Chapter 85: After The Fight (II)
Maya was still at the lobby control panel.
She had been there since before the contact started and she was still there now and the turret management interface was still active on the tablet and she was reviewing the engagement log with the focused attention of someone who was not done with the day yet.
She looked up when he came to the panel.
"The engagement log," she said. "The northwest turret secondary arc. The north face mid coverage." She turned the tablet toward him. "Three Aberrant signatures transited the north face mid zone during the southeast approach. The secondary arc engaged all three and dropped two. The third diverted to the west face approach which the northwest primary arc covered." She looked at him. "Without the secondary arc adjustment those three transited to the north face interior approach."
He looked at the log.
"The adjustment mattered," she said. "Twice. First in the planning when I identified the gap. Then in the engagement when the arc actually caught what was coming through it." She paused. "I wanted to know that for certain before I stopped looking at the log."
He looked at her. She was still in the same position she’d been in since six in the morning and the turret management interface had been running the whole time and she had stayed at the panel through the entire contact and through the withdrawal and she was still there at the end of it reviewing the log because she needed to know if the thing she’d done had mattered.
"It mattered," he said.
She looked at the tablet. "I know," she said. "I just needed to see it."
He looked at her and thought about the second year architecture student with the university hoodie and the table leg and the hospital layout read from three blocks away and everything she had become in forty days since then.
"Go eat something," he said.
She looked at him. "I’m fine."
"Maya," he said.
She held his gaze and then looked at the tablet and then at him again and then she closed the turret interface and set the tablet on the panel and stood up and he saw in the standing up that she was more tired than she’d been showing.
"The satellite outpost tonight," she said.
"You’re not on the materials team tonight," he said.
She opened her mouth.
"Sleep," he said. "You’ve been on the panel since six this morning. The outpost placement is Gareth’s watchtower and Cole’s materials team. You’re done for today."
She looked at him for a long moment with the direct eyes.
"Tomorrow," she said. "The engagement log analysis. I want to go through the full contact sequence with you and identify the defense gaps that showed up in real engagement versus the scenario modeling."
"Tomorrow morning," he said.
She nodded and went to the kitchen and he heard her making something and then the sound of her eating and he stayed at the panel and looked at the pulse and felt the building settling around him in the particular way it settled at the end of hard days.
*[Bond Event — She Stayed At The Panel: Maya. +1 Bond Point. Current BP: 10 — Maya.]*
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Anya found him at the panel at four in the afternoon.
She had the clipboard and the post engagement supply assessment and she handed it to him and he took it and read it.
The medical supply consumption from the engagement was significant but within the reserve Dr. Kang had built up since the hospital run. The materials consumed in the emergency panel reseat were logged and the replacement cost calculated. The turret engagement had consumed the energy reserve from the backup generator at a rate that required the generator to run at increased output for the next six hours to recharge.
At the bottom of the assessment was a note.
*Seven Aberrant bodies in the blast wall channel. The channel needs to be cleared before east face operations resume. Recommend tonight during the satellite outpost deployment when the exterior operations team is already active. Damon’s group is available and has not been engaged today.*
He read the note and looked at Anya.
She was standing with the clipboard and the pen and her eyes on the assessment.
"You already talked to Damon," he said.
"He said yes," she said. "Pending your confirmation."
He looked at the assessment and the note and the precise supply accounting and the logistics of a cleared blast wall channel integrated into the night’s operational schedule and thought that Anya had been doing this since the warehouse and would keep doing it and that the building worked better because of it in ways that never fully showed up anywhere except in things that didn’t go wrong.
"Confirmed," he said.
She made a note and went back to the workbench.
*[Bond Event — She Had It Already: Anya. +1 Bond Point. Current BP: 8 — Anya.]*
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Yuna made dinner at six.
She did it the same way she always did it, with the full attention she gave to making something real from whatever was available, and tonight she had the greenhouse output and the remaining wholesale stockroom supplies and the particular focused energy of someone who had spent a contact event in the building interior covering the primary access to the clinic and had been doing that alone because Dr. Kang was in the clinic and everyone else was in position and she had held that position the whole time and was now cooking dinner because dinner was what she could do and she was going to do it completely.
Michael came into the kitchen while she was working and she looked at his wrapped forearm and then at his face and then back at the pan.
"Sit down," she said.
He sat down on the floor in his spot.
"The clinic access," he said. "During the contact. You were covering it alone."
"Dr. Kang was working," she said. "Someone needed to cover the access."
"Yes," he said. "You did the right thing."
She looked at the pan. "I didn’t do anything," she said. "Nothing reached the clinic level."
"You were there in case it did," he said. "That’s the job."
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