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I woke with a headache that rivaled the one I’d had after drinking bootleg liquor from the chem lab at the space academy. It felt like someone had stapled my head to the carpet. I tried to sit up twice before realizing my head was, indeed, now attached to my bed. I reached up to free my hair when a pillow came down over my face.
“Stop it stop it stop it!” said Pika’s soft voice. The pillow raised off me, and her pale pink face peeked over the top of it. “I’ll untie your hair, but you have to be still.”
“Why is my hair tied?”
Pika set the pillow aside and used her long skinny fingers to untangle my hair. I had no idea what she’d done to me, but unless I wanted to be bald like Vaan, I needed my hair.
“The giant told me to make sure you were safe. He said to make sure you put on your sleep uniform and to watch you all night. But you got boring, and I wanted to play with your cat, so I had to make sure you couldn’t get away.”
I looked down at my thermal pajamas. I only vaguely remembered changing into them and shoving my security uniform in the closet. I didn’t remember Pika being in the room when I’d gone to sleep.
“Pika, what is my hair tied to?”
“The aluminum bed frame.” She continued working. I couldn’t see the damage, and I didn’t know exactly how she’d done whatever she’d done, but the length of time it took her to work indicated she’d entertained herself with securing me before allowing herself to play with Cat. When she finished, she stood back and smiled widely, showing off all fifty of her teeth. It was a little creepy, to tell you the truth.
I sat up. “Okay, good. Now, I’m going to need your help getting off the ship. What is this, the fifth day of the trip? We should dock this afternoon. That’s going to have to work.” I thought about the ship’s trek to Jupiter’s largest moon, how Purser Frank had talked about the half day of sightseeing on Ganymede’s vacation space station during our walk back to my quarters after I’d inhaled the gas in Engineering, and what I would need to survive on the space station once I escaped the Moon Unit. “I’ll make a list of what I’ll need. Will you help me get them? I’ll need supplies. Maps. Oxygen tablets. And a distraction. I’m definitely going to need a distraction.”
Pika picked up the pillow again and held it in front of her. “You can’t escape the ship! You’re my friend.”
“You can come with me,” I said.
“No, I can’t. I belong to—I can’t.”
“Pika, how did you get on the ship?”
“I can’t tell you.”
“Can’t or won’t?”
“We don’t have time. The giant is waiting for you in the uniform ward.”
“You’re right. I have to act like everything is normal and make a plan. We’ll talk about this after my shift ends.”
I dug my black security uniform out from my suitcase and changed into it. I’d trade it for a fresh magenta one to fit my new rank—my original rank—when I got to the uniform ward. I secured an oxygen canister to my thigh, and ran the tube underneath the fabric and out the collar. When that was done, I snapped on my bubble helmet. I no longer cared if the bubble made me stand out in a one-of-these-things-is-not-like-the-others way. This ship was teeming with bullies, criminals, and little green men. If they saw me as the freak, then so be it.
The hallways were empty. I arrived at the uniform ward and scanned myself in. It was as I’d last seen it: the BOP sitting out on the counter. My sleeve, torn from my original uniform, jutting out from under the bench where I’d sat and talked to Vaan. The only differences were the pile of uniforms that had been dumped on the floor and the presence of Neptune leaning on the far wall with his massive arms crossed in front of his fitted black T-shirt.
A rush of emotions washed over me. Anger. Annoyance. Anxiety.
Fear.
I tried to dismiss that one too, but it overwhelmed me like a balloon that expanded into the room. I double-tapped the valve on my oxygen canister to regulate my breathing.
“Stryker,” Neptune said. “How are you feeling this morning?”
“Why do you care?” I watched him for a long moment, not sure if I even wanted to hear his answer.
He glanced down at my black uniform. “I didn’t expect you to wear that today.”
“I’ll change as soon as you leave me alone. You can come back after hours and take this one back to your lair.”
Neptune stood like a wall in front of me, not even giving me the satisfaction of a flinch at my insult. “One of the people from the council chamber session is the murderer. I needed a reason to get them all into the same room so I could observe them. You gave me that reason.”
“You used me? As bait? Is there no limit to the actions you’ll take or the people you’ll use?”
He stood up, away from the wall, and repositioned his feet to shoulder width apart. He stared me directly in the face. “What did you learn at the space academy about assessing the enemy?”
“Why? Are you trying to figure out my next move?”
“I’m not the enemy.”
“Every time I start to believe that you hurt me.”
Neptune’s normally chiseled-in-stone features softened. His eyes held mine, and for the first time since being on the ship, I stared back into their deep, almost black depth. Neptune knew more about me than anybody else on the Moon Unit, and in that moment, even though I knew nothing of his past, I felt like I was looking in a mirror. “Answer the question,” he said gently.
Enemy Assessment was an advanced course at the space academy. I’d looked forward to it from the moment I’d enrolled. The class was taught by a commander from the intergalactic space army whose identity was secret. The trouble with my dad had taken place that same semester, and I’d had to drop out of class and return to Plunia to help my mother with the ice mines. After I’d left, there’d been some scuttlebutt about the faculty, and Enemy Assessment had been replaced with code-breaking.
