Resilience

by Fletcher DeLancey

  He eyed her knowingly. “For being so careless as to let an alien empath see my code?”

  Rahel stood still, afraid to move a muscle as the two section chiefs faced off over her.

  “Commander, this isn’t a power play and I’m not threatening you. Ask Rahel about my intentions if you want. I know damn well I’m partly responsible for this. I also know there are people back in Gov Dome itching for a reason to shut this program down. Let’s not give it to them.”

  “Well now,” he said in a drawl, “you’ve hit me in my soft spot. The last thing I want is to give those pad pushers what they want. I’ll call security and tell them we had a fritzing scanner corrupting its access logs.” He pinned Rahel with a stern look. “Did it ever occur to you to simply ask me for access?”

  On second thought, she felt ten cycles old. “No, Commander. I’m sorry.”

  He let out a soft grunt. “Didn’t think I was that intimidating. Not sure if I should be happy about that or not.”

  “It’s not—” She hesitated. “You weren’t intimidating. You were professional and an obvious expert. I never thought I could ask. I mean, with any reasonable expectation that you’d say yes.”

  “I’m the one she thought was intimidating,” Dr. Wells said.

  To Rahel’s surprise, Zeppy burst out laughing. “Everyone on this ship thinks that, Doctor. I have to say, it’s a treat to have you here, trying to keep your ass out of the same fire mine would be in. Let’s call this a lesson learned for all three of us, hm?” His eyes twinkled as he turned to Rahel. “The way you love sneaking around, you’ll fit right in with security. But you’ll need to learn a bit more about how the systems work. And how we work. Is there something you’d like to ask me?”

  At first Rahel didn’t understand. Then she stood straight and said, “Commander Zeppy, I want to thank you for showing me the chases and the brace shafts. I didn’t know such places existed, or how beautiful they could be. Is it possible for me to have access to them? Without needing an escort?”

  He pursed his lips, looking as if he were carefully considering the request, but his amusement bubbled and fizzed. “Nicely spoken. You’re the first person to ask me that and you’ll probably be the last. Not many people see them that way.” After a theatrical pause, he said, “I can give you access on two conditions. One, you don’t touch anything in there except the doors.”

  “I promise.” She couldn’t believe it was this easy.

  “And two, you don’t slide more than three decks on the ladder.” His gray eyebrows climbed upward. “Don’t think I didn’t see the look on your face. You might be an empath, but that doesn’t mean we can’t read you too.”

  With effort, she held his gaze. “I understand. I swear I won’t go more than three.”

  He nodded. “Just in case your word isn’t worth what I’m told it is, there are sensors and security cams all over this ship, and that includes the chases and brace shafts. If you break your promise, I’ll revoke your access so fast you’ll still be dizzy two days later.”

  That stung. “Commander, I’ve only broken my word once in my life, and it was one of the biggest mistakes I ever made. I take my honor seriously.”

  “I can see that. All right, then.” His fingers danced over the deskpad, sending shapes and digits scattering across his transparent display. A few more taps resulted in a green glow before he blanked the display. “There’s your access. Thank you for asking me.”

  Rahel was so startled that she didn’t respond until Dr. Wells elbowed her. “You’re welcome,” she said quickly. “Thank you for being so kind.”

  Zeppy chuckled. “Can’t say I expected anything like this when I woke up this morning, but it’s been an entertaining day. Captain Serrado has no idea of the headache we just saved her.”

  “And ourselves,” Dr. Wells said. “I’d like to thank you as well, Commander. I appreciate your understanding.”

  “I’m not so old that I don’t remember what it was like to be her age and brand new in a posting. Looks like you aren’t, either.”

  “The day we get to that point is the day we should retire.” Dr. Wells shared a smile with him before adding, “I want to take Rahel back into a chase and run some tests on what she senses. Your expertise would be helpful, if you have time to come with us? Something in there is muting the power of emotional broadcasts. I’d like to find out what.”

