We'd survived another day.
I drifted off when my datapad chimed with a message notification. I almost ignored it, but something made me check.
Er'dox: "You did well today. Your instincts were correct about the variance. I've assigned you additional monitoring subsections. Don't let it go to your head."
I smiled in the darkness.
Then a second message appeared: "Also, thank you. For finding the survivor. It mattered."
I stared at the words, feeling something warm and dangerous uncurl in my chest.
This was going to be complicated.
7
Er'dox
Two weeks into my assignment the coolant regulation variance should have been impossible to detect without specialized diagnostic equipment.
I stared at Dana's analysis for the third time in as many minutes, cross-referencing her data against my own monitoring systems. She'd caught the problem two hours before my automated alerts would have flagged it, identified the root cause with precision that suggested intuition as much as training, and recommended a solution that was actually more efficient than the standard protocol.
With equipment she'd been using for exactly two weeks.
"Problem, Chief?" Krev asked from his station, not looking up from his own work.
"No problem. Just reviewing Dana's performance metrics."
"Still exceptional?"
"Still exceptional."
Krev made a sound that might have been amusement. "You sound surprised. She scored in the ninety-seventh percentile on your assessment."
"Assessment scores don't always translate to practical application. Plenty of beings test well and fail under real conditions." I saved Dana's analysis to her performance file, watching her metrics populate. "She's not failing."
"Clearly. Which bothers you because...?"
Because it complicated things. Because having an exceptional engineer working under my direct supervision meant I'd spend significantly more time training her, mentoring her, watching her work with that intense focus she brought to everything. Because Dana was brilliant and determined and completely unfamiliar with Zandovian professional boundaries, which meant navigating her presence in my department required constant recalibration.
"It doesn't bother me," I said instead. "It's just unexpected."
"Unexpected," Krev repeated, his tone suggesting he didn't believe me. "Right. That's definitely the word I'd use to describe how you've been obsessively checking her station every twelve minutes for the past two weeks."
"I check all new engineers' work. It's standard supervision."
"You check her work more than you check anyone else's work, including mine when I first started, and I'm your second-in-command."
I didn't have a good response to that, which meant Krev was probably right. I'd been monitoring Dana's performance more closely than strictly necessary, justifying it as appropriate oversight for someone working with foreign technology. But the truth was more complicated.
She fascinated me. Not just her engineering skills, though those were impressive, but the way she approached problems, the creative solutions she found, the stubborn determination that kept her going even when clearly exhausted. She'd integrated into my department faster than any engineer I'd supervised, absorbed information at a pace that should havebeen impossible, and somehow made herself essential in fourteen days.
And she was still working to prove herself, still pushing harder than necessary, still treating every shift like an evaluation she might fail.
The comm chimed. Dana's voice, slightly breathless: "Er'dox. Got another variance alert, subsection twelve. This one's weird with a power fluctuation without corresponding load change. Running diagnostics now but wanted to flag it early."
I pulled up her data, saw immediately what she meant. The variance pattern was unusual, suggesting something beyond standard equipment failure.
"Hold your diagnostics. I'm coming to your station."
