Chapter 6

As the shuttle neared the main ship, Talitha as Tonii had called it. Gabriel could feel himself getting more anxious. Whatever new world he was stepping into, it meant abandoning the on of the past. He had done that many times before, but every time it filled him with fear for the unknown. Vines and branches reached out from Talitha welcoming the small shuttle. They wrapped themselves around it, and the shuttle lurched as it was pulled toward the main ship. It felt like a mother pulling their child close after coming home from school. As the shuttle connected with the ship, the cockpit that he was in slowly split apart like a flower bud in bloom. The walls of the shuttle integrated themselves into the ship so seamlessly that it was like the shuttle had never existed. The room they were in now was similar to the shuttle. The floor was a smooth wood, and the wall a mass of twisting trunks and vines, like a canyon that had been carved through millennia of wind moving through it. The celling looked like a thick canopy of leaves and moss. All the more jarring was the strange amenities. Instead of metal lockers there were circular cubbies integrated with the walls, each with a thick curtain of leaves overtop of them. Guns, blades, and other tools were hung on branches. There were wooden barrels in the corner of the room, one had already been opened and was full of what looked to seeds. They were of a species that Gabriel couldn't recognize. He made a mental not to ask Shannon about them later but stopped himself. Shannon was dead. as was the rest of his crew. That thought put a stopper on his awe for the ship. He looked back to see Tonii extricating herself from the tree trunk that she had previously be halfway into. She shook herself, testing her limbs to make sure they still worked. 

"Are you hungry? I'm starving." She said enthusiastically. Gabreil was about to respond when his thoughts were interrupted by a gruff male voice behind him. 

"You are always hungry." The man said, and Gabriel turned around to look at the man. He was tall, with short black hair and stubble that was starting to show bits of grey. He wore clothes similar to Tonii, but he had a large cloak leaves and moss on the trims. The man had definite air of authority. 

"You wouldn't believe how much energy it takes to pilot Talitha captain. I need to keep up my strength." Tonii said in mock offence. 

"Speaking of piloting." the captain countered. "I want to be out of here asap. Would you kindly make your way up to the bridge and facilitate that? Levi is doing his best, but Talitha won't accept him like she does you."

"Aye Aye captain." She said as she got moving. As she passed, she clapped Gabriel on the shoulder which made him jump. "Nice to meet you, and don't let the captain scare you, he's a softy." Then she was off, disappearing behind the captain and into a passageway of roots and moss. The captain for his part had a satisfied smile lighting up his face."

"Sorry about the lack of a welcome party. I am Azriel. Captain of Talitha, and of her motley crew." The man said as he extended his hand. Once again Gabriel met it by gripping his forearm, and once again it momentarily surprised Captain Azriel, but he recovered quickly. 

"I am Gabriel. Navigato- sorry, former navigator of the Fortuna." He said, trying to force himself to accept his new reality. Azriel's expression changed, no longer was it the proud captain, it had softened to concerned parent. 

"I am sorry about what happened to your ship. I know it isn't easy to leave them." Azriel sympathized. Gabriel said nothing, the captain's words just made him feel hollow. He was right it wasn't easy to leave them. It wasn't easy to do anything. 

"Thank you for your sympathy." Gabriel forced the words out. 

"What would you like to do now Gabriel? I can introduce you to the rest of the crew, or I can take you to a private chamber and let you rest?" Azriel said. Gabriel considered the binary. He didn't want to rest, he didn't want to be alone with his thoughts. He put on a brave face and pretended to be the old Gabriel, the inquisitive one who followed his instincts. He tried not to think about how every part of his body was telling him that he belonged with his crew, with Shannon. Floating dead in the void.

"I should be thanking you captain. If it were not for you and your crew, I would be dead along with my ship. I would be happy to meet the rest of your crew. Hopefully I can be of some use to you." Gabriel said as he plastered on a fake smile. 

"Very well then follow me." Azriel said as he led the way out of the flight deck of the ship and into the verdant hallway. "As for what you can do to repay me, we can talk about that later. To be honest I am just glad you are alright. We have never seen a massacre like that this far out of settled space. Were you hit by an asteroid or something?" 

"No," Gabriel said quietly, "We were attacked." This made Azriel stop and look back at him concerned. 

"Attacked by who? Pirates?" the captain asked. Blood and gore flashed by Gabriel's vision. The screams, he could still hear the screams. He could still see the sight of his captain, his friend, cleaved in twain. He wanted to throw up, but he held it in and pretended once more. Pretended to be the old him. 

