Shipboard 7&8

Ryan had been released from his quarters, which was a relief, but now no one was talking to him. Apparently, he was the Wexiks version of a movie monster, and suddenly, no one wanted to be around him.
All the friends he’d started to make were avoiding him; people left the gym when he came in. But the whispering was the worst. Hushed conversations that would suddenly stop when he was spotted; conversations he knew were about him, probably not complimentary ones.
Even Sykil was nowhere to be found. It had been days, and while Ryan still needed to use the gym, the little guy was always conspicuously absent when it was that time.
It all made him terribly heartsick, Sykil especially, but what could he do? It wasn’t like he could go back in time and alter the course of Wixkis, or Human, evolution. It wasn’t fair, but it was, and he supposed he’d just have to deal with it.
But even that wasn’t really an option; he couldn’t get anything done when he was on duty because no one would collaborate with him.
He sighed; on the bright side, being preoccupied with the unfairness of his situation had helped with his anxiety. Small blessings.
He pushed into the gym, going to his bench, and slid the plates onto the bar while he watched people head for the door. 
He rubbed his temples, his desire to work out suddenly evaporating. But he had to do it if he wanted to stay healthy, so he sat down and just stared at the bar, trying to work up the motivation.
Someone behind him coughed, and he turned to see Sykil standing in the empty gym.
“Sykil! Hey, I-” He jumped to his feet, taking a step forward, hand outstretched but stopped as the fitness officer shrank back from him.
Ryan sighed, his hand dropping, and he collapsed back onto the bench. “Sorry, I uh-” he rubbed his arm. “Sorry.”
“No, I am sorry, RyanMateo, I’m not being fair,” the little alien said, slowly creeping closer and hesitantly putting a hand on his thigh.
“I caused you trouble,” the Wexiks said.
“You got me out,” Ryan offered, trying to smile.
The little man hung his head. “I don’t know why they released you; I couldn’t even help with that.”
Ryan swallowed, scratching his head; he’d wanted to cheer the little guy up, but it seemed he’d only made things worse. He didn’t know what to say, how to make things better. “I’m sorry,” he said, at last, feeling a little stupid.
“Why are you sorry?” Sykil asked, looking up at him.
“I dunno, I guess because I wish I could make you feel better.”
Sykil took a spot next to him on the bench, and for a while, they just sat together. “I mistreated you, but you’re more concerned about me than you are yourself.”
“Just- the Christian thing to do, I guess,” Ryan said, shrugging.
They sat in silence, and Ryan fought not to fidget. He hated how awkward they were, but hell, the genie was out of the bottle. Even if he’d never known the bottle was there.
“I don’t want to be afraid,” Sykil said at last. “I don’t want to wrong you anymore.”
Ryan opened his mouth, closed it. What could he say? Maybe a better man, a smarter one, would have known. But he wasn’t that man.
Sykil stood and turned, mouth open to speak, but before he could get the words out, the fire alarm blared in their ears.
Ryan jumped in surprise, leaping to his feet. They rushed to the comms panel together to check the source of the alert.
There was a fire in engineering. “We should-” an explosion rocked the ship, and he reached for the wall to steady himself, and as the tremors stopped, Ryan noticed the ship had taken on a noticeable list. A thruster had gone out?
He shook his head; he’d know when he got to his emergency station. He turned his attention back to the Wexiks about to tell him to get to his own muster station, that they could talk later when he heard a metallic pop, followed by the sound of metal scraping over metal.
“What’s that?” he asked, looking around to try to locate the source of the noise.
“Look out!” Sykil cried, bowling into him with surprising force. He stumbled back, watching as one of the racks of emergency oxygen tanks tore itself from its compartment and tumbled across the room, pinning his friend beneath its weight.
“Sykil!” he cried, running to his friend’s side. “Are you okay? Can you hear me?”
There was no answer, and Ryan looked at the rack; its ten cylinders still securely bolted in place. If they’d been standard medical cylinders, he might have managed, but these were massive, meant to be installed once, using machines, and moved never.
He clenched his fists and set his jaw. Regardless, he had to try.
He squatted down next to the rack, got a purchase on its edge, and heaved with his legs. Even under the reduced gravity of the ship, the unit weighed more than two tons, and he wasn’t exactly a contender for world’s strongest man. Still, it moved a little.
“Sykil,” he forced the word through gritted teeth as he felt something in his back give under the strain.
“Sykil, can you hear me?”
“Ryan,” the little guy coughed, “Mateo.”
 He wanted to sigh, but he didn’t have the air capacity. He squeezed his eyes shut, tried to shift the rack further, but found it simply wouldn’t budge. “I can’t- I can’t move it. Can you crawl out?”
There was a pause, then. “My foot is pinned; I can’t move.”
Ryan looked at the emergency panel. He should have called for help; why had he been so stupid? But he couldn’t just drop the rack back on Sykil, and if he did, he didn’t know if he’d be able to move it even this far a second time. “They’ll come looking for us. You’re going to be fine.”
His arms were shaking, and he felt blood dripping from his hands where the metal rack, the edges not sharp but pressing down with so much weight, cut into his palms. “RyanMateo.”
“You’re fine,” he insisted as a searing pain shot up his right arm. He wasn’t letting go, even if it killed him.
 
