Hanson Mychels was locked in a cabin on the Bendross. Jon Dou unlocked the door and went inside. The room was small, done in tans and stainless steel. Hanson sat wearily, wearing a tank top and shorts, his Tattoos and scars providing most of the visual interest in the room.

"Any luck?" He asked.

"There are clues." Jon Dou Admitted. "Tell me about Amy Harbaugh."

Hanson grinned a cold grin. "Let me have ten minutes alone in a room with her and she'll tell you anything you ever wanted to know. Y'know. Good Cop, Psycho Cop."

"Nooooo, I don't think we're going to do that." Jon Dou said.

"What's to stop me from killing you and doing it anyway?" Hanson looked Jon Dou in the eye.

Jon Dou looked back. She found herself staring into the eyes of a stone killer. It was about the scariest thing she'd ever done. She held her ground anyway. You can only get killed once. "Think that through. I don't think it'll work out the way you want."

Hanson relaxed and smiled a very faint, but genuine smile. "I got time. Eventually we'll be on a strange new world. Accidents happen."

"You're convinced that Amy had something to do with it, or you just don't like her?" Jon Dou asked.

"Not liking someone isn't a good enough reason to put up with the inconvenience. It just puts them closer to the line." Hanson said.

"Why shouldn't I believe you did this? You're the stone killer. You could easily frame anyone for it. As you pointed out, we're amateurs." Jon Dou asked.

"I'm the logical suspect, Doctor." Hanson had a thought, "What happens to me if I did do it?"

Jon Dou stopped. "I don't know, honestly. I believe that Martin has it in hand."

Hanson snickered "That wanna be Boyscout. He'll arrest 'em and then stand around with his dick in his hands. We have courts. We have no jails. We don't even have any real cops around." He shook his head "We're babes in the woods out here."

Jon Dou sighed. "We'll figure something out."

Hanson shrugged. "Doesn't matter. I got time."

In the moment of silence that followed, Jon Dou looked at the dead certain intention of murder that lay at her feet and failed to imagine how she might deal with it. She put it off until later.

"What brings Amy to your attention?" Hanson said.

"She's out of control." Jon Dou answered. "Who else did she party with?"

"Leo Brennigan, Friese, Van Ness, Antonius. Crystal, of course." Hansen said. "I'll have to talk to them when there's time."

"This is about substance abuse and possible disease vectors. You want to play with that?" Jon Dou challenged. Even the Toughest of commandos tended to avoid pus, rashes and artistic lesions.

"I know a good treatment for addiction. One treatment and the patient never relapses."

Jon Dou sighed and looked at Hansen. "That's not adding much to our conversation."

"What do you want to know?" Hansen challenged.

"What in the hell was going on during Seventh Shift?" Jon Dou Demanded. "I want to know what the hell was happening. It sounds bad and if the thirteenth or fourteenth shift goes this bad, too, then we might never wake up."

Hansen took a deep breath "To tell the truth, Doctor. I opted out of a lot of that crap. I'm crazy enough on my own. I didn't need a drug crazed soap opera in tight quarters making me worse."

Jon Dou though about it carefully and then made her decision. "It's time for you to return to hibernation, Hansen."

Hansen's quarters were an empty supply locker with it's steel door mutilated to prevent easy escape. The walls were bare. Mychels had a cot and some emergency rations. Mychels scattered equipment and old boxes around as makeshift exercise equipment.

Mychels looked at Jon Dou and then grinned. "Sure. Plenty of time Doctor, I'll find out all I need to know when we reach planet fall."

Jon Dou held up a hypospray with the initial dose of hibernation medications. A cocktail of drugs, enzymes and nutrients designed to allow the human body to shut down almost completely in a state that a patient could recover from.

Hansen held his arm out. "Do it."

Jon Dou did.

-*-

In the sickbay, Jon Dou was examining Amy Harbaugh. Amy looked bedraggled and out of sorts, as well she might have.

She'd cleaned her self up a little bit. Not enough, Jon {Dou?} noted with a clinical eye.

"Tell me about it." Jon Dou said

"About what?" Harbaugh grumped.

"About what happened."

Amy looked at Jon Dou with an angry look that tried to be hard. "None of your business."

Jon Dou looked at her for a moment. Reality crawled uncomfortably around Amy. She ignored it again.

"Think you, ah.... Might be in a little over your head with the patches?" Jon Dou forced a casual tone.

"I was bored. That hootch Hamilton got into was rotten or something. That's why I threw up. Are you sure it didn't poison me or something?" Amy's denial was the largest thing in the room.

"It did, but you're over the worst of it now." Jon Dou said. She approached Amy with a hypospray.

"What's that for?" Amy demanded. She backed away from the injection like it was painful.

"Simple blood test." Jon Dou explained.

"uhh!" Amy's expression was eloquent but she held still for the drawing of her blood.

"Tell me about you and Crystal." Jon Dou said. "You two party much?"

"What, are you curious?" Amy challenged. "Does the thought turn you on?"

Jon Dou tried to hide a smirk "Less than you could ever know." The draw finished the took the vial of blood over to her work bench.

"Fuckin' dyke." Amy sneered.

