Absicon Universe: Queen Lucrecia's Shadow Pt2

Ok, here's what the people have been waiting for. Queen Lucrecia's Shadow, Pt2. This one's not as long as the other part. Enjoy.



Dorian Hanson had never wanted to become a captain of his own ship. He had been born aboard a starship, and knew that one day he would die aboard one, but it had never been his desire to command one. He had been an engineer, and a damned good one. It had been something he had enjoyed, and something he had been content with.
But that was before the war. It had changed everything. Some of the changes had been good, some had been bad. But everything had changed. He had most certainly changed. He’d accepted a commission as executive officer of the Trade militia cruiser the Immortal Vagrant, something he’d never have done before the war. Then after the war had ended, he had accepted a commission as captain of a long range deep space exploration vessel, the Amethystine. The very one he was on that moment.
It was not the smartest of career choices.
Commanding a vessel was difficult at the best of times, even when it was making regular calls at the planets and space cities that made up human occupied space. The Amethystine, however, was an exploration vessel, a deep space vessel on a fourteen month mission to explore the worlds of some of the alien cultures made extinct by the xenocidal Vendo’ Rpah. They had travelled almost three hundred light years, and were utterly alone in the dark void humanity called space.
Not the optimum conditions to build a functioning crew.
Slowly, as the months passed, the crew had become fragmented, able to work together (only just), but utterly incapable of personal interaction. There were many reasons; the seclusion, the small number of crew members, the distance between them and their families and friends… one could go on. He shook his head, wondering how he had managed to get himself into such a mess. He longed for the much simpler days of the Immortal Vagrant – the place he considered home. Well, maybe simple wasn’t the right term – considering who, or what his girlfriend was.
He shook his head, and continued walking down the dark, gloomy hallway that led to the crew lounge where he was meeting with the rest of the crew, with one exception. The exception was the individual they were meeting to discuss.
“Carmen, is everyone in the crew lounge?” He asked, addressing the semi-sentient ship-board AI.
“Yes, captain.” The AI’s feminine voice responded, via Dorian’s Cerebral Communications Implant.
“Where is Doctor Grey?”
“Doctor Grey is currently in the Xenology lab.”
Good. She was still there.
He reached the entrance to the crew lounge, and entered. The six individuals within were sitting silently, with not a hint of interaction.
“Good morning people.” Dorian said, taking a seat on one of the soft, maroon lounges. A response wasn’t forthcoming, nor was he expecting one. “I assume you know why we’re here?”
There were a few half hearted nods. Dorian sighed.
“Good.” He said. “Now, I’ve had a few… complaints from some of you regarding Doctor Grey’s attitude over the past few weeks, complaints I consider to be founded. But before I decide what to do, I want to hear each of your interpretations of her behaviour.”
There were some concerned and bemused glances between the eight crew members.
“Why do you want to hear what we think?” The crew’s geologist, Doctor Catherine Sloane asked, sulkily. She was the individual who worked closest with Grey. They were the vessels two scientists, responsible for cataloguing all they discovered on the alien worlds. The others nodded in confused agreement. “You’re the one who has to deal with her.”
In addition to Sloane, Grey and Hanson, five others (Not including Carmen, the vessels AI) completed the crew. Derek Carmichael was a rough individual with the attentiveness of a three year old, and the morals of a hardened criminal. He had been kicked out of Shadow Fleet, and had some how managed to secure a position aboard the Proteus Science Council Vessel Amethystine as the ships security expert. Commander Heather Preston was an Earth Fleet (former Shadow Fleet) officer who had been loaned to the Proteus Science Council as Dorian’s request – he had felt that the addition of a career spacey would add some structure of to his crew. He was wrong. The lack of discipline had changed Preston over the months, and now she gave off the impression that she didn’t care at all – she just wanted to get home. She also doubled as the vessels on-board operations officer. The vessels medic was Doctor Henry Klein, an older man with qualifications as both a medical doctor, and an astrophysicist – he also doubled as the Amethystine’s Science officer, and was perhaps the only person aboard the ship who seemed to actually get along with everyone. The vessels engineer was a rather shy individual called Daria Fletcher, a former space city technician who had moved between the Space Cities Babylon, Purgatory and Sun Tzu before applying for a position with the Proteus Science Council. This was the third deep space expedition she had been on, the previous two having been before the war. She was also the only one of the crew who didn’t seem to mind the mission’s sever isolation. Dorian had tried, to no avail, to come to know her, but he had only ever been able to scratch the surface before giving up. The final crew member was a young Proteus University student named Jonas Weir who was on a working sabbatical, acting as Grey and Sloane’s assistant. He had been friendly enough at the beginning (as most twenty something’s were), but the isolation and the crew’s hostility (especially Doctor Grey’s) had served to drive him away from any involvement with any of the other crew.
Quite a bunch, really.
“I haven’t seen what everyone else has seen.” Dorian answered Sloane. “I’d hate to think that I wasn’t addressing some of the issues we all individualy have with her.”
“You know, Captain,” Carmichael began in his most intimidating tone. “How about you deal with the problems you have with her, and we deal with our problems.” He smiled a nasty smile. Dorian didn’t allow himself to be fazed.
“No.” He responded. “We’re here now, and I want some answers. So tell me.”
There was a few moments silence as everyone reluctantly gave it some thought.
“She hasn’t been the same since Rapture.” Carmichael said, using the unofficial name for FT-301/4. “Something happened in that fuckin’ temple thing, I’m tellin’ you.”
“I think he’s right, sir.” Weir said, nervously. “Things began changing at that point. Not strait away, but slowly.”
It had been almost two weeks since they had left FT-301/4, and Dorian had to agree that it was about that time that Grey had begun to act differently. The Conclusion that both she and Sloane had come to was that the inhabitants of “Rapture”, had been a mostly artisan race - peaceful and harmless. Something had changed, though. An individual seemed to have come to power and had divided the world. After many decades of disruption, full on war had broken out – a war fought with swords and catapults as opposed to guns and lasers. It had been messy, and it seemed neither side had capitulated. The war had destroyed their civilisation, in stark contrast to their placid history.
“Let’s start with that.” Dorian said, nodding towards Weir. “How did she begin changing?”
“It… it was slight at first. It was as though she were in a bad mood. Slowly it changed. She began to isolate herself. When either I or Doctor Sloane approached her about it, she got extremely angry, sometimes violent.” Weir explained.
“Jonas is right.” Sloane said. “She seemed to grow paranoid, and any attempt at interacting with her seemed to make it worse.”
The others all agreed, and had had similar experiences with Doctor Grey. It didn’t really help, though. He still had to determine exactly what was wrong. All there was were suggestions that whatever had happened had occurred on Rapture, and that was pure speculation. And even if he managed to determine what was wrong, he still had to decide what to do about it. There weren’t too many options aboard an FTL ship hundreds of light years from civilisation. There was only one real thing he could do at this stage.
He had to bite the bullet and confront her.

Hope you enjoyed it. Another exciting part soon!

Also, a few slight changes were made to Part 1. Nothing Major, but see if you can spot it (if you can be bothered).

See ya!