Even with Astor’s head on her shoulder and her fingers tracing post-coital patterns along her side, Luna couldn’t get Dunnagan’s stupid expression out of her mind. Inhaling the floral scent wafting off her golden waves only strengthened Luna’s conviction of her innocence, but left to the stillness of her thoughts, the irreconcilable information she’d learned that morning began seeping into her awareness again. She was certain there was no way this gorgeous creature could hack the station’s security, but proving it to the captain or anyone else would be a different matter. 

Astor stroked farther up into her armpit until the tickling made her twitch. “Outpost 23 to Luna,” she teased. 

She smiled. “I’m still here.” 

“You seem like you’re a thousand light years away,” she observed, gazing up into her face. 

“It’s been a bit of a weird day,” she admitted. 

Astor bent her arm at the elbow and lifted her chin onto her hand to gaze down at her. “Seeing that creep at the restaurant upset you, didn’t it? Who is he?” 

“That piece of work was Dunnagan,” Luna rolled her eyes, “the station’s first officer.” 

“So, he’s your boss?”  

She snorted. “I prefer to think of him as a coworker who unfortunately outranks me.” 

“And he didn’t know you’re gay? Is that what’s wrong?” Astor’s forehead wrinkled. 

Luna waved her hand to fan away the sentiment. “Oh, Dunnagan doesn’t function in terms of gay and straight. He’s shocked that anyone doesn’t want to sleep with him. Me, you, a passing crew of Omarites, it doesn’t matter.” 

Astor’s eyebrows knotted tighter. “Then what’s the problem?” 

She reached up and brushed her cheek. “Baby, there’s no problem. He’s an asshole. I’m sorry; I didn’t mean to let something that ridiculous ruin our evening.” She drew her in for a slow kiss. 

Snuggling against her again, she asked, “So, what’s weighing on your mind?” 

“I’m just counting lucky stars.” Luna twisted a strand of her hair around a finger. 

“Can you see many sparkling through the decks above us?” she giggled. 

She kissed the top of her head. “I’m looking at one that’s particularly bright.”  

Astor nestled against her chest. She took a deep breath and sighed. “They shine a lot luckier here than anywhere I’ve stargazed from in a long time.” 

Her muscles tensed and she clamped her mouth shut right before the words, “Yeah, I’d imagine,” spilled out. She struggled to come up with an appropriate response. A strained “Oh?” was all she could manage. 

“Well, life hasn’t been kind to me these past couple years.” She drew tighter into herself. 

Luna hugged her smaller form. “I’m sorry. Do you want to talk about it?” 

She chuckled. “You know things have gotten pretty bad if a couple months in jail, as miserable as they were, actually help in the long run.” 

The moisture evaporated from Luna’s mouth, and her tongue seemed to swell to twice its natural size. She fought to keep her heart from beating so hard she knocked Astor off her chest. Surely, she would feel it and deduce her guilt, but she continued on with her story. 

“I was stuck on Vapalor,” she explained, her voice small and her face hidden. “The prick I ran off to explore the galaxy with abandoned me there. I thought we got separated in a seedy bar, but by the time I made it back to our ship, he was gone.” 

“Holy shit!” At least she didn’t have to feign surprise. 

“So, I was stuck with no money or means to leave the planet. And Vapolor isn’t a hospitable place. I’m not proud of the things I did to survive and that included disgusting new lows to scrounge up food. Eventually, I got caught stealing from the wrong vendor and did a stint on a detention asteroid. That was a different kind of terrifying. It should have been the worst four months I’d ever experienced, but at least I knew where my next meal would come from.” 

“Oh, my god. Sweetie, that’s terrible!” The tears Luna had fought since first reading those ominous words returned.  

She sighed. “But at the end of my sentence, transports were waiting to whisk me out into the universe to start over. I’d never heard of most of the destinations, and it was sheer luck I picked the one coming here,” she squeezed her, “but I’m glad I did.” 

Luna rocked her gently. “I’m glad you did, too.” She felt like a cad for listening to a confession she already knew the meat of, but she was relieved to have the knowledge out in the open where she didn’t have to hide it any longer.  

Astor shifted in her arms to look up at her again. “You’re not reacting the way I was afraid you were going to when I told you about this,” she remarked. 

“I’m not?” She worked to keep her expression frozen. 

“No.” She shook her head. “I was worried you would freak out on me. Not that I could blame you, a station commander, for not wanting to date a jailbird.” 

“I don’t think of it that way,” Luna assured her. “They sound like extenuating circumstances.” 

“Thanks for being so understanding.” Astor leaned forward and kissed her, pressing her body close. She whispered in her ear, “It’s hot.” 

*** 

When Luna arrived at work, the decryption program was eighty percent complete. There was still a chance that it would falter somewhere short of one hundred percent, but the higher the degree of completion, the lower the odds it would stall out. Although she was no longer nervous, it might indicate the breach came from her bedroom. She was desperate for tangible proof of Astor’s innocence.  

