The next morning came sooner than I wanted it to.
I lay still for a moment, staring at the ceiling of my new quarters, waiting for the stress and worry of last night to finish draining out of me. It didn't. The images were still there. The ship, the charred walls, the body on the cart, the void– but they'd lost their edges overnight, blurring into a general heaviness that lingered in my subconscious.
I got up anyway. That was the job. You get up, you put on the uniform, you do what needs to be done.
The uniform was comfortable, even if I wasn't used to wearing something so form-fitting. My previous assignments had allowed for more practical attire, and I'd grown accustomed to clothing that didn't telegraph every contour of my body to the room. I tugged at the fabric of the pants, adjusting where it pressed and creased, and caught a glimpse of my reflection in the data interface's dark screen.
I looked like I belonged here. That was something.
I went through the rest of my morning routine on autopilot. Ablutions, teeth, face, hair. All while I tried not to think too hard about the day ahead. Captain Malone. The crew. Whatever fresh crisis was waiting for me on the other side of that door.
I was ready. The door hissed open, and I was surprised to see Lieutenant Khalil standing in the hallway, waiting for me.
"Neho," he said.
"Good morning."
He was leaning against the wall opposite my door, arms crossed, with an overdone casualness. It was clear he had been standing there long enough to experiment with how he wanted to look when I saw him, and in doing so, had found a comfortable position. His uniform was crisp. His posture was relaxed. His green eyes were alert. It was the curated image of how he wanted to present himself.
"What can I do for you, Lieutenant?"
"I'm here to escort you to wherever you want to go."
"Oh." I considered that. "Is that really necessary?"
"It's a large ship," he said, his voice signalling the official line. "And you could get lost."
I nodded. It was a good answer, but I suspected it wasn't the whole truth. Someone had to keep an eye on me, after all. An escort who could guide me anywhere I asked was also an escort who could observe everywhere I went and report back on every question I asked and every person I spoke to.
I've been dealing with criminal elements for so long, I just always assume everyone has an ulterior motive. The sad truth is that I was usually right.
"And you'll take me anywhere I want to go?" I asked.
"Anywhere you ask." He smiled, disarmingly, without breaking eye contact.
Mmm.
Anywhere I ask. If the crew were hiding something, it would either be in plain sight or somewhere they didn't expect I would ask to be taken. If they were hiding something. I sighed internally. There I went again, assuming the worst.
"Have you been waiting long?"
"No."
I didn't believe him, but I let it go.
"Good. What's on the agenda for today?"
I turned to close my door, placing my hand on the palm lock to secure it. And in the shiny, polished surface of the lock's housing, I caught a reflection.
Khalil's eyes. On me. Not on my face, or my hand. His gaze was lower, tracing the line of my back, or maybe the way the uniform fit across my hips.
I froze.
Did he just– was he checking me out?
I didn't spin around to confront him. Instead, I let myself smile where he couldn't see it, and I took slightly longer than necessary to lock my door.
If I were entirely honest, I didn't mind him looking. It had been a long week in that Drop-Drone. A long week of recycled air and stale ration packs and the hum of vacuum thrusters for company. I'd noticed him yesterday, of course. You'd have to be blind not to notice a man built like that. But yesterday had been all politics and tension, and there hadn't been room for anything softer.
Now, in the quiet of a ship corridor with the morning ahead of us, there was room.
Besides, what was the harm in some innocent flirting to blow off steam? He wasn't unattractive himself. He was, in fact, very much the opposite of unattractive, and the way he'd carried those crates yesterday like they weighed nothing was still doing things to my imagination that I wasn't quite ready to admit to myself.
When I turned around, I was still smiling.
Our eyes met. He smiled back, slow, easy, like he'd been waiting for me to notice. He combed his fingers through his hair. It was a small gesture, almost unconscious, but it sent a clear signal. He knew I'd caught him. And he wasn't sorry.
Our eyes were playing chicken, waiting to see who would look away first.
I stared into his eyes and let my imagination fill in the gaps. I imagined him stepping forward, towards me, closing the distance between us with those long, deliberate strides. I imagined smouldering eyes and warm hands and–
There was a sudden spike of warmth in my cheeks, and I glanced away.
Damn it.
When I glanced back, he was smirking. No doubt enjoying the spoils of his minor victory over me.
"I, uhm. Yes." I cleared my throat. "We should probably get going. We have a lot to do."
