Several hours later, Reece woke to Naeva caressing his face. She leaned in and kissed him before sitting up on one elbow to look down at him. He studied her face, just as she studied his. Something about the way she looked at him reminded Reece of the nearly forgotten dream from the night before. The dream had been trying to tell him something, but he couldn’t remember what. Only that he was supposed to ‘help’, and he had the feeling that Naeva had a role to play as well. A genuine smile spread across her face, which broke the spell.

“So, was there actually something you wanted to talk to me about, or was that just an excuse to get me alone?”

Reece sat up and looked over at her. He knew he was doing the right thing. He even felt good about it.

“Is it safe to talk in here, or can we be overheard?”

Naeva got a worried look on her face before answering him. “Yes, it’s safe to speak freely here. No one is listening. What is it?”

“Well,” began Reece. “You know that last EVA I did, and the system malfunctions?”

“Yes.”

“I lied about the cause. Nothing I did had anything to do with them, and they weren’t malfunctions. It was Jared. He was trying to kill me.”

Reece went on to explain everything that had happened to him on the EVA. He also told her about Angel’s suspicions and the two different rat things he had seen with his own eyes. Finally, he told her of his meeting with the commander and his proposal, the injection, Sora with the pill, and later, the encounter in the men’s barracks. Naeva took it all in with an ever-increasing look of horror and anger on her face. She stared into his eyes for a long moment.

“I believe you,” she said reassuringly. “The events you describe fit the narrative of something that Angel and I have been trying to sniff out for months now. I don’t know if I can trust you yet, but I think we need to at least work together. Especially if people are actively trying to kill you. We must stop them, whether it’s Jared or someone else. This works out to our advantage. People already think we’re a couple, so we can watch each other’s backs without arousing suspicion.”

She stopped for a moment to think.

“We’ll take the old officer quarters. Let everyone think what they want. It’ll be the perfect cover. The quarters are old and run down, but they have everything we need. Luckily, they haven’t dismantled it yet. Station upgrades are still way behind schedule. And since we’ll be bunking up together, we’ll just have to make the most of it.”

This last comment she made with a twinkle in her eye and her mischievous grin spread across her gorgeous face.

“Unless you’d rather bunk up with Sora,” she added.

“It’s not like that at all,” complained Reece. “Neither her nor I agreed to this. I doubt she even knows about it. These so-called masters of the ‘Order’ apparently feel they can dictate who should be together. It’s not just fascist, but very wrong.”

“I know. I was just teasing you a bit. You’ve got to keep your sense of humor, or you’ll go nuts,” she explained as her expression became serious. “Now, we need to focus. Let’s get showered and get those quarters fixed up. We’ll need to shadow each other to keep you safe, in case Jared tries again. Of course, it could have been just a ruse and they both want you dead. The rest of the crew will just think it's puppy love and roll their eyes at us. Trust me, it’ll work.”

“Alright,” agreed Reece. “I don’t have any better ideas, and it’s as good a plan as we’re likely to get.”

With their conversation settled, they showered and cleaned up. Naeva led Reece to one of the modules that he had passed through several times already. He hadn’t really paid any attention to it. She opened the portal to the outer half of the module. There was a dark hall with two closed doors on the left side and two more on the right. At the end of the hall was a round window that gave a nice view into space. She chose the first door on the left and opened it up. Inside was a simple bed pressed up against the back-right corner that had clearly been broken long ago. Naeva giggled to herself when she spotted it.

“What?”

“Looks like someone had a little too much fun,” she snickered at the broken bed frame.

“I don’t know who’s going to kill me first,” groaned Reece.

“Oh, you know you love it,” teased Naeva.

They continued to inspect the room. A few grey cabinets lined the entire left side and a small table was bolted to the floor near the foot of the bed. It had an old poly-ceramic lamp affixed to it. There were clamps for storing a chair behind the door, but the chair was missing. They checked each of the other rooms but only found one good chair and another bed that was also broken. Reece inspected both beds and determined he could fix and reinforce the one in the other room with the welding torch and a few screws.

Together they gathered the tools that Reece would need for the work. Inside the room, Reece donned his welding goggles. Without the use of the EVA suit, he would need them. He got to work adding steel rods to the flimsy construction of the old bed frame. When he was finished, their bed was better than new. Naeva came back in from where she was waiting in the hall.

Reece decided to store his gear in one of the cabinets. They collected the rest of their belongings and relocated them into several of the other cabinets within the room. They found some spare bedding to outfit their newly commandeered room. Reece double-checked the locks to both the module and the room and found them both functional. Once everything was prepared, Reece and Naeva stood inside the room and admired the job that they had done on it.

