Chapter 7: The Water That Wasn't
Vasquez signed the efficiency proposal on Day Eleven without reading past the cover sheet.
Dunn dropped the approved document on my workstation with the particular expression of a woman who had been vindicated and irritated in equal measure.
"She circled her name on the executive summary and asked me to make sure the fleet coordination office gets a copy. 'Excellent initiative from Captain Vasquez's operational team.' Her words."
"That's the idea."
"The idea is that she takes credit for your work."
"The idea is that we get authorization to access water allocation data across three ships, reclassify fourteen dead storage spaces, and decommission thirty-six expired inventory items — all under the captain's signature." I took the approved document and logged it into the Cybele's system. Official. Binding. Untouchable by anyone short of Vasquez herself, and she'd just put her name on it. "Credit is the cheapest currency we have. Let her spend it."
Dunn crossed her arms but didn't argue. She was learning the shape of how I worked — or at least, she was watching it take form and deciding whether to trust it. The five-day trial period had ended two days ago. She hadn't mentioned a verdict.
The water allocation data arrived within the hour. Three ships — Cybele, the freighter Demetrius, and the passenger liner Adriatic — all sharing logistics telemetry under Vasquez's newly approved coordination framework. Numbers scrolled across my data pad: reserve levels, consumption rates, recycling efficiency, projected shortfalls.
The Cybele carried enough water for its population at current rationing levels. Tight, but manageable. The Demetrius was running a fifteen percent surplus — old freighter, smaller crew, oversized tanks from its pre-war hauling days. The Adriatic was already short.
None of that mattered as much as what I knew was coming.
Boomer. Sharon Valerii. Sleeper agent, Number Eight model. Within the next forty-eight hours, her programming would activate, and she'd blow Galactica's water tanks.
The knowledge sat in my chest like the shrapnel had — a foreign object, sharp-edged, impossible to remove without causing more damage. I couldn't warn anyone. I couldn't explain how I knew. I couldn't stop Boomer without revealing things that would destroy my cover and possibly get me airlocked.
What I could do was prepare.
"Dunn."
She looked up from a refugee housing reassignment form.
"What's our water recycling capacity?"
"Standard fleet allocation. Why?"
"Run the numbers for me. If fleet-wide water supply dropped by — hypothetically — forty percent overnight, how long could the Cybele sustain current population?"
Dunn put down the form.
"That's not a hypothetical question."
"It's a planning exercise."
"It's a planning exercise about a forty percent fleet water loss." She held my gaze. "Cole, if you know something—"
"I don't know anything." The lie tasted like copper. "I read patterns. And the patterns say we're running this fleet on razor-thin margins with no redundancy. One failure in any critical system, and we're in trouble."
Dunn studied me for three long seconds. Then she pulled up the water recycling data.
"At forty percent fleet loss, the Cybele sustains for nine days at emergency ration levels. Twelve if we shut down non-essential water use — laundry, secondary sanitation, hydroponics scrub."
"And the Demetrius?"
"Surplus, but they're not sharing until someone makes them."
"What if someone gave them a reason?"
"What reason?"
"Marsh's water recycler repairs. He fixed the unit from 7-F. If we offered Demetrius maintenance assistance in exchange for priority water access during a crisis—"
"You're bartering engineering services for water futures on a ship that doesn't need water." Dunn's voice was flat, but something moved behind her eyes. "This isn't logistics, Cole. This is trading."
"Everything is trading. We just don't usually call it that."
She didn't respond immediately. Instead, she pulled up the Demetrius's contact frequency and stared at it. Calculation happening behind a face that gave nothing away.
"I'll draft the offer. Maintenance support in exchange for priority allocation during fleet-wide shortages. Reciprocal terms."
"Make it look routine."
"I know how to draft a logistics agreement. I've been doing this since before you were commissioned."
She turned back to her workstation. Conversation over. I left the cargo office and headed for the engineering crawlspace where Marsh had been living for the better part of three days.
[Engineering Deck — Day 12, 1400 Hours]
Marsh had the 7-F water recycler running. Not just running — humming. The replacement pump assembly he'd fabricated from a dehumidifier unit pushed clean water through the filtration system at eighty-seven percent efficiency. Prewar spec was ninety. For a machine held together with salvaged parts and creative profanity, eighty-seven was a miracle.
"How many more of these can you build?" I asked.
Marsh wiped his hands on a rag that was dirtier than his hands.
