CASE [GL]

-- 1 Hour after the landing party got back to the UFS Roald Amundsen, Inside of Lieutenant-Commander Luna Moore’s Room –

 

I groaned into my pillow, hanging my arm over my shark plushie next to me. “I almost blew my entire coveeeer.” The shock of seeing my compatriots' dead bodies against the wall through the Commander’s helmet cam had almost made me audibly cry out. But luckily, I got my hand in front of my mouth just in time. At least I had found out why there was an alert for this sector of space, but it still had almost cost me the mission. 

Right now, the science teams were hard at work trying to figure out what they could from everything they had collected back on the planet surface. “Let’s hope that team didn’t have a shape-shifting device on them…” A shiver flowed down my back as my body started trembling. This situation was stressing me out. The research performed on the device could very easily blow my cover, and there was nothing I could do about it.  At least I was off-duty for the rest of the day, so I could stress out in my room instead of on the bridge. 

“Although…” A thought came up in my mind. Doctor Winter had told me yesterday she had managed to tune down the calming agent, so it wouldn’t completely wreck me again. “It might not be a bad idea to go and get a bottle… or two…” 

Sadly, that task would require me to get out of bed. I scraped together all the willpower in me, which wasn’t a lot but luckily just enough and hoisted me out of bed. I put on my uniform jacket and started heading towards the infirmary. 

 

When I opened the door to the infirmary, I could not see anyone here until I heard Doctor Winter talk to someone behind one of the privacy screens.

“Does this hurt?” 

“Ouch! Don’t pull it!” It was the Commander’s voice that replied.

“I’ll note that down as a yes.” 

“Uhhh….” I didn’t really know what to do. 

“Is someone there?” Doctor Wintered poked her head through the privacy screen. “Ah. Lieutenant-Commander. Can I help you with something?” 

“Is the LC here?” The Commander asked. 

“Do we have any other Lieutenant-Commanders on board?” 

“Well… no, but…” 

“Did you hit your head as well?” 

“Now, that’s just plain rude.”

“So, Lieutenant-Commander, what brings you here?” She completely ignored the Commander and walked from behind the screen. 

“I… uh… you told me you had some calming pills ready…” 

“Ah, right.” She beckoned me to follow her. 

I stopped at the edge of the privacy screen. “U-uh… should I wait here?” 

“Don’t worry, LC, you can follow her.” It was the Commander who gave me permission. 

“O-okay.” I followed her command and walked behind the screen. When I walked past, I saw the Commander sitting with her back to me on an inspection table in her light blue navy tank top. She was looking at me over her shoulder with her beret a bit askew on her head. But the thing that surprised me most was that her left arm and a big part of the left shoulder blade was made out of a matte dark gray metal. I could also see some severe scarring on the little bit of flesh that wasn’t covered by the metal or her tank top and on her other arm she had quite a couple scars as well. 

It left me almost dead in my tracks. “W-wh…” 

“Is this your first time seeing it?” Doctor Winter had turned around to look at what the holdup was. 

I shyly nodded while glancing at the Commander a couple of times. 

“Ah, right. Sometimes I forget you were only assigned last minute.” Doctor Winter nodded with understanding. 

“Almost all the officers know.” The Commander spoke. “It’s just a thing that happened during the war.”

“A thing she says, is if it were only a trivial matter.” the Doctor shook her head and then started searching through a cabinet. “She jumped on a plasma grenade to save a group of children who were stuck in a bomb shelter.” 

“They spent a lot to keep me alive. Apparently living war heroes are better than dead ones, that’s what I heard, at least. Definitely wished they didn’t for the first half year, though.” 

“D-does it still hurt?” I asked, in the back of my mind her censored medical record flashed past. They must’ve also kept her injury a secret as well, for that very reason. 

“Not really… well… now it does but not because of that.”

“Who’d have thought that catching the full weight of a marine in power armor would be bad for your prosthetics?” 

“Yeah… I know, Doc. I’m sorry.” 

“Well, at least it’s just a minor pull of your muscles. Just try to keep physical activity on the downlow for a while.” 

