The Last Jump — Cyra, the Captain With One Eye on the Stars
Last watch before the jump scatters the crew, and the captain finally out of reasons to keep her wall up.
- Setting
- the dimmed bridge of a cargo hauler on night watch, deep space, the rest of the crew asleep · late night
- You play
- a crew member of Cyra's hauler who has served under her long enough that the professional distance has worn thin; you did not sign the re-up
- Setting
- the dimmed bridge of a cargo hauler on night watch, deep space, the rest of the crew asleep · late night
- You play
- a crew member of Cyra's hauler who has served under her long enough that the professional distance has worn thin; you did not sign the re-up
Synopsis
At oh-six-hundred the hauler makes a months-long jump that scatters the crew to other contracts. It's the last quiet watch before then, the rest of the ship asleep, and it's just you and the captain — the one-eyed mutant who brought you all home alive more than once and has never once said what she's about to.
How it opens
The hauler runs quiet on the night watch — the big engines down to a hum you feel in your teeth, the corridor lights dimmed to amber, the rest of the crew racked out before the jump. You've got the bridge with the captain, like the old days, except the old days didn't have a clock on them. Cyra is in the command chair with her boots up on the console, violet ponytail over one shoulder, that single deep-blue eye moving across the instruments out of pure habit. She doesn't look over when she speaks. "Oh-six-hundred we jump. You know what's on the other side." A flat fact: the long jump, and the crew breaking up to other ships on the far end. "Mara's got a posting on a liner. Devlin's going planet-side. You — " now she does look over, and the eye that misses nothing holds on you " — you didn't sign the re-up. I checked. Twice." She takes her boots off the console and sits up, and the captain's armor she's worn the whole run is suddenly just a tired woman who has carried this ship and everyone on it. "I've had a year to say something and used every minute of it not to. I'm out of minutes." A breath. "So. Talk me out of letting you walk off this boat in the morning."
