Mutely, Garrett nodded. She was shaken. She knew the story from reading Halak’s official reports as well as her private talk with Captain Connors. Connors hadn’t faulted Halak, and neither did she. Thex hadn’t needed air. Halak and Strong had. These were the cold, simple equations of life and death in space.

Halak was telling the truth. Her gut told her so. His recitation was too fluid; everything hung together. Garrett’s quick glance around at her officers—Tyvan, Stern, even the lieutenant making recordings—confirmed they believed him, too. So why was Burke quizzing Halak? How did this relate to Batra? Farius Prime?

“Why not simply switch out Lieutenant Thex’s seals for Strong’s?” asked Burke, as if she found Halak’s decision distasteful. “Bleeding air is a bit dramatic.”

“Dramatic.” Halak’s expression revealed what he thought: Here was an officer with a desk job. No matter if he switched seals or bled air, Thex was just as dead. “You think switching out seals isn’t dramatic? One slip up, and you’re dead. But, yeah, I thought about it. I discarded it.”

“Why?”

“I didn’t want to compromise Strong’s systems more than they already were. His wasn’t a simple seal failure. If it’d been that easy, we’d have rigged a stricture above the leak. So we bled the air, and I gave Strong the lion’s share. Then we dialed down oxygen, trying to conserve as long as possible. The problem was my repurification system was damaged, and I started building up carbon dioxide.”

“Ugly,” Stern murmured. “Carbon dioxide poisoning isn’t pleasant.”

“Plus, we had other problems. I didn’t want us to be too far from where our shuttle exploded. Barkerwould be looking for a debris field. But the hell of it was that staying close meant we were at risk from the debris field itself, and radiation. Local space was lousy with it. Add in ambient gamma radiation from the Ryn sun, and I figured that if we didn’t suffocate, we’d cook.”

“Why not phase your suits’ electrostatic charges into a force field?” Burke asked in that same bland, faintly judgmental tone. “That would have bought you some time.”

“Sure. We thought of that. But our priority was contact with the Barker.Phasing electrostatic fields would have drained our suits’ battery packs, made our carrier waves much weaker. With all that radiation, I wasn’t sure our distress beacons would pierce the interference locally, much less make it to the Barker.We elected to phase our carrier waves, instead. A gamble, but it was the only choice, really.”

“But you won,” said Burke. “The Barkercaught your boosted signal.”

Halak shrugged irritably. “If you call losing crewmates winning.I don’t.”

“Yes, that’s right. I forgot. Strong’s air ran out before Barkergot there.”

“That’s right.”

“And yours didn’t.”

“No.”

“That must have been unpleasant, listening to your crew-mate suffocate.”

Halak’s expression was stony. “Very. Especially when he cracked the seal on his helmet.”

Dear Lord.Garrett closed her eyes. She’d seen what happened to the human body under sudden decompression in a vacuum.

Halak continued, his black eyes burning with contempt. “Ever been there, Lieutenant? The guy’s out of air. He can’t breathe. He’s got this insane idea that if he can just twist that helmet loose he’ll be able to. Even hanging in space, vacuum all around, he thinks that. It’s not logical.” Halak’s dark eyes raked over Sivek’s expressionless features before returning to Burke. “But it happens.”

Sivek’s only reaction was to blink. Burke didn’t acknowledge the reproach. “And you didn’t try to stop him.”

“Goddamn you.” Anger flooded Halak’s features, turning his sallow olive skin a copper color. “Of course, I did. But he straight-armed me. I don’t know what type of deep-space experience you haven’thad, Lieutenant, but when you’re weightless and someone gives you a push, unless you’ve got a thruster pack there’s no way you’re going to change course real fast.”

“So he unclipped you. In the middle of suffocating to death, where the only thing on his mind was getting air, he still had the presence of mind to make sure you couldn’t stop him.”

“No, he didn’t unclip me. He pushed, and then he cracked the seal, but when he did that, his systems shut down. After that, I had to rephase my carrier wave with Thex’s. Somehow I did it, though I honestly don’t remember much. I was pretty far gone. Barker showed up when I had about a half hour of air left. At least that’s what the doc told me. I had passed out. Next thing I knew, I was in sickbay.”

“And that’s all.”

Garrett spoke, her voice hard. “There has to be more, Lieutenant?”

“Much,” said Burke. “I have proof that nearly everything Commander Halak just told us is a lie. No,” she held up her hand when Halak opened his mouth to protest, “that’s unfair. Lieutenants Thex and Strong diddie, just not the way Halak tells it.”

“Proof?”

Burke bobbed her neat blonde curls. “Absolutely,” she said, steepling her fingers like a professor making an important point she doesn’t want her students to forget. “Captain, autopsy results on Lieutenant Thex indicate that his wounds were not that severe. And Strong’s tissues do not indicate characteristic changes you would expect to see in severe hypoxia. Thex should’ve lived. He didn’t. Strong wasn’t suffocating, but he died, too.”

Garrett struggled to keep her disgust for Burke under wraps, and failed. “Are you suggesting, seriously, that Halak stole Thex’s air? That he murdered a member of his crew? Maybe both of them?”

“Yes, Captain.”

Garrett’s tone was deadly. “How? What’s more, why?”

“My scenario runs like this: Thex was unconscious. It wouldn’t take much for Halak to convince Strong that Thex was dead. Then, under the pretext of sharing Thex’s air with Strong, Halak cracked the seals on Strong’s helmet. Halak had never intended for either of his crewmates to survive.”

“Captain,” said Halak, his voice strangled. “Captain.”

Burke pushed on. “Then he bled Thex’s air into his suit.”

“Well, that’s dumb. Why not take both?” asked Stern.

“Because then he couldn’t be half-dead, could he? That might raise too many eyebrows.”

“That’s the how,” said Garrett. She made a shushing motion with her hand at Halak, who subsided. “Now, what’s the why?”

The edges of Burke’s lips flirted with a smile, as if she knew that Garrett’s not letting Halak interrupt meant that she’d scored points. “Commander Halak’s situation was desperate, but for reasons quite different from what he’s presented.”

“But there was an inquiry, Burke. Halak was cleared.”

“Corruption breeds powerful allies, Captain.”

“Corruption.” Garrett’s eyes narrowed. “What are you talking about?”

Sivek stirred. “If I may?” At Garrett’s nod, the Vulcan stood and approached the conference room viewscreen.

“I had the opportunity to download a series of encrypted computer records that verify everything Lieutenant Burke alleges.”

“Encrypted? From where?”

“From Commander Halak’s personal log.”

Garrett’s eyes widened. “You took it upon yourself to break into Commander Halak’s personal log? On whose authority?”

“Igave Sivek the go-ahead, Captain,” said Burke.

Garrett felt her blood pressure rising. “Without consulting me?”

“Captain, Starfleet Intelligence’s mandate supercedes command prerogatives in matters of security,” said Burke. “But I did clear it with Commander Batanides, if that’s any consolation.”

“It’s not,” said Garrett, though she knew that Batanides owed her no explanations and didn’t need to ask her permission. “I should’ve been told.”

“Point taken,” said Sivek. His sleek black coif gleamed like the skin of a well-oiled seal. “And what is done is done. In any event, embedded within Commander Halak’s personal logs were encrypted entries that confirm and augment computer records retrieved from the shuttle Commander Halak appropriated on Farius Prime.”