He nodded. Still smirking.
I deserved that. But the morning was young, and the game wasn't over.
"The Captain has also asked to see you when he is free," Khalil said as we began walking. His tone had shifted back to professional, though the smirk hadn't entirely faded.
"When will that be?"
"He should have time this afternoon."
"We'll see him then."
Khalil nodded.
"So, in the meantime?" he asked. "Where am I escorting you?"
"I'd like to visit some of the departments that are critical to our sustainability," I said. "Let's start with Aeroponics."
---
The first thing I noticed when I walked into Aeroponics was the smell.
Something was rotting. Not the subtle, almost-pleasant decay of compost, earth or fallen leaves, this was the sharp, biological stench of death. The kind that lingered.
The second thing I noticed was the growth chambers. Rows of them, stacked and tiered, containing an assortment of plants in various stages of health. Some were green and thriving, while others were brown and wilting, their leaves curling inward. Beyond the chambers, I could see several tanks. Some were filled with murky water and sluggish fish, while others contained small rodents that scurried and squeaked in their enclosures.
And beneath it all, threading through the humid air, I could hear the sound of someone humming.
The melody was soothing, like a lullaby, but it was haunted by a deep sense of sorrow and loss. It rose and fell through the growth chambers, winding between the tanks and the dying plants, and for a moment I just stood there and listened. I felt a pang of guilt. This was a private melody, not intended for others to hear.
"Hello?" I called out.
The humming stopped abruptly.
"Oh my goodness!" A voice, sweet, cheerful, and startled, rang out from somewhere behind the growth chambers. "You frightened me. I thought I was alone."
I couldn't see the speaker. "Have you seen Lebeny? I was told she would be here."
A brief moment of cautious silence before the word rang out. "Who is looking for her?"
"I am."
Another pause, longer this time, and then a woman stepped out from among the aeroponic growth chambers.
She was covered in dirt. Several dead leaves were sticking to her uniform, and her hands were wrapped around a pruning laser. Her face was bright and open, and her smile was pure and infectious.
"You found her," she said. "I'm Lebeny."
She winked at me. Playfully.
"Aren't you a cutie?" Her eyes swept over me with cheerful appraisal. "I don't believe we have met before?"
I winked back before I could stop myself. It was instinct. If someone fires a shot across your bow like that, you either duck or fire back, and life is too short to regret the shots you never took.
"No, we haven't met," I said. "I'm Mah'Abeu Ezra."
"Oh goodness." Her eyebrows rose, but her smile didn't waver. "To what do I owe the honour of having a Mah'Abeu come visit me?"
Her tone was overly sweet, almost sarcastic, but a quick glance at her face reassured me it was sincere. I realised Lebeny's sweetness wasn't a mask, it was just how she was built.
"I'm introducing myself to some of the critical department heads," I said, "to see how and where I can help get the ship up and running again."
"Would you look at that?" She straightened up, pressing a dirt-covered hand to her chest in playful amazement. "A critical department head." She chuckled at her own reaction. "I've definitely been called far worse."
"You are the department head for Aeroponics, right?"
"Yes, of course."
"So how can I help?"
She smiled, mischievously this time. "Well, if you want to make yourself useful, you could start by pruning some of–"
"No. I meant, how can I assist your department to get back up and running after the attack?"
The mischief faded.
"I know, I know. I was just having some fun." A beat. Then, quieter: "So we're back to calling it an attack?"
Something in her tone caught my attention. The way she'd said it. Everyone had been calling it the Christopher incident, but the implication was in her question. Back to calling it an attack. As if there had been doubt whether it had been an attack or not.
"Yes," I said, "it was clearly an–"
The smell hit me again, harder this time, and I nearly gagged.
"I'm sorry, but where is that terrible stench coming from?"
"Oh, you noticed?" She didn't seem offended. If anything, she seemed amused.
"That's the smell of death and decay."
"I don't– what?"
"Dead fish. Collected from the overflow tanks."
"It smells terrible. How can you stand working in here?"
"Oh, it doesn't always smell this bad." The amusement dimmed. "I've just had more fish dying than they usually do."
"Why are they all dying? Can't someone do something about it?"
"Of course." She smiled again. It was bright, warm, and infuriatingly playful. "Someone is already helping."
"Well, that's a relief. I'd like to meet with them also. Who are they?"
