“Oh, of course! Fair enough.” Anand nodded. She was probably quite busy. Best to jump right into the crux of the matter. He realized he was fidgeting with his bandage again, and quickly lowered his hands so that they were hopefully out of range of the holo-imager.

“Well, I want to apologize. Again.” He immediately started talking with his hands again anyway. “My childish actions on Casperia were not meant to be a prelude to–”

Anand hoped that Brennan had taken his call in private, but figured he’d keep things vague just in case. “To the other night, and that w– well, that was unexpected. But fun! It was nice, I had a lovely time! And it was not an attempt to get any sort of preferential treatment among the Task Force captains. Unless you count what we did as the preferential treatment.”

Ooooh no, that last sentence was a bad addition. Everything out of his mouth since ‘Captain’ had been a bad addition. He threw up his hands. “You can treat me worse! If it helps!”

There was a moment of silence. For Anand, it was awkward. For Brennan, it was strategy.

“I will not be treating anyone in any way,” she said eventually. “I resigned.” There was another pause, then she added, “Are you always that slow on reading incoming communications? They are important. You know that, right?”

It was Anand’s turn for a moment of silence, but his was hardly strategic. His brain attempted to move forward on autopilot. “I sort my incoming comms by priority level, and apparently the change in task force leadership was not marked very high,” he said defensively.

“Well, that’s hardly my problem any more.” Brennan shrugged. “So, what do you want?”

“I want to stop digging myself even deeper into this hole, but I’m not sure that’s possible anymore, so, full speed ahead,” said Anand, still vividly gesticulating. “Since you’re no longer my CO, I want to take you out to dinner. Or a show. Or a cat cafe. You can talk about why you resigned, if you want!”

‘Because the timing of it is very concerning!’ was something Anand chose not to add. It sounded too selfish. Besides, the position had a high turnover rate anyway. It was a very stressful job! Obviously, he wasn’t sole the reason. Still, the thought that he might have been the straw that broke the camel’s back would not let up, and if their conversation ended here, he’d probably just keep wondering.

“Or you can talk about literally anything else!” he continued. “And either you’ll have a good time despite knowing who I am from the very start, or I’ll embarrass myself so badly that you never pick up another one of my calls again!”

His voice had risen in pitch the more he talked, leaving Brennan unimpressed. Externally. Internally, she was wondering if the mug on his desk would shatter if he kept rambling.

“I do not want to talk about why I resigned,” she said eventually, letting that sink in to make sure it stuck. “And I would recommend you never bring it up.”

“Okay! Well, good to know! I’m sweeping that off the table,” said Anand, miming the motion and thwacking his hand on his mug. He grimaced and shook the pain out as he kept negotiating. “But if you–”

“Yes. It’s a yes. Don’t ask again or it will be a no.”

“Oh!”

Anand’s frantic energy seemed to finally fizzle out. He gave his hand one last shake, then settled his arms on his desk. “Well, our ships will be in range of each other in three days. See you then?”

Brennan paused. Or perhaps she hesitated. Then, she gave a single nod. “Yes. I am… looking forward to it.”

And then the connection dropped, or she ended the call. Probably the latter.

“Hmm.” Anand drummed his hands as he contemplated the call, the tempo increasing to a crescendo of sudden stillness.

“That went better than I expected it to.”