Mulling
15 Apr 2022Rixses
I knew it would be a few days at best following my transmission before Beebbs would make contact with anyone. And then, probably a few more before they had enough in order to chance a communication back. I was stressed. I was worried. I was letting it get to me. I spent the first few days hanging around the guild hall. Talking. Chatting. Working on some of the backlog of custom orders that were passed up the line to me. Drinking...I realized how irritable I was when I chewed out one of the technicians for leaving magbox stuck to the side of a ship they were doing repairs on while they went to lunch. The ship wasn't going anywhere. It was tagged out for the next few hours. The pilot couldn't have even started the thing to leave without getting the tag removed by the maintenance tech. But there I was. Nose to nose with the tech. Yelling at him for the carelessness of having the magbox stuck to the ship instead of the floor where it was supposed to be.
"What are you thinking?" I screamed. "You know that procedure is to mag it to the docking pad or other fixed mount of the dock." I continued berating him for a few minutes before I realized what I was doing. The poor tech was locked in place from fear. Cold beads of sweat running down his face, too scared to move or even blink.
"Don't ever let it happen again or so help me I will bust you down so hard no one inside the bubble would ever think to even look at your resume again!" I finished as I stormed out.
I'll have to do something later to make it up to all the techs. That was... mean. Just plain and simple. He didn't deserve it and they all need to know they can rely on me.
After that I withdrew for a few days. These people know what they are doing. They don't need an asshole hovering over them taking out my personal issues on them while they are just trying to work. I needed to leave these people alone before I broke something not easily fixed.
Alone with my own thoughts for a few days I started to work out in my head all the things that built to this point. Not even a year ago now and my brother disappeared. The apparent trigger for all the events that followed. No signs. No warning. Just gone. Rejoining Beebbs, one of my only friends and the only one left that truly knows me. Possibly the only chance I have at finding my brother. Beebbs spent most of their life with my brother. They were inseparable. But yet, somehow even they did not know about the Shadows.
And yeah, the mysterious Shadows in space. For all I can tell, the age-old boggy man of the black. Thought a myth, but I know to be actively sowing chaos inside civilized space. An obsession of my brothers. One I only discovered when my own run-in with a psychotic screaming about them brought back distant memories.
Did they somehow get to my brother? Maybe killed him, or scared him enough to go into hiding... I would have thought either to be unlikely given just how good my brother is, but then again... Someone got to me and left me to die. Someone got to Beebbs and sent them into hiding.
I feel like I'm missing something. A piece to this puzzle that will bring clarity. I'm floating at the bottom of a murky pond and only see the slight glimmer of light. Everything else... gray...