Chapter 6
Dana
The next morning came too soon. The datapad's surface was cool under my fingertips, the holographic text hovering just above it in that slightly unsettling way Zandovian technology had made everything feel like it was floating in midair.
I'd been staring at Mothership systems documentation for three hours, and my eyes were starting to cross.
"You need to sleep," Jalina said from her sleeping platform across the quarters.
"I need to understand their power distribution architecture before tomorrow's meeting."
"Dana—"
"They're going to test me. Er'dox made that clear. I need to prove I'm worth keeping in Engineering, which means I need to demonstrate I can handle their systems, which means I need to study." I scrolled through another section on thermal management. "Besides, I'm not tired."
That was a lie. I was exhausted down to my bones, running on fumes and stubbornness, but shutting down meant thinking, and thinking meant processing, and processing meant feeling the full weight of everything that had happened in the last twenty-four hours.
Rescued. Stranded. Indebted. Assigned. All of it crashing down like cascading system failures, each one triggering the next until you couldn't tell where one disaster ended and another began.
"You're going to burn out," Jalina observed.
"Burning out is a luxury I can't afford."
Bea appeared in the doorway between the common area and the sleeping quarters, her tall frame folding with practiced efficiency as she sat on the edge of my platform. "She's right. You're running on empty. I can see it in your face."
"My face is fine."
"Your face looks like someone who hasn't slept in four days." Bea's cool assessment was delivered without judgment, just medical observation. "Which, coincidentally, is exactly how long it's been since you've slept more than three hours."
I set down the datapad with more force than necessary.
"Okay. Fine. I'm tired. Happy? But I can't afford to fail tomorrow's evaluation.
Er'dox said my assessment results were 'interesting,' which could mean good or could mean I barely passed, and I need to be prepared for whatever tests they throw at me because—"
"Because you're carrying all of us on your shoulders," Elena cut in from where she was sprawled on her own platform, staring at the ceiling. "We know, Dana. We get it. You're the leader, you're responsible, you're going to single-handedly engineer our salvation. It's exhausting just watching you."
The words stung more than they should have. "Someone has to—"
"Someone has to, yes. But that someone doesn't have to be you doing everything alone.
" Elena sat up, and I saw something in her expression I hadn't seen before.
Not anger, exactly. More like... concern?
"You kept us alive on that planet. You got us rescued.
You translated the worst news possible without falling apart.
You've done enough, Dana. Let the rest of us carry some of the weight. "
"What weight? You heard Er'dox. We're being evaluated tomorrow. Assigned to positions based on our skills. Everyone needs to focus on proving their worth."
"And you've already proven yours," Jalina said quietly. "Er'dox practically recruited you on the spot. You saw his face when he was talking about your beacon design. He was fascinated. You're in, Dana. The rest of us are the ones who need to worry."
I looked between the three of them, Jalina with her gentle persistence, Bea with her clinical concern, Elena with her sharp-edged honesty, and my carefully maintained control fractured.
"I don't know how to do this," I admitted. The words felt like pulling shrapnel from a wound. "I don't know how to stop being responsible for keeping everyone alive. That's been my job for three weeks, and I don't know how to turn it off."
"Then don't," Bea said simply. "But maybe expand the definition of keeping everyone alive to include keeping yourself functional. Because you're no use to anyone if you collapse from exhaustion during your evaluation."
She had a point. A frustratingly valid point.
I closed the datapad, set it aside. "Fine. I'll sleep. But if I fail tomorrow because I wasn't prepared—"
"Then we'll deal with it together," Jalina finished. "Like we've dealt with everything else."
Sleep didn't come easily, despite the exhaustion.
The sleeping platform was comfortable, more comfortable than anything we'd had on the burning planet, certainly, but it was also alien and unfamiliar and wrong in ways I couldn't quite articulate.
The hum of Mothership's systems was different from Liberty's engine noise, the air circulation had a different rhythm, even gravity felt slightly off in ways that made my inner ear protest.
I was drifting in that half-awake state where thoughts become strange and disconnected when my datapad chimed.
For a moment, I considered ignoring it. Then engineering curiosity overrode exhaustion, and I checked the notification.
