The uniform on the press was magenta like mine. I ran my fingertips across the surface, identifying a rough patch.
“Stryker.” Neptune’s voice tore my attention from the uniform. “You’re to finish out your shift and then retire to your quarters. I’ll have dinner brought to you. We’ll reconvene tomorrow morning.”
“Aren’t you going to tell me what that was about?”
“It doesn’t concern you.”
“Why not? Because I’m a prisoner?”
“You’re not a prisoner. You’re a crew member.”
“Yeah, right.” I pulled the uniform off the press and tossed it onto the bench. “So, this is my life now. Sorting uniforms and keeping them wrinkle-free, at least until we land and then who knows? I guess when we’re done I could get a job at a space laundromat. What with all of the sorting and pressing skills I will have perfected while on Moon Unit 5.”
Neptune pressed his lips together like he wanted to say something but didn’t. He left. I burned off a little of my anger by walking to the far end of the uniform ward and then back three times. The inactive alert on the uniform press beeped. I picked up the next wrinkled garment on my pile and fitted it onto the device. I repeated the process on autopilot for the rest of the uniforms on the wrinkled pile, ending with a neat stack of folded uniforms organized by size and color. The only one that sat by itself was the first one I’d pressed that had caused the press to sizzle.
I looked at the fabric more closely. Again, I had to run my fingertips over the surface of the uniform to identify the rough patch. The surface had cooled considerably, and the blob had hardened, making it easier to find. It was just above the insignia. I pulled an identification scanner out of the cabinet and positioned it on top of the hard spot, and then pressed my eye up against the lens and looked closely at the now-magnified section of fabric. With the ultraviolet light of the scanner illuminating the section in question, I made out a faint transfer of pearly blue now fused into the tight weave of the magenta heat resistant fabric.
I knew that pearly blue. It was the shade of nail polish worn by Yeoman D’Nar.
Yeoman D’Nar was a first officer. She’d been among the crew who’d boarded before I’d gotten clearance. She could have come to the uniform ward because it was part of her responsibility, but I had to wonder if she’d had a different reason to be in there before departure? Like killing the second navigation officer and sabotaging engineering herself?
25: Suspicions Getting Clearer
Yeoman D’Nar had shown me no leniency from the moment we’d departed. I had assumed she was a tough boss, mistaking nastiness for management. The universe had long since accepted that female officers brought a different but valuable perspective to their positions of power, and training had equalized the techniques most leaders used. It would be generous to assume her nastiness had anything to do with her management style. It was probably inherent in her personality.
How unfortunate for her.
But what would be her reason for killing the second nav officer? Romance gone wrong? Or did she know something the rest of us didn’t? Had he been the one to leak the poisonous gas into engineering and had she killed him to save us?
The day I found the body, I had asked Neptune who the crew member was. Neptune had said the second nav officer’s identity didn’t matter, but I couldn’t help wondering if it did. Protocol—confirmed by Doc Edison—prohibited us from treating him as anything other than his position on the ship. Neptune had enforced that more than others, but he’d been the one to tell me Lt. Dakkar’s name. I didn’t know if it mattered.
I went to the computer Neptune had connected for me and searched the network for crew member files. The name next to second navigation officer was D. Teron. It was clearly a mistake. Daila Teron was the original uniform lieutenant who I’d replaced.
But still, D’Nar’s fingernail was evidence that she’d been here before me, and I wanted to know why. And until I did, I wasn’t going to let her marred uniform out of my possession. The only problem was where to stash it? Yeoman D’Nar was my boss. She could search the uniform ward at any time. If I was correct and the pearly blue blob was from one of her fingernails, then she’d have to know she’d lost it. How long before she retraced her steps and ended up here?
I couldn’t leave the uniform. And wandering the halls with it in my hand was flat-out suspicious. There was one way to get it back to my quarters without drawing attention to myself. I would wear it.
I glanced at the door. Neptune and Captain Swift had been gone for over an hour. My shift wouldn’t be over for another two. Yet the longer I waited, the less sure I felt about taking the risk. If I waited too long, I’d talk myself out of it.
Reaching around the back of my black security uniform, I lowered the zipper as far as I could. I changed the position of my arms from up over my shoulders to underneath and unzipped the rest of the way. Ingrained modesty made me turn my back to the entrance even though I was alone. I leaned forward and shook my arms out of my sleeves, and then pushed the uniform off me to the floor. I stepped one foot out of it, and then the other, leaving it in a pile while I quickly stepped into D’Nar’s. I heard the doors to the uniform ward open. I pulled the uniform up and looked to see who’d entered.
“Sylvia, oh, geez, I didn’t know you were changing.” Vaan’s eyes went wide.
“Turn around!”
“Yes. Sorry.” He faced the doors. “Do you need help with your zipper?” he asked over his shoulder.
“No,” I said emphatically. I slipped my arms into the narrow sleeves—were D’Nar’s arms really that thin?—and reached behind me to slide the zipper up. The narrowness of the sleeves made it difficult to bend my arms, but I made do. When I was fully dressed again, I picked my black security uniform off the ground and tossed it into the laundry bin.
