Chapter 9

Almost as soon as she'd given her crew permission to release their launch harnesses, Jass had drifted across the cabin and strapped herself into a sleeping hammock. The caffeine had worn off an hour before, and she needed no help falling deeply asleep.

When she woke, most of the other sleeping hammocks were empty. She rubbed the sleep from her eyes, and looked at her computer. She'd been asleep for nearly twelve hours, and it was time for lunch. She quickly freed herself from the hammock; grabbing a change of clothes from the bag she'd placed in the cabin earlier, she made her way to one of the two bathrooms aboard the ship to shower and change.

It was one aspect of spacer life that she would never love, she thought. There was something about water, good hot water, that washed away more than dead skin cells and dirt. The only way to get clean aboard a deep space ship was to use a dry soap powder; it had been developed by scientists who swore that it cleaned as well as soap and water, but Jass was sure they were wrong. But it couldn't be helped: water couldn't be wasted out here, so shower powder it was.

She rubbed the grainy dust into her hair and over her body, working it into her scalp with her fingers. After waiting a few moments for the powder to soak up the oils in her hair and skin, she leaned over and started to shake the powder out of her hair. A quick once-over with a towel removed the powder from her body, and she stepped into her clean clothes.

The galley was empty, since it was between meal times, and Jass ate a small breakfast. Her growling stomach craved more, but she knew that it would be easier to return to her normal schedule if she waited to eat a full meal until the next meal time.

Feeling refreshed and fully awake, Jass made her way back up the main cabin. Boxes of extra cargo were strapped down along the walls and floor, and she was glad she could float above them rather than try to walk between them.

Pulling herself into the room, she saw Dani at her usual spot near the ceiling and Aaron working at his console. He looked up as she entered and waved. “The fearless captain awakens! Feeling better? You looked pretty trashed by the end of that rescue.”

Jass nodded, grabbing the edge of his console to anchor herself. “A lot better, thanks. I appreciate everyone covering the watch shifts while I was asleep. When's my next one?”

“Not for another two hours. You've got some time.” He worked in silence for a few minutes, adjusting numbers on his screen and watching the rough animations of the resulting routes.

“What's our current time frame for getting to Cybele” she asked, watching the screen. “When I went to sleep, we were going to be late by a week, but you were hoping to shave some of that time off.”

He nodded, and cleared the screen before pulling up a new window. “The cargo that the Pequod crew brought on board didn't weigh as much as we feared, so it took less fuel to correct our course. I used some of that excess to give us a few extra engine burns, so we're looking at a four to five day delay instead of seven. It's still not great, but it's better. I don't want to do any more burns, though, until we see if the Cybele colony will actually come through on their promises of fuel.”

“Smart move. I assume Kara's kept in touch with the colony to keep them updated.”

“Yeah, she's been on the comms with them every time we've had a course correction or engine burn. They've actually been pretty good about the whole thing. They don't actually owe us or the Pequod anything, since the attack happened outside of their jurisdiction.”

“Maybe they want to get some good PR out there, especially if it turns out that the Pequod saboteur got his materials from their colony.” Jass wished again that they'd been able to question the traitor.

“I was wondering about that,” Aaron commented, closing the route animation. “Either they don't know who did it, or they got rid of him.”

“oh?”

“No-one came aboard in restraints of any kind, and I'm pretty sure they wouldn't leave a known saboteur to run around free.”

Jass pushed herself over to the captain's console and buckled herself in. “I think Captain Morris has his own way of dealing with those things.”

Aaron stopped working and looked at her. “Are you saying...? Geez, without so much as a trial? Aren't there laws about this sort of thing?” He ran a hand through his hair, sweeping it back from his eyes.

Shrugging, Jass didn't turn around. “Accidents happen.”

“'Accidents?' That's what you're going to call it? Not vigilantism? Or, I don't know, murder?”

She turned to face him, one arm crooked around the back of her seat. “They were stranded in the middle of the black, with no hope for rescue until Mars could send someone, with limited supplies of air and food. This isn't the city, this isn't planetside. We have to make hard choices out here.”

“What the hell? This is bullshit, Jass! I can't believe I'm hearing this from you!” He pounded a fist on the console, sending him lurching against the seat belt. “You can't just...just make up your own rules out here!”

“And what would you do?” she responded, shouting the first few words before calming her voice to a quiet hiss. “If you were stuck on a ship that was dead in the water, on your last tank of oxygen, the oxygen that was supposed to get you home, and looking at a galley with dwindling supplies of food, what would you do? You'd share that air and food with someone who'd put you in that situation, someone who had done their best to kill you?”

“Damn it, Jass, yes!” She had never seen him this openly angry, and the strength of his protestation surprised her. “If I had to share the last breath from an oxygen tank, I'd do it, just in case I was wrong. Do you know how Morris knows that he got the right person? What if he didn't?”

Jass realized that she hadn't asked how the Pequod's captain had identified the saboteur, but pushed the thought aside. Aaron continued, “Besides, it just...it just doesn't feel right. I don't know if I can explain it, but...” His voice trailed off into silence. Then he unbuckled his seat belt and propelled himself to the window. The starlight reflected in his eyes as he looked into the unchanging expanse. “I don't know if I can explain it right. But this whole place is so empty, so deadly, it feels wrong for us to be the same. We're in space because of what humans bring to it. We don't explore and colonize because we love the emptiness, we do it because we like seeing humanity, and hope, and...and home in new places.” He turned to look at her; his eyes were no longer angry, but filled with a loneliness she hadn't seen before. “Don't you remember what it's like to come up to an asteroid and it looks so dark and cold at first, but then you get closer and you see those warm yellow lights of a colony? It's almost like coming home, like finding a house waiting for you in the middle of a cold, dark night. But if we're going to toss people out of airlocks without a trial, or even any real proof...” He shrugged. “We might as well shut off those lights and just let the night take over, because we'll be no better.”

Jass had a reply ready, but held back. This was not a difference to be settled by arguing. She pulled up the reports she'd missed while she'd slept and tried to read them, but couldn't keep her mind on the task.

“What will you do?”

She looked up. “what?”

Aaron was watching her from the window. “If you find a saboteur aboard our ship. What will you do?”

She didn't respond for a little while. Truth be told, she wasn't sure. She'd been mulling over Captain Morris' actions every waking minute since she'd found out about them. Would she be able to shut one of her crew in an airlock and blow the outer doors open? What if the saboteur was one of the members of the crew she'd learned to think of as a friend? Could she stand and watch as they were sucked into the freezing black? On the other hand, could she bear to watch someone who'd tried to destroy her ship standing in front of her, using oxygen that the rest of the crew might need to survive?

Truthfully, she responded, “I don't know.”

“I'd feel better if you did.”

“So would I.”