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My observation led to a troubling theory, but it was my job to tell Neptune. I stepped into the hall.
“Can you come with me?” I asked.
“You can give your report to me now.”
“It would be better if I could show you what I saw.”
“That’s not necessary.”
Why must he be so stubborn? “Fine. The tube that dispensed the gas—”
“I know about the tube. Is that it?”
“Can you let me talk, please? Or is that asking too much?”
He—guess what?—crossed his arms over his chest. I mimicked him. I didn’t care if it made him mad. I was done with subtlety. “Check the color of the shirts of the victims against the colors of the uniforms they were issued.”
“Why?”
“You’re a smart guy. You figure it out.”
“Submit your written report by Zulu Seventeen.”
“Fine.” I stormed past him to the elevator, activated it, and left Neptune alone on the engineering floor while I went to my quarters.
If this was my grand peek into the world of spaceship security, then to say I was disappointed was an understatement. I’d wanted to feel responsible for the safety of the ship passengers and the crew. Keeping an eye out for malicious behavior against us. Ensuring policies were recognized, protocols were met, rules were followed.
Security was the silent leader of any ship. It garnered respect without the limelight like the captain or handful of first officers. Even Neptune, who was the head of Moon Unit security, operated in a behind-the-scenes capacity. It strengthened his position when everybody on board the ship didn’t know who he was or what he did.
But this—this wasn’t what I’d hoped for or expected. I’d acted like any good security officer would when discovering a threat: I’d eliminated it so the crew could be saved. And how had my immediate supervisor thanked me? He hadn’t. Stupid Neptune didn’t care what happened to me. He was just using me to find out what he needed to know.
Vaan said Neptune had a reputation in the galaxy. Maybe that was it. Maybe he sucked at his job. Maybe he planned to take my name off the report and put his on and take full credit for everything I’d done.
I didn’t care.
I didn’t care about any of it.
I didn’t want to be a on board the spaceship anymore. I wanted to go home. Sure, I’d write up the report as requested. I was going to write it up, send it to Neptune, finish up the moon trek, and go back to Plunia. Employment on the Moon Unit was nothing like I’d hoped. After a lifetime of working in the mines where I’d grown up, I felt lost. Back there, I knew what I was doing. Not only that, I knew how to do it better. I’d built equipment that allowed our crew to double their output and designed fields that maximized the storage of the balls of dry ice we mined before they could be delivered to another planet. We lost a lot of business after my dad was arrested, but slowly, the existing contacts came back. It was a testament to my mother that she was able to tune out the gossip, rebuild those bridges, and keep us from losing everything.
Yes, all I had to do was write up my report, turn it over to Neptune, and wash my hands of the whole murder/sabotage thing. We were two days into the trip with only five left to go. I could handle that. I had to handle that. When this was all over, I’d have a story to tell the workers on Plunia who had helped my mom come up with the money to get me to the space station the day the ship deployed.
I shifted Cat from the table to the chair and opened my computer. The drive had been calibrated to analyze my voice tone and pulse and embedded those statistics into the file properties. It also transcribed the recording into a report that could be read and transferred at the push of a button. I stated my name, employee number, and rank, realized I’d said “uniform lieutenant” instead of “security officer,” and wasted another fourteen minutes determining the spot on the computer hard drive to erase to match my new credentials. I reattached the motherboard and started over. All told, it took me thirty-seven minutes to finish the report. I signed off, sealed the documents, and sent them to Neptune via the ship’s secure network. My job was done.
I changed out of my black security uniform into my sleep garb and stuffed the uniform into the empty trunk that I’d brought. Instead of putting the suitcase back on top of the closet, I stuck it inside and shut the door. Even if I didn’t plan to make a peep for the rest of the night, there was no way I’d sleep knowing Neptune could hear me.
I pulled back the thin synthetic coverlet and climbed into my bed. As my weight hit the mattress, the lights dimmed. Cat’s eyes went dark and his quiet motor whirred while he lowered himself to a sitting, and then laying position. I clicked the blue dial on the wall three settings to the right. A soft melody filtered out. The hour was late, I’d had a very long day, and it was time to go to sleep.
I closed my eyes. The memories I’d tried to keep buried all day flooded to the surface. Vaan and me sneaking off from the space academy. Vaan and me in the carbon monoxide caves on Plunia. Vaan and me lying next to each other, covered only by a blanket that had been handed down from my mother’s mother to my mother and then to me, our fingers intertwined, purple against lavender. The closest I’d ever come to finding someone who made me feel like I belonged.
