Chapter 5 #2
I wanted to argue. Wanted to fight back, to defend my carefully constructed walls, to maintain the control that had kept me functional since the Liberty disaster. But standing in front of Zorn, solid and patient and absolutely unwilling to let me self-destruct, something inside me cracked.
"I can't," I said, and hated how small my voice sounded. "If I stop working, if I let myself think about everything we lost, everyone I couldn't save—"
"It will hurt." Zorn's hand lifted, hesitated, then gently touched my shoulder. The contact was warm, careful, asking permission even as it offered comfort. "I know. But pain is how we heal. Avoiding it just makes the wound deeper."
Tears burned behind my eyes. I forced them back through sheer willpower, maintaining the control that had become my only identity.
"First session is this afternoon at 1400 hours," Zorn continued. "Dr. Senna's office, deck nine. After the commendation ceremony. I'll escort you personally if needed."
"I don't need an escort. I'm not a child."
"No. You're a woman who's carried impossible weight for too long and needs someone to help share the burden." His hand squeezed my shoulder gently. "Let me help, Bea. Please."
The please did it. Cracked something fundamental in the armor I'd built so carefully.
"One session," I agreed, the words feeling like surrender. "But if it doesn't help—"
"Then we'll find something that does. But you have to try." Zorn's golden-brown eyes held mine, steady and unwavering. "I'm not giving up on you. Even if you've given up on yourself."
He left me alone with that statement and my thoughts.
I stood in the medical bay for a long time after he was gone, staring at the datapad with my declining health metrics, thinking about trauma and healing and the terrifying prospect of actually addressing the wreckage inside my head instead of just running from it.
Eventually, I pulled up Dr. Senna's profile.
Human psychologist, mid-forties, specializing in displacement trauma and survivor's guilt.
One of the Liberty survivors who'd been on a different escape ship, rescued by Mothership four months ago.
Someone who understood what it meant to lose everything and have to rebuild from nothing.
Maybe that would help. Maybe it wouldn't.
But Zorn was right about one thing, I was heading for collapse. And when that happened, I'd become useless to the patients who needed me.
I couldn't let that happen.
My comm unit chimed. Reminder notification: Commendation ceremony, main conference hall, 1330 hours.
I had forty-five minutes.
I headed for my quarters to change into something appropriate for public recognition. Elena was there when I arrived, sprawled across her sleeping alcove reviewing what looked like electrical schematics. She glanced up when I entered, her hazel eyes sharp despite the deliberately casual posture.
"You look like hell," she observed.
"Thanks. That's helpful."
"Just stating facts." Elena sat up, setting aside her datapad. "Dana stopped by Engineering earlier. Said she talked to you. Said you looked ready to bolt."
"I'm not bolting."
"You're thinking about it." Elena studied me with the uncomfortable perceptiveness that had made her both an excellent engineer and a challenging roommate. "Don't. Therapy sucks, but it helps. Trust me on this."
I paused in the middle of pulling out my dress uniform. "You're in therapy?"
"Started three weeks ago. Vaxon noticed I was developing some problematic coping mechanisms and suggested I talk to someone before they became full-blown issues.
" She shrugged, affecting indifference that didn't quite reach her eyes.
"Turns out being a genius prodigy who's stranded in another galaxy creates some psychological complications. Who knew?"
"Vaxon made you go to therapy?"
"Suggested. Strongly. With that particular tone that means it's not actually optional." Elena's expression shifted, something vulnerable showing through. "He was right, though. I needed it. Still need it. The work helps, but it's not a replacement for actually processing trauma."
The admission from Elena, who guarded her emotions as fiercely as I guarded mine, felt like permission somehow. Like maybe acknowledging the need for help wasn't weakness after all.
"Zorn ordered me into mandatory sessions," I said.
"Good. He's smart. Marry him."
"Elena—"
"I'm serious. Man who cares enough about your wellbeing to be the villain when necessary? That's rare. That's valuable." She stood, moved to her locker and pulled out something. "Here. Wear this."
She handed me a small pendant, delicate silver chain with a tiny compass charm. Earth jewelry, impossibly precious given our distance from home.
"I can't—"
"You can. Consider it a loan." Elena fastened the chain around my neck before I could protest. "Reminder that even when you're lost, there's a way forward. You just have to be willing to look for it."
