The Hands We're Given

by O E Tearmann

  "I didn't realize it was that bad. I mean, I'd read the reports, but-"

  Kevin continued to pierce him with the coldest stare he could manage, the fury burning in his gut. "What, you thought we were simply a collection of delinquents? Committing insubordination just for the hell of it? I hate to disrupt your cozy little bubble of illusion, sir, but, for as much vexation as we've caused over the last few months, we weren't the irritant. We're not spoiled children, so spare the rod. We've had enough attempts at 'whipping into shape' lately, the operative word being whipping."

  The confusion that crossed the commander's face made Kevin wince internally. He'd done it again, let his anger elevate his vocabulary. It had been a mannerism he'd used habitually while he was still living on the Grid. If you sounded haughty enough almost anyone would back down. It was a hard habit to break. Apparently he still hadn't.

  And he'd lost his temper again. At the worst possible time. Hadn't he sworn he was going to keep himself under control?

  He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "I'm sorry, sir. I spoke out of frustration. What I'm trying to say is that we're not always like this. We don't take kindly to orders without reason, and even less so to unreasonable expectations. We've had nothing but unreasonable since we lost Commander Taylor, and we all know the stakes for your post here. So, if you don't mind, please, try to remember that we're humans, not bots."

  "I… don't think that will be a problem," Aidan said after a long moment. He searched Kevin's face, his own unreadable. Slowly, he nodded. "I'll send a list of what I'd like to see to your tab by tonight. Queen of Hearts is your current handle, right?"

  Kevin rolled his eyes. "Oh, not again. It's King. King of Hearts."

  "Your file said Queen." Aidan's brow furrowed as he glanced at the tab in his hand.

  Kevin sighed and gave a helpless shrug. "We're really not insubordinate by nature, but… well, some of us relieve stress with humor. And getting into the personnel files to make jokes is a favorite pastime."

  Aidan gave him a very small smile. "Yeah. I guess that explains a lot. And, keep in mind everything I'll give you is flexible. If anything seems unreasonable or like it might cause issues, just let me know and we'll talk it through. Okay?"

  For a long moment, Kevin studied the commander's face. It really was handsome with that faintly wistful look, just a touch of peach fuzz stubble and a worry line between his brows far too deep for someone his age.

  He'd just balled the man out. His Commanding officer. And in return he was getting… understanding?

  Eventually, Kevin found himself returning Aidan's smile. He stuck his hand out. "I think you have a deal, Com-Aidan."

  The commander's smile strengthened as he shook Kevin's hand. "I look forward to working with you."

  For the first time since Commander Taylor died, Kevin felt like those words might be true.

  Event File 5

  File Tag: Medical Assessment

  Timestamp:11:00-4-2-2155

  The sound of Kevin's office door clicking shut behind him cut the strings that had been holding Aidan's calm in place. Alone in the hall, he leaned against the wall, feeling his heart hammering against his ribs.

  Great. He had already pissed off the base logistics officer in their first debrief, and Kevin apparently wasn't one to pull his punches.

  Aidan forced himself to take a few deep breaths, trying to calm his racing pulse. At least he'd been able to salvage it a little. That was something, right?

  He swallowed a sigh and ran his hands over his face. Why the hell had he accepted this position in the first place? There were emotional minefields on any base, but the Wildcards seemed to have more than he'd expected. And he still had to see the base doctor for his transfer physical. Ugh.

  A muffled ping sounded from his pocket and he pulled the tablet out, absently tapping to bring up the message.

  Message Handle: JOKER

  In response to base-wide memo from CommandAH

  Message: You're seriously asking for us to take time out of our duties for a tea party? Guess I'll ask Kev to get you a pretty pink dress on the next req run. Don't you think he'd look nice in pink, guys?

  Every muscle in Aidan's body stiffened. A dress? Had someone found out about him? His brain ground to a halt. Who used the handle JOKER?

  A door slammed open further down the hall. Aidan flattened himself against the wall, adrenaline spiking through his body as if he'd heard the drone proximity alert.

