Eve On Station

Chapter Four

Since coming aboard the station and being dumped into the middle of a murder investigation, Eve hadn't had much time to stop and think. The murder investigation wasn't really part of her mission, or was it? Her employers had identified this time and place as a key point in the fight to save humanity from the still unknown enemy, but they hadn't been able to be more specific as there were too many variables in play. Eve was supposed to reconnoiter the situation, gather additional data and report back to her employers who hopefully would be able to provide more specific instructions. There was a very good chance, however, that she was just going to have to "wing it" and try and do the best she could with limited data. It could very well turn out that the murder was a crucial part of her mission, or just a distraction, she had no way of knowing at the moment. All these thoughts had been running through her mind as Eve had travelled back to her new office. She needed to get that sorted out and things organized as quickly as possible.

"What is all this stuff?" she asked Jasleen a few minutes later when she was back in the office and the clerk had stuck her head in the door to see if Eve needed anything.

"Paper," said Jasleen less than helpfully.

"Yes, obviously," replied Eve trying to reign in her sarcasm, "but why is there so much of it? I mean who uses paper anymore?"

"Captain Demery liked hard copy printouts to consult," replied Jasleen.

"Is this stuff available on the computer in digital format?" asked Eve. When Jasleen nodded, Eve began stuffing the reams of paper into her garbage bags.

"Captain Demery won't like that," said Jasleen, biting her lower lip and clearly unhappy with Eve's solution to dealing with the mess.

"Then he can damn well come back and look after this mess," snapped Eve. She heard a sound from Jasleen and looked up to see the other woman wiping at her eyes. Oh damn, now I am acting like the same kind of asshole that I didn't like with Reynolds and Lee, she thought. "Look, I'm sorry for snapping at you," said Eve aloud. "Things have been moving too fast since I got here, but that's no excuse for taking it out on you. Were you close to Captain Demery?"

"Yeah," replied Jasleen as she slumped down on one of the visitor chairs that Eve had managed to clear off. "Actually though, it was maybe more one way than I care to admit. I had a bit of a thing for him, but ...," she trailed off.

"You aren't sure it was returned," Eve finished for her.

"Sometimes, I thought it was when he said something complimentary, or did something nice," said Jasleen. "One year he even remembered my birthday and left me a chocolate cupcake with a candle in it on my desk, but then he forgot it totally the next two years."

"Do you think he is still alive?" Eve asked gently.

"I don't really know what to think," replied Jasleen. "I read a lot of books and it's a cliché where the woman just knows whether her husband or boyfriend is still alive or not, because they have some special bond. Either Captain Demery and I didn't have that special bond thing, or more likely it is all a bunch of bullshit. I hope he is still alive somehow, but I really just don't know."

"Was he working on something that might make someone want to get rid of him?" Eve asked.

"I'm just a clerk, so I don't know a whole lot of the details of operations," replied Jasleen, "but there is a lot going on here on the station and Captain Demery, in his position, was right in the middle of most of it."

"Like what?" Eve inquired and waved her hand at the mountains of paper and the computer. "I might find out some of this from going through everything, but even if you can give me a big picture of how things stand, that will help."