“I’m done,” I said.
Vaan turned around. His eyes took in the uniform on the press, the pressing device, and the neat stack of inventory on the bench behind me. Apparently satisfied that I wasn’t up to something I shouldn’t be, he didn’t comment on my state of undress when he’d entered.
“I wanted to check on you,” he said.
“Why? Because the head of Moon Unit security shot a tracking chip into me? Or because I was the subject of a meeting in Council Chambers? Or because I lost everything when the space pirates destroyed Plunia? No, it can’t be that, because you’re Plunian too and you don’t seem to be upset. Or, oh. Maybe it’s because you think I’m helpless and I need you to save me?” I tapped my finger against my cheek like I was considering those options. “I sure hope it isn’t that one. I would have to be pretty delusional to think that you of all people would save me.”
“Syl, that’s not fair.”
“No, Vaan, what’s not fair is you finagling your way onto the ship in some misguided prince-who-saves-the-day act. You had your chance to do the stand-up thing for me once. Don’t pretend you’re trying to make up for past errors in judgment.”
“You’re way off base here.”
“Am I? Because let’s see. How many times have you done something that didn’t advance your career?” I rolled my eyes up toward the ceiling and pretended to think. “I’m drawing a blank. Jump in if you got anything.”
For the first time since Vaan had become a member of Federation Council, I saw him get angry. His eyes narrowed, his fists balled up, and his dark purple skin turned a deep shade of midnight violet. Acts of violence were completely verboten in Federation Council, and I knew he wouldn’t risk his standing by acting out physically. But I was so mad myself that I stood my ground and stared back at him as intensely as he stared at me. The air felt prickly, like someone had turbocharged the atoms in a bath of electricity and sugar.
We stood like that, facing each other, with no words spoken, long enough for the inactive beep to initiate on the pressing device again. The sound startled me. I looked at the crumpled pile of fabric on the board and snapped out of my
anger. I picked up another uniform, fitted it onto the board, and attacked the wrinkles.
My actions had a calming effect on Vaan as well. His coloring returned to normal. When it became impossible to ignore him, I looked up. I kept one hand on the iron, more for stability than because I planned to use it as a weapon.
“Sylvia, there’s something bigger going on here than you know.”
“There’s nothing between us, Vaan. Not anymore.”
“I’m not talking about us. I’m talking about Moon Unit 5.”
“You’ve been on Moon Unit 5 for three days. I know more about this ship than you ever will.”
“Listen to me. Please. This ship should never have been cleared for departure from the space station. I can’t tell you anything more than that, but I need you to trust me.”
“I can fight my own battles. I have for years.”
“I don’t want to see you become collateral damage in a battle that isn’t yours.”
I studied Vaan’s face, looking for signs that he was manipulating me. All I saw was honesty.
I pulled the uniform off the board, shook it out, and then folded it. I’d hoped Vaan would take the hint from my resumed activity that I was moving on from our conversation and he should move on as well. He didn’t. He stood in the same spot, watching as if waiting for me to complete my task so we could continue our conversation.
“What are you waiting for?” I asked. “I don’t know what you said to convince the captain to make a secret, unscheduled stop at Federation Council and bring you on board the Moon Unit, or how the crew even managed that without everybody knowing we’d made a stop. But if that was meant to be some grand gesture to win me back, then forget it. You made your choices, and I made mine. I didn’t ask you to show up unannounced on my ship. I was here first.”
“You’re wrong about so many things,” Vaan said.
“Like what? Tell me one thing I’ve said that you know for a fact isn’t true. Go ahead. I’m not dumb, Vaan. I know way more than you think.”
“You’re wrong about me convincing the captain to make a secret unscheduled stop to pick me up. I was the first person on board this ship. I boarded the ship before you, before the crew, before anybody.”
“Were you here? In the uniform ward?”
“I was everywhere. Federation Council status gives me unrestricted access to every ward on the ship.”
He turned around as if to leave, but stopped before activating the doors. “Change your uniform before Yeoman D’Nar sees you. There’s a stain above your insignia.”
Our eyes connected for a long moment before he turned back toward the doors and left.
I hated to be wrong. As Pika would say, I hated it hated it hated it. But this time, being wrong had given me a valuable piece of information.
Vaan wasn’t here for the reasons everybody thought. He was hiding something. And admitting to having been on the ship before anybody else meant I could add him to the list of suspects who could have committed murder.
26: More Suspects
I finished my shift and headed to my quarters. It was easy enough to keep my head down and avoid talking to the other crew members. Between the assault in the hallway and any rumors that may have sprung up about me after the session in Council Chambers, I wasn’t the most popular person on the ship. There’d been a time when I’d hoped to make friends on Moon Unit 5. Those days were over.
