by MB Panichi
She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think.
“What about Drygzinski? He have any enemies?”
She shook her head mutely. Someone had tried to kill her. Someone had purposefully and maliciously tampered with her spacesuit. I should be dead. Not Digger. Me. A shiver ran through her. She clenched her hands into fists to stop them shaking. What the fuck is going on?
Rogan relaxed in his chair. “Your co-workers’ stories coincide with yours,” he said. “You’re a lucky woman, Morgan Rahn.”
She blinked and looked incredulously at him. “Lucky?” she repeated. “Are you out of your fucking mind?”
Rogan smiled tightly. “You’re alive. Most people would consider that a gift.”
Chapter Three
“Ten freakin’ hours,” Morgan mumbled to herself. She trudged down the street toward her apartment building. And for what? The questioning had been routine and superficial. Even Rogan’s accusations seemed more about getting a rise out of her than him seriously believing she had anything to do with Digger’s death.
She kicked a stone as she walked and thought back to when Rogan released her from the holding cell. When she had turned away, he’d stopped her with a hand on her upper arm. “Keep your wits about you. This was probably random, but it wouldn’t hurt to be cautious.” Then he’d nodded, pivoted on his heel, and walked away.
What the fuck was that supposed to mean? Did he think someone might actually be out to get her? Or was it just a general caution given the situation? She was inclined to go with the latter option since she got sick to her stomach considering the alternative.
Reaching her apartment, Morgan palmed the lock and shouldered her way inside. She leaned tiredly against the wall beside the doorframe. God, it’s good to be home.
Her flat was one room plus a bathroom. An efficiency kitchen lined the wall to the left of the doorway, leaving barely enough space for a tiny table and two chairs. At the center of the main room, an overstuffed sofa faced the entertainment center and vid-screen covering most of the wall. The bed was built into a deep niche in the rear wall. The door to the bathroom opened between the bed and the kitchen.
She shrugged out of her jacket and draped it over the back of the nearest kitchen chair.
Her computer’s message queue beeped several times, breaking the silence, and announced in a low female voice, “You have four unheard messages and five missed calls, Morgan.”
Morgan sighed. “Put the lists on screen.” She squinted at the text. “Play last message from Dad.”
“Playing message.”
Vinn Rahn leaned toward the camera, his expression strained. “Morgan? Are you home yet? I tried you earlier, but you didn’t pick up. I heard what happened, honey. Call me, please, and let me know you’re okay.”
“End message. Save or delete?” the computer asked.
“Delete. Play last message from Charri.”
“Playing message, voice only.”
“Morg, where the fuck are you? Call me,” Charri demanded. “We’re coming over, so if you’re hiding out, I’ll fucking kill you.”
“End message. Save or delete, lover?”
Morgan smirked automatically at the flirting subroutine Digger had programmed into the computer. He’d thought a computer should at least be interesting. Damn it, Digger, I miss you already.
She glanced back at the list on screen. The rest of the messages were probably the same and she didn’t feel like listening to them. “Delete all. Call Charri. On screen.”
A quick set of beeps. A few seconds later, Charri answered. “Morgan?” Her image bobbed up and down as she walked, obviously answering on her pad and on the way to the apartment as she’d threatened.
“Yeah. I’m home,” Morgan said.
Charri frowned. “You look like hell.”
“Thanks.”
“They didn’t mess you up, did they? Those fucking bastards.”
“No, no. I’m okay. Just questions.”
“We’re a few minutes from your place. I’m going to send Ben home, but I’m coming over, okay?”
Morgan closed her eyes and felt herself sway. “Char, all I wanna do is go to bed.”
“Fine. I’m coming anyway to make sure you’re okay.”
“Whatever. Let yourself in.”
The line cleared and the picture went gray. Morgan shook her head at Charri’s stubbornness then spoke to the computer. “Call Dad. On screen.”
Vinn Rahn’s image flickered into view.
“Hey, Dad,” she said.
“You okay?” His faded gray-green gaze searched her face.
Morgan nodded. Yeah, I’m fine, but you look tired. You’ve aged so much in the last few years and I probably just added another few months to that.
