The siren went up with a yell.

Around the ship, life sounds became louder and more clamorous. Solaris got herself out of bed with efficient motions and dressed for duty with haste. 0400 hours ship time. She was not due on duty for another four hours under normal circumstances, but the increasing shrieks of the emergency siren indicated that this was not normal circumstances.

She reached the hallway and the fire alarm added its wail to the cacophony.

Richards stumbled toward her, face creasing with panic. "What should I do, sir?"

"Take a head count. Make sure McPherson ensures the safety of the Nectaren contingent so this doesn't turn into a political incident."

"Yes, sir." He saluted and ran off past her.

She entered her pass-code into the monitor on the wall and it lit up into a map, danger points flashing red. The security room was on fire. The general alarm must have been raised before it began to burn.

Solaris minimised the map and moved down the hallway in her fastest stride, not daring to run and risk colliding with her fellow men.

Veronica Menken was halfway out the door to her suite, somehow unguarded. "What's happening?"

"You need not worry, Ms Menken, though I would suggest a dressing gown in case Richards comes to help you evacuate."

Veronica grasped Solaris's forearm, the pressure of her hand through Solaris's uniform slight enough that she found it easy to shake off.

"Be safe," Veronica said.

It was hard not to be amused. "Ms Menken, I am in considerably less danger than you."

The alarm continued to screech.

The automatic doors to seal off different sections were not coming down. Solaris could feel the heat on the exposed skin on her face as she moved closer to the security room. Not as hot as a dry summer day on Westroia, with the sun beating down on her skin, but hotter than anything she'd felt in service.

It was clear that automatic safety procedures had not immediately kicked in. Perhaps they were damaged somehow or insufficient to the extent of the fire currently threatening the ship. Either that meant someone who knew the security systems on the Moving Along Silently well – likely, at this point – or someone who got lucky with their sabotage. That narrowed suspects down to someone or someones who worked in security or communications, or any of the senior staff, a group no smaller than seven people, and didn't rule out that whoever was responsible for this criminal act was working in tandem with someone else.

There was no reason to believe Captain Savage or Lady Free were responsible. Both were as dedicated to the Moving Along Silently as you would expect of sentimental mainline humans who'd made their home on the same vessel for decades. Captain Savage had not fought the Nectarens in his campaigns in the last great war; his campfire tales of the monstrosities of the machine planet mentioned cruel robotic beasts, callous green-skinned cyborgs and the duplicitous nature of human men, but nothing of the Nectarens at all, and even so, not all Nectaren nations had been their enemies in that conflict. The mixed peoples of the Acquatica natural satellite had been allied with the great powers of the middle sector as far as Illvos, and at the very least New Babylon was neutral.

Who then was capable? Kennedy who usually sat in the security control room, dull-witted and bored? Dr Pill, who Solaris had never bothered to befriend or get to know well?

It didn't matter. What did matter was reaching the source of the problem and fixing it.

Lady Free shoved past Solaris, running fast. "William!" she yelled, as she turned the final bend toward the source of the heat.

Solaris sped up and followed.

Lady Free slid to her knees and skidded to the captain's side. He was lying on the floor, his torso and pelvis in the hallway and his legs in the security room, one bloody thigh pinned to the floor by a metal pole holding up the one security door that had come at least partway down.

"William," Lady Free yelled, again, and cupped Captain Savage's bloodied face.

Solaris could not tell if he was conscious. His chest moved with breathing so at least he was alive.

"Get a hold of yourself, woman," Solaris said.

"I am your superior officer," Lady Free snarled, but then her voice compressed into a sob, and she ran her hands over the captain's face, undignified.

"Then act like it. Take command of the situation."

They would never be able to chose the door and starve the fire of precious oxygen while it remained wedged open by the pole pinning the captain to the floor. How clever, and yet so thoroughly disgusting.

"I will have to move the pole," Solaris said.

"Don't you dare," Lady Free hissed. "If you remove it, the Captain will die."