  "Laz, you gamma dipshit!" The shout followed the bang, and Liza barreled out into the hall, almost unrecognizable as the stiff soldier she had been yesterday. Her uniform jacket hung as if she'd slung it over her shoulders in a hurry and her eyes were wide and feral. She ran a few steps, caught sight of Aidan and skidded to a stop, throwing up a salute that was an abbreviated sketch of her previous crisp gesture. "Commander! I'm so sorry. I was just on my way to rip Laz a-to discipline him for that message. That was way out of line, even for him."

  The sound of a second door, much quieter, made Aidan's breath hitch.

  "Tell me Lazarus didn't just-" Kevin's voice groaned behind him, but it cut off with an "Oh."

  Though Liza addressed him, Aidan noted that her eyes were fixed on a point down the hall. He didn't want to turn and see Kevin's expression. He'd already embarrassed himself in front of the logistics officer enough for one morning.

  Aidan swallowed hard, caught between Liza, the wall, and Kevin. He fixed his eyes on the slight trembling of Liza's saluting hand. He didn't want to deal with this right now. He wanted to go back to his quarters and curl up with the pillow over his head for a few hours. But Liza was standing right in front of him, waiting for a response, and he was commander here. Falling apart simply wasn't an option.

  He could feel Kevin's eyes on his back like a pair of lead weights, pinning him to the spot as his mind spun. What the hell could he say? Don't worry about it? Please give him the harshest punishment you can think of? What the hell was the happy medium between sounding like a complete ass and a total pushover?

  Luckily, Liza kept talking instead of making him decide. "He's always had a problem with authority, sir, and it's especially bad after… I never expected him to pull something like this. I take full responsibility."

  "Commander?" Kevin asked from Aidan's other side, voice cautiously polite.

  Aidan realized he'd been staring at Liza's shaking hand. He forced his eyes back to her face, squared his shoulders, and attempted to pull himself together. It wasn't easy, with his brain fritzing. "Sorry. Just… thinking it through."

  Liza dropped her hand like a child caught doing something she shouldn't, and Aidan's mind jolted as the pieces clicked. This was what she hid behind her military facade. She was scared. He didn't know what was frightening her, but that was definitely fear in her eyes.

  She drew herself up in a visible attempt to replace the shield she hid behind.

  "I'll take care of it, sir. Don't worry, sir. He's just trying to make trouble. Nothing that you need to add to your plate, sir."

  "Thank you." Aidan did his best to sound calm and collected.

  Liza nodded. She swallowed hard. "I really am sorry, sir."

  "It won't happen again," Kevin promised over the soft shuffle of his boots.

  Aidan sucked in a deep breath, trying not to feel like they were closing some sort of trap in on him. They were doing their jobs, being his officers, just trying to reassure him. Not their fault he felt surrounded and out of his depth. Don't snap at them, he reminded himself. Don't let them see that you're falling apart. Don't freeze up. Breathe. Say something. Don't say um.

  He forced a smile. "I'll trust you two to look after it. I'd rather not get involved if I don't have to."

  Liza nodded, looking a little more like she had the situation under control. "Of course, sir."

  Aidan returned the nod, though his
chest still felt tight with panic. Were they just pretending not to know or care? He swallowed the questions that would only give him away and slipped past Liza to continue his walk toward the med bay, carefully keeping his back to Kevin.

  Behind him, the two officers whispered. The sound of their voices made his stomach clench. He ducked his head and walked faster, telling himself they weren't talking about him. There was no reason to gossip about their new commander.

  Right. No reason. No reason but the little fact that he'd just been freaking out about a stupid memo. No reason but the fact that he'd wound up sounding like a complete idiot during both their debriefings. No reason but the fact that he still didn't look like a commander. Like a leader. Like a man.

  Aidan shook his head as he rounded the corner, trying to shake off the mess of anxious thoughts circling in his head. They weren't talking about him. They didn't know. There was no reason to panic. Everything was alright. He had to pull himself together before he reached the med bay. He had to calm the hell down. He had obligations. There was no time for this shit.