“I find it strange that no one is using these rooms. They’re old, sure. But at least they offer some privacy.”

“Yeah, not many people on this station actually care enough to bother. For the last three years, this module has been scheduled to be overhauled with all new equipment and re-outfitted for use as another lab. No one wants to waste the time fixing up a room just to have to leave it again after a couple of months. Hopefully, us moving in here doesn’t give others the same idea.”

“On the upside, we have the only functional bed, so that should deter anyone else from claiming a room of their own.”

“I guess you’re right. Oh, I forgot to mention…” said Naeva with an apologetic look. “This module also has a history. There have been several accidents here over the years, even one death.”

“You mean Capt. Johannsen?” asked Reece in bewilderment. “I remember the news reports about that. Wasn’t that over thirty years ago?”

“That right, this module is actually over fifty years old. So, it doesn’t exactly meet all the safety requirements either. I don’t know the particulars. I’m not an engineer like you, but I understand that it’s the weak point of the station.”

“Well, I do know the particulars,” replied Reece. “Basically, this module pre-dates the structural reinforcements such as redundant atmospheric compensators and post poly-steel construction materials. If this module gets compromised, I won’t be able to fix it. These early modules were more like disposable cameras of the previous decades. If anything happened to it, they would just throw it away and get another one. I’m actually surprised that one of these still exists on the station.”

“Yeah, well…,” sighed Naeva. “Budgets can be a bitch. All the money always goes to new programs. The politicians of all our governments are the same. They don’t like spending money on maintaining old programs. They can’t pitch them as shiny new things to their constituents to keep their popularity up. Even the dictatorships need to stay in favor lest they be overthrown. You’ve seen it. How many governments have been overthrown in the last thirty years?”

“More than twenty, I’d wager,” replied Reece. “Too bad common sense and politics don’t mix.”

Naeva laughed at that.

“Let’s get something to eat. We should show our faces soon,” said Naeva, changing the subject.

“Sure, sounds good.”

They made a quick appearance at the mess hall and scarfed down some cereal and a couple of apples. After they ate, they headed to the control room to mingle a bit and get a feel for the rest of the crew. They arrived to see Zia, Stephanie, and Commander Rogers speaking quietly while Sora and Thato sat at the consoles.

“Reece, I haven’t seen you in a while. Good job on the repairs, by the way. Thomas filled me in on the system malfunctions. I’ll be putting you in for a commendation for the actions that you took despite the danger to yourself. You really stepped up in a big way. I’m glad you’re with us.”

“Thank you,” replied Reece. “Though I don’t fancy another spacewalk for a while.”

Rogers laughed for a moment before getting serious.

“Fair enough, we’ve had enough tragedy for one day anyhow. By the way, I heard you two were moving your stuff into the old officer’s module. You do know that module is old and doesn’t meet safety standards?”

“Right, Commander,” said Naeva as she took Reece’s arm and the lead in the conversation. “Reece and I want somewhere private. Besides, Reece inspected the entire module and although old, it is perfectly safe. It’s been up here for decades with no loss of integrity, or so he says.”

Commander Rogers looked over at Reece. “Is that true?”

“Yes, it is,” lied Reece. “The main problem with the module isn’t that it’s unsafe, but that any damage isn’t repairable since it's constructed of materials that we don’t use anymore.”

The commander was clearly listening to him, so Reece continued. He suspected that the commander wanted to reward him for his recent efforts, and this would fit the bill.

“And... I looked into the supposed accidents in that module through Zhengzhou Station’s logs. All those accidents were caused by carelessness, stupidity, and mistakes. The module itself wasn’t to blame for any of them.”

The commander considered their words for a few moments before making his final decision.

“Fine, you can stay there. But leave the outer bulkhead unlocked. I don’t want the two of you getting trapped in there by malfunctioning doors and the like.”

“Fair enough, that’ll work,” replied Naeva, softly squeezing Reece’s arm as if to signal their victory.

“Any more information on our shuttle crew?” asked Naeva.

“None,” replied Thomas somberly. “Ground Control has been strangely quiet.”

“Nothing to worry about,” commented the commander. “They’ll reach out to us when they need to. Now, we need to focus on getting the station back on track. We need a complete systems diagnostic checkout. The gardens need tending, the airlock needs repairs, and the scientists need to be allowed to get back to their experiments. Let’s get to it.”

The crew took the order in stride and everyone scattered to carry out their respective tasks. Naeva accompanied Reece to the airlock where he had to repair the damage that he caused to gain entry. He needed to enter the airlock for an extended period, so Naeva guarded him as he worked. They left the station spinning as Reece would have an easier time with gravity engaged. He figured everyone else would too, for that matter. The only tricky part was fixing the wiring without tripping anything else.