Fatal Containment

Fatal Containment - Chapter 9

Chapter 9

Connor was dumbfounded. He had never been one to control his temper well. In fact, his foul temper was quite well known aboard the ship. But he was going to take it out on someone, and may fate pity the man or woman that crossed his path.

He knew he would need a drink to take the edge off, so he headed to the quarters he shared with Trevor Hanson, where he knew there would be a stash of hard liquor. Somehow Trevor had sweet-talked the quartermaster into letting him bring the stuff aboard, and Connor was grateful. If it had been the end of his own shift, he would have just gone to the officer's mess. But he was so angry at the captain; he didn't trust himself to be around other people just yet.

As he threw open the hatch, he startled Trevor, who was working at his bedside desk. Trevor started to say something, but he was all too familiar with the mood his friend was in. He opted to stay quiet until Connor had downed the second shot of scotch.

"Wow, a double," Trevor commented with a hint of mirth. Connor whirled on him to give back an angry retort when he saw what he was working on.

"What in the name of Loki's git is that?" he demanded instead.

"This is called a galleon—or at least it will be when I finish assembling it and have it painted properly. It's a model replica of an old Earth sailing ship. They used wind power to drive the ship, and then they used this little steering rudder under here to guide it."

Connor looked at the little model sailing ship but didn't truly see it. He wanted to throw a chair on top of it and watch it explode into splinters. He was a volcano about to blow. The drinks had helped abate his anger slightly, but it was not going to be enough.

"Do you know what the blasted captain said to me just now? He doesn't care about finding out who murdered Dr. van Helm. He just wants to shut everyone in the science team into their cabins and sweep it all under the deck plates."

Connor slammed his crystalline glass back onto the desk, nearly hard enough to crack it.

Hanson leaned back and laced his fingers behind his head. Somehow Hanson's charm wasn't limited to wooing the ladies. He also knew how to soothe his friend when he was in one of his moods.

"Well, maybe the captain's right on this one. I mean, consider it from his point of view. He knows one of them did it, but he doesn't have the luxury of cruising around while we solve it. He has orders to deliver a medical cargo—one that has already had its security compromised—to some backwater colony planet. If he screws that up, Brenton will have his hide, and his career will be stalled. And we both know the captain would sell us both down the Helheim if it would help him climb up the ranks."

"But we don't know for sure who it was. We only have circumstantial evidence!" Connor bellowed.

Hanson sighed, leaning forward to add the bowsprit to his model. "I know, but he just wants to leave the courtroom drama to someone better equipped to handle it, especially since they're all civvies. We just collect enough evidence to lock up who we think it might be, and then dump the problem on the nearest base. It's how things are done on his ship."

"His ship," Connor said, swirling another two fingers of liquid in the glass. Maybe that was what was bothering him. Cantrell never let him forget that he wasn't born Terran. No one ever did, except Trevor. But Connor knew that a murder aboard the ship was an opportunity to prove his worth and gain acceptance with the admiralty outside of the Dominion. He knew the captain just wanted his own record to remain clean. No serious issues aboard his ship!

But he knew that was only one of the things that made him different from the captain. Connor was a reject, the descendant of Kantian blood. He had been grafted into the Imperial Navy after his own colony was subdued. No matter how hard he worked or what he tried, he would never advance beyond his current rank. It was only by virtue of his brutally hard work, organizational skill, and quick thinking that had gotten him this far.