  Even if the unit did find out, they weren't on the Grid. The EagleCorp Morality Laws would sentence him to a messy, public death for being what he was if he was caught on any land where they applied. Who he was, he corrected himself. Out here in the Dust, there was a lot more leeway. On the Grid, everything depended on who owned the patch of land you stood on and what they thought 'moral' was.

  At least, there was leeway out here if your base mates were tolerant. There were still stories of folks getting beaten or worse because someone on-base decided they didn't like living with a person who didn't fit their idea of 'normal.'

  If he was honest with himself, that was what really had Aidan on edge. If Lazarus had found out his secret, what would the man do? Was he the kind of guy to give him a hard time and let it go, or the kind who might take a piece of rebar to Aidan's head?

  His thoughts chased themselves in circles as his feet moved. If Lazarus knew, did the rest of the base? Magnum had promised to scrub and rewrite his records if he accepted Command training. He'd been promised there would be no problem on the base he'd be assigned to.

  No problems? He'd already made an ass of himself, and now someone was talking about putting him in a dress. Someone knew. Magnum must have dropped the ball on rewriting his records.

  "Commander?"

  The voice snapped Aidan back to reality. He froze mid-step, blinked, and turned toward the speaker.

  Damian Coson leaned against a doorframe, his arms crossed. The gesture pulled his splotched lab coat tight across his shoulders, accenting what little muscle he had. One black brow rose over his unreadable, cybernetic eyes.

  "If you're coming for our appointment, you missed the turn."

  Aidan had to take a breath and remind himself not to freak out. The chief medical officer was trying to be helpful, not trying to jump on him. His own frayed nerves were no reason to snap at the guy. He forced a self-conscious smile and rubbed at the back of his neck. "Sorry. Still getting the layout. Bit smaller than Sector. Um. Damian, right?"

  Damn, he was saying um again. He had to calm himself down.

  The other eyebrow rose to join the first, and the man replied with a voice nearly as flat as the mechanical eyes. "If you want a first name basis, yes."

  Aidan cleared his throat uncomfortably. The unnatural-looking implants combined with the unreadable tone of the voice and everything else that had happened today just made him want to run and hide. But he was commander here.

  "Would you prefer Doctor Coson?"

  "Protocol's at the discretion of the base commander. I just check the medical records." The man shrugged, his white coat wrinkling with the motion. After a moment, he tipped his head toward the room behind him. "Speaking of that, we should get started on your intake exam."

  Aidan sucked in a deep breath instead of letting himself wince. Of course the doctor would jump right to it. Not even a moment to relax before getting poked and prodded and asked questions he didn't particularly want to answer. That fit the pattern of this day all right.

  At least he knew Magnum had told Damian about his biological issues, so that was one thing he didn't have to worry about. How the doctor was going to react to that? Well, that was still up in the air.

  He nodded weakly and slipped past Damian into the med bay. The air smelled painfully antiseptic, but at least the room was empty. It could be worse, Aidan told himself. It could smell like blood. Some clinics did. And at least this one was clean.

  Make that painfully clean. Even the man's tab had been squared with the corner of a table when he set it down.

  "If you don't mind multitasking, we can get that debrief you wanted out of the way while I look you over," the lanky doctor said as he pulled a pair of nitrile gloves from a dispenser on the wall under a wall cabinet marked with block letters: Don't Even Think About Getting In Here. The thin, white rubber contrasted almost hypnotically with his skin.

  Aidan considered that as he reluctantly pulled himself up onto one of the three cool ceramic examination tables. He tugged uncomfortably on the hem of his shirt and binder, a bad habit that had helped develop a hole near the hem of the compression mesh.

  "Yeah, sounds good. But I have to ask. How do you handle patient confidentiality? I know not every base runs it the same way. And you know I've got a kind of… sensitive issue here."

