The Bottle Under the Canopy

At 05:10 the next morning, Mara is woken by three knocks on the open hatch.

Not the duty sailor.

Lieutenant Asha Bell stands outside in a dark training shirt, holding a clipboard against her chest.

Bell is the medical officer who should have intervened on the flight deck.

She is thirty, sharp-eyed, and usually impossible to surprise.

“You’re wanted in sickbay,” Bell says.

“For what?”

“A statement.”

“About Mercer?”