“Sir,” Katie responded. This seemed excessive.
The Commander stood and taking one of her elbows in hand guided her to the door. Opening the door, he spoke to the MPs there. “Miss Kincaid is free to go now.”
The MPs looked at her blankly.
They seemed disappointed they weren’t getting to haul her off to jail.
* * *
Commander Yuri Tretyak liked to do his job and let the chips fall where they might.
He’d found that worked in the long term. Up to now. Now he wasn’t so sure.
The Commander was sitting in his office alone. He’d dismissed Kincaid and canceled all the rest of his appointments for the day. Yuri Tretyak was in no mood to deal with anyone. Yuri needed time to fume and get the anger out of his system. The rules he’d so trusted had failed him. They’d proved inadequate.
The rules on endorsing Academy candidates were quite explicit. There were no rules. There wasn’t even any guidance. The matter was one in which district commanding officers were expected to use their own personal judgment.
The results of that had left the Commander heartsick and angry.
It’d wasn’t that he had any doubts about what his gut told him about the Kincaid girl. It wasn’t that his judgment disagreed with his gut. No, they agreed. The girl was a superior candidate if too young yet to be ideal. Kincaid was also a disastrously poor fit for the Space Force, at least as it currently was.
It was a circle that had refused to be squared.
Yuri had hoped by setting the girl a series of tests designed to highlight her weaknesses that she’d come to see the problem herself and withdraw her candidacy voluntarily. If not her failing them would have justified his refusing her his endorsement.
If she’d succeeded at them proving him wrong, well, he could have lived with that too. He’d have admitted he’d misjudged her and given her the endorsement she wanted.
Only somehow, Katie Kincaid, bless her soul, had managed to find a third way every time.
Katie Kincaid had created a situation where he had no rules and no routines to guide him. She was calling his very understanding of the way the world was into question. Yuri didn’t appreciate it.
In fact, to be honest with himself he was not reacting well at all. Yuri was angry. He’d been angrier. Yuri had acted in haste out of that anger.
And now he’d boxed himself in and left himself with no good choices.
It would have offended the crew of the Sand Piper even further, and he’d not seen the need for it, but after they’d failed to find contraband where Kincaid had said she’d seen it he should have shut the Sand Piper down, sealed off access to her, and searched the little ship from top to bottom. Draconian, but it would have been the only way of being absolutely sure there was no substance to the Kincaid girl’s accusations.
Furthermore, he should have taken the ship’s logs all into custody, especially the message ones, and gone over them with a fine-toothed comb.
Yuri hadn’t and now it was too late.
Yuri hadn’t lied to the girl. He’d tried to play it straight all along. He really did think the most plausible explanation for the repeated messes she found herself in was that she created them out of some deep unconscious psychological need. A need created by the de facto child neglect of her irresponsible self absorbed parents.
It was speculation. Yuri couldn’t know that. He wasn’t a mind reader or a psychologist. Like he’d told Kincaid herself, people tended to believe what they wanted to. It wasn’t an explanation he liked, but it was the least uncomfortable one he could think of. Not an argument in its favor.
One thing he had learned about Kincaid from direct observation was that she was an uncompromising idealist. It took one to recognize one. He couldn’t believe that she was a con-artist who’d deliberately created the embarrassing outcomes to the tasks he’d given her. Logically that ought to be on the table, but in reality he couldn’t see it being so.
Yuri had long ago decided people were in the main good and well intentioned, barring a few bad apples. Not perfect, mind you. Everyone has flaws and limitations, and there was such a thing as plain bad luck. But in the main good, and in the main, they managed to muddle through okay. The same with the system, or rather systems. People were better off working together. Doing so in more than small groups wasn’t natural, but it paid off and so over time people had worked out systems for it. The systems weren’t perfect, and sometimes not fair, but overall everyone was better off for them.
And so Yuri Tretyak worked hard at working within the system despite its imperfections and his own deep desire not to compromise and always do the best.
Katie Kincaid on the other hand barely seemed aware that there were systems. The idea that she needed to respect them was apparently not one that had yet occurred to her. If she hadn’t managed to pull Yuri’s world down around his ears, he might have even found her Mr. Magoo levels of obliviousness amusing.
Katie Kindcaid had proved that she was bright and disciplined with Miss Ping. The attempt on her life on the processing line was a red flag. As was her accusation of smuggling by the Sand Piper’s crew. They could be explained away. Yuri had outlined how to her himself. People will believe what they want to and accept elaborate rationalizations to allow it when necessary.
On reflection, he didn’t believe it. The girl was smart and capable, but only fifteen years old with only limited experience outside of her family’s ship for all that. He didn’t think she had it in her to fake the accident. On reflection too, it didn’t seem credible she’d have made the smuggling accusations for any other reason than she believed them to be true. The Kincaid girl wasn’t stupid enough not to realize how much damage they’d do to her. Yuri simply did not believe she was psychologically damaged enough to make them up despite that.
Yuri didn’t want to believe there were murderers abroad on Ceres or that corruption had become so entrenched in the Space Force, right in his own command at that, that a whole crew could be complicit in it either.
But it was one or the other.
