Malfunction, page 10
“I’ll look into it. I take it there were no malfunctions on the Trakis One?”
“Not yet.” Was that significant? “Could be the murderer is making sure he doesn’t crap on his own doorstep.” Again, Logan had no clue.
“Do the two of you still want to visit the Trakis Three?” Rico asked.
Right now, he didn’t want to get on another shuttle as long as he lived. Which he was suspecting might not be very long. He glanced over at Katia as she placed her spoon in her scraped-clean bowl. She didn’t look any more enthusiastic than he felt. But if he assumed that this was one malfunction too many, then clearly someone didn’t want them to get to the Trakis Three. What secrets was the ship hiding?
“I think we have to,” he said.
“Sadly,” Katia said, “I think you’re right. But before I get on another shuttle, I wouldn’t mind a bit more information. That’s if the Trakis One is responding yet. If so, can we get hold of that tech guy—Jake?”
He tapped a couple of times on his comm unit and held out his arm. She leaned closer as it cracked into life.
“Technical Support. Trakis One. Jake here. How can I help you?”
“Hey, Jake. Katia Mendoza here. Can you tell me who, if anyone, on the Trakis One could have changed our flight plan?”
“Your flight plan was changed?”
“Just a little.”
“I should be able to.” The man didn’t sound convinced. “I’ll get back to you.”
“And one more thing. Can you tell me when the malfunction to the central database occurred?” He was silent for a moment. Hard question? “Jake?”
“I’m not sure. I can see when we last used the database and it functioned properly. That will give us a window.”
“Then that will have to do.” She sat back as Logan ended the comm. “Well, that gave us a whole load of nothing.”
“Yeah.” Rico rose to his feet. “I’ll get Sardi to prep the shuttle once he’s had a nose about. I, for one, would like to know why my perfectly maintained shuttle should suddenly decide to turn into a piece of crap. Hopefully, he’ll be able to find out why you made your little detour. And make sure it doesn’t happen next time.”
“That would be nice. Is there a room I can use while we wait?” Katia asked. “Preferably with some sort of white board. I want to set up a timeline and get what little information I have down clearly. I work better when I can visualize things.”
“You can use the conference room next door.”
They followed him out and only a few feet down the corridor to another door. Inside was a room about the same size as the galley, with a circular table and chairs at one end. And a huge white board at the other.
“Perfect,” Katia said.
“I’ll go see if I can get that information on the victims,” Rico said, “and then we’ll visit your crime scene.”
“Sounds like a plan.”
Rico turned and walked away. He paused at the door and looked back at Logan. “Don’t take this personally, but I look after my own. So if it ever comes down to you or Katia, I’m not going to choose you, sunshine.”
And he was gone.
Chapter Twelve
Well, that could have gone worse.
Katia stared at the open door where Rico had disappeared. She didn’t like that he had been so open about the “problem.” It could mean nothing, but it could also mean that he was considering making the problem go away. And that parting comment hadn’t put her mind at rest at all.
But hey, she was alive, her stomach was full, and she was warm at last. She was still wearing Logan’s jacket, and she stood up, shrugged out of it, and handed it to him.
She knew he had questions. She could see it in his eyes and in the small line between his brows. And she had to decide how much to tell him. And more importantly, how much not to tell him. Probably he was better off not knowing most of it. It might increase his chances of getting off the ship alive. So she had to come up with something that would keep him happy. A little hard, though, when Rico had been such a dick.
“Do you want to tell me what that was all about?” Logan asked, walking farther into the room and tossing his jacket over the back of one of the chairs.
“No.”
He ignored the comment. “Why did he tell you to keep the investigation away from here?”
Good question. She was silent for a moment. “It’s nothing bad. Well, not really bad. Rico just likes to do things his own way. And maybe some of those ways are against standard fleet policies. So he doesn’t want them nosing about the place, telling him how to run his ship. And you have to admit, this ship looks a hell of a lot better than the Trakis One.”
She cast him a sideways glance. But he couldn’t argue with that. It was staring them in the face, from the gleaming walls to the non-flickering lights. Whatever Rico was doing was working.
“Yeah,” he said, though he didn’t sound entirely convinced. “The place seems in perfect condition. Except for the malfunctioning shuttle, of course.”
Which hadn’t malfunctioned until it set down on the Trakis One. All the more reason to presume that someone had made the malfunction happen. Someone who didn’t want them to get to the Trakis Three. But also someone who had access to the shuttle in the short period of time when it had been parked in the docking bay of the Trakis One. Unfortunately, she hadn’t seen any real security, no guards anywhere on the ship, so likely the whole crew had access to the docking bay. And that wasn’t including anyone who had remote access. She made a mental note to make a list of questions to ask Sardi—see if they could narrow down who could have sabotaged the shuttle. Right now, she wanted to get the facts organized in her mind, so she could pull something together.
…
Logan dragged out the chair so he could sit and watch her work. She went to the whiteboard and swiped a hand across the power button then picked up the stylus, tapped it against her thigh.