“Morgan?”
She blinked. “Sorry—just wiped out.”
“Charri called looking for you. Have they been holding you this whole time?”
“Yeah.”
“I’m sorry, baby girl. Sorry you had to go through this. I know Digger was a good friend.”
Morgan swallowed, struggling to keep what little composure she had left. “I’m okay, Dad, really.”
He cocked his head, obviously seeing everything she had hoped to hide. “Get some sleep. I just needed to know you were okay.”
“Thanks, Dad.”
“I love you, kiddo.”
“I love you too.”
He signed off.
Morgan crossed to her bed, rubbing her hands through her hair. Leaning down, she unclipped the catches on her work boots, kicked them off and sat on the edge of the mattress a while, listening to the soft whirring of the air recyclers.
The door lock clicked.
She lifted her head to watch her friend slip into the apartment.
Charri hurried across the room and wrapped her into a tight hug.
She sighed and tightened her arms around Charri’s waist.
“You all right?” Charri asked.
Morgan nodded into her friend’s shoulder. “I miss him, Char.”
“I know. I miss him too.”
“I’m glad you’re here.”
Charri held her and rubbed her back, murmuring comforting words, and she clung to her friend and soaked up the warmth. After a while, she let Charri tuck her into bed like a child. She didn’t have the energy to argue as exhaustion crept over her.
Sometime later, an insistent beeping invaded her restless dreams. She slapped blindly at the alarm, but that didn’t stop the sound. Slowly, it dawned on her the noise came from the com, not the alarm. Damn! She rolled on her back and let the messaging system pick up the call.
Yesterday’s events washed over her, leaving an ache in her chest and a vaguely sick feeling in the pit of her stomach. I need to get up. Even though I would rather lie here all day.
Sighing, Morgan shoved off the blankets and sat up stiffly. A groan from the living room startled her. She glanced over to see Charri rubbing her eyes and pulling a blanket around her shoulders as she sat up on the sofa.
Charri squinted at her. “Hey.”
“Hey, Char,” Morgan mumbled, her voice sounding rough with sleep. “Thanks for stayin’.” The com beeped a reminder. She cleared her throat while she padded across the carpet. “Play new message.”
The computer responded, “Playing message, voice only.”
“Morgan? This is Derek Strom. Hope you’re doing okay.” He sounded tired and uncomfortable. “Couple of things. First, wanted to let you know that the memorial service for Digger is going to be tomorrow, fifteen hundred hours at the Christian chapel. Second, our next shift will be on the twelfth, usual time, oh-seven-hundred, so you have a couple days before we’re back at it. Let me know if you need anything. Talk to you later.”
After a pause, the computer asked, “Shall I repeat, save, forward, or delete this message, Morgan, dear?”
“Delete it.”
Charri said, “Well, there’s a smiley happy wake-up call.”
Morgan pressed her lips together. She walked to the kitchen, pulled open a cupboard and grabbed a pack of coffee beans, ripped it open, and poured the beans into the coffeemaker. A second cupboard yielded a couple of prepackaged meals. She glanced at Charri. “You okay with pancakes and sausages?”
“Sure.”
Morgan slid the meals into the heater and set the timer. She dug a couple of mugs and some silverware from the cupboard and put them on the table.
Charri dropped into a hard-backed chair. “So what’d they ask you? Why’d they hold you so much longer than us?”
“How long did they hold you?”
“Only a couple hours. Asked us to describe what happened. Asked about you—if you had any enemies, if you were a troublemaker, if you and Digger were fighting or something.” Charri shrugged. “I told them they were crazy if they thought you had anything to do with it—that you guys were best friends.”
Morgan chewed her lower lip. The timer beeped. She removed the two meals and set them on the table. The smell of food made her feel suddenly weak and shaky. Dropping into the chair across from Charri, she wrapped a pancake around a sausage. Two sausage-cakes later, her hands quit shaking.
Charri moved her plate in front of Morgan. “Here, you need this more than I do.” She got up to pour the coffee, adding generous amounts of powdered cream and sweetener to each mug.
