Crash and Burn: Part 3
Ashes
The clock on the ornate nightstand read twelve hundred, glowing gold in the darkness. Jim stared at it, disoriented, struggling to remember if the station used Standard time or an old-fashioned scheme to match the decor. One meant he had only been asleep a couple hours, and the other that he had overslept worse than his school days. The groggy sludge clogging his head and an AM indicator light told him the former case was true.
He glanced over his shoulder at an empty bed.
The other side was made as neatly as possible given Jim’s presence. If it weren’t for the scent of cedar clinging to the sheets, mingled with the unmistakable smell of sex, Jim might have doubted his sanity. He listened for running water or the sonic shower, footsteps, anything at all. He heard nothing except the low, dull drone of the station’s power feeds, different enough from the Enterprise that it couldn’t soothe him in quite the same way.
“Computer, where is Commander Spock?”
//There are three individuals by the name of Spock and the rank ‘commander’ currently present on this station.//
Jim blinked. It had never really occurred to him before that Spock’s name wasn’t made up out of thin air, but part of his background, shared by other Vulcans. “Where is Spock of the U.S.S. Enterprise?” he tried.
//Biological Sciences Laboratory C.//
Knowing Spock, he probably had some experiment running that required round-the-clock maintenance. Callisto Station boasted equipment too large to fit on a starship, and most of the ship’s scientists had requested lab time. Many were pulling all-nighters to finish up their projects before departure. Regardless, Jim didn’t have the energy to go on a wild goose chase in the middle of the night. He stole the vacated pillow and slid back into a restless sleep.
***
The last day of the conference, they saw little of each other. Spock was making social and professional calls all over the station, addressing the debates his lectures had stirred up, and Jim didn’t want to get in the way. They exchanged a look at breakneck speeds as they passed one another in the station hub, and Jim smiled to himself whenever he recalled how Spock had almost run smack into a column, unable to tear his eyes away.
Jim kept busy, navigating his way around the station with a bounce in his step even though he got lost half a dozen times. He met with the crew that had inspected the Enterprise during docking, and talked down a very peeved Scotty, who could never trust outsiders with the engine modifications. He attended a showcase on vibrational healing and found a delighted Uhura playing assistant for the presenter’s hung-over colleague. He caught up with McCoy at an expert panel on alien reproductive biology and laughed harder than he had in ages.
“So how did it go last night?” McCoy pressed him as they veered into the food court for lunch. “Well, I take it?”
“You might say that.” Jim tried and failed to contain his grin.
“Oh? What else might I say?”
“A gentleman doesn’t kiss and tell, Bones.”
“A gentleman? Who? Where?” McCoy made a show of peering through the crowds of hungry conference denizens.
Jim ignored that and went for retaliation. “How does spaghetti sound to you?” he said with feigned innocence, scooping up a tray.
McCoy blinked, and then it registered, and his face contorted in disgust. “Oh, very funny.”
“What? Don’t tell me a medical man is so easily affected by descriptions of Arcturian sperm fibers.”
“Now look here-”
But Jim was already making his way toward the Tellarite section of the food court. There might be a lot of unfair and derogatory rhetoric directed at Tellarites from the other three founding species, but no one dared insult their cuisine.
McCoy caught up with him after a brief, flailing struggle with the automatic napkin dispenser. “I don’t care what anybody looks like under the knife, and that’s what counts,” he said as they eyed up the menu together. “My plate, however, is a different story.”
“Of course, Doctor.”
“I mean it! It’s never the physical that disturbs me, not really. It’s the behavioral.” He brandished a fork at Jim’s nose. “How many aliens have we met who looked exactly like us, even acted like us, but turned out to be something different?”
“There’s not enough space on my walls to keep a running tally,” Jim said.
“Exactly.” McCoy snorted. “What do you think my liquor stash is for?”
“Bureaucracy. Transporters. Spock.”
“That too.”
“No wonder it’s so impressive.” Jim tapped the order screen for authentic sweetberry salad, crossing his fingers that McCoy didn’t know it was practically a dessert.
They parted ways after lunch, and Jim found himself with a few blank hours to kill, the weary block of time after a conference ended and before everyone cleared out. He lingered at the station hub for a while, exchanging contact information with new acquaintances and tall tales with old ones, watching the bedraggled masses haul luggage toward the elevator terminal. Around thirteen hundred he decided to check in with Spock and make sure all their ducks were in a row before departure that night. Maybe they could spend some time giving his room a proper send-off afterwards, he thought, allowing the quiet thrill he had suppressed all day to escape for a moment or two.