"Whatever." Jon Dou breezed. "How do we know that Crystal was actually murdered. What if she just got messed up and had an accident?"

"How do you strangle yourself by accident?" Amy sneered.

"How did you know she was strangled?" Jon Dou asked.

"Hamilton told me."

"Uh huh."

"If you don't believe me, ask him! Oh, that's right, you can't, he probably doesn't remember." Amy challenged.

Jon Dou just looked at Amy. "You're the one who screwed him."

"Haven't you ever been *bored*?" Amy's pain was real and evident. The small confines of the colony ship were driving her mad.

"I'll be long dead before I'm *that* bored." Jon Dou replied.

Amy's angry expression was eloquent. Jon Dou made a mental note not to turn her back on Amy.

"Hamilton said you were the last person to sign in to hibernation." Jon Dou said.

"I wasn't." Amy said. "Hansen was." Amy was a good liar, but she was near the end of her rope.

"Why would Hamilton say you were the last in?"

"I don't know. Maybe Hansen's trying to frame me."

"He doesn't strike me as the framing type." Jon Dou said wrly.

Amy looked small and ugly in the harsh lights of the stainless steel sick bay. "What are you, the fucking cops?"

"Nope. I'm the Doctor." Jon Dou said, breezily.

"Why are you hassling me about this? I don't feel well!" Amy all but shrieked

"Because you're not telling me the whole truth, Amy." Jon Dou said.

"Why do you give a shit, anyway? You didn't know us! You didn't know any of us! Just MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS! " Amy was shrieking., now. She began to stand up. "JUST LEAVE ME ALONE!"

Jon Dou stood. "I want to know why you killed Crystal."

"MAYBE BECAUSE THE BITCH WOULDN'T LEAVE ME ALONE!" Amy screamed getting into Jon Dou's face. "EVER THINK OF THAT!?"

"Don't make me put you in restraints." Jon Dou said mildly.

Amy paled and took a step back before regaining her composure. "I bet you'd like that wouldn't you, Bitch?"

Jon Dou just looked at her.

'Fuckin' bitch. What the hell are you going to do anyway? You can frame me all you want, there are no cops, there are no jails. You can't do anything to me!" Amy said defiantly.

"So what do you have to loose by telling the truth?" Jon Dou said.

"The truth is I hated Crystal and I hate you, you fuckin' cunt!" Amy Harbaugh screeched. "I hate every fuckin' thing! I can't stand this fuckin' tin can, and I can stand you creeps they jammed in it! I hate you all!"

Amy danced around the Sick bay in anger "I know things! I know things you don't know! I know things you'll die before you figure out, you creepy, self satisfied, lesbian freak-assed bitch!"

Jon Dou grimaced. This was getting out control. She moved to her equipment and started preparing.

Amy stood next to her and screamed "When you're dying, Bitch, I want you to think about me! I want you to know! I want you last words to be 'Holy shit! That Amy Bitch was right!'"

Jon Dou turned and with quick, economic motions threw Amy Harbaugh to the floor. Amy, taken off guard landed hard in a heap of arms and legs. "AAAIEEEEE!" She screamed.

Jon Dou quickly pinned the struggling woman to the floor and with a quick motion, Jon Dou injected Amy.

Hamilton and Kerensky burst into the room and helped hold the struggling woman down.

Amy struggled for ten minutes before the drugs finally over whelmed her.

-*-

"Did we get that?" Jon Dou asked. She was hauling Amy Harbaugh into a gurney and strapping her down.

Hamilton nodded, "We got it all on tape, for what it's worth. Same as Mychel's tape. Nothing conclusive."

Jon Dou nodded.

Kerensky helped her strap the woman down. "You showed some excellent skill in picking the right amount of sedative for her. She's semi conscious, but not in danger of dying, yet. How'd you know how much to give her?"

Jon Dou stepped back and looked gray under her mahogany complexion. "I didn't. I gave her a massive dose. She should be dying now."

Semi conscious and lolling, Amy Harbaugh Started to giggle.

-*-

"Today's the day." Jon Dou said to Amy two weeks later.

"Thank god." Any said, from her bunk in Sickbay.

"Anything you want to tell me?" Jon Dou asked.

"You heard it all already." Amy had become even more inventive and harsh as the symptoms of withdrawal gripped her. Then as the drugs left her body, leaving only damage behind, Amy Harbaugh became despondent and suicidally depressed.

Jon Dou didn't especially care. "See you when we get there."

"Not if I'm lucky, Bitch." Amy snarled, weakly.

Jon Dou gave her the cocktail of hibernation drugs and chemicals, and finally put her loudest obstacle to bed.

-*-

Eight Months later. (Late Fall 2083)

Captain Olson turned off the screen after viewing all the tapes. "We're in some trouble, here, I take it."

Kerensky stood at parade rest. "All the suspects and witnesses are in cold sleep hibernation, Sir. Unless another watch has this problem, we should be able to deal with this once we reach planet fall."

"Deal with what? They're fired. All of them. Right now." Brennan Antony said. He was a thin man about as tall as Hamilton, with the slim good looks that exercise spas and easily available plastic surgery provided all upper class executives.