"I don't know what they were. They were large creatures of black bone and red flesh. They had no skin or hair. Their methods were brutal. They didn't attempt to parley, they just killed." Gabriel whispered. Azriel stopped and looked him in the eyes. The intensity of his stare unnerved Gabriel. It seemed as though Azriel was searching for something.

"What?" asked Gabriel confused. 

"It's nothing." Azriel said as he turned away, seemingly finding an answer to whatever he was searching for. He stepped forward towards the end of the hallway. "We have made it to the bridge." the captain said as he stepped forward towards another wall of vines that parted for him to enter.

What greeted Gabriel on the bridge was yelling. There were three people on the bridge that had three levels. The ground was not wooden, but soil, with a grass cover that would have felt great to stand on. The 'stairs' were roots that let someone to walk up and down the sides of the room. The walls were greener then in other places on the ship. It had the feeling of walking onto a small clearing in a dense forest. It would have been peaceful had there not been an argument brewing between the crew. 

"Look, they are already dead! Who cares if we reuse their bodies. They make good fertilizer." said a shorter woman with short red hair, rubber boots and overalls. 

"I don't care. Its disrespectful. I know we know nothing about these people, but they at least deserve a respectful death! I say we burn them." said a man with pale skin and long black hair that was pulled back into a bun. 

"You're one to talk about respect. All you care about is guns and justice. I am trying to keep Talitha healthy here." The woman countered. 

"I get that, but we need to at least respect the dead, if not we are no better than animals!" The man responded. The woman looked like she was going to retort, but from the walls the voice of Tonii rang through the room. 

"We should ask Gabriel. they are HIS people after all." All eyes in the room turned to look at him. 

"Well?" said the woman. 

"Well what?" asked Gabriel confused. He had not really been following the conversation.

"Would you be offended if we harvested your friend's corpses to feed to our ship?" Asked the man bluntly. 

"We wouldn't be 'harvesting' or 'feeding'." Interjected the woman. "We would just use the dead bodies as fertilizer to make the ship healthy." 

"That is what I said." The man countered. 

"The way you said it was-" 

"Enough!" Yelled Azriel, who then looked back to Gabriel, and once again he felt all the eyes of the room rest on him. A disconnected part of him felt that this was a test, not about what answer he would give, but if he was brave enough to give an answer. The crew had to have known what he had survived, at least Azriel and Tonii knew enough about it. They wanted to know if he was someone who could be decisive even in times of crisis. As for the people on the ship, they had been from various walks of life and cultures. Most of them likely had funerary traditions that he had never heard of. When he was in the navy it was the practice to give a 'void burial' where whatever was left of the individual would be sent into space, whatever happened to them after that was the business of the void. That seemed the most appropriate for this situation. If the crew of Talitha wanted to use their bodies after the fact, that was between them and the void. 

"If you wish to use the bodies as... fuel... for your ship, then you are free to do so. They belong to the void now." A thought crossed his mind, "but if it is possible for you to allow me to pay respects to each of them individually before use them, I would be eternally grateful." He said. 

"Thank you. I am glad we have another sensible person on this ship." The woman said glaring at the man who held his hands up in surrender.  

"Thank you for helping with that I am sorry that you had to weigh in there, but as you can see there are strong personalities on this ship. It is a bit embarrassing that my crew can't seem to even introduce themselves before pulling you into one of their disagreements." Zariel said with a smile. 

"Sorry for pulling you into that." The man said walking up to him and extending his hand, which Gabriel greeted by grasping his forearm. "My name is Levi. I am the weapons expert on this ship. I will make sure that you have the opportunity to say your goodbyes before your friends are recycled." The woman came up and decked him in the shoulder playfully.

"Of course we will. Thank you for seeing reason. I am Ruth by the way. I am the ships mechanic, though there are not many mechanisms on this ship!" Ruth said with a laugh, which was loud and boisterous. "When you are read come to the stern and I can let you see everyone we have collected."  And with that, Ruth and Levi, both left the bridge leaving just Gabriel, Azriel and presumably Tonii left, but he couldn't see where she was.

"Was that the entire crew? Where are the rest of the officers?" Gabriel asked Azriel.

"We don't need much more than this. More people mean more mouths for Talitha to feed. It's not that we are against a larger crew, but we couldn't support a crew like what your ship had. I don't even know what I would do with that many crew members." Azriel responded. Gabriel wanted to say that they were not all crew members, but it hurt too much. 

"We do have one more crew member. The navigator Silas. I can take you to his chamber. In truth I am interested to see how your people's navigational techniques differ from his, though I am sure most of it will go over my head." Zariel continued as he gestured for Gabriel to follow him.