5. Change of Heart?
Edgy people meant a shadowed Ophir. Granted, all who had been around the 23 year old more than not knew this. This small group only included three people: Young, Rush, and Franklin. Eli was the poor newbie that had to find out the hard way during breakfast.
Eli sat across from Ophir, opening his mouth to get the other to work with him only to have Ophir stand up, ration untouched. Eli watched as Ophir gave the bowl back to Becker before leaving. Chloe settled across from him where Ophir had been sitting, inquiring, “What’s wrong?”
“Demetri’s acting differently.”
Chloe raised an eyebrow. “From what I’ve heard of him, this is normal. Yesterday was him acting differently.”
“That’s not what I mean,” Eli stated, rolling his eyes. “I mean, he’s harsher than normal. To me, at least. It’s like he’s more involved in his own world than ours. Whatever happened between him and Rush wasn’t good. Have you seen the bruise Rush has?”
Chloe nodded, clearly surprised. “Demetri did that? I thought Young had.”
“Young?”
Chloe rolled her eyes. “Come on. I can’t be the only one seeing the tension between them.”
“Tension between who?” Scott asked, settling beside Chloe. “Ophir and Rush?”
“You know about that too?” Chloe asked, exasperated. “Why am I the last to know these things?”
“Young and Rush,” Eli informed Scott.
“Aw.” Scott smiled. “Yeah, I guess you could say there’s tension between those two but everyone’s talking about Ophir and Rush. That tension is nearly tangible now.”
“You know this from personal experience?” Eli joked.
Scott nodded, clearly missing the joke part of the question. “Yeah. I was looking for the Colonel and had walked into the control interface room the same time Rush had earlier today. Ophir was at one of the consoles doing who knows what and the instant Rush even entered the facility, Ophir was gone. The tension that resonated afterwards, however, wasn’t something I was sticking around in. I high tailed it out of there as quickly as I could.”
“Wow,” Chloe muttered. Eli just gaped at Scott. Scott laughed, asking, “What’s the matter, Eli? Don’t believe me?”
“No,” Eli rushed, sounding offended. Then he got sheepish. “Well, ok. Maybe just a little. But still! What happened? One day we’re all great and the next we’re divided.”
“We were attacked just the other day, remember?” Scott brought up, amused.
Eli frowned. “Yeah, I remember, but to cause that quick amount of tension between those two? I thought they had been working together for two years or so.”
Scott made a face. “It was more like Rush worked and Ophir sat in a corner being a ghost. You would miss him in the room if you didn’t catch Rush watching him.”
“Rush watched Demetri?” Eli asked, clearly weirded out by it. Chloe was too but she didn’t say anything. Scott couldn’t help but laugh at their expressions.
“Not like that,” Scott chuckled. “It was a distant look, one that Rush normally wears when he’s thinking and looking at nothing in particular. It was a while before Rush actually did that. A couple of months, I think. But it was clear that watching Ophir work helped his mind work somehow.”
Eli glanced at Chloe before voicing his opinion. “That would weird me out after a while.”
Scott nodded. “I agree but I think Ophir was use to it. I watched the day I noticed. He didn’t even look up when I watched him. It was like he was…”
“Off in his own world?” Eli offered.
Scott merely nodded as silence settled over the three of them. Chloe stirred her ration unconsciously as Eli finished his. It was clear something had happened and all three were lost to what.
In the control interface, Rush was working on one of the consoles while Jeremy Franklin and Lisa Park worked on one of the others. A frustrated grunt came from the head scientist, gaining the other two scientists’ attention for a split second before getting back to work. They were getting use to the small signs of frustration Rush kept exerting. However, there was a pair of eyes that didn’t stop watching.
“Issues?” a gentle voice asked from the doorway.
Park and Franklin’s heads snapped up to watch the show, both wary and ready to bolt. Rush looked over his shoulder at the 23-year-old leaning against the metal support before looking back at his work. “Here to help?”
Ophir pushed off the metal with just a move of his shoulder. “Depends. You going to back off?”
“Can’t guarantee anything.” Sighing, Ophir walked over to the consol, pressed three buttons, and watched as Rush actually had the decency to look impressed before starting to work with the consol again. “Why did you stop working?”
"Because, for some reason, someone thought it would be great if they interfered.”
Ophir met Rush’s gaze before he walked over to the free consol, bringing up a heads up display. As Ophir did something, the HUD rearranged the content, scrolls of script speeding past before settling on certain texts, new windows popping up or closing. Once everything had settled, Ophir was standing before it with Franklin and Park, the two scientists surprised at what they were seeing. Neither understood what they were seeing, though. Rush, however, took his time to get up and walk over.
“It’s rough, but it’s what you need,” Ophir offered, looking at Rush. “You can read this, right?”
“Roughly.”
Franklin stepped into the conversation hesitantly, a hand coming up unconsciously as if he was raising his hand. “We can’t.”
Ophir rolled his eyes. “It’s a description of the ship’s systems. A summary, more or less. There’s a lock on most of the systems that even I can’t get through. I’m working on figuring it out but some translations are beyond what I know.”
“Meaning?” Franklin asked.
Ophir looked at him like he was stupid. “Meaning that the languages they used for the systems evolved over a portion of time. New words, new phrases. The English language did and does the same thing. I’m not surprised to have found it, merely frustrated.”
“Well, this is helpful, at least,” Rush stated. Ophir shook his head at the near compliment, a faint smile touching the corner of his lips. “Now we know where to start.”