But the task of checking in proved difficult. Spock’s communicator was off, and the com system at his location deactivated, set to some kind of do-not-disturb mode. Which struck Jim as odd, considering they were a few hours away from active duty. It wasn’t like Spock to be out of touch, although admittedly, Jim didn’t have much of a precedent for the man’s behavior on shore leave.
Eventually, with the dubious assistance of a computer that sometimes mixed up right and left, Jim tracked Spock down in a distant corner of the station. The trip involved taking a lift some two miles below Callisto’s surface, past the underground and its round-the-clock parties, to a network of claustrophobic hallways and isolated rooms. An unsettling number of doors had warning signs plastered over them for radiation, high voltage, toxins, and a multitude of other hazards Jim didn’t recognize; bright splotches of color in the otherwise gray hallways. He almost passed the nondescript plaque that read ‘Relativity Lab Four.’
The dim room within was no bigger than Jim’s quarters on the Enterprise, and its walls were lined with computers; hulking, dusty, nitro-cooled rigs that had to be at least a decade old. The heat they gave off made Jim break into a sweat almost instantly. Panel lights blinked like tidy swarms of multicolored fireflies. Power cables and coolant tubes crisscrossed the ceiling, and the low hum of coursing electrons seemed to vibrate in his gut.
There was Spock, almost facing away from him, sitting on an uncomfortable-looking stool. Slouching, really, hunched over a console screen. A small organic blip in a room full of straight edges and whirring machines. He glanced up just long enough to recognize Jim. “Captain.”
“Mr. Spock.” Jim smiled and took a few steps until the door shut.
It still surprised him how the sight of his first officer’s spare frame could light up his nerves so powerfully. He watched Spock work for a moment from the doorway, eyes lingering on his slender lines, the sharp angles of his face, and the curve of his spine, which snapped straight a moment later as he swiveled to face a second console. Jim moved closer to inspect what Spock was doing, but mostly for the sake of moving closer.
“Is there something I can do for you, sir?”
“I just thought we should touch base before we’re underway,” Jim said. “But you’re a hard man to find.”
“I am sorry if I caused you inconvenience.” Spock still didn’t look at Jim as he spoke, and his tone was distant, like he wasn’t all there. “I wished to minimize the potential for signal interference. Any incoming data could interfere with the readings.”
“What sort of readings?” Jim peered over Spock’s shoulder, but the fluctuating lines and numbers on the monitor didn’t make much sense to him.
“Gravitational waves,” Spock said. “They are an elusive phenomenon, even with the best equipment.”
“Oh?” Someone with more self-restraint might have kept the conversation innocent, but Jim had none left to spare. Not after his perfectly professional response to ‘is there something I can do for you.’ He leaned in close to a pointed ear and watched the delicate bob of Spock’s throat as he swallowed. “Speaking of elusive, I missed you this morning.” He placed his hand on the small of Spock’s back.
An almost imperceptible current of tension rippled through the point of contact. Spock’s fingers stilled on the input keys, and he ducked his head ever so slightly. “I did not require much sleep,” he said.
Jim’s hand dropped along with the pit of his stomach, and his senses went blank for a moment. Cold realization bristled at the back of his neck, circled around his throat like a vise. The amalgam of poor lighting and rosy expectations had obscured something critical, but the details were finally falling into place. There was a bleak, stubborn aura hanging over Spock that Jim had only seen before after a very specific kind of mission: the ones that compromised him from the inside.
“If you will excuse me, Captain.” Spock stood up fast enough that his stool almost tipped backward. “You can expect my final report two hours prior to departure.”
Then he was gone, leaving Jim paralyzed in an empty room.
Ever since Carol Marcus had dragged him out of the library and into her bed all those years ago, Jim had always dove in headfirst when it came to sex. He prided himself on being in tune with his partners, on picking up their wordless cues and adjusting his approach. On bringing the best possible pleasure to everyone involved. He trusted his instincts, and experience had given him no reason to doubt them.
Then why did it feel like Spock was hanging by a thread?
He remembered something from the official records of an ill-fated alien wedding, the words seeping out of the console-lit gloom. Something Spock had said to T’Pring while Jim was passed out in the dust: After a time, you may find that having is not so pleasing a thing as wanting. And again, last night: Vulcans and humans are very different.