She took a step closer to me, still smiling.
"You. You just told me you are going to help me get Aeroponics up and running again."
I stared at her. She stared back, beaming.
"Well," I said, "I guess it will allow me to spend some more time with you."
Her composure cracked. A flush crept up her neck, and she pressed her free hand to her cheek.
"Oh! Look at you, making a lady blush."
The warmth of the moment didn't last. It was impossible with the stench in the air.
"So what needs doing to stop the fish from dying?" I asked.
The playfulness left her face.
"Not just the fish," she said. "The plants, animals, and everything in here."
She set the pruning laser down on a workbench and turned to face me fully.
"I don't have enough power to run all the necessary filtration systems. Everything in here is slowly dying."
"That's not good."
"No. It isn't." She gestured toward the growth chambers, the tanks, the whole of her domain. "Aeroponics is responsible for all of the Tabitha's renewable food sources, and our algae tanks supply thirty per cent of the ship's life support."
She pointed toward the door and the crew beyond that.
"If everything in here dies, everything out there dies."
The words landed on me like a sudden increase in gravity. I felt them in my chest.
"I've been rationing my available power and cutting into my safety margins by shutting down some of the growth chambers," she continued. "But even with the reduced crew from all the casualties we've suffered, the safety margins are already razor-thin."
"I didn't realise things were so dire," I said. And I meant it. Khalil had mentioned Aeroponics yesterday and the potential loss of the crop rotation, but hearing the numbers from the person keeping the ecosystem alive was different. This was a woman standing in a room full of dying things, calmly explaining that if they died, so did everyone else.
"You seem so calm about it all."
"Oh, I'm not a drama queen." She picked a dead leaf off her shoulder and let it fall to the floor. "I live life by the hour."
In my experience, people who claimed they weren't drama queens were usually the biggest drama queens of all. But Lebeny didn't fit that pattern. Her calm wasn't a performance. It wasn't denial, either. It was something more deliberate, a decision to exist in the present tense, one hour at a time, because looking further ahead would mean looking at a future that might not be there. I don't know why, but I couldn't shake the feeling that she avoided looking towards the future.
"OK," I said. "Let me see what I can do about getting you more power."
"Well, I need to get back to work." She picked up the pruning laser again, and the playfulness flickered back into her expression. "You go do what you have to do to keep us all from dying."
"I'll be back soon."
"I'm counting on it."
I turned to leave, and the humming started again behind me, soft, sorrowful, already fading into the background hum of filtration systems running at half capacity.
---
When I returned to the corridor, Khalil was gone.
I stood there for a moment, looking both ways down the empty hallway. There was no sign of him. Just the low electrical buzz of the strained overhead lights and the faint, distant clanging of repair work somewhere deeper in the ship.
This was the second time he'd vanished when I was occupied. Yesterday, he'd taken longer than expected with my luggage in the Drop-Drone. Now this. I noted the observation. Patterns matter. Especially the ones people don't think you're noticing.
I was just about to do some solo exploration when he reappeared from around a corner, walking briskly, slightly out of breath.
"Where were you?" I asked, keeping my voice light. "I thought I was supposed to be your prisoner."
He blinked. "You aren't my prisoner."
"I know," I said. "But a girl can dream."
He was momentarily caught off guard. I watched it happen, the surprise rippling across his features. Then he smiled his dangerous, easy smile.
"I have been known to make a few dreams come true."
I let his line hang in the air for a moment.
"Wow," I said. "That was cringey."
His smile collapsed. "Yeah. Sorry. I heard it too."
"Good." I held his gaze, and this time I didn't look away. This time, I let him see the version of me that didn't blush. "I like men who know their place."
His eyebrows rose, just slightly, just enough, and something shifted in his expression. He'd thought he had me figured out after the staring contest earlier that morning. He was beginning to realise he'd been wrong.
"OK…" he said slowly, smiling. "So how did it go with Lebeny?" he asked as we started walking.
"It went well, I think."
"I thought it would." He paused, and when he spoke again, the tension from earlier was gone. "Lebeny is one of the kindest people I've ever met. She wouldn't hurt a fly."
It was a small thing, someone vouching for a colleague. It meant something. From what I had learned about Khalil, he didn't give trust easily. He'd proven that yesterday. But Lebeny had his trust, and he wanted me to know it.
I noted that too.
"So," he said. "Where to next?"