Page 131 of Every Almost

Cael straightened. "Captain, with all due respect, she's a civilian. From a pre-spaceflight?—"

"She just diagnosed a twenty percent efficiency loss that's been present on my ship for twelve years, Rask," Reyna interrupted, her disappointment loud and indignant in her response. "I'd say she's proven her qualifications." Reyna held his gaze. "Unless you'd like to explain to me why it took someone from a 'pre-spaceflight planet' to notice this efficiency drain occurring?"

Cael said nothing, but she noticed his jaw tighten.

"I thought not," Reyna said. She turned back to Charlie. "You'll report to Chief Engineer Rask. Standard shifts. Tavi and Maren can show you anything you need."

Charlie beamed at her, and Reyna knew immediately this was the right decision.

"You start now."

A few days later,Reyna was a few corridors away from Engineering at the end of beta shift. The decks were quieter than usual, most of the crew cycling toward meals or quarters. Reyna was coming from her evening rounds walking the ship because doing so at the end of the day was the only meditation she'd ever successfully practiced.

Her mind wandered to her continuing tasks on the ship. The Aetherfin mission was now just over a week away.Tavi had finalized the boundary calculations and the shuttle modifications were underway. Cael on the other hand had been managing.Barely. Charlie's presence in his Engineering Bay had introduced a variable that his comfortable mediocrity wasn't equipped to handle.

She turned the corner toward Engineering and stopped.

Something coming from inside the bay, muffled by the bulkhead.

Music.

A bright, energetic sound with a driving rhythm and a woman's voice singing about girls, wanting to have fun.

Reyna moved closer. The bay door was open allowing for the amplification of the sounds.

Reyna saw Charlie inside, alone. Cael must already be gone for the day. The music was louder here, filling the Engineering Bay with something the space had never contained before.

And Charlie was singing along.

She wasn't performing or even aware of an audience. She was just singing, moving between consoles, hands busy with something on a diagnostic panel, then moving to the next console to consult a read-out. Her body was swaying with the rhythm in an unconscious way, a way she'd probably been moving to music her entire life. Her voice caught Reyna by surprise. It was full and unguarded, and the Engineering Bay hummed differently with her in it, as though the space itself had been waiting for someone like Charlie who would care for it with this kind of attention.

Reyna stood in the corridor, leaning against the bay door arch, and listened. But she did not go in.

Interrupting would be rude, she told herself. Charlie deserved a moment of privacy after a week of being watched by an entire crew of aliens while she was forty light years from home.

Reyna couldn't argue with herself. The gold held. Reyna's markings stayed at their steady, practiced baseline, the warm gold they'd been for thirteen years.

But for the first time, standing in that corridor, listening to Charlie sing, Reyna noticed she was holding it.

She turned and walked away, her boots quiet on the floor, the music fading behind her with each step.

THIRTEEN

INDISPENSABLE

Reyna had calledthe engineering briefing for 0800, and by 0803, the room had already split into its usual factions.

She saw Tavi at the main console, three simulations running simultaneously on the display while Maren stood beside him, her eyes studying every detail as she cross-referenced his projections against structural data she'd memorized years ago. She watched Charlie, a member of the engineering team and therefore present for this meeting, as she watched and listened to the group. Reyna noticed her fingers tapping a quiet rhythm against her thigh.

And then there was Cael, leaning against the far wall with his arms crossed.

"Alright," Reyna said, standing at the front. "The Aetherfin mission. We have five days until we're a go. Tavi, where do we stand?"

Tavi pulled up his latest simulation on the display and spoke to the group. "Getting the Aetherfin from the research station onto the shuttle is straightforward. The station's containment housing is modular, standard Coalition spec. We detach it, loadit onto the shuttle's cargo bay, and connect it to shuttle power. The Aetherfin stay in zero-G for the entire transit. Selowen and I have run the logistics. It's tight on space, but it works."

"Good," Reyna said. "And, what progress have you made to figure out how to move those three Aetherfin to the zero-G sphere here on board?"

Tavi's expression shifted. He pulled up a different simulation, this one showing the Emberkind's internal layout. A red line traced from the shuttle bay through seventy meters of corridor to the zero-G sphere at the ship's center.