I laughed, slightly hysterical. "I'll still visit. Promise."
"See that you do. Now go sleep. You look like you've been awake for thirty hours."
I headed to the human quarters—the cramped space I still shared with Bea and Elena since Dana had moved in with Er'dox after their bonding. The door hissed open to reveal both of them curled up on the sleeping platforms, Bea reading something on a datapad and Elena tinkering with a small device that sparked occasionally.
"You're alive," Elena said without looking up from her work. "Bea bet you'd gotten lost in the ventilation system again."
"I did that one time," I protested.
"Twice," Bea corrected, not lifting her eyes from her reading. "And technically you weren't lost the second time, just accidentally locked in maintenance access."
I collapsed onto my sleeping platform, exhaustion hitting like a physical force. My hands were still shaking slightly, adrenaline crash from three hours of intense creative work and the terror of being challenged and the impossible reality of being told I was co-lead architect on the most important project on Mothership.
"I got reassigned," I said to the ceiling. "To Operations. Working directly with Zor'go on the expansion project."
Elena's device stopped sparking. Bea lowered her datapad. Both of them stared at me.
"The Zor'go?" Elena asked. "Head of Operations Zor'go? The one who made Rix'el cry last month for submitting 'inadequate traffic flow analyses'?"
"That's, yes. That Zor'go."
"And you're going to work with him?" Bea's tone suggested I'd volunteered for experimental surgery without anesthetic. "Voluntarily?"
"He said I was co-lead architect."
Silence. Then Elena whistled low. "Damn, girl. You must have impressed the hell out of him. Zor'go doesn't promote people. He barely tolerates people. Er'dox says the only reason Zor'go hasn't been thrown out an airlock is because he's brilliant enough that Captain Tor'van overlooks his complete lack of social skills."
I thought about those three hours in his office. The way Zor'go had listened to my criticisms without defensiveness, adapted his designs to incorporate my insights, taught me technical specifications with focused patience. That hadn't felt like someone lacking social skills. It felt like someone who valued competence over charm.
"He's not that bad," I said.
Both of them exchanged looks.
"Oh no," Elena said. "You like him."
"I don't, it's not, it's purely professional."
"You're blushing."
I was. Heat flooded my face, making my denial completely pointless. "He's eight and a half feet tall and made of crystalline blue markings and sharp angles. I don't like him. I respect his architectural vision."
"That's what Dana said about Er'dox three months before they bonded," Bea observed dryly.
I grabbed a pillow and threw it at her. She caught it without looking up from her datapad.
"I'm going to sleep," I announced. "For at least six hours. And then I'm going to prepare for tomorrow because I have to report at 0600 and pretend I know what I'm doing when I co-lead an expansion project for sixteen thousand beings."
"Good luck with that," Elena said, already back to tinkering with her sparking device. "And Jalina?"
"What?"
She grinned. "Welcome to the land of gainful employment. Try not to let the hot architect work you to death."
I threw another pillow at her, but I was smiling.
Sleep didn't come easily. My mind kept replaying the session in Zor'go's office, his voice explaining technical specifications, his long fingers moving through holographic displays, the way his ice-blue eyes had held mine when he said I'd shown him something he couldn't see alone.
I thought about sixteen thousand beings arriving in four months. Twelve different species, all displaced, all traumatized, all needing shelter that felt like home instead of storage.