Message from Er'dox. Sent at 0247 hours.
Your assessment results are complete. Ninety-seventh percentile for theoretical knowledge, ninety-second percentile for practical application, ninety-ninth percentile for creative problem-solving.
This places you in the top five percent of all engineering evaluations I've administered in four years.
Recommend immediate assignment to Engineering, advanced track.
We'll discuss specifics at tomorrow's meeting. Rest well.
I read it three times, trying to process what it meant.
Ninety-seventh percentile. Top five percent. Advanced track.
I'd passed. Not just passed, excelled. Proved I was worth keeping, worth training, worth the resources they'd spend on me.
Relief crashed over me with such force I actually had to close my eyes and breathe through it. We had leverage now. Not much, but something. I could negotiate for my people from a position of at least marginal strength.
The message had one more line at the bottom: P.S. - Stop studying and sleep. That's a professional recommendation from your probable future supervisor.
I almost laughed. Almost. Instead, I set the datapad aside and actually let myself relax into the sleeping platform.
Tomorrow would be complicated. Tomorrow would be negotiations and assignments and figuring out how to integrate sixteen humans into an alien civilization. Tomorrow would be the beginning of whatever came next.
But tonight, I could rest.
Just for a few hours.
The alarm I'd set woke me at 0700, which gave me one hour to prepare for the meeting with Captain Tor'van. I felt better, not good, but functional, which was close enough.
The quarters were already stirring. Bea was in the facilities area, Jalina was reviewing something on her datapad, Elena was doing push-ups in the corner with single-minded intensity.
The others were emerging from their sleeping platforms, moving through morning routines that were trying very hard to feel normal.
"Big day," Jalina said when she saw me awake.
"Massive day." I grabbed the clean uniform Mothership had provided, standard crew clothing scaled down to human proportions, which still made me look like I was wearing my father's clothes. "Meeting at 0800. Er'dox sent me my assessment results last night."
"And?"
"And I apparently didn't fail spectacularly."
Jalina's eyes narrowed. "That's Dana-speak for 'I aced it,' isn't it?"
"Ninety-seventh percentile isn't acing it, it's just—"
"Acing it," Elena called from her corner. "You aced it. Accept the win, Dana. God knows we need one."
I wanted to argue, but she wasn't wrong. We did need wins. Small ones. Big ones. Any ones we could get.
Breakfast arrived via automated delivery, nutri-packs calibrated to human biochemistry, which tasted like someone had tried to make food based on a theoretical understanding of nutrition without ever actually eating anything.
But it was calories and it didn't make me sick, which was already better than the last week on the burning planet.
At 0750, I headed for the door. Jalina stood to join me.
"You don't have to come," I said.
"You requested a meeting about all of us. We should all be represented." She adjusted her glasses in that nervous tell she had. "Besides, you shouldn't face this alone."
Elena stood too. "She's right. We're a unit. We present united."
Bea rose with her characteristic efficiency. "Agreed. Safety in numbers."
I looked at them—my friends, my crew, my responsibility, and felt something shift in my chest. Not quite relief. More like a shared burden. Distributed weight.
"Okay," I said. "Let's do this together."
We navigated Mothership's corridors with the directions Er'dox had provided, and I was grateful for the distraction of watching my friends' reactions to the vessel.
Everything was scaled for beings twice our height, which made even simple things like doorways feel monumental.
The crew we passed stared openly, curiosity barely masked,while Jalina cataloged architectural details while Bea studied the various species we encountered.
Captain Tor'van's office was located in what Mothership documentation called the Command Sector. Appropriate, given that everything about the space screamed authority. The door was massive, the guards flanking it were massive, even the corridor felt like it was designed to intimidate.
Er'dox waited outside, his bronze skin glowing under the corridor lighting. He looked surprised to see all four of us.
"I invited them," I said before he could comment. "They deserve to know what happens to us."
"Captain Tor'van was expecting just you."
"Then Captain Tor'van is about to meet four humans instead of one. Consider it a cultural exchange opportunity."
Something that might have been amusement flickered across Er'dox's face. "You're either very brave or very foolish."
"Can't it be both?"
This time he definitely almost smiled. "Come. Let's not keep the Captain waiting."