Morgan plowed through the rest of her breakfast while Charri settled in the chair with her fingers curled around the mug and slowly sipped her coffee.
Finally Morgan looked up from the plate. “What did they tell you?”
“Not a damned thing. They’re investigating. Ben talked to Strom last night before I came over here. Strom was pissed because Corporate wouldn’t tell him anything.”
Morgan nodded thoughtfully. “They asked me the same kinds of questions, then left me waiting. A second guy came in, said his name was Rogan—must’ve been from headquarters. He pretty much accused me of murdering Digg. I told him I didn’t do it.” She got up and paced the short distance between the table and the sofa. “He said my suit had micro-explosives rigged into the tools’ power pack and along the helmet’s faceplate.”
Charri stared at her.
Morgan twisted the gold band on her right index finger. “It wasn’t an accident.”
“Do they have any idea who did it? Or why?”
Morgan shrugged.
Charri said, “It just doesn’t make any sense.”
“Digg’s dead. It should have been me. It was my fucking suit.”
“It shouldn’t have been either of you.”
Running her fingers through her short black hair, Morgan scowled and straightened her shoulders. “Call Strom. On screen.”
The com system put the call out. Her crew chief’s image appeared on the vid-screen. Strom looked like he hadn’t slept much, but a ghost of a smile appeared on his unshaven face. “Hey, Morgan.”
“Hey. Got your message. Thanks.”
He nodded and lifted a hand in greeting when he saw Charri in the background. “Hey, Char. Is Ben there too?”
Charri shook her head. “I left him home. I came over when Morgan got back last night.”
“You okay, Morg?” Strom asked. “We were worried about you.”
“Yeah, shook up, but okay.”
“They didn’t fuck you up or anything, did they? I bitched at Grohman to get your ass out of there until he finally kicked me out of his office and threatened to have me thrown in jail for harassment.”
“No, just questions. You know a guy named Rogan?”
Strom shook his head. “From Corporate?”
“Probably.” She gave him the short version of what Rogan had told her about the rigged suit.
Strom sighed when she finished. “I finally got Grohman to talk to me earlier this morning. If you can believe what Corporate says, they’re pretty well convinced that it was, and I quote—” he made quotation marks in the air with his fingers, “—a random act of corporate terrorism.”
“You believe that?” Morgan asked.
He shrugged. “Anyway, they said to be aware of heightened security at the job and probably on Base generally. But other than that, we’re just going to do our jobs the way we always have.”
Morgan sighed. “The more things change, the more they stay the same.”
“Pretty much. Look, you guys take it easy, okay? If I hear anything I’ll let you know. I’ll see you at Digg’s memorial tomorrow.”
“Thanks, Strom.”
“Talk to you ladies later.”
Morgan flopped on the sofa. Leaning back against the cushions, she closed her eyes.
Charri asked, “What are you going to do today?”
“I need to go see my dad. Other than that, probably just sleep. You?”
“Hang with Ben. Maybe we’ll see you later?”
“Yeah. Call me if you guys go for food.”
Charri stood and stretched. “I’m gonna head, then.”
“Thanks for stayin’, Char.”
“That’s what friends are for, right?” Charri grinned. “I’m gonna get outta here so you can shower and get to your dad’s. He was pretty uptight last night.”
Morgan smiled tiredly. “Yeah. Sooner I get there, the better.”
Chapter Four
Morgan crossed Moon Base’s central plaza, wending slowly through the block-square park. Dwarf trees and perennial flowers grew in ornamental concrete planters placed along gravel walkways. Low water-use mossy grass grew between the paths. On another day, she would have taken off her shoes and roamed over the spongy, soft carpet, maybe even laid down in a quiet spot with her pad and done some writing.
She passed the vegetables growing in neat rows across a six-meter square plot, carefully cared for and cultivated by volunteers and grade school students learning about basic biology. For many of the workers on base, the green space brought a bit of Earth up to the Moon.
Morgan had never lived on Earth. She’d been there a couple of times—once as a child with her parents on a vacation she barely remembered, and once with her ex-girlfriend, Gina, during a vacation she would rather forget.
