Orbital

Fifty-Six Command

“What the hell is this about?” shouts Tamara as she enters the lounge module. She takes a look at my face as I hover near the intercom where I’d made my station-wide announcement. “Why aren’t you in the clinic?”

“I’d rather wait until everyone else is here to explain.”

“Who the hell gave you the authority to make an announcement like that?”

“I’ll explain,” I reply.

“Like hell. I’m going to call your superiors and find out what’s going on.”

“You can’t.”

“What do you mean?” she asks, stopping herself at the hatch. She pushes her way to the intercom panel and starts pressing buttons. “I can’t reach Earth.”

Eduard floats into the module. “Is this about the communication interruption? I was talking to my wife when everything went down. Did the meteor hit take it out? Holy Jesus, Dixon! Your face!”

Attwell, Ling and Cara drift in, followed by Samantha and the rest of the station crew. Each one takes a look at my swollen mug and either says something sympathetic or goes bug-eyed.

I do a head count then start. “Yes. I’m ugly. Let’s just move past that.”

“Why can’t I reach Earth?” asks Tamara, interrupting me.

I decide it’s best to ignore her outbursts and stick to my prepared speech.

“As some of you have surmised, I’m here on business other than research. I’ve been sent by United States Space Operations to investigate the explosion of the transport craft. We have a solid reason to believe that it was sabotaged by one or more persons currently on this station.

“As you all know, a few hours ago I was in a module that was ejected from the station and had to…improvise a return. While the computer system says this was due to a micro-meteorite strike, that is false. Someone tried to kill me.”

I pause to study their reactions. This was part of my plan. I’m no social expert and probably couldn’t tell a saint from a sociopath, but I was hoping that someone might have a telling reaction.

So far, Attwell, Samantha, Ling and Warren are just staring at me, trying to figure out the implication of what I’ve revealing.

“Dr. Warren, is this man sane?” asks Tamara.

“He’s got a gun, either way.”

For the first time, she spots the shoulder holster visible under my jacket.

“You brought a gun onto my station?!” she yells.

“No. I built a gun on your station. It’s designed for pressurized environments.”

“I’m going to the command module to call somebody downstairs. This is outrageous.” Her face is like an angry plum.

“Don’t bother,” I reply. “As it’s been pointed out, communications are down because I’m jamming them.”

“You’re what?” asks Attwell.

“We’re jamming all outbound and inbound communications. We don’t want the traitor communicating with anyone.”

There’s a murmur of surprise around the room.

Tamara pushes her nose nearly to mine. “Under who’s authority?”

“Under my authority,” I say firmly. “Until we find out who destroyed the transport and tried to have me killed, I’m in command of this station.”

“We’ll see about that.” Tamara pushes me aside and moves towards the hatch.

Everyone in her path parts, like a school of fish avoiding a shark.

I point to a Swedish biochemist named Ansel. “Follow her.”

“I don’t need an escort,” snaps Tamara.

“From now on, we all have escorts. Including me. Somewhere on this station someone has hidden a metal container. One just like it was used to conceal an explosive that was used to destroy the transport.”

Tamara stop at the hatch to listen. Rather than dragging her back here, I realized that capturing her curiosity would do the trick better, and help me avoid using force in a way that could turn everyone in this room against me.

“I’m going to pair you off into teams and have you inspect different parts of the station I assign you.”

“What if we don’t want to?” asks, Yale Firman, an astronomer from the United States.

“We’ll lock you inside here or the Tiki module until we’ve finished searching.”

“You can’t do that. I have rights.”

“So did I when someone tried to space me. The purpose for locking you in is your own safety. Look around this room. One of these people is a killer. It could have been any one of you onboard that transport when it blew up. Somebody here, someone whose face you just stared at, is behind that.

“If you want to know who that is and stop them before they do something worse, then play along. We can have this whole station swept in an hour and maybe then we can have some answers.”

“And why the hell are we listening to you?” asks Firman.

“Because. Any other questions?”

Eduard raises his hand. “What do we do if we find this canister?”

“Call me. Don’t touch it, whatever you do.”

“I’m not sure of the legality of this,” he replies.

“Sue me later. In the meantime, I’m going to start pairing everyone up. We’re searching modules, crew quarters. Everywhere.”

“Hold up,” says Attwell. “We’ve got a secure section you need authorization to search.”

“I’ll inspect it with Cara.”

“Cara? Why her?”

“Because, out of the three of you, she’s the only one that wasn’t here when the transport was sabotaged.”

“I’m not authorized to let anyone else into my lab,” says, Alton, one of the Swedish biochemists.

“Tamara has authorization. As do I. We’ll search it.”

“I’m not trying to cause problems, but I’m not okay with that.”

“Then I’ll have you confined to quarters until a transport can take you home while we get the proper legal paperwork.”

“This is very unorthodox.”

“It certainly is. You can either cooperate or be an obstacle and make it easier for this person to hide their tracks and possibly do something drastic to this station.”

This gets Tamara’s attention. “Drastic? How?”

“The person who stole this canister is also likely the one that destroyed the transfer craft. If they used an explosive device once, there could be another hidden on this station.”

Alton’s mouth goes slack at this realization. “I withdraw my objection.”

“Good lord,” says Tamara. “A bomb on this station?”