Chapter 1: Worth Celebrating?
The ding of a notification from the console caught Tomil's attention and she finally stopped numbly staring through the window at space going by. She reflexively checked the autopilot but the ship was fine. She didn't even need to be at the helm, she just didn't feel useful anywhere else. It was hard to focus, but at least monitoring the flight she could tell herself she was doing something. She could tell herself that she wasn't just sitting and soaking in her misgivings, even if she was just literally 'staring into the void' as it went by.
On the screen, she saw that the client had finally finished processing their last cargo delivery and confirmed payment. Now they had enough credits they weren't going to run out of fuel or supplies for a while and be left drifting or go hungry. She let out a deep sigh of relief. The freedom of having her own ship, of technically being able to go wherever you wanted was great, but the reality of being able to afford to was another thing entirely. Always looking for work was exhausting and stressful. Always keeping an eye out for new jobs, new clients, new leads, and such. Even when you had a contract signed, until the credits transferred you never knew if you were being screwed, and not in the fun way. Tomil had been burned too many times before and it only made it harder to feel ok now. It always felt like the other boot was about to drop and ruin everything.
But for now they were ok.
She rubbed her eyes and peeled herself out of the chair to go tell her partner the good news. Gods, she must've lost track of time staring at the void; now that she was moving, everything ached. Or maybe that stiffness was less from sitting so long and more from holding that tension. Of course, neither of those were things her engineer had to worry about.
She left the bridge and made her way past the other compartments along the main corridor to the back of the ship, to where Hpexiv was always tweaking something. Trying to coax a little more oomph out of the engines, trying to optimize the life support recyclers a little more, trying to boost the transmitter range slightly. There was always something that could be a bit better and they were determined to find it. While Tomil worried about keeping the credits flowing and charting a course, Hpexiv focused on keeping the ship not just running but thriving and getting better. Just like they did for Tomil, too.
She tried to feel better about the job as she ambled down the corridor. She knew it was a win, but it just felt like delaying a loss. She couldn't quite get it right in her head, couldn't quite shake that dim view. She kept trying as she passed the medbay, the quarters, the accessway to the hold, the various other compartments, and went all the way to the back.
Tomil stopped at the door to the engine room and looked around for the only other person on board. It would have been a large room if not for the dense core of machinery jutting into the middle of it; instead it was basically a buffer of space wrapped around that core, allowing access to all sides of it except the rear. A plethora of indicators and readouts dotted all the convoluted surfaces inside, speckling everything around the room in a variety of blinking lights. The buzzes and whirrs and hums of the many different things required to keep the ship running and its occupants alive merged into one big background din.
From the entryway in the center, she stepped out onto a catwalk looking out at the familiar assemblage of apparati. Tomil tried to look around the massive core in front of her to spot any scattered tools or the edge of a small spacesuit peeking around a corner that might betray where in the room Hpexiv might be. She craned her neck to look above then bent over the railing to try to look underneath. She could've sworn she heard something over the background din, maybe saw something in the back, just behind the- something familiar fell onto her back and caught her in a pint-sized hug.
Tomil smiled and looked over her shoulder and partially through Hpexiv's translucent green, amorphous "head". As ever, it looked like someone had sculpted a playfully grinning face and long, wavy hair out of animated gelatin. Those eyes that twinkled at seeing her only existed in relief, shaped from the same stuff as the rest of them. Hpexiv had explained once that their eyes were only for show; that their homogenous body could sense and breath and speak from every surface. But if you didn't have eyes, you couldn't meet other humanoids' gazes and help make yourself understood or try to put them at ease, so they'd learned to make some and use them to fit in better. And a face around them, and arms and legs and even hair and so on. Humanoids read a lot into facial expressions and body language and Hpexiv had gotten very good at expressing themself that way to be able to connect with humanoids. With one humanoid in particular.
Hpexiv leaned in to greet Tomil with a very wet kiss.
"Sneaky little thing." Tomil teased afterwards, "I'll catch you one of these days."
"You? surprise me? Here, in my own domain?" They pretended to scoff "Ha! Ha, I say, Ha!"
"With enough time, maybe I'll learn all your hiding spots"
"Well, then I'll just have to build more in!" they teased back, scrunching up their nose, and sticking out their tongue before smiling again. "Besides, this time I knew you were coming. I saw the confirmation come through."
"Yep, we actually got paid this time. Not gonna starve yet," she half joked, but couldn't keep some bitterness from peeking through.
"Aw, sweetie, I was hoping you'd be in a better mood. This was a big one!" Hpexiv tried to cheer Tomil up. "Practically all the calanthiset we could hold and none of it expired. Payment in full. This is great! And already halfway to our next stop and another payday. What's there to be so glum about?"
"I know, I know, I know it is and the accounts look good and we're rebuilding our buffer, and we have things lined up, but I just..." Tomil sighed heavily. There wasn't a reason, at least not a current one. She knew that but it didn't help. "Things are going ok but I never know if the next job will. If it'll keep going well, you know? It all feels so...uncertain."
Hpexiv climbed down so Tomil could stop looking over her shoulder at them. They only came up to her chest, and looked up at her with a face full of concern. A caring face above a form fitted spacesuit that matched hers, since all that ooze still did need to breathe and it did help them keep their humanoid shape. A short, round, wide suit next to Tomil's relatively taller, leaner one. They both had their helmets retracted, as usual.
"Aw sweetie," Hpexiv comforted, "of course things will go wrong again. But we can handle it. That's why I've got all these backups and spare parts. That's why you've been saving up a buffer fund. Stuff will happen but we'll be ok."
They took Tomil's hands and looked into her eyes. "We'll be ok. Ok?"
"Ok." Tomil agreed reflexively, without feeling.
"Ok"
They gave her hands a squeeze, then considered things for a moment. "You've been in a real funk since those Landusian asshats stiffed us and then we had that dry spell for a bit. I told you it'd be ok and it is now, see?"
"For now," Tomil allowed, unconvinced. She sighed. "I just...It's not just them. Before them, it was the Herkins, and before that, that bastard Jyllill, and before that, there was that time we had to sell the spare parts for fuel and just hope nothing broke on the way to Kalis-3 or we would've been..." she had to look away even thinking about it, and couldn't bring herself to say the words she was thinking "... left drifting. It just all feels so precarious."
Hpexiv reached up and put a hand on Tomil's cheek.
"But we made it to Kalis-3 and we're still here. I'm still here. With you. We weren't..." they paused too. " 'left drifting'. We made it. Things have been hard but we've gotten through it before and if things get hard we will again." Hpexiv reassured her, then joked "Better this time! We've had more practice."
Tomil gave a small nod and weak smile. She took Hpexiv's gloved hand, squeezed it, kissed it, and held it as she relented, admitting "I know. I know it will. It's just hard to feel like it sometimes, y'know?"