I tried not to think about the opportunities lost after I’d dropped out of my schooling, but missing the chance to have been taught that course by that professor haunted me. Enemy assessment learned from a textbook wasn’t the same. Unfortunately, my book knowledge of the subject was the only knowledge I currently had.
“Identify potential enemies. Assemble them in an isolated environment. Create a situation that requires a decision. Assess individual reactions to find the one that doesn’t fit protocol. That’s the one who has the most to lose.”
“That’s what I did. What we did. You and me. The security division.”
“But I’m not the security division anymore. I got busted back down to uniforms.”
“That’s what we want them to think.”
I considered what Neptune said. It had the ring of truth and strategy to it.
“When I asked you what I should do after attacking those officers in the hallway, you set it up to get the senior officers alone in Council Chambers to determine my fate. How do you know one of them is the murderer?”
“Tell me what you know about the murder.”
“Are you ever going to answer one of my questions with an actual answer?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Yes, I set it up to get those people alone in Council Chambers. Now tell me what you know about the murder.”
“I don’t know anything.”
“Yes, you do. You found the body. Tell me about that.”
Okaaaaaay. “I was excited about my job on the ship, so I got to the space station early. The first officers were given clearance and boarded before anybody else so they could check their assigned wards, but after them, it was board in order of arrival. I passed the security checkpoint and was one of the first crew members on the ship after the senior team. I went to my quarters and put my cases on top of the cabinet, and then I came here.”
“Your cases?”
“My personal belongings. We were allowed to bring one trunk or two cases. I went with cases.”
“Why?”
“One was filled with oxygen canisters, and I didn’t want to take a chance on anything happening to them.”
“What was in the other?”
“Extra uniforms, Cat, and some Plunian potato chips.”
“There are potato chips in the vending machines.”
“Yes, but they’re not Plunian.”
“You’re a potato chip snob?”
“I thought they’d be useful for bartering information or bribing anybody who found out my—the circumstances of my employment on the ship.”
Up until now, I’d had the sense that Neptune knew of my records from the space academy and my family history. I should have been tossed off the ship the moment he learned the truth about me. But instead, he’d covered up my white lies about having been a last-minute replacement for Daila. I’d just accepted that because it was convenient for me, but now, I couldn’t help think that if he had indeed accessed my records after I’d found the body in the uniform ward on that first day, he would have known I dropped out and that I hadn’t taken Enemy Assessment.
If he were anybody else, I’d dismiss his incorrect notion as just that: not remembering the details from my file and assuming I’d finished out the curriculum to which I’d been assigned. Except this wasn’t anybody else. This was Neptune. He’d already demonstrated a near-photographic memory, especially when it came to details related to my background. Details that I would have happily forked over my stash of Plunian potato chips to make him forget.
Understanding came over me, and pieces of information that meant nothing on their own but everything when combined settled into a picture in my mind. Neptune was the only person on this ship the captain didn’t refer to by a title. When I’d asked him about that, he’d brushed me off. I doubted it had to do with him wanting to fit in or go unnoticed by the ship passengers. Anyone his height and build, dressed in fitted black clothes made from space fabric designed to hide the blood and ectoplasm of at least seventeen different known alien species (and a couple more that were only suspected to be in existence) wouldn’t fade into the woodwork. Add in his dark pointed eyebrows, tawny skin, straight nose and strong chin, and anybody who wasn’t afraid of him probably wanted to make a play for him.
No, Neptune didn’t lack a title because he wanted to blend. He lacked a title because he’d done something to have it revoked. I wasn’t sure how I was going to confirm my suspicion, but the more I thought about it, the more I knew I was right. It was the only explanation for why he didn’t know I hadn’t studied Enemy Assessment at the space academy.
“I need to get to the computer,” I said. Before Neptune could argue the point, I continued. “Everybody out there thinks I’m the uniform lieutenant. If this place isn’t in shape, they’re going to report me for not doing my job.”
“Why do you need the computer for that?”
“Inventory. I need to know which uniforms are here, what sizes, who has what. If anything was taken.” I added an inspired thought. “The information could help you with the investigation.”
He pulled a thin black tablet out of his bag and attached a keyboard, typed in a string of characters, and turned the computer to face me. “You’re on the network.”
I accessed the inventory management system and checked the pile of uniforms against what was on the manifest. It was a bogus job, made up to make me look industrious. It worked. Neptune appeared satisfied that I wasn’t going to cause trouble and crossed the room to the other side.
I cloned the computer window and accessed an online news library. A few keywords later, I had the confirmation I needed.
It was Neptune who’d been tapped to teach Enemy Assessment at the academy. He’d been the commander of the intergalactic space army. The same year I’d dropped out to move back to Plunia, he’d been let go from the academy and stripped of his title and credentials.
I didn’t know what he’d done, but I would find out. It was the only course of action to finally let me know whose side he was on.