  “Well now, you’ve piqued my interest. I can’t resist a mystery.” Zeppy palmed a small electronic device off his desk and slipped it into his tool belt as he rose. “Let’s go.”

  One day ago, Rahel could not have imagined that she would be standing in a chase with Dr. Wells and Commander Zeppy, reporting the strength of her emotional pressure on a scale of one to ten at varying points in the space. The two of them buzzed with interest and excitement, trading theories and ideas while she watched with an oddly detached bemusement. Despite the evidence before her, she still wasn’t certain any of this was real.

  After taking more measurements than could possibly be necessary, Dr. Wells thanked Zeppy and took Rahel back to her old quarters. “I have a little free time before lunch,” she said, looking around at the sparse decor. “Would you like some help packing up?”

  The detachment abruptly dissolved as Rahel stared at her. A single sentence had affirmed that she hadn’t lost her new quarters, wasn’t in trouble, and was still part of this team that had suddenly become the most important thing in her new life. Overwhelmed by relief, she turned away to hide what were surely reddened eyes.

  Dr. Wells’s quiet voice came from close behind. “I reread your medical file last night. Some of the details make more sense now. Such as the way physical touch is tied to your mental health, and why you’ve flouted your culture’s taboo against warmrons for your entire adult life.”

  “It’s a senseless taboo,” Rahel muttered.

  “I’m not qualified to offer a sociological assessment. But from a medical point of view, I’d say it’s more than senseless. It’s harmful.” Dr. Wells paused. “I’m also seeing the irony in the fact that Fleet has a similar taboo.”

  “It does?”

  “I’m constrained in how I can employ physical touch as well. Both as a section chief and as a doctor. I could hug a child in my care, but we don’t get too many of those on a warship. So if you need a warmron, I’d be glad to offer one.”

  Sincerity shimmered on the surface of her emotions, just above the caution and wariness. There was a reason she had made the offer to Rahel’s back.

  Rahel turned. “You called it a warmron.”

  “I’ve come around to Lhyn’s point of view. It’s a nicer word than hug.”

  “I probably would have said no to a hug. But a warmron . . .” She opened her arms and found herself wrapped in the first warmron she had enjoyed since leaving Alsea.

  Dr. Wells was a little stiff at first, but soon relaxed. “You’re good at this.”

  “Lots of experience.” Rahel could hardly get the words out. She had not known how much she needed this until now.

  “More than me, that’s for sure. At least, recent experience.” Dr. Wells slid a hand up her back. “If Josue had lived, he would have been a little younger than you. And probably just as stubborn, given that he had my genes.”

  Rahel coughed out a rusty chuckle.

  “This is not me wanting a substitute,” Dr. Wells added.

  Her worry was strong enough to unwind the blockage in Rahel’s throat. “I know. I can feel it.” She tightened her arms, then let go and stepped back. “Thank you. For everything. I’m sorry I’ve been such a trial, but I’m learning.”

  “Seems I am, too.” When Dr. Wells smiled, it transformed her face. “Shall we pack you up?”

  “It won’t take long. I only brought a few things with me.”

  “Such as those?” Dr. Wells gestured at the two wooden daggers hanging over the small couch, their inlaid patterns gleaming in the lights. “They’re beautiful. I wanted to ask you
about them yesterday, but it wasn’t a good time.”

  Yesterday she had been barely coherent and still stunned that Dr. Wells would help her. “They’re very special to me. It’s a long story.”

  “I’d like to hear it. Besides, as long as you’re telling me a story, you’re not getting into trouble. I could use the rest.”

  The joking words were accompanied by a lightness of emotion that Rahel could barely believe. So much had changed in a single day. “Dr. Wells?” she said tentatively. “I’m glad you’re on my team.”

  As the startled pleasure warmed her senses, she reflected that once in a great while, she managed to say the right thing.

  7

  Transition

  Two days after moving into her new quarters, Rahel found herself in the briefing room off the bridge with Dr. Wells and a case full of portable medical equipment. They had reached the Setis Prime relay station and were preparing for the exit transition into normal space.

