"Are you sure?"
"Yes. Yes, I can make it now."
In more ways than one. I can't believe it. Jen's alive? Not that I'm complaining, but how?
He went back to the
Maury
six hours later, in charge of another team responsible for patching up what was left of the ship. He assumed Jen was somewhere in the forward part of the
Maury
by then, but didn't ask. He'd already grasped how incredibly lucky he'd been. Paul couldn't look anywhere on the
Maury
without being reminded that a lot of other people hadn't been lucky.
Back on the
Michaelson
, Paul staggered to the wardroom for coffee. Commander Sykes wasn't there, but Mike Bristol was on his way out, coffee in each hand.. "Suppo's working nonstop to get anything the
Maury
needs out of our supply stocks," Bristol confided.
"He's going to ruin his reputation if he's not careful," Paul suggested as he slid into a chair.
"Strap yourself in, Paul. Since when does a line officer need a supply officer to tell him that?"
"Sorry." Paul fumbled with the straps and got them fastened just as Captain Hayes entered the wardroom.
Figures
. He tried to unfasten the straps so he could "stand" to attention, but Hayes waved him back.
"Carry on, Paul." Hayes grabbed some coffee himself, hanging for a moment near the dispenser. "You've been doing good work over there."
"Everybody has, sir."
"Yeah. Damn good job." Hayes took a big drink, his face weary. "We're bringing her back, you know."
"Sir?"
"Fleet's already decided. They're sending some tugs to take
Maury
in tow. That's why the damage control teams are concentrating on reinforcing her structure now. The bean counters probably want to just leave the wreck out here, but we'll bring her home." Hayes drained his coffee. "Captain Halis and a skeleton crew will ride the
Maury
back. She insisted. I would've done the same thing in her place. Helluva thing. The rest of the
Maury
's survivors will be brought over here and we'll take them back to Franklin."
Paul nodded, not quite able to absorb all the information.
Hayes' eyes had gone distant. "The chief engineer on the
Maury
and I served together once. We were shipmates on the old
John Glenn
."
"I – I'm sorry, sir."
"We live in a small professional world, Paul. I hope you realize how lucky you are."
"I do, sir."
"Well." Captain Hayes looked at his empty coffee for a moment, then grabbed another. "Still a lot to do today." Paul watched him go, then sighed, unstrapped, and headed for Combat. Like the captain said, there was still a lot to do.
* * *
The
Michaelson
had been designed to have just enough room to carry her crew, with some means of emergency accommodations for a limited number of others in the event of emergency. She hadn't been designed to hold nearly as many extra personnel as were coming from the
Maury
. After using every available space, some of the sailors on the
Michaelson
still had to hot-bunk with survivors from the
Maury
, with two sailors sharing the same bunk, one sleeping while the other stood watch or worked. The only complaint Paul personally heard came from Seaman Fastow. Chief Imari had leaned close to Fastow, her face a devil's mask, and asked if Fastow would be happier if fewer members of the
Maury
's crew had survived so she wouldn't have to be inconvenienced.
"Paul." He looked up at Kris Denaldo's hail. "Got a minute?"
"Is it important?"
"Very."
"Okay."
Kris led the way back to her stateroom, pausing a couple of meters from the hatch. "Old home week, Paul."
"What?"
She gestured. "Jen's in there."
"Jen? I thought they'd keep an engineer onboard the
Maury
."
"They don't need an engineer. It'll all be portable life support systems. Engineering doesn't exist on that ship anymore. And Jen, well, I'm no expert, but she's not doing well."
Paul stared at the hatch. "Shell-shocked?"
"Worse than that, I think. She's lost a lot of friends. Lucky she's still got you. But be careful with her. I can't believe even Iron Jen can shed this kind of thing without being really hurt inside."
"I understand."
"No, I don't think you do. Neither do I. Just do your best."
"Okay." Paul pulled himself slowly to the hatch, hesitated, then knocked on the rim. "Jen?" No answer. He looked inside. Jen was strapped into the seat she'd used when she'd been stationed on the
Michaelson
. Now it was Kris's desk, but Paul doubted Kris had told her that. Jen was staring at nothing, her face almost blank. "Jen?"