“At least,” Ophir agreed. He walked back over the consol he had been working on and sat down, reading over the screen before him. He suddenly looked up, catching Rush looking his way from before the HUD. There were no emotions in Ophir’s voice or features as he asked, “Have you looked over the systems to see if there’s anything to make life here a little easier on these people?”
Rush walked to his consol as he stated, “I found what appears to be the water supply for the ship. The pipes from the tanks to different rooms are all undamaged. Only problem we have is amount.”
Ophir worked as Rush talked, bringing up the system that Rush was talking about. He nodded. “We’ll just have to come across a planet that holds fresh water.”
“And do you plan on doing that?” Rush asked, the sarcasm heavy.
“I don’t plan on doing anything,” Ophir stated. “You already did.”
Franklin piped in again. “What he do?”
“Told Destiny that we need water,” Rush stated, eyes on the screen before him. “That’s all that we can do, really.”
“Without control of Destiny’s destination, we’ll have to rely on the autopilot to get us to planets that will hold what we need,” Ophir added. “And, according to this, we should be dropping out next to a planet that should have what we need within the week.”
“That’s rather vague,” Park pointed out.
Ophir chuckled. “I’m aware of that. But figuring out where we’re going to drop out of this speed and when is rather difficult with no way of being in the cockpit of the craft.”
“Cockpit? Like, the bridge?” Franklin asked.
Ophir looked at Rush, asking sharply, “Really?”
Rush just shrugged. Shaking his head, Ophir settled both Park and Franklin with a steady glare as he stated, “This ship was built to be piloted through space. If the Ancients had any logical sense, there would be something like a cockpit somewhere on this vessel. Something probably similar to the bridge off of Star Trek.”
“Great analogy,” Rush muttered.
Ophir merely rolled his eyes, countering with, “Got a better one? Doctor?”
Rush looked up for a mere second, catching Ophir’s hotly glare that sent the man shrinking away. “I’d rather not encourage a scavenger hunt, is all.”
Ophir raised an eyebrow. “What? Like the one you sent nearly everyone on to find leaks in the hull?”
“Surprised you heard about that. However, that was important.”
A dry laugh escaped Ophir and the menacing gaze that fell onto Rush had both Park and Franklin scooting away. “This isn’t?”
Rush looked up to meet Ophir’s challenging gaze and both sat in silence, doing nothing more than meeting the other’s glare. It was all over as soon as it started, though. No matter how hard he tried to ignore the fact, Rush looked away first, utterly scared of the young man who was challenging him. Pressing a button, he stated plainly, “No, this isn’t.”
No remark was made from the other side but it was clear to everyone in the room that Nicholas Rush was picking a fight he was not going to win. Ophir turned his eyes to his screen just as Colonel Young entered the room. He took one look at Franklin and Park and that was all he needed to ask, “Everything alright?”
“Everything’s fine, Colonel,” Rush stated without looking up.
Young didn’t believe those words and looked over to the other consol, surprised to see Ophir there, working. He looked to Rush, asking, “You two on good terms now?”
“I wouldn’t push it that far,” Ophir deadpanned, glancing up. Instinctively, Young gripped his other hand, doing his best not to go for his hand gun. Young merely nodded, inquiring, “Progress?”
“A rough summary of the ship, the systems, and a bunch of jumbled text,” Ophir stated, sounding bored. “It’ll take some time to shift through even what we can access. Other than that, not much else.”
“Is there any way we can dial Earth?”
“Still trying, eh Colonel?” Rush asked, clearly irritated by the question.
Ophir sighed, cutting in before a fight ensued. “No, there is still no way of dialing Earth with what we have, know, and can access. Besides, we have other issues to deal with at the present moment.”
“Other?” both Rush and Young questioned. Ophir shot a glare at the scientist before adjusting the data on the HUD. Both looked at it and Rush stated, “Aw. That issue.”
“What is it?” Young asked.
Ophir walked over to the Colonel’s side before the HUD as he stated, “The log for the amount of fresh water in the tank. It’s depleting quickly.”
“Is there a leak?”
Ophir shook his head. “We’re just using it. If things work out, we’ll be dropping out of FTL before we need to start panicking.”
Young looked to Rush. Said scientist sighed, stating, “Faster-than-light. The speed this ship is going.”
“It looks like the ship drops out of FTL at a minimum of four hours of FTL travel. However, without access to the bridge, we have no actual way of knowing what the hell this ship is capable of,” Ophir continued. “I have no way of knowing exactly when we’ll drop out but I’m positive the next time we do, we’ll be where we can get fresh water.”
A hand settled on Ophir’s shoulder briefly as the Colonel stated, “I hope you’re right.”
Ophir watched Young leave with a gaze that no one could really read. Rush watched from where he sat, watched the exchange and reactions, and was able to pick out doubt in the mixed gaze before Ophir clamped down on his emotions and glared at the scientist watching him. Rush held the gaze for as long as he could before he had to drop it.
When Rush looked away, Ophir let out a silent sigh, relaxing a bit. He walked over to his consol and went to work, completely indulging himself into the words on the screen before him as Rush’s eyes landed on him once more.
It was hard to tell from the angle but Rush could have sworn Ophir had tensed at the gesture. Probably without really realizing it considering the fact that the Colonel didn’t say anything. But, then again, Rush could just be seeing things. Either way, he was going to have to figure out how to gain Ophir’s trust. He was going to have Ophir on his side and hopefully soon.
...last for a while
