Chapter 6 #2
"You're making assumptions." I spun, swept low, and forced him to jump back.
"I'm making observations. Elena does the same thing, pushes away connection because accepting it means acknowledging vulnerability." He pressed forward again, his next strikes coming faster. "Humans fear vulnerability more than they fear death."
"That's not—" I blocked high, barely avoided a sweep at my legs. "That's not universally true."
"Isn't it? Your physician works herself to exhaustion rather than address her trauma.
She maintains emotional control like armor.
She pushes away anyone who tries to get close.
" Vaxon's staff connected with my shoulder.
Not hard enough to cause real damage, but hard enough to drive the point home.
Literally. "She's terrified of being known. "
The assessment was too accurate to dismiss.
I'd watched Bea interact with other medical staff, professional, competent, utterly distant.
She treated patients with clinical precision but zero personal warmth.
The only time I'd seen her defenses crack completely was in my quarters, when exhaustion and desperation had overwhelmed her carefully maintained control.
She'd trusted me with that moment. Then punished herself for the vulnerability by avoiding me entirely.
"So I wait," I repeated.
"You wait. You give her space. You let her come to you when she's ready." Vaxon lowered his staff, ending the sparring session. "And if she never comes, you accept that too."
The thought made my chest constrict in ways that had nothing to do with physical injury.
What if Bea never came? What if her walls stayed up permanently? What if the connection I'd felt between us, the understanding, the recognition of kindred isolation, was one-sided? A projection of my own loneliness onto a woman who simply saw me as her supervisor and nothing more?
I didn't want to consider that possibility.
Across the gymnasium, Er'dox and Zor'go finished their own match. Zor'go moved to the water containers, his markings settling into satisfied patterns.
"Status on the expansion project?" I asked, grateful for a topic change.
"Ahead of schedule." Zor'go's expression brightened—he always did when discussing his work.
"Jalina's courtyard designs are revolutionary.
She's managing to incorporate psychological comfort into structural efficiency in ways I've never seen.
We'll complete the new residential sections within three months instead of five. "
"And the communication buoy project?" Er'dox asked.
"Dana thinks she'll have a functional prototype within six months. If it works—if we can establish contact with Earth—" Zor'go trailed off, his markings flickering with something complicated. "The humans will have to choose."
The unspoken reality settled over us like gravity.
If Dana's communication buoy worked, if they could contact Earth, every human on Mothership would face an impossible decision.
Return to their birth planet and leave behind the lives they'd built here.
Or stay on Mothership, knowing they'd never see Earth again.
"Jalina's chosen," Zor'go said quietly. "She told me last night. If rescue comes, she's staying. She's chosen Mothership. Chosen me."
The relief in his voice was palpable.
"Dana's staying too," Er'dox added. "She said Earth stopped being home the moment the Liberty launched. This is home now."
I looked at Vaxon. He shrugged. "Elena hasn't decided. Probably won't until it's an actual choice instead of a hypothetical."
And Bea? What would Bea choose?
I realized I had no idea. Had never discussed it with her because our conversations remained rigidly professional except for that one moment of breakdown.
She'd mentioned Earth in passing, her medical training, her career, the losses that drove her to join the Liberty expedition.
But never with longing. Never with the homesickness that still occasionally overtook Jalina or Dana.
Bea didn't seem homesick for Earth.
She seemed homesick for nothing. Or for something she'd never found anywhere.
"Enough philosophy," Er'dox said, breaking the contemplative silence. "We came here to spar, not have feelings about theoretical communication buoys. Vaxon, you and Zor'go. Let's see how strategy fares against brute force."
They took their positions on the mats. I moved to the sideline with Er'dox, grateful for the opportunity to observe rather than participate. My ribs needed the break.
We watched Vaxon and Zor'go circle each other. The Security Chief moved like controlled violence. The Operations Head moved like geometric precision. When they engaged, it was mathematics versus warfare, and for once, mathematics held its own.
"You're good for her, you know," Er'dox said quietly.
I glanced at him. "Bea?"
