Page 16 of Command

When her door chimed, Alina flinched, staring. Was this it? Was she finally going to get sent down to the CRD because she wasn’t important enough?

Alina glanced at the outside feed projected on the door.

What the…

She unlocked it, revealing Dr. Pertin himself in the doorway as if psychically summoned. He looked tense withhis tablet held tight at his hip. Behind him, a female uhyre stood with narrowed skin slits.

“Dr. Pertin?” Alina stopped fidgeting with the rainbow cube. “What are you doing here?”

He cleared his throat and glanced back at the uhyre, who followed him into Alina’s cabin with a clatter of armor. “They… uh… told me to make cabin calls for my most… relevant patients.”

The female behind him scoffed in time with the door hissing shut. An uhyre presence crowded in Alina’s tiny cabin made her arm hairs stand on end.

“So that your kind does not snap with psychosis like several on your other deck have,” the uhyre droned.

The other deck?

Common Residence Deck, she realized. Shit, what was it like down there with an extra few hundred bodies cramped into the space? Were they also under strict guard, or was it a free-for-all down there?

Alina wrung her hands, glancing between the doctor and the alien looming behind him. Dr. Pertin cleared his throat again, wavering. “So how are you feeling, Alina?”

She gaped at him, unblinking. Were they really expecting to do her session like this? Under the barrel of a gun held by a monster? And how was telling him how she was feeling supposed to help anyway?

He’s just trying his best.

“Umm… It’s been a tough week, I guess…” she said, looking down into her lap.

“So it has.”

“I… I’ve been taking care of Kaia and…” Alina set her jaw, resolving not to act as pathetic as she felt just then. She was stressed and scared and needed something to manage it. She looked up, meeting Dr. Pertin’s calm gaze and avoiding looking at the seemingly bored uhyre standing off to the side. How did he manage to stay so calm during all this? “I think I’dlike to take you up on that Harmonapam prescription now. I know I said I didn’t want meds before, but this is… it’s different now.”

Dr. Pertin sighed, apparently unsurprised. “Since the…arrival… the ship’s instructing us to ration anxiety and blood pressure medication, Alina.”

“Uhyre get anxiety?” she blurted out, realizing maybe it wasn’t an appropriate question in the presence of one.

Dr. Pertin’s grip on his tablet tightened. “All the humans now stuck here and threatened with being vented out to space do.”

The uhyre made a scoffing sound through her sharp teeth, armor clanking together as she shifted.

Shit.Alina had been so obsessed with her own problems that she’d missed the obvious. Of course there’d be others who needed the meds more than her. She was asking for extra resources as if she were so entitled that she didn’t even think about everyone else dealing with all this.

She stood so suddenly that the uhyre jerked her weapon to attention. Alina held both palms out in a show of terrified deference. “I’m sorry. I completely understand. I didn’t mean to bother you, I?—”

“Alina, I came to botheryou, remember?” Dr. Pertin tried to soothe her even as the uhyre moved to leave the room, clicking her tongue for him to follow like the horses she’d seen in Old Earth cowboy vids. “I’ll see what I can do about the medication.”

“No,” Alina blurted, shaking her head. “I don’t want it.”

It was a bad idea anyway. She’d never used Harmonapam before, and she didn’t need to start now. It was just a moment of weakness that made her ask for it. She hadn’t been thinking.

Dr. Pertin sighed. “You will practice the coping strategies we’ve learned in the meantime, yes?”

Alina’s cheeks reddened at making this wholedoctorlookat her like he was worried about her, when there were much bigger things to think about.

“Say yes, Alina,” Dr. Pertin instructed.

“Yes.”

Alina was still kicking herself on her way to the canteen to pick up Kaia’s breakfast that day. At least the place was empty, the previous shift having already started and there not being enough residents on this deck anymore to see much of anyone between shift changes or customary breaks.

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