"Your face looks like someone who hasn't slept in four days." Bea's cool assessment was delivered without judgment, just medical observation. "Which, coincidentally, is exactly how long it's been since you've slept more than three hours."
I set down the datapad with more force than necessary. "Okay. Fine. I'm tired. Happy? But I can't afford to fail tomorrow's evaluation. Er'dox said my assessment results were 'interesting,' which could mean good or could mean I barely passed, and I need to be prepared for whatever tests they throw at me because?—"
"Because you're carrying all of us on your shoulders," Elena cut in from where she was sprawled on her own platform, staring at the ceiling. "We know, Dana. We get it. You're the leader, you're responsible, you're going to single-handedly engineer our salvation. It's exhausting just watching you."
The words stung more than they should have. "Someone has to?—"
"Someone has to, yes. But that someone doesn't have to be you doing everything alone." Elena sat up, and I saw something in her expression I hadn't seen before. Not anger, exactly. Morelike... concern? "You kept us alive on that planet. You got us rescued. You translated the worst news possible without falling apart. You've done enough, Dana. Let the rest of us carry some of the weight."
"What weight? You heard Er'dox. We're being evaluated tomorrow. Assigned to positions based on our skills. Everyone needs to focus on proving their worth."
"And you've already proven yours," Jalina said quietly. "Er'dox practically recruited you on the spot. You saw his face when he was talking about your beacon design. He was fascinated. You're in, Dana. The rest of us are the ones who need to worry."
I looked between the three of them, Jalina with her gentle persistence, Bea with her clinical concern, Elena with her sharp-edged honesty, and my carefully maintained control fractured.
"I don't know how to do this," I admitted. The words felt like pulling shrapnel from a wound. "I don't know how to stop being responsible for keeping everyone alive. That's been my job for three weeks, and I don't know how to turn it off."
"Then don't," Bea said simply. "But maybe expand the definition ofkeeping everyone aliveto include keeping yourself functional. Because you're no use to anyone if you collapse from exhaustion during your evaluation."
She had a point. A frustratingly valid point.
I closed the datapad, set it aside. "Fine. I'll sleep. But if I fail tomorrow because I wasn't prepared?—"
"Then we'll deal with it together," Jalina finished. "Like we've dealt with everything else."
Sleep didn't come easily, despite the exhaustion. The sleeping platform was comfortable, more comfortable than anything we'd had on the burning planet, certainly, but it was also alien and unfamiliar and wrong in ways I couldn't quite articulate. The hum of Mothership's systems was different fromLiberty's engine noise, the air circulation had a different rhythm, even gravity felt slightly off in ways that made my inner ear protest.
I was drifting in that half-awake state where thoughts become strange and disconnected when my datapad chimed.
For a moment, I considered ignoring it. Then engineering curiosity overrode exhaustion, and I checked the notification.
Message from Er'dox. Sent at 0247 hours.
Your assessment results are complete. Ninety-seventh percentile for theoretical knowledge, ninety-second percentile for practical application, ninety-ninth percentile for creative problem-solving. This places you in the top five percent of all engineering evaluations I've administered in four years. Recommend immediate assignment to Engineering, advanced track. We'll discuss specifics at tomorrow's meeting. Rest well.
I read it three times, trying to process what it meant.
Ninety-seventh percentile. Top five percent. Advanced track.
I'd passed. Not just passed, excelled. Proved I was worth keeping, worth training, worth the resources they'd spend on me.
Relief crashed over me with such force I actually had to close my eyes and breathe through it. We had leverage now. Not much, but something. I could negotiate for my people from a position of at least marginal strength.
The message had one more line at the bottom:P.S. - Stop studying and sleep. That's a professional recommendation from your probable future supervisor.
I almost laughed. Almost. Instead, I set the datapad aside and actually let myself relax into the sleeping platform.
Tomorrow would be complicated. Tomorrow would be negotiations and assignments and figuring out how to integrate sixteen humans into an alien civilization. Tomorrow would be the beginning of whatever came next.
But tonight, I could rest.
Just for a few hours.
The alarm I'd set woke me at 0700, which gave me one hour to prepare for the meeting with Captain Tor'van. I felt better, not good, but functional, which was close enough.
The quarters were already stirring. Bea was in the facilities area, Jalina was reviewing something on her datapad, Elena was doing push-ups in the corner with single-minded intensity. The others were emerging from their sleeping platforms, moving through morning routines that were trying very hard to feel normal.
"Big day," Jalina said when she saw me awake.
