Free Rogue Galaxy, Episode 1: The Captain and the Werewolf by J. Boyett Page B

well, Commander.” He sounded warm and cheerful. “You've done incredible things the last few days, and there's no way you've caught up on your sleep. Take it easy today, while things are still quiet.”
    “I'll take you up on that—thank you, sir,” she said, and signed off. Then she sat and thought a while.
    The captain sounded happy. The truth was, she genuinely would prefer not to disturb him—at least for the moment. She might not personally approve of the way he'd handled things, but he'd had a rough couple days—almost died, almost had to kill the woman he loved—and she preferred to leave him alone, at least until she knew for sure he'd acted improperly enough to warrant talking about it.
    Anyway, if she did talk to the captain, and her suspicions were correct, there was no reason to expect him to tell the truth. But she knew someone she could put the squeeze on.
    Ten minutes later, she was heading to the garden. She'd asked the computer to discreetly locate Fiquet, and that's where it had sent her. Blaine was relieved the girl wasn't on-duty—her time sense was so addled from the long stretch of work and then having slept at odd hours, that she had to keep checking the chronometer to see whether it was ship's daytime or ship's night.
    The Galaxy 's garden really wasn't a big affair—only a few hundred cubic meters, but its landscaped earth was stuffed full with enough profusions of bursting plant life to create plenty of places to hide. Blaine marched through all the bushes and low-hanging palms and flowerbeds and ivy curtains, exasperated, trying not to show it so as not to make the other loungers think anything was up, unwilling to put Fiquet on alert by hailing her.
    Blaine finally found her, tucked away in a corner that Blaine had never even noticed before, a patch of grassy earth in a pocket of stunted low-hanging trees, their leafy green branches hanging around her like curtains. She was sitting in the lotus position, eyes closed, a barely perceptible smile on her lips. Her eyes opened when Blaine pulled back that wooden curtain, and the gentle smile faltered, as she no doubt wondered why the XO should be seeking out a lowly ensign.
    Or maybe she didn't need to wonder why at all, and that was why she was worried.
    Blaine sat on the ground in front of Fiquet. Now they were both enclosed in the leaves. Fiquet's gaze was like that of a cornered animal, as she waited to hear what Blaine wanted.
    “Don't speak yet, Ensign,” said Blaine, casually enough. “Just let me think a moment, first.”
    Fiquet nodded once, slowly. She took a deep breath and seemed to re-center herself, then waited.
    Blaine played out various scenarios in her head. If she leaned on the young ensign, she could probably get her to crack a lot sooner than Dobbler would, even if the captain had given her a direct order to lie. For example, she could ask if Farraday had asked her if she had heard the doctor and the witch speculate that the Weed of Wonder might be an effective drug to use on the werewolf. And he might have asked her if she had her own secret stash, that she could donate to the cause. With no fear of censure for possession of a forbidden substance, naturally.
    Maybe she'd even been privy to certain conversations between Dobbler and the captain, and might be in a position to say whether, for example, the captain had asked their resident computer genius and juvenile delinquent Dobbler to hack into the AI and sabotage the seals, so as to buy Farraday some time to go in and risk his life and the whole crew's in a crazy quest to administer the Weed to the werewolf, probably as a quick injection. That dose would have had to have been donated by someone like Ensign Fiquet: they'd gone through all Dobbler's possessions, and she was certain there wasn't any left in his quarters or duty station, at least.
    Farraday wouldn't have been able to tell anyone that was how he'd gotten the werewolf under control—it wasn't like he could