Prologue Day One #6
Twenty-five years later, he was still here. Still listening.
"Anything you need from me, Orion?"
"Not today, Captain." He picked up his tea. "But if the Aetherfin rescue goes well, I'd appreciate access to any observational data. Their migratory behavior is poorly documented in Coalition records."
"I'll make sure you get it."
"Thank you." He took a sip of his tea and looked at her over the rim with those amber eyes. "And, Reyna?"
She paused at the door.
"You're doing fine."
Reyna held his gaze. Then she nodded.
"Thanks, Orion."
He returned to his datapad, and Reyna turned toward the door. Torvax was already there, holding it open, his datapad tucked under one arm. He'd completed his notes, organized them by department, and was ready to move before Reyna had finished saying goodbye.
"How do you do that?" Reyna asked as they stepped into the corridor.
"Do what, Captain?"
"Be finished before I am. Every single time."
"Efficiency is not a skill, Captain. It is a disposition."
Reyna shook her head, her lips twitching to hide the smile threatening to show. "There's more to you than efficiency, Torvax." Torvax said nothing, and instead kept walking.
From the Library, they continued the rounds. After thirteen years, Reyna could read his silences just as well as she could read star charts.
"Status," Reyna said as they walked the corridor toward the bridge.
"All departments nominal. Engineering maintenance queue at standard capacity, though several items remain past their assigned completion dates.
" This was Torvax's way of saying that Cael Rask, her Chief Engineer, was behind on his work without saying his name.
She had a sense of this after the few conversations she'd already had with Cael today.
"Navigation has also confirmed the Aetherfin coordinates from Admiral Vondra. Transit time: fourteen hours at standard speed."
"Which gives us about two days on-site for the actual rescue."
"Correct. Tavi has begun preliminary simulations for the zero-G transition problem. He's requested access to the corridor gravity controls between the shuttle bay and the central atrium."
"Grant it."
Torvax produced his datapad in front of her, pulled up with a page ready for her view. "Authorization form. Ready for your signature."
Reyna stopped walking and looked closely at the datapad, then over at Torvax. "When did you prepare this?"
"When you told me about the Aetherfin mission this morning. I've been working on it during your discussions with the Chiefs."
"You prepared the access authorization before Tavi even asked for it?"
"I anticipated the workflow."
"You anticipated that Tavi would run into problems, that he would need gravity controls access, and that I would approve it. Before any of those things happened."
"The chain of events was logical, Captain."
Reyna was impressed, but she honestly wasn't sure why. This was typical Torvax behavior. So she signed the form on the datapad and handed it back before starting to walk again. "Sometimes you terrify me, Torvax."
"I'll take that as a compliment."
The comment struck her because, the truth was, she trusted him completely.
"It was," she replied, pausing to give the words their due. "Anything else?"
"The Vryx situation in the Mess Hall kitchen has been resolved."
Reyna stopped walking again. "It has?"
"Maren Laith addressed it approximately forty minutes ago. She rerouted the secondary ventilation panel, extracted the Vryx without incident, and recalibrated the kitchen climate systems. Borran has been notified."
"Maren did it."
"Yes."
"Not Cael."
"No." Torvax's voice carried the same informational neutrality it always carried.
But Reyna had known him a long time, and she could hear the footnote he wasn't adding.
Cael did not do it because Cael does not do things that he considers beneath his attention, and Maren did it because Maren does things that need doing, and I have been documenting this pattern for some time.
"Noted," Reyna said.
"Indeed."
They continued walking.
By late afternoon, with the Vryx gone and the kitchen vents clear, Borran's ovens were holding temperature for the first time all day.
Reyna knew this because Borran had contacted her one final time to announce, with a gravity that suggested he was addressing the Coalition High Council rather than reporting on baked goods, that the first batch of Gula Cakes was in the oven.
"The redemption batch, Captain."
"Congratulations, Borran."
"It will be my finest work."
"I don't doubt it."
"You will receive the first one."
"I appreciate that."
"Well, after Engineer Maren, of course."
"I would assume nothing else."
"No more catastrophic events in my kitchen."
"Good. I'm sure it will stay that way."
"You said that about the Vryx."
"Yes..."
"Look how that turned out."
"Goodnight, Borran."
The Emberkind's corridors were quieter during the evening shift.
The lighting dropped to a warmer register, the foot traffic thinned, and the ship settled into the particular hum that Reyna had come to associate with the hours between duty and rest. She knew every frequency in that hum.
The life support cycling, the gravity systems maintaining their steady pull, and the engines, her ship's engines, running at the percentage Cael deemed sufficient.
After the day of consistent issues rising up and needing immediate or quick solutions, Reyna finished the final meal of the day, seated with Kess, Tavi, and Selowen, while Maren sat across the table from them, providing some basic information about the ventilation issue in the kitchen.
Now, she was making her way to her quarters. And after the Admiral, the Aetherfin, the Vryx, Borran's bread, Tavi's impossible timeline, Cael's priorities - all of it - she was going to walk through her door, close it behind her, and not open it again until the morning shift.
At least, that was the plan.
Then she heard the commotion.
It was coming from near the Mess Hall, the exact room she had just departed. Part of her silently told herself not to worry about it, not to engage. But that was what made her a good captain.
She didn't listen.
Turning on her heel, she backtracked down the hall and made a left toward the Mess Hall. As she got closer, she realized it was noisier than she first thought.