"Depends on how many dehumidifier units you can get me. Each one gives me a pump assembly and about sixty percent of the filter housing. I'd need supplemental filtration material — activated carbon, ion exchange resin, something in that family." He pushed his glasses up. The gesture had become familiar, a punctuation mark in his speech. "Why? One recycler covers Compartment 7-F and the adjacent corridor. That's maybe forty people."
"What if I could get you materials for five more?"
Marsh's eyebrows climbed above his frames.
"Five recyclers covers half the refugee sections. That's real impact, Cole. But the materials..." He trailed off. Did the math in his head — I could see it happening, numbers rolling behind his eyes the way they did behind mine. "Twelve dehumidifier units. Thirty kilos of activated carbon. Piping, connectors, sealant. That's not a requisition, that's a shopping expedition."
"I have the decommission list approved by Vasquez. Fourteen items on that list contain components you can use."
"You planned this."
Yes.
"I identified a convergence of needs. You need parts. The Cybele has expired inventory waiting for disposal. Disposal means the raw materials become available for reuse. Everyone benefits."
Marsh gave me the engineer's look — the one that said I understand the logic, but I also understand you're not telling me everything.
"When do you need them?"
"How fast can you work?"
"Give me three days per unit, if the materials are prepped. Two if I have help."
Forty-eight hours. That was what I had before Boomer blew the tanks.
"Start with two units. Prioritize the refugee sections with the highest population density. I'll get you the materials by tonight."
Marsh nodded. Didn't salute, didn't ask permission, just turned back to his workbench and started sketching designs. An engineer given a problem and the resources to solve it — there wasn't a happier man on the ship.
My stomach growled as I climbed the ladder from the engineering deck. Twelve hours since my last meal — a ration bar that tasted like compressed sawdust and artificial vitamins. The Cybele's mess was serving reconstituted protein paste at 1500, and the line would wrap around the corridor.
I stopped at the water dispenser outside Deck 3. Filled my canteen from the Cybele's reserves — fresh, clean, recycled but drinkable. Took a long pull and let the water sit in my mouth before swallowing.
In forty-eight hours, this might be a luxury.
I hated myself for the thought. Hated the pragmatism of filling a personal canteen while planning for a disaster I could name but couldn't prevent. Hated that the math of survival had already begun to override whatever moral instincts Wade Hargrove had carried from a life where water came from taps and the worst crisis was a boil advisory.
The canteen was full. I sealed it and clipped it to my belt.
Then the fleet alert hit.
Every intercom on the Cybele crackled simultaneously. Not Vasquez's voice — this was fleet command, relayed from Galactica, the particular cadence of military communication that meant bad news delivered with precision.
"All ships, all ships. This is Galactica Actual. Fleet water reserves have been critically compromised. Effective immediately, all ships are ordered to implement emergency water rationing protocols. Repeat — emergency water rationing, fleet-wide, effective immediately. Galactica out."
The corridor around me went still. Two crew members froze mid-stride. A refugee woman carrying a child pressed against the bulkhead, her face draining of color. Somewhere below, I heard Dunn's voice barking orders — already moving, already adapting, because that was who she was.
Forty-eight hours early. Off by two days.
The miscalculation stung. My meta-knowledge was based on television episodes, not exact fleet timelines. Events played out in the same order but not always on the same schedule. Boomer had moved faster than expected — or I'd miscounted the days.
It didn't matter. The positioning was done. Dunn had the trade agreement drafted for Demetrius. Marsh had one recycler running and materials for two more. We weren't ahead of the crisis by the margin I'd wanted, but we weren't caught flat.
Not enough. But not nothing.
I moved toward the cargo bay at a pace just short of running. Around me, the Cybele's crew began the familiar dance of crisis — confusion yielding to discipline, discipline yielding to action, action burying the fear that sat behind every face like a second skull.
The water crisis had begun. And somewhere in the fleet, Sharon Valerii was looking at her hands and wondering why they were wet.
I stopped at a porthole near the cargo bay entrance. Outside, the fleet formation was already shifting — a water tanker ship repositioning under Galactica's orders, its running lights cutting through the dark. The Kimba Huta. I recognized the silhouette from the fleet registry I'd memorized.
That ship. Right there. It's about to become the most valuable asset in sixty-three vessels, and its captain doesn't even know it yet.
"Cole."
Dunn's voice. Behind me. Close.
I turned. She stood in the corridor, data pad in hand, face tight with the controlled urgency of someone who'd already pivoted from surprise to response. But her eyes held something else — a question, sharp and quiet, that had been building for days.
"You knew this was coming."
Not a question. A statement.
"How?"
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