Page 25 of Radiant Exception
Then there was Rion. I knew the most about our sweet and nerdy chief technology officer, thanks to Natalie. I still wasn’t sure why neither of them had acted on their clearly mutual crush on one another, but knowing Natalie, it was for a good reason, and she’d pounce on the poor guy the second she was ready, and not a moment before.
I didn’t think it would be difficult to make up some imaginary issue to consult with him on, and then open the conversation to more personal topics, where I could get a better sense of who he was, other than the “sweetest, dreamiest, nicest person,” per Natalie.
And then there was Chadwick. Oh, Chadwick…
He’d joined theRadiantthe same time as I had, so it was extremely unlikely that he’d had anything to do with any previous Meridian operations that had involved the ship, but it didn’t exactly rule him out, and for as annoying as he was, that didn’t mean he wouldn’t have his own brand of insight.
Everyone on the crew had written him off, due to his constant complaining about having to earn some real-world experience instead of being handed a title and a stack of cash, non-stop posturing about how he was going to get revenge on anyone that wronged himwhile he was at a disadvantage, and continual use of his family name and other connections he had through his family. But I found that I did my best observational work when I was ignored, so I wondered what a little bit of attention and ego-stroking would get out of him. It was certainly worth a try.
And finally, there was Cassidy. Considering both Vaughn and I had separate histories with him, he should have been the hardest to figure out and rule out. However, the first step I’d taken in my initial days on the ship, while Vaughn had been ignoring me, was to do extensive deep-dive background checks on everyone, with Darren’s help.
Everyone had a story, and I needed to verify their claims to get some sort of baseline. The crew was who they appeared to be on a surface level, Cassidy included. But the reason why I was leaning toward ruling him out was because, as he’d mentioned when we’d first run into each other, prior to joining theRadiant, he’d worked on a heliopause relay station at the edge of the system since graduating with a communications architecture and deep space engineering degree.
Heliopause station communications were always on the fritz, delayed by days, sometimes weeks, depending on planetary alignment and solar storms. It would have been next to impossible for him to live and work out at a station like that and strategically grow and mastermind a criminal syndicate.
While everyone aboard had plenty of records and footage of their whereabouts, including Cassidy, the others had means, where he didn’t. I wouldn’t pretend it wouldn’t be a relief to exclude himfrom the investigation, but it was so improbable that he was the Phoenix, I felt my focus was better spent digging into Jordan and Ethan, and maybe Rion, much more thoroughly.
Between those three, I had no strong indications as of yet, so any leads were good leads.
Chadwick was waiting for me when I arrived down in engineering. He’d been cycling between the different departments to assist with their needs, and performing general cleaning and maintenance tasks on the ship, as required, much to his dismay.
As far as I could tell, he was merely tolerated by everyone else, and the monotony of being alone, in the middle of space, without a friend, was clearly wearing on him. The first cycle he’d been assigned to work with me, I was still setting up the ship coding, so I’d told him I didn’t have any work for him. I still didn’t have any work, but if it was true, what Natalie had said, that he was interested in engineering, I was willing to try to work with him, as long as he didn’t piss me off too much.
He was spinning in my office chair when I got in, and almost fell off when he saw me in the doorway. I thought he’d apologize, but instead, he narrowed his eyes and said, “I know who you are, ya know?”
“Everyone knows who I am.” I leaned casually against the doorframe, nonplussed by the accusation.
“Are you sure about that?” He raised a brow. “They don’t act like it.”
“What should they be acting like?”
“You’re the last scion of the Sterling diplomatic dynasty.” He sneered. “They should be treating you like royalty.”
Ahhhh. I knew what he was after.
“Just like they should be treating you like royalty, being the heir to the Rothschild fortune.” I cocked my head, not wanting to sound or appear condescending.
“Exactly.” He leaned back in the chair, assessing me.
“Listen, we all know you don’t want to be here. I get it. My parents made me earn every little thing too, even when it would have been easy for them to just give it to me. But why make yourself and everyone else on this ship miserable if we’re all stuck here anyway?” I posited.
His brow furrowed.
“If we work together, you can leave the ship in two months with some allies and a great recommendation from the captain, which would go a long way, with his service record.” I didn’t know that Vaughn would do any such thing, but even dangling a carrot in front of someone like Chadwick could be the motivation needed.
“And what if I wanted a recommendation from you—saying that I was fit for a chief engineering position?” he hedged.
What a cheeky bastard.
“What other qualifications do you have? A letter from me won’t mean shit if you don’t have an educational background or quite a few years of real experience working on ships.”
Chadwick’s lips tipped into a frown.
“You know”—I pushed off the wall and paced toward him—“if I was in your position, I’d focus on using your family’s influence to assure that your assignments were nice and easy, on low-risk runs, with crew that would be scared of your pedigree, assuring they’d leave you alone.”
His mouth twisted, maybe irritated that he hadn’t thought of it himself. “How did you find yourself on theRadiant?” I asked, hoping to learn a little more about our petulant junior officer.
“My dad consulted a friend who works in the military and he said this ship would be safe because of the captain’s record,” Chadwick cautiously replied.
