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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.