“Stoff had nothing to do with the alliance with the kitsen,” FM said. “He refused to make the call to send the flights to help them. He dumped all the responsibility onto Jorgen so that if it was the wrong choice, Jorgen would take the fall for it.”
Stoff’s mouth fell open.
“Is that true, son?” Cobb asked.
“Yes,” I said. “Though in Stoff’s defense, I did come in swinging.”
FM gave me a sharp look, like she didn’t understand why I was speaking in Stoff’s defense, but it was the truth.
“I told him we were already authorized by you to make alliances,” I continued, “and we weren’t going to hear anything more from the assembly about talking to the Superiority.” I was pretty sure I’d implied we weren’t going to hear anything more from the assembly ever, but that was obviously not a long-term solution.
“Before we knew of your whereabouts,” Stoff said, “we felt it was best to follow your last orders.”
“Who is we?” Cobb asked. “Last I checked, in the absence of the admiral the vice admiral’s job isn’t done by committee.”
Stoff stammered.
“If he hadn’t listened to me,” I said, “we might never have found you and Mrs. Nightshade. I don’t know how long your bodies would have lasted with your spirits in the portal, but I can’t imagine it would have been long.”
Cobb gave me a look that said I wasn’t helping myself, but it was true. Stoff was a coward, but he’d stayed out of my way when it mattered.
“The point is,” FM said, “Jorgen is the one who found Kauri’s transmission, which led us to you on Evershore. He made the call to travel here to find you, and to try to follow your last orders to us and make alliances for Detritus. And when everything went wrong, Jorgen is the one who made the call to pull in more flights, to put Rig and his team on moving the platforms, and to ultimately make the discovery together with them that we could move the planet.”
Cobb looked at me. I couldn’t deny anything she’d said. Those were the facts. “That’s true, sir. Though she did leave out the part where I manifested mindblades in a meeting full of alien politicians. So it wasn’t all good.”
“Yes, well,” Cobb said, “you seem to have overcome that misstep all right.”
“Sir,” Stoff said. “I’m sure you understand that I was only trying to do what was best for the people of Detritus. Clearly you had put your trust in Flightleader Weight, and so I—”
“That’s enough,” Cobb said. “Stoff, take a walk.”
Stoff’s jaw dropped again. “Sir?” he said.
“Take a walk,” Cobb repeated.
Stoff blinked at him, and then he turned around and left.
“It really was a good thing he listened to me,” I said. “If he hadn’t let me make the decisions, we could have lost the whole kitsen planet.”
“That may be,” Cobb said. “But a commander who shuffles off the hard choices is no commander at all.” He looked at me like he was considering something. He bent over for a moment, coughing, and FM and I looked at each other in alarm.
I had no idea what being half-stuck behind that portal had done to Cobb’s body, but he seemed to be weathering it poorly.
“Sir?” I said.
“FM, would you excuse us?” Cobb said when he could speak again.
My heart dropped. Here it was. He was going to chew me out for taking control. The decisions I’d made were far above my pay grade. I shouldn’t have done the things I did, even though they’d saved lives.
Stoff would have painted me as a renegade if things had gone poorly, but that wouldn’t have taken a very broad brush.
FM gave me one worried look, and then she nodded and turned to leave. Cobb sat up in bed, glancing with irritation at the medical devices still strapped to his arm.
“I’m sorry I acted rashly, sir,” I said. “I can brief you on everything, get you up to speed.”
“I heard quite a bit over the radio there at the end,” Cobb said, his voice still strained. He looked up at me like he was struggling to focus. “And that thing you did, speaking directly to everyone’s minds. That’s cytonic, isn’t it? You haven’t manifested some other ungodly power I need to know about?”
“No sir,” I said. “It’s cytonic. How…how long were you listening over the radio? I told them to call in as soon as you were awake—”