She turned her head and looked his way, her eyes coming into focus. "Paul."
"Is it okay if I come in?"
"Uh, sure. Keep the hatch open."
He almost smiled at the reminder. Even in shock, Jen remembered to maintain the Navy's standards for male and female officers together on a ship. "How are you?"
Jen looked back at him as if confused by the question.
"Okay. Really dumb question. I know. I'm . . . so very sorry."
"Thanks." She looked away, staring into the distance again.
"Is there anything I can do?"
She held out her arm. "Hit it."
"What?"
"Hit it."
Frowning, Paul made a fist and rapped her forearm gently. "Okay?"
"No. Harder."
He tried again, with more force. "Was that hard enough?"
"Yes." Jen retracted the arm and rubbed it. "I felt that. I shouldn't feel anything."
"Jen—"
"I should be dead. Along with the others."
"Jen—"
"The only reason I'm alive is because an after power coupling started acting up and Commander Juko, the
Maury
's Chief Eng—" She bit off the word.
Paul watched helplessly.
She knows that Juko's dead, that everything about him now is past tense, but it's going to hurt every time you have to say it, won't it, Jen
?
Jen stared at Paul, her gaze more alive but slightly wild. "The chief engineer told me to check it out. I'd just cleared the aft survival bulkhead when the whole ship shook. The survival bulkhead
bent
. Those're armored, Paul. They're not supposed to bend."
"I know, Jen."
"I bounced off of some stuff, and when my head stopped spinning I realized it was dark except for the self-contained emergency lighting. I could feel a breeze. There were funny dark spots on the survival bulkhead. They were holes. We were decompressing."
"Jen—"
"I got into a suit. A couple of sailors showed up and got suited up as well. We started trying to reseal the survival bulkhead, but it was hopeless. Not enough of us, too many holes. Some other sailors started showing up in their suits, and tried to pop the forward hatch. No go. Frozen solid, probably warped by the blast. Found some more sailors. Not enough suits to go around. Some of the lockers got holed by fragments during the explosion, so the suits in them were torn up. Everybody started to panic. I screamed them into shape and herded them farther aft. We had to go back a ways until we found bulkheads which hadn't been penetrated by fragments. All the way to the end-of-the-world bulkhead. We sealed ourselves in while I tried to figure out what to do. Doctrine says wait for rescue. But we had no comms with anybody. No power. We didn't know how much was left of the ship forward of the explosion." She started trembling.
"Jen, for God's sake, you don't have to—"
"Everybody was looking at me. What do we do Ms. Shen? Can you save us, Ms. Shen? Is anybody coming to rescue us, Ms. Shen? And I had to pretend I knew all the answers, because if I didn't they'd have all panicked and killed themselves doing something crazy. It seemed like forever, in the near dark with just the emergency lights. It started getting colder. The air felt like it was getting stale. Those of us with suits left them open to conserve power and the air recyclers. The rest just stared at us with helpless looks. None of them would ask one of us to give up our suits, but they knew without suits they'd die before long."
Paul couldn't repress a shiver of his own, imagining how it'd been inside that compartment.
Jen's eyes were fixed now on something Paul couldn't see. "I finally decided to go get help. Somehow. We couldn't afford to wait for rescue. We had twelve suits. Twenty two people. I wanted to take Petty Officer Stokes with me. He was the steadiest guy I knew there. But he needed to stay and keep the others from losing it. I took someone else. We went forward, real careful. Kept finding vacuum on the other side of hatches. Every way we went. Finally found an internal air lock still able to function and went through. Real dark. Junk everywhere. Took a long time to get through it, reach an opening." Jen screwed her eyes shut. "
Gone
. Nothing but a huge hole where I'd left everyone else."
Paul said to hell with the regulations against displays of affection between officers and pulled himself down to hug her. "Jen, it's okay now."
"It's
not
okay. Dammit, it's
not
okay. It'll
never
be okay."
"You're right. You're right. I shouldn't have said that."
"All gone." Jen's eyes were open, but unfocused again. "Saw some people out there. Found out they were from the forward section. I guess your ship's teams had just left."
"We had to take the gig back to change out suits and personnel."
"Yeah." She sagged against him. "Why? Can you tell me why, Paul?"
