Among Us: Salvation

Chapter 2: Bonding

Octavia's body rested in temporary holding in the operating theatre, a white sheet covering her and shrouding her in her eternal sleep. The apparatus that had been pushed to the sides of the room blended in with the shadows like distorted mourners. Around her body and smattering the plain sheet in colour, Martha's crinkled paper flowers kept guard over her in reverent tribute.

Severn swore he heard Octavia patting on the glass between the specialised suite and the medical bay. When he chanced a peek through the window, part of him wished she would sit up, that a terrible mistake had been made, but the room remained still. She'd always been the first to laugh, the first to smile, the first to offer help. If he'd struggled to complete a task, she was there with a beam on her face and a song in her heart. It would take more than her death to scour that kind-hearted soul away.

He shook the thought out of his mind and set about arranging the vials in the hatch. The machinery spluttered into action, cogs clanking and nozzle juddering along the decaying pole motor. Once it had settled, it began filling up the specimen tubes and closed off access, drowning out the sorrowful hum that accompanied him in his work.

A set of footsteps reverberated behind him and Athena wandered into the medical bay, eyes glued to her digital clipboard. "Whoever made that scanner in admin needs putting in a bag and shaking," she said. "I'm close to hitting it."

"You'll have to get in line," Severn joked. "I think most people on this ship want to take a swing at it."

"If I provide the mallet, nobody would deny me the first hit." She scrawled her signature on the tablet and flung it onto the surface beside her. "What are you in here for, anyway?"

"Test tubes."

"Better you than me. I've got no patience for stuff like that."

"Someone has to do it, and I don't mind." Movement through the window skimmed the corner of his vision, and Severn shoved himself from the medical bed to watch Uma in the operating suite.

The captain acknowledged the two crewmates on the other side of the glass. Deep smudges curved in blotchy paths beneath her eyes and dragged at the wrinkled skin. Her chestnut hair tumbled over her shoulder in a bedraggled ponytail, a far cry from the usually neat and well-placed strands. Their leader had always prided herself on being presentable and distinguished in her appearance and her manner. She set a precedent for them all, but now she had much more to consider than a sophisticated topknot and a spotless uniform.

"I can't help but feel sorry for her," Athena said. "Martha said that command is trying to pin the blame on her. Her ship. Her fault."

"But it's not her fault."

"We know that, but you know what the higher-ups are like. They always deflect the responsibility. Look at what happened with the Crimson Star."

Severn squeezed his eyes shut and turned away, determined to put the image of that doomed craft and the poor crew to rest. He'd seen the footage as it had come in from various news channels just hours after the tragic event; the seconds of quiet before the blast sounded like a roar, a last cry into the abyss before desolation ravaged the sky. The flash of blinding light seared itself into the back of his eyelids. Eighty crewmates on board the famed Crimson Star. Eighty lives lost.

Command had wasted little time in blaming the captain for their failure. They'd even gone as far as ensuring that his name had been thoroughly tarnished, and threatened legal action against anybody who spoke out against them. It was only once they'd left everybody around them quivering in fear of retribution that they dropped the subject, tossing it aside for the horrified silence to swallow. "This is different."