Bennu Station, 230:6
Sorry for the delay in updates, but it wasn't my fault. If you've every accidentally backed into a decoupled plasma ray while doing a compliance inspection, then you'll know what I mean.
Everyone on the team was really good to me though. They visited in the infirmary, even before I woke up and my skin was fully regrown.
The team. I had written about Fana—good news, she got hired—but I also chatted with some other applicants the day before the inspection that went horribly wrong. In the end there were ten interested parties, two of whom were named Jannshek.
I had never even heard that name before, but apparently it is popular in the outer ring clusters. I imagine once some celebrity in the core names their kid Jannshek it will catch on and become insufferable. Just like Colny did when I was born.
Thankfully my parents went with family lineage names, but I had at least two Colnys per grade back in school, stuck like barnacles to every class list throughout my life. Barnacles. See? I even paid attention at school.
At the University I knew of five Colnys, but only the registrar would truly know the state of infestation. There are probably some nice guys with that name, but I just haven't had the pleasure of meeting them.
Statistical odds are either warped this far out at Bennu, or I am prone to witnessing improbable events. Most people don't survive anything to do with a plasma blast; I suffered some horrible skin damage and not much else. The doctors said that was likely due to only a small residual charge being left in the nozzle of the plasma ray. The ship was on standby power, and the ray it self was decoupled. From my experience, getting killed in some battle with one of these wouldn't be a bad way to go. It would just be over. A light suddenly turned off without time to comprehend the darkness.
I have no idea what it felt like. I was on the rejuvenation system before I woke, which really does do a marvelous job of maintaining homeostasis. One of my favourite things to do to pass the time was scroll through the charts of the Alpan system that showed what my body was experiencing before it smoothed and rerouted the signals back to me. It looked pretty grim, but I'll admit I'm not brave enough to disable it like some people do, "just to get a feel of the old days." Even the one second refrain brought me to panic when I thought about the condition of the skin on the hand that would have to push the button.
All that to say that the team now has four members: myself, Fana, Jannshek, and Jannshek. Shah, Fana, and I insist there should be some nickname to distinguish one Jannshek from another, but they refuse. Shah said we could all go by nicknames, but no one really wanted that, and I like my name just fine so I kind of see their point.
I guess you can't force these things. I just hope one of them does something almost as dumb as me, and gets irreparably christened with some slang based on his mistake.