Friends With Your Ghost (corpskkuno)

=9=

"Corpse?"

"Hey'a bud."

"C-Corpse? What, how am I hearing you through comms? I'm disconnected, and you're not alive!"

"I have my ways."

Sykkuno steadied his breath again as he focused on the task at hand.

"Why are you doing this Sy?"
"What do you mean?"

"This? Going back to The Skeld?'

He thought for a moment, he didn't really have a reason. He'd trained for months for this mission, and years to even join the program... and he didn't know why.

"I don't know."

"If you're trying to prove something it's not clear as to what it is."
"I promise I'm not, I didn't really have a reason for coming I just... did."

"Hmm."

The crew was told they were given a rest period as the computer handled the fight operations. Looking out of the window you could see the blue glow from earth just out of the corner as the ship turned.

Stars slowly came into view as less and less light made it's way past earth's shadow.

"Do you remember when you saw the stars on your first mission?" Sykkuno asked as he studied the window.

"Yeah, it was... it was beautiful."

"What was your first launch like?"
"It was scary but I think I enjoyed it more than anything. Especially because of who I was with that first time."

Sykkuno readjusted himself as the ship escaped the earth's gravity well and everyone began floating.
"Who were you with on your first mission?"

"Well... a mix of people, some of them I knew from training and some of them I had only met a couple months before."
"But there was this one person, who just made everything better."

Sy felt heartbroken for reasons he couldn't explain. Corpse had brought up this person for the first time- he didn't even know their name... but he felt hatred? resentment? He thought... negatively of them.

"Yeah, they... they were the highlight of my first mission."

The ship began turning and soon the only thing visible out of the window was countless amounts of stars and far away galaxies.
"What were they like?"

"Well, when ever I was worried I'd just go to them- I didn't even need to tell them and I'd feel better."
"They were one of the kindest people I've ever met."

"Oh, what... what did they look like?" Sykkuno didn't want to know more but at the same time he wanted to know who he was feeling so strongly negative about.

"Little bit shorter than me I think. Uhh, short hair, they always had a cute smile."

"Whats their name?"
"Sy... how much more obvious could I make it?"

"What do you mean?"
"Why are you laughing?"
"Corpse?"

"Sy, I'm talking about you."

"That was your first mission?"
Alarms began blaring as the crew turned to their consoles.

Sykkuno changed channels so he could hear the others.
"Oh Jesus, what happened?" Sykkuno asked as he ran diagnostics from his computer.

BRO I KID YOU NOT MY PHONE WANTED TO CORRECT JESUS TO ✨"Je"✨
I FUCKING LOST IT 😂

"Something hit us! We're off course we're not gonna make it!" Joseph said uneasy with panic hiding just below it. But of course, he had reason to panic.

When everyone joined the program they were told that anything less than perfect could get them killed. And now they were far from perfect.

"How far off course are we?" Sy asked. He'd never actually been in a situation like this but he had enough training.

He could get them out of this, he will. He will not lose anyone else.

"Uh, we've been knocked 67km higher and we're going to fly by The Skeld in 26 minutes by 127km." Aubrey answered, she was trying her best to stay calm but Sy could hear the fear in her voice.

"What could have hit us that far and given us the much velocity?" Paige asked.
"That's not a question we need to answer right now- Jack correct the course, worry about speed after wards." Ethan ordered, he had the authority too, he was the commander.

"We can't, we won't have enough fuel." Jane countered.
"So tap into the reserves." Ethan added.
"We won't have enough to slow down if we do! The computer wasn't meant to dock at this speed!" Jane argued again.

Everyone one was silent, Jack stood ready to initiate a course correction, Jane looked visibly worried, and Sykkuno kept trying to calculate their best course of action.

The ships thrusters and the slowly dying sound of the alarms were the only sounds that filled the ship.

"Do it." Sykkuno spoke up.
"What? You of all people should know we can't do that we'll-"
"Do it, I can dock us... just override the computer's docking sequence."

"Ethan we can't we're going to either fly out into deep space to crash into The Skeld!"

"Override complete, transferring controls to you." Ethan said mumbling slightly.
"What!? We can't do this! We're going to leave it up to him? You're going to put the lives of your crew, not in the hands of the computer, but to-" Jane began rambling angrily.

"Enough!" Ethan shouted.
"He's the most qualified person here! Look at yourself, you almost started crying as soon as the alarms went off! He's had more years of training than us!"

"Yes sir." Jane replied defeated as she sat down.

"Sir, when should I initiate the course correction?" Jack asked after a few moments of silence.
"Whenever you think we'll be using the least amount of fuel." Jack nodded as he looked back to his console.

"You sure you got this?" Corpse asked, Sykkuno only nodded as he prepared himself.

"Okay course correction in 5... 4... 3..." Sykkuno ran himself through his procedures again as he readied himself.

"2... 1. Thrusters engaged."

The crew stayed silent as they all watched the ships fuel level race to 0.

"...Correction complete, we'll be in range of The Skeld in 19 minutes."

"Thomas, can you work with the fuel we have left?" Ethan asked.
Sy looked to the main monitor, "17.13%"

"Yes... -sir." He responded.
"Then make any preparations, Jack notify Thomas when we're 10 minutes away. After that do 5." Ethan finished, sounding very unsure of himself.
"Will do." Jack replied.

The crew stayed silent as Jack notified Sykkuno to change to a new channel.