Chereads / The Evergreen Files; Banshee / Chapter 9 - Part 9

Chapter 9 - Part 9

As the sun rose and cast its loving light across the mountains of the northern area of The United Kingdom, the birds cheerfully singing in a new day, Solomon awoke in his command chair, his head ringing with bells from his headache and his mouth dry as the deserts of Earth. Groaning in pain as his dehydrated body tried to move. His eyes aching inside their sockets with the simplest thought of movement. "Never...again..." he struggled to whisper, smiling to himself at the blatant lie. With his eyes still closed and his stomach churning, he tried to remember the night before, he suddenly remembered something very important: he suddenly had to vomit! Quickly looking around he noticed a medical bucket already at his side, Solomon vomited not so elegantly, whilst fighting a grin at the thoughtfulness of whoever had brought him the bucket as he drunkenly slept.

A sudden movement and zombie like groan could be heard from the second tier of consoles. Solomon had forgotten about Sandra. He assumed she had gone home but the rank smell of Solomon's stomach contents made her do the exact same and found another bucket next to her, followed by three neatly lined large bottles of water each. "And how are you this fi-" Solomon had to stop and burp, to stop himself vomiting again "... this fine Sunday morning?" he asked whilst rubbing his aching eyes. The robot let out an almost human laugh before replying "I'm doing better than you, by the look of it, Solomon!" boasted the Eve. Sandra was pulling her heavy body to the console so she could lean against it with her blonde hair, no longer flowing, but as messy as a tumble weed. Solomon then noticed something bizarre. Sandra's vibrant blue sparkling dress was untidily thrown on Kyril's seat, next to him. Solomon blinked confused for a moment whilst his aching brain processed the information slowly, not daring to cast an eye over to Sandra.

'what's her dress doing there? Is she naked? Where's Kyril? Shall I be sick again?' began running through his lazy skull. "Oh, she's dressed Sol" came the familiar deep voice of Kyril followed by a dry chuckle as he mimicked Solomon's stiff posture. Sandra must have changed during the night after Solomon passed out.

Kyril walked the two hungover zombies off the ship and down to the base mess hall, where a fine meal of beans, sausages, bacon, sunny eggs and hash browns awaited them, still hot, fresh and crispy. Solomon helped himself to a second helping as Sandra blankly stared at her delicious breakfast as it slowly aired cold. No doubt contemplating if she needed another sick bucket or not. Once Solomon and Kyril had finished their beautiful breakfast, positively full, they again helped Sandra to her feet and helped her to her quarters occasionally stopping at the toilets for her or Solomon to be sick, at one point, they both shared the single toilet in one of the corridor's restroom, doing a half and half thing. Every single person who ventured past that particular toilet that day pitied the cleaners very much.

That day, Solomon found it exceedingly difficult to perform the simplest of tasks, after failing to adequately handle his weapon at the firing range and missed every single target, he decided to go back to his bunk room and sleep off his self-inflicted illness. It was soon eight o'clock the next morning and Solomon drowsily could sense eyes staring at him. opened one eye, only to see, although through blurry eyes, he could make out most of the men in his bunk room had awoken with the bright lights and left him to sleep. They were staring straight at him. Solomon sat up, much too quickly for his swirling head to feel anything other than nausea, clueless, glaring at his soldiers who, as far as Solomon cared, had woken him up. Decius stood almost naked, holding only a towel hastily placed to cover his pride, the towel had fallen from the neat knot he had used cover himself, and Decius caught it, but it was already revealing most of his body, much to his fear. Solomon studied Decius's face for a long moment, his brain working sluggishly to keep up, wondering why he was so worried about the other soldiers seeing him, especially when they had seen it all before. It didn't take long before he noticed that every soldier's eyes were not staring at him, but staring past him. Turning his head to see the slim figure of a woman in olive base fatigues, stood with her arms folded and a playful grin on her face "Come now, Lieutenant Commander. Have you forgotten already?" said Sandra. Solomon stared at her blankly, suddenly needing his sick bucket again, "Because, if you have, that's fine, I can stay here and take in the sights!" she added playfully smiling at Decius. Solomon had promised to give Sandra a full tour of The Evergreen, one of his fantastically regretful drunken ideas.

Once again, with a heavy ringing head and a soft stomach, Solomon swore at his inability to get over a hangover faster than minor surgery, they began their ascension into the belly of the beautiful vessel as Solomon scribbled something onto a scrap of paper, once again they began their walk down the warm delightfully metal corridors and made their way towards the bridge, Sandra could recall some of the path from the night before. They reached the familiar handle-less silver door, but Solomon didn't speak his code. He turned to face Sandra and handed her a piece of small paper with a note scribbled on it: 'SanKen-two-two-three-six' Sandra spoke the code and the door pulled itself open revealing the beautifully decorated Command Bridge that had recently been cleaned to remove the stale alcohol and vomit stench. The red strip of soft carpet softened the noise of their footsteps, much to Solomon's benefit as his head was constantly banging, why did his heart have to beat so loud? Solomon walked over to the seat where he had pulled the wine and champaign from the night before and spun the large leather seat and sat on it. Turning to his control console, the lights hurting his eyes, he dumbly fingers the buttons that fired up the Bridge and suddenly a Printer next to the Gunners Console sprang into life and spat out multiple sheets of paper. Solomon struggled to keep his stomach inside as he walked over to the printer and gathered up the paper, some of which had floated to the floor as he forgot to bring out the extended paper holder. stapling them all together in order with a wince of the headache and handed them to Sandra with a laboured smile and tired eyes. "Your schedule" he explained. "And also, a map of the ship, deck, by deck, room by room" he motioned her to walk with him as he set off through the Silver door and into the mouth of the corridor, pointing at the wall and he continued "medical room's are highlighted in white on the map and follow the white line on the walls to get to them." Solomon pointed at the Wall on the left side that held multiple lines, all a different colour. "Every line starts at one room and ends at another, so whichever way you go, you will find one. Food and refreshments are in yellow, Dormitories are in Blue, Red is the Armoury and Firearms Training, purple is the Research Area and Library. Mechanical and Engines are in Green...Oh and the Bridges follow the Brown Arrows, not lines. The solid brown arrow is for the Battle Bridge, the golden lined brown arrows are for the Command Bridge, which is where we are now."