SWWAE Chapter 10: I'm Sorry

She might have offered to let him sit down in the kitchenette booth, but Vestan was already shaking as it was. There was a mechanic’s chair in the room that she convinced him it was okay to sit on. It took him a few minutes to get back on his feet, but she didn’t mind. Being overwhelmed was a feeling she understood very well, and she would make no one feel bad for feeling it themselves.

“Are you doing okay?” She asked after a little while.

“What?”

“Are you feeling okay?”

“I don’t know what that word means,” he said, finally looking up at her.

“Okay?” Looking back at their conversation, she actually realized he had always been asking what every time she said okay. He nodded. “It has a lot of minor definitions. It can mean the same thing as alright.”

“I’m doing better now”. His eyes looked her over. “Giff, you’re original too.” Before she could respond, he turned back to the reactor, or should she now start thinking of it as the catalyst? “Let’s take an actual look at you.” The steps he took towards the catalyst were steady, but still slightly nervous. He took a breath before looking over it more thoroughly. “Looks alright from the outside,” he moved around to the side, “but I don’t see any signs of… life.” He was looking at the empty compartment. “Where’s the catalyst?”

“Gone.”

“Gone? What do you mean, gone? How can it be gone?” Vestan opened the glass door as if it would suddenly appear.

“It’s gone. When I woke up, it was just empty. The drain drained everything.”

A variety of different thoughts and feelings crossed his face. First, he looked at her as if she were stupid, then he just looked confused, followed by a mild look of being scared, and finally he just looked astonished. “You can drain a catalyst and make it go inert, but you can’t just drain it out of existence.”

“I don’t know what to tell you. The drain did that to every system. Everything has empty compartments like that.” Were all the missing components catalysts of some kind? She also didn’t doubt that he believed you couldn’t drain one out of existence. These people were advanced, but as Eternity said, their achievements weren’t close to the ancients’ achievements.

“What the drak do you mean everything?” The words were a mix of anger and fear.

“I mean everything. Look,” her chest plate panel swung open to reveal the empty part in her chest, “even this body is missing components. I guess Heather didn’t carry around spare parts. I have one thing that can be slotted into the empty compartments, but most systems need more than one thing that works.”

Now he just stared at her wide-eyed. “How are you functioning? No, wait, are you telling me there isn’t an ounce of spellwork on this ship?!”

“Spellwork? What do you mean, spellwork? Like magic?”

“What do you mean, what do I mean? Spellwork! Magic!”

“Magic’s real?” That was a big shock, which shouldn’t have been since she met a literal goddess. Though Eternity could have just been a Q[1] like being and not a magic god. If magic were real, did that help her idea of being isekaied? It felt like it should, but some part of her told her it actually made it easier to explain how a regent like her could have been created in the first place. Was her commandeering magic? Was her power magic?

Vestan gave her that confused, almost unbelieving look again. “Of course, magic is real! You’ve been surviving on this ship for half a hept with no magic?”

“Considering I didn’t know magic was real this entire time, yes, I’ve been surviving without it. Do I even need it?”

He looked at her with his mouth agape, trying to process everything. “Alright, kid, I need you to start talking some proper sense, real quick. What in the hells is going on here?”

“From my perspective, I’ve been talking perfect sense.”

“Is this some sort of prank?”

“Why would you think this is some sort of prank?”

“Where would you like me to start? First,” he started counting on his fingers, “I pick up some cryptic distress signal that doesn’t even have words, on a frequency I didn’t even have my coms tuned to. Second, I stop to find a supposedly real but dead Stargazer in the middle of a main transit path, only for it to somehow be powered by a force I can’t read. It can’t be the reserves because I know this ship’s reserves shouldn’t be able to last the thirty-five hundred vols since it’s been last flown.”

“Is that a long time?”

Her words almost sent him over the edge, but he kept listing. “Third, there’s a damn automaton still operating on it that doesn’t shut down to the paradox, which is impossible. Not only that, but it talks like an old wayfarer. Fourth, it shows me that there is no magic on the ship, not even what it needs to be gods damn functioning. Fifth, it doesn’t appear to understand how anything works and says crazy giff like that!”

“I’m not a fucking automaton, and my pronouns are she/her.”

