Sam

The Captain’s seat felt extra hard on his ass today. The burden of which it entailed. The lived which served under his command and everybody’s opinions and doubts. Their enemy was strong and cunning, always looking to strike at their jugular. No time, no moment to spare. Keep the guard up.

“Captain?”

It was Leo, and Sam had his ideas of what the topic of this conversation would be. It was infuriating when you were able to predict the behavior of your crew sometimes.

“Yes, Leopold?” Sam asked.

Leo hesitated, maybe he showed the irritation in his Captain’s face before starting the rant. “I don’t think I can do this anymore. My reflexes are too slow and my reliance on predefined patterns is increasing. When the alien space station vanished before me, it was almost too much to handle. My hands trembled like leaves in the wind.”

Sam put the shotgun on his lap and rubbed the connective tissue on his cybernetic arm. “You are coming to me with this again. Why the stubbornness? I thought we had cleared the air already.”

“I just… I don’t want to fail you. But the odds are stacked so heavily against us. We are fish in a barrel and you got your ancient grandpa at the sticks. We were lucky that their drive cone was still out of order, or else they would have turned us to radioactive slag.”

These doubts, these hesitations. They didn’t have time for this. Sam felt a headache bloom behind his eyes, he tensed his hands. There were times when having doubts were justified and timely, now was not one of them. They had just come off an intense battle, in which they had almost lost everything and now Leo came here lecturing how badly their chances were. Fuck that mentality. Plow forward and survival, that’s what mattered right now. This was war and his responsibility to keep this crew together burdened him heavily, the seams were cracking and no weld in the world would hold it in place.

Leo’s hands were trembling, his face strained. Did he suspect what his Captain was thinking? After all their years on this vessel, of course he would.

“You are forgetting something. Your flying kept us alive. You got us away from that dreadnought,” Sam started. “You will plant that thin ass of yours into the pilot’s seat and grab them sticks. And fly this ship. Or else I will need to sit there, grabbing those sticks and flying this ship. We both know how our chance of survival drops if anyone else flies in your place. Plant that ass and fly my goddamn ship! It’s an order, pilot.”

Leo looked scared, his lips trembling before he spoke and his eyelids twitching, and somehow the wrinkles in his face became more distinct. “Of course, Capt’n.”

“What happens afterwards is up to you,” Sam said. “But I will have us survive this mess.”

Leo exited without saying goodbye and Sam leaned back into his Captain’s seat, the cushioning feeling stiffer than before. Had he crossed the line? In that moment it had felt the right thing to say, but now? Even the best failed. Goddamn, why had Leopold had to come to him at this time? Unnecessary. What had been said, had been said. There was no way to take it back. He was the Captain, he needed to hold himself to his own words, to his own way of commanding his crew. Plow forward.