The office complex is dead quiet. The staff have long since ended their shifts and left the premises, as the mulch-colored sky above turns darker and a starless night begins to fall. Except for one office, casting the hallways in the rather plain building with a dim light, revealing the red carpet and dull concrete walls just outside the cracked door. Hanging from them were portraits of the nation's great heroes, surrounded by the striking iconography of a distant time.
A woman's voice resonated out of the office. Older, stern, but exasperated.
Stepan, I cannot move mountains. You must understand what you are asking for.
She is speaking with someone. Making an effort to keep her voice down.
You do not understand. He doesn't have the qualifications, he's lousy. I'd be laughed out of the room once they saw his dossier.
Yes, I know the requirements are less stringent.
Right.
Your contract partners, yes.
Yes, they're on the review board.
Right, they know you.
...
I hope you're not suggesting- no, no, I know you aren't.
Of course.
You really think that is enough to swing it in his favor?
And what about the crew? If he compromises the efficiency of the state's-
Yes.
No, it isn't demanding.
Interior shipping routes, mainly.
Yes, but anything can happen. Emergencies. We need the best-
Where are the best?
In the Army, right.
Yes, Stepan, it's a safe route.
...
And... it is really necessary? For his-
Statistically, I see.
You've made your point.
...
That depends. Can I expect my dacha built by 835?
Only joking, of course.
I'll make the case, but do not be surprised if it isn't enough.
She sighs.
We had better both hope this is not a mistake.
...
For their sakes more than ours.
Yes, I'm sure.
Very well.
Good evening, then.
Silence. Moments later, the light flickers out, the dimly-lit bastion against the bleak evening melting into the blackness, as if it was never there at all.
Captain Illya Stetsyuk stood at attention in a brightly lit office, briefly stealing a look at the coming twilight out the window. The volatile weather churned the clouds into a dark and angry swirl that nearly obscured it, discordant with the managed and lit interior of the vast dome this segment of the city was nestled under. At least there was a sky to admire here, above the tunnels. It wouldn't last, he knew.
Even if he was nearly a full head and shoulders taller than her, his superior paced into his view, a tightly-wound Party bureaucrat whose short braided brown hair always looked to be turning silver far too early, even before now. She spoke.
"So you have well and truly screwed us both."
The room already reeking of cigarette smoke, foreign tobacco imported from God knows where out in Sirius, she takes a long drag on the stick she's been working on since he'd arrived. She continued.
"You look at an explosive gas cloud with your hold full of volatile material, and think you're going to shave off a few seconds? Look good on the after-action? I knew you were incompetent when we got you on-board, but shit, you made history."
Unease rising, he felt driven to explain he made the only call. What else was he supposed to do, surrender? The imperialists wouldn't show mercy, everyone knew that to be true.
"Ma'am, the Kleymenov was under pursuit with no escort, and our shields were rated against the explosions. We thought it would deter--"
"We? Did you run this plan by your chief engineer?
"No, ma'am."
"So who and you? Your dog? He'd have made the better captain."
"Ma'am, if I could just--"
She deftly raised a hand to him with a snarl, and loosed a swift backhand across his cheekbone. Towering over her and the gleaming picture of a well-built uniformed young man, he flinched, but quickly reassumed his demeanor standing at rest, stoic. In his time, he'd grown used to such treatment.
The bureaucrat points imperiously toward his face.
"You should have received far worse. For the loss of the munitions, they'd have you removed. For the loss of the lives of four crew, you'd be in a work camp. And the loss of the vessel? Shot."
It was hardly undeserved, he thought.
"But of course of all things, it's your blood that protects you. The same fool reason you were in the chair at all."
She takes a break to look over her desk terminal to review some or other file, the only high-tech marker in a room aesthetically evoking some old Earth antique study with its faux-wood fixtures. Illya gathers the courage to ask a looming question.
"What will be the appropriate punishment?"
"Tch. I would have at least expected the hard labor. But, no. You will be shipped to Jiangxi to report to the regional garrison."
"For what purpose?"
"What do you think? You'll be given a helmet, a rifle, and you'll dig through the trash with the rest of the conscripts. You're lucky you're still be doing something that can be called meritorious service to the state, in your position."
"I figure the good Bureau Secretary is aware of that."
Illya hardly wanted to be reminded he shared a name with the man.
"His suggestion. You're even less use to him dead than disgraced. You know how you've made him look to the partbureau? Completely avoidable, this whole disaster."
She wouldn't finish with him for another ten minutes, but he'd understood the way of things by now. If he'd had his way, he would not have been in the position to get anyone killed, but this was never in his control. He knew that since the old man first said "you'll do great things", with that toothless grin.
Dismissed with a faint bruise on his cheek, he would march emotionlessly down the hall to whichever next moment of judgement waited, pondering what would probably be his last Volgograd sunset.