The door swished open, and a bright light hit me in the eyes. Cat’s solar panel activated, and his eyes glowed brightly. He rolled in circles, confused by the sudden illumination.
“Stryker. Get up.”
“Neptune?” I blinked repeatedly while my eyes adjusted to the light. “What are you doing in my room? Get out! I turned in my report. I’m done.” I pulled the synthetic cover over my head and rolled toward the wall.
“Your report is wrong.”
I flung the coverlet back. “How could you possibly have concluded that? I sent it to you five minutes ago. If you’d bothered to check it, you’d know I wasn’t lying. If I was, my report would have been red flagged after vocal analysis. It would have been forwarded to the council.”
“Come with me.” He turned around and walked out.
“I’m in my sleeping garb!”
He stood in the doorway with his back to me. “Come with me. Now.”
I stood up and slipped my feet into my black gravity boots, and then followed Neptune into the hallway. The ship was unusually quiet. It took a moment to realize Neptune was holding a noise-cancelling device. “Hey,” I said, but no sound came out of my mouth. “You can’t hear me, can you?” He didn’t turn around. “You sure are lucky I don’t sleep in the nude.”
Neptune stopped. He turned around and glared at me, his brows drawn together and his eyes narrowed. How could he possibly have heard that?
I gave him my best I-didn’t-say-what-you-think-I-said look. He pointed down the hall. It didn’t seem as though I had a choice about not going with him.
I reached the elevator first. At night, the halls were mostly empty, and tonight was no exception. My boots left small indentations on the carpet, but the lack of sound was eerily disturbing. Neptune activated the control panels, and we dropped down to the security level. Even if he’d turned the sound cancelling device off, the silence would have remained.
The holding cell where I’d spent the majority of yesterday sat empty. Neptune walked to the computer and pressed a few buttons. The screen lit up. He set down the noise-cancelling device, and immediately the sound of beeps and boops replaced the silence.
“You indicated in your report that the second navigation officer was responsible for the gas leak in engineering.”
“That’s right. He had no reason to be in the uniform ward when I arrived on the ship. There was an empty canister next to him. The uniform ward is directly above the engineering room. He must have gained access, threaded the tube into the crack in the wall, and dispensed carbon monoxide into engineering. There’s a good chance one of the engineers we found passed out was in on it.”
“No.”
“Yes. Whoever killed the second nav officer likely found him sabotaging the ship, and he died while they were trying to restrain him from finishing his actions. If we go back to the uniform ward, we might find a timer or a trip wire or something that set the gas leak off. It probably came from The Space Bar. If someone wanted to hide canisters of carbon monoxide, they could have stashed them along with the tanks of nitrous oxide that are kept there. I know Purser Frank says the nitrous oxide thing is a rumor, but I saw the crew loading the tanks when we went to dinner.”
Neptune’s full attention was on me while I spoke. The details were fresh in my mind since I’d just reviewed them while dictating my report. I stood silent for an awkward number of seconds before he looked away from me to the computer screen and pressed the blue button to the right. A soothing female voice spoke.
“Analysis of air quality in engineering sector indicates a high level of carbon monoxide. Tissue analysis of lungs of second navigation officer indicates inhalation of carbon monoxide. Conclusion: second navigation officer died from inhalation of carbon monoxide.”
“So? He accidentally breathed in the gas leak while he was sabotaging the ship. Served him right.”
Neptune hit another button on the computer. The soothing female voice spoke again. “Analysis of empty canister in uniform ward indicates tampering. Contents incorrectly marked as oxygen. Analysis of DNA on inhaler indicates second navigation officer use. Conclusion: gas leak in engineering sector and murder of second navigation officer connected.”
“That can’t be true. The canister that I found by the second navigation officer’s body was just like the one I used after my helmet cracked.”
Neptune reached next to the computer and picked up a brushed nickel tank. It was identical to the ones I kept in my room and hidden in the uniform ward. “This canister?” he asked.
“Yes.”
He held it out. “Inhale.”
I took the oxygen canister and pulled the pin, and then fitted the mouthpiece into my mouth and inhaled. I expected crisp, clean oxygen to fill my lungs like earlier when Doc Edison had treated me. Instead, I grew lightheaded. My lungs convulsed and my body went limp. I lost all coordination and collapsed onto Neptune’s computer.