Aria returned to Tinsdale in the cafeteria still thinking through the many complications in his otherwise reasonable plan. Shuttle access, log clearing, unaccounted for time, there were still many problems to solve.

The food service line had already closed, but Tinsdale handed her a protein pouch and a cup of gelatin. “I made sure to grab you one.”

Aria was so thankful. “You’re the best.” She sat at the table and tore open the pouch of sludge.

“So, what was that all about? Did he try to chew you out for something stupid that he probably did?”

Aria slurped the pouch and opened her gelatin cup. Ah, the sweet aroma of plum flavoring. “Um, well it turns out we’re actually going to collaborate on something.”

Tinsdale dropped her datapad. “What? You? Hansel? Together? Are you speaking clearly?”

“Um, yeeeeeah.” She ate her gelatin. “So, that’s a thing.”

Tinsdale leaned across the table. “Well, what is it? What’s the big project?”

Aria looked into her empty cup and avoided Tinsdale’s intense stare. “We...um, we were going to do a little recon analysis together, sort of combining my eye for detail with his scientific method stuff, but we couldn't figure out a way to make the plan work.”

Tinsdale slowly sat back down. “Wow. I’d never have believed it unless I heard it from you. I don’t really know the guy, but everything you’ve said about him since we picked him up has only been bad. Isn’t this a little weird?”

“That’s all still true,” Aria corrected. “I’m just trying to compartmentalize all of that for the moment so we can get some important work done for the Federation. But, that’s on hold for the moment until we iron out a few challenges.”

Tinsdale nodded. “Okay. I can respect that.” She picked up her dirty tray. “Hey, do you still have time to talk before your next thing?”

Aria remembered that Tinsdale had asked her to talk about something important after lunch. She checked her schedule on her datapad. She had taken a little too much time hashing out details with Hansel, but she could designate a proxy for her next meeting. “Sure. Let me make a call and we can head out.”

They left the cafeteria and walked to Aria’s quarters.

“What’s on your mind?” Aria nudged Tinsdale on her side.

Tinsdale smiled slightly, but did not speak. She seemed hesitant.

Aria found this strange. “You can say whatever it is. I’m not going to come on to you again like this morning. I’m sorry about that misunderstanding again.”

Tinsdale laughed. “Okay. Keep your pants on.” Aria opened her door and waved Tinsdale inside.

Tinsdale took a seat at Aria’s desk and looked around the room. She always knew Aria to be extremely tidy, but this living space was quite unkempt at the moment. This maybe would make their conversation a little easier. “I wanted to talk to you about...well, you. Are you not okay?”

Aria felt ruffled as sat on her bed. “What are you talking about?”

“This. All of this.”Tinsdale gestured broadly around her. “Your room looks like how I’d imagine the inside of your brain’s been the last month or so.”

Certainly there was the table she just trashed, but she took a moment to thoroughly survey the room out of respect for Tinsdale’s concern.

Unlaundered uniforms sat in a pile near the door. Unfinished meal packets were starting to change colors as if their stench were not already an indication of the spoilage. She had five work datapads sitting at her bedside. Each officer was allotted one personal pad, but if they misplaced it they could temporarily check out another one. Apparently she had lost track of her own, in addition to the ones she checked out, so many times that she had started a collection.

This was not anything like what Aria thought Tinsdale wanted to discuss. “So I get a little behind on my housework. What of it?”

Tinsdale reached over and placed a hand gently on Aria’s arm. “This isn’t normal. I know you. Something’s wrong.”

The exhaustion Aria felt was undeniable. The pent up yearning for distraction from her demons was brewing in tandem with her anxiety if she failed to appease them. She had burned her candle at both ends for years and she was finally running out of wax. All this pain inside her. It was not going away and, in fact, was spilling out into her life in a way that people were noticing.

“I’m just a little frazzled,” Aria waved away. “I thought we talked about this at breakfast.” She hopped up and began straightening the room because she felt incredibly self-conscious about the mess. “I’m handling everything just fine. Whatever you think I’m experiencing isn’t affecting me like that.”

Tinsdale was deadpan. “Not affecting you? You’ve been taking unnecessary risks around the ship, and the drinking…”

Aria swiveled her head. “What do you know about that?”

“Exactly! If there was nothing going on, you wouldn’t be so defensive.”

Aria cursed to herself.

“Besides, people can smell it on you. I’m afraid you’re letting these problems cloud your judgement. Maybe it’s causing you to be more neglectful of your other commitments.”

