Dad and I are able to carefully take care of the rest of the bodies, since there weren't as many in this pod. By the time the security guards and Derek make their way down, we have all the bodies in bags and waiting for transport.
I busy myself with the last of the paperwork so I don’t have to talk to anyone. I feel awkward and unsure how to relate to Derek now, and there isn't any opportunity to talk to him in private. It takes several trips for them to get the bodies transported to the other ship.
I visit each pod again, making sure I haven't missed anything. I'm back in pod 5 when the others catch me staring at the hatch.
"What's troubling you, Bren?" Dad asks as he comes to stand next to me.
I briefly look over at Derek and then back over to the door of the tube. There are a lot of things troubling me right now. "It's just that even when we figure out how the entire crew managed to put themselves into the pods, there's still bigger questions. Why were they so desperate to hide? What were the attackers after that was so important?"
"This ship was a science exploration ship. Maybe they had some kind of new research?" Derek suggests as he steps forward.
I smile, grateful he's at least talking to me. "Do you know what kind of research they did?"
"No, but we can find out." He holds up a small black data cube. "The sergeant uploaded everything from the Tempest's vid database so we can look it over. It has all their interior vids and comm logs as well, ones that you haven’t seen yet. I guess he didn’t think they were important at first.”
"Has he already gone through them?" It’s been over a week now since the ship was discovered. Hopefully security had thought to check that at least.
"Yes, we had a data forensics team working on it the last few days, but they couldn't come up with any explanation for all this." He motions toward the tube, his expression grim. I wonder if helping me with the bodies affected him more than he's letting on. Might account for his behavior.
"There's got to be some clue in all that data that might tell us who would scare this crew so badly." I walk over to the tube hatch and stare at the stains on the floor. What kind of research was worth killing for? And where were these awful people now? Would they come back for the survivors?
A tingle goes up my spine as I'm reminded again how dangerous the situation is. I turn to the others and discover they're all staring at me. "What?" I look at Dad who's trying to hide a smile behind his hand.
"You were talking to yourself." He puts his hand down. "Again." He winks at me as warmth creeps up my neck.
I shake my head. "Great, did I say anything useful?"
One of the security guys says, "Couldn't understand what you were saying, but you were pretty intense." He smiles and turns to leave the room.
"Maybe we all should get back to the ship now. We need to head back to Delta within the hour," Dad says, still smirking.
I gather up my pack and follow them to the lift. I ignore the small talk around me on the way to the ship, my mind trying to unravel the spark of an idea that hit me down in the pod. I'm trying to make the full connection and it feels just out of my reach.
15
Nightmares
Once on the supply ship, I pull Derek aside and wait as the others walk past us. Dad lets me know he's going to check on the cargo and then meet me upstairs.
Derek looks at me, his expression guarded.
I let out the breath I was holding and lean against the wall. "I just want to thank you for all your help. You didn't have to assist me with the crew, but you did, and I appreciate it. I can imagine it was difficult."
A mixture of emotions crosses his face. "You're welcome. Thanks for listening to all my stupid stories."
I hold up a hand. "They weren't stupid. Anything that affects your life, no matter how painful, is part of you." I swallow and force myself to look him in the eyes. "That's what friends do, right? Listen to and support each other?" My heart beats hard as I wait for his reaction.
His gaze skitters away down the corridor and then back to me, his face serious. "We should probably get going."
My chest tightens at the finality in his voice. I hold back the urge to touch him, to return to the intimacy we shared yesterday. Instead, I push off the wall and straighten. "Wait. I also want to ask you if I could study the data from the ship? We have another six hours of travel." I bite my cheek to keep my emotions pushed down.
He pulls the small cube out of his pocket and drops it into my hand without touching me. "Hoping you can find something else we missed?"
I frown. "Are you upset with me? Did I do something wrong?"
He looks at me, the muscles in his jaw flexing. I can tell he's conflicted about something, but he keeps his mouth clamped shut and won't answer me.
“Derek?”
A series of low tones startle me, and I look around as lights flash along the corridor, bathing us in yellow light.
I ball my hands into fists at my sides, the data cube cutting into my flesh. "Guess that means we need to get upstairs."
He stares at me for another second then turns to head down the corridor without another word.
I take a deep breath and follow. I'm hurt and confused by Derek's hot and cold attitude over the last few days. At least I have the cube. I won't have to worry about talking to him or anyone else for the whole trip.
I settle in to my seat to watch the vids Scott didn’t seem to think I needed the first time. There are very few sensor readings or vid footage for the ship during the last few weeks. It seems like there should be more, that maybe a big section of sensor time has been erased. I make a mental note to ask Scott about that.
Maybe the survivors can tell us not only what happened on board the last few weeks, but why. I keep reading until my eyes burn from lack of sleep. I hope all four of the people we pulled out of those pods survived, because I'm not finding any answers from the cube.
When we get back to station, the first thing I do is call up the medical center. I learn that all four of the crew from the Tempest are in medically induced comas. So much for getting quick answers.
