Things Fall Apart: Chapter 32

Aboard Zephyr, en route to first waypoint

They had made it well out of the orbit they'd been sharing with Borass Station before the first calls of protest came in. Of the ten calls Cordé was obliged to field, three went so far as to attempt to pull rank and order Zephyr to return to port immediately, pending a decision from the "council".

As far as Singer, or anyone else aboard knew, the council that had once served as an arm of the civil government in Gliese-581 had ceased to exist with all of the civilian habitats. While the various commanders and captains who headed up the surviving rock-stations were certainly part of the chain of command for the navy, that chain of command did not operate via a council. The commodore was the ranking naval presence, and as far as Singer was concerned, that was that.

After Singer saw the third of these calls off with a very clear statement to that effect, Cordé ventured, "Captain, how much trouble are we in?"

Singer chose to take the question seriously, and thought about it for a moment, then said, "As far as I'm concerned right now? None. When we've re-established enough of the relay network for formal protests to actually get somewhere, there might be an inquiry, but right this minute, the regs are pretty clear."

Cadotte chimed in, "Never mind the irony that if we listened to the naysayers and turned back in-system, there might well not be any relay network for them to lodge protests along."

Singer allowed herself a wan smile. "Just so, lieutenant. I'm perversely looking forward to finding someone still alive with the authority to hold an inquiry if it comes to that. Speaking of which, looks like we've got about fifteen kiloseconds until we reach the first real step toward rebuilding that network, reseeding the relay at the edge of this system before we transition to time compression. Exec, would you come meet me in my office in, say, three kiloseconds?"

If Alexander thought there was anything odd in the request, ze didn't show it. "Of course, Captain."

"Then in the meantime, the watch is yours," Singer said, and got up from the chair.

Alexander replied, "I have the watch. Any instructions should we receive another protest call?"

"Play the recording of the last one back to them."

And with that Singer left the bridge.

Alexander pondered that instruction, wondering if ze was intended to take it seriously. Singer was very clearly in a mood, of a sort ze—and certainly Singer—had seen in other commanders, but never yet in Singer. Maupassant came immediately to mind, and Alexander found zirself missing the late exec of Bellerophon as a person and not just one of the many lost for the first time.

Of course, if Singer really was in one of Maupassant's moods, Alexander had a feeling ze was about to come in for at least a short rendition of the Riot Act. Ze had no difficulty wondering why. The system newscasts had broadly hinted at trouble afoot, and Alexander and Cadotte had quietly worked to ensure the ship would be ready to move with alacrity.

They'd discussed it, and discovered they felt similarly, in that their loyalty at the moment was not so much to the commodore, whom they liked and trusted but no longer were certain actually had any authority; nor to the broad abstraction of the Tau Ceti Organization, which similarly might no longer exist; but to Singer. Singer, in turn, clearly felt loyalty toward the commodore, and the commodore had given them clear, if not necessarily simple, orders.

So, they had anticipated what would come next, ahead of receiving orders, to make sure that any orders could be carried out quickly. That was still taking the steps out of order, and at the very least, Singer was going to want an explanation.

As it happened, the intervening three kiloseconds were uneventful, with no further calls or demands received and steady acceleration spiraling them out of the system. Alexander passed the watch to Cadotte in turn and went to see what zir captain's mood portended.

Singer entered her suite through the office door to the corridor, but it was a ruse. Once in her territory, she shucked her jacket and shirt so as not to get them wet, and went directly for the head, where she proceeded to splash her face with cold water.

She was angry, and knew herself to be angry. It was important, however, that her anger be directed correctly. She was not angry at Alexander, but she did need an explanation as to how ze and Cadotte had so thoroughly anticipated her needs. She was supposed to be the mind-reader on this ship, dammit.

That thought, and the resulting chuckle, did more even than the cold water to bring her back to an even keel.

So, she was angry, but the people she was angry with she could do nothing about. And she was angry, or frustrated at least, about that, because Commodore Haraldsdottir was facing something that was starting to smell like real trouble, and there was nothing Singer could do, directly, to help her. She had some concern that her curt answers particularly to her most recent caller might exacerbate the problem, and if that were true, she was certain she'd hear of it once the first relay was synced up before the slid into time compression.

Face splashed, sense of humor at least partly restored, Singer returned to her office, donning her shed bits of uniform again as she went, with plenty of time, still.

On her desk, she found the last physical artifact Haraldsdottir had handed her before Singer had boarded the Alice's Restaurant Massacree to go to the rescue of Aquila. That had been the last time she and the commodore had been in the same room at the same time, and somehow, Haraldsdottir had already known it.

"This datakey contains several things you may need," she'd said. "One is my complete assessment of the situation from the moment of the Incident, through your arrival in-system, and up until the beginning of this shift. You should read it, but also know that you're not the audience for it. This is for Command, if it still exists, in anticipation of whatever hearings or courts-martial they may be contemplating.