Only he’d already decided and come down on one side.
While acting in anger and based on less than full evidence.
And now there was nothing he could do about it.
It might be he’d made the right call. Only now he couldn’t tell.
If by some magical means he did learn the truth it didn’t matter.
Any evidence would have been disposed of by now. Yuri had put his imprint on the idea the Kincaid girl was a trouble maker. One who falsely accused innocent people of serious crimes in order to garner attention.
Yuri regretted it now, but his only course of action was to persevere in what he’d already decided. To do anything else would just muddy the waters.
Maybe it was unfair to the Kincaid girl. Yuri didn’t know. It didn’t matter.
There was nothing Yuri could do anymore.
However little he liked it.
* * *
It was unfair, and Katie was outraged.
Katie had marched herself back to her room like she’d been told to. She’d thrown herself onto her bed, a luxury after more than two weeks of a sleeping tube, and allowed herself to melt down in a full blown emotional fit.
Katie hadn’t done that since she was a toddler. It wasn’t something you could afford on a short crewed spaceship. It felt good. She felt guilty that it felt so good. She’d worked so hard to contain her emotions and do what was expected of her and what had it got her? Nothing. Less than nothing.
Katie was so far down in the hole that on Earth she’d have been in China. Seemed like a geographically biased and Earth centric expression of the sentiment, but who cared? It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered anymore.
Nothing she did mattered anymore. Katie was finished.
Why not indulge her feelings?
Because it didn’t matter anymore.
Nothing mattered.
Katie’s life was over before it’d even g
ot started.
She might as well be dead.
Dead people couldn’t possibly hurt so much. Katie’s Dad was vaguely religious, but he hadn’t passed his faith on to her. Katie would have liked to have believed in an afterlife where people could still feel something. Only she didn’t really. Katie had loved science, the dinosaurs, the infinite cosmos, the intricate but ultimately useful explanations for how things worked, since she was a child. She recognized science wasn’t religion now, wasn’t a replacement for it either, only she couldn’t believe in her father’s faith and science both.
It was one reason she’d set her sights on being some sort of hero, the great leader sort to be precise. If she herself couldn’t live on, then maybe the memory of her life and the results of what she’d accomplished could.
And now she was stymied before she’d got even a good start.
For no fault of her own. She’d helped those who seemed to need it. She’d stood up to injustice. She’d done her best at every task she’d been given. When she’d learned of criminal activity, she’d reported it. Her reward?
Disgrace, and an end of her hopes for the future.
It looked the Katie Kincaid she’d worked so hard to become was dead on arrival. Dead with a stake through her heart, with garlic and salt sprinkled all over her.
Dead. Dead. Dead.
She cried.
Katie couldn’t do that. Fearless leaders do not cry. Neither do people who expect to become Space Force officers. The Space Force might be a corrupt collection of glorified traffic cops, like the Commander suggested. Well, maybe not the corrupt part. She really hoped he didn’t believe they were corrupt. That would be too disappointing. Katie had really wanted to believe he was a straight shooter, however misguided in choosing his targets.
Good cops, bad cops, bureaucrats, or fearless leaders Space Force officers were not people who allowed themselves to break down when faced with emotionally trying challenges. No, they rose to the challenge and if they felt overwhelmed, they kept that to themselves.
That was the standard she’d set out to emulate, and she couldn’t bring herself to abandon it.
No more than she could bring herself to abandon life, despite its being so painful and seeming so hopeless right now.
She felt empty.
She didn’t feel like giving up.
Didn’t feel like much of anything, but that included giving up.
So she’d let her life go on a little longer. She still had her freedom and her health.
Maybe her mind was still intact. She didn’t think she was crazy. She could still think despite all her plans so far failing.
She’d rest. Get some sleep. Tomorrow perhaps she’d feel better. She wasn’t sure what to do.
She couldn’t quite bring herself to believe how badly things had gone.
Tomorrow morning, bright and early, after a good night’s sleep she hoped, she would set out to figure out where she was. That done, she could maybe plot a new course into the future. Or maybe she’d give up on planning and live each day as it came, as so many much happier people seemed to.
Anyhow, life went on.
Only she didn’t know what sort of life it’d be anymore.
* * *
Sam, like everyone else on Ceres, had heard of the fiasco down on the docks with the Sand Piper.
It’d only been hours, but news that juicy traveled fast.
Sam had learned not to have expectations. Expectations led to disappointment and unhappiness. Neither useful emotions.
Couldn’t say he was pleased, though. Hope is a useful emotion. He had hoped he’d be seeing Katie about now, all happy after a successful and interesting patrol with the Space Force. Sam himself had a strictly limited love for being trapped in a small tin can in close quarters with other people of dubious personal habits and having his butt worked off. Katie, however, he could easily see her thinking it was all a great adventure.
It did not seem to have worked out that way.
Sam didn’t know how the trip had gone, but it hadn’t ended well.
Sam liked to have contingency plans for all possibilities. Katie accusing the entire crew of the Sand Piper of being smugglers had not been one of the ones he’d considered.
Some sub-lieutenant with two left feet and a math degree had once told Sam that surprise equated to information.
