Chapter 13
They sent for me at 1430.
I was folding the extra blanket they'd given me in the berthing area when the messenger found me. He didn't look at my uniform. He just said the XO wanted to see me in the admin office, and that I should bring nothing with me. I left the blanket on the bunk. My hair was still damp and pulled back. The pin on my chest had been straightened for me that morning and I hadn't touched it since.
The passageway to the admin office smelled like coffee and wet paint. The ship was still rolling, but less now. I could hear the pipes behind the bulkhead ticking as they cooled. I kept my hands at my sides so I wouldn't fidget with my collar.
He was standing when I entered. Not behind the desk, but beside it, one hand resting on the back of his chair. The door clicked shut behind me. He didn't tell me to sit.
"I heard about the packet," he said. His voice was even. Not angry. Practiced. "Shore liaison. Formal request. That's a big step."
I didn't answer right away. I looked at the desk. There was a green logbook open to today's date, a black pen clipped to its spine, and a single sheet of paper turned face-down.
He followed my eyes. "We can still keep this inside the lifelines," he said. "That's what I'm offering."
That was the second scene, though I didn't know it then. He moved to the other side of the desk and turned the paper over. It was a draft entry. I could read his handwriting even upside down. Amend prior entry: misunderstanding near dome/railing, no misconduct observed. Training emphasis to follow.
"If you withdraw the request, I amend the log," he said. "We call it a misunderstanding. You were cold, you were shaken, you went over near the rope to secure something and it looked bad from the rail. No one's career ends. No board of inquiry. You go back to duty tomorrow. Shore never needs to open a case file that will follow you for ten years."
He slid the paper a little closer to my side of the desk. The pen caught the fluorescent light.
"This stays between us and the captain," he said. "Private fix. Clean. You know how shore is. Once you send that packet, you don't control what they do with it. They'll interview everyone. They'll pull your record, your evals, your medical. They'll decide what happened without you in the room."
I felt my jaw tighten. I made myself breathe.
That was what I remembered most from the water — trying to control my breathing. On deck that morning I had been breathing fast without realizing it, mouth slightly open, eyes wide, because I'd seen what happened by the railing near the dome and I hadn't understood it fast enough. Underwater, holding that thick twisted rope with my right hand, I had forced myself to slow it down. In the office, I did the same thing.
I inhaled through my nose. One, two. I felt the air catch a little in my chest. I let it out slow. My hands were still at my sides. I didn't pick up the pen.
He watched my face the way I had watched his earlier — for the small movements. I knew my eyes moved before I spoke. They always did. I looked at the logbook, then at the door, then back to him.
"You want me to say I misunderstood what I saw," I said. My voice was quieter than I meant it to be. I paused. "And what I felt."
"It doesn't matter what you call it," he said. "The result matters. You get to stay. We keep the ship out of the news. Everyone learns something and we move on."
I stared at the draft entry. The word misunderstanding was underlined. I thought about the rope. It hadn't been there for escaping. It was rigged, thick and vertical against the hull, coarse under my palm even through the blur of seawater. Someone had put it there for a reason that had nothing to do with me, and someone had needed the story to be that I was trying to escape.
If I signed, that reason would stay hidden. The log would say misunderstanding and the rope would never be explained. Shore would never look. The voice from that morning — "She was trying to escape" — would become the official truth because I had agreed to it in private.
I breathed in again. I felt the collar of my uniform against my neck, the white insignia stiff against the skin.
"No," I said. It came out as one short sentence, barely louder than the pipes. I cleared my throat. "I can't take a private fix for something that needs a public truth."
His hand tightened on the chair. He didn't raise his voice. "Think about what you're refusing."
"I have," I said.
He looked at me for a long second, then exhaled and reached for the phone on the desk. He didn't dial. He just rested his hand on it.
"Shore liaison calls at 1500," he said. "That's four minutes. When that door opens, this offer goes away. The packet goes up the chain as written. You understand that?"
I nodded. My chest was tight, but my breathing had steadied. I kept my eyes on his, not on the paper.
May you like
Behind me, the hallway outside the office filled with footsteps. Someone stopped right outside the door. I could see the shadow under the crack. A knuckle hovered, about to knock.
We both looked at the door and waited for it to open.
