Cruising Speed
The old adage, first heard from atmospheric pilots on Earth-that-Was, held that the only interesting things about a flight were the take-off and the landing. Throttling Serenity's engines back to cruise mode, River reflected that the statement was doubly true for extra-atmospheric craft. At least in atmospheric craft, the engines had to be kept running when the craft was in cruise mode.
In the black, where there was no air to create friction, "cruise mode" meant setting the engines on standby and letting momentum carry the ship forward. A pilot's job during cruise was simply to make sure that the ship didn't go off course...which was really a matter of simple vector mathematics. Serenity would get within range of Boros without any further action from her.
She sighed. Two days of cruise mode. That meant two days with nearly nothing to do.
Two days with nothing to distract her from the demons still resident within her psyche.
Now that the terrible secret she'd fought to hide — even from herself — was no longer an issue, it was theoretically possible for River to stay lucid. But she knew there were other demons, not terrible secrets, but memories of the Academy. Of other assignments she'd completed. There were still things she carefully never even hinted about. It was better to keep their existence to herself.
She ran her hands over the pilot console, careful not to disturb any of the switches or settings. There was no more piloting to be done, but she needed to stay and monitor in case something unexpected appeared from the black.
Pilots throughout the 'verse faced the difficulty of staying alert during cruise time. It was a hazard of the profession. Boredom could be deadly when it dulled your senses too much.
River, with her razor-sharp senses, didn't face that problem. There were days she wished she did. Rather, she faced the opposite: boredom meant no distractions to keep her from spiraling back into near-lethal insanity. For her, boredom didn't just carry the threat of a deadly piloting error. She shuddered at the memory of the Maidenhead. Pilot error hadn't caused those deaths.
Inara had suggested dance as a distraction. It worked. But there was no room in the cockpit.
Wash, of course, had had Zoë. She'd also quietly noticed the amount of his personal funds he spent on reading material. He'd devoured penny-dreadful novels the way Jayne devoured protein. She wished she didn't find them so predictable.
The side of her hand encountered something long and stiff as she dropped it from the console. She looked down at her sketch pad and then pulled it into her lap. The soft bag with her pencils lay atop the console where she'd put it before take-off.
Finding a fresh page, she looked out at the black, considering. The stars in front of the cockpit window suggested points and she copied them down, looking for a shape. Finding one, she began outlining.
Footsteps sounded behind her. "Felt you throttle the engines back. We already at cruise speed?"
She didn't look up. "Yes, Captain."
Coming up behind her, Mal looked down at her sketch pad. The image of Wash's face was already well-defined; she'd begun a bit of shading to suggest shadows. "You working on that before?"
River looked up that time. "No. I started it after engaging cruise."
"Albatross, that wasn't but a minute or so ago. You couldn't have drawn all this that fast."
Her pencil stopped and then dropped onto the sketch pad. She'd been drawing so quickly that she'd be done well before the end of her shift; never mind the end of the cruise period. Her spirits sank.
The Academy had trained her body and mind to be lightning-fast. For the most part, she reflected, that was useful: among other things, it was why she was such a good pilot. Unfortunately, she thought, the 'verse tended to spend more time in cruise mode than in take-off or landing.
"What is it, little one?"
The expression on her face must have given some of her thoughts away. "I didn't realize how fast."
"It's a good likeness. Shouldn't take you much more longer to finish it up."
"It won't." She looked at her hands and turned the palms up. Closing and reopening her fingers once, she turned them back over and retrieved the fallen pencil.
There was no point not finishing just because she'd be left with more boredom once it was. She could feel the captain's gaze, watching her while she drew, and she wondered what she would do when she ran out of sheets in the drawing pad. There weren't many left.
"Guess the Academy never thought about what you'd do when you weren't needing that speed they drugged and trained into you." He paused. "I never did think speed could be a liability."
She shrugged. "Traveling in cruise mode is the most efficient use of fuel. Time is free."
"And fuel ain't." He dropped into the other seat, but didn't continue. Silence fell as she finished the drawing of Wash's face and considered expanding it out to include his shoulders. Or maybe she could work in images of those things he loved — Serenity, Zoë, his novels. She let her eyes absently roam the board while she thought, making sure nothing was amiss with the ship.
"River," said Mal into the quiet. He so rarely used her name that she stopped her perusal and consideration to look directly at him.
"Come time for us to pick up some more supplies, you make sure you include you some more pads and pencils. As much as you need to get you through."
She dropped her gaze, feeling faintly embarrassed. "I'll be economical about it."
"Bored pilot's pretty dangerous. Guess that's doubly so for you, all that speed they put into you. I know you won't spend what you don't need to."
"Thank you, Captain." In her ears her voice sounded small and shy.
He pushed himself to his feet with a grunt, turning toward the back of the cockpit. "You just keep us economical as to fuel, and we'll call it even."
She could hear the smile in her voice this time. "I'll keep us cruising."