Why what? Why did so many die? Why did you survive? Why this happened at all
? Paul looked down at his hands, wondering what he could say, what answer he could possibly give. "Maybe sometimes there isn't any 'why.'" He didn't realize he'd spoken aloud until Jen answered, her voice wavering up and down with stress.
"That would actually be a bit easier to handle, you know, because it'd mean nobody'd picked and chosen who'd live and who'd die. Nobody else would've died so I could live. That's a comfort, you know?"
"Jen, I thought you'd died. I was sure of it. I . . . I thought . . ."
She finally looked at him, her eyes wide. "I thought I
would
die. I thought about you. I thought about never seeing you again."
"We're . . ."
What's the right word
? "Incredibly lucky, Jen."
"Yeah. Lucky. We were." Her face twisted as she looked away. "A lot of other people weren't. People who had loved ones, too. Chief Calhoun. His wife just had a kid. He couldn't wait to get back." Jen's face convulsed with rage. "Goddammit!" Her fist slammed repeatedly into the nearest locker surface. "God . . . God . . . God . . ." The blows finally stopped as Jen slumped. "Oh, God."
She finally turned herself toward him, collapsing into Paul's arms, her body wracked with sobs. Paul waited to feel the wet of tears on his shoulder, but none came.
Even now you won't cry, Jen
? He thought of what she'd said about Chief Calhoun and closed his own eyes.
The memories you're going to have. The memories you're going to live with for the rest of your life.
Jen's sobs finally stilled. A long moment later, she pushed him away. "I'm sorry."
"For what? After what you've been through?"
"I'm an officer. I have to bear up under pressure."
"Bull. Jen, you did bear up under pressure. You saved at least some of those enlisted with you. Maybe all of them. Twenty-one people probably owe their lives to you. Now you're allowed to relax a little and let it out before it blows
you
up!"
Jen looked away, but her face didn't express disagreement, just an awful weariness. "It'll be a long time."
"Before you can think about it?"
"No. I'm thinking about it now. A long time before I can accept it. Maybe never." She looked back at Paul. "I'm not special, Paul. Why did I live?"
"You're special to me."
"And the universe cares about that?"
He reached out again and pulled her close, murmuring in Jen's ear. "I care about that. And if I can make the universe care, I will. Maybe you lived out of sheer chance. Maybe you lived so you could save those sailors. Maybe you lived because I needed you so very much. You did live. Don't throw away that blessing, Jen. I thought my world had ended."
"Ha." Her voice sounded distant. "You'd have gotten over me in no time. Then you'd have found some sweet little thing who thought you were heaven's gift to the universe."
"I'd much rather have a temperamental lieutenant who doesn't take any crap and who I know is a gift to
me
."
She shoved away far enough to look at him, a ghost of a smile finally touching her lips. "You have very poor judgment, Lieutenant Sinclair." Jen hugged him close again. "But you're a gift, too."
A knock sounded on the hatch, then Kris Denaldo stuck her head inside. "I guess things are going well. Excuse me, but this is still my stateroom, too. Much as I hate to interrupt you two lovebirds, and by the way isn't all this hugging on a ship a violation of assorted regulations, but I need to get ready for the next watch." Her gaze shifted. "Jen! There's new dents in that locker!"
Jen smiled for real this time, though half-heartedly. "Sorry, Kris."
"Sorry! Is that all you can say? Tell it to the executive officer when he inspects this stateroom. I can't leave you alone for five minutes without you getting me into trouble again." Kris pointed at Paul. "As much as I'm sure you'd love to watch me change clothes, I prefer to have all the Y chromosomes on the other side of the hatch."
Paul pulled himself up. "Wondrous beauty though you be, Kris, I only want to see Jen, because my heart belongs to her."
"Oh, really? What about the rest of you? Do those parts belong to anyone?"
Jen pushed Paul toward the hatch. "You're going to make me ill with all your romantic nonsense, Mr. Sinclair. Go do your job for a while and let me rest. As for you, Ms. Denaldo, stop thinking about my boyfriend's parts."
Paul swung out of the hatch, but just before Kris closed it he saw Jen. Her face still drawn with pain, she was nonetheless trying to smile at him, and was silently mouthing the words "I love you."