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"Sir, the anomaly is beginning to collapse." Hamilton tries to keep his voice steady. He tries to keep his panic reined in and his expression calm. "If we're still inside when—"
"I am well aware of our predicament, Colonel." Washington's tone is—impossibly—light and unworried. Easy. Exasperated. Like he can't believe Hamilton is bothering him with insignificant details.
Hamilton wishes he could see the general's face, but Washington has crawled too far beneath the console, well into the metal-and-conduit-lined guts of the navigation system. He's lying on his back now, only his legs visible, which means looking at him provides no information at all. Hell, with the situation increasingly dire around them, Hamilton can't even enjoy the view of tightly-fitted fabric straining over powerful thighs.
He huffs, impatient and irritated. "The diameter of our escape window has already fallen to—"
"Yes," Washington cuts him off. "I'm sure the sensors are painting a grim picture indeed. But knowing the odds will not make me work any faster."
Hamilton bites his tongue and glares straight ahead. The viewport offers a disconcerting glimpse of space gone wrong. Shimmering, distorting, rolling in on itself like the tide of an ocean. But the tide is all around them. It's every possible direction, except for a tiny slice of normal starry blackness too far away.
Keeping quiet is difficult, but he knows Washington is right. Hamilton's usual tactics—arguing and bossing people around—are useless here. He can't do anything to help repair the damaged impulse navigation systems. He can't contact the ship through the anomaly's heavy distortion. He can't do a single damn thing to improve their situation, and the knowledge burns at him. It stings his pride and pricks along his spine. It makes him feel like a failure when Washington needs him most.
"I can hear you thinking," Washington announces. "Stop it."
"You cannot." Hamilton doesn't particularly caring if he sounds sullen. Washington is not a telepath. If he were, Hamilton would have bigger problems.
"Fine. But I can hear your silence. I know where your head is at, and you're wrong." There's a pause, a shift of Washington's weight beneath the console, a grunt followed by a heavy clunk as he shifts something heavy aside. Not a noise of surprise or pain, so whatever it was must have been intentional. Another moment and Washington resumes as though he never paused. "You're an excellent officer. We cannot all share the same areas of expertise."
"There has to be something I can do to help," Hamilton protests. "I volunteered for this mission. I'm the entire reason we're trapped in here."
"No." Washington's tone is no longer light. "The navigational malfunction is the reason we're trapped here. Exploring is what we do, Colonel."
When Washington emerges from beneath the console and sits up, his shirt is dark with sweat, his movements stiff from working at an awkward angle. Hamilton does not offer to rub his shoulders, but it's a near thing. After all, they're about to die in the middle of this wretched tachyon aberration. Where's the harm in finally—just a little—giving his general some hint of the torch he's been quietly carrying.
"I think that's done it," Washington says, bracing an arm on the empty copilot's seat and levering himself up from the floor. He sits with a tired huff. "Override the safety protocols and restart the system."
Hamilton obeys without a word. Relief floods him when the missing subroutines appear on his console, exactly where they are supposed to be.
"Sir," he announces with desperate relief. "We have impulse capability."
"Then what are you waiting for, Colonel? Get us the hell out of here."