A creeping, shadowy wrongness tied knots into Jim’s shoulders and forced a new wash of sweat through his pores that had nothing to do with the heat. His heart shuddered with an abstract knowledge, which coalesced into a hunch, which rapidly became a conclusion that explained Spock’s behavior far too well. Jim had misread his friend again, worse than before, and he had no idea how.
***
The rest of the day passed in a literal sickening blur. Jim prowled the Enterprise’s corridors, snapping at mundane mistakes, hovering over minor system checks and data entries. Counting down the hours. When it became obvious he was making his subordinates nervous, he retired to his quarters and started logging conference notes instead. Every time his focus wavered, even for a second, the possibilities started spiraling out of control. It took every ounce of willpower he possessed to reign them back in, remind himself he shouldn’t jump to conclusions until he had all the facts.
He wasn’t ready when Spock showed up, despite knowing it was coming, despite unlocking his door and keeping one eye on the clock. The Vulcan’s appearance was a shock to the system, mostly because of the way he regarded Jim, impassive and cold.
“I have prioritized our last round of assignments and submitted them for your review, Captain,” he said, nodding toward Jim’s console. “The first course will be activated at nineteen hundred.”
“Very good, Mr. Spock,” Jim said, forcing a smile. “I don’t expect I’ll have to change anything.” He waited for a response, any response, but Spock showed no sign of either speaking or leaving. He just stood there staring at his boots, looking a little lost. Jim could ask if there was anything else, but the question would be disingenuous at best. “We should talk,” he said. Not quite like pulling teeth, but close.
“Agreed,” Spock said.
“Please, sit down.”
Spock didn’t move. Neither of them said a word for what had to be a full minute, and it occurred to Jim that he wasn’t really used to this talking thing. He understood the principle just fine, even practiced it on a regular basis, but some topics were beyond the scope of his experience or comfort. He skimmed the open document on his console until the words looked like nonsense.
But one of them had to start eventually, and seniority put him on the hook. He took a deep breath and released it. “Are you all right?”
Spock’s silence lasted far too long. “I miscalculated,” he said.
What terrible disease had Jim contracted, that two simple words could shake him to his foundations? A thousand possible responses blended together in his mind, demands and questions, unkind words and pathetic pleas. He seized the most urgent thread among them and struggled to set it loose. “I didn’t… did I do something wrong?”
“The error was mine,” Spock said. “I apologize for having taken advantage of your good intentions.”
Jim was about to reassure Spock that he did nothing of the sort. But he didn’t know that for sure, though the very idea made him sick to his stomach. “What do you mean, error?”
“I would rather not discuss it.”
“Spock-”
“I misjudged myself,” he said abruptly. “My approach was experimental, and the results were not...” An agonized pause, and for the second time in as many days, Spock’s voice fractured. “Please, Captain. Do not ask me to elaborate further.”
The words smashed into Jim, wrecking any lingering illusions he clung to about his first officer’s state of mind. Just when he thought he understood, that he had won the ultimate marathon, the blindfold came off and revealed he had been running in place.
Talk was overrated, he decided bitterly. He would rather they spend their last months together in uncomfortable silence, pretending last night had never happened, than know he was some kind of human lab rat in whatever mind games Spock was inflicting on himself.
They were always better off star-hopping, with the promise of danger hovering over their heads and little time for personal visits. Safer caught in the rhythm of command, the constant presence of others enforcing professionalism. When showing affection and throwing themselves into work were synonymous. Blur the ranks for a day or two, give Jim the space to breathe and an ambiguous future staring him in the face, and it was inevitable their dynamic would change. Jim never dreamed it would change so disastrously.
He shut down. He hadn’t needed to do that in awhile, but it wasn’t difficult after so many years of practice. The foundations were laid during Tarsus, and brick by brick, he had built a place to retreat to when death cast its shadow over his crew, when he had to weigh the cost of one life versus the timeline’s integrity, when he was lost in the proverbial dark wood. A citadel where he could observe himself from a distance, ignore the selfish complaints of his ego and consider his options. Now there was only one option that came to mind. What he should have done from the beginning.
“All right,” he said. Then again, determined to engrave the sentiment into his mind. “All right. It’s forgotten.”
“Thank you, Captain.” Spock’s relief was palpable. Showing emotion, but in all the wrong ways.
“Is that it, Mr. Spock?”
A brief moment of hesitation, and a passing glint in Spock’s eyes that Jim couldn’t begin to decipher. “I would like to request additional shore leave time.”