  “I don’t understand why I have to retake this test,” Rahel protested. “It has nothing to do with emotional pressure. I didn’t lie about anything I was feeling the first time.”

  “Not being empathic, I have no idea when you were lying and when you weren’t.” Dr. Wells was far too amused as she slid a silver metal circlet onto Rahel’s head. “And your memory might not be perfect. Now, if you hadn’t lied, you wouldn’t be retaking this test, because I’d have confidence in all of my data. Since I’m now questioning every bit and byte of it, I have to redo it. And since you’re feeling guilty about misleading me and putting me through this extra work, you’re going to help without whining.”

  Rahel clamped her jaw shut against the retort. Warriors did not whine. Ever.

  Dr. Wells tapped the back of the circlet. With a hum that Rahel could feel more than hear, the circlet’s tabs tightened against her skull.

  “This is not a whine,” Rahel said. “But that feels like a hairy watcher walking around on my head.”

  “I accept that as a non-whine.” Dr. Wells turned away to fiddle with something in her case, but Rahel didn’t need to see her face to know that she was barely holding in the laughter.

  “I’m glad you’re finding this so enjoyable,” she grumbled, and had to smile as the doctor’s shoulders shook.

  “I’m not—” Dr. Wells gave up and laughed aloud. “Fine, I am.” She waited as a display sprouted from her case, then tapped a few controls and turned around. “It’s just a joy to see you being you, instead of trying so hard to be the perfect stoic soldier. Your psychological history led me to expect a very different person than the one I saw in my medbay every day. I’m glad we’re done with that.”

  “Dr. Wells.” The captain’s quiet voice penetrated every corner of the room as it came over the com. “Every section is checked in but crew services. You’ve got about three minutes. Are you and First Guard Sayana ready?”

  “We’re ready.”

  “And you’ve taken your foramine?”

  “Of course. Unlike some of the crew, I don’t wait until the last possible minute to take mine.”

  Rahel was startled by the blatant disrespect. Everyone knew Captain Serrado never took her foramine until right before transition.

  “Just making sure you didn’t forget while focusing on your test,” Serrado said mildly. “Some of the crew can be single-minded. See you on the other side.”

  “Single-minded, hmph,” Dr. Wells muttered as she checked the lockdown straps that would keep her equipment in place. “She has no idea.”

  “Are you whining when you’re the one who started that?” Rahel asked.

  Dr. Wells looked up with wide eyes and prickling indignation, which dissolved as soon as it had appeared. “All right, you earned that point.” She gave a strap one final tug and sat in the chair next to Rahel. “I just can’t stop myself with her. She makes it too easy.”

  “You two sound like a bonded couple.”

  “I suppose we do. She’s the best captain I’ve ever served with, you know. I’d never give that kind of grief to a captain I didn’t like. Now, my last captain . . . he was competent but a bit of an asshead. Had an ego that wouldn’t fit in the same room as mine.” She paused. “Right, that wasn’t quite what I meant to say.”

  “I probably had a glitch in my lingual implant,” Rahel said. “It didn’t really translate.”

  “Oh, well done.”

  “All sections report ready. We’ll be entering normal space as soon as the Plush Life has gone through.” Captain Serrado’s voice was still calm, but Rahel’s heart rate increased as the blue lights that had been flashing on the upper walls of the room shifted to a faster blink rate.

  She focused on the display that took up the entire wall at one end of the room. Protectorate display technology was remarkable; she would never have thought this was anything other than a window onto the glowing mists of base space. Ahead and to the left, the cruise ship was stopped next to the relay station, a silver cylinder that dwarfed the ten-deck ship beside it. The station was narrowed at the bottom—or what Rahel perceived as the bottom—while its other end was ringed by two layers of instruments and antennae. These stations with their massive quantum beacons provided the only means of navigation through base space, where normal physics did not apply. They were also the means by which quantum coms were able to communicate without noticeable latency over distances Rahel still couldn’t wrap her mind around. Yesterday she had enjoyed a session with Lanaril, her counselor back on Alsea, followed by a call to Salomen. Both calls had been indistinguishable from using a vidcom back home, yet Alsea was over a hundred light years away.

