39. Saying It Out Loud #2
Tavi stared at her for a moment. Then he cleared his throat aggressively, and turned back to his console, because he was apparently no better at this than she was.
"Don't make it weird," he said, thick.
"You made it weird. You had a speech."
"I had remarks."
Charlie laughed before she went back to her diagnostics, and for a while they just worked, side by side.
Then Tavi said, not looking up, "You're staying, right?"
Charlie's hands went still on the console. Because Tavi didn't know and, as far as the crew was concerned, Charlie was the Chief Engineer alongside he and Maren.
She thought about the word removed.
"Yeah," Charlie said, and made herself believe it, because Reyna had told her to. "Yeah, Tavi. I'm staying."
"Good," he said simply. "Because I just retrained the entire music library on your taste and I'm not doing that again for some new engineer."
"Wow."
"It took weeks."
"That's really touching, Tav."
"I'm a deeply sentimental man." He flicked something across to her console. "Now look at the harmonic drift on coil three."
She looked and they went back to work.
REYNA
Kess was waiting for her outside the Bridge, which wasn't a good sign, because Kess only left the Med Bay to corner people.
"Walk with me," Kess said.
"I have a ship to run."
"It'll survive ninety seconds without you. Walk."
Reyna sighed and fell into step beside Kess.
They went down the quiet stretch of corridor outside the Bridge, and Kess didn't say anything for a moment.
"So," she started. "Your cortisol levels."
Reyna stopped right in the middle of the corridor.
"Oh, for the love of—"
"Are fantastic." Kess said, interrupting Reyna and turning to face her. " You are, by every marker I have, the least stressed you have been since I met you."
Reyna couldn't help the small smile start to spread across her face.
"I just want you happy," Kess stated. "That's all I've ever wanted.
And I don't care what you say, you weren't." She walked closer to Reyna.
"You were good. You were good at being a Captain.
You were good at being a crew member. You were good at taking care of all of those around you.
No one has ever had a single bad thing to say about you.
They still don't." Kess paused. "I think. "
Kess smiled while Reyna gave off a soft laugh.
"But happiness was never there. And that killed me every day."
Reyna looked into Kess's eyes and saw nothing but warmth and care.
"But then she came along," Kess continued, her emphasis on she not entirely free of frustration. "And Rey, I see something I haven't seen before in you."
Reyna took a shaky breath. "What's that?"
"It is very clear and evident, I'll put my medical license on it in fact, that Charlie Wickett makes you happy."
Reyna blew out a breath before walking to Kess and wrapping her arms around her, hugging her tightly. At first, Kess made no movement at all. But then she returned the embrace, hugging Reyna gently.
"Thank you," Reyna said softly.
Kess pulled back from her. "You're welcome."
Reyna let go, pulling back from someone she realized also meant more to her than she had ever allowed herself to acknowledge.
"But,” Kess started. “I think you already know that's not all I came to talk to you about."
Reyna blew out a breath. "Yeah, I had a feeling it wasn't."
Kess's eyes went to the rose. Reyna had noticed she'd been looking since she walked up.
"When did it happen?" Kess asked.
"Last night."
"All at once?"
"All at once."
Kess nodded slowly but didn't say anything for a moment.
Reyna felt she understood the silence because she'd have needed one too.
They had both grown up hearing about this.
Every Kaelari did. It was one of those tales you were told about when you were small, as a fantastical story that happened to only certain people.
And then, as you got older, you learned it was real and rare.
"I've seen it once, before this," Kess said finally. "On a patient, years before I came aboard. A young one, just starting her medical career. She just walked in one day and..." She looked at Reyna.
"I saw it once, too. On an older woman."
Kess nodded. "I never thought I'd see it again."
"Neither did I."
"No," Kess said quietly. "I know you didn't."
Reyna looked down at her own arm, at the color her markings had made hers now, and was most certainly not going anywhere.
She still didn't have words for what it meant to be someone who had it.
But, truthfully, she wasn't sure there was any.
She felt that, maybe, it was something you just had to experience.
"Does it feel the way they say?" Kess asked.
Reyna realized it was a genuine question. Kess had spent her whole life around Kaelari and had never once been able to ask anyone this, because no one she'd known had ever been able to answer.