“When?”
“Preferably now.”
“There isn’t much time to be had,” Jim said, perversely thankful for an excuse to talk shop. This was his job. This he could handle. His command settled over his shoulders, a heavy comfort, a suit of armor.
“I am aware,” Spock said. “Everything scheduled until final docking is routine. I do not expect my absence to foster any serious inefficiencies.”
Jim made a noncommittal sound to smother the words that threatened to escape him. I want you here. I need you here. I’m about to be put out to pasture and I’ll lose my mind if you aren’t there with me when the gate slams shut. No, he was going to respect Spock’s wishes this time if it killed him.
Meanwhile, Spock had gone on listing reasons as he proffered a PADD. “I have never voluntarily utilized any of my allotted shore leave. The timing is ideal for transportation purposes. I will be able to use public cruiser from Callisto rather than deprive the Enterprise of a shuttle. Also, I-”
“Approved,” Jim said, because he couldn’t take another excuse. Because he couldn’t justifiably say anything else. He took the PADD from Spock and skimmed the request form, barely reading it until one line caught his eye.
Destination: Vulcan.
Jim found himself at a thorny crossroads. If he asked why Spock was headed home, he would be prying and making things even worse. If he said nothing, the question would eat at him for the next - he checked the form - two weeks, four days. In the end, he pretended the document was a simple inventory and scribbled his signature.
“Thank you, Captain.”
Jim almost flinched at the honorific. There was no fondness in it, no familiarity or warmth. It sounded far too much like the first time Spock had ever addressed him.
He handed over the form mechanically, and in that instant, was struck by the bizarre but powerful notion that Spock would step out his door and straight into a void. As if Vulcan were the edge of the known universe instead of a bustling Federation planet, and would swallow him whole.
Good, the spiteful and wounded shards of himself snapped. Get out, and take your cowardice with you.
But his better nature just wanted to touch Spock. Embrace him, kiss him, pin him against the wall so he couldn’t leave. Even a handshake would be better than nothing. Any gesture that acknowledged they had spent the best years of their lives and careers together. Some small kindness to reinforce the precarious fable in his head that nothing had changed between them.
He wanted it more than anything. So badly he knew he would never be the same if he didn’t act on it.
He watched Spock leave without another word.
***
“Captain, I’m picking up a distress signal. Four oh four mark six.” Uhura’s announcement snapped everyone on the bridge to attention faster than a splash of ice water.
“Yellow alert, shields up.” The words were a formula to Jim, as simple as breathing. He uncrossed his legs and scooted forward in his chair, his body flooded with nervous energy. Colors sharpened, sounds turned unnaturally crisp, and he felt awake for the first time in days. “Keep going, Lieutenant.”
“Urgent. Assistance requested. Engines and life support failing,” she relayed. “The carrier wave looks like it’s from a passenger cruiser.”
“They are wery close, sir,” Chekov offered from somewhere behind his right shoulder. “Less than two parsecs.”
“Acknowledged, Ensign. Plot a course to intercept, Mr. Sulu. Warp eight.”
“Aye, sir.”
“Tell them we’re on our way, Ms. Uhura.”
“I’ve been trying to hail them, sir. No response,” she said. Jim peered over his shoulder and watched her brow furrow in concentration. “The message is looping. It might be pre-recorded.”
“Mr. Sulu, look for any passenger cruises scheduled for travel in this sector,” he said.
A few tense moments passed as Sulu searched the Federation trip database. “One StarSail class.” His voice turned grim. “There are three cases of these ships failing at random in the past year, sir. Catastrophically so.”
“I’m aware, Lieutenant.” Jim knew the story through his occasional correspondences with Areel, who was heading up the prosecution against StarSail. Poor construction by an unethical shipyard, she told him. Litigation was ongoing, but in the meantime a lot of shady transport ventures were still using the ships with their clients none the wiser.
Jim rubbed his jaw and frowned at the viewscreen as the stars streaked past. He had rushed in blind before during far more threatening situations, but the ones where civilians were involved made him the most uneasy. Every person under his command was well aware they could die in the vacuum - those on the career track almost expected it - but families en route to a grandparent’s planet or weary businessmen headed home had never made that kind of mental commitment.
“Dropping to impulse now,” Sulu said, before Jim could banish some disturbing sentiments from his mind.
