An Imposter Among Us

8: A Life for a Death

Astrid (3rd-person POV)

The next several hours passed uneasily. Everyone kept their distance from weapons, where Stella sat in the central chair, her fingers resting on the control panel that fired the Skeld's projectiles into its obstacles, which were exclusively, at the moment, asteroids. Jericho took it upon himself, as the person in charge of security, to make sure he or someone else was watching her at all times from the cafeteria table. When he wasn't the one at the table, he was bothering Astrid. For once, though, it wasn't to accuse her of being a killer.

"Do you think she's innocent?" he asked, leaning against the medbay doorway.

"I don't know," she said. "I did vote for her, but...I don't know. Maybe Captain Genesis is right, that we're too quick to try and kick everyone who even looks suspicious."

As she said that, she withered a bit. Here she was, a medic, and she was raising her hand to sentence someone to death. She had done that twice, once to Jericho and now to Stella.

Not that Jericho was any less suspicious because of all of this. He probably liked Stella being on the line so he could have some breathing room for whatever he had planned next.

"If you have nothing to do," Astrid said. "Then don't loiter here or I'll report you to the captain."

Jericho said nothing. Astrid snuck a peek at him through the reflection of the fume hood and saw that he, too, was making a face that suggested he needed to hurl. Astrid turned away and waved her arm in his direction, as if to swat away a fly that wouldn't leave.

-----

The night passed uneventfully, though everyone was prepared like something bad was going to happen. Elara slept clutching her cane, her knuckles white and her face taut. Astrid was too tired to try and stay up all night, but her body felt otherwise anyway. She kept waking up in a cold sweat, always checking to see if a blade was embedded in her torso. Neither Genesis nor Zaniah slept at all. They stayed up all night just outside the womens' bunk room whispering on and off to each other. Planning for the next disaster.

Stella was told to sleep in weapons. She didn't complain—after all, the chair was pretty comfortable—but according to Jericho she, too, stayed up all night.

Now the twenty-four-hour mark was approaching. Genesis had confronted Stella at around 3:45 pm. As of now it was 3:25, and Stella was still pacing around in weapons, occasionally checking the communication node and messing with the interface.

3:40 rolled around, and she burst into the cafeteria, scaring everyone out of their wits. "I got it! I can prove it!"

She tossed her mini-tablet onto the center of the table. On the screen was a map of the Skeld, with a blinking dot in the cafeteria. The tablet itself.

"Turns out each of us can be tracked. Let's see where it was on the night Maeng died."

Everyone watched as Stella rewound the feed, the time and date zipping back to five days ago, at around nine at night (well, Earth's night, Central Standard Time). Sure enough, her dot was moving to medbay, not to electrical.

"Maybe someone else was carrying your tablet," Ceres said casually. "Mistook it for theirs or something."

Stella flipped the tablet over to reveal her name sticker on the back. Livingston, Stella J.

Astrid took her tablet out and flipped it over. Her heart somersaulted as she read the words Morozoff, Astrid. Forcing herself not to react on the outside, she slowly set it back down on her lap, screen side up. How had she not noticed before? Who had put the labels on these?

Just as she thought that, the answer hit her like a wall. Ceres. He knew.

Did Jericho tell him? Did Jericho tell everyone? Were they all going to turn on her next, that being their plan all along? If she were to expose Jericho in retaliation, they would all think she was just desperate to save her own skin.

"Well, that settles it," Captain Genesis said, an invisible weight lifting itself off her shoulders. "You are innocent."

"Well, can't we just look at all our tablets?" Jericho said. "Maybe we can find out who the killer was."

"That's...a good idea, actually," Genesis said. Astrid thought the same thing, but she didn't say it out loud. Doing that would undoubtedly prove her innocence. "Stella, do you want to walk us all through how you did that so we can each do it ourselves?"

To answer her question, the mini-tablet's screen died down, sporting only a blinking low charge icon. Stella and Genesis frowned at it.

"Later tonight, then?" Genesis proposed. Stella nodded, as did everyone else, and they all shimmied out from their seats at the cafeteria table. Astrid forced herself to relax, to remember that by the end of the day, no one would dare come out and say it was all her. "Stick around after dinner, everyone. Bring your tablets, obviously. And keep going on those tasks. You should be almost done by now."

"Got it," Ceres said, leaving toward storage. Astrid kept her tablet pressed to her chest, hiding her full, real name, as she went back to medbay.

She finished yet another water sample test without any interruptions. After recording the results for test 27, she closed down her mini-tablet and set it aside, on a table with a clean IV kit. Shortly after, a message popped up, directly from Stella.

Alright. Be there in a min

Astrid pulled up the message history to find nothing, just Stella's reply to a question she never asked. Under normal circumstances she would just shrug it off. But the Skeld was no longer "normal". It was dangerous. And any little error could mean someone was setting up for a kill. Stella may be innocent, but no one else was.

Her tablet got another notification, a message from Captain Genesis.

Need you in admin right now

Please :)

Despite the smiley, Astrid shuddered. Did Jericho tell her everything?

Should she wait for Stella to come, or was the captain's order a truly urgent matter?

Astrid stood there, bouncing on her heels, tapping the back of her tablet. Maybe once Stella came to an empty medbay, she would realize it was a mistake?

With that thought, she left, making two rights and a left to administration.

"Captain?" she called, hovering in the doorway, scanning the empty room. "You wanted to see me?"

Nothing. She looked out into the hall, between the cafeteria and storage, and back into admin. That was when she noticed a purple comb resting on the central table. She had seen Genesis pulling through her own hair with it more than once.

Something fell over, and glass shattered. It came from medbay.

Astrid took off, shutting off the part of her that warned against walking into a trap, into another crime scene. But she did anyway, maybe with the thought that she could save whoever had been hurt.

She slid inside to find Stella, crumpled on the ground, her neck twisted at a gut-wrenching angle. Someone in an orange space suit stood over her, the helmet covered with bright yellow duct tape.

The killer looked up at her, and lunged.