Well, Sam was feeling awfully well informed.
Unlike most of Ceres’ population, Sam didn’t think Katie had gone off of her tiny little rocker.
Sam paused in his work. Work was good for worries. Keep your hands busy and your mind will follow. It’ll spend less time chewing bitter cud over things that can’t be changed.
On the other hand, if your mind insists on haring off after mental rabbits, and down the rabbit hole there’s not much you can do about it. You can refrain from working inattentively. Inattention leads to mistakes, waste, and destruction. At least it did when working on the power armor Sam had broken his teeth on as a budding mechanic. Now it’d only diminish the good reputation he’d built up with Ceres’ mining community. Still not a desirable outcome and a man has his pride after all.
Katie was Katie. Katie had no off switch. For all her brains, she was anything but subtle. Katie was also as rigorously honest as the day was long. If Katie said she’d seen something, she had.
Which meant there was something deeply wrong going on on Ceres. Far more than he’d been aware of.
Sam still didn’t know what.
At first he’d thought it was as simple as someone having it in for Katie. For some unexceptional minds that the exceptional exists is enough to be an unbearable insult. Katie was quite exceptional. The rumors circulating around the time the news had come out about her outstanding performance on the standard tests had seemed too much alike, as having too little natural variation, to be the organic product of envy. He’d suspected a co-ordinated campaign by someone. He’d hoped, not expected, it’d all blow over given time.
The incident on the line could have been unconnected. It did suggest Katie had stirred up a real crazy. Only Sam wasn’t taking that suggestion anymore. The Sand Piper mess suggested more than a lone crazy that had it out for Katie.
Somebody might not like Katie, but this was more than that. Only he couldn’t think what. The only connection between the incidents was Katie herself.
Sam looked at his hands. They weren’t talking.
What he wanted to do was visit both Chief Dingle and Commander Tretyak and insist they launch full investigations of Katie’s allegations. Get to the bottom of matters and clear the girl’s name.
Only Sam had a feeling the rot went so deep and was so pervasive it wouldn’t work out that way. If who ever was determined to keep their secrets had been willing to resort to murder at the mere chance Katie had stumbled onto something it was a certainty, they’d fight back harder and more viciously when the walls started to close in. As “who” appeared not to be an individual but an entire criminal organization, that was a problem.
Intervention at this point could result in him and Katie being terminated.
Only thing he could see to do was to wait and hope an opportunity appeared.
Hope wasn’t a great plan.
It was the only one he had.
11: Katie in the Dumps
Calvin had read books where the characters talked about how receiving bad news like a kick in the stomach. He’d thought it was some kind of literary exaggeration.
Live and learn. Calvin had had Billy and his boys punch him in the stomach at times when Katie wasn’t around. He knew what that was like. The news Katie had accused the Sand Piper’s crew of smuggling and then been marched to the Commander’s office with a pair of MPs in trail had hit him worse. It hurt. Physically hurt. He’d had to sit down on the floor.
One of his sisters had come by and seen it. His sister hadn’t teased him. She’d just looked and marched off blank faced. So, it was bad.
Katie was in deep.
/> Calvin had thought her leaving Ceres and Calvin behind was bad enough. This was worse.
The Belters had a saying. “You can’t do good business with bad people,” they said. They refused to do so. Reputation was precious in the Belt, without a good reputation you couldn’t do business. If you couldn’t do business, you couldn’t live. It wasn’t life or death exactly. Passage back to Mars or Earth to start over at the bottom of the multitudes there was always possible. Most Belters would have preferred death.
Right now Katie’s reputation was looking very bad.
It was unthinkable to Calvin that Katie would lie and make up accusations about innocent people.
It was also unthinkable that the entire crew of the Sand Piper was complicit in smuggling.
Calvin’s world made no sense anymore.
The only thing he could parse out was his hopes, and Katie’s had just been trashed. Katie’s future looked bleak. That bothered him more than his own hurt feelings.
He wished he could see some way he could help her.
Calvin would offer what support he could.
It wouldn’t be much.
Calvin’s family didn’t believe in Katie the way Calvin did.
Calvin’s family would be worried about the stink of her bad rep rubbing off on them.
He couldn’t see that it’d be enough.
* * *
Katie was sitting on the edge of her bed feeling sorry for herself. She told herself this at least was progress from huddling in her bed, whimpering in pain. Katie had never quite believed in mental pain before. She’d equated it with malingering. Katie was going to be more open minded in the future, she promised herself.
Katie sighed. Time does heal, she guessed. It was annoying all those nostrums and sayings older people had been plaguing her with for her whole life actually contained some truth. She was sure it was only some. So, how was a girl supposed to tell the difference between the wisdom of experience and nonsensical old fairy tales? Katie couldn’t see any way.
Katie guessed it wasn’t unreasonable to cut herself some slack given the situation she was in. It’d only been a few hours. The Sand Piper had timed its return to Ceres for early morning local time. She’d had the morning to destroy her reputation, get called on the carpet by the Commander, and then hide in bed feeling all weepy and sorry for herself.
Katie Kincaid Candidate: Katie Kincaid One Page 15