What was I doing? Wanting to comfort the girl when she was obviously upset. She couldn’t be trusted. And even if she could, she was the civilian daughter of the leaseholder who had started a coup.

A successful coup, I might add. What had we accomplished so far? Escape from the brig, which he may or may not have allowed to happen to get his mole into our number. And a raid on the medbay which failed to produce the doctor in the end.

Damn doctor.

And here I was watching the woman before me and hoping I was wrong about all of this. Hoping she was innocent. How could she be innocent? She’d lived with the man. Surely she’d overheard his plans at some point. How could she not have? Even the leaseholder’s quarters weren’t that big. Bigger than anyone else’s, but not big enough to avoid each other.

She must have known he was up to something. She must have. I couldn’t trust her and to hell with the part of me that wanted her innocence.

We came to a stop before a hatch that led onto the main corridor of the junior officers’ quarters. I peered through the grille as Adi stayed back, so as not to activate the gel hatch. The way was clear. The doors of all the quarters closed. It was clearly a trap, but I couldn’t see the trigger.

I pulled back and met Johnson and Armstrong’s eyes.

“Trap?” Armstrong asked.

“Undoubtedly,” I said. “And we don’t know if Adi’s wrist comm will open the doors to those rooms.”

“It’s opened everything else,” Johnson argued.

“Hatches to emergency tubes and the medbay cupboards,” I offered. “All areas she would need to stay hidden and keep healthy.”

“What about the brig?”

I couldn’t think of an explanation for that. Why had Aquila given her access to the brig if not on the instructions of her father?

I studied the woman now. She knew exactly what I was thinking. She wouldn’t meet my eyes, but her fists were clenched, and her teeth were grinding. She was sick of the judgement too.

So was I. But I couldn’t trust her. It would be remiss of me to trust her. She had to know that.

I sighed.

“Let’s try a hatch into someone’s quarters,” I suggested. “If it works, it works. If it doesn’t well…” We’d know what exactly? That her father didn’t want her getting to the rest of our crew? Or that Aquila hadn’t thought she would need them or could trust them?

I scratched at my jaw and then nodded back down the tube.

Adi led the way. I made sure I was right behind her. I didn’t want Johnson ogling her ass. The fact that I might have snuck a look every now and then was neither here nor there. I didn’t pass comment, and I thought perhaps Johnson would later. I protected Adi’s innocence the only way I knew how right then.

And there I went again, thinking she was innocent. When all evidence pointed to the contrary.

And then her wrist comm opened a hatch into an officer’s quarters.

Huh. Now, what did that mean?

Armstrong slipped through first this time. The officer in question was a midshipman from security. She let out a little scream when she spotted the lieutenant. He looked just as shocked.

“Sir!” she said, surprise and accusation all rolled into one.

I realised why there was accusation when I slipped out behind Armstrong, whose ears had turned pink on the tips, and I spotted the woman half naked.

Both Armstrong and I spun around and put our backs to her, which was a highly ineffective way of securing the area.

“Crewman,” I said. “Please dress.”

“Yes, sir,” she muttered behind me.

Adi poked her head through the hatch, her eyes widening, and then she slipped through and smiled at the midshipman.

“Hi,” she said.

“Hi,” the midshipman answered.

“She’s dressed,” Adi offered. Armstrong and I turned around.

“Lieutenant Commander,” the woman said, saluting me.

“Captain now,” I offered grimly.

“Of course,” she said. So, they’d told her, then. What else did she know?

“What’s been going on, Midshipman?” I asked.

“Um,” she said, eyeing Adi warily.

“You can trust her,” I offered, and wasn’t that the most ironic thing I could have said?

“OK. Well, we’ve been on lockdown since the attack,” the midshipman said. “They bring us out in groups of twenty to eat in the mess, so I can’t speak for everyone; it’s the same group of twenty each time. Never more than four or five from security and the rest a mix of other departments except engineering.”

“Except engineering?” I queried. “You’ve not seen an engineer since this began?”

“No, sir,” she said shaking her head. “Or a command officer until now.” Her cheeks turned pink.

That was not what I wanted to hear.

“How many mercs have you counted?” I asked.

“There’s always more mercs than us when we eat,” she said. “So, about thirty. I can’t say if they’re the same ones each time or not. They’re in armour. And they don’t talk.”

I nodded.

“Grab any gear you want, then,” I said, turning to look at the now closed hatch.

“I can’t go, sir,” the midshipman said, surprising me.

“Why the hell not?” I demanded.

She cringed. “Because they warned us you’d be coming.”

My heart leapt into my throat. Armstrong powered up his pistol and aimed at the door.

The midshipman rushed to explain. “They said if any one of us disappears, they’ll shoot another that stayed behind in retaliation.”

I had no words.

“They’d do it,” Adi said softly. “My father never lies.”

The midshipman looked at Adi as if she were the enemy. I saw the security officer in her get ready to pounce. I stepped forward, between the two of them, and met the crewman’s eyes.

“She’s helping us,” I said. At least, I thought she was. I wanted to think she was.

The midshipman slowly nodded her head. “If you say so, sir.”

“I do.” Now, if only I could believe it. “Is there anything else you can tell us before we leave?” I asked, hating that we would have to leave without her. “Do you have injuries amongst you? Do you need anything?”

“No, sir. The doc tended to those who got roughed up in the attack this morning. We’re good. They feed us. They let us have videos in our quarters and haven’t stopped us exercising.”

“What about schedules?” I said, wanting to get as much information as I could out of her.

“About that, sir,” she said, eyeing the door to her cabin nervously.

“Now?” I said, alarmed.

“No wrist comm clocks. No datapads,” she said. “But I reckon it should be about now.”

And they could have cameras. Stupid!

“Adi,” I said, nodding towards the hatch.

Adi stepped forward, wrist comm up, just as the door opened behind me. Fucking fantastic timing.

Armstrong fired. Someone outside the door fired back. The midshipman screamed and then went silent. Adi opened the hatch, and Johnson leaned out covering us. I pushed Adi inside, and rolled in behind her, then turned around to help Johnson cover Armstrong’s retreat.

But the hatch had closed automatically when I’d pushed Adi too far into the tunnel.

“Open it!” I shouted.

Johnson tried to get out of the way. Adi tried to climb over me. In the melee, no one got close to the grille, and I could still hear and see flashes of plasma fire.

In a move full of frustration and panic, Adi undid her wrist comm and thrust it at me. I was closer to the door than her, and it made complete sense.

It was only after I’d used it to open the hatch and Johnson had started covering Armstrong again that I realised exactly what she had done.

Armstrong rolled into the tube, smelling of charred fabric and burned skin. His face was pale and covered in sweat. He grimaced when he landed on a bloody shoulder. Johnson kept firing, long enough for me to get one last look into the room. The midshipman, whose name I couldn’t remember, lay still on the gel floor. A plasma burn to her chest. It was no longer rising and falling.

I pulled back. Signalled to Johnson at my side. And then used Adi’s wrist comm to close the hatch.

No one said a thing.

The armoured guard stepped into the room now the resistance had stopped and fired a single shot to the midshipman’s forehead. It was unnecessary. Adi jerked. Johnson swore. Armstrong had his eyes closed, and his teeth gritted.

“One more will die for this,” the merc said and strode out of the cabin, leaving behind the knowledge that we had caused this woman’s death and the death of one other.