True Tranquillity

Chapter 2: A New Home

Bel showed a friendly smile on her face before responding, "Thank you Lady Unicorn. I wish you a good day. I will see you both at the banquet I suppose."

"We will both definitely be there to greet the new commander," assured the white haired carrier. "Come on now Unicorn. We have a meeting with the others in a few minutes."

Both of the carriers left the scene with the door closing behind them.

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It was pitch black. The back of head didn't feel like the cushion that he rested his head on when he fell asleep. His eyes hard to open. The place felt like it was pivoting back and forth as if he was laying in the middle of a seesaw. His head felt sore, lingering with pain at the back of his head. He felt a cold sensation run across his face. He rose up from his sleeping platform and forced open his eyes to see what caused the uncomfortable feeling. He looked around the room to see that he was sleeping in a hospital bed, the room painted white with a waxed stone flooring, along with a desk with medical supplies. To his right, Monroe was sitting there with a wet rag in his hand.

"Geez, you seriously tell me if you are awake before you do that."

"Sorry, Monroe."

Monroe was the one of the ship's corpsmen. He was still inexperienced, but he still helps around. He touched his head to feel that it was covered in bandages.

"Where am I?"

"You are in the sick bay obviously, unless you injure your occipital lobe during the attack."

"Attack? What attack?"

"Looks like you got retrograde amnesia. Here's the rundown of what happened. You were giving orders to the crew up on the deck since the commander got riddled with bullets due to enemy fighters. With your leadership, we were able to fend off a relatively large attack yada, yada. Same thing that you would do as a lieutenant commander. Although your actions drastically impacted the repelling of the enemy fleet, you didn't take a loss too well."

"What happened? What do you mean loss? We won right?"

"No we won, it's just..." He paused for a second before he continued, "The enemy had their cavalry drop their load near us. Thankfully, almost all of them missed. But, the shock from the blast had Stiles swept from the deck."

"Wait. Is that what happened? No it can't be right?"

Monroe shook his head in the sound of Shikikan's disbelief.

"Have we found him yet?"

"There was a search and rescue team looking for Stiles, but when the team came back, he was the only person that didn't make it back."

"No, no, no"

Shikikan kept on repeating the word as if it was going to bring his friend Stiles back. Monroe had to find a way to keep his mouth shut so he slapped him in the face.

"Snap out of it. You have better things to do than worry about. Stiles is gone and you have to accept that he is gone. There is nothing that we can do but move on with our lives. You have to accept the fact that we will be losing people, we are in a war. Not everyone makes it out alive."

Shikikan sighed at the sound of Monroe's reasoning. He put his hands up to his face and took a deep breath.

"So what is happening now? Commander Lenard is dead, who is the commander of the ship now?"

"I believe that you would want to get up to meet the commander in person. He is a bit of an asshole, but he knows what to do at these trying times in this war. A great person really."