They Called Me Defective, Until I Tamed the Interstellar Commander novel · Chapter 10 of 24

Chapter 10: Off the Scale

"It runs off the page," I said.

"I noticed," said Dax.

We were standing in the empty aft corridor with the sheet between us.

He lowered his voice.

"The Station's scale starts at ten. Anything below it prints as zero, because nobody ever imagined a signal that small could matter."

"And mine is below that."

"Yours is a lot below it. I asked the ship's engineer to tell me what the number would be if the scale went further down."

"What did she say?"

"She said she didn't know, because nobody's ever been measured down there." He rubbed the back of his neck. "But she said it works backward, Vesper. A bright signal, like your sister's ninety-four, is a loud hum. It's good for a normal commander, but a Surge is a storm. A hum can't be heard in a storm."

"So what can?"

"The quiet," Dax said. "Something so still the storm has nothing to hit."

I looked at the line again.

"I'm not defective," I said slowly.

"You're the only anchor in the Fleet who works on a Surge at its worst."

My hands had gone cold.

I thought of every year I had spent being told I was too quiet.

My stepmother had said it at the dinner table.

Slade had said it in bed, laughing, when I could not think of anything to say.

I thought of a hall full of people laughing at the number.

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