 “Kid, I will boot you out of my ship in less than two minutes if you do—”

“I can take full control of your ship in less than ten seconds.” There was a long silence, a silence she used to start her commandeering down into Vestan’s ship. That was probably considered piracy, but she couldn’t handle the idea of being dumped back into space.

“Is that supposed—” Her commandeering made it through a floor panel and to some wiring. Pain wracked her mind. “—to be a viable threat?”

It was a little worrying that she handled this ship’s anti-virus far faster than the one on her own ship, and that she did so without it having time to set off alarms. She turned off the gravity and spoke through the small bone -conductive earpiece sitting right behind his left ear. “I’ve already taken control.”

The pair started floating up a little. Those yellow eyes were wider than she had ever seen them and the fear was plastered all over his face. “Alright, stop! Please, you’ve made your point!”

He was so clearly afraid, and it hurt her. She didn’t like making people afraid. It was more than a dislike; it was a full-on hate. The reality of what she had just done came crashing into her, and she filled up with shame. Immediately the gravity turned back on; thankfully, both of them landed easily. “I’m sorry,” she said, wrapping her arms around her midsection. The words were filled with tears she couldn’t shed. “I’m sorry, I can’t go back to being alone…” There were sobs in her voice now. “I can’t go back… I’m sorry.” Quickly, she did something she hadn’t done before, uncommandeering. It wasn’t hard, but it strangely hurt to do so.

Vestan continued to stare at her with wide-eyes, clearly unsure of what to say or do. She didn’t care, though. She was spiraling fast. What had she just done? She made someone afraid for their life. Shame and anger at herself built up inside. Normally, her mind wouldn’t let her have a meltdown in front of someone she didn’t know. But this was a circumstance she had never been in before, and those terrible feelings her far too great. Without realizing it, her hands moved up to cover her face as her vision turned off. She couldn’t see him. She couldn’t look at what she had done.

“I’m sorry.” Her fingers started clawing at her smooth metal exterior. A terrible screech of metal on metal filled the room. “I’m sorry.” A finger snagged, and she felt the pain of metal tearing. Before she could even realize what she was doing, a hand pulled back before slamming back down onto her head, denting it. “I’m sorry.”

“Whoa, kid, calm down.” She didn’t and did it again. She heard rushed footsteps. “Kid, stop.” She felt the pressure of hands grabbing at her arms, pulling them away from her face, but she fought against them. “Stop!” She could easily overpower him, but she didn’t. There was just something about someone trying to stop her, even when they knew they couldn’t, that made that side of her disappear. Maybe it was because she felt cared for or maybe because she was afraid of hurting someone else, she didn’t know. It still stopped her.

“I’m sorry,” she repeated while sobbing.

“I know. I heard you, kid.” Vestan didn’t let go of her arms, but he shifted to wrap only one arm around them while the other pulled her into a hug. “I heard you.”

She despised the fact that she knew exactly how long it took for her to calm down from the sobbing. That made her feel so inhuman and was maybe enough on its own to keep her meltdown going. However, Vestan was here, and he wasn’t letting go of her. That helped so greatly. “I’m okay now,” she said after waiting just a little longer. Remembering what he said earlier, she said, “I’m alright.”

“You sure?” She nodded, and he pulled away. Her vision turned back on to see him inspecting her head. “I thought you had…”

“Damaged myself? I did, but I self-heal. Only from damage that happens after I’ve commandeered something. If I take control of something that’s already damaged it doesn’t fix it without me having to put effort into it.”

He nodded, but it was clear he didn’t fully understand. “Why don’t we sit down and just be honest and open about what’s going on? I promise I’m not going to try to kick you out or shut you down again, but I think everything should be out in the open. I’m not going to be able to help if I don’t understand.”

She appreciated when someone honestly asked for help to understand. More so asked so that they can help with what’s going on. Nodding, she said, “Okay—alright, we can sit down.” The door between the catalyst room and hall opened. “Though if I’m being open, maybe I should just show you instead.”

“Let’s do that.” He gestured for her to lead the way, and when she did, he followed close behind. The obvious excitement he felt when stepping out into the hall and looking up through the glass ceiling made her feel better. “No one’s going to believe that I got to walk through an actual Stargazer.”

“Am I that rare?”

“You’re the ship?”