The gesture was so unexpected, so unlike Elena's usual emotional distance, that I felt tears threaten again.
"Thank you," I managed.
"Don't thank me. Just show up to therapy and actually try." Elena returned to her schematics, conversation apparently over. "And Bea? The ceremony is about celebrating survival. Let yourself have that. Just for an hour."
I finished changing in silence, Elena's words echoing in my head.
Celebrating survival. As if survival was something to celebrate rather than something to feel guilty about. As if being alive when others weren't was a gift rather than a burden.
But maybe that was the problem. Maybe that was exactly what I needed to address in therapy, the toxic belief that surviving meant owing something unpayable, that living required constant self-sacrifice as penance for being the one who made it out.
I touched the compass pendant at my throat. Forward, not back. Even when lost.
The commendation ceremony was held in Mothership's main conference hall, a massive space that could accommodate crew of all sizes and species.
Beings filled the rows of seating: Zandovians, Krellians, Thellians, Vaxxians, and at least a dozen other species I'd learned to recognize over the past months.
At the front, Captain Tor'van stood at the podium, his imposing figure somehow managing to look both authoritative and approachable.
I found a seat in the back, next to Pel'vix. She nodded acknowledgment, her lavender skin catching the overhead lights.
"Dr. Santos. You look better than you did at Veridian Station."
"Low bar," I muttered.
"True." She almost smiled. Zandovians weren't big on obvious emotional displays, but subtle humor existed under their stoic exteriors. "But Dr. Zorn will be pleased you attended."
As if summoned by mention of his name, Zorn entered from a side door. He moved through the crowd with that careful grace, acknowledging colleagues and crew with small nods. His eyes scanned the hall, found me in the back row, and something in his expression softened.
He made his way over, ignoring the more prominent seating near the front, and settled into the space beside me. The seat groaned slightly under his weight, designed for Zandovian proportions but still at maximum capacity.
"You came," he said quietly.
"You ordered me to. Insubordination seemed like a bad career move."
"Bea—"
"I'm joking. Mostly." I adjusted the compass pendant at my throat, a nervous habit I'd already developed. "Elena convinced me. Said celebrating survival was important."
"Elena is wise." Zorn's attention dropped to the pendant, his expression curious. "That's Earth jewelry."
"Loan from Elena. Reminder to keep moving forward even when lost."
"Appropriate metaphor." His hand moved slightly, like he wanted to touch the pendant, or touch me, but he stopped himself. Professional distance. Appropriate for a public ceremony. "How are you feeling?"
"Terrified. Angry. Resigned." I listed the emotions clinically, like symptoms during a patient assessment. "Apparently those are normal responses to mandatory therapy."
"They are. But therapy is also—"
Captain Tor'van's voice cut through our conversation, amplified by the hall's acoustic systems. "We're here today to recognize exceptional service during the Veridian Station outbreak response."
The ceremony proceeded with typical military efficiency.
Captain Tor'van detailed the outbreak: sixty-eight infected, seventeen critical, initial projections showing ninety-percent fatality rate without intervention.
Then the response: four-person medical team deployed, experimental treatment protocols, successful containment and cure.
"The medical team's efforts saved sixty-five lives," Captain Tor'van continued. "Three colonists were lost in the initial infection phase before our arrival. We honor their memory while celebrating the lives preserved through exceptional medical skill and dedication."
Three. The number I'd been carrying since Veridian Station. Three names I couldn't save, three beings who died before I could help.
My chest tightened. Grief and guilt tangling into familiar patterns.
"Dr. Zorn, Chief Medical Officer. Dr. Bea Santos, Emergency Medicine Specialist. Dr. Ko'rath, Xenobiology Specialist. Nurse Pel'vix, Surgical Support." Captain Tor'van's voice resonated through the hall. "Please come forward for commendation."
Zorn stood, offered me his hand. I took it because standing alone felt impossible, let him pull me to my feet and guide me toward the front. His hand was warm, solid, anchored against the spiral of self-recrimination threatening to pull me under.
We stood in a line before Captain Tor'van, Pel'vix, me, Zorn, Dr. Ko'rath. Four beings who'd fought against death and mostly won.