32. She’s Nice #2
"Captain, will you..." Cael trailed off.
Reyna stayed silent, waiting to see if he would continue.
"Will you please tell Wickett... tell Charlie...
something for me?" His voice had gone rough.
"Please tell her I apologize. I would say it myself, but I do not think I will get the chance of seeing her before I depart.
And, frankly, I imagine she has no desire to see my face, apology or not.
" He looked back at her over her shoulder.
"It does not excuse a thing I did to her, but I feel I owe her that much.
I would rather it be said through someone of respect than not at all. "
Reyna looked back at him.
"I'll tell her," she said gently.
"Thank you," he said. He stayed by the door, as though trying to decide on the next step. Then he turned full around, facing Reyna once again. "She is a better engineer than I ever was, than I ever could have been," he said quietly. "You should have hired her the day she fell out of the sky."
And that was when he touched the frame, and the door whooshed open. Torvax was in the corridor waiting for him. He walked out of her office for the last time, and was escorted down the corridor by her First Mate. The door sealed.
Reyna sat for a long moment with the Emberkind datapad on her desk where he had left it and felt nothing of what she thought she would feel. Instead, she just felt a low, tired ache for a man who had finally become honest at the exact moment it could do him no good.
Reyna called Charlie to her office at 1400. She had spent the last few hours since Cael's dismissal rebuilding the hierarchy of her Engineering team, and by the time Charlie appeared in the doorway, Reyna had the entire structure completely worked out.
"You wanted to see me?" Charlie said as she entered the office, looking uncertain.
"Charlie, please sit."
Charlie sat down in the chair opposite Reyna, the same one Cael had occupied only hours ago.
Reyna looked at her for a moment as she thought about the night in the Observation Room weeks ago when Charlie had asked her the worst question Reyna had ever watched someone force themselves to ask out loud.
Is there a version of this where I just... stay? Not as the human who fell into Borran's batter. As someone who's supposed to be here.
Reyna had told her she would not let her be filed as a variable with no assignment. That if none of the Coalition's protocols fit, she would find something that did.
She had found it.
"When you asked me if there was a way for you to stay," Reyna said, "I told you I would find one."
Charlie went very still.
"I've found one, Charlie," she said, unable to keep the happiness out of her own voice.
"In your first week aboard this ship, you found an inefficiency in the engines that my Chief Engineer had missed for over two years," Reyna began again, starting on her list part of this speech.
" You built the pressurization staging that saved the Aetherfin.
You rebuilt the thermal protocol for the Gliders.
Charlie, you brought a cascade back from the edge in ninety-two seconds with a technique that is in no Coalition manual anywhere.
" She paused, a smile forming across her lips. "And, you taught my crew to dance."
Charlie's mouth opened, then closed again.
"Cael is gone, Charlie. Which means the Chief Engineer position is vacant.
" Reyna watched her eyes go wide. "And there is only one person on this ship qualified to fill it.
" Reyna held her gaze, her chest tightening as she watched the emotions flit across her face.
"The appointment needs Coalition sign-off, which is already on its way to Vondra," Reyna said, waving her hand dismissively before training her gaze back on Charlie.
"But I want to make sure you understand what it means once it clears. "
Reyna leaned forward, her elbows resting across her desk.
"A Chief Engineer on this vessel is not a displaced civilian awaiting placement, waning around an engineering bay while she figures out what's next.
She is crew, permanent crew, leadership crew in fact, with a post and a rank and a place that is hers.
" Reyna's heart beat faster. "She would not be a variable anyone gets to reassign, Charlie.
She would be exactly what she asked me to make her.
She would be someone who is supposed to be right here, aboard the Emberkind, with us. "
Reyna watched the words land for Charlie.
"Acting Chief Engineer, effective now, with the formal appointment to follow." Reyna took a deep breath. "It's a home, Charlie," she said softly. "If you want it, if you want the Emberkind, it's yours."
Reyna stopped there, letting the whole speech swirl around the office, landing for Charlie as she needed. For this, Reyna would be patient. She would wait, however long Charlie needed her to wait.
Moments later, Charlie finally spoke.
"Really?" Charlie asked. "You want it to be me?"
"Yes, you, Charlie Wickett."
Reyna watched Charlie blink and then sit up a bit straighter in the chair.
And Reyna could see her start working, the stunned look giving way to something quicker, already three steps into a problem.
She watched in real time as Charlie worked it through her mind, proving in that moment that Reyna had the right candidate sitting with her.
"I have conditions," Charlie said.
Reyna raised an eyebrow.
"Conditions?" Reyna asked, unable to help the smirk cross her face. "Do tell, I can't wait to hear this."
Charlie gave her a look. "It's not what you think."
"Oh, yeah?" Reyna asked. "And what do I think?"
Charlie shook her head. "It's about Tavi and Maren," she said.
"What about them?" Reyna asked, genuinely intrigued.
"Make them Co-Chiefs, Rey," Charlie said, using the nickname Reyna hadn't heard from her lips in what she realized was far too long.
She didn't realize how much she had missed it.
"If it has to be under me for some bureaucratic reason, so be it.
But in reality, they're equal, right alongside me.
" Charlie scooted forward in her chair, right up to the edge of the seat.
"There is no way I can run Engineering alone.
So, I won't. I'll run it with the two people who've been holding it together from the start, long before I ever showed up. "
And that was the difference. Right there. Reyna saw it bright and clear and knew, without a doubt, she was making the right decision.
Earlier today, Reyna had sat in this same chair across from a man who had run a department into the ground rather than admit he needed a single other pair of hands. She had spent years watching Cael Rask guard the job the wrong way.
But now, she had just handed the same job to Charlie Wickett, and the first thing out of Charlie's mouth were conditions to ensure she would share it.
This is the same woman her own parents looked at and decided they could live without, Reyna thought. This woman, here in front of her. This incredible, stubborn, unbearable woman.
"Agreed," Reyna said without a pause.
And then Charlie smiled, the real one, the one that reached all the way up and crinkled the corners of her eyes. And Reyna thought that, in seventy years, across more worlds than she could possibly ever count, it was the best thing she had ever seen.
Then Reyna felt her gold cost her. She felt every muscle holding it steady with an effort she hadn't had to make in longer than she could remember. She felt it the same way she knew she was going to feel it from now on, every time Charlie did anything at all.
"Thank you, Captain," Charlie said gently, the smile still spread across her face.
"Thank you, Chief," Reyna said slowly, keeping her voice stable. She felt her muscles steady again when Charlie's face lit up at the use of the title.
Reyna kept her hands still and her face doing the ordinary work of a captain who had made a sound personnel decision.
But under all of it, in the place she had stopped being able to seal off, the truth sat and wouldn't move.
She was not going to be able to hold this. Reyna would not be able to hold the gold, the distance, or the careful hours of pretending there was any explanation for the thirty-five minutes besides the obvious one.
For thirteen years, Reyna believed she would never have to survive losing anyone again, because she had made certain there was no one who could do that to her.
But then Charlie came in, and Reyna couldn't help but keep this one close anyway. She had woven her into the ship, into Engineering, and minutes ago put her at the head of it. She had let three inches of air be the only thing between them in that flooded bay and had been unable to pull away.
And now someone could.
She had built the trap herself. And she had just, knowingly, taken another step into it, and called it a promotion.