  Along a straight line directly ahead of the cruise ship, the base space matter began to shift. Rahel knew from her studies that the line was caused by a pikamet beam, a type of radiation that enabled transitions into and out of base space.

  At first, the matter moved slowly, but it soon picked up speed until it was roiling and whirling, rushing outward from the pikamet beam in all directions. The beam itself was now visible as a line of darkness, empty of all matter. It expanded until it was greater in diameter than the ship itself, and then—

  “Shekking Mother on a burning boat!” she blurted as the Plush Life contorted itself into a grotesque parody of a ship, normal at the stern while the bow was stretched and pulled into a pinpoint. The point vanished into the nothingness of the pikamet beam and sucked the rest of the ship behind it, the entire thing elongating and flattening into something no living being could possibly survive.

  With a blinding flash of light, the ship vanished. Another light show occurred not one second later when the base space matter reversed direction, crashing back into the void left behind and exploding in an expanding sphere of red and orange. As the shockwave blasted over them, the Phoenix shivered, creaking and groaning softly under the stress.

  Then all was still.

  “Fire without flames,” Rahel whispered in awe. On her first exit transition, the Phoenix had been alone. She hadn’t seen what it looked like from the outside.

  “I’ve done this too many times,” Dr. Wells said. “Forgotten how miraculous it is. You’re making me see it in a new light.”

  “It is miraculous. I’d go through another punishment week in the medbay to see that again.”

  “Not on my watch, you won’t.”

  Rahel blinked at her sudden ferocity and was about to respond when Captain Serrado’s voice came over the com.

  “The Plush Life is through. Brace for transition.”

  Rahel held on to the arms of her chair and watched as the base space mists directly ahead of them began the same dance, first gradually shifting and then rushing away from the beam that stabbed into them. The blackness grew into a yawning emptiness that took up the entire display—and then the display cracked.

  Rahel twitched, startled by the unexpected effect.

  Wrinkles propagated through the display and onto the bulkheads. With an eerie lack of sound, the display crumpled and
was sucked down a tiny hole. The bulkheads, ceiling, and floor followed, stretching and vanishing into the emptiness that rushed toward Rahel with an otherworldly speed.

  Dr. Wells, sitting next to and slightly ahead of her, twisted into a blur of black, green, and silver fabric that streamed into the hole. As the colors of her uniform vanished, all Rahel could see was the light brown of her hair, stretching across the whole galaxy and then disappearing altogether.

  Rahel’s feet were sucked in and her legs crumpled, the distortion rushing up her body until she ceased to exist.

  This was the moment that she wished all Alseans could experience. She had no eyes, yet saw everything. She had no ears, yet heard the universe murmuring to itself in a language that she could almost understand. There was no space and no time, only an infinity between spaces that was surely the home of Fahla herself, who held Rahel’s hand as she was stretched and disassembled, then spat back into existence with an abruptness that left her laughing.

  Dr. Wells was swallowing hard, fighting a nausea that made the air heavy around her. At the end of the room, the newly whole display showed the darkness of normal space punctuated by a million stars, with the Plush Life shining just ahead.

  “Whoo!” Rahel thrust her fists overhead. “That was fantastic! What a ride!”

  “Well, I guess that wasn’t a fluke.” Dr. Wells stumbled briefly as she went to check her equipment. “You really aren’t affected.”

  “Are you joking? Of course I’m affected. It’s like three days’ worth of stims in one dose. It’s shekking amazing! I feel like I could fight ten warriors with one hand behind my back.”

  Dr. Wells was scrolling through an incomprehensible readout, textual characters and numbers moving past at a rate Rahel couldn’t begin to translate. “Amazing is a good word for it,” she said, still reading. “If I’m right, this isn’t just you. I think it’s your species. We’ll need to test more Alseans, but I have a feeling you’re all immune to transition effects.”