The stars compressed to points on the main viewer, and their target materialized out of the gloom. It would have been a sleek-looking vessel if the back half wasn’t blown apart into a twisted, blackened mess, illuminated by showers of sparks. Jim didn’t have to see inside to know what was going on; lights strobing madly, red alert sirens blaring, emergency airlocks slamming shut with people trapped behind them. The agonized groan of metal drowning out all speech, all coherent thought.
“Keptan, scanners are picking up wery high levels of radiation,” Chekov warned. “It looks like the buildup to a warp core breach.”
Jim almost turned toward the science station to request a second opinion, but he stopped himself halfway. Chekov was the science station, he reminded himself for the umpteenth time in the past few weeks. He really didn’t need to see another person in that chair right now. Salt poured into a still-fresh wound, and he floundered for a moment at the sting. “How many life signs, Ensign?”
“Fifteen, sir. A few are faint.”
Just enough people to require three rounds of transport. A little less than a minute’s exposure next to a ticking time bomb. “Lock on, but don’t lower shields yet,” Jim said. He flipped the red alert button, flinching at the wail. “Uhura, alert the transporter techs. We need this done fast or not at all.”
“Yes, sir.”
“In fact, get Mr. Scott down there too.”
“Already there, Captain,” she said, projecting the faintest hint of humor over the bridge. Good old Scotty, always thinking ahead.
“This data, sir,” Chekov’s voice was tentative as he spoke up again. “It… it looks like a core breach is imminent. She could go up at any time.”
Just like that, any small comfort from below decks vanished. The eternal dilemma of a starship captain reared its ugly head and leered at knowingly at Jim. Hundreds of lives versus a dozen or so, and no accurate scale in the universe with which he could measure them. He had been here before, overcome this before, but those memories were strange to him now, like dreams that only made sense for an instant after waking. He studied the wounded ship, his mind as dark and empty as the space that surrounded them.
“Sir, what should we do?” Uhura said.
Half a dozen people watched him, their faces creased and eyes wide with concern like surreal, fearful masks. They were frozen in time, poised mid-action, waiting for his word to break the spell. What was his word?
I don’t know, he thought.
“Get them,” he said.
Sulu dropped shields, and Uhura barked an order through the com, and Jim braced himself for disaster. He fixed his gaze on his chair’s tiny console screen, watching the data feed as the constituent atoms of six people were whisked across empty space to safety. The percentages crawled uphill. Too slow. Everything was happening too slow.
“Shields up,” Sulu said. Except he didn’t get to the second word before a brilliant flash whited out the viewscreen.
Jim was momentarily blinded, even with the screen’s automatic light filters. Then the shockwave hit the shields, and the bridge quaked. Dismayed cries mingled with the low rumble of a ship under tremendous stress. A thin film of dust fell from the ceiling. Jim curled in on himself, screening his eyes behind his arm until the worst of it passed.
The StarSail was gone. In its place were shreds of debris, expanding outward, haloed by the glowing smear of an energy cloud. Jim could see some of the larger pieces swerve at improbable angles as they ricocheted off the Enterprise shields. He wet his lips and swallowed, but his mouth was so dry that both actions were nearly impossible.
He found the com button with one trembling finger. “Report, Mr. Scott,” he said.
A few unbearable seconds before the response came through. //Three casualties, sir. Injured before we got them, I think. The rest are just shaken up.//
Jim clung to the arms of his chair and released the breath he had been holding. “Any damage?”
//Nothing serious. We’re running on backup power, and the shockwave might’ve scrambled the sensors, but-//
“In that case, please report to the bridge. You have the con.” Jim closed the channel and shot up out of his chair. He took his leave, vaguely aware of Uhura’s voice trailing him, asking a question he couldn’t begin to answer: “Where are you going, sir?”
Only within the seclusion of the turbolift did he allow himself to slump against the wall. He kneaded his forehead with both hands for a moment, still blinking away the ghostly afterimage of a ship going nova. All the adrenaline dumped into his system was fading fast, and the persistent, hollow ache behind his ribs felt sharper in its wake.
How long had he hesitated? Five seconds? Ten? Long enough to make a difference?
Any longer, and the Enterprise…
By the time he reached his quarters, his legs were about to give out. He sat down hard on the bed, and the rest of him crumpled without conscious thought. His shirt clung to him, damp with sweat. His heart drummed staccato against his chest. He felt like he had just run a marathon over rocky terrain, chased by some nameless, alien terror.