“It’s now my physical body, just like the automaton.” She led them to the cockpit. “I consider Stargazer to be me, but I’m not really sure what’s the best way to go about referring to it as me, if I should at all.”

“So you’re not just a rea— a person controlling everything from somewhere. What the giff is that?” His eyes finally found themselves looking at the sphere still embedded in the cockpit’s table.

“First, introductions.” Gesturing to the front, she said, “That’s Heather. I didn’t really know where else would be appropriate to put her body.” She watched as he pulled his gaze away from the sphere and over to the previous captain. He put his right hand over the center of his chest before giving a deep bow. “Is that a greeting?”

He stood back up and nodded. “One to show respect, especially to those who have moved on.”

“So not something you do for everyone?”

“Not that deeply at least.”

“You didn’t do that to me,” she said, a little disappointed.

“I, uh, didn’t think you were a real person,” he answered honestly.

“Do you now?”

He hesitated, and that didn’t make her feel good. “I… I don’t know. Sorry, kid.”

Looking away from him, she turned back to the sphere, a little happy she didn’t have facial expressions to show how hurt that made her feel. “I don’t know exactly how long ago everything happened. Well, I have a date I found in some old logs, but I don’t understand the date system and I have no clue how long ago that was.”

“What was the date?”

“Kenana 28-7658-89.”

“Uh.” He looked up in thought. “Giff, we changed date systems 2339 vols ago. I can’t remember my history well enough to know the exact time the Kenana age was, but it’s roughly thirty-five hundred vols ago. Stargazer came out in… Drak, I can’t remember exacts, kid.”

“Two questions; first, what’s a vols?”

“Revolutions.”

“As in uprisings or celestial movements?”

“Movement.”

“Alright, I’m going to take a guess at how long that is, and I need you to tell me if I’m right. And maybe to calm me down a little if I am.” He looked a little worried. “365.2422 days. A day being 24 hours, and an hour being sixty minutes, with each minute being made of 60 seconds.”

“Uh, no.”

“Oh, thank Eternity.” That gave her a little more hope that she was actually isekaied.

“That’s what the old human-centric system was.”

“Motherfucker!” Well, that ruined her hopes a little. Vestan looked ready to pounce on her again. “Sorry. I’ll explain in a little while . How long is a vols?”

“Singular it’s just vol. It’s 427 rotations.” He stopped, but realized he needed to explain more. “A rotation being 28 hours. Hour and minutes are what you described, though. It’s how fast Quem spins and how fast it revolves around Vaneska.”

“Vaneska is the black hole at the center of this galaxy, right?” He nodded. “Thank you, Heather, for your interest in astronomy.” She hadn’t read about Quem in Heather’s books, so it must be a newer discovery. “Wait, earlier you said light-year. Is that measurement the same?”

He nodded. “Human’s really didn’t want to give that one up. If I recall, other races treated it like a slight against how self-important humans were, but it ended up catching on.”

Give it up for space racism to let her understand measurements in this universe. “Alright, I have a lot more questions,” mostly about humans and the potential that this is just the future and not a true isekai, “but I’ll just stick to what I had earlier. What does Drak mean?”

“Oh, it’s an expletive. One I probably shouldn’t be saying in front of you.”

“Ah. Well, I swear a lot too.”

“I noticed. You do it like old cets[2] of wayfarers.”

“What’s a cet?”

“An old audio log.”

“Okay. Now…” She looked down at the sphere. Now that she had more time away from her meltdown, she questioned whether telling him really was a good idea. Eternity brought her to Vestan, though. Maybe she was just bringing her to the transit lane? “Fuck, promise you won’t use this knowledge against me.”

“Considering how fast you took over my ship, would I even get the chance?”

“Promise.”

“On Halks name, I promise.”

“I don’t know who that is, but I’ll trust you. However long ago, Heather found an ancients’ ruin.”

[1] Omnipotent antagonist from Star Trek TNG, though I enjoy his appearances in Voyager more.

[2] I’m not sure if I’ll ever organically bring this up, but it’s a little bit of a play on the word cassettes for those old enough to remember them.

[This chapter was a little hard to write. I know I've written other autistic meltdowns, but those were removed from how it works for me. This however is exactly how I act when I have one. That being said, I am very happy that the chapter didn't end with that and still had some fun moments after.]