It pissed me off more when I heard the apology in ‘Dori’s voice while he explained that, and it occurred to me once again that Revik had managed to split our command structure a lot more than I’d realized. He’d done it long before he put a gun in Cass’s face.
The bottom line was, he hadn’t wanted to talk to me about it, which meant he didn’t trust me. No one believed in the chain of command more than Revik did, not even Wreg. I’d never known him to buck it before, except when he had zero respect for his commanding officer.
Which yeah, hurt. It angered me, too.
Either way, I figured we had to settle this. One way or another, we had to.
Revik had been the one to teach me that someone has to be in charge. That person could delegate all they wanted, but without someone at the helm, things unraveled fast in military operations. And whatever Balidor said about the Bridge being a military commander but not, we were still, essentially, a military operation. Right now, anyway.
I’d delegated a lot to Revik already. Even the D.C. op could realistically be seen in that light, as an exercise of the authority I’d already granted him.
But executing Cass after I’d explicitly told everyone I wanted her alive was not.
All of this ran through my mind as I walked the ship’s corridors from the control deck back down to the main hold.
I walked the long way, maybe to buy myself time, climbing down stairs and ladders without seeing the green and gray metal around me. I passed seers who saluted me, refugee humans who noticed me and stared.
I barely looked at any of them, either.
When I finally reached the bottom of the last metal staircase into the floor housing the three cargo hangars, and saw the wall of organic metal shielding protecting the tanks from the rest of hangars 1-3, I found myself reluctant to go in there at all. Was I really up to being yelled at for the next few hours? Being told I was incompetent, by the one person I needed to trust me more than any of them? He obviously didn’t trust me, though. He’d made that much crystal clear, even if I hadn’t suspected as much ever since everything went down in Manhattan.
Truthfully, I didn’t see that there was much I could do about that, either.
Which really left me only one option with him.
Well, two really...but only one I was willing to entertain right now.
It wasn’t pride that made me want to hold onto command. Not anymore. I’d never given a damn about that, about being “The Bridge” as some kind of ego thing. The whole Bridge title and role was a fucking albatross, to be honest. If I could, I would have handed the whole damned thing over to him...and gladly. If he wanted power, he could have it. That wasn’t the issue for me. That had never been the issue for me.
But it felt wrong.
I don’t know how to convey it any better than that.
Maybe I was closer to that Bridge part of me these days, after dying and everything else that went down in Manhattan, but I had no choice but to trust that instinct now, whereas I might have worked harder to willfully ignore it before.
I needed to be in charge.
I didn’t want it, but I needed to do it anyway.
I felt it down to my bones that it had to be that way.
Maybe I was just channeling Vash, or one of the other Council seers...or maybe Balidor himself, who believed in the chain of command even more strongly than Revik, even though he didn’t always act like it.
Maybe I was simply too close to these people to be an effective leader.
Maybe they couldn’t take me seriously enough...or hell, maybe they just flat-out didn’t fear me enough. Maybe it would always be too difficult to treat my husband like my husband while I was also supposed to be his commanding officer.
I didn’t have answers for any of it, honestly.
I didn’t even try to find answers, not once I realized I would never be able to find them with my mind alone, not in time, anyway. I didn’t have enough military experience to come to that kind of conclusion, and frankly, when I tried to think about it with the more logical part of my mind, I could find examples pointing to just about any conclusion I wanted.
All I could do was resist and get angry, fluctuating between wanting to give it all to him––to Balidor, to Revik and all the rest of them––and be done with the whole mess, see if they could do better, only to circle right back to that same, unwavering, and deeply annoying truth.
It felt wrong.
It just flat-out felt wrong to give it to them.
So I wouldn’t.
I didn’t want to think about yet, whether my marriage would be able to handle that.
But today might be the day where I had to answer that question.
HE WAS THERE, at least.
I guess I should have been thankful for that.
When I went inside, I didn’t know what to expect exactly. I mean, I guess I must have been geared up for a fight. I would have been stupid not to be.
Mostly, though, I felt strangely clear again.
I felt like a different part of me had taken over for this part.
He was lying on the bed when I got there, stretched out, ankles crossed, headset on. I didn’t have to look at his face to know he was working, but he must have been pretty deep into it, because when he felt my light, he jerked noticeably, looking up at me in surprise.
In what felt like less than a second, he was on his feet.
He unfurled from his position like a cat, ripping the headset off and half jumping off the bed in the same motion. The latter he did subtly, but it still made me think of being in the ring with him. It also made me pause, standing not far from the door and watching him warily as I took in his light, the unreadable look on his face.
Only his eyes were expressive.
Borderline cold, they shone at me from above those high cheekbones, watching me as carefully as I watched him.
I realized I could still feel Neela then, and glanced over my shoulder. Meeting the female seer’s gaze, I noted the worried look there, and motioned easily with one hand, keeping my voice deliberately casual.
“It’s okay,” I told her. “You can close it. And please turn off the surveillance, if you would. I would like some privacy.”