He didn’t fall asleep so much as toss and turn until his desk console chimed. Probably another interview request, one more member of the media swarm that was gathering around their final missions like flies to a carcass. On the other hand, it could be some angry admiral demanding a report on what the hell just happened, so Jim reluctantly summoned it to his bedside screen.
Both predictions were wrong. He read the opening line twice and was cast into freefall. A message from command that confirmed what he already knew: Spock wasn’t coming back.
***
“Resigned?” McCoy grinned across Jim’s desk. He probably thought it was a prank. Jim passed over the PADD and settled back in his chair, staring at his hands.
Silence ensued for what felt like a very long time.
“Well,” McCoy said, and faltered. His face slowly morphed into a frown. He rubbed the back of his neck with one hand, then tossed the PADD onto the desk and crossed his arms, every action a tight, condensed burst. “All I see here is a load of bureaucratic hogwash. What’s Spock have to say about it?”
“Nothing, apparently.” Jim shrugged.
“No. No, that can’t be right. He’s got to have a reason. A damn good one.” McCoy jabbed the desk with an index finger, as though he could point to the answer embedded in the wood grain. “Spock always has a reason.”
“Maybe.”
“Dammit, man! What’s the matter with you? Your first officer mysteriously calls it quits a month before final docking and all you can say is ‘maybe?’”
“What am I supposed to say, Bones? It won’t make a difference.”
That shut the doctor up for all the wrong reasons. Now he squinted at Jim, an unspoken question in his eyes. Jim lowered his gaze and schooled his face into what he hoped was neutrality. He knew it wasn’t convincing, but he couldn’t play upset under false pretenses without getting too close to the truth.
“You know,” McCoy began awkwardly, “you can always talk to me, Jim. No matter what it’s about. I’m saying this as your friend, not your doctor.”
Jim did a mental double-take, and felt the beginnings of a cold sweat prickle at his forehead. Surely McCoy didn’t know? Then again, Jim had underestimated the man before. He wondered if this was how zoo animals felt, always subject to inspection without their knowledge. “Of course,” he said finally.
Another pregnant pause.
“I don’t care what happened, he’s not getting away that easy.” McCoy seized Jim’s desk console and spun it around in a sudden explosion of movement. He started tapping on the controls, grumbling all the while. “I’ll hound M’Benga for some important Vulcan contacts. I’m not above harassing his folks, either. We’ll figure this out. He’s an ambassador’s son - someone on that godforsaken planet must know what he’s up to.”
“And then what?” Jim muttered wearily.
“I’ll message him, of course! Something nice and confrontational about how humans are the superior species. The hobgoblin never could resist an argument.”
“I think you’re speaking for yourself there, Bones.” An instinctive smile tugged at Jim’s mouth even though it didn’t go further than skin deep.
“It takes two to tango,” McCoy scoffed.
There wasn’t a dignified retort to that, so Jim leaned back and watched the doctor work. For a fleeting moment, the stubborn, aching pressure around his chest eased. If anyone could conjure a miracle, it was Bones.
But not long after the doctor left with a self-satisfied bounce in his step, the mirage that surrounded him dissipated. Jim shouldn’t have let him send all those messages. He shouldn’t have acted so nonchalant in the first place. He promised himself he wouldn’t do this, that he would leave Spock alone and they’d both be better off for it. Struggling only tightened the noose.
Jim paced back and forth for awhile, his throat half-blocked and his head throbbing. He hadn’t fully understood the nature of their relationship until it was too late: unbreakable under pressure, but easily shattered with a single, quick blow. The PADD caught his eye where it rested on the desk.
He snatched it up and threw it at the wall. It bounced off and hit the floor, screen flickering briefly but otherwise undamaged. Jim stared at it for a moment, part stunned and part incredulous. He had hoped for something more satisfying. Shattered glass or warped metal. A mess to clean up. The standards for equipment construction must have gone up since his Academy days.
He picked up the device and turned it over in his hands with infinite care, as if merely handling it would do what a collision with solid duraluminum couldn’t. His eyes started skimming the resignation notice yet again, and he keyed it away only to land on the next official communiqué in his inbox. Nearly two days old, overshadowed by more pressing concerns. He considered it now, and it felt like glimpsing a guiding star through the clouds.
Maybe an admiral’s stripes wouldn’t be such a terrible thing.
< Part 2 (cont.)
A/N: Thanks so much for reading! I hope I didn't break anyone's heart too badly... I swear I didn't set out to write an angstfest! :D