No, wait... Wouldn’t he have time to watch it on his laptop en route to Afghanistan? The version of the movie released in North America over ten years ago had been a severely edited version, and that incomplete film was what most of the world had seen. Embarrassingly, he’d still only ever seen the North American cut himself...
“Um, Captain...?”
Clouseau snapped back to reality, where Falkowski was confused about the fact that he hadn’t released the package. It was as if he were holding on for dear life.
“Ah...” Clouseau couldn’t dismiss it as a mere fanboy attachment. He felt a resistance to give up that box in a way he couldn’t fully explain. Something inside him was saying, Don’t let go. Watch it now.
“Sorry,” Clouseau said. Then, pushing back against the mysterious premonition, he released the box from his grasp and let the other man have it.
“Are you all right?” Falkowski asked.
“Yes,” Clouseau told him. “Anyway, good luck.” Then he turned around and swiftly left the deck behind.
Executive Officer Richard Mardukas also received a letter from the communications officer. It was from his ex-wife, postmarked two months ago. He was sure they’d resolved all of their financial and legal issues, so he couldn’t imagine why she was contacting him... His initial response was to feel anxious, wondering if there was some kind of trouble.
“What is it, Mardukas-san?” Tessa asked as she saw him take the letter. The two of them had been standing on either side of the control room’s nautical chart table, discussing various details of the operation when it arrived.
“Ah... A personal letter,” Mardukas told her.
“I see.”
“I’m sorry, Captain. Let’s continue.” He handed her a sheaf of documents full of points to go over as he tried to resume their discussion.
“Let’s take a little break first.” Tessa stretched lightly, and folded up the nautical chart before sitting down. They were alone in the control room now. The rest of the usual crew were off helping with the resupply.
Mardukas and the rest of the submarine’s crew couldn’t really be of help in the Afghani operation. Once they’d left the submarine, they would take care of any final business and then disperse. It was an anticlimactic end, but they’d just be a burden to the ground unit if they went along.
Mardukas hadn’t yet voiced his own opinions about Tessa going alone to Merida Island. He hadn’t fully worked out his own feelings, for one thing, and wouldn’t have known how to bring the subject up if he had. Even now that they were alone together, Tessa remained quiet, and Mardukas didn’t feel it was his place to bring it up. Yet, even a boring man like him found it hard to keep his silence.
“It’s from my ex-wife.”
“What?”
“The letter,” he explained. “You know I’m divorced, don’t you?”
“I do,” Tessa told him. “I read your personnel file back at the start.” But since he hardly ever talked about his personal life, she seemed a little surprised to hear him bring it up.
“We haven’t seen each other in over five years, you see...” He’d divorced his wife, Paula, during his Royal Navy days, back before he’d joined up with Mithril, and he hadn’t seen her since their last mediation. He’d left all the processes to his solicitor, and they had no children, so there was nothing for them to talk about.
“You’re not going to read it?” Tessa asked.
“I will...later. I’m sure it’s nothing especially important.”
“I see... What kind of person is your ex-wife?”
“An ordinary woman,” he told her. “She was a waitress at a pub near the base in Plymouth... very popular with the regulars. Their poster girl, one might say.”
“She was pretty, then?” Tessa wanted to know.
“I believe so,” Mardukas answered. “I threw out all her pictures, so all I remember is that she was solicitous and very talkative.” While fiddling with the unopened letter, he tried to remember what Paula had looked like when she was young, but failed to do so.
“Most of the officers would come to the pub in groups,” he went on, “but I’d come all by myself, silent and reading my technical manuals. She must have found it intriguing, because she’d talk to me, and I’d reply vaguely... I suppose it was about a year later that we ended up married.”
“‘Ended up married’?” Tessa questioned. “You mean you didn’t fall in love?”
“It’s hard to say... Ah, and I’m not trying to be circumspect,” Mardukas added, noting Tessa’s dubious gaze. “Forgive me for saying so, but you are still young. There are many couples who simply fall together naturally, without any particularly strong passionate or romantic feelings.”
“Really?” she wondered. “That feels disappointing.”
“That’s why romance movies are so popular,” Mardukas observed. “But I didn’t mind being part of a perfectly mundane couple. It was my job that caused issues.”
“Ahh...” Tessa nodded with a frown. She could probably imagine exactly how things had gone south. Being a military wife was a challenge to begin with, and it was even worse when your husband was a submariner. Constant work transfers, your spouse away from home running missions for months at a time... and the missions were always top secret, so they couldn’t even talk about where they were going, what they were doing, or when they’d be home.
“Paula was your standard ‘landlubber.’ Our breakup was inevitable.” Mardukas thought about adding, Your parents got along, and I envied that, but decided against it. Envying Tessa’s parents was imprudent; their lives had been torn apart in a way far more gruesome than divorce.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Tessa told him.
