inspiring role model for girls around the world, but honestly, there were holes in that woman’s brain. Pieces that had been left behind six years before in Fornina Sirius, where thousands of people had died and the survivors took three months to crawl home and then never talked about it except in Service-polished platitudes. Jackson was incapable of sympathy, for example. If Talia said, I think we need to work around Anders’s psychological fragility, Jackson would nod and ask her to explain, but inside she would be clutching at the table and dry-heaving, because they were soldiers on a warship and if you didn’t like it, you could step out the fucking door and wait for them to swing by on the way back.
A roleplay that might have been useful to Talia, back at Camp Zero:
Good morning, Captain Jackson! I’ve been thinking that rather than follow the exact same routine for every day of our four-year tour, perhaps we could mix things up by—
Stop right there, Life. Do you think this is a game?
No, Captain.
Does this look like a vacation to you?
No, Captain.
Do you think the salamanders swap around their attack formations for fun every once in a while? Do you think they like to “mix things up”?
I just mean that repeating the same actions over and over can become psychologically numbing for—
Hold up, Life. Do you think I’m about to reverse my position based on something you just said?
Well—
Do you think I got where I am by admitting fault? Let me educate you, Life Officer Beanfield: I did it by sticking to my opinions in the face of prevailing counterevidence. I stopped evolving as a human being six years ago, Lieutenant. I found that I quite liked it when people called me a war hero and decided it meant I didn’t need to change a goddamn thing thereafter. Allow me to ask you a question, Life: Have you seen close combat? Because I was in the general vicinity when some other people did and to my way of thinking that makes me an authority. Do you see this sidearm I’m wearing?
Yes, I was wondering why you needed—
Do you think I understand it’s purely ceremonial? Because I don’t. I sleep with it underneath my pillow. All I am is symbols and talismans and empty heroism, Life, and let me ask you: Do you really believe I’m capable of hearing other people’s ideas as anything other than a personal attack?
Noooooo.
Talia shrugged and said, “Call it a Beanfield thing. I like to touch. I’m a hugger.”
Jackson’s eyebrows rose. “Do you want a hug?”
“Nah,” Talia said. “Get out of here.”
Jackson smirked. They moved on to other business.
When they concluded, with nothing actually concluded, Talia climbed down to her deck, sat on her bed, and turned off ping. Then she sobbed for a while. That was a good thing, by the way. No one should get the wrong idea. When you were this far from home, you had to cry every now and again. She hid it, of course, because, not a good look, your Life Officer in tears. The others might fail to realize it was an outlet, not a breakdown. That she was simply acknowledging the reality that what she was doing out here was incredibly lonely and left you vulnerable to the most surprising things, like Jackson offering a hug. Because goddamn. She would actually love that.
She cried and then was done. She wiped her face and checked herself in the mirror. Not ideal. The truth was written plainly on her face; it would be apparent to a close observer. But there weren’t any of those on the ship. Once Gilly had surprised her when they crossed paths on the way to an engagement, her face literally red, wet, her eyes bloodshot, and Gilly’s eyebrows had shot up, and she had panted and said, “I just smashed the elliptical,” and he relaxed and nodded like: Oh, right, of course.
She set down the cloth. Enough. A planet relied on her. She was here to do a job. She hit the tactile panel and went to do it.
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