My muscles ache, but I help to secure the bodies in the morgue's refrigeration units. After saying good night to Dad, I head back to my quarters. Before I allow myself to lie down, I take a few minutes to copy all the data on the cube to one I use for investigations.
As anxious as I am to get started unraveling this mystery, exhaustion overrules my mind and I fall asleep as soon as I lay my head down on my pillow.
Faces from pods 4 and 5 visit me in my sleep. I wake gasping, drenched in sweat.
I sit up and stare at the digital time floating near my bed. It's almost noon and I've only slept a few hours. After working in the pods for over twenty hours, I thought I'd sleep longer.
I don't usually have nightmares about the dead. The question of what happened to these people seems to be sticking with me in this case.
I take a quick sani-shower and get dressed. My mind works over everything I've seen in the last couple of days. The Tempest with the crew's bodies packed into empty escape tubes, a young child on a ship that shouldn't have children on it, my night sleeping on the couch next to Derek, and the mysterious wire in the pod door. All the images blend together until I'm overwhelmed. I force myself to focus on only one thing. There are bodies to take care of.
Not wanting to talk to anyone, I avoid going to any of the restaurants, and instead grab a nutrition bar and stim tab from the stash I've got in my room. On instinct I hide the black cube containing the copy of the Tempest's data inside an old spaceship model I brought from Mars. It's a replica of an old Earthen space shuttle, back when space travel was just beginning. One of the few possessions I requested to be retrieved from the rooms I shared with Mom. After her accident, I had refused to go back into our home. I left Mars with this space shuttle model, Mom's medical books, and the clothes in my backpack.
I walk slowly to the morgue as I eat the nutrition bar. Maybe if I can't talk to one of the sur
vivors, I can find answers from the rest of the crew. Each body tells a story.
Dad and the apprentices have already been here and left. They’ve identified all the bodies and started a file on each one. We'll still need to do autopsies on all of them, but I want to first get a big picture of this crew and who they were.
One by one, I go through each file. Dad has organized them according to their fingerprints in the NIS system that all space faring crews must register with. Most of the crew has been on the Tempest for at least three years. There are two that only served aboard for the last few months, and two that don't seem to be part of the crew but are listed as being on the ship for the last few weeks. I put those to the side to check into.
I also find the ship's captain in the files. I frown. I was hoping the captain was one of the survivors. He would've known the most about what was going on with his ship, and what kind of danger they had encountered. This is going to make things much harder to figure out.
I go to the comm console and punch in a code. Dad answers, his eyes rimmed with dark circles. "Didn't you sleep at all?" I can see from the background that he's over at the med station.
"No, I wanted to make sure the survivors were all right. I hoped we could wake them up by now."
"And can you?" My anxiety spikes. I feel like we're trudging through mud when we need to be running.
"No, they aren't stable enough yet."
My heart sinks. "Did anyone find out why there was a child onboard?"
"Apparently, the sergeant dug up a few reports that described the Tempest taking on a crew from another ship who'd been attacked by space pirates." He rubs his eyes and yawns.
"That would explain the two people that had only been on the ship for a few weeks." I wince. "I bet the two in the morgue that aren't crew members are the kid's parents." I pace in front of the vid. "Maybe whoever attacked the Tempest was looking for them?" Most people are very civilized even this far from the colonies, but if space pirates attacked the family’s ship, they could've come back for them once they were picked up by the Tempest.
He shrugs. "Maybe. I'm not sure we'll get any answers anytime soon. Unless you've found something in the logs?"
"Not yet. But I thought I'd start on the captain, if that's all right? Will you be home soon? You look like you should really get some sleep."
He gives me a small smile. "I'll be home soon. Only take care of the captain today. I've enlisted some help from another doctor who can start on the others tomorrow." He looks off to the side and says something to someone out of my sight. "I've got to go now, but don't forget you need to go to school tomorrow."
"What? We have too much to do here with this crew. And we need to figure out what happened to them soon before whoever did this attacks Delta."
He shakes his head. "We don't know if they will come back after the ship or crew yet. They might've already gotten what they needed. You need to go to school and let security keep working on this."
He cuts off the comm feed. How on Titan’s moons can I go to school when there's the possibility we all might be in danger? I stare at the file in front of me. Maybe the captain will be able to tell me something.
I pull him out of refrigeration and prepare his body for an autopsy. I do all the preliminary measurements, weights and pictures. I then check for subdermal implants on the off chance he came from one of the colonies that uses them, but I find nothing along his wrists.
But I do notice something under his arm. It's oval and hidden fairly well. With my gloved fingers I push on the small implant. The scarring is pink and jagged around the entry point, obviously not done by a professional. And it looks fairly recent.
After documenting it, I carefully take the object out and clean it. I find that it's a small data stick. Puzzled, I prepare it for viewing. It takes a couple of tries for it to respond. When I finally get it to project it's 3D image, I only watch a few minutes of it before I turn it off, my hands shaking. I look down at the captain's face. As a scientist, how did he get himself involved in this?
We're in a lot of trouble. I need to find Dad.
I tuck the data stick deep into one of my inner pockets. My head pounds as I quickly cover the captain back and tuck him away.
