Her best hope was that he wanted to talk to her about the punishment handed out by Atlas. A disciplinary debriefing. Those were standard, though usually conducted by the officer who handled the punishment.
She left her quarters, hating every step she had to take toward the counselor’s office. Part of the reason she’d kept herself isolated from everyone was because she didn’t want to talk about having her ass whipped. Bad enough that Atlas had actually logged it on the computer and now everybody with access knew.
The halls were largely empty, which was a good thing. She heard footsteps coming in the opposite direction. She hoped that they belonged to anybody besides…
Ugh. Taylor.
Taylor was #2 on the list of people she really didn’t want to see right now.
She tried to hurry past him with her eyes lowered. Maybe she could get away with not interacting with him at all.
“So. Atlas got you, huh? About time someone handled you.”
“Fuck off, Taylor,” Jerri said, keeping on walking.
“You know I could do that to you, too.”
“No. You couldn’t. Dick.”
Cursing at Taylor really made her feel better. It made her feel better than anything else that had happened since Atlas and his damn lash.
“Hey!” Taylor grabbed her by the arm and swung her around. “Don’t walk past me and ignore me. Show some respect.”
“But I don’t respect you, Taylor.” She was really starting to feel better. Much like her old self. Giving Taylor shit was good for the soul.
Taylor’s expression twisted into handsome annoyance. For a second she thought he might hit her. Not in a disciplinary way. Just in a straight up smack her across the face sort of way. That wasn’t really like Taylor, though. That was a memory of people she had known before the academy and deployment to the Audacity.
Footsteps sounded in the hall nearby. She tensed. She knew those steps. Hadn’t known that she knew them, but they had inscribed themselves on her subconscious.
She knew it was him before he turned the corner. Saw him before he came into view. That leathery skin, those harsh unnatural searing eyes, that mane of hair framing a face of incomparable brutality. The Authority uniform sat differently on his body. It was designed to make human male forms seem more impressive, broader shoulders, narrower waist, longer legs. On Atlas there was no need for emphasis. His shoulders were massive, his torso powerful, his legs muscular and long. She could still remember how they felt beneath her writhing belly.
He stopped and stared at her and Taylor. Had he heard the argument? Could he sense the tension? Did he know immediately that there was something between them?
“That’s enough of that,” Taylor said, releasing her. “On your way, Ensign.”
“Yes, sir,” she said, the pair of them playing at proper soldiers. She hurried off away from Atlas and Taylor, glad for the first time for an excuse to get out of Dodge.
She dived for the counselor’s door, rapping sharply with her knuckles while calling out.
“Tessil to see Commander Esense!”
The door slid open and a rainforest greeted her upon her entrance to the commander’s office.
“Ensign Tessil, thank you for coming,” a deep, warm voice greeted her. It was like having warm liquid honey dripped over her head and down her spine, but without the stickiness.
The counselor was a Goshian, and Lara’s superior. He glowed with emanations of peace, light, and perfection. She kind of hated him on sight.
“Welcome, Ensign Tessil. It’s nice to meet you. Please, have a seat.”
Jerri had a seat carefully. There was still some discomfort when it came to sitting. She was sure the counselor noticed. He would notice everything, not just what she was outwardly portraying, but her inner energies as well. His species was uniquely capable of interrogating the interior of a person.
“I’ve asked you here because I believe you’ve been suffering some difficulties since your disciplinary interlude with Commander Atlas.”
Jerri stared at him as he sat smugly, faintly sparkling in front of her, suffused with all the good will in the universe.
“Difficulties?”
“Your daily activities have reduced by a significant percent on any given day since the incident. I’m concerned that the treatment may have exceeded your tolerance.”
“And if it did?”
“You may be in need of therapy.”
She thought about that for a moment. “Would you censure Atlas for what he did?”
“From what we can tell, Atlas was well within parameters, physically, if not emotionally.”
“So. No.”
“No.”
So it was pointless, then. They just wanted her to move around a little bit more. To say that surveillance on the Audacity was invasive was to make a massive understatement.
“Okay. Great. Well. Good chat. Thanks very much. I feel so much better. I’ll see you another time someone beats the hell out of me and you want to tell me that it’s fine.”
Sarcasm dripped from every word like poison. Now she was pissed. They were going to try to mindfuck her into being okay with being thrashed like a goddamn… she didn’t even know what it had been like. Not a cadet. Something even smaller.