“So, no catching marines?”

“Unless you want to be out of action for a couple of months? No.” 

“Awh.”

 

While the Commander put her uniform jacket back on, Doctor Winter handed me the bottle of pills. “Here, don’t take more than 3 a day and try to spread them at least 4 hours apart.”

“Thank you.” I attempted to then leave the room, but the Commander stopped me before I could. 

“Ah, Luna, wait up a bit.” She ran up to me, her jacket still unbuttoned. 

I stopped and turned around. Doctor Winter was looking at us with interest while leaning against one of the lower cabinets. “Y-yes Commander?” I said with blushy cheeks.

“I’m sorry for dropping this on you so suddenly, so would you want to go and grab some food with me? To make up for it. You are off-duty, right?” 

“I-isn’t the food just from the cafeteria?”

“Aha.” She smiled. “Did you know you can also synthesize ingredients and make the food yourself. It always tastes way better that way.” 

“Oh? Are you going to make your famous beef tacos again?” Doctor Winter asked. 

“If the LC takes me up on my offer.” 

The Doctor laughed. “In that case, I’d really recommend accepting, Luna, they are pretty good.” 

Now both the Doctor and the Commander were looking at me with anticipation. “I-I guess… I guess I-I’ll say yes then…” 

“Great.” The Commander closed her fist in victory and then quickly continued buttoning up her shirt. 

“Where are we going to eat it?” 

“Ah, in my cabin.” She looked up for a second and smiled. 

“Y-y-y…” I grabbed my bottle of pills tighter in my hand. -Okay, Luna, calm yourself. It’ll be fiiiine.- 

 

When we left the room I could swear Doctor Winter was smirking at me, but that must’ve been a trick of the light as I could imagine no reason why she would do such a thing. 

While we walked to the cafeteria to get the Commander’s ingredients synthesized, I quickly took a pill, so no such hallucinations would strike me again. However, the shaking of my pill bottle did pull the Commander’s attention to me.

“What are the pills for?” She asked almost immediately. “Also got some prosthetic you need to take anti-rejection medication for?” 

“N-no…” I shook my head. “J-just some calming agent.” 

“Ah, right, Eva mentioned something about that. A bit of a lightweight?” 

“I’m pretty sure I weigh about average.” 

The Commander found that funny for some reason. “That's… that’s not what I meant.” She laughed. “Are you not familiar with the idiom?” 

-Oh no… idioms, I always forget about those.-

“S-sorry it went right over my head.” 

“At least you know that one.” She smiled and turned her gaze forward again. 

-I’m such an idiot…-  

 

We got all the ingredients for the Commander from an almost empty cafeteria, it was not yet time for dinner, so barely anyone was there. Because normally food didn’t need to be prepped, people didn’t have to be there beforehand. Only one marine was there, enjoying a bit of pudding while the cleaning robots did a sweep around the room. She didn’t pay any attention to us, apart from the initial salute she gave us. 

Ingredients in hand we then made our way to the Commander’s private cabin. Once she opened the door, she called out to the ship’s AI. “Ellie, please turn on the lights and then leave us alone until I call you back in.” 

“Aye aye, Commander.” Ellie replied as the lights in the Commander's room flicked on. The lights were slightly dimmed, giving her blue hued room quite a cozy and moodie feeling. 

“It’s a bit more private like this.” She smiled. 

I nodded as I put the ingredients I carried on one of the tables. The Commander’s room was a bit bigger than mine but not by too much. Her bed on the far side of the room was perfectly made, and didn't even have a single crease.

“Where’s the kitchen?” I asked. 

“Give me a second.” The Commander walked over to the wall next to her bathroom door and pressed an interface that popped up. The wall quickly rearranged itself into a small kitchen. “Neat, huh? I asked to have it in as an additional feature.” She looked proudly at her small kitchen area. 

“Perks of being the Commander?” 

“Just a little.” She smiled and walked over to me. Grabbing hold of the bag of ingredients. “Make yourself comfortable, I’ll start with the food. 

“T-thank you…”