I slide into the darkness. It's not cold though. I didn't expect that. The pain in my chest and my arm begins to fade. Good. It's been a really long day. I earned some sleep, right? That must be why I'm so tired. How many days have I been at Ursa Miner Station? Has it been a week yet? It feels like longer than that. It feels like I've been here forever. But it also feels like I just arrived. Time is relative. Hah. I'm still funny.

"Lieutenant? Can you hear me?"

It's all light now. And warm. Am I dead? I don't know why I was so scared. It's not so bad.

"Her pupils are dilating. I think she's coming around."

There's no pain. It feels kinda nice. Nothing to be afraid of now.

"It feels nice because you got a dose of morphine, Cruz."

Well, I think Cartwright made it out. It's in his hands now. And Brent. They'll finish it. It's ok. I can leave it to them.

"Do you think she realizes she's talking out loud?"

I can let go now. Rusteater is toast. And Communion should be space dust soon, if it isn't already.

"Communion? Does that have something to do with the military quarantine and inbound vessel?"

I'm sorry I didn't get to patch things up with Alex. That was cowardly of me. I should have reached out, gave him closure.

"Melody, can you hear me? She's not focusing on me. You sure she's alright?"

I'm glad I got to apologize to Rockchaser, though. He's a good cop. Hopefully Cartwright doesn't hold my scewups against him.

"She passed out when her suit lost pressure, but I patched the breaches in the arm and faceplate. We buddy-breathed on my last oxygen bottle. She was just out cold, she shouldn't have brain damage."

I wish I got to square things with Sparrow. I can't stay mad at her. I hope she feels the same. Well, at least I got to see where the tattoo goes.

"Yeah, no. We're not doing this. Sorry Melody; here’s your wake-up call."

I can almost hear her. Never enough time in the end, but time enough-

A thunderbolt strikes me; I jolt upright as a white-hot flare of pain in my cheek cuts through the bliss.

My vision focuses on two figures. Sparrow, sitting in the pilot's seat next to me. Holy hell, and Cartwright standing behind her, helmetless, with a plasma rifle slung over his back. I'm on the Chimera! In the co-pilot's chair. And Cartwright actually has a smile on his face. Well, a smirk.

Sparrow leans close, examining my face. "Melody? Can you see me? Do you remember what happened?"

I reach out with one arm and push her hand away. "Did... you just slap me?"

Ashton grunts, giving a dry chuckle. "She's fine."

I shake my head slowly, my thoughts swimming. "You're all heart, Cartwright," I mutter, feeling the dermal patch on my forearm. Oh yeah, Rusteater stabbed me.

The smirk slides from the Captain's face. "Lieutenant, I dragged your unconscious body through that frozen base, popping an oxygen bottle back and forth the whole way. I saved your life."

I look up from my arm, meeting his cool gaze. "Yeah, in reduced gravity. Don't be a martyr," I growl, poking my tender side. Definitely cracked a rib, maybe broken. "And we came down to save your life first," I add.

"Melody..." Sparrow says softly. I turn to her, seeing her downcast eyes. I look down, to her arm. One of her hands is cuffed to the navigation console.

Fury boils up inside me. I turn to Cartwright, teeth clenched. "Are you fucking kidding me?"

He shakes his head. "What do you expect? She's a terrorist. Her partner tried to kill me."

My fists clench. "She risked her ship and herself to save your fucking life!"

Cartwright shrugs. "She didn't want a murder rap. And I'm willing to testify on her behalf, and recommend leniency in her sentencing, given-"

I stand, wincing at the muted pain from my broken rib. I raise a fist, but stop when I hear a buzz. I look down; a stun stick is in Cartwright's hand, active and pointed at my belly. I slowly sink back down in the copilot seat.

"Let's chalk that up to the morphine, shall we, Lieutenant?" He asks blithely. "As I was saying, I'll recommend leniency, since she helped transport me, and helped to take down her co-conspirator. I'm even willing to overlook the illegal plasma weapon. But she's admitted to aiding the sabotage of both the skyhook and the mining station. Moreover, she has a previous criminal history-"

"Vacuum-sucking-" I start, but I trail off, my eyes widening. The Code Enforcement icons are missing from my overlay once again. "Did you suspend me from duty a second time? While I was unconscious?"

The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

"Yes.” Cartwright looks at me like I’ve drooled down my chin. “I haven't changed my position on your unstable nature. You're a cowgirl, a maverick, and you're engaging in thrill-seeking behavior to cope with your PTSD. Why else would you, a suspended officer, red-line the safety rating of this vessel, take a walk in an unpressurized station, and get in a fistfight with a synth terrorist in a voidsuit?"

My mouth falls open. "I'm sorry, you're saying my saving your life is proof I'm unfit for duty?"

"I'm saying you should have reported this to the highest-ranking scouting officer remaining on the station, one who isn't suspended and sleeping with one of the suspects," he says with distaste. "Instead, you unilaterally decided that the best hands are your own. And yet, you’re so emotionally compromised that you were a nanometer from decking me a moment ago. You're not the kind of cop I respect, and I won't have you under my command," he finishes, lowering the stun stick to his side.

I sit back, wincing. Every breath sends a spike of pain through me. "So, am I under arrest too?"

The captain's eyes narrow, and he runs a hand through his greying hair. "It would seem a little ungallant, given that you've saved my life today. I reserve the right to charge you with something in this mess, but for now, you're just a 'person of interest'. In the meantime, would you mind telling me what happened to Officer Wintz?"