"Another useful item is something nobody's really had time to look at yet: the decrypted logs from Bellerophon. Obviously, that's going to contain some things about yourself and your officers from your lives before the Incident that you may or may not really want to read. Most importantly, though, it contains Maupassant's personal log, which I'm hoping will contain some hints about what he thought he was seeing, what the tells were, and who else he confided in, if anyone. That, in turn, might helps us find other survivors.

"Lastly, it contains all of my documentation supporting both the promotions you made in the field, and my promotions of you and your officers. If anyone questions your credentials, there are the answers in as much detail as I could muster."

Singer had not done anything with the key, yet. It had sat in her pocket through the Aquila rescue, then finally found its way to her desk. Seeing that she still had half of the time she'd allotted before Alexander came in, she decided it was time to at least skim the index of the thing.

Instead, once she was seated and the key was slotted, she found herself jumping directly to Maupassant's log. She set aside any guilt she had about violating the dead man's privacy, reasonably sure that, were the tables turned, he would have had no qualms delving into any evidence he had to hand to explain such a disaster as had befallen them all.

So focused had she become on scrubbing through his log that, when the doorchime sounded about a kilo-and-a-half later, Singer almost leapt out of her skin.

Taking a breath to recenter herself, she pushed the button on her desk that would open the door to admit her exec.

Alexander had been expecting Singer in a mood, but the mood ze found her in was not the one ze had anticipated. The captain seemed almost distracted as Alexander came in, and kept looking at her screen before finally turning it off and saying, "Sorry, Robin. Have a seat."

Ze sat, a bit bemused by the use of zir personal name. "Captain?"

"Before we left, Haraldsdottir made sure I finally had a copy of the decrypted log database from Bellerophon. I've been doing a quick scrub through Maupassant's, looking for clues."

"Find anything?"

"Not yet, but I'm probably starting too early. I should probably jump ahead to the situation that led to Castor and Pollux getting baselined and work forward from there, then slide back in case there's missing context. But I wanted a sense of what a 'normal' log looked like first. I'm afraid I fell into a rabbit hole. He was kind of infuriating, but I miss the man."

Startled to hear zir own thought echoed so clearly, Alexander replied, "I was just thinking the same, honestly."

Singer gave a knowing smile. "Expecting me to channel him, were you?"

"You certainly did talking to Commander Feeney."

"And here, I thought I'd toned it down, at least, relative to what was in my head. Anyway, all that aside, I would like an explanation for how and why you anticipated my orders. Let me be clear: we've survived on everybody's initiative, and that's not likely to change much, but I need to know what the impetus for that initiative was, and how it was that I was not informed earlier."

Alexander took a moment to order zir thoughts, then said, "Not long after the confrontation with Aquila's crew, Petty Officer bat Avi went to talk with Kasel, in his role as bosun. In the course of that conversation, she told him she'd seen that the Bellerophon plan had leaked, and also that there was trouble brewing. Having decided she was going to throw her lot in with us, she didn't want to see us thwarted, and wanted to be sure that didn't happen. He brought it to Cadotte during an off-shift, they brought it to me, seeking permission to basically finish what they'd started and poll the crew. That was going to be the main impediment to our being able to leave the system quickly—the need to rehome anyone who wanted to stay in-system. Everything else was as ready as it was going to get.

"We realized we were taking a risk—that if the commodore felt compelled to hold us here, or even to send us forth without letting us offload people back to Bellerophon, we were going to have people who were both disaffected and disappointed on our hands. We judged it worth the risk to be able to move without delay once you gave the word."

Singer gave every appearance of taking her time to digest this, and then said, "Very well. It worked out for the best. However, here's the problem. If I get too used to the idea that you're going to know what I'm thinking, then one day I'm going to give you an order, expecting you to know what I'm talking about, and you're going to have planned on zagging when I ordered us to zig. So, next time something of this magnitude arises during my sleep shift? Wake me. I may regret that later, but it's important that we not just expect to be on the same page; we have to actually be on the same page."

Alexander allowed zirself to relax. This was a rebuke, but it was mild, and not really out of reason at all. In Singer's shoes, ze would have similar concerns. It was not micromanaging for the captain to expect to know what was going on.

So ze said, "Yes, captain. I understand."

"Good," Singer responded. Then rose and went over to cabinet, from which she drew a bottle, and two glasses. "When I was exploring my cabin the other day, I found this tucked away in here, along with a note from Silverman to take good care of his baby." She gestured with the bottle, and the glasses, clearly making an offer.

Alexander didn't drink much, but this felt like a moment to make an exception. "Yes, please."

Singer proceed to pour a finger full of the dark, amber liquid into each glass. Alexander asked, "Where did Silverman find genuine single malt?"

Singer looked at the label. "Looks like something he either brought, or had shipped in from Newer York. Appropriate to drink now that we're on our way in that direction!"

"Certainly!"

Singer paused, contemplating the right toast. Only one seemed appropriate. Raising her glass, she said, "To Maupassant."

Alexander smiled, "Maupassant."

Singer replied, "The cranky bastard!" and they drank.

Finally, Singer said, "Chef?"

"Yes, Captain?"

"Gumbo, tonight."

"Yes, Captain!"