ANNA
I know what Selyra is going to say before she says it. Not the exact words. Selyra considers exact words important, particularly when there is someone in the room capable of writing them down and pretending later that they meant something else. But I know the shape of the order before she closes the report in front of her.
“You’ll take the assignment.”
“Yes, Commander.”
The answer leaves my mouth immediately. That is not unusual. What is unusual is that I disagree with her.
“There is another approach,” I say.
“I know.”
“It would be faster.”
“Yes.”
“And simpler.”
“Probably.”
I wait for the part I am missing. Selyra does not provide it.
There are people who use silence because they have nothing useful to say. Selyra uses it because most people eventually become uncomfortable enough to fill it for her. I learned years ago not to be most people, so I wait while she studies me across the table.
At last, she folds her hands over the report. “I gave you the order I intended to give you, Anna.”
It is not an explanation. The alternative remains faster and simpler, and nothing she has said changes either fact. I should ask again.
Instead, the objection begins to feel unnecessary.
The change is small enough that I almost miss it. A moment ago I was certain there was value in arguing the point. Now the reasons for doing so seem less important than the possibility that Selyra knows something I do not. That is reasonable. She is my commander. She often knows things I do not.
“Understood,” I say.
Something in Selyra’s expression shifts, although not enough for me to name it. She watches me for another second before giving a single nod. “Good.”
I leave.
Three minutes later, halfway down the corridor, I stop walking so abruptly that the officer behind me nearly walks into my back.
He mutters something under his breath as he moves around me. I step aside automatically, offer an apology he probably does not hear, and remain there after he has gone.
Something is wrong.
I replay the conversation from the beginning. Selyra gave me an assignment. I proposed an alternative. She rejected it. I accepted her decision because she is my commander and because an officer who follows orders only when they agree with her personal judgment is not an officer anyone should trust with responsibility.
There is nothing unusual in any of that.
I start walking again.
Before I reach the end of the corridor, I stop a second time.
The problem is not that I accepted the order. The problem is that I cannot find the moment when I decided to.
I remember deciding to object. I remember why. The reasoning is still available to me now: the alternative I proposed would have been faster, required fewer resources and achieved the same purpose. I remember Selyra refusing it. I remember looking at her and expecting an explanation.
Then I remember saying understood.
There should be something between those two memories.
I lean one shoulder against the cold stone and examine the thought more carefully. People change their minds without noticing the exact instant it happens. Decisions are not military reports. They do not require timestamps, signatures and witnesses. Selyra possesses information I do not, and accepting the judgment of a commander I trust is hardly evidence that something has gone wrong with me.
That explanation is sensible enough that I should be satisfied by it.
I am not.
I look back along the corridor toward the room I left three minutes ago. For a moment I consider returning and asking Selyra why she refused my alternative. The thought lasts perhaps a second before another arrives behind it, calm and immediate.
There is no need.
My hand has already left the stone when I notice that.
I go still.
There is no pain. No fear. Nothing dramatic enough to justify standing in the middle of a corridor interrogating my own thoughts. I have an assignment to complete, and Selyra has given me a clear order concerning it.
I know what I am going to do.
I am going to obey.
The certainty of it should be reassuring. Instead, I find myself wondering why certainty and choice suddenly feel like two different things.
Someone turns into the corridor ahead of me, sees me standing there and slows, evidently deciding whether a captain who has stopped for no visible reason should be disturbed. I straighten before he has to make the decision.
“Captain.”
I acknowledge him and continue walking.
There is work waiting for me. Whatever discomfort remains can be examined later, when I have time for questions that do not alter what needs to be done now.
By the time I reach the stairs, I have assembled enough reasonable explanations to dismiss the entire incident.
I almost believe them.
Almost.
Anna Vale has always known how to follow an order.