“I haven’t been neglecting anything!” she said with a dirty pair of underwear in her hand. Realizing what Tinsdale was staring at, she quickly opened her bedside drawer and shoved it inside. Because of her swift, frantic motion, her secret notebook popped out of the drawer and slid on the floor across the room.

“What’s this?” With wide eyes, Tinsdale scooped up the book and flipped it open before Aria made it even halfway across the room. “The rugged Chron took me in his arms in front of everyone…” She looked up. “Is this for real?”

“Stop it!” Aria snatched it away. “That’s private! I would never...”

“...touch yourself in the very public room? Aria.” She clapped her hands together. Her face was serious. “You’re letting your condition dictate your actions. You have a problem.”

Aria looked away. “I’m not weak,” she said through clenched teeth. “I have myself under control.”

“God, Aria!” She stood up and slowly circled the room. “Human beings aren’t robots that are either performing their purpose or not. We work hard, we struggle, we improve, we seek help!” Tinsdale stared at the back of Aria’s head since she was turning her head to avoid eye contact. “Nobody expects you to solve all of the galaxy’s problems. Not me, not the Captain, not…”

“...but I do!” Aria cried. She tried to fight back the tears, but the battle was already lost. She threw her book into the drawer and locked it shut. “Top of my class, top of my unit, the great rookie ‘leader’ at the Battle of the Sumpter Nebula.” She felt sick calling herself a leader. She pulled her bed sheets back and wrapped herself within on the bed. Her face still poked out and she said, “And none of it even counts. My mom? My dad? They achieved double what I did by the time they were my age. What do you think my dad would think if he found out I couldn’t handle a little war-time stress?”

“Does it matter?” Tinsdale shrugged.

“Of course it matters!” Aria rolled onto her side and buried her face beneath the layers. Muffled, but still audible, she said, “I’m never going to make the kind of mark on the Federation as my dad did. I don’t have the kind of constitution to make the kind of sacrifices as my mom. And I’ll be doubly forgotten with a mark of mental dysfunction on my record.”

She went silent.

As seconds turned to minutes, Tinsdale waited patiently, respectfully for Aria to continue the conversation. But there became a point where she worried whether Aria was suffering some absurd stress-induced coma. She slowly approached the blanket lump. “Aria? Are you okay?”

“That’s it!” Aria burst from her cocoon. Blankets in flight sent Tinsdale crashing back through the room.

Paying her no mind, Aria leapt out of bed and began writing on a datapad. Her mind was going light years a minute and she felt some of her anxiety fading away as she made progress toward perfecting Hansel’s plan. It was like an old part of herself that she had not used since the Academy was sparking to life, using every skill in her brain and leaving no empty space in her mind for darker thoughts.

Aria continued to speak wildly about shuttles, favors, and linguistic patterns. The inside of her head was no more composed. She reached under her mattress and pulled out a bottle of liquor. She took a swig and shoved it back under.

Tinsdale pointed at her with exasperation. “Come on! That’s what I’m talking about! Hidden alcohol is definitely a sign of a problem.”

Aria ignored her and continued to mutter to herself. “This is it. It’s everything we need. I can get us a shuttle and go down to the planet ourselves. No need to get any specialized team together. And I can bypass the shuttle log just like he did. We spy on the machine and the ship and deliver the ground-breaking intel to the incoming cruiser.”

“Aria, what are you talking about?”

Aria checked the time on her datapad. “Oh! I gotta go. I really need to make this next meeting and I’m already way behind on my work today. Can you see yourself out?” She ran out of the room and disappeared.

Tinsdale stood in bewilderment. She searched Aria’s room and gathered up four bottles of liquor. She took them with her as she left.

Later that evening, Aria returned to her office determined to complete all her tasks. Sitting at her desk, she opened her message inbox and groaned at the sight of thirty-five unread messages. It was unpredictable how long each one could take. The day’s surprises had taken time away from her, but her head was clearer now, more focused for it. Having a proposed solution to her worries brought her some serenity.

“Okay!” she said to herself. “Let’s knock this out!” She opened her first message. Two cadets had engaged in a public argument about when their barrack’s lights should be turned off. This was very unprofessional. She quickly typed up a summary of expectations, referenced the appropriate policies, and forwarded the message to their mediation officer.

“Piece of cake!” Like a solar wind filling her sail, tackling that simple problem gave her encouragement. But the next several messages were lengthy and complicated. As the early evening turned into night, the slog that was too much work and too little time planted an escapist seed for something else. She felt the inkling of her familiar problem blooming. This stressed her out.