"If I don't move it we will all die."

Lady Free finally lifted her face to look at Solaris and give an order, like the officer she was. "Move the door with your supposedly superior strength, Commander Solaris, and I will attend to the Captain's body."

Solaris grabbed the hot edges of the metal, burning hot even through the thick wool-blend of her gloves. She braced herself, then pushed up, as hard as she could. The door scraped against the metal of the door-jambs with a horrendous squeal as she moved it up an inch, then with a stronger movement five inches, enough room that the other woman could pull the captain free of the security room. Without the pole keeping it open the door grew more heavy with its desire to touch the floor. Solaris shoved herself back so the door could close.

Another part of the automatic security finally kicked in as the electronic voice began to speak over the hallway, "...stand clear. Please stand clear. Please stand..."

The nearby monitor's map was still lit up from whoever used it last, still showing a fire burning in Communications Records.

Solaris open a channel to notify Dr Pill he was needed, and he, with a gasping voice as if he was already running, informed Solaris he was already on the way.

Lady Free was crying over the captain's body. He let out a whisper of a groan as he breathed; still alive, possibly still conscious, undoubtedly in unbearable pain. Solaris collapsed to her knees next to Lady Free and risked a gloved hand on her shoulder.

"You will need to take command of the ship as soon as the doctor arrives to take care of the Captain's body," Solaris said.

"I cannot," Lady Free said. "I need to be with the captain."

"You must. We are hurtling towards a highly populated station with no experienced officer at the helm. There is a saboteur on board. The captain is incapacitated. You are the only person who can take control of the ship, unless you desire me to declare you not of sound mind and wrest control from you. Lady Free, I do not desire to do that. Let me do what I am best at and you do what you're best at. The captain would want you to take control."

"Moving speech," Dr Pill said, as he joined them. His breathing was rough and his face hollowed out by tiredness. No doubt he was just as strained by recent events as anyone on board.

Lady Free nodded. Solaris rose to her feet and left them to attend to the captain. She had one last thing to do.

When she reached Communications Records, the fire in its pile of papers was quite small, already close to sputtering out for lack of sufficient materials to fuel the flame. Whoever had set this alight to hide their crimes had become sloppy.

But it wasn't Dale Kennedy, because he was clearly dead.

She grabbed him by the bottom edge of his trouser legs and dragged him into the hallway, so she wouldn't be the one accused of the crime. Then darted back into the room to press the button that triggered the heavy metal security door closing so she could secure the evidence, and rolled underneath the door so she wouldn't be trapped in there with it. The ventilation system would start sucking the oxygen from the room as soon as the metal door secured itself fully to the floor and then cut off vent access as well. Whatever had been left in there was as safe as anything was on the ship.

She took one last look at Kennedy's body and walked away from the scene.

From the sounds as she moved toward the centre of the ship, it seemed like all persons on board were awake. Through the transparent doors of the medical bay Solaris could see Dr Pill, his face creased, setting up the captain's body on one of the beds. Veronica Menken was rushing around the room, so presumably he'd pressed her into service as his assistant to keep her occupied. Sensible. The Nectarens were in the waiting room, sitting inky dark on the bright red couch. Everyone else was in, or near, the bridge.

Lady Free looked over to acknowledge Solaris's arrival.

Solaris stood behind her, clasped her hands in their dirty, ruined gloves behind her back, and said, "Kennedy is dead. His body is outside the records room."

Lady Free nodded again, then turned to the communications officer and commanded, "Ayla, open a channel with the station to inform them we'll be there early." To Richards she said, "Dick, stop crying until you're off duty."

It was a deeply unfortunate circumstance, and Solaris was ready to consign her entire uniform to the evidence bin and take a cleansing bath, but it felt good to stand behind Lady Free as she made young men snap to attention and steered them into the relative safety of Mid Port.

Murders could be ignored for political reasons, but now that someone had sabotaged one of the beautiful ships that belonged to the UAP there would be questions asked. Solaris would not be alone in wanting answers.