I watched Neela’s face as she struggled with my instructions.
I could feel the part of her that wanted to say something, to remind me they’d be outside, or maybe remind me of some of the security precautions for the tank itself. I could see her wanting to impart some other meaning, too, to let me know that they wouldn’t stand for him harming me.
More than anything, I could tell she didn’t want to turn off the surveillance, whatever I told her, and whether she understood my reasons or not.
I could also tell she didn’t want to disobey me, especially not in front of Revik.
Eventually, that last part won out over the rest.
“Of course, Esteemed Bridge,” she said, her voice stilted.
Her cheeks looked redder than usual, but she immediately began to close the door. I stood there, watching until it had shut entirely, and the red, blinking light over the door had turned back to a solid blue-green.
I then waited until the light went out in the God’s eye camera over the door, and the other one, over Revik’s desk.
Only then, did I turn to face Revik.
His expression had changed somewhat in that pause.
I couldn’t have said how, precisely, but it looked as if some of the cold had seeped out of his eyes. He still looked angry, but something about that anger struck me as more open...or maybe just more willing to fight me outright.
I watched as he tossed his headset to the table covered in larger, more animal-like machines he’d been toying with, as well as a short stack of leather bound, paper books. When he looked up at me next, his narrow mouth curled into a frown.
“Well?” he said, apparently unable to continue our staring contest without speaking.
I began to feel his light like an electrical char
ge, coursing around me and through me, making my skin tighten, along with my fingers, my jaw, the muscles in my legs and arms and stomach. It grew more intense in those few seconds before he continued, like a fire coursing through my aleimi, briefly making it difficult to think. I couldn’t even define what I felt as anger, not at first. It felt more like power, like a charge of something he barely held in check, sliding through the higher regions of his light.
“...Are you going to start?” he said. “Or shall I?”
His voice had gone cold once more.
The contrast to the heat I felt in his light felt almost disorienting.
He took a step towards me in that pause, and I felt something in his self-control break, along with a rush of emotion that seemed to hit the higher regions of my light first, and didn’t come to me in words, or even discrete pieces of thought. I felt part of what I’d been feeling for weeks, though, that this wasn’t really about Terian breaking into the computer network to speak to me, or even about what Revik wanted to do to Cass.
It wasn’t even completely about his fears for my life.
I’m not sure if it ever formulated in my mind, what he intended to do.
I didn’t imagine him hurting me, or trying to hurt me, but I didn’t get far enough ahead to see him yelling at me, either. Jon told me that Revik had yelled at me once, back in San Francisco...loud enough that the whole house had heard it. Jon said it scared him, if only because he’d never felt or heard Revik like that before, and all of them worried he’d snapped, that he’d lost control over himself. The whole Adhipan had sat there in that living room, listening and watching to see what Revik would do, to make sure he didn’t hurt me.
I could have told them he wouldn’t have hurt me.
That’s not what worried me today, either.
When I felt fear around Revik, it never really attached to anything like him hurting me, or even him being psychologically abusive, even on accident. The fears tended to be more abstract, more about him shutting me out, or shutting down.
Leaving me, maybe. In his own way.
“Alyson,” he said, a little louder. “Are you going to talk to me? Or not?”
He made another move towards me, and I acted without pause or thought, maybe because I could still feel that fight thing all over his light.
I shoved him, using the telekinesis.
I didn’t do it very hard, but it stopped him in his tracks.
He stared at me. Then his eyes ignited at once.
That heat I’d felt in his light turned into a fucking furnace. I felt the charge ignite, somewhere in the higher areas of my own aleimi, raising the hairs on my arms, sucking in my breath, hitting at my chest.
Then he shoved me back, hard enough to push me into the railing under the observation window where we’d often watched our daughter. I hit into that metal bar with the small of my back, and let out a surprised gasp.
“Don’t fucking do that,” he said, his voice colder still. “I tolerated it when you were mentally incompetent from the wires. I won’t tolerate it now.”
Looking at him, I didn’t answer.
I still didn’t feel afraid of him, though.
He hadn’t done that to hurt me, either. He’d done it to make a point...a point I couldn’t help but see as valid. I shouldn’t be shoving him around with my light, either.
When he returned my gaze, I got the sense he could feel that, too.
He was both grateful for the thought and frustrated by my lack of visible emotion.
Or maybe frustration wasn’t what I felt off his light. Maybe the anger I felt had less direction than that, even. I could feel the fear more prominently now, which was what I’d been looking for. It grew stronger in his light the longer I looked at him, and the longer I refused to react to the anger he continued to try to use to get a reaction out of me.
When I thought that much, he averted his gaze.
“So that’s it?” he said, his arms tensing once more. “I’m sidelined now?”
“Revik,” I said, breaking my silence for the first time. “It’s all right.”
“What?” He turned, staring at me. His irises continued to glow with light, but fainter now. I saw them spark the longer he looked at me, even as his jaw hardened. “What’s all right? Me being locked in here?”
