“Attention,” Captain Durand said as she stepped onto the bridge. Immediately, all crew present stood up in salute. Clinton made his way to his terminal and looked at her with trepidation. He’d accepted her plans, but that didn’t mean he was happy about them. However, as First Officer, it was his duty not to question her in the presence of the rest of the crew. 

She stepped up on the dais and Clinton immediately recognized her expression. It was one he’d seen her make on several occasions, when she was steeling herself to give a speech. While he’d been able to tell from her first one that she hated giving them and was more than a little hesitant to be too formal about it, it was also obvious that she felt that she had to, if only to keep her crew in the loop as to her plans and intentions. Cathérine Durand stood in front of her chair, her legs apart and her hands clasped behind her back, and Clinton couldn’t help but be impressed. A part of him wished he could look like that some day. 

“These next few hours,” the Captain continued, “will be paramount. You will be pushed to your limits.” Her gaze scanned the room. Clinton knew she wasn’t going to share her plan with the others, and dreaded their responses. “As will your willingness and ability to follow orders.” Manderlay and Nguyen exchanged a glance, and Hasan frowned. Clinton couldn’t help but feel bad for them. “I will demand absolute obedience from you. You will have to trust in my leadership, that what I am doing is for the benefit of the crew, to resolve this situation in the best way possible.” She paused. “Aye?”

There was a soft chorus of affirmative ‘aye’s, but nobody seemed particularly enthusiastic. Something about the tone in her voice, hell, even the words themselves, had put them all on edge. Clinton could see it in their faces. What would they be asked to do that they might question her orders? He gritted his teeth. He had to trust that the Captain knew exactly what she was doing. But a niggling doubt in the back of his mind, telling him his trust in the captain was misplaced, was impossible to squash. 

The next few hours were quiet. The timer on the table ticked down. He wanted to slap whatever dramatic scientist had marked it ‘Doomsday Clock’. It was impossible not to keep an eye on it, but as the minutes turned to hours, he started to realize that part of the harrowing ordeal they’d be put through wasn’t just what was coming, but waiting for it. If the longest projections were accurate, they would have to be alert for another day, and very few on the bridge could afford to leave their post for long. 

After several more hours -- it had now been twenty hours since he’d woken up, Clinton realized -- Hasan and Maria separately went off to close their eyes in one of the cots in the room adjacent to the bridge for a catnap. One by one, bridge crew relieved each other of duty to close their eyes for… well, not nearly long enough. Clinton himself knew he was able to go on for several more hours before sleep, but the Captain nodded that he should go lie down regardless. 

“I’ll be fine on my own for an hour or two, Mister Blake. Have some rest.” He nodded and moved to the adjacent room. The bridge had a room for situations like this, when having the primary crew would need to be available for extended periods of time. Clinton just hadn’t expected it to see extended use during their first real voyage. There were a few more beds than there were positions on the bridge, and in case of an emergency, the room could be fitted into a makeshift triage center. He hoped it wouldn’t come to that. As he entered, he saw Doctor Riel, moving silently between the beds and taking scans of the crew that had decided to lie down. Sleep deprivation was dangerous, and she was on duty, making sure nobody was pushing themselves harder than they should. Clinton nodded at her, and she motioned with her head to an unoccupied corner of the room. 

“Mister Blake,” she whispered. He shook his head. He was never going to like being called that. 

“Clinton, Doctor, please.” He looked at her, and then at the door. “I take it this is about the Captain’s plans?” The Doctor nodded, and sat him down, taking his temperature and checking the rest of his vitals in the meantime. 

“I take it she hasn’t changed her mind?” Francesca asked. Clinton shook his head. “And you? Are you still planning on supporting her?” That question was less comfortable to ask, and even more so to answer. Sure, it was his duty to support the captain in public and question her in private, but if her orders were unconscionable, then it was also his place to stop her from making those decisions. But that would brand him a mutineer, even if the crew was behind him. He wasn’t sure he could make a decision like that. He also still trusted the Captain, despite her plans. 

“Yes,” he said. “I am. I trust her, Doctor.”