She cursed her temporary loss of strength and tried to harden her nerves with the bottle in her desk. She certainly felt less stress about the problem, but her worries remained. In lieu of her work, slowly she found herself checking for a live connection of her favorite show over and over. She could not get him out of her head. This was equal parts frustrating and exciting.

She had all but given up hope for a diversion when the planet’s rotation aligned just right. A red light blinked at the edge of her datapad. Darting fingers enlarged the feed of Chron’s settlement on her biggest screen. Her face was heating up like a sun just from the anticipation of it all.

The orbital camera zoomed through the clouds. It halted just above the huts and grassland. Little figures moved about like toy figurines. She delicately manipulated the camera further and brought its focus down to the ground level. The faces of the locals appeared clearly.

To her incredible delight, Chron emerged from a hut. He rushed across the settlement and knelt next to a young boy. The boy appeared to have been attacked by a wild creature. Chron took one of the boy’s arms in his hand. The boy was covered in wounds. Chron applied a well-documented foraged medicinal salve that served as an antibiotic as far as anyone could tell.

This was a new side to Chron that Aria had never seen. She was used to watching the laborious strongman performing extra-human feats of endurance and strength. But she was learning that he could be both imposing and tender when the situation called for it.

Aria drained another bottle just as threatening members of the neighboring tribe emerged from beyond the treeline. Chron left the boy to what she presumed was his mother’s care and rushed to their simple armory. He equipped himself and others with spears and rope. They formed a hasty perimeter around the settlement, raised their voices, and rattled their weapons. It was a boorish display of aggression.

A gush of emotion swelled up inside. She was sad, joyful, scared, all at the same time. For reasons she knew but refused to admit, control over her emotions seemed impossible. Her knees were weak. She fell back onto her chair to get off her feet. The frictionless seat floated back and collided with her coffee table. Her favorite mug shattered onto the floor.

Aria fell out of her chair and crawled toward the pieces. The floor was spinning.

“Oh god!” She desperately tried to put the pieces back together, but the mug was just too broken. She began to weep when she realized she was just like her mug. A hundred little chips finally brought it to the edge. One day there would be a hammer too big for her to handle and she would shatter too badly to repair as well.

She had to do something. But what?

Aria turned back toward the screens hoping for an image to cheer her up. She was pleased to see that after a proper effort of intimidation from both sides, the native intruders retreated into the wilderness leaving Chron and his people safe.

She crawled across the room and pulled herself up to the screen. Her intoxication had her swaying as she stood. She zoomed-in on Chron and rested her hand upon his face. “Oh my brutish boy.” She felt hot. She was getting hotter. She was losing control of herself again. Her head was fuzzy and she just wanted to let go of her inhibition. It would just be easier.

She ran her hand up her hip and across the curves of her jacket. She squeezed her straining breast. A quiet moan murmured out. A spark of pleasure caused her worries to slip into the darker recesses of her mind. This is what she deserved after a long day.

“You’re so much more a man of action than all these gallant geniuses among the stars. I wish you and I could run away together and you’d make me forget about all these skeletons in my closet.”

A knock came from the door. Her stomach tightened into a rock. She stumbled back to her desk and hecticly swiped the surveillance screens away. A shiny datapad gave her a glimpse of her reflection. She was marginally presentable.

“C-come in!”

“Lieutenant Pantel.” Junior Officer Adam Rodriguiz slowly opened the door.

As he entered the room, Aria noticed a slight blush on his face. She supposed he could tell something was amiss. Maybe he could smell that she was brimming with embarrassment.

“I’m sorry to bother you, Lieutenant. I’m here to ask about the heat transfer array progress report. It seems the engineering team hasn’t received it yet. I believe you worked it out with them to send it before the end of the day. Is that correct, sir?”

“The heat transfer array? Damn it.” She cycled through several of the datapads strewn across her desk. Several spilled onto the floor. “Where did I put that? Did I not press send?” She finally found her half-completed report. “Oh, for flip’s sake.”

“It’s okay, sir. I’ll just tell the team that they’ll get it first thing tomorrow...”

“No! I’ll do it right now. I-I-I just need a second to tighten it up.” She noticed her shirt was untucked. She attempted a discreet adjustment while she wobbled to her feet. “Tell them they’ll have it in fifteen minutes.”

“O-okay!” Rodriguez quickly closed the door.

She was awash with shame at a number of things that had just happened. There was no denying she was entering the orbit of a black hole from which there would soon be a point of no return. Tinsdale was right about her troubles. And if she was going to be prepared to perform the greatest feat of her career in less than twelve hours, she was going to have to follow the Captain’s orders and see this supposed professional after all.