Escape from Endeavor by Daniel A. Jones
***
Angelica sat with Sara in the mess room and sipped her tea. Neither one of them talked. Sara nibbled on one of the sandwiches she’d made. Angelica wasn’t sure how Sara would react to her manipulating her emotions so she just allowed herself to monitor Sara. Daemon arrived with a sad look about him which caused Angelica to worry for Mystique’s safety. Daemon felt her concern but ignored it; instead, he walked over to Sara and knelt down next to her.
“Sara, I’m sorry, but Mac is dead. The effect of the Rift made him a danger to everyone.” Daemon lowered his head expecting Sara to blame him and start hitting him but she didn’t.
Sara leaned forward, putting her elbows on the table and her face in her hands and started to cry. Daemon wanted to comfort her, wrap his arms around her, and make her feel safe but he knew that he was the last person she’d accept comfort from.
“I’m really sorry,” Daemon whispered as he stood up and backed out of the room.
Angelica shifted and sat next to Sara, slowly putting her arm around her friend. Sara turned and hugged Angelica, putting her head on Angelica’s shoulder. They sat that way for a long time. Angelica whispered reassuring things to Sara and rubbed her back. Sara alternated between sobbing and crying as she tried to cope with the latest loss.
Mystique stepped into the Galley and looked at the two girls. She tried not to interrupt them as she crossed into the galley and made a sandwich. She placed her sandwich at the other end of the table and poured herself a cup of tea before sitting down to eat. Angelica looked at her and gave her a weak smile. Mystique finished her sandwich and was almost done with her tea before Sara finally realized she was there.
“I take it Daemon told you about Mac?” Mystique asked in a voice barely above a whisper.
“Yes, he said he had to kill Mac, but he didn’t. We could have locked him in a room where he couldn’t hurt anyone or do anything to the ship. He didn’t have to kill him,” Sara got out between sobs before she started crying again.
Mystique waited for Sara to stop crying before she told her. “Daemon didn’t kill Mac. I did. He deserved to die for killing the innocent people in town.”
“What innocent people! They tortured the captain to death and raped me before selling me like a piece of meat!” Sara burst out, anger overcoming her grief for an instant.
“I’ll grant you there weren’t many but there were some and they didn’t deserve to die,” Mystique replied calmly.
“It wasn’t Mac’s fault! It was that godforsaken planet. He would have never done that before we came here,” Sara started crying again.
Mystique got up and put her plate and cup in the tub of dirty dishes and left. She stopped at the hatch and told Sara, “Daemon and I have cleaned up Engineering; there is no trace of what happened.”
Angelica decided Sara had taken as much as she could and used her ability to put her to sleep. She sometimes wished she’d known how to do that a long time ago. It would have made growing up a lot easier. The tea had restored much of Angelica’s strength so she had little difficulty carrying Sara to her cabin and tucking her in bed. Angelica just hoped the ship wouldn’t need its only engineer any time soon.