GANAS: Which is also painful to be reminded of so frequently.

SPURLEA: Come on. We have to give Malik his painkillers.

GANAS: Did Chen tell you to finish him off after you did?

SPURLEA: He did.

GANAS: Will you?

SPURLEA: I don’t know.

GANAS: You’re a good and decent man, Aurel. You really, truly are. How you ended up on a wildcat colony is beyond me.

SPURLEA: You’re one to talk, Magda. Let’s go in.

GANAS: All right.

SPURLEA: And turn that off. Whatever I do, I don’t want a record of it anywhere but on my conscience.

[Transcript Ends]

Episode Three: We Only Need the Heads

EPISODE THREE

We Only Need the Heads

Hart Schmidt went to Ambassador Abumwe’s temporary office on Phoenix Station when she pinged him, but she wasn’t there. Schmidt knew that the ambassador not being in her office wasn’t a good enough excuse for him not to be in her presence when commanded, so he did a hasty PDA search on his boss. Three minutes later, he walked up to her in an observation lounge.

“Ambassador,” he said.

“Mr. Schmidt,” the ambassador said, not turning to him. Schmidt followed her gaze out the wall-sized window of the observation deck, to the heavily damaged ship hovering at a slight distance from the station itself.

“The Clarke,” Schmidt said.

“Very good, Schmidt,” Abumwe said, in a tone that informed him that, as with so many of the things he said to her in his role as a functionary on her diplomatic team, he was not telling her anything she didn’t already know.

Schmidt made an involuntary, nervous throat clearing in response. “I saw Neva Balla earlier today,” he said, naming the Clarke’s executive officer. “She tells me that it’s not looking good for the Clarke. The damage it took on our last mission is pretty extensive. Fixing it will be nearly as expensive as building a new ship. She thinks it’s likely they’ll simply scrap it.”

“And do what with the crew?” Abumwe said.

“She didn’t say,” Schmidt said. “She said the crew is being kept together, at least for the moment. There’s a chance the Colonial Union may just take a new ship and assign the Clarke’s crew to it. They might even name it the Clarke, if they’re going to scrap this one.” Schmidt motioned in the direction of the ship.

“Hmmmm,” Abumwe said, and then lapsed back into silence, staring at the Clarke.

Schmidt spent a few more uncomfortable minutes before clearing his throat again. “You pinged me, Ambassador?” he said, reminding her he was there.

“You say the Clarke crew hasn’t been reassigned,” Abumwe said, as if their earlier conversation hadn’t had an extended pause in it.

“Not yet,” Schmidt said.