 
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Ambassador Tarrki was troubled. He walked through the garden again, this time unable to enjoy the beauty of human construction.
His conversation with the humans weighed on his mind still. Not so much the violent reaction of the Admiral. That had been shocking in the moment, but the more he thought about it, the more he sympathized with the humans.
He knew well enough how attached one grew, as a commander, to the men placed under their care. Of course, the Admiral had been incensed a the injustice they’d heaped on one of her’s.
No, what troubled him was the other overriding theme of their conversation. Humanity hadn’t hidden their nature; they’d simply allowed the Wexiks to make the assumptions that benefited Humanity most.
It begged the question, what other things were Humanity not hiding but also not saying? What false assumption had he made that the humans had simply seen fit to fail to correct?
He scratched his chin. It was vital, things were moving again in the eastern fringe, even if the Senate refused to see it, and he needed to know where Humanity stood.
He looked up; Earth, hanging, as always, bright and blue in the sky. For a certain value of sky.
They’d built a ship, at least two, in fact, though hadn’t seen the Constitution, purpose made to break a planet. To shatter its defenses, assault its surface, and break the back of a system’s defense thereby.
A ludicrous proposition, no one could achieve such a feat; no one had the manpower. Yet, the humans did. Just on this one ship, the humans had enough men to wage war across an entire planetary surface, to battle an entrenched enemy, and maybe even prevail.
Hundreds of trillions, and the ship’s crew besides, and the supplies and equipment to maintain that force indefinitely. 
And yet, to what end? To pacify a mining colony? It didn’t make sense; this, again, was the wrong assumption.
He hadn’t been allowed on Earth; no Wexiks had; they were, he realized increasingly, exceptionally secretive. He hadn’t questioned it before. They had provided all requested documentation. But now, he was realizing he had no way to know if that was complete and accurate.
He leaned against a tree, gazing up at that planet. Big and blue, and making less sense with each passing moment. A mining outpost on a life-bearing planet? Why? Space stations were more efficient for living space, which Humanity clearly needed.
It was the largest rocky planet in the system, and yet, that only meant its neighbors would be easier to extract for their bounty.
For that matter, they had so much infrastructure in this system; where was their seed fleet? Where were the colonization efforts in every neighboring system? They had the people; they were clearly interested in the endeavor.
He stared at the planet, blue and green in the sky, and then looked around at the verdant bounty surrounding him.
He began shaking, realization striking like a bolt of lightning. This wasn’t a mining outpost; it wasn’t a mining outpost at all.
He began running, rushing back the way he’d come. He needed more information; he could make no move until he was sure. It would be a risk, but he knew there must be a line of communication between the planet and the ship, and he needed access to that transmission.

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