The electricity stopped and a hand shot up and out of the slime. Captain Thorn pulled himself upright. His dark skin held a grey shade and an odd shine from the slime. He pulled out the tube from his mouth and coughed in air. My eyes were glued to him as I gritted my teeth, still trapped near the door. Captain Thorn suddenly looked up, shock clear on his face. Byrne smiled tightly. "Good to see you awake, Captain." The last word was shot at me snidely.

    She offered a hand and helped him clamber out of the capsule. He was a tall man and from the test of time, his muscles had deteriorated. He looked like a gangly alien with dark grey skin and thin limbs. Byrne handed him a towel that he wrapped around his waist. His eyes seemed far away as he finally blinked slime from his eyes and looked around the room.

    He seemed to find Officer Edwards first. His hairless eyebrows shot up and he saw me at last. My arm was covered in crimson blood. Officer Decker still had me pinned with a weapon at my head, Officer Bird with his hand over my mouth. Blood leaked from his hand and Officer Decker's nose. Captain Thorn scrutinized us. "I-I have a feeling so-something went wrong," he said dryly.

    Byrne chuckled darkly. "You'd be right, Captain."

    Captain Thorn finally looked down at her. His eyes landed on the weapon in her hands. "What is th-that?"

    She looked down. "Ah. This is a zodiac, a new series of weapons the civilians of Zoel have created. This one is a cancer, a level three."

    "M-May I see it?"

    Flustered, Byrne handed it over. Captain Thorn examined it curiously. I felt like he was being deliberately slow. Then with one smooth motion, he lifted his arm and aimed the barrel directly at my head. My eyes widened and I pushed with my free leg, scrabbling against the metal floors. Byrne smiled wickedly as Captain Thorn tilted his head, narrowed his eyes, and activated the zodiac.

    Yellow blurred past my head and missed me. Instead, it hit the weapon in Officer Decker's hands and knocked it away. He intentionally missed me. Everyone was so stunned that I clenched my free hand into a fist and crunched my elbow into his diaphragm. The breath was forced from him in a force of a wheeze and I twisted his other arm away from my throat, bucking my hips backward and launching him over my shoulder. He crashed into Officer Bird and they went down in a heap.

    Byrne shouted but I was already on my feet. With a seamless move, I activated the aquarius blade and launched it at her. It burned a gash through her ankle and she cried out, slipping and crashing onto the ground. I snatched up the fallen weapon at my feet and whipped around to aim it at Officers Decker and Bird. They froze.

    Captain Thorn lowered the cancer zodiac. He looked around, baffled. "Will s-someone please explain what's going o-on?"

    "Gladly," I said darkly. "But let's get Byrne into the brig before she can cause any more trouble."

    By the time everything settled down, we'd put Byrne in the brig. Captain Thorn had done so without asking a single question. The remaining officers obeyed his orders without question and my own orders with hesitance. I had Officer Decker and Bird carry Officer Edwards to the medical bay until he woke up. Having been knocked out right after waking up could not have been good for him.

    Captain Thorn had put on a pair of pants and had sat still while I explained everything. We sat in the Lounge. He said not a word until I finished. His hand rubbed his chin. "Well, I cannot say I am surprised by Byrne's actions. I knew that your cautious nature would war with her self-assured one the moment you two got into the same room. But I made the decision to put you as First Officer anyway."

     My attempt to hide my stunned look didn't go well. Captain Thorn smiled wryly. "Yes, I chose the Officers. It was my condition to accept the Captain position: that I pick my own crew. The International Galactic Space Commission sent a list of possible names and I picked the rest." He looked at the shuttered portholes. "I knew of your reputation of being overly cautious. I also knew that Byrne was incredibly smart, but so smart that she's arrogant. Once she has a thought, she has no doubt that she's right. While her intelligence is formidable, I didn't want a reckless First Officer. The IGSC intended for her to be the First Officer. I preferred you more. You evaluate every option before making a choice. I knew that something like this altercation would likely happen. It doesn't help that Byrne knows fully well that she was supposed to have your position."

     I chewed on that for a bit. Captain Thorn spoke again. "After hearing the circumstances, I understand your choices and I don't worry about them. I trust you. However, something isn't adding up that I don't think you've realized."

     "Probably," I muttered. "I'm overwhelmed at this point." My fingers brushed the bandages around my arm.

     Captain Thorn grimaced. "You say that we were delayed for two hundred and fifty years. This is because we were unknowingly lacking electron batteries. Then an intruder breaks onto the ship and takes just the right amount to keep the majority of the crew asleep. Odd coincidences, don't you think?"

    My head snapped up. He's not suggesting that, is he? "You're not suggesting that this was a team effort? The first error could have been human mistake, and besides that, it was five and a half centuries ago."

    "Not only am I suggesting that, but I believe this effort has been put together since the days before we took off from Earth." He rubbed his chin. "I can see how hard it is to understand when you've discovered this all on steps along the way. But coming from an outsider's perspective, I find it hard to believe that these are separate events. First we are missing electron batteries with no knowledge as to why or how. Someone got onto the ship without being detected in the code and rewrote the supply check. And now..." He trailed off.

     It all connected in my head. My lips parted. "And now we lose an electron battery the same way. The exact same way. Even if these people weren't working together, they did it the same way. They know of each other."

     "And five and a half centuries apart," affirmed Captain Thorn. "The same attack. Twice. I don't know how, but this was orchestrated the same way. Now we need to figure out if these people are working together or simply copying one another."

    "And why," I added sharply. "Someone is working awfully hard to keep us out of the picture."

    Captain Thorn nodded slowly. "Exactly."