“Ah, it was for the best,” Mardukas said. “Trying to preserve the marriage would have merely exhausted us both.”
“Maybe so, but it’s still a shame.” A sad smile appeared on Tessa’s face, and she made a show of returning to work, moving her eyes back to the remaining checklists as she added a few marks to them. “Well, I think it’s time to—”
“Captain,” Mardukas said abruptly.
“What?”
He probed Tessa’s gaze cautiously and realized that she was completely exhausted—a woman at the end of her rope. She didn’t look like an eighteen-year-old girl at all. “If you use the TAROS in the Lady Chapel, you will be able to control the vessel by yourself, true. But ‘able to’ is the limit of it,” he reminded her. “You alone are no substitute for experienced sonar technicians, navigators, and fire control officers. And you need an annoying man like me; someone who can consider situations, offer judgments, and see things from different angles.”
“Perhaps,” she agreed. “But—”
“In addition, it will be over twenty-four hours until the battle on Merida Island begins,” he went on, cutting her off. “And you won’t be able to rest, eat, or sleep during that time. Your proposal is unrealistic, and you can’t simply ‘tough it out,’ no matter how much you might like to.” Then, having vented his spleen, Mardukas watched for Tessa’s reaction.
She said nothing. Tessa didn’t seem to know how to respond, and her many internal conflicts showed on her face. Of course, she would already have been aware of the things Mardukas was pointing out. She’d chosen this method in spite of it all, and had explained the reason it was necessary during the briefing.
“All these concepts of time hazards and parallel worlds still sound dubious to me,” Mardukas admitted. “And I have no confidence that your subordinates will ever accept them either.”
“Exactly. That’s why I—”
“Does playing at democracy satisfy you?”
Tessa hesitated. “What?”
“Being a commander means that if you feel it’s necessary, you drag your subordinates to hell with you, even for an utterly unreasonable plan,” Mardukas told her. “These things you’ve been saying... ‘I can’t make myself the center of everything, so I’ll do it all by myself’... It’s no wonder Mao is so furious with you.”
“Do you feel the same way she does?” Tessa wondered.
“Yes,” he told her simply. What her subordinates wanted, himself included, was not this absurd play at equality. It didn’t matter if the mission was unreasonable; all she had to say was ‘Do it,’ and they wouldn’t hesitate to act.
Yet, she couldn’t do that. Tessa was too innocent. Too idealistic.
“Captain,” he tried again patiently. “What would you do if I relieved you of duty, right here and now? I could do it with the approval of three other officers.”
“That isn’t funny,” Tessa told him coldly.
“If I did, could you shoot me to death?” Mardukas asked. “Would you kill me to hold on to command?”
“I...” After a long silence, she admitted it, painfully. “I don’t think I could.”
“That’s your limitation showing. I’ve served you for three years, but here at the end, I must tell you: you lack what it takes to be a commander.” Mardukas genuinely believed that. His words were harsh, but he didn’t feel harshly toward her. It felt more like a deep appreciation for a student who’d fought the good fight.
“What else...” Tessa placed her hands on the table containing the nautical chart, eyes down. “What else am I supposed to do?”
“You already know,” he told her. “Give me the order to pass on to your crew.” Join me at the center. Come along on my reckless plan.
It would be simple enough to say something kindhearted, like, ‘I can’t let you and Sagara go alone.’ But Mardukas knew that he mustn’t do that. This one time, he had to make her choose, even knowing it was cruel to do so.
“You’re basically asking me to shoot you,” Tessa told him.
“I think you might even find shooting me easier,” Mardukas observed.
“Give me some room,” she pleaded. “I need... a little time.”
“Very well,” Mardukas agreed, and left Tessa behind in the control room.
As Mardukas stood in the dim corridor waiting to be called back, he thought about what Carl—Tessa’s father—would have thought about how he was treating her. Would Carl have criticized me, Mardukas wondered, saying I should have hidden her away somewhere to let her live a normal life?
But there was nowhere in the world that would be completely safe for Tessa. The safest possible place was here, in the belly of this beast she had designed. There, in the control room of the Tuatha de Danaan, she was beyond the enemy’s reach. It would be healthier for Tessa to take control of the de Danaan’s raging power than it would be for her to spend her days hidden in the shadows and trembling... That’s why he’d decided to become her XO. Mardukas had allowed it, even knowing what a hard road it would be.
Tessa was exhausted and nearing the end of her rope. But at least she’d been able to chart her own course through the raging waves of destiny. Which means that here, he reflected, at the end, she should continue to do so.
Things were quiet in the control room beyond the door. Tessa didn’t seem about to call him in any time soon, so he decided to open his ex-wife’s letter.