[center][h2]Cold Comfort[/h2][/center]


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For a crew whose minds had given over to their respective dalliances these past three days, the people of China Doll took the harsh lift of the veil with practiced silence.  One of theirs was gone, and with her, the common fantasy that everything would end up shiny.  Cap’n would put it right, Alana would return, and they’d all fly away with big smiles and tales to swap.


Instead, they had an urn, and an account of a time bomb to the brainpan. [i]Tumor[/i] and [i]aneurysm,[/i]  words whose meanings were frequently clouded in medical hopespeak…until one was faced with the cold shen of the burial urn before them.  Alana Lysanger, their doctor, shipmate, friend…was truly gone.  Cap’n didn’t waste words on the topic or the ensuing tale.  Instead, he stood up, shouldered what burden was his to claim, and reminded this crew of their own stations.  The first mate found himself struck by the hidden kindness of the man’s no nonsense approach.


Yuri let three beats pass before speaking.  “Alright, people,” his voice attacked the heavy pall of silence, “the man didn’t stutter.  Elias,” his eye found the mechanic, “spin ‘er up.  SAM and I will start preflights in five ticks.  Abby,” he proffered the clipboard.  “See to our passengers.  Get ‘em all strapped and wrapped for upthrust.  Then make sure we’re buttoned up and cut loose from shore power. Copy?”


As the girl and her towering counterpart rose to their tasks, Yuri’s gaze touched on the rest of China Doll’s current crew.  “Imani…make sure Medbay’s all squared.  Sister,” his tone softened as he addressed the nun, “I’d be most obliged if you could give Edina here a hand with locking down the galley and the topside lounge.  As for Edina herself, he felt he could barely meet her eye.  What she’d become to him, and what they’d shared during a few days in this paradise bore no weight in face of the stark world now crashing down around their ears.  To look into her eyes and see such glimmer felt as alien a notion as the cold light glistening upon Alana’s gorramed urn.


Instead, he covered with bluster.  “Skids up in fifteen!” Yuri called after the dispersing boat crew.  He turned to make for his quarters and a change of clothes when his eyes fell once more upon the porcelain urn.  [i]Angel,[/i] Yuri mused of the first time he’d seen her, a dazzling figure who snatched him from a violent sea.  He wasn’t sure that such creatures existed; they belonged to the dogmas his mother had forced upon her husband and sons with no evidence of truth to be found in this ‘verse.


But as Yuri hastened to get into his working clothes, he found a bit of comfort in the thought of Alana’s ascension.