“My scientists tell me it will be a day or two before the warship is spaceworthy,” Woolsey said, cringing inwardly as he said it. It sounded false to his own ears even though it wasn’t. Dr. Zelenka swore that it would take them forty eight hours to make the ship safe to fly — absolute truth of the unpalatable kind. “As soon as the repairs are completed adequately, our crew and Chief Scientist Radim will embark.”
“I am sure your men can accomplish much in little time,” Radim said with a friendly smile. “I will look forward to hearing that they have left in twenty four hours.”
“We will do our best,” Woolsey said, but the transmission was already cut at the other end. Smooth. Very smooth. The Genii thought they were lying, all the more galling since they weren’t.
Woolsey opened a radio channel. “Dr. Kusanagi? How are the repairs to the warship coming?”
“They are in progress, Mr. Woolsey,” Dr. Kusanagi replied, the sounds of heavy equipment in the background. “We are currently repairing hull breaches just aft of the engineering section. They are fairly serious breaches, and it is requiring a good deal of welding and heavy labor. And even so I would not say that it is a good job.”
“Just do your best,” Woolsey said. “It doesn’t have to be perfect. It just has to get to the Genii homeworld.”
She sounded exasperated, as much as Dr. Kusanagi ever did. “There are no shortcuts in hull repair, Mr. Woolsey. Either it holds in vacuum or it does not.”
“Understood,” Woolsey said. And they certainly couldn’t afford to lose the ship. They’d never explain that to the Genii.
Woolsey stopped himself. Of course, he would never risk his people on a ship that wasn’t safe. Or that was at least so unsafe as to amount to negligence. Unsafe was something his people did every day. If he never let them do something unsafe… And where was the line between cavalier disregard of human lives and safety? That was the question that Sheppard had wrestled with on the mission. When is prudence the better part of valor, and when does it make it impossible to function?
These equations looked very different from Earth. These decisions seemed cut and dried to those who had never made them. No matter where his career carried him from here on out, he would not forget that. He would not forget the agony that went into the decision, and the guilt when it went wrong.
He should probably have Sheppard back in here at some decent time and talk over the personnel changes on the team. Sheppard had done the math wrong, and probably no one felt it more keenly than he did. But that was part of being in charge, of moving from a field command into greater responsibility. It was a big change, and some people couldn’t make the transition. No disrespect to them. There were many fine field people who were not cut out for supervisory and policy positions, and many people who’d never done their time in the field who wanted to make policy. Dick Woolsey knew that. He’d been one of them. He’d learned the hard way, and he’d made some enemies in the process. He only hoped that now they were more generous to him than he had been to them.
Case in point, Colonel Samantha Carter. He’d botched her relief in Atlantis, but that wasn’t the first time he’d gone to the wire with her. That had been over the SG-1 mission that had cost the life of Dr. Janet Fraiser. He hoped some of the bad feeling had been made up in goodwill over Atlantis’ departure from Earth. He hoped. Because now he was going to have to work with her as commander of the Hammond, a position that answered neither to him nor to the IOA, but only to the Air Force. She couldn’t tell him to go to hell in so many words, but there would always be excellent reasons not to cooperate if she didn’t want to. He had enough of that already with Caldwell. And with Caldwell none of it was personal.
Also, Sheppard didn’t get along with Caldwell, while Sheppard and Carter were close. Dick had no illusions that if he told Sheppard to do one thing and Carter told him another that he’d keep control of Sheppard for ten minutes, especially since Sheppard could hide behind the excuse that Colonel Carter ranked him.
He hoped that it wouldn’t come to that. But when Weir and Caldwell had clashed, the only thing that had shored up the civilian authority in Atlantis was Sheppard’s backing, tacit and implicit. He could rely on none of that.
And any moment now he would have Carter here, returning to the Pegasus Galaxy for the first time since her precipitous and no doubt embarrassing departure. A welcome would be in order, something to allow everyone to vent their feelings, their chance to say nah-nah-ni-boo-boo. He could be gracious and allow everyone to make their thinly veiled comments about how nice it was to have Carter back in Atlantis and how much they’d missed her with the distinct implication that everything had gone to hell in her absence and that they would rather have her in the driver’s seat than Dick Woolsey. He should let Carter rub it in his face however much she wanted. It might diffuse the tension in the long run.
The presence of Dahlia Radim provided the perfect excuse for a welcoming dinner. Atlantis was short on formal social life, and pulling out the stops would serve both the diplomatic situation with the Genii and soothe Colonel Carter at once. Yes, that would be ideal. The sort of formal dinner for senior staff that less chaotic postings held more regularly. Ostensibly in Dahlia Radim’s honor, such a dinner could be replete with tributes to Colonel Carter, which would doubtless also impress upon Radim the importance and power of Earth’s new battlecruiser.
Yes, Dick thought, folding his hands. That was a plan. Now to see if the redoubtable Amelia Banks could put it together on twelve hours notice…
Jennifer’s quarters were mercifully quiet for all of thirty seconds, and then Newton peered out from the bedroom and began mewing piteously. She’d left out extra food for him, and Marie had promised to come by and feed him today if she’d still been away, but he twined around her legs wailing as if he’d been abandoned for days.
She picked him up, stroking him with a flicker of guilt. He’d been more Rodney’s pet than hers, acquired in a spirit of ‘if I can’t have Atlantis, at least that means I can have a cat,’ and now Rodney wasn’t here to feed the kitten too many snacks and let him sleep on a warm laptop case at night.
“I’m sorry,” she murmured, scratching him under his chin. Newton switched from complaints to a rattling purr, writhing against her hand in kitten ecstasy. At least there was someone around whose problems were easily solved.
She slipped off her radio headset, and then winced as it almost immediately chirped at her. She settled it hurriedly back in her ear. “This is Dr. Keller,” she said.
“Banks here, Dr. Keller. Mr. Woolsey has asked me to inform you that you’re requested to attend a dinner he’s giving for our Genii guest Dahlia Radim at 1800 hours tonight. He said formal dress,” Amelia added.
“Oh,” Jennifer said. She was aware that a better response was required. “Tell him… tell Mr. Woolsey that of course I’ll be happy to attend. Formally dressed.”
“I’ll do that,” Amelia said, cutting out.
Jennifer put the kitten down on the bed, in hopes that would keep him from immediately wrapping around her ankles again, and briefly contemplated the contents of her closet. The only thing that could remotely be considered formal was the black dress she’d worn to the conference she’d attended on Earth with Rodney. They’d both nearly frozen to death, and she’d ended the evening with Rodney’s tuxedo jacket around her shoulders and his arm around her waist, holding on very tight —
“It’s a perfectly good dress,” she said grimly to Newton, “and I think all the water stains came out, and it’s the dress I have, so I’m going to wear it. So that settles that.”