  The doctor gave him a long, slow look. "That's putting it mildly. But you can believe me when I tell you that the encryption on our medical files is as good as the encryption on our mission files." The spare man glanced down as he pulled a precisely organized examination tray over on its small rolling table, his lips quirked up ever so slightly at the corners. He slipped a fingertip pulse monitor onto Aidan's index finger.

  "As far as how I handle it personally? Extremely seriously. What happens in my med bay stays in here unless circumstances demand a different approach. Like when idiots try to run on stimulants for six days in a row."

  Aidan shifted uncomfortably, tugging on his binder again. He'd barely moved, so why did it feel like it had ridden up?

  Damian ran his finger over the mandatory implant in Aidan's arm. The light in the slow-release STD prevention blinked blue under Aidan's skin, projecting a date to be replaced in a weak LED display. The doctor nodded, made a note. He glanced over the image of Aidan's genome the monitor had recorded from skin cells, checked the pulse reading, made a note on his battered tab and removed the monitor.

  "That's a high pulse rate. Feeling stressed? Or is that a stupid question?"

  Aidan snorted a little despite himself and forced his hands back into his lap. The medic's assurance that confidentiality was a high priority made him feel a bit better, but even mission files got hacked. If medical files used the same sort of encryptions, who knew whether or not they would get hacked as well, especially with the kind of crew on this base? But he knew better than to say that aloud. He wasn't going to let Damian see how afraid he was if he could help it.

  "I just got assigned to the base with a sector record for the most disciplinary write-ups as my first command. Yeah, I'm a bit stressed."

  The doctor looked away from him, studying the picture-perfect examination tray for a moment. "Well, we always were good at standing out. Now, are you alright with removing your shirt and undershirt so I can take a look at your lymph nodes and lung function?"

  Aidan swallowed hard. Take his shirt off. Right. He knew the odds of anyone else seeing him undressed in the med bay were slim, but that didn't stop his stomach flipping over. The doctor lifted two needles longer than his hand out of a drawer, eying them. The things were huge, long and metallic.

  "What do you use those for?" Aidan asked, not sure he wanted to know.

  The doctor sighed, setting the needles down. "I don't use them. Alice knits on her down time. These are knitting needle
s. Why she leaves them in a medical drawer is something I'll ask her later."

  "I-is Alice likely to come in while we're doing this?" Aidan asked, tripping over the words in an effort to get them out.

  "I have my assistant doing other work today. She won't see you. Relax." the doctor stated.

  Aidan's discomfort must have shown on his face, because Damian folded his arms and said, "What I just told you about medical confidentiality, Commander? I meant that. And you're wasting time. Either you take the shirts off or we stare at each other all day. Your choice."

  "The last time I got promised confidentiality, I got my ass beat because the secret got out," Aidan muttered, carefully looking away from the doctor's creepy cybernetic gaze.

  Damian's brow rose, making his ocular implants whir as the skin and muscles moved around them.

  Aidan repressed the urge to wince at that expression. Great, now the guy was pissed. Or disgusted. Or something. He'd been on this base less than twenty-four hours and he had already pissed off the logistics officer, the personnel officer and the munitions officer. His heart hammered in his chest. Add the doctor to the list now.

  If Damian was pissed, would he keep his secret, use it as leverage, or just let someone with more violent tendencies take care of the problem, like the trainee at his base before Sector? Should he just jump the gun and ask Magnum for a transfer? It was stupid to think he could do this, anyway. But he could feel the doctor's gaze on him and words forced themselves out of his throat, small and strangled. "Sorry. Just… stressed."

  "First of all, I'll repeat myself," Damain stated. "Secrets don't get out with me. Nobody hacks me on this base. They know better. Secondly, this crew is ten levels of stupid and I've treated them for more prank-related injuries than I like to think about, but nobody here is that kind of an asshole. And thirdly, if you think you're the only one here with problems they're trying to work through, wake the hell up. With respect."

  Aidan passed a hand over his face, carefully counting out his breaths to try and calm himself down. Most of the Dusters had issues, but issues like this? Was Damian certain no one on this base would turn him in for a Corps bounty or blow his brains out? What was the easiest way out of this?