16
Something About Scott
I fumble out of my scrubs, my hands still shaking. I clean up quickly and grab my bag. In a daze I exit out the side door of the morgue with thoughts of finding Dad at the hospital.
I run right into Sergeant Scott.
"Whoa, where are you going in such a hurry, Bren?" He steadies me with both hands.
I recoil from his touch before I catch myself. "Sorry, Scott," I stutter and paste on a smile. "I was just going to go find my dad." I feel the data stick burning a hole in my pocket, as the image of Scott arguing with the now-dead captain plays in my head. My body feels numb knowing that Scott was involved somehow in what happened at the Tempest.
He studies me, and I squirm under his scrutiny. "Have you found anything yet on that data cube?"
I fidget with my pack and take a step around him. "Not yet, but I was pretty exhausted when we got back. I'll let you know if I find anything." I turn and start walking. It takes all of my self-control to not break into a full sprint.
He catches up to me, and my heart skips a beat. "Why don't I go with you to find your dad?"
I swallow, and force out a small laugh. "Don't you have more important matters to take care of?" I clench my hands tight so he can't see that I'm shaking. Does he know I suspect him?
"Not really. Until something else comes up, I'm just doing paperwork." He waves to a few security guards as we pass by.
We enter the commercial sector as people are starting to clear out after the dinner rush. I notice there are a lot of maroon shirts here.
"There seems to be more security here than usual. Is that because of what happened on the Tempest?" I ask, trying to sound normal.
He bobs his head. "The Delta Commander put us on high alert until we know more about the situation." He turns toward me, his jaw flexing. "That's why it's so important that you let me know right away if you find something." His green eyes coldly drill into me. It reminds me of when he caught Derek and I asleep on the couch. I shiver.
"Yes, I sure will." I point down one of the connecting corridors. "I'm going to cut through here to check a few places Dad might be. I'll see you later." I turn and hurry down the corridor before he can say anything. I keep a fast pace until I'm sure Scott isn't behind me, then double back toward the morgue again. I hurry past the morgue and enter the hospital through one of the side entrances.
I smile at one of the nurses as I pass. Recognition flickers across her face and she pastes on a stiff smile, but doesn't say anything. I head to the critical wing and check every room until I find my dad. He's still in with the young boy, sitting next to his bed.
"Dad?" He's fallen asleep in a tiny plastic chair that he's folded his tall body into.
He looks up at me and rubs his eyes. "Bren. Find anything interesting?" He gets up and stretches.
I look at the door and turn back to him. I whisper, "I found a data stick in the captain's upper arm. It was implanted recently, maybe a few weeks before he died judging by the healing."
Dad suddenly looks awake. "That's highly unusual. Were you able to access the data?"
I turn to position myself so I have a view of the door in case anyone comes in. "Yes and it's bad. Really bad. I only watched a small portion of it, but I think we're in more danger than we thought."
"We should go back to my office and watch it." He puts out his hand for the stick.
I reach into my pocket just as Scott walks into the room. "Watch what? I thought you said you didn't find anything important?" His smile does not reach his eyes.
I break out into a cold sweat. With my hand still in my pocket I look back and forth between Scott and my dad. I'm wishing that I had some sort of dad-daughter telepathy right now.
Dad stiffly steps
between Scott and I. "Well, she was just updating me on what little she did find. There's a lot of data on that cube." He looks at me, narrowing his eyes.
I quickly pull my hand out of my pocket and open my pack. I pull out the data cube and hand it to him. "Yes, and it's your turn to look it over. I have to get my homework done for school tomorrow."
Scott's smile falters as he looks between us.
"Well, we might as well both go home since we've got so much to do." He turns to Scott. "Unless you needed something from me, Sergeant?"
"No, I've got all the information I need for now." He turns to me. "I'll be seeing you tomorrow. I've been assigned to watch over the school sector."
My knees feel like they're going to give out. Dad takes my arm and walks me out of the room, smiling and greeting all the nurses as we pass. Once in the corridor we walk in silence past all the medical offices and into the morgue. Letting go of my arm, he carefully locks the front door behind us. On legs that still feel like jelly, I follow him to his lush and inviting office.
I sink into one of the overstuffed chairs and put my head into my hands.
"So tell me what's going on, Bren." He sits behind his desk, the chair creaking.
I retrieve the data stick from my pocket and place it in front of him. I take a deep breath. "Thank you for not saying anything in front of Scott. I only watched a small portion of one of the vids, but what I did see isn't good. Scott was there with the captain and another man I didn't recognize. They weren't happy."
Dad touches the stick to bring it to life, and we watch in silence as Scott and the unknown man confront the captain of the Tempest. From the background, it looks like they're talking in one of the airlocks by the Tempest's lower docking bay. We hear something about an antigravity machine and the Ash Corporation. The Ash Corporation is the biggest mining conglomerate in the galaxy. The captain doesn't seem to want to give them whatever it is they're demanding from him. Finally, they turn and exit toward the docks, leaving the captain staring after them.
Delta Fringe Series Boxset: Books 1-3 Page 8