And nothing would serve better than finding the real culprit. She tapped at the terminal’s keys. Details concerning each of the ships’ fight plans flashed to her monitor, their last logged stops and their intended destinations. The computer presented a star map with a color-coded line for each.  

After another stop at the military installation on Malmore, Discovery would begin a deep space mission, which left its crew little opportunity for tomfoolery. The other human vessel, Intrepid, was coming from Polaris Base and bound for Vorton IV. She bit her lip. That meant they were delivering a shipment of vaccine to combat the rotavirus outbreak. She choked, imagining the rate at which the death toll rose because of the delay this business had caused.  

True to its manifest, the Pain Bringer patrolled the borders of what the Tresicans considered “civilized space” and she saw the stops it made at fringe planets along the arm of the galaxy. That afforded the possibility of them meeting with unsavory characters, but their alibi was ironclad.  

Surprisingly, the Bargain Hunter, the Antarian freighter, hadn’t logged a flight plan. That didn’t stop the computer from transmitting data about its recent locations, however. It seemed Wessic had come straight from Antaria itself, which was odder still. 

On board the Tranquility, the Omarites were on route from Rostara III to Galactic Central, stopping at Outposts to refuel along their way. A quick glance at the manifest confirmed this was a diplomatic mission to ease tensions between the Rostaraians and another faction, with the Omarites acting as self-appointed mediators. That, too, offered little chance to unload station secrets. 

She went back to the Bargain Hunter. Wessic was a regular through this corridor of space, and he seldom drew attention to himself by eschewing procedures. She checked his manifest. It listed his objective as the usual trade and transportation of goods, but when she dug further into the details, it claimed he had no cargo. He didn’t stop anywhere to pick up merchandise. What kind of trader flew around empty-handed? 

The dock master hadn’t conducted a search to verify. She sprang from her seat and started for the lifts at the rear of the bridge to remedy the oversight. 

“Where the fuck do you think you’re going?” Dunnagan demanded from his own computer terminal. 

“Are you on to something, Knolls?” Mathers called from the central control station. 

She spun to face him. “It’s too early to say for certain.” 

“Already this morning. That’a girl!” the captain cheered. “Well, don’t waste time catching us up. Go get ‘em.” He shooed her away. 

“Yes, sir.”  

Dunnagan’s eyes grew wide as saucers, she noticed as she turned for the lift. She waited for the doors to close before stating her destination. Let him wonder.  

It deposited her at the central port of the docking ring, a few spots from where the Bargain Hunter sat idle. Her conviction rose with every step she took as she stormed down the gray-papered hallway. 

She reached the airlock and used the communications panel to call into the ship. Wessic’s gruff voice came through garbled as though he had food in his mouth. “What do you want now? I’m waiting around with my thumb up my ass just like they told me.”  

“Open up, Wessic,” Luna barked. “Health and safety inspection.” 

“Hey, Commander Knolls? Is that you?” All at once he was as sweet as Gratian brandy. “To what do I owe the honor this morning?” 

“I said open the door.” 

The hatch opened, and she boarded the freighter to find the overweight Antarian trader sliding up to meet her, a skewer of mesic gripped in his paw. Even rushing, his pink, slug-shaped body did not move across the floor fast, but she stopped in the middle of the cargo bay and waited for him to approach.  

“What’s all this, then?” he asked, waving his food like a pointer. “You see for yourself, my ship is empty. My freight can’t be unsafe if I don’t have any, eh?” 

“How can you claim to be on a trade mission when you’re not carrying merchandise?” She gestured with her hands to stress the question. 

He pulled back. “I- I haven’t picked it up yet.” 

“Halfway across the galaxy? Without even bringing baseball cards for Al? That’s quite a long way to go empty-handed. It would make you a pretty inept trader.” She crossed her arms. 

His eyes bulged on the ends of their stalks. “Well, I-” 

She kicked the deck plate with the heel of her boot. It sounded solid enough. 

“What are you doing?” he demanded. 

“Here’s how the situation seems to me. I have valuable secrets missing. You’ll sell whatever you can get to the highest bidder. You should hope I find hidden compartments with undeclared contraband to explain why you’re cruising the universe with nothing in your cargo bay, expecting to make a profit.” She walked over to the nearest wall panel and rapped, with dramatic flair, and listened for hollow reverberations. “You’d fare much better with a simple smuggling charge than the espionage bullshit the captain is working up.” 

“Smuggling? Espionage?” He straightened his S-shaped form and attempted to make himself taller. “You have no basis for these accusations!” 

“If I did, you would be in a holding cell while I conduct these searches,” she told him pointedly. But deep down, she realized he was right. What she needed was proof, and all she had was suspicion and an absence of hard evidence.  

Editor: Michelle Naragon