah, I figured. Sorry. I guess I just got a bit too much into my emotions again. I’m sure there’s an explanation for all this.” Sal chuckled sheepishly, though Anya cut her off.
“No, you’re right. He did this because he wanted this. But why?”
“That’s what I'm trying to figure out. This is not like him at all.”
Curly made some noises behind them as if he was trying to tell them something. Though, they just assumed his painkillers had worn off and that he was in pain because of that. Anya sighed and got up before dusting herself off from sitting on the floor, though there wasn’t much dust that had been collected in the first place. Sal followed.
“Hey, how about I take care of Curly and you get some rest, yeah? I think you’ve had enough work for today.” Sal said, putting a hand on Anya’s arm in an attempt to somewhat comfort her. For the first time since the crash, Anya smiled.
“You sure? It’s really no big deal if you need help.”
“Nah, you go on ahead to the sleeping quarters, I’ll keep watch.”
Anya hesitated for a moment, before nodding and heading out of medical, leaving Sal and Curly alone.
The Tulpar was quiet after that, now with only Sal awake with Curly having dozed off about an hour after Anya left to go rest. Sal grew a bit restless after Curly had fallen asleep, so she decided to just go check on Anya, just to make sure she was alright. She quietly padded over to the sleeping quarters. The door slid open and the first thing she saw was Anya fast asleep on the floor on her mattress. She must’ve been exhausted since she usually wakes up by the door opening.
Sal sat down beside her on her own mattress, not to sleep, but more so just to sit there and ponder for a little bit before heading back to medical and check on Curly. Though, there was this one feeling Sal had that was just there for some reason and it would never go away. The feeling that she needed to keep her co-nurse safe. To keep Anya safe. Besides, with people like Jimmy around…
Who knows what could happen?