“Even after…” 

“Yes. I think she knows what she’s doing, and I think she has her reasons for not revealing her hand to us just yet.” He frowned as the Doctor handed him a small sedative. Not that he was opposed to some real rest, but he didn’t want to risk sleeping through a crisis. “I have to trust she’s not going to pose a threat to the crew, Doctor.”

Francesca Riel sat down on the bed next to him with a sigh. She was almost as short as he was. Almost. “I’m just… worried, Mist-- Clinton.” He nodded. He was too, of course, despite his resolve to see this through. “Captain Durand is a war hero, and clearly she’s got some… thoughts. On how to resolve this conflict, I mean. And I’m worried her past is colouring her decisions here. Maybe too much.”

“I don’t want to believe that,” Clinton said. As he said it, he knew the discrepancy between believing and wanting to believe was a big one. He had to be prepared to reconsider not only his stance on the Captain’s plans, but his stance on Captain Durand entirely. And he did not want to. He took the sedative. “How long will this knock me out?”

“Should only be a few hours. It won’t be the most restful sleep you’ve ever had, but you’ll get something out of it regardless,” Doctor Riel said as she stood back up. Clinton nodded and laid down. He was out cold in just minutes, and his dreams were tumultuous. 

He dreamt he was floating through a space covered in blue-black blankets embroidered with stars. His body wasn’t his, and space wasn’t space. It all felt alien and wrong. When went to pull away the blankets to look behind them, his hands became large, ape-like, and his disgust made it impossible to do anything. This kept going until he realized that this was similar to dreams of running in place. As soon as he realized he was dreaming, he felt himself consciously in control of the dream, and decided not to bother with the whole thing. There was a flash of light as he found himself staring directly into the small light next to his bed. He rubbed his eyes and checked the clock. It had been, like the doctor had assured him, not too long. A cycle of three hours would have to do, Clinton figured, and he stretched for a moment. Francesca wasn’t in the room anymore, and he wondered if she’d gone off to the medical bay. 

He got up, washed his face in the basin, grimacing at the feeling of the stubble on his face. It made him look older, of course, but it also made him look less approachable, he felt. More aggressive, less professional. The face in the mirror gave him a nasty look. He looked away and made his way back onto the bridge. The captain still seemed to be perfectly awake, although the doctor by her side checking her vitals did diminish the image somewhat. Captain Durand waved her fretting away with a dismissive gesture. 

“Mister Blake,” the Captain said, “good of you to join us.” She seemed chipper. Uncomfortably so. Clinton couldn’t help but wonder if the doctor hadn’t been right all along, and him and Francesca exchanged a glance. “I believe we’re approaching the moment of truth.” He nodded, his jaw clamped shut. He wanted to object, but he  knew she wasn’t going to have it. She’d clearly made up her mind, and had demanded absolute obedience. On the large screen was one of the planets. It was Pax II, Clinton figured, where the most likely first strike would be launched from. “Mx Nguyen, are we in position?” Captain Durand asked cheerfully.

“Aye, Captain. Coordinates as per your specifications.” The Captain nodded. She was sitting with her legs curled up on the chair, her shoes on the ground as she observed the screen and occasionally stole glances at her terminal. 

“Ms Mayes, are you ready?” she asked. Behind her, her Chief Security Officer responded in the affirmative. “Excellent,” Cathérine said, and she had a slight smile on her face that just made Clinton worry even more. He gripped the edge of his terminal and tried to focus on his own duties, trying not to think about the fact that deposing the captain was one of those if he got the feeling she was unfit for duty. Then an alert came up on every single screen in the room. 

“Incoming projectile,” the ship’s computer said with all the monotony of an artificial voice. “Impact alert.” The Captain leaned forward, and with a few commands on her terminal, the estimated time of impact was displayed.

“It seems,” Captain Durand said, “that negotiations have broken down. Unfortunate. And there were no conscientious objectors, too. Pity, that.” Clinton looked at her again. Was she really losing it? She seemed far too upbeat considering what was happening. Even if she changed her mind at the last minute, this was not a situation to be taken lightly. As the timer ticked down to minutes, the tension on the bridge became unbearable. 