When I reached my quarters, I slipped out of D’Nar’s uniform and into a robe. The only regulation uniform I had left was the one I’d torn the sleeves from on day one, and until I could retrieve a fresh uniform from the ward, I was going to have to repair this one or risk another infraction. I didn’t know yet if Yeoman D’Nar had bigger reasons for riding my case since I arrived on the ship than just being mean, but until I knew if she was the murderer, I wasn’t going to give her an excuse to come after me. And if I did find out she was responsible for the death of Lt. Dakkar, my lack of regulation uniforms would be the least of my problems.
I got my sewing kit out of the bottom of my closet and sat at the table to work on the repairs. It would have been both faster and easier to do in the ship’s workroom, but that would require me to leave my quarters, and I wasn’t intent on making any public appearances.
As I lined up the edges of the fabric and started to sew, I thought over Vaan’s words. If he’d been thinking clearly, he never would have admitted to having been on this ship before we departed. That meant someone expected trouble and applied for a representative early. Had Vaan volunteered for the assignment because of me? Hardly likely. Nobody on this ship knew I’d be here. So was it a coincidence? As a woman of science and reason, I hated coincidence. I liked when things fit into a pattern and made sense.
If Vaan wasn’t here because of me, and his presence wasn’t a coincidence, then I could see only two other options. Number one: someone had banished him to the ship in the hopes of getting rid of him. Number two: Vaan had arranged to be on the ship to commit murder.
Which meant I now had two solid suspects.
As my fingers nimbly handled the repairs to my uniform, it occurred to me that there would be a value to solving the murder on my own. In a conclusion that possibly only I would reach, it seemed that removing Moon Unit 5 from danger and saving a ship filled with vacationers who might tell their friends and even return for second and third trips would be worth, say, the price of my freedom. I had never heard of anyone successfully removing the chip from their spinal cords once implanted, but that didn’t mean it couldn’t be done. And if I was enough of a hero to save the luxury moon cruiser from bad press, then maybe I could even convince the owners to keep me on board.
Who was I kidding? There was no future for me with the Moon Unit corporation.
I finished repairing the second sleeve and stood up to change. I untied my robe and let it fall to the floor and then stepped into my uniform and bent down to lift it up. The doors opened.
“I hate those doors!” I said. I whirled around and found Neptune and Pika in the hallway. “A minute, please?”
Neptune grabbed Pika’s skinny arm and pulled her a step backward. The doors shut.
After today, I was never going to take my uniform off again! I finished dressing and opened the doors. Neptune and Pika still stood there. “My old uniform is in the uniform ward. You can get it there.”
“That’s not why we’re here.”
“Then what do you want?”
His eyes hovered some distance above my head. “Show her,” he said.
Pika raised her eyes up to meet mine. She moved her hands from behind her and held out Cat.
I turned around and scanned my room. Because Cat’s motion detectors were triggered by light, he occasionally walked around and fell off things. Sometimes I’d leave him on the bed and find him on the floor across the room. It added to the feeling that he was a live pet. But today, I’d been so distracted by Vaan and D’Nar that I hadn’t looked for him when I got back after my shift.
“Where did you find him?” I asked. I reached out to take him and Pika pulled him away.
“Tell her,” Neptune said.
Pika looked embarrassed. “I took him.”
“Tell her everything.”
“I took him, and I broke him.” The pale pink alien girl held Cat toward me butt-first. The power panel above his right hind leg was open, and two wires jutted out. “I’m sorry.”
I raised both eyebrows. Gremlons weren’t known for their ability to feel sorrow or remorse. Pika’s apology had been coerced and, judging from the way she quivered while she stood next to Neptune, I had a pretty good idea of who had been the coercer.
“It’s okay. I built him, so I can fix him. Come on in and sit down.” I looked up at Neptune’s face. “I’ll take care of her from here, thanks.”
“We need to talk.”
“Fine. Talk.”
Neptune put his hand on my forearm and pulled me into the hallway. I looked up and down the ha
ll to see if anyone had seen him manhandle me, but no luck.
“What do you think you’re doing?” I said, but no sound came out of my mouth. “Great. This again. Where can I get one of those sound-cancelling thingies? You know, so I can sneak up on you and catch you naked.”
Neptune glared at me like he’d heard what I’d said. He pointed to me, and then to him, and then at a door across the hall. I rolled my eyes but followed him inside. As soon as the doors swished shut behind us, he spoke.
“I need a favor.”
“You have a lot of nerve. You think I’m going to do a favor for you?”
“I’m going on a mission. Solo. I need you to keep an eye on Pika.”
“Why? Why are you so protective of her? She could be behind everything. She’s a stowaway.”
“She’s not a threat.”
“How do you know that?”
“Can I count on you to look out for her?”
“Pika got onto this ship without anybody knowing and she’s kept herself out of trouble better than I have. I’m pretty sure she can take care of herself until you get back.”
Neptune’s dark eyes bored into me. I stared back. Twenty-four hours ago, I might have told him what I’d figured out about Vaan and Yeoman D’Nar and everybody else, but not now. Too much had changed since them and Neptune was partly to blame.
I crossed my arms. “Pika knows where to find me if she needs anything.”
“Good.” He glanced down at my chest again.
“Is there a problem with my uniform?” I asked.
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