She wrote T1 to T12 down the side of the board. Then across the top, she headed columns for Date, Cryotube Number, and Victim. Along from the T2, she wrote the date the “malfunction” had occurred then, beneath that, the numbers of the cryotubes, leaving the victim column empty.
She repeated the process for the other ships where malfunctions had occurred. Ten in all, including two on the Trakis Six. Then she swiped her hand across the board, sorting the list into chronological order. T3 first, T7 last, and T2 somewhere in the middle. Then she stood back and looked at her work. “There’s an awful lot we don’t know.”
“Three victims in every case,” Logan said. “Could the number mean something to our killer?”
“Like his lucky number? Maybe, but right now, who knows? Not me.”
She opened up a new page, wrote Things We Need to Know across the top.
“Maybe we should look at it from a different angle,” she murmured, almost to herself. “For the moment we forget about who actually did the crime—because right now we have no clue, or even if there was a crime at all—and just list out who could potentially do it?” She wrote the question on the blank sheet. “Can it be done remotely?” She added that question. “Or does our murderer need to be there in person?”
She looked so goddamn cute when she worked, nibbling on her lip and wrinkling her nose as she stared at the board.
“If that was the case, then it would be easy,” Logan pointed out. “We look at the shuttle logs and see who went where and when. There can’t be that much travel between ships.”
“Easy would be nice.” She sucked in the end of the stylus. “Except we know no one has visited the Trakis Two in the time frame, so it must be possible to control the cryotubes remotely.”
“How do we know that?”
“Rico told me.”
“Unless the murderer is based on the Trakis Two,” Logan suggested. Why had Rico wanted the investigation kept away from here? Logan wasn’t buying Katia’s explanation. Not entirely at least.
She turned to look at him, eyes narrowed, as she considered it. “Unlikely. But we’ll keep an open mind. We can check the outgoing logs.”
She stared some more. He could almost see her brain working. “That covers who could do it physically, but what about who has the capability to do it? How hard is it technically? Who can access the cryotube systems?” She added the questions to the list. “And if it was done remotely, who can do that and from where? Hopefully, Rico and Sardi can answer most of this stuff between them.”
She swiped the board again to bring up another page. “And now for the difficult one.” She wrote Motive across the top then stared at it. “What possible reason could there be to murder someone who’s been asleep for five hundred years? And why three at a time?”
“Could be someone our murderer knew from back on Earth. An old grudge? Settling scores?”
She wrote grudge and revenge on the board, but her brows were drawn together. “Honestly, I just can’t see it.” She shook her head. “Maybe once we have the victims’ details, we might see if there’s any pattern or if they’re purely random.”
She paced the room a couple of times then came back to stand in front of him. “You know, there are about thirty crew members per ship and ten ships surviving. That’s only around three hundred potential suspects. Maybe we could do a process of elimination. Who couldn’t be our killer?”
“Unless it’s not a crew member.”
She glared at him, hands on her hips. “Who else could it be? Everyone else is asleep.”
“Maybe someone woke up from Cryo. And got…bored.”
With a sigh, she went to the board and scribbled—anyone else awake?
She scratched her head then came over and plonked herself down on the chair next to him, a scowl on her face. “We need more information.”
“Then it’s your lucky day,” Rico said from the open doorway. “I have your victims.” He crossed the room and handed her a piece of paper. “I’ve also been in contact with the Trakis One to let them know the good news that you’re here and not halfway back to Earth.”
Logan was guessing there was someone, somewhere, not too happy about that. He just wished he knew who.
Katia glanced at the paper and smiled. Then she got up and walked to the white board, swiped it to bring up the first page.
Against the first number on the T2, she wrote: Peter Stewart, 13 years old, the next: James Stewart, 15 years old, and finally: Jacob Stewart, 17 years old. She turned back to Rico. “There’s a CF next to each name. What does that stand for?”
“Crew family.”
And there it was. Their first breakthrough. Each crew member was allocated three places for family members on the ships. Though, apparently, they were always allocated tubes on a different ship than the crew member was serving on. No doubt there was some psychological bullshit reason for that. Maybe they would be a distraction or there would be an overwhelming urge to wake them up, have a chat…
“That’s why there are always three victims,” Logan said. “I’m betting if you got the rest of the victims, they’d all be crew family.”
“Clever boy,” Katia said. “Do we know who the crew member was?”
“The captain of the Trakis Eight, third rotation,” Rico replied. “But the Trakis Eight hit an asteroid field about two hundred years ago and was destroyed, so Captain Stewart is no more.”
“Great. So now all we need to do is find someone with a grudge against a dead captain. Any ideas? No?” She sighed. “Then let’s go see some empty cryotubes.”
Chapter Thirteen
They made their way through the cryotube storage area, or the “fridge” as Rico called it. The air was cool, and Katia shivered, pulling her shirt close around her. Rico was right, this place was creepy. Thousands of tubes, all with their little green lights glowing—well, obviously not all. They were on their way to examine the cryotubes that had “malfunctioned.”
“Did Caldwell visit the cryotubes?” Logan asked.
“He did,” Rico answered. “Not that there’s a lot to see.”
