“I’m aware of Alyce Salazar.”
“So are you going to pull Dekker? Or are you using him as test fodder? Doesn’t matter if he cracks up in the sims, it solves a problem—is that it?”
“You have a personal attachment to this boy—is mat your problem?”
No re-position. Straight through. Straight through. He got a breath and tried to tell himself it was all right, it was only a sim. A last target.
Miss. Sal said, “Damn,” and: “Sorry, Ben.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Ben said. – “Dekker.” Sim chiefs voice. You didn’t hear them break in like that, they didn’t remind you they existed unless you were totally, utterly screwed. “Dekker. What’s the trouble?”
Pod was in neutral now. They wouldn’t abort you cold—a shift like that messed with your head. But nothing further was going to happen in the sim. Virtual space was running, green lines floating in front of his eyes, but without threat. His heart was going like a hammer. Breams came in gasps.
“Muscle spasm.”
He lied to the sim chief. Chief was going to order them in, no question. New crew—he could well glitch their reactions— He’d never, never gotten called down over com. Never gotten a stand-down like this.
“Going to order a return. Your crew ail right?”
“Crew’s fine.” He didn’t get any contradiction over com.
“You want to push the button?”
Abort was quicker. Abort would auto them to dock. His nerves wanted that.
“I’ll go manual. No abort.” Hell if he was going to come hi like a panicked neo. He got his breathing calmed. He lined them up, minute by excruciating minute. He brought it as far as basics. “Meg,” he said then, “take it in. Dock it, straight push now. Can you do that?”
“Got it,” Meg said. “Take a breath, Dek.”
Three more minutes in. Dock was basic—now. Lesson one. Punch the button. Mind the closing v. They’d killed one man and a prototype module getting that to work realtime, before Staatentek admitted they had a problem.
Whole damned program was built on funerals…
“Doing all right, Meg.”
He unclenched stiff fingers. Watched the numbers run, steady, easy decline in distance: lock talked to lock and the pod did its own adjustments.
Bang into the grapples. System rest.
A damned pod, not the ship, but he was having trouble breathing as the hatch opened, to Meg’s shutdown—
“Shit!”
His heart jumped. “Easy, easy,” he told her, as she made a frantic reach at the board. “Lock’s autoed, not your fault, not your fault, it’s automatic on this level.”
“Not used to these damn luxuries.” Breath hissed between her teeth. “Got it, thanks.”
No word out of Ben. Ben wasn’t happy. Sal wasn’t. He could feel it out of that corner. He thought about saying Don’t mind it, but that wasn’t the case, you damned well had to mind a screw-up like this, and they did. He thought about telling them some of those were his fault, but that wasn’t what they needed to set into their reactions either. He just kept his mourn shut, got the tape, grabbed the handholds and followed Meg out the hatch.
Caught Meg’s attention, quick concerned look. He shied away from it, hooked onto the handline and heard Ben and Sal exit behind him. He logged the tape out on the console, teeth clenched against the bitter cold.
“Cher,” Meg said, gently, hovering at his shoulder, trying for a look at him or from him, he wasn’t sure and he wasn’t coping with mat right now.
“We’ll get it,” Sal said. “Sorry, Dek.”
They were trying to apologize to him. Hell.
He started to shiver. Maybe they could see it. Maybe they were realizing how incredibly badly he’d screwed that move—or would figure it once their nerves settled. He didn’t know how much to tell them, didn’t want to act like an ass, but he couldn’t put his thoughts together—he just grabbed onto the handline and headed off down the tube, not fast, but first, so he didn’t have to see their faces.
He heard Ben say, “Damn temper of his. Break his neck, I’d like to.”
“Hey,” Meg said, then, “we screwed up, all right? We screwed it, we screwed him up, he’s got a right.”