Vector Raynes Attends a Wake
Vector sat quietly in his cabin, the only light coming from his desk lamp. Beside the lamp sat a bottle of clear amber liquid and a small glass, glinting softly in the low light. The glass was empty, for now.
It had started innocently enough. Vector had asked Paul a question about how time worked between different metaverses - not that he'd really expected the answer, he'd just been trying to make conversation and the question had been an idle one - and had received a thorough answer. So thorough, in fact, that Paul had offered to calculate what the date would have been in Vector's metaverse simply by observing the current velocity and momentum of his component atoms.
Vector hadn't thought anything of agreeing. Hadn't thought anything of knowing a number. It was just a "relatively simple" calculation, one that Paul said they'd worked out to determine when the Masters were likely to receive the reports John Stone sent after every mission. All it took was a couple minutes and a sample from Vector's femur - something which Paul apparently already had, as concerning as that was. It hadn't even taken Paul ten minutes to do the work.
The answer they gave Vector was the real kick in the teeth.
Vector had thanked Paul and wandered back to his cabin in a daze, stopping by one of the caches of booze he'd found around the ship on the way.
Brown liquor was wrong. Vector had favored a royal purple liquid that sparkled even without light, the suspended nanites winking and flashing as they recongfigured the booze for the species which held the glass. Vector Raynes Rum, patented as a collaboration between Johnny and Addams and marketed through Sunfist Productions, had revolutionized how the galaxy partied and a million imitations had sprung up within a year. Vector always kept a good quantity onboard his ship for impromptu celebrations or memorials, and it was the hallmark of Vector Raynes Day.
He'd started the tradition as a team building exercise. Sure, he'd carefully hand-picked his team but things had been a bit rocky in the beginning as egos collided and personalities tried to find ways to deal with other people. They'd been a group but not a crew, and at a loss for what else to do Vector had posted up the announcement one day that would have been a fine spring one on his home planet. He'd called it something else on that first notice, something like Happy Team Building Day, but when it became a yearly tradition Vector Raynes Day had simply stuck.
The actual exercise itself was pretty simple; play as many pranks as you could, safely. Winner would get a bottle of booze, and anyone who got caught would have to give their target a token of friendship instead of a prank. Winning was pretty subjective; some years, the person who pranked the most people won while other years had the best or most challenging prank take the bottle. That first year, Addams had taken the prize by somehow dyeing Charming's fur orange and sending him into conniptions. She had never really explained how, and had declined the replicate the feat in later years.
Vector Raynes Day had been the one time of year when the crew could really cut loose. It had been a day of tiny victories, of little challenges and tokens of friendship. It was a day for clearing out dirty laundry and going on to the rest of the year with a clean slate and some merry camaraderie.
It had been today, in point of fact.
Vector reached out and poured a generous splash of the whiskey - probably one of the bottles Jonomox had stolen when they'd landed to get Reese aboard, by the smell - into the glass. Setting the bottle back precisely where it had been on the table, he picked up the glass and looked at it for several long minutes.
Most days, he could put it behind him. He had a new team now, and a new mission - one that was just as important, if not more so, than any he'd undertaken with his previous crew. His days were filled with trying to make the Metaverse a better place, whether that was kicking the Galvanic Collective away from whatever they were targeting this time or trying to stop a madman from the future. It was important work with a good crew, and most days that was enough.
He took a small sip of the whiskey, and didn't grimace at the taste. His entire metaverse was gone, so completely it was as if it had never been. There were no graves for his crew, no memorials. Nobody else left who would remember the shine of Peluccia “Addams” McFarlan's hair, or how the way she tied it back during missions would let a thousand flyaway threads gather around her head like a halo. How Sergio would stand like a mountain against all comers, reciting the rules and regulations in his gravelly voice as he put evildoers away according to justice and the law.
Sasrael's iridescent chitin. "Charming" Kosres ki Capisten’s - six thousand three hundred and thirty-fourth in line for the Seat of Capisten - soft fur. Chtik "Quick" Pik's predilection for trashy romance novels. Facien "Sneaks" Ytem III lazing on top of the engine housing because it liked the heat and vibration. Sir Edmund "Hotpot" Lagrosse’s delicious meals. The way Johnny's eyes got misty when Addams held his hand. Mellifluous Ringing Of Bells "Maven’s" poetry. Mobius "The Blind Man’s" lightshows.
Cpl. Charles "Buddy" Buddell's sacrifice.
Vector felt a catch in his throat that had nothing to do with the whiskey and exhaled a long, slow breath. He missed them, one and all, like a phantom limb. Orders in the field to move and flank, requests for reinforcement - funny jokes about whatever Paul had cooked up this time, commentary on the latest villainous monologue; it all sprang readily to his lips, and died there as the people with whom he'd've shared it were no longer a communicator away.
Vector reached out and picked up the bottle one more time, refilling the glass. He held the cup up, saluting the ghosts crowded into every corner of the room and kept there by his memories.
"Absent friends," he said.
He drained the glass.