OxO with @Davadio

(( Hmm, sure. Why not xD ))

“Friendship.” Arriss smiled faintly at the term. “Oh, I think we both know their relationship is more than a—“

The door swung open, and Conner was standing on the other side. At first, it wasn’t clear if he had listened in on their conversation, but from his neutral expression, Arriss determined that he likely hadn’t heard much of it.

“Look who finally decided to stop by.” Conner grinned at them. “Get me any food from the commons area?”

She nodded, standing up along with him. He didn’t seem to like the planetarium much, but he still seemed to want to go with her. It made her feel a way she couldn’t explain, but she tried to ignore the feeling as they threw away their food and headed up to the planetarium.

The room, like usual, was completely empty. It looked like no one had been there for ages. But, once Mercy located the level to turn the room on, it immediately came to life. Detailed holographic images of planets floated throughout the room, and images of stars and galaxies were on the ceiling and floor.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?”

Conner noticed Ronnie’s expression and frowned, shaking his head ever so slightly. He knew that they needed to tell her as a team, and he was still worried about leaving her behind on a spacecraft full of people he barely trusted.

Arriss noticed the silent conversation going on between the two of them, and she let out a sigh as she turned towards Valiel. “Yeah, it was… quite the interesting meeting.” She looked over at her boyfriend. “I think we have something to tell you.”

“Pssh, of course not. We’ve only seen so much of the galaxy, Romulus. There’s still so much we have to explore.” She sat down on the floor, staring up at the ceiling. “I don’t think it’ll ever get old. At least for me.”

(( Haha, you’re all good! ))

Conner and Arriss exchanged looks, not looking happy about the commander’s decision. Plus, it made no sense to them. They had been working with Valiel all this time. They were a team. Why did the commander want to separate Valiel from the rest of their group but place the rest of them together?

“I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m not too keen on this idea,” Conner said after a long moment of silence. “We may have joined the crew, but I still don’t trust them. I don’t want to leave Valiel alone on this ship.”

Arriss sighed. “I’m as ticked about it as you are, but the captain probably wants to pair humans with humans and aliens with aliens.” She sent Valiel a sympathetic smile. “I’m sure it’ll all turn out okay in the end.”

Mercy smile faltered for a moment as she herself remembered her time in the army. She hadn’t exactly wanted to be there, but she had been drafted in the war to fight alongside her brother. While she never had to deal with anything as extreme as Romulus’s time in the war, her memories of the battles were ones she did not look fondly upon.

Eventually, she regained her smile, and she looked back at him before patting the spot beside her on the floor. “Come on, Rom. Sit down. I don’t bite, I swear.”

“But what if it’s not just racism?” Conner suggested. “I don’t know about the rest of you, but I have a hard time trusting these aliens around Valiel. Yeah, they’ve treated us nice so far, but…”

“I agree, but what else are we supposed to do? We’re going to end up being paired together, whether we like it or not, and Valiel won’t be apart of the group.” Arriss frowned, crossing her arms over her chest. “I don’t like it any more than you do, but…”

“What if we snuck her on the ship?”

“What? Conner, no. That’s incredibly risky.”

“Yeah, and so is leaving her on this ship alone.”

“No, no. Don’t apologize.” She sent him a warm smile before lying back onto the floor. “It’s just… some of my memories of war aren’t great, but I’m recovering.”

She laid there for a long time in silence, staring at the ceiling full of stars. Occasionally she would steal a few glances over at Romulus.

Finally, she spoke up. “I’m so nervous about meeting my family again,” she said softly. “It’s been years, Rom. Years.”

“Look, I don’t know. I haven’t thought that far ahead.” He sat down next to Valiel, slipping his arm around her. “But we can’t just leave her here alone.”

“We have to, Conner,” Arriss told him. “It’s our only option.”

“Then I’ll stay too. She needs someone to keep her company.”

“We need you on the ship.”

“Well, she needs me here,” Conner replied. “I’m sure we could find some way to convince the commander to let me stay on the ship. You never know. They might need a few extra hands controlling the spacecraft.”

“Oh, they’ve always hated the person I’ve become. I know they do.” She sighed and closed her eyes, wanting nothing more than to drown out the memories. “I was smart, but a failure in school. I was too busy trying to take care of my four siblings to study. I got drafted out into the war and practically betrayed my country by joining this group.”

