Among Us for a Year

Round 1 || Chapter 1

|| and so it begins. apologies for the amount of exposition, next chapter is where things actually start happening! rights to among us belong to innersloth, characters to me. ||

"Captain January Belverde."

It had a nice ring to it, all things considered, and saying it out loud put a sweet taste in January's mouth, but the taste soured and the ring went flat when he was reminded by the numbers and names on his mission summary why he had really been asked to lead.

"The N.V. Skeld 365*." he began, already frowning as he got to the ship number. Very funny. He skipped to the footnote, and continued "The three - sixty - five was recently recovered from the black of space, after being as counted as "still on patrol" with no radio sound coming from it for four years."

"Of course they did." he spat, tightening his fists and letting the paper crunch in his hands. "Of course they put me on a slavaged wreck with an ironic name to shut me up. Of course-" he cut off, staring silently, openmouthed, at the crew list he had just spotted.

"You're joking." he said, as though the paper would answer. "This is ridiculous-" he slammed the paper down onto his table, making his drink and forgotten dinner bounce, and stormed over to his desk, punched in a number, and hit Call.

The line connected, and January broke into the speech he had come up with a moment ago.

"what is the meaning of-" he leaned forward, without even a greeting, he was far too shocked and angry for that-

"Captain Belverde. I hope you have a very good reason to bother me at this time of night." said the figure in the screen, their face hidden in shadow and backlit from a low overhead lamp. A click, and a desk lamp switched on and revealed the speaker, a wide-jawed person in casual Mira uniform. "I like to read before I've gone to bed, and you've interrupted my Poe."

"Mx. Garnsun, there seems to be a-" January began, then cut off as he looked at the paper and laughed sharply to himself. The situation was starting to border on ridiculous the longer he looked at it. "-ah, a mistake with my assigned crew. It looks as though-"

"-They all have names that are related to months of the year?" cut in the Commander in Chief Riley Garnsun, and when January looked up, they were smiling in slight amusement. "Yes, I thought that was funny too."

"Relating to-" January gasped, glancing back and forth between the paper and the screen. "the names are all months of the year. Look, here's the cook, February Cher, and this is Irene Ren September, my second - in - command? And this one's put down simply as "June", surely that isn't correct. These are all callsigns, right?"

"Fortunately, no!" January's commander was smiling huge now "June had his legal name changed to June, apparently to..." they flicked through some tabs on their monitor and nodded "and I quote, 'better fit my [his] vibe'. Lieutenant September prefers to go by their surname, and the cook-"

"Alright, I get it." snapped January, putting his papers down on his desk and leaning into them, pushing his glasses up his nose and closing his eyes. "Might I ask why? I don't suppose that all of these people are wonderfully qualified as well as having names that fit a theme?"

"Oh, most of them are. September managed to keep their last ship running while their captain was incapacitated by food poisoning and finished the mission successfully, which is commendable to be honest."

"That just sounds like a mutiny with extra steps." muttered January, scanning September's list of qualifications. They have a history in forensic science? I'm willing to bet that they planted that bad food.