Episode 5

Summary goes here. Blah blah orphanages

Starting: Sunday, 2350-12-24
Ending: Sunday, 2350-12-24
(1 afternoon)

2350-12-24 (Sunday)

Santa Dawes

The current mission: Anderson Dawes wants the crew to split into 3 groups and deliver a pallets of supplies to local Ceres orphanages.

"In order for them to recognize you as my associates, you'll need to dress up," says Dawes. "But I only have one extra Santa suit, so... you're going to have to split it up."

Kova wears the hat. NoDot wears the shirt. Alfie wears the pants. Lu wears the beard. Nikki wears nothing since she's paired up with Dawes, who's wearing a full Santa suit.

Kova and Alfie, Part 1: The Unusual Flight Simulator

The first group reaches the Hermes Orphanage with no trouble.

"You must be with Dawes?" greets the headmaster Everett Sloane. "I recognized you by your outfits!"

As Sloane unloads their supplies at the loading bay, he describes, "Dawes has been providing us with these holiday packages for the last 4 years. Toys, medicine, snacks, all sorts of stuff." He makes conversation by asking Kova and Alfie what they did before working for Dawes.

"I was a scrapper on Rhea. In the middle of nowhere," replies Kova.

"I'm a pilot," replies Alfie.

With surprise, Sloane tells them they have the perfect skillsets for something he needs repaired. He walks them through the mazelike orphanage, past a real deciduous tree decorated with LED holiday lights and handmade ornaments, into a small room. Inside is a flight simulator made from the hardware of a real freighter pilot bridge.

A 14 year old girl named Sofia is already sitting in the cockpit. She's reluctant to leave the room, claiming "but I've almost beat scenario 5!" Sloane is impressed but dismisses her.

The sim is stationary, not dynamic, but Sloane explains the crash couches don't seem to think so. They buck children out of them all the time. He asks Kova to repair them mechanically to behave like a stationary sim, and then Alfie to recalibrate the scenarios.

"You should only need to play through the first two of them to get all of the calibrations set up, but if you want to play the third one, you're welcome. Even seasoned pilots struggle with the third one, so don't feel too bad if you don't solve it."

"Where'd you get all these parts? This is amazing," asks Kova.

"They were donations," Sloane answers with a smile. He leaves them alone to their work.

Kova examines the hardware. It's made of a mishmash of old parts from a variety of ships, but has a working, high-quality juice system and three crash couches. It's very well maintained. Kova notes it's strange to have working juice on a flight simulator, even if it's 5 times higher quality juice than the Terpsichore uses. Injecting kids with drugs when they don't need them seems potentially unhealthy. She disconnects the juice and repairs the couches.

Alfie starts recalibrating. He breezes through scenarios 1 and 2. That's all he needed to play, but he keeps going for funsies. Scenario 3 is a slightly unusual undocking maneuver, which makes sense why it would trip up a lot of pilots, but he gets through it easily too.

Number and Lu, Part 1: A Healthy Intervention

"So what's your deal, Lu?" asks Number/NoDot as they walk their pallet through the streets.

"Um, I'm sorry?" Lu replies.

"What's your deal?"

"That is not a specific enough question."

"Like, obviously you're... very--"

"Strong?"

"--boringly dressed."

NoDot tells Lu she's a little embarrassing to be walking around with, and asks about her history with the military. "Why are you keeping it close to your chest? Are you embarrassed? Are you sad?"

Lu doesn't know how she feels. She hasn't talked about it because she hasn't felt it was necessary, since the crew already knows she's ex-military.

"I mean, fair, but it just looks like you might be bottling some things up, because you just look... sad."

"That is my face."

"Not your face, girl. Your whole ensemb."

Lu answers that she tries to carry herself with strength and pride, but hasn't thought about if she's sad.

"Well, you are. I can just confirm it," declares Number. "Did you even think about what you're gonna do when you left the military? Just fuck around in space until we all get shot someday? What if you get shot? Then we're all dead. So you're kind of in the riskiest position on the ship."

"I suppose I have always accepted the fact that I might die, at any point in time," answers Lu. "That's what I did when I joined the military--I agreed to put my life on the line every day. And so, death does not scare me."

"....Yeah."

"Did that answer your question?"

"I mean, it did, but in the saddest possible way. You know? There was nothing about living in there."

"Well," Lu says, taken off-guard, "what I do with my life is keep people alive. So..."

"So you are never going to do anything for yourself, ever?"

"Why should I?"

NoDot erupts into laughter. "Because who the fuck else will do things for you if you don't?"

"I don't need anything."

"That's so untrue, girl."

Their words strike true, and Lu smiles.

"Like a new shirt, or something?" NoDot offers.

"Well... I wouldn't mind a shirt that's not scrubs."

The two decide to go shopping. Number redirects their route immediately, saying "I'm not showing up at an orphanage with you looking like that. They're gonna take you in, girl."