Chapter Text
Captain Alex Hawthorne was seething in rage. But, she had to admit that this was a sight to behold. An ex-con man, begging for mercy at the hands of a middle-aged priest, set on the outskirts of a resort town on a mostly abandoned planet. This would have been wonderful aetherwave drama. Maybe if the situation was different, she’d find some enjoyment in it. But The Good Vicar Max had bitten the hand that fed him.
Captain Alex Hawthorne, herself, brought him here, under the guise that they were looking for a French scholar to translate a book. Had Vicar Max told her outright of his revenge plan, she’d gleefully go along with it. Hell, she’d hold down the poor, unfortunate bastard known as Reginald Cheney so Vicar Max could solely concentrate on maiming him.
But no. Hers was the hand that was bleeding and beginning to fester. Silently watching, she waited as The Vicar’s infamous ‘violent enthusiasm’ reached its boiling point.
“Vicar Maximilian Desoto,” she commanded; her voice firm, and angry. “You kill him, our journey together ends right fucking now. You leave him alive, I’ll take you to Scylla.” Debating his choices, The Vicar hesitated.
“Th-think this over Vicar Max,” Cheney managed to rasp, the Vicar’s Tossball stick crushing his trachea.
“This is coming from the same woman who attacked Reed Tobson for disrespecting her crew member,” the Vicar spat, shaking from a mixture of fury and adrenaline. He pressed harder into a sputtering Cheney. Max’s contemptuousness and dishonesty had fully ignited Captain Hawthorne’s ire.
“I said alive, not unscathed,” hissed The Captain. How fucking dare he. The fear in Cheney’s eyes grew as a sinister grin spread across The Vicar’s face. Cheney’s screams echoed in the canyon, but nobody came to his aid.
The Vicar’s fury was unrelenting. Cheney’s face was beaten to the point of being unrecognizable, most of his teeth decorated the ground beside him, his blood a bright red smear in the dark brown clay. Each one of Cheney’s ribs were broken, some in multiple places. And just out of spite, the Vicar broke each of Cheney’s fingers on both hands. But The Vicar left him alive. After he had his way with him, he dusted himself off and cleaned his Tossball stick and hands in the stream.
“Are you done yet?” The Captain spat. The Vicar composed himself and turned to The Captain, poorly hiding her growing rage.
“I am.” They left, leaving Cheney rolling around and groaning in the dirt. Captain Hawthorne led them back to The Unreliable with an angry gait. The Vicar wasn’t stupid, he knew he upset her, but he was unaware of the extent. Never had he seen her so angry yet so restrained.
“Captain,” he treaded lightly. She ignored him and continued walking through Fallbrook, pushing her way through the crowd. “Captain Hawthorne, please,” his pleading fell on deaf ears as she continued up the stairs to the landing pad. The Unreliable’s airlock opened, she stormed inside.
“ADA, initiate Do Not Disturb mode.”
“Yes, Captain Hawthorne.”
“Captain!” The Vicar, called out, exasperated. She ascended the stairs frantically, hoping to get enough distance between her and Vicar. Luck was on her side; she stormed into her room, the door shutting tightly and quickly behind her. “The Spacer’s Choice Elevator Jingle [Funky Samba Edition]” immediately played as the door closed in an attempt to drown out his noises. ADA must have misheard her instructions, as the music was extremely disturbing.
In his last-ditch effort, he pleaded once more. “Please, Captain Hawthorne, I know you can hear me,” he slammed his fist against the door loud enough to be heard over the ‘music’. The Captain, undeterred on the other side, kicked off her boots and started unlatching her armor.
“ADA, please tell him to stop.”
“Certainly, Captain.” Patching into every speaker on the ship, ADA delivered Captain Hawthorne’s wishes at full volume. “Captain Hawthorne wishes to inform Vicar Maximilian DeSoto that he will be financially responsible for any loss of use, diminishment of value, and/or damages occurred to The Unreliable during his tenure as a passenger. Captain Hawthorne also has sole authority to revoke a crew member's tenure, at any time, for any reason, with or without warning.”
The Vicar sighed, defeated. He immediately retired to his quarters, ignoring the rest of the crew staring at him, wordlessly, from the kitchen table. He closed his door, stripped, and went to bed. There was nothing else he was capable of doing tonight. Deafening silence rang through the ship. Nyoka was the first to speak for all of them.
“What. The fuck. Just happened.”
“ADA, terminate Do Not Disturb mode.”
“Certainly, Captain.”
“Never play that remix again,” Captain Hawthorne shuddered, continuing to remove her armor and weapons. She placed them on the desk next to her terminal.
“Understood.”
“What a fucking day,” Captain Hawthorne groaned, remembering the bottle of whiskey she had in the trunk by her bed. She walked over to it and opened it, forgetting about the jumpsuit from The Hope was stashed in there as well. It was a bad idea for whiskey tonight; she’d end up strangling Max in his sleep. Instead, she pulled out her jumpsuit and sat on the edge of her bed.
The hoses were still attached to the jumpsuit. She never bothered taking them off. Softly, she traced the embroidery of her name over the right pocket. It’s been… decades since she’s last heard it. Nobody she’s met has had her name.
“ADA,”
“Yes Captain?”
“Would lying for personal revenge or lying about your identity be more egregious?”
“Can you give me more detail, Captain?”
“Hypothetically, let’s say I lied to the crew about who I was and where I was from. And, hypothetically, Vicar Max lied to me about the translator for his book and had an ulterior motive to kill a man.” ADA’s ‘expression’ soured. “Hypothetically speaking, of course; because I’m Alex Hawthorne, and I have always been Alex Hawthorne. And Vicars don’t lie or kill.”
Pausing, the computer calculated.
“They’re both lies, Captain," she quickly concluded.
“Even if it’s for self-preservation?”
“When I run a Boolean logic check, the variable ‘lie’ equals one and the variable ‘truth’ equals zero. Therefore, I have confirmed with a 99.99998% probability that they are both lies.”
“I see.” It was the answer she was expecting. Exhaustion finally catching up with her, she placed her suit back into the depths of her chest, and threw herself onto her bed.
“I could pump a deadly neurotoxin into his room while he sleeps, Captain.”
“That won’t be necessary this time, ADA.” The Captain dimmed the lights with the knob by her bedside. “I just need to sleep on this and figure out what I need. Thank you, ADA.”
“You’re welcome, Captain. Sleep well.” Overcome by physical and mental exhaustion, the Captain drifted off to sleep quickly.