Reyna thought about what to say.
"They undersell it," she said.
Kess's eyes went wide as something crossed her face. It reminded Reyna of wonder, while under it there was something quieter, more private, a want that had nothing to do with Reyna.
Reyna watched it for a moment as Kess let it be there for a second. Then she gathered herself.
"Good," she said simply.
They stood there a moment longer in the quiet of the corridor.
"I knew you had it in you," Kess said.
Reyna looked at her oldest friend.
"Yeah," she said. "You did."
Kess held her gaze for a beat before tipping her head.
"Captain."
"Doctor."
Then Kess turned and started back toward the Med Bay without looking back.
Reyna made the call from her office with the door shut.
Vondra's chamber resolved on the wall display, the Lithyn Admiral suspended in her dark water. The micro-vibrations began before Reyna had fully sat down.
"Captain Solas. I was expecting your call somewhat sooner than this."
"I owe you an apology, Admiral."
That got a small flicker.
"Do you."
"I do. Two days ago, you gave me a lawful directive regarding a member of my crew, and I received it poorly.
I was insubordinate in my tone and my conduct, and you didn't deserve it.
You have kept this ship in commission for longer than I have commanded it, and you have never once been anything but fair to me.
" Reyna took a deep breath. "I'm sorry, Admiral. "
The water held still.
"That," Vondra said, "is a more complete apology than I anticipated."
Reyna folded her hands on the desk.
"I want to tell you about the most recent rescue," she said. "The one on Korallis Minor, saving the breeding pair of Gravhorn Palu. Eleven thousand kilos each, left behind on an evacuating colony world because no shuttle in the sector was rated to lift them."
"I'm familiar with the mission."
"Then you recognize that the Emberkind was the only vessel in range that was rated to handle the Palus. I know you know this, Admiral, because you are the one who approved the build of this ship into the only vessel that could."
"The Coalition has already logged the recovery. It was clean work."
"It was not clean work," Reyna said coldly. "It was very nearly a catastrophe, and I would like to tell you why it wasn't, because I think you should have the complete record and not just the tidy version."
The water stirred faintly.
"Go on."
"Did you know there were three colonists still on that planet? Trapped under a structure that came down during the evacuation, masked on the evacuation coordinator and our scanners for hours by the mass of the two Palu we'd come to recover?"
Another flicker. "I was not aware of that, no," Vondra admitted.
"Nobody knew they were there, Admiral. Not the colony or the Coalition.
Not even us until the Palu were on board the shuttle.
Every possible plan we brought to that planet had us leaving those three people to die on that rock, and the official log would have recorded a clean recovery of two animals, never knowing the difference. "
"But they did not die."
"No," Reyna sighed. "They didn't."
There was a pause between them where the hum of ship and the glugs of the water were the most defined noises present.
"And why is it they did not die, Captain Solas?"
Reyna kept her voice level.
"Because my Chief Engineer disobeyed a direct order," she said.
It was clear Vondra hadn’t expected that answer.
"Excuse me?"
"My Chief Engineer did not follow an order," Reyna repeated.
"She had located the colonists. They were under a massive pile of debris and had been for a long time, through all the tremors from the shelf.
She understood that if she left them to bring the shuttle back around with the Palus, who were already 20% into their rated time aboard the shuttle, the structure would finish collapsing before she returned.
" Reyna took a subtle steading breath, reminding herself Charlie was okay now, down in Engineering.
"She refused, Admiral. She cut her own comms so I could not order her again.
And she stayed, alone, on a planet that would not stop shaking, and pulled three people out of debris of a building with her bare, human hands, might I add.
The last one nearly killed her doing it.
" Reyna paused. "She is in my Med Bay's records this morning as having received a head wound.
Gratefully, Dr. Pheras discovered the lesion wasn't as deep as had been anticipated and was easy to treat. "
Reyna actually thought she saw a bubble appear in the water.
"All three colonists are alive, Admiral." Reyna stared at the screen. "Oh, and the Palus."
The water was very still now.
"The engineer," Vondra said. "It was the human? Wickett?"
"Charlie Wickett, sir. The one your directive instructs me to remove from this ship and return to Coalition custody."
Complete silence came from the dark water.