They Called Me Defective, Until I Tamed the Interstellar Commander novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Article Nine

The Admiral tries to void the assignment, the Commander quotes the law, and Vesper refuses to give him up. On the shuttle his readout is flat, and neither of them has let go.

I stood there with my fingers on his knuckles while the Hall tried to decide what it had just seen.

Three hundred screens showed the same picture.

Somebody in the back row laughed once and stopped, as if the sound had embarrassed them.

The silence lasted until a white coat came down the center aisle.

Admiral Maltravers was a tall man with iron-grey hair, and the crowd opened for him.

He was the head of the Fleet's Anchor Office, and he had given the opening speech that morning.

"Miss Hargreave," he said, and he smiled at me kindly. "This has been a shock for you. Let me take you somewhere quiet."

"Thank you, Admiral," I said. "I'd rather not."

"I'm voiding the assignment," he said, still gently. "For your own safety. A woman of your score should not be left alone with an unstable commander."

"Under which article?" said Commander Roark.

He said it politely and without a flicker, and the Admiral's smile stopped for a second.

"Article nine," the commander said. "A lottery assignment can be voided by the citizen, not by the Office. I checked."

The registrar bent over her sheet.

"That's correct, Admiral," she said in a small voice. "Only the citizen."

Everyone looked at me.

I had my hand on a stranger's hand in front of every colony, and I understood there was no easy way back from it.

"I don't void it," I said.

Maltravers looked at me for a long moment.

"Then the assignment stands," he said. "I wish you luck, Miss Hargreave. Genuinely."

The commander took his hand out from under mine, and my palm felt cold.

"Walk with me," he said. "Stay on my left."

"Why the left?"

"Because the cameras are on my right."

It was the only kind thing anyone had said to me all day, and he said it flatly, as an order.

We left through the side doors.

Behind us the laughing had started again, but it sounded thinner.

In the corridor a man in a Ninth Wing coat fell into step beside us.

He had tousled brown hair and a lopsided grin, and his collar was open.

"Dax Orrin, second-in-command," he said, shaking my hand before I could offer it. "You're braver than the last six, and you're better dressed than the last two."

"I'm in a test gown," I said.

"It's a good gown."

"Dax," said the commander.

"I'm just saying she's already lasted longer than the nine-day record."

"Nine days," I said.

"The longest anyone stayed. They all asked for a transfer before the first session ended." Dax's grin did not change. "They were very high scores, too. Ask him why."

I looked at the commander.

He looked straight ahead.

"I don't discuss it," he said.

We got to the Fleet dock, and it was crowded with people who had come to watch me board.

Several of them were holding up their handsets.

"Vesper!"

My sister came pushing through the crowd with a travel bag in her arms.

She had changed out of her gown into a plain grey coat.

Her eyes were red.

"I packed for you," Odette said. "Your good boots, your mother's necklace, the warm blanket. I didn't know if they'd let you go back to the apartment."

I took the bag.

I should have thrown it at her.

But the cameras were close, and the bag was heavy with my own things, and she was crying.

"Thank you," I said.

She hugged me hard.

Into my ear she said, "Be careful with him, Vesper. He isn't what he looks like."

Then she let go and wiped her face, and Slade was behind her with one hand on her shoulder.

He did not say anything to me.

He only looked at the commander's hand, and then at mine.

We boarded the shuttle.

It was a small grey craft with six seats, and the commander took the farthest one from me.

He sat with his fists on his knees and did not speak.

Dax flew.

The Station dropped away behind us.

"Be honest with me," I said, to the back of the commander's head. "What happens at the first session?"

"Tonight," Dax said over his shoulder. "In the quiet room. You put your wrist against his and you sit there until his implant stops screaming."

"And the eleven?"

"The implant screamed louder."

"Dax."

"I'm only answering what she asks, Cas."

The commander said nothing.

I watched the stars slide past the window, and I did not cry, because I had not cried in the Hall and I was not going to start in front of strangers.

After a while Dax said, quietly, "Commander. Your readout."

"I see it."

"It's flat. It has been flat since the Hall."

"I see it, Dax."

Dax's eyes flicked to me in the mirror.

I looked down.

My left hand was still stretched across the aisle between our seats, lying on the commander's sleeve.

I had not noticed.

I looked up, and he was looking at it too.

He had not moved his arm away either.

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