I blink a few times. The morphine must be slowing me down. "Who? Oh, the mousy officer... she's Rusteater's partner, right? Is she a terrorist too?"

He shakes his head. "No, she's one of my best. She's skilled, discrete, and the most loyal officer I've got. In fact, I had her keeping an eye on Rusteater."

I bite my bottom lip. "You were suspicious?"

Cartwright gives me an even look, his face neutral. "There had been some anomalies with their reports, and some behaviors that didn't add up. Moreover, the Gaian League has suffered some setbacks in the Solar District. A number of their habitats were impounded, and they're fleeing to the Dark District," he explains. I roll my eyes at that. Yeah, Sparrow was smuggling some in. "Wintz is a synth, and I wanted someone I trust making sure the Gaian's weren't slipping an asset onto my station under my nose."

"They were," I point out.

"Yes, and I think Rusteater knew I was onto them. The sabotage was sloppy; they were getting desperate," he says.

"So you went down to the surface with a suspected synth terrorist? Alone? Are you stupid or crazy?"

Cartwright gives me a sour frown. "Why do you think I brought a plasma rifle with me?" He nods to the weapon. "You think this is the standard loadout for a barren, icy moon? Winz was supposed to drop in digitally to back me up. If they resisted, I wanted to have it out down on the unoccupied moon, rather than the occupied station."

I play that out for a moment. You think Rusteater was just running a few of the league past the border. You don't know about the life under the ice; you don't realize how much higher the stakes are to the Gaians. Well, it's not my place to enlighten you. "But they got the rifle from you and blew the comms?"

Cartwright snorts. "If they got the rifle, I'd be dead. I blew the comms, and then locked down the generator with my CE Key."

I tilt my head. "Why?"

Ashton sighs. "To cut the power to the station and shut down d-space. Some sort of malware was affecting Officer Wintz. I know her, she's got top of the line firewalls and filters, but something was wrong with her."

The hair rises on the back of my neck. "How so?"

He shakes his head. "I don't know. She started off fine, but as the shuttle descended to the surface, she began to develop tics. She wasn't here in meatspace, but it was obvious even through the exonet. When we touched down, she was lagging, and by the time Rusteater turned on me, she was babbling incoherently. A whole bunch of nonsense, random code, advertisements and jingles-"

"Holy void spawned fuck..." It's out. How in the vacuum sucking hell can it be out? How was she even exposed? Is it everywhere? Did she... hold it. Wind it back. Trace the contact. "Was she working on anything from the astronomy division? Was anyone?"

Cartwright frowns and tilts his head, no doubt checking his files. "Just you and Sergeant Rockchaser. In any event, with Rusteater attacking my avatar and trying to jack the hardware, and with Winz useless and spouting malware, I shut down the generator to confine the fight to meatspace."

I pause. Winz was infected, but she wasn't working with astronomy division. She could be moonlighting... no. Occam's Razor. She's Cartwrights spy. "Was... did you have her spying on forensics too? Or me?

Cartwright's frown deepens. "Forensics? Captain Gupta? No."

Hah, maybe you should have. So... "Just me then? Did she access the dataport in my quarters?"

Cartwright presses his lips together. "Only while you were on-duty, and only insofar as your investigations-"

I stand up so suddenly that I grow dizzy, the Chimera spining in my vision and my broken rib sending a red wave of pain and nausea through me. Cartwright lifts the stun stick to my chest, just below my collarbone, meeting my eyes as I lick my lips. "She read the same databurst that Lemming did. The same one that infected him. When Sparrow got me the datachip, I plugged it into the port in my quarters. If Wintz downloaded the data and tried to analyze it too..."

My heart races, pounding in my ears. There's another infected agent running around the station. Nobody has any idea. Brent doesn't know, Rabi might not even know... A seed of Communion is still loose. Holy shit. It made its way into the mining station without anyone realizing. The mining station could be infected, the computer core, the robots. It could be down there now, growing… Wait, stay calm. Cartwright blew the comms. It can't get out if it is, and even if-

"Does this have anything to do with the military quarantine and the inbound vessel?"

I blink. "The what?"

"Well," Sparrow chimes in, "the Tachi array floated away from the station. It was supposed to blow up about fifteen minutes ago. But that didn't happen," she says, giving me a weak grin. "About an hour ago, a Navy frigate from Io set course for the station. It's about twenty hours out, but it announced a military quarantine and then fired a mass driver through the station's comm array. From the timestamp, probably a few minutes after you stepped off the Chimera onto the lunar surface.”

Minutes after the station generator went down. Hmm, Rabi, did you figure out that Communion escaped the petri dish? Or just taking precautions?

"...So we can't contact the station?"

Sparrow shakes her head slowly. "No, we'll have to dock blind and manually."

I can't warn Brent about Wintz. And he can't blow the array without a way to transmit the signal. Can he piggyback one off the Chimera? We'd have to dock first. Will the frigate fire on us if we transmit? Did Rabi do this? Why does this whole void-spawned mess keep getting worse? "How long is that going to take?"

"Probably another hour. You were out for a little while. After we patched your arm, I let you rest; you've got a broken rib and a deep puncture wound, and I wanted to let the patches set,” Sparrow admits, giving me a shrug.

Well, nice gesture. So, we have an hour of helpless anxiety. I sigh, looking down as I gently touch my tender rib. I hiss as I breathe. Vacuum-sucking hell. "Well... can I have another shot of morphine?"

***