“I have a lock,” Evangeline said. “Missile defenses online. On your command, Captain.” Clinton felt sweat on his forehead. This was it. Now was his time to unseat the Captain Durand if she did what he thought she was going to do. On the screen, the projected minutes until impact was down to single digits. 

“Power them down, Officer Mayes,” the Captain said with a little smirk.

“Captain?” 

“You heard me.” Heads slowly turned to look at the Captain who was still looking intently at the screen in front of her while typing away a storm on her console. Carefully, without any certainty, Clinton saw Evangeline Mayes nodding as she followed the order. Time passed both too fast and too slow. He took a deep breath, squeezed his eyes shut. 

“Belay that order, Officer Mayes,” he heard himself say. Time stopped. The temperature in the room dropped to absolute zero. Captain Durand turned to him with an eyebrow raised. 

“Mister Blake?”

“Captain, I believe your actions will cause direct harm to the ship and its crew,” he said, his voice quaking slightly. “I feel it is my duty to relieve you of your post,” he said. To his dismay, the captain smiled. Maybe she really had lost it, the stress of the situation having become too much for her. 

“Really?” she asked. “I’m impressed, Clinton. What will you do?” Clinton tried not to let his conflicting feelings and the Captain’s words get to him as he turned to Officer Mayes. “On my command, destroy that missile.” He saw Evangeline look between him and the Captain, who was resting her chin on the palm of her hand. Her calm was absolute and maddening. As slowly as she had accepted her Captain’s command, Officer Mayes now obeyed that of First Officer Blake, and he knew he was now officially a mutineer. 

“Uh…” Evangeline said, and Clinton looked at her. “I can’t.”

“How unfortunate,” Captain Durand said. “Maybe Mx Nguyen can steer us out of the way?” She looked at them, but Alex shook their head. 

“I’m locked out of my console.”

“Goodness gracious,” Cathérine said. “That is a problem.” The timer was down to a minute, and she stood up, carefully slipping her feet into her shoes. “I’m afraid, Mister Blake, Officers, that it’s going to take a little over a minute to bypass the locks I’ve put up. Her face grew more serene as she looked at the screen. Faintly, a small pinprick had become visible on the screen. It seemed so small in direct contrast to its destructive payload. 

“Our shields will hold,” Clinton muttered, both to reassure himself and the rest of the crew. Cathérine looked at him and pressed a button on her console, after which it flicked off. 

“Shields offline,” the artificial intelligence said. 

“Oops,” Cathérine said. Clinton’s eyes grew wide. “Don’t look so scared, Mister Blake,” she said. “This whole situation is absurd.” She looked at the screen again, at the flickering pin of light. “A conflict that looks like something we’ve gone through as a species. We don’t have the time to learn everything, only a cruel choice of whether to intervene, to let one side win or lose. None of this feels off to you?” Less than twenty seconds now. “Like Doctor Drake said, it was refusal to act that saved us last time. But we can’t assume someone else will do that, can we? What options do we have, then?” She looked at the screen again. Clinton looked at her, breathing heavily. There was nothing he could do. “Inaction? Let them kill each other off? Hope that somebody does the right thing? That clearly failed. So what then? Force them both into submission?” She shook her head. “That’s not who we are. Not anymore. So I choose a third option. We resist, Mister Blake, like you resisted my orders.” She smiled at him. “Thank you for that, by the way. It really helped prove my point.” Only a few seconds now. “I resist this scenario.” She looked at the missile as it flew directly at the screen. “I resist this test.” The missile hit and… nothing happened. Then everything went white. 

After a minute, Blake realized he wasn’t dead. With a sense of vertigo, he found himself on his knees on the bridge. The captain was holding herself steady on her console. On the screen, Pax II and III were no longer lit up by the lights of industry. Instead, not far from the bow of the Sollipsis, hung a vessel just as large as theirs. On the screen, letters appeared that were alien, and yet Clinton knew exactly what they meant. 

“NICELY DONE,” it said.

Captain Durand fell back into her chair, laughing in exasperation. “Oh thank god,” she said. “I was really worried I was wrong for a second there.”