War Council

“What the hell are we going to do?” 

Cypris was lying on her bunk, staring at the ceiling and panicking. She was searching for some shard of composure in the expressionless panels, but her mind filled the white blankness with pain and horrible death. The crew was repeatedly crushed by higher gravity, melted slowly by radiation, chucked by explosive decompression, choked by a broken air-scrubber, or pounded to pulp by asteroids. Blood ran down the walls. The station malfunctioned. Space ripped astronauts from their rooms, from their suits, straight out of their fragile skin-sacks leaving only drifting bones and looped organs (Cypris was drawing close to a nervous breakdown.) The spray of viscera ended; Cypris Maricela Alta Cranford-Tracker had run out of hypothetical demises. And she was slightly calmer now, because she was bored of thinking of ways to die, and ready, maybe, to find a scenario that didn’t end in cannibalism or ocular hemorrhaging. 

A book fell off her shelf and landed against the opposite wall; Cypris Maricela Alta Cranford-Tracker fell out of bed. She swore, and went out into the hall. Henry was pushing a cart up from the bridge. The cart was laden with pots, empty ‘food’ packages, and actual bread. 

“What’s that for?” Cypris Maricela Alta Cranford-Tracker asked. 

“Which?”

“The bread.” 

“We’re having a war council. And Tyler and I thought I’d be best to improve morale with real food. Because I don’t think any of the motivational speeches in the Crisis Counsel Handbook are going to help here.”

“Hold on.” Cypris Maricela Alta Cranford-Tracker said. “Wait. You’re having a war council, and nobody told me?” 

“No.” 

“Yes you didn’t!” 

“Well, no, but you were having a breakdown. So Kareem said we should start without you.” 

“Move, Lane.” 

“Okay, Cypris Maricela Alta Cranford-Tracker.” 

Cypris stopped. She turned to the technician. “Did Conrad and Emily tell you to call me by name?” 

“By your extended name, yes.” 

“Extended.” 

“Yes.” 

“I’m going to kill them.” 

“Okay.” 

“Then you.” 

“Alright, Cranford-Tracker.” 

“I’m Cypris!” Cypris said, turning back again. “Do you want to die first?” 

“No, Maricela.” 

It became very, very silent in the corridor. Deathly silent. The air scrubber whirred on and cycled a breeze through the vents. Cypris Maricela Alta Cranford-Tracker stared intently at Henry Lane, who stared back nervously; Cypris was glowing, and not in a ‘you look so happy, I hope the wedding goes well’, sort of way, more a ‘oh god, the volcano is erupting, run for your lives!’ kind of way. 

“What did you call me?” 

“Your middle name is Maricela, right? I thought it could be a nickname…it sounded fun…?” 

“Nobody calls me Maricela.” 

“Hey, Maricela! The others are looking for you!” Jacob yelled. 

And that pretty much set Cypris Maricela Alta Cranford (formerly Tracker) on fire. 

Mortimer Station WarCouncil #1, transcript by Tyler Batt

Tyler Batt, Evie Kingston, Conrad Munroe, Emily Hamilton, Reyes Fahlman, Kareem Rosalowski already present. 

Cypris Maricela Alta Cranford Tracker, commander of Mortimer Station, enters bridge. 

Henry Lane, technician, enters bridge. 

Steven, useless robot, enters bridge. 

Strange Man, handsome, enters bridge. 

(I’m not sure why we have extra people.) 

Conrad: Cypris. Good, you’re here and nobody’s dead. Yet. 

Emily: Why is Jacob here? Did he stow away? 

Strange Man/Jacob: Yes. 

Emily: Did you use the upper storeroom? 

Strange Man: The lower one, actually. 

Kareem: Pay up, Hamilton. 

(Gambling has been frequent since the new crew arrived.) 

Cypris: Shush. Does anyone have a plan that might keep us from dying? It would be excellent if somebody had a plan. If nobody has a plan, because they’re all in denial like they always are, that’s totally alright also, but it’s going to take a lot longer this way, and we’ll have to make a list of problems and possible solutions, and we’ll have to do a lot of theoretical math, and we should probably log some simulator time, and somebody should tune the life-support, and the greenhouse’ll need to be running at peak if we want to eat — I’m assuming we want to eat — and we’ll need someone to clean every single nook and cranny of this station with a toothbrush. 

Strange Man/Jacob: So…to keep it ordered, I’m cleaning things with a toothbrush? 

Cypris: What? No, Henry is cleaning things with a toothbrush because he called me Maricela.  

(She’s very self-conscious about her name, not that I blame her.) 

Cypris: And from now on, to kill the confusion, nobody’s going to call me Cypris, or Maricela, or Cranford-Tracker, or Cypris Maricela Alta Cranford-Tracker; you’re going to call me captain. Easy enough? Good. Let’s get cracking. 

Tyler Batt (me): Where are we? 

Steven: We are near the edge of the milky way galaxy that we were not when in orbit of Earth. I can perform further tests, but it is unlikely that we will return home without the FTL Stuffpusher. Hail science. 

Henry: You broke the Stuffpusher. 

Steven: Someone hadn’t assembled it properly. Hail science. 

Conrad: Did we teach him to be cynical? 

Emily: No. We just taught him to learn. And he learned how to be cutting, and how to be derisive! We’re like parents!

Steven: I have also learned to calculate the likelihood of romantic partnership between crew members. Would you like me to— 

Evie: Nope!

(I wonder who she’s thinking about.) 

Kareem: You should be really proud, you made a robot that’s exactly a mix of all of us. But— 

Steven: Correction: a robot who’s exactly a mix of all of us. Hail science. 

  Strange Man/Jacob: Is he quibbling about grammar now? 

Cypris: Can we focus, please? 

Henry: I didn’t mean to get your name wrong. 

Cypris: Focus. Emily, you’re going to study absolutly everything on this station, figure out what we have to work with, and what we can do without. Reyes, I need you to do lots of calculations, find out what it’s going to take to get us home. Kareem, log as much time in the simulator as you can, we need you sharp as possible; there’s not going to be much of a margin for error. Conrad, get the life support running at doubled efficiency; I’d be great if we didn’t have to worry about running short of air and water. Evie, grow as much edible vegetation as the greenhouse can hold, and be ready to jury-rig a storage space for propagation. Henry can help you instead of cleaning things? Tyler, work with the robot to repair the Stuffpusher. Anyone left?

Strange Man/Jacob: You and I. 

Cypris: Goddammit. 

Meeting Adjourned.