Even though she considered herself a “spacer” she was drawn to the greenness. Today, however, she passed through the park without stopping. She needed to see her father.
Her path took her to a three-story housing complex on the west side of the plaza. Her father’s apartment—where she had grown up—was on the second floor. She took the closed stairwell up to the second floor and trudged down the hallway, stopping at a nondescript door with a faded welcome mat in front. She tapped the lock combination into the keypad. The door slid open and she stepped inside. “Dad?”
Familiar, comforting smells surrounded her while she hung up her jacket on a coat rack near the door. The pungent aroma of coffee wafted to her from the kitchen to her immediate right, along with whatever her dad had eaten for breakfast, and more faintly, the sweetness of his aftershave.
Her father’s voice boomed from beyond the foyer. “In the living room, honey!”
She kicked off her boots and followed the voice. When she tramped into the living room, Vinn Rahn pushed himself stiffly out of his easy chair, a hand wrapped around his black metal cane. He took a step forward to greet her.
“Hey, Dad.” Morgan wrapped him in a hug.
Balancing with his cane, Vinn put his free arm around her shoulders and gave her a hard squeeze. For a moment, she felt like the twelve-year-old she had been, desperately needing the comfort and reassurance of her dad’s strong embrace.
“You okay? I been worried about you,” he said.
Morgan nodded into his shoulder. She shook herself mentally and let go. She wiped quickly at the tears threatening to spill down her face. “Yeah, I’m good. Just a little shook up.”
He gave her arm a pat. Concern and worry drew lines across his brow as he studied her.
Morgan put on her best grown-up face. “Sit down, Dad. You want some
more coffee?” Without waiting for an answer, she smiled, picked up his empty cup from the end table beside his easy chair and went to the kitchen, returning with a bottle of juice for herself and a mug of steaming coffee for him. She took her usual place on the matching chair beside his, slouching into its worn depths, and stretching her feet out in front of her with a sigh.
The living room was the same as always, the furniture worn with age and use, the same faded holo photos on the walls—pictures of herself as a child, and her mother—all a silent tribute and reminder of the past.
She watched him pick up his mug and sip the hot liquid. “You want to talk about it?” he asked.
Morgan wasn’t entirely sure she wanted to talk, but slowly began to relate the previous days’ events. Vinn listened carefully, not interrupting, giving her hand an occasional reassuring pat. He was supportive at all the right points and never asked for more than she was willing to say. He never had. Even after Mom’s death and the self-inflicted traumas of her somewhat challenging adolescence, he had never pushed, just let her work through things in her own time, on her own terms. She sipped her juice. “The last guy that came in was probably from Corporate, said his name was Rogan.”
He startled, his eyes wide. “Rogan?” he repeated.
“Yeah.” Morgan cocked her head. “Why?”
After a beat, his expression cleared. He shook his head and waved her off. “Just sounded familiar for a minute. Go on, what did he tell you?”
Morgan swallowed. She had to take a breath to say the next piece. The words came out flat and toneless. “My suit was sabotaged with micro-explosives. Security told Strom it was corporate terrorists.”
She watched emotions flicker across her father’s face. Terrorist violence had killed her mother—pirates working in the Belt, stealing ships’ cargos, raiding the mining facilities for equipment and raw minerals. Mom had been in the wrong place at the wrong time, caught in the crossfire when the pirates raided the mining facility’s supply depot.
“Bastards,” Vinn muttered.
She sighed and continued her story, needing to get it all out. She knew she was rambling now and hated it, but couldn’t stop the thoughts from tumbling out. “At first while I was sitting there, I just kept thinking it was something I’d missed, diagnostics I hadn’t run. But I know I ran them. Then it turns out it wasn’t anything to do with me, so there’s a part of me that’s really glad it wasn’t my fault.” She raked her fingers through her hair. “But it was still my suit Digger was wearing. If we hadn’t traded, it would’ve been me dead. And I keep thinking maybe it should have been.” She shook her head and rubbed her face tiredly with the palms of her hands. “God, I hate this.” Her chest squeezed tight. She forced herself to breathe.