"What do you mean, a dead body?"
"I mean, there's a dead body, ser." The strain in Kalissa Morn's voice was clear even through the audio-only connection. "In the ResFour garden."
Director of Security Josephine Terifino stared unseeingly at the drab gray walls. "Any chance the flikk's just drunk?"
"He's purple, ser. How soon can you get here?"
Joey scrubbed a hand through her short dark hair and resisted the urge to swear. "Kalissa, the landing bay's full of VIPs and the Ambassador could arrive at any minute. If I pull anything that might screw up the opening ceremony, the Commander's gonna kill me. I had to duck into the head just to take your call."
"But I just got here this morning." Kalissa's voice spiraled upwards in panic. "One of the other Seconds, someone who's been here longer -"
The only other Second on duty was Jesse. "You found it, you fix it."
No sound from Kalissa, but Joey could sense the panic threatening to break through. She sighed and made a hold-transmission gesture with one hand. "Computer, can you route the feed from Second Director Morn through my subs?"
"Of course, Director."
"Good." She pulled the transmission back up. "All right, Kalissa, here's what you do. Call Medical. Get a Bio squad to the area, seal it off, and find out if the flikk was killed by something contagious. While they're doing that, you pull the cam tapes and find out what happened."
"Yes, ser," Kalissa said, calming under the onslaught of orders.
"If Medical calls contagious, lock down the station and call me immediately. Otherwise you inspect and identify the body."
"Yes, ser." Kalissa's voice went tight and tense again. Joey sighed.
"I have subcutaneous implants; I will be monitoring you for that step. Contact me when you're ready. Understood, Second?"
"Yes, ser!"
"Fine. Terifino out." Not until she heard the channel click closed did she lean against the wall and allow herself a heartfelt groan.
"Why me?"
"I beg your pardon, Director?"
"Nothing, computer. It was a rhetorical question." Joey let her head fall back against the wall with a thump. Like most things Unity, the room was heartlessly plain, a study in regulation gray; the station hadn?t been online long enough for the nanoscubbers to loose the graffiti arms race, leaving the walls inhumanly pristine. The bleakness did not help Joey?s mood.
A year ago, this would have been somebody else's problem. A year ago, all I had to worry about was getting my wing blown to bits by the Trake. Being shot at had never sounded so appealing. But that was then, this was now, and her wing had been scrap metal on the nav screens for a long time. A Director of Security did not get to think of bodies as somebody else's problem. Joey blew out a breath, then reached up above her head to catch the doorjamb and pull herself out.
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