“Valiel, we don’t know that. Not for certain, anyways,” he replied. “I mean, sure, maybe their species as a whole doesn’t commit genocide anymore, but we don’t know much about this ship or the captain. Besides, they obviously have some sort of prejudice against your kind. That’s bad enough. Who knows what they’ll do while we’re gone?”

While Arriss was against the idea of letting Conner stay, she could help but nod in agreement. “I find it strange that they let Valiel join their ship when they have such a prejudice against her kind. But maybe they’re trying to mend relationships between the species. We don’t know,” Arriss replied. “Conner, I know you’re worried about leaving Valiel, but she’ll be fine. She can handle herself.”

“I know she can, but there’s one of her and hundreds of them. We would be better if we stuck together.”

Arriss let out an exasperated sigh. “Yeah, but don’t you understand? That isn’t a possibility. It won’t happen.”

“I hope so…” She broke the tension with a soft laugh as she wiped her teary eyes. “I’m sorry. I should be bringing down the mood so much. I should be happy to have the chance to go home and see my family.”

“He’d hurt us?” Conner leaned forward in his seat, his eyes wide. “I don’t know about the rest of you, but this commander is sounding less and less trustworthy. He’s going to do something bad to Valiel once we leave. I just know it.”

Arriss frowned, glancing over at Ronnie. She didn’t say it out loud, but she knew that most of this was her fault. At the time, she was her ship’s leader; she was supposed to make the best decisions for their crew. But yet, she felt like she was failing at her job. She was so eager to get away from this never ending war that she didn’t think about the consequences her choice would have for the rest of the crew.

“I’m not going to say you’re wrong, but we have no choice. We’ve already signed on.” Arriss sighed, rubbing her temples. “What else are we supposed to do?”

Conner shrugged. “Leaving is always an option.”

“They won’t let us leave so easily. There’s hundreds of them and only a few of us. We’ll be killed.”

“Thanks, Ronnie.” She reached over and squeezed her hand, but she quickly realized what she was doing and pulled it away. “You know, you haven’t told me much about your family. What are they like?”

Arriss moved closer to Ronnie, slipping her hand into his. It was clear that she was getting more and more anxious about the situation they’d gotten themselves into. Sure, the Muwellorians had been kind to them so far, but Arriss knew that there could be more to their motivations than she thought. Besides, why would the captain let Valiel join, only to separate her from the rest of the team? It just didn’t make sense.

Arriss took in a shaky breath, trying to calm herself. “Ronnie’s probably right. The captain may have just been saying that we would be upset if you left.” Arriss forced a small smile. “I’m sure everything will be fine. We’ll keep in contact with you, and we’ll come back if anything happens.”

Conner frowned, looking away. “This isn’t a good idea.”

“It doesn’t matter if it’s a good idea. It’s our only choice.”

Conner turned to her, narrowing his gaze. “A good choice would have been to not join in the first place. We all joined because we were told you had joined, Arriss,” he retorted. “Why would you do that if you didn’t think it was safe?”

Arriss stiffened. “You all could make your own choices. It wasn’t up to me.”

“Yeah, but you were our captain.”

“Big? Huh?” She gave him a nervous smile. “Well, I hope they all like me.”

Arriss gave Ronnie a strained smile as he pulled her into him. She moved one of her hands to his knee and gave it a gentle squeeze. Through this whole conversation, she had been trying to convince herself that what Ronnie had said was true; she wasn’t at fault for this, and everyone had been in charge of making their own decisions. While that was true, she still could help but feel a little bit responsible. She was their captain, their leader. They would follow her anywhere, and there was a possibility that she had just gotten them all killed through her decision.

“Besides, I didn’t know they were alien vampires,” Arriss insisted. “If I knew what they were up to, I would have joined them so quickly.”

Conner stiffened for a moment, looking like he was about to start arguing with Arriss again, but he relaxed as Valiel stepped up beside him.

“Yeah, you have a point.” He let out a sigh, shaking his head. “I don’t know what this mission will be, but I have a feeling it won’t be good.”

She smiled and leaned into him slightly, trying her best to relax. “I hope so,” she said softly. “But, even if they don’t, we won’t be on earth for long. Has the commander told you anything about the mission?”

( That’s totally fine!! I don’t have too many good ideas for it either as I don’t work with sci-fi stories often xD But I’m willing to come back whenever you want to)