“I won’t lock you in here.”
“You already did!”
I nodded, still watching his face carefully.
I still felt somehow detached from this. Well...not detached. I don’t know the words for how I felt. I just knew I could see him, I guess. I could see him past whatever he tried to show me on the surface, whatever he used to try and push me back, to scare me off. I could feel the distrust, too, but it felt different now.
“Revik,” I said. “We can’t do this. We can’t.”
“We can’t do what?”
Clicking at him softly, but still not really in anger, I shook my head.
Staring around the relatively spartan trappings of the room, it struck me how much this small space reflected so much of his life, so much of who he was. Like a mini command center, only with the bound religious books given to him by Wreg. I could feel Menlim’s influence even in this, but I knew that as a part of Revik now, too. The thought didn’t sadden me...not anymore. A lot of what Revik had been forced to become had arisen in direct opposition to his childhood. It was that, or succumb to being the monster.
I knew I wouldn’t have survived it.
Truthfully, I couldn’t imagine anyone surviving that, even him.
But the fear...we couldn’t afford the fear any more. Not like this.
“Revik,” I said. I held up my hands, palms open, a seer’s gesture of surrender. Well, a human’s too, I suppose, but seers used it more formally. “Revik, you’re not going to hurt me. I know you’re not. I need you to know it, too.”
He stared at me.
I saw his pupils dilate, even as his clear eyes seemed to grow sharper. He looked me over, a reflex of his eyes and light. Even as I saw that much, I found my light reacting to his, feeling something in that charge shift.
“What’s going to help?” I said, frustrated. “What’s going to help with this? Because you know damned well I can’t have you doing this...”
“Doing what?” he snapped. “Trying to protect my wife?”
“Fermenting a goddamned mutiny on this ship!” I snapped. “I can’t have it! You would never stand for it! Not from Wreg...or from ‘Dori! How am I supposed to take this from you?”
His eyes hardened.
Even so, I could tell I’d gotten through to him that time. A little, anyway.
I’d deliberately chosen the military thing, though. I knew it might get under his defenses, and past that denser fear I could still feel sparking through his light, twisting into the distrust I felt coiling around his aleimi. I knew his ability to follow orders was hardly the issue here, not at base, but I also knew I’d never get him to hear me if I went after this thing directly.
I needed to talk to him in a way he could hear it.
“Revik,” I said. “What’s going to help with this?”
His eyes grew colder again. “Let me kill her.”
“No.”
“Why?” he growled. “...Because it will look like I overruled you? Since when have you given a damn about that with me? They know we talk about this shit...usually we’re open about that fact! They know we decide on courses together, at least when we can!” Taking a breath, he lowered his voice with an effort. “...Besides, it’s pretty clear you didn’t listen to me about Dubai. Or fucking Macau for that matter...where I was dead-against using you as bait. Or about your own goddamned security protocols. And given your little display out there, I don’t think you left any doubt about ‘who’s in charge,’ wife. So if you’re looking for ways to up your macho points, you might have used them up for today...”
He said the last with more than a little bitterness.
Rather than rise emotionally to
the insult I felt woven into that crack, I kept my voice calm. Almost too calm.
“You know this isn’t about power for me,” I began.
“Then what the fuck is it about, Allie?” he said.
I flinched, but more for the emotion I heard leak into his words.
The heat remained in his light, but I felt more of him now, too. Enough that the shell I’d been wearing began to melt. I realized I’d been defending myself from him since I’d walked through that door...seeing him more as an adversary than my partner. A puzzle I needed to solve...or fix maybe. Or simply to figure out how to manipulate.
Realizing that much, I felt all of the charge in my own light deflate.
Leaning against the wall he’d just pushed me against, I sighed, combing my fingers through my tangled hair. Feeling his light start to de-charge in that same pause, I waited until he felt more open, then I looked up, meeting his gaze.
“Do you want to be in charge, Revik?” I said. “Is that what you want?”
“No!” he snapped. The anger was on the surface that time, but it felt more open, too, more genuine, and if anything it made me relax more. “That’s not what I fucking want, Allie!”
“Then what do you want?” I said.
I saw him flinch, surprise flickering through his eyes and light.
Then, everything in him seemed to de-charge all at once. He stepped back. I watched his gaze shift inward, right before he leaned against the desk, sitting on the edge of it, supporting his weight on his long legs and his feet set at angles in front of him.
“I want more say in you and Lily’s security,” he said.
“More say?” I pressed. “Or all say?”
He looked up. His clear eyes sharpened. “Do you want the truth?”
I clicked at him, annoyed for real that time.
“Of course I want the truth!” I said. “What the hell do you think I’m doing in here? We need to agree on this. We need to settle it...now. We don’t have the luxury to argue about this shit, especially when we’re getting ready to mobilize again. I need your help on Dubai! That’s a six-week planning op, minimum. And I’m tired of arguing in front of the others...”
His gaze cleared slightly as I spoke.
Allie's War Season Four Page 94
