The Captain's Heart CH 100

Trainer Brelendrirano Karotirekfrem came at him with quick strikes, and this time, Jeremy blocked enough of them to get an opening as she

Trainer Brelendrirano Karotirekfrem came at him with quick strikes, and this time, Jeremy blocked enough of them to get an opening as she stepped back, and he tried to take advantage of that gap when she regained her breath. He realized she’d planned it this way, so she wasn’t winded yet. But he had her on the defensive and pushed hard until she ran out of endurance and miscalculated. She turned at the last moment, so his punch struck her side instead of her stomach, but it was, finally, contact.

“Good,” she said, panting heavily. “I shall make a warrior of you yet.”

“I don’t—” he cut the protest off. It was a waste of his breath. He might not be winded, but he shouldn’t waste it on someone who didn’t care what he thought. She’d agreed to teach him how to fight, and his desire not to be part of this wasn’t relevant.

And he was learning. Landing the hit proved that. Over a month of two hours every other day had to amount to something. While she might not go at him as hard as she could, he’d quickly realized she wasn’t going to give any victories. He didn’t know if she even knew how to let someone else win.

She straightened.

Along with getting tired faster than him, Kelsirians caught their breath quicker. It was fun when—

He stopped that thought before the programming noticed it.

She raised her fists and smiled.

“Beta,” a man said at the edge of the fighting mat. “I was told to bring you this.”

He held a pair of gloves.

She looked them over and offered them to Jeremy.

Reluctantly, he took them. “You can’t expect me to fight with those.”

She tilted an ear. “I expect you to always fight with the best tool you have access to.”

“I’m wearing a thin shirt and pants. I’m drawing the line at getting bloody to learn how to fight.”

“We aren’t switching to clawed fighting now. This is to make sure they fit. Then we’ll go over how you extend and retract the claws. We’ll get back to your closed hand training after that, and you will wear them daily afterward.”

“You expect me to wear this every day?”

“Unless you are willing to have your fingers altered to be clawed, you have to. You need to be able to….”

Change him. She wanted to change him. Turn him into one of them. Make him wrong.

Stop!

The casing is—

It will make you what he wants. His toy. His thing to defile.

He fought to retake control of his breathing as the world spun and darkened.

    *

The sounds were muffled. The forms fuzzy.

“Wha….” His tongue had the weight of a neutron star.

Something was pressed to his lips, then cool liquid flowed over his tongue and its weight diminished.

“Looks like someone forgot how to breathe,” the man holding the glass of water to his lips said, sounding amused.

The forms came into focus. Head, ears, muzzle, teeth.

He preemptively took control of his breathing.

“Don’t go passing out again.”

He shook his head and mentally build an anti-matter containment chamber in time to his breathing, and pushed the demands from the programming down.

Then he let out a shuddering breath.

“Can you tell me what happened?” the cream-colored medic asked. The sounds were that of people caring for others. Questions answered.

“Panic attack. A bad one.”

“I’d say. You had several people worried. All the way up to—”

“Don’t tell me. I’m kind of hanging by a thread right now.”

The tilt of the ears was quizzical.

“You don’t know about me?”

“I know who you are, how you joined the crew.”

“How about the way I was tortured by humans?”

The shock on his face was answer enough.

How did anyone on the ship not know about— “Did you join when we were at Kelser?”

He nodded.

“Then just stick to the medical stuff for now. You can ask the Doctor and they’ll fill you in on the details.”

The nod was tentative, with a look toward the closed door at the back to the room. The expression had settled back into something professional when the medic looked at him again.

“Medically, now that your conscious and your breathing has settled, the rest of your vitals are within the normal for your species according to the system.”

“Does that mean I can go?”

The medic looked over his tablet, then nodded. “Take it easy for the next few days. If you need to take your work shift off, contact us and will let your leader know the medical reasons.”

He nodded. He knew better than to say it wouldn’t be needed. The medic wouldn’t care, and Jeremy had no way to know if he’d have a relapse. When he had an attack this strong, it left him vulnerable to more.

“Thank you. Are those who expressed concern outside?”

Another check of the tablet. “No. The hall doesn’t have anyone waiting there.”

Jeremy chuckled. “Right. No waiting room.”