"Who else? You see past her armor to the person underneath. That's rare. Most beings accept the surface presentation and move on. You care enough to push past it."
"She doesn't appreciate the pushing."
"She will. Eventually." Er'dox watched the sparring match with the critical eye of someone analyzing structural stress points.
"Dana didn't appreciate it either. Told me I was controlling, overbearing, treating her like incompetent cargo.
Then one day she looked at me and said, Thank you for not letting me destroy myself. That's when I knew."
"Knew what?"
"That she loved me. Because love is seeing someone at their worst and choosing them anyway.
" Er'dox's expression softened with memory.
"Bea's at her worst right now. If you can choose her anyway, if you can maintain patience while she fights her way through her own defenses, she'll eventually realize you're not trying to control her.
You're trying to save her from herself."
The wisdom was sound. The waiting would be hell.
On the sparring mats, Vaxon finally landed a strike that sent Zor'go sprawling. The Operations Head stayed down for a moment, then laughed, rare from him, and accepted Vaxon's hand up.
My comm chimed. Medical emergency designation. I checked the display.
Mothership responding to distress call. Ship collision in Sector 47. Multiple casualties. All medical personnel report immediately.
"I have to go," I said.
Er'dox nodded. "We'll finish another time."
I was already moving toward the exit, my mind shifting from personal complications to professional necessity.
Ship collision meant trauma cases. Decompression injuries.
Possible radiation exposure if the collision had breached reactor shielding.
The kind of emergency that required all hands and perfect coordination.
The kind of emergency where Bea's skills would be essential.
Which meant working beside her again. Close quarters. High stress. The professional synchronicity we'd developed over two months of collaboration, now complicated by three days of her avoiding me completely.
I reached the medical bay in under four minutes. The space was already transforming, beds being prepared, equipment being staged, support staff coordinating with quiet efficiency. Pel'vix, my head nurse, moved through the organized chaos with practiced competence.
And there, at the central diagnostic station, was Bea.
She'd arrived before me. Of course she had. The woman who avoided rest never avoided work.
Her pale blonde hair was pulled back in its severe bun.
She wore her medical uniform with the same precision she brought to everything, not a wrinkle, not a thread out of place.
But her hands moved rapidly across the holographic displays, pulling up trauma protocols, cross-referencing xenobiology databases for the species involved in the collision.
She looked up as I approached. Those gray-blue eyes met mine for the first time in three days.
"Multiple casualties incoming," she said, her voice professionally neutral.
"Freighter collision. The ship that took the worst damage is a Korvathi colony transport.
We're looking at a species with triple redundant circulatory systems and crystalline skeletal structure that complicates standard surgical approaches. I've pulled their medical profiles."
All business. No acknowledgment of the tension between us. Just pure professional competence.
I could work with that.
"Good. Prep trauma bay three for Korvathi physiology. I'll take the primary cases. You handle the secondary trauma and coordinate with the rescue teams on triage." I moved to the central console, began assigning staff to specific stations. "ETA on casualties?"
"Seventeen minutes."
Not much time. I opened the communication channel to the rescue team. "This is Chief Medical Officer Zorn. Situation report."
Vaxon's voice came through, steady despite what sounded like controlled chaos in the background.
"We're breaching the damaged freighter now.
Initial scans show approximately thirty injured, severity unknown.
The Korvathi transport took the critical hit, structural collapse in their cargo bay. Unknown number trapped."
"Can you establish communication with their medical staff?"
"Working on it. Their communication systems are damaged. The rescue team is physically entering now." A pause. "Stand by."
The channel stayed open. I could hear the sounds of the rescue operation, the hiss of cutting torches, the groan of damaged hull plating, voices shouting coordinates and warnings.
Mothership's rescue teams were among the best in the sector, but even the best faced limitations when dealing with severe structural damage.
Bea moved to stand beside me at the console. Close enough that I could see the tension in her shoulders, the way her fingers tightened on her medical datapad. She was listening to the rescue operation too, her mind already working through probable injuries and treatment requirements.