Captain Olson's face was eloquent. "Are you suggesting we just heave them overboard, Mister Antony?"

Antony waved his hand. "Supply ships from Earth will be following us. This isn't a philanthropic mission, people. Our mission is to turn a profit for The Company." You could hear Antony capitalize the name. It was his patriotism and his allegiance.

"Our projections suggest that the first few supply ships will leave emptier than they arrive. We'll just leave those people in Cold sleep, and pack them back to Earth on the supply ship. Once they're back, and the evidence is seen by Personnel, they'll be kicked to the curb and the appropriate authorities alerted. End of problem." Antony said.

"I'm glad you're here to solve these things for us, Dude." Hamilton said.

Antony missed the irony. "That's why they pay me the big bucks, Gentlemen. "

Olson spoke up in a deliberate tone "Are you sure you've uncovered all the stashes of illegal drugs and contraband?"

"Pretty sure, Cap'n. " Hamilton answered. "Rudy's been playing Easter egg for months, so he knows the old girl's insides pretty well."

"I want all unauthorized data and objects turned over to me." Antony said.

"Yes, Sir." Hamilton lied. He did not intend to let go of the various movies, books and documents that he'd horded from Rudy's find. Let Antony root them out of the computer himself.

Olson caught the tone, but said nothing "All drugs to the sickbay. All of them. Some may prove useful and they're all too dangerous to let run loose in the ship's general population."

"Why not just throw those overboard?" Antony asked.

"Because we may need them or something like them to cover for materiel shortages when we reach planet fall." Olson said "Nothing goes to waste. Nothing." His grim tone spoke volumes.

Antony shrugged "As long as you have it under control and it doesn't splatter back on the Company I am okay with that. Martin," Antony began

Kerensky turned slightly. "Sir?"

"Good work from you and Hamilton on this issue, I am pleased. But to have these drug and contraband stashes on the ship in the first place is a failure on the part of your department. I'm afraid the permanent record of this project will have to reflect that. Let's have no more of this sort of thing, Okay?" Antony said in his most important manager voice.

Hamilton looked disgusted. Olson did, too, but more subtly. Martin blinked and said perfectly deadpan "yes, Sir."

"Oh, and Hamilton?" Antony turned to the hacker.

Ashby popped straight upright with a bizarrely innocent look on his face "Sir?"

"Drug addiction and Sexual harassment are firing offenses. However, I have elected to give you one more chance. Your progress in treatment is ... satisfactory, and your work on this case shows your heart is in the right place anyway." Antony said sharply, "Consider yourself on probation for the next four months of active service to The Company. One more serious breach and you're fired as well."

Hamilton boggled and gaped like a fish. "Errrr, yes, Sir."

Olson touched Antony lightly on the arm. "Let me handle this, Brennan, will you?"

Antony nodded. "Captain Olson is the command authority of this ship, gentlemen so his word goes, but I am the Vice President for Operations at the Bendross Colony. It's my job to see that we operate by the book and generate profit for The Company. Not to win any popularity contests."

"Yes, Sir." Kerenski said

"Yes, Sir." Hamilton said tossing off a bad salute at Antony.

"Now let's get back to work." Antony said, smugly.

-*-

Hamilton, floating in Cyberspace watched the complex object that represented the Warp drive control program, looking like a huge fractal snowflake, pulsing and spinning. It heaved and writhed with new functions and operations. Hamilton watched the data flow past to Tristan Mancuso, the systems engineer of the Warp Drives.

Nothing looked too bad, although compared to their factory new state, the warp drives of the Bendross were almost exactly half used up by spending ten years at warp speed.

"Helm," Hamilton heard Olson say. "Take us out of warp."

"Aye, Sir, Coming out of Warp." Kerry Mark, Olson's hand picked XO worked the controls to bring the Bendross III out of warp space and into real space.

Hamilton saw this all happening in slow motion, as he was jacked into the ship's main computer.

The ship shuddered and thrummed with an unaccustomed noise. Then the shuddering stopped.

Hamilton looked out the ship's sensors and saw unaltered, unfiltered, unsimulated stars.

"Engineering, report." Olson said.

"Engineering," Mancuso said "We're in good condition, no major malfunctions noted. We will begin our maintenance cycle as soon as possible. Estimate we can resume warp drive in two days."

"Thank you." Olson said. "Computers."

Hamilton resisted the urge to shout "here!" Instead, he said "Computers, here, Sir."

"Begin scans for navigational sightings."

Hamilton found the program and began to run it. "Working on it, Sir. I'll have fresh data for you in about 4 hours."

"Excellent. Thank you." Olson said.

-*-

Two days later, Olson made the very small, very subtle course corrections and without a hitch the Bendross III went back into to warp. Ten more years to go.

-*-

Hamilton laid back into his hibernation tube, the drugs and chemicals for hibernation already made him feel strange.

"Hey, think we'll make it?" Mancuso asked from across the room.

"If I had any doubts, I wouldn't be going into the freezer."

"Good night gentlemen." Doctor Riser, the medical officer of the 11th shift said. "See you in about ten years.

"Have fun." Hamilton said as he drifted off.