Kelsirians didn’t wait on the injured. Or at least not outside, as a group. If the injuries were grave, they were allowed in to keep the patient company. Otherwise, they went on with their day, trusting to the medics to do their job.

He was steady on his feet, so headed out. He put the earpiece in and contacted Alixianakaran Debaren.

“Jeremy Bradshaw. How are you?”

“I’m good, leaving medical and heading to my quarters. Just wanted to let you know. I don’t expect to miss work.”

“Good. If things change, let me know.”

Jeremy contacted Thuruk next, then Prertiros, and continued down the his friends list, ending with Leiha Tergrobar.

“How are you doing, Jeremy Bradshaw?”

“Are you busy? I could use the Psychologist’s assistance.”

“Can you come to my office?”

“Yeah, I can manage that.”

    *

“It’s been a long time since it hit that hard,” he finished with.

“And why do you think it had such an impact?”

He looked at his hand. “She suggested I get claws. Not that I do it, but that it was a possibility. Like if I wanted to be like you, it could be done.”

“And do you?”

“No!” the protest’s strength caught him by surprise.

She didn’t react.

“I’m okay being who I am. I don’t hate myself because humans did that to me.”

“Can you envision a situation where you’d want to divorce yourself from them in some way?”

The idea was so ridiculous, he chuckled. “Considering they put this thing in my head, and I don’t hate them enough to want to cut myself off entirely from them, I can’t think of what they could do that would.”

She nodded. “How did its resurgence make you feel?”

“It scared me to the point I lost consciousness. I couldn’t even get myself to breathe. Or think through the noise it was throwing at me.”

“And now? It is loud?”

“No. But I know from experience I’ll have to be careful how I think for a while. Like now that it’s had a taste again, it’s just waiting to pounce.”

“Do you want to stop your training with Beta Brelendrirano Karotirekfrem?”

He chuckled. “I didn’t know she was a beta until the person with the gloves called her that.”

“Didn’t she introduce herself?”

“She didn’t use a title when she ask that I meet her. It’s probably good. I don’t know if I’d have been able to go knowing what was in store. And if she’d told me she was a Beta, or a Trainer, it would have been enough to work out I was in for more than I could take.”

“So you want to stop the training?”

“Yes, but fuck if she isn’t right.” He looked up from his hands. “I said I can’t imagine what they’d do to make me hate them so much I’d want to cut myself off, but you can be sure they’re thinking about it right now.”

“They?”

Of course, she knew who he meant. She was a mentalist.

“You know that anything you tell me in this office will not be divulged to anyone else.”

“Unless you think it poses a threat to others.”

She canted her head.

“Isn’t that how it goes? That anything I tell you is confidential unless you judge that it poses a threat to others?”

“That threat would have to endanger most of the people on the ship for me to divulge the details of what you tell me if you don’t want it revealed.”

“What if I tell you I’m planning to kill someone…. Thuruk, for example?”

She chuckled. “Leaving aside that he’s a hunter, I would seek to reason with you. Get you to explain to me why, and in the process, show that there are better ways.”

“What if you can’t convince me?”

“Then, I would arrange for you to be watched, and for them to be ready to intervene if you were to act.”

“You’d tell the captain.”

She shook her head. “I don’t answer to him when it comes to the health of my patient. I have the authority to contact a beta and have their pack act for me.”

“And you wouldn’t tell them why?”

“I’ve shown that my judgment, when I require their assistance, is sound.”

“It’s happened before?”

“This is a large ship, Jeremy Bradshaw. Conflicts are inevitable. And we, as a species, are combative, so they can escalate.”

He nodded.

Bottom line. He either trusted her, or he didn’t.

“His name is Omar Seywan. He was my doctor on the Einstein. I thought he was my friend. He’s the one who tortured me with that machine.”

Outline section 

No Outline

Addition 

Something for Jeremy.

More combat training? His gloves!

More work?

More… an attempt at the beach?

this is mostly a 'time passing' chapter.

advancing Jeremy's training was the reasonable starting point, and everything else just evolved from there, including his breakdown, the talk with the psychologies and finally telling her about Omar being the one who tortured him.

the beach might not happen. Ultimately, too much time will pass between this chapter and the next one to make what I'd planned for it plausible.