"She'll hate me for it," I agreed. "But better she hates me and gets help than continues destroying herself with my complicit silence."
"And if she reports you for overstepping?" Zor'go asked carefully.
"Then I'll face those consequences. But I won't stand by and watch someone suffer when I have the training and authority to intervene." I looked at each of them. "You all took that riskwith your humans. Pushed when pushing was uncomfortable. Cared when caring was complicated."
"True," Er'dox admitted. "Dana nearly killed me when I forced her to rest after the sabotage incident. Called me controlling, overprotective, and several Earth insults I had to look up."
"But she forgave you," I observed.
"Eventually. After she admitted I was right." Er'dox's expression softened. "And after she realized I wasn't trying to control her. I was trying to care for her."
"That's the challenge," Zor'go said. "Making them see the difference. Humans are independent. Stubborn. They interpret care as condescension sometimes."
"Especially," Vaxon added, "when they've spent their lives proving their competence. Elena fights me on safety protocols because she thinks I doubt her skills. Doesn't understand I trust her abilities completely. I just don't trust the universe not to kill her."
I understood that perfectly. Bea was capable. Brilliant. Skilled beyond measure. But capability didn't make someone invulnerable. And brilliance didn't heal trauma.
"I'll proceed carefully," I said. "Document everything. Maintain professional protocols where possible. But I won't watch her burn out."
"Good." Er'dox reached across the table, clasped my forearm in the traditional Zandovian gesture of support. "And if you need backup, someone to confirm you're not insane for caring about your subordinate's wellbeing, call any of us."
Zor'go and Vaxon both nodded agreement.
The weight in my chest eased slightly. Not gone, wouldn't be gone until Bea was healing—but lighter for having allies who understood the complexity.
We finished the meal discussing safer topics. Zor'go's expansion project. Dana's communication buoy research. Elena's latest near-electrocution. The comfortable rhythm of males who'd found their purpose in caring for beings who challenged them.
But my mind stayed on Bea. On gray-blue eyes that held too much pain. On competent hands that trembled with exhaustion. On a brilliant physician who treated everyone except herself.
After the meal, I returned to my office in the medical wing. The space was organized with careful precision with medical texts on crystalline shelves, holographic displays showing current patient vitals, a desk cluttered with research notes and treatment protocols. The viewport showed stars streaming past as Mothership traveled through space at speeds that would have seemed impossible to beings from less advanced species.
I pulled up Bea's personnel file again. Not the medical data, I'd reviewed that exhaustively. The personal information. The details that made her a being, not just a physician.
Bea Santos. Age thirty-four Earth years. Born in a place called California. Medical degree from a prestigious Earth institution. Twelve years practicing trauma surgery before joining the Liberty expedition. No surviving family on Earth, parents deceased, no siblings, no romantic partner.
She'd left nothing behind except a career she was running from.
The file included a single personal item recovered from the Liberty crash: a photograph. I expanded the image. Bea standing with three other humans, all wearing medical scrubs, all smiling. Her colleagues from her Earth hospital, presumably. The Bea in the photograph looked different, softer, unguarded, the smile reaching her eyes.
When had I last seen her smile like that?
Never. Not in two months of working together.
I closed the file and stood, moving to the viewport. Mothership hummed around me, a living city flying through space. Somewhere on this ship, Bea was probably still in the medical bay, reviewing patient charts or studying xenobiology texts or finding any excuse not to rest.
Tomorrow, I'd begin the intervention. Start enforcing mandatory breaks. Schedule her counseling sessions. Document the medical necessity of every action so she couldn't accuse me of overstepping without cause.
She would resist. Would argue, deflect, possibly hate me.
But I'd watched too many beings destroy themselves through avoidance. Had walked that path myself. And I couldn't, wouldn't let Bea follow it to its inevitable conclusion.
Even if helping her meant she'd never look at me with anything except resentment.
Even if the complicated feelings growing in my chest remained forever unacknowledged.
My comm chimed. Emergency alert from the medical bay.
I was moving before conscious thought caught up, years of training taking over. Grabbed my medical kit, activated my neural implant to access the bay's monitoring systems.
