Ruby: 1900 hours, Saturn Base V engineering cupboard
I sat in the dark and wondered how much shorter my life expectancy would get when Mai discovered Juno was missing. There's a level of sisterly bonding that everyone is willing to go to but I was pretty sure that that level was going to be far usurped when I took the full brunt of the wrath of our big sister. Maybe I could live in the engineering cupboard forever, maybe – the door opened and I glanced up from my position curled up on the floor.
"Hey Rubes," said Eli, who's outline seemed to take up the whole doorframe blocking out any light spilling into the cupboard. "Can you come check something out for me mate?"
I hauled myself up to my feet and nodded pushing my hair back under my baseball cap.
"Sure, we have to come up with a knock or something, I thought you were my sister."
Eli snorted, "still hiding from your sister?"
I laughed and nodded, "I live in fear man."
Eli shook his head at me but didn't disagree. Eli Voss was a big guy, in his late forties and built the way that you would expect a head engineer to be built. He had the kind of tousled greasy look that I felt I was slowly beginning to achieve.
"So, what did you want me to check?" I frowned at the schematics.
"Just the calculations if that's alright mate," Eli spun the blueprint round to me and I scanned it up and down.
I pulled a pencil out of my pocket and started to back check the lines of calculations, creating tables was clearly what I was put on this Earth – or I suppose now – put on the Saturn V to do. I glanced over the digits again for a few moments and smiled in contentment as the numbers slotted into place in my mind. I glanced up at Eli and nodded in approval.
"Yeah Eli, that all looks good," I gave him a thumbs up.
"Our lil' computer you are Rubes," Eli rolled up the blueprint and slid it back onto the shelf.
"What's it for?" I asked curiously.
"Potentially a new ship," Eli studied it for a moment, "I doubt you've got the clearance for any of that info kiddo."
I pouted but didn't protest too much, after all Eli didn't even have to let me hide down here if he didn't want to.
"Rubes can you do me another favour?"
I glanced up, always eager to please if it meant I got to play around with some machinery and numbers. "Sure, what do you need?"
"Can you grab my dinner from the cafeteria?"
I immediately rolled my eyes, "dinner? Really? Because I'm a girl I need to go up to the kitchen?"
"Not because you're a girl" Eli's tone wasn't frustrated; if anything, it was amused, "because you're a child."
I grumbled but couldn't really protest, I headed back out of the engineering wing and up the stairs towards the cafeteria. The air was thick with voices as other workers on the ship took their breaks—engineers in oil-stained jumpsuits talking shop, medics grabbing a quick bite between shifts, residents speaking in hushed tones. Officers sat at the edges, watching everything. I made my way through the throng of bodies trying not to make eye contact, after all a sixteen-year-old wandering around the ship by herself would definitely raise eyebrows from overseeing officers. I ducked around to where the workers dinners were held and out of sight of the main cafeteria. I was rooting through the bagged-up lunches on the rack when I heard a cough behind me. The cough was pointed, and unfortunately very familiar, the judgemental sound of my oldest sister who was probably about to rip my head off.
"Hey Rubes," said Maia who was standing behind me arms folded, her glasses pushed up on the top of her head.
"Hey Mai," I said trying to sound innocent and neutral, "how was your day?"
"It was going fine," she said, smiling down at me in a way that unnerved me. "And then I got a very interesting letter from Odhran."
"Oh, a letter from Odhran? How lovely that's a nice surprise." I had met Mai's boyfriend a couple of times and he had always been quick to try and bribe me for my approval with snacks, so obviously I approve of him.
"It was, it was a very nice surprise until he mentioned something to me, something about Jude being out on the Pluto outpost with him. I thought I gave the two of you express instructions to stay together?"
I feigned innocence, "I thought you meant check in with each other every now and again not be glued at the hip."
"No," Mai shook her head at me, "no you don't get to duck this one Ruby."
Ruby not Rubes, I might as well sign on the dotted line of my death certificate.
"Did you know she had gone?" Mai insisted.
"Yes," I said reluctantly. "She told me she was leaving."
Mai took a deep breath through her nose, she looked so like our mother when she did that, and not in a good way.
"Ruby, I'm supposed to be responsible for you two and looking after you. I can't do that if you're both running off all over the bleeding galaxy."
"I'm sorry," I said quietly, "but really I'm the one who is still here so don't lecture me too much, go lecture Juno when she gets back."
Mai sighed and ruffled the top of my hair gently. "I just worry about you, about all three of you."
I sighed and fiddled with Eli's lunch bag that I was still holding. "To be fair Mai, Juno turned eighteen, she can do whatever she likes now." I knew it wasn't what Maia meant, I vividly remembered the lectures she had given Jude about not signing up for the forces, but I also knew how soul destroying it was to be stuck on the Saturn V feeling like you were contributing nothing when we had a medic and a starfighter pilot for two older sisters. It really does make one feel deficient.
Mai, to her credit, didn't blow up at me. She just gave me a hug and attempted to tidy some of my hair under the cap.
"I'm sorry Rubes, I've got to run back up to the MedBay, will you be alright by yourself tonight?"
As if I wasn't by myself every night.
"Yeah, I'll be fine Mai."
She smiled and walked me back out into the hall where we split up, Mai back up to the medical deck, and myself back down to the engineering wing to deliver dinner. I didn't remember when I signed up to be the Saturn V deliveroo service.
I let the engineering wing door slide open for me and stomped back down the stairs plopping the bag down on the desk for Eli who looked up as I came in.
"You sacrificed me," I said sarcastically, "I ran into Mai trying to pick up your stupid dinner."
Eli laughed and gave me a sympathetic look, "and yet you return from Aeaea."
"From where?" I said baffled.
"I always forget you didn't go to school," Eli waved his hand, "it doesn't matter."
I gave him a proper scowl, "I did go to school!" I protested. "Just- not for very long."
Eli patted my shoulder sympathetically, "you're still the best human calculator we've ever had on this fine ship." He was a little obviously and clumsily trying to reassure me but I appreciated it all the same.
"So, how's the other sister?" He asked, changing the topic for me.
"You're going to have to be a litttlleee more specific," I said, tucking into his dinner that he hadn't opened yet.
"The starfighter pilot you're always nagging on about," he said, stealing his dinner back by tugging the bag without bothering to reprimand me about his half-eaten pasta.
"Oh Ani? Yeah I think she's fine, we never hear from her. She's probably too busy being epic and awesome." I wasn't exactly jealous of my sister's role in all this – well perhaps I was. Either way I wasn't particularly smooth at hiding it.
"You reckon they'll let me be a fighter pilot when I turn eighteen?" I said keenly to Eli as he munched. I kicked my legs back and forward off the edge of the table pouring over the blueprint I'd surreptitiously unfurled to take a closer look at.
"Maybe kid," said Eli with a little less enthusiasm than a topic as cool as fighter piloting required, "maybe."