She caught sight of faces through the clear lids as they passed. So peaceful. Maybe it wasn’t a bad way to go, to fall asleep and never wake up. Maybe they could put Logan back into cryo if it looked like he was going to be a problem. And maybe she’d request it as well. She gave herself a little shake. First, they had a case to solve. A murderer to expose.
Finally, they arrived at their destination. She could tell that, not only by the absence of green lights, but the lids were open.
Three of them in a row.
She came to stand beside the closest. It was empty. She didn’t know what she’d been expecting. A corpse maybe. There was no evidence of a dead body, no sign of a struggle. A little plaque with a number on the base was all the identification there was. C2341. She glanced at the paper in her hand. The number corresponded to Peter Stewart, who was thirteen years old at the time he had come into the hold of the Trakis Two and gone to sleep. At least he had lasted longer than half the Chosen Ones on the Trakis Two who hadn’t even reached their tubes. How had Rico organized it? She’d never thought about the details before. Now she felt maybe just a little bit of guilt. She was guessing they’d never made it on board but had been re-routed from the holding facility where the Chosen Ones had spent the last few weeks before takeoff. Had they known what was happening? That their dream of survival had turned into a nightmare?
“Where are the bodies?” Logan asked, pulling her from her thoughts.
“We tossed them out the airlock. We don’t have a morgue on board, just the medical center, and no space for three bodies. And they were a mess. They’d been dead for over two years.”
“Had they struggled?”
“Oh yeah. That much was clear. Fingernails gone, they’d torn off the monitors—not that it made a difference. The alarms were all ‘malfunctioning’ anyway. Not even a flicker. Looked like they’d died of asphyxiation. Or maybe they died of shock or fright. Not a good death, either way.”
Maybe she wasn’t going back in a cryotube after all.
They looked at the other two tubes, but there was nothing new to see. Katia smothered a yawn with her hand. “It’s been a long day.”
“Sardi will be a while with the shuttle, ” Rico said. “Why not go get some beauty sleep? You both look a little peaky. I allocated you a cabin, D101, on the other side of the docking bay, and there’s an empty one next to it for your sergeant.”
“Sounds like a plan.” She yawned again then turned to Logan. “Let’s go, soldier.”
They didn’t talk as they made their way along another corridor. As they got closer, she cast Logan a quick look. What to do with him? Did she trust Rico? In this particular instance—hell, no.
They were coming up on the cabin Rico had allocated to her. And the one next door that he’d said Logan could use. She came to a halt in front of D101 and considered how to word her idea.
“Don’t take this the wrong way,” she said. “But I think you should share my cabin.”
He looked down at her, eyebrow raised. “What’s the wrong way?”
“I’m not suggesting we have sex or anything. But I’ll sleep sounder knowing you’re close by.”
“You don’t trust Rico?”
“Actually, I trust him with my life.” And it was true; once Rico accepted you into the circle, then he would protect you with everything he had. Unless you betrayed him, then all bets were off.
“You just don’t trust him with mine?”
“You’re probably all right.” She wrinkled her nose as she considered what to say next. “If he was going to do anything, likely he would have done it by now. All the same, as I said—I’ll sleep sounder knowing you’re close by.”
“Balls,” he said with a grin. “Admit it. You’re just trying to get into my pants.”
To be honest, she was too tired to think about it. But she didn’t want him dead. Maybe facing death together had forged some sort of bond between them. She would worry about it when she’d had some sleep and her mind was functioning a little better. Pressing her palm to the door panel, she stood to the side and gestured for him to enter. He gave her a sideways look and a wink but walked into the cabin.
She hadn’t realized how small it would be. Logan filled the space. It had curved silver walls, a bed, a chair, and a small table. There were built-in cupboards, and a chute that she guessed was for laundry. The bed had a dark pink cover and was maybe big enough for two, but it was going to be pretty cozy. She couldn’t get worked up about that right now, and she was guessing Logan was the same. There were shadows under his eyes, and his skin was drawn. Besides, snuggling up to a warm body was exactly what was needed to banish the memory of how freaking cold it had been on that shuttle. A shiver ran through her.
Rico had left her bag on the bed, and she went across and rifled through it, pulling out the contents, looking for something suitable for sleeping in. She found a long T-shirt in soft, black material. It would do. She bundled the rest up and shoved it, and the bag, on the single chair by the bed.
“I’ll only be a moment,” she said and left him standing in the middle of the room while she went into the bathroom. She tied her hair in a ponytail and then stood under the steaming water for an age. It felt so good. Then she switched the shower to air and let the heat dry her skin. Afterward, she felt almost human, which was a bit of a joke. She hadn’t been human for a long time.
She slipped the T-shirt over her head and smoothed it down—it came to mid-thigh, perfectly adequate. Then she released her hair from its ponytail and ran her fingers through the curls. And she was ready. She felt a little reluctant to go back to the bedroom, and she didn’t know why.
Logan had removed his boots and his jacket and was seated on the bed, back against the wall, legs stretched out. He had been pressing buttons on his comm unit, but he looked up as she came in, a slow smile curving his lips. “Nice, Detective Mendoza.”
