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skullheads will start backing down. The cook must have been a little dense, though, because he didn’t even flinch. Apparently, I’d have to spell it out for him.
    “You have a problem with me, you say it to my face,” I said, keeping my voice nice and deadly. “I catch you bad-mouthing me behind my back to the captain again, and I’ll make sure that whatever punishment he has planned for you seems like a day at the beach by comparison.”
    To his credit, the cook didn’t try to deny what he’d done, though his voice did get colder. “I meant no offense,” he said crisply. “It won’t happen again.”
    “You’re right it won’t,” I promised him. “Because if it does, it’ll be the last thing you ever do.”
    His shoulders tensed, and I braced, ready to take him, but the cook didn’t swing for me. He didn’t turn and walk away either. He just stood there, staring at my face like he was trying to memorize it.
    “Stop that,” I snarled. “I am so sick of you staring at me. You want to ogle someone, find a dock girl, but I catch you looking at me one more time and I’m throwing you out an air lock.”
    It was a stupid threat to make since we both knew I couldn’t make good on it, but the cook didn’t call my bluff. He just looked away, his blue eyes falling as he slipped past me. “My apologies, Miss Morris. I won’t bother you again.”
    It might have been my imagination, but that last sentence had sounded almost sad, and that pissed me off even more. Why the hell was he sad about this shit? He’d started it. But even as the thought crossed my mind, I realized I felt sad, too. Sad and guilty, like I’d just done something cruel.
    I clenched my fists and stomped down the final stair to the hall. What the hell was wrong with me? What did I care if I hurt someone who never talked to me but thought he could go around behind my back and bad-mouth me to my officer?
    I glanced over my shoulder, but the cook was already gone, vanished up the stairs without a sound. Good riddance , I thought, jogging the final few feet to the captain’s bunk. I didn’t need that shit anyway.
    I shook my head and raised my fist to knock on Caldswell’s door, but as my hand came up, I saw there was something on my fingers. The tips were stained black, like I’d dragged them across something sooty. Cursing this filthy hole of a planet, I wiped my hand on my T-shirt, thankful that I’d picked a black one, but the dirt didn’t come off. I scrubbed again, harder this time, but all that did was make my fingers feel funny. All pins and needles, almost like they were asleep.
    I gave up after that. I disliked looking unkempt in front of an officer, but I was already all the way down here, and the captain wasn’t going to mind a little bit of dirt. Still, once I was done knocking, I moved my hands out of sight when the door opened and Caldswell stuck his head out.
    “Morris?”
    “Sir,” I said, standing at attention. “I have the first candidates for you to look at.”
    The captain’s look brightened at once. “Let me see.”
    I’d already sent the applications to his com, so we stood together in his door while he looked them over. In the end, he approved the whole lot, and I left to make my callbacks feeling infinitely better than when I’d arrived. There was no way the cook was going to poison the captain against me now, not that he’d had any luck before. Asshole.
    It might have been childish, but that thought made me grin as I jogged back upstairs to wash the gunk off my hands. By the time I reached the bathroom, though, the black stuff was gone. I stared at my clean fingers in confusion for a moment, then I shrugged and headed back to my bunk to make my calls, whistling as I stepped around the Terran crew who were hard at work prying the bullets out of the hall ceiling.

CHAPTER 2
    T he repairs to the ship were due to be finished tomorrow afternoon, so I’d set all our interviews up for that morning. It was short