The heat bleeding off from the nape of his neck brought Shea back to a semblance of clarity. Shea had known the girl was putting on an act, but he didn't expect her to own up to it and play things straight. He almost gained a small glimmer of respect for her with that. Almost.
Now she sat there, almost the model image of a Nordic diplomat. But he could tell by the small little slips that she was in some part the cocky, naive, young sergeant she pretended to be. In truth, he actually found himself glad at that. The so-called military industrial complex of the pre-expansion era during the twenty-first century had only grown to become more like a military industrial empire in the following centuries. He had seen too many young faces show a weariness beyond their years, caught up in wars with hopes of a big paycheck, or grand adventures in the stars. He had nearly been one of them, all that time ago.
The set of her shoulders was just a little too far back, and she sat just a little too straight, resulting in just the smallest occasional twitch or tremor, as if she'd been holding a plank and was just starting to strain. The tendons in her neck stood out just a bit more than would seem relaxed. Most looking at her would never notice, but Shea could see the faint mix of youth, inexperienced, and too eager to meet expectations to the point they risked falling short. He could remember times in his youth that he had looked exactly the same.
Honestly, take away the long blonde hair and military uniform, and he could almost see himself sitting in front of the research committee back when he got his first PhD. The other TA's in the department had all made him sit and watch the video recording back, subjecting him to relive the most stressful ninety minutes of his life up until that point all while they laughed raucously behind him and kept a running commentary.
It was probably that memory flashing back to him more than anything else that cooled him down, a blessing if he was honestly hoping to not get dressed down by Hannibal again. But despite that, that old, bitter kernel of distrust for the INC and career mercenaries like them kept reminding him it was there, flickering away like the embers of a fire that refused to die after a rainstorm. There was far more that put him off to the sergeant and their like after all.
The tension slowly ebbed between them as they sat there staring at each other for a time, the weight of their collective responsibilities heavy in the air. Doctor Kimura straightened himself back up in his chair as well, the tightness standing out from his jaw and neck making it clear how hard he was having to work to compose himself.
"I can accept that, Sergeant. Regardless of my opinions on the INC, you have done well by your station and yourself. I mean that sincerely." The truth of that statement was clear in the tone of his voice, and he nearly let out a small chuckle when he saw the tiny twitch of surprise that showed on her face as his comment caught her off-guard.
They talked for a while longer, and although it was primarily small talk, Freyja could tell that the doctor was testing her. He prodded her with different questions and statements, slipped into their supposedly innocuous conversation. The most interesting part by far though was that as the conversation went on, Freyja started to suspect that he was intentionally not pushing too hard. It almost felt familiar in a way. She thought back to her earliest days training and how her drill instructor would push her just enough to see how she could handle herself, but never enough to actually do harm. It almost felt like she was sitting across from an estranged father figure more than a complete stranger.
Once she caught on to this, she let herself ease just a little, and let her eyes wander around the room. The more she did, the more Freyja became concerned for the doctor himself than she was for the success of the joint operation. Maybe there was some sense to her being tasked to observe him closely after all.
Doctor Kimura's hair hung limply to his shoulders, with a dent just noticeable below his ear, as if it had been put up some time ago, and it had been long enough since its last wash that the crease of whatever tied it just stayed there ever since. His eyes, while clearly intelligent and attentive, had dark circles around them, more than would be common on a man of six decades. They were the circles and creases of someone who never allowed themselves enough sleep and spent that time instead pushing themselves even further towards some impeding edge. It was hard to imagine how they remained standing after all this time, with the closest date she could see being ten years old, and half of them being at least twenty.
She wanted to think all this was from alcoholism, and it wouldn't be hard to do so. Filling the three different trash bins that she could see from her vantage, there were enough bottles of hard liquor to start spilling precariously out the top, and the stained glass tumbler on his desk sat on a coaster so well used and marked with rings that she wouldn't have known what colour it was if the sides weren't visible.
But she couldn't mark him as an alcoholic, there were just too many things that she had read in the paperwork on him and learned through their interaction today that contradicted that. One of those things, especially particular to all the empty liquor bottles, were the small shards of glass that she spied, nearly hidden completely in a corner by the piles of paper and covered liberally in dust, as if they had been missed long ago when the rest of it's siblings had been cleaned up.
Possibly more than either of those things combined however were those very stacks of papers. The stacks littered around the room began to stand out more as well. By all measures she could see, they were probably organized, with each stack containing bindings with matching tags, folder colours, and so on, but aside from that, the entire place was a mess. They weren't just unfiled, the books, binders, papers, and reports were swallowing the room! The idea that anyone would get work done in here was astounding, let alone productive work. But her due diligence had told her that he regularly worked down in this office, just as much as he did in his "public" office in the upper floors closer to the CIC.
As her eyes made their way back to the table, she caught something that she hadn't seen before, with her attention focused on the doctor until now. A small wooden frame worn down with age stood on the desk, blending well into the object surrounding it. From its steep angle away perpendicular to her, she could only barely make out what seemed to be the portrait of a young woman, with long flowing black hair. She reached out absent-mindedly to turn the frame towards her for a better look. But just as she was about to touch the frame, the doctor snatched it away from its resting place and slid it into a drawer out of sight.
"I think it's time you made your reports, Sergeant." He said coldly. He held her eyes as his hand still rested on the drawer's handle, and the embers deep behind his green eyes kindled coldly with a brighter fervour than from his first outburst. His voice had gone ice cold, cold enough to send a shiver down her spine.
Freyja pushed her chair back cleanly and stood up, dipping a head to the doctor in a bow before turning to leave. As she passed through the open door, his voice followed after her.
"When you make your report, tell the old man I said 'hi'. If he doesn't want to get caught keeping tabs on me, he is going to have to try a lot harder."
Shea caught the sergeant freeze for the briefest moment as she stepped through the doorway. The dull echoing thunk followed behind her as the sounds of her brisk footsteps faded away down the corridor, probably on her way directly back to the Hlidskjalf to make that report. Once the corridor went quiet, he thought to himself about the encounter as he let out a tense breath. It felt like it had been building up inside him for an hour now. That had probably been his worst attempt at diplomacy in years, and he could already hear Hannibal's reprimand as he took it out of his hide any minute now. He gave it maybe ten minutes till his slate rang with a call from the admiral.
He had not expected any part of that encounter. There were a lot of young kids who had spent most or all of their young lives on these ships, but none of the once's he'd yet met had been raised in a military environment and the difference showed. She was basically a kid, but for some reason he couldn't shake the feeling there was something else going on. He wasn't sure exactly what it was, but he had the beginnings of a hunch. There was something behind her eyes that he just couldn't trust yet, and it was more than just the crest on her shoulder.
***
Pulling the photo frame out of the drawer, he cleaned the fingerprints from the glass with a clean cloth. “Sorry for that, I know you hate smudges. Damn crows… I know, I know I shouldn't have lost it there. You'd think after all these years I'd be able to keep my head on better around his people, eh? Can't have them catching on, now can we?”
He took care to place her picture back on his desk just right, in its customary spot. Then, sighing and pulling a half-empty bottle from the bottom drawer, he turned to the screen on the wall and hit play once again.
[ "October Twenty-Five ..." ]
// originally published May 29, 2022