Chapter 150 - Temporary Command

Tuesday had been a late night. The troops had been wound up after the events of the day and took their time going to bed. Then a senior leaders meeting had been called before Sam could find her cot. In that meeting, Sam learned that she was going to be in charge of the EDA for the next two days. Nothing short of an emergency was to brought to the attention of Mike or Cassandane while they were training.

Her mission parameters were outlined for her. First, the team would remain in lockdown. Second, preparations for the move to Nuvanet would continue with the goal of moving over the weekend. Third, they would fulfill their obligation to train the current cohort of students. Fourth, any EDA soldiers not occupied with move planning or teaching would be kept busy with training exercises -- without leaving the building. Fifth, Erica Spencer was on bed rest and would not be assisting her. As the expectations were piled on top of her, Sam felt that she had lost the ability to speak. She nodded weakly in acceptance.

The next morning, Jimmy told her to consider the move planning officially delegated to him, which was a major relief.

It also gave her a potential solution to any problem she might face: delegation. She assigned Tracy to lead exercises that morning. Which, after a warmup of thirty burpees, she considered a grave mistake. Nevertheless, everyone survived the half hour of calisthenics.

She delegated all meal planning to Kendra. Sam had complete faith that the woman administrator could handle any task that involved talking into a phone or herding people. She put McGreary in charge of conducting medical training all morning, then put Greg in charge of noise control so that they wouldn't bother Mike and Cassandane, who were training in the meeting room.

Then came class time. Sam had begun to enjoy the art of delegation, so when the students arrived she informed them that they all had to teach one of their skills to the entire class and gave them an hour to prepare their lessons. The panic in their faces kindled a savage joy in her heart and made her wonder if she had gone over to the dark side. But the impulsive move proved more effective than she would have ever dreamed. The presentations were not terrible. Moreover, the students gained more humility from the exercise than they had from Mike's dramatic display the other day. When they broke for lunch, the instructors had enough material for the afternoon just correcting the mistakes from the student-generated curriculum.

Her good spirits came crashing down when she saw Erica standing in line for lunch, the pointer finger of one hand reaching towards a particular spot on her chest but hesitating to make contact. Sam hadn't found all of the bits of rib the previous day. No doubt the missing pieces had been blown across the room. Needless to say, the bone hadn't been put back to the way it was before. Maybe it would thicken once more as it healed. Maybe not. Whatever happened in the future, Sam knew that as of that day, it was lacking because she hadn't been able to put it back together the right way.

Over cheeseburgers and fries, Erica told the story of Cassandane taking charge of an emergency room and mind-controlling a doctor into performing a blood transfusion without any paperwork. Sam found a spot at another table, where Jess and Srinivas made her feel awkward by feeding each other fries. Mike would probably have stopped them with a joke or something, but Sam contented herself with pretending not to notice. Perhaps she could delegate the task of eliminating public displays of affection to someone else.

She ate quickly and ran to the bathroom just to get a break from the show her bestie was putting on with her boyfriend. The door had barely closed behind her when Erica entered.

"Hey," Sam said.

Erica put her back to the door. "Everyone is going out of their way to be helpful and I can't stand it."

"They just want to show support for you."

"Then they're a day late," Erica cut in. "They constantly disrespected me. They're still disrespecting me, just in a nicer way. Do you get it from them too?"

Sam hesitated. "Disrespect?"

"Because we're women in charge of men."

"I mean, everyone assumes I'm in way over my head. But if I'm being honest, they're right. I'm a dumb kid who signed up for the Fleet because I was going to fail out of college. My only qualification is that I attuned as a paragon." Sam shrugged. "What I hear about you is that you know what you're doing."

Erica pouted her lips. "Who are you hearing that from?"

"Mostly Ski. Based on what I see, you do most of the work to run your team and then everyone gives Ski the credit. But maybe that's leadership? I've spent this entire day tasking other people with doing parts of my job and I think that's how it's expected to work. Which is shitty to everyone carrying the leader's reputation. My point is, people know you are the one who makes things happen around here. It sucks that everyone gives you shit . . . but who else can they complain to? Ski is intimidating and Cassandane could put agents into our minds to make us her slaves if she felt like it."

Erica chewed on those words for a moment. "Maybe I am the safe option for when they want to push back. That's not the whole story, though."

"Want me to yell at them for giving you a hard time? I have more self confidence today than I probably should."

"Hell no," Erica said. "I already look weak after . . . the incident." She sighed. "Thank you for coming to me so fast. I know I'm almost back to normal already, but it was a close thing."

"I should have brought McGreary with me. He was a nurse." As she said it, Sam wondered. Sean McGreary had the teleotic talent, but he didn't have the kinetic talent. Without a corona, it was hard to get a feel for where things were. It was just abstract patterns. Pairing the two talents helped a lot with the process of detecting and manipulating a body. Adding in the mental vasting from the noetic talent gave another boost. Sam realized she might have been the best person to arrive first on scene, other than Cassandane or Mike.

"The fact that I could run to the bathroom to get away from my coworkers means that you did a pretty good job."

Sam smiled. "Thanks, Erica. You do a fantastic job every day here. I wish you were making me look good instead of the other centurion."

"If you're serious about that, I don't have anything on my schedule for the next two days."

"Aren't you on bed rest?"

Erica rolled her eyes. "Bed rest is ridiculous. I've been put back together with the next best thing to magic. My muscles feel a little tight along the path of the bullet and I have a weird twinge when I take a deep breath. That's it. I'll accept the prescription of light duty for a few days, but I can push paperwork or give orders or offer advice just fine."

Sam drew herself up. "Erica Spencer, will you be my Obi-Wan?"

"If you mean 'will I be your mentor' then yes, gladly. My first advice to you is to not make Star Wars references."

"I can agree not to reference the sequels or prequels, but the original trilogy is part of my religion."

"Your religion is being a nerd?"

"That's a harsh way of putting it." Sam shrugged. "Accurate, but harsh."

"I have a second piece of advice. You can't let your friend make out with her guy while on duty or in uniform. It's unprofessional and bad for morale."

Sam winced. "I was hoping someone else would talk to them."

"That would have been fine, except that you as the ranking officer tacitly endorsed their behavior by sitting with them and not saying anything."

"And here I thought I was doing a good job today."

"This is an easy fix. Take each of them aside at some point today and tell them that you didn't want to criticize them in public but be firm that the behavior stops. They can spend time together, but they have to be professional. They have to save their affections for when they are alone. I can't believe I am about to say this, but they should be acting more like Jimmy and Kendra. It doesn't have to be a secret, but it can't be displayed."

"I really can't delegate this one?"

"It's got to come from the boss. Today that's you."