Rebecca
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<td style="width: 48.8867%; text-align: center">Date</td>
<td style="width: 48.8867%; text-align: center">August 9, 2116</td>
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<td style="width: 48.8867%; text-align: center">Time</td>
<td style="width: 48.8867%; text-align: center">9:21p...um, 21:21 Human Circadian Standard</td>
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<td style="width: 48.8867%; text-align: center">Location</td>
<td style="width: 48.8867%; text-align: center">FRS Nightingale, on call in Coalition space</td>
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The news was…different…from what Rebecca was used to back on the Colonies.
More channels.
More…debate.
And a lot more aliens in the b-roll.
Aliens doing, well…things that didn’t seem that alien.
Scuttling down a sidewalk during a heatwave.
Flailing their tentacles in triumph as their team scored a touchdown.
Draping a scaly wing above some Human kids waiting in the rain at a bus stop.
A visceral part of her brain wanted to recoil from the sights, but Rebecca kept watching, night after night after her shift, on the small entertainment screen in her quarters on the Nightingale.
Coalition citizens didn’t react viscerally to some…one…walking down the street. If they did, they’d be persecuted.
Compulsory tolerance.
That’s how Fletcher had explained their enemies’ mindset. Humans that couldn’t accept the Other walking freely among them were considered pariahs themselves, and driven from Coalition society, like Mr. Card and his true followers had been before Rebecca was born.
To move among the crew of the Nightingale for the sake of her mission, she needed to be able to emulate this Coalition mindset. There were too many on the ship to act normally.
Even the acting head surgeon was an alien. She seemed nice enough, sure, but the feathers still weirded Rebecca out. How could she even scrub in properly?
Besides, her briefings for this mission hadn’t exactly been comprehensive on a lot of Coalition society outside of the First Responders Corps. And if things went the direction she feared they would go with Hammond on the mend, she needed to know as much as possible about the civilization she’d soon have to vanish inside.
A steep learning curve. One she had underestimated when she agreed to the mission. But she had no choice. She had to–
A beep from the door to her quarters broke her concentration, and she froze.
Why was there someone at her door?
Her shift was over.
She was on call, but they would have, well, called her for that.
Guards.
There were going to be guards outside her door, ready to drag her away to whatever hellhole the Coalition used to torture spies. She’d never see the outside of a cell again. She’d…
Stop.
Breathe.
If she wasn’t already burned, then panic would definitely scorch her.
The doors had hallway-facing security cameras embedded into them, so Rebecca slipped a knife into the long sleeve of her neon green scrub top, and checked the screen by the entrance.
The friendly face of Jill, the Nightingale’s Recovery expert, greeted her on the tiny screen.Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.
Just her.
Rebecca put the knife away.
They’d talked a couple times in the mess hall the past few days. Well, mostly Jill talked, and Rebecca nodded along. She had too much intel to gather before she could safely start interjecting her own opinions on current events. But Jill seemed to have taken that caution for shyness, and kept finding excuses to talk to her when they were both off shift.
If Rebecca was interested in making friends, it would have been nice. But friends led to liabilities, and guilt. Things she couldn’t afford if she wanted to quietly slip away once she knew enough to get by.
Then again, hiding herself whenever she had free time would make her suspicious to her new crew mates, wouldn’t it? Fletcher had made that clear as well.
Jill’s face made a little “Ope” as Rebecca opened the door, and her quick smile put crinkles at the corners of her eyes.
Rebecca mirrored the look without thinking.
“Hi Oda,” Jill’s eyes flicked to over Rebecca’s shoulder for a moment. “Catching up on the headlines?”
She fought through the dissonance of being called by the wrong name, and nodded awkwardly. “Yeah, I just don’t want to miss anything important.”
“Well if you’re up for something a little more exciting, Tiffany, Xivis, Imani and I were going to go down to the pool for a few hours,” Jill smirked. “Imani’s cobbled together an old-fashioned diving suit from scrap, and we want to see if it’s waterproof. It’s even got one of those giant metal helmet hatches with the grating. Interested?”
Huh.
Was not expecting that one.
Rebecca tilted her head. “Isn’t she the head engineer?”
“Yeah but she has hobbies,” Jill shrugged. “Historical recreations being one we all get to enjoy from time to time. She used a bunch of old techniques to put this thing together. Really did her research. If it goes well, we all get a turn at the bottom of the pool. And if it doesn’t…well, Tiff, Xivis and I haven’t gotten to practice a water rescue in a while. Either way it should be fun.”
Xivis.
One of the tentacle-y ones. Could play the Kraken in their little game.
…Better not say that aloud.
Rebecca raised an eyebrow. “Does the Captain know you’re doing this?”
“She does,” Jill nodded. “Sam knows we need to get creative with our training exercises sometimes. She just asked that we set up some clear safety signals ahead of time, which we have. And that we record it for her. Which we will.”
Rebecca let out a small laugh, and was surprised to find it was genuine. “Can I meet you down there in a few minutes? I had a letter I wanted to write tonight.”
“Ah right, to your brother?” Jill asked. “I remember you saying you two keep in touch?”
As cover stories went, it was a decent one. Supposedly, personal letters going through subspace beacons were not screened unless the Coalition had a warrant. Even though she didn’t trust that statement to be true, Rebecca had been assured it was all the cover she needed. As her letters were written as if to a brother, it wouldn’t arouse suspicion among the members of her crew if they ever caught her writing one.
That was, as long as she could keep her story straight.
“Yeah,” Rebecca confirmed. “My brother’s on a mining colony way out in deep space. Their subspace beacon’s signal is spotty, so I try to send him a letter every night, hoping that some of them get through. I won’t be long, I was just taking a break for the news.”
Jill grinned, and started walking away backwards. “Sounds good. It’ll take a few minutes to get Imani into the suit, and then she’ll probably want some pictures before she gets started. So if you’re quick you should still catch the first dive.”
“I’ll be there,” Rebecca waived as her coworker rounded a corner, then she closed her door, crossed to her entertainment screen, and flipped it from the news to the half-written letter to her “brother.”
Fletcher had been specific. Until told otherwise, she was not to provide any tactical intel in the reports. Just vague updates on her attempts to acclimate to her new surroundings, and a bit of gossip here and there. She didn’t have a lot of that after only a couple weeks aboard, but she threw in a few code words to prove it was her, added a little note about the diving suit to give it a bit of flare, then sent it through the designated channel to the coordinates Fletcher had requested.
Rebecca didn’t know what was actually at the other end of her signal, or what gossip about the Nightingale crew could possibly do to aid their mission, but she hoped it would prove useful.
“Alright Oda,” she rolled her eyes at the pseudonym. “Time to play sea explorer.”
Hopefully the Kraken wouldn’t pull her under.