The rest of the day was spent underneath a cloud of suspicion, distrust, and defiance. Ensign Richer seemed to show some sort of remorse, but Ensign-Liuetenants McCoy and Stamets seemed to be as stubborn as can be and were convinced that they did the right thing. And if Justice was being honest with herself, if she was in their position and she thought that Epsilon might have been hiding something crucial, she probably would have done the same thing.
With everyone in the same room again for dinner, all of those feelings seemed to be multiplied by ten-fold. Lieutenant Galeforce came over to the table, glancing behind him and no doubt noticing Ensign-Lieutenant Stamets' careful gaze. (Everyone except for her and Indigo had taken off their helmet. Justice was worried that now Lieutenant-Commander Saeturn had seen the implants, but since she already 'explained' everything, it didn't matter much except to her.)
"Captain, what do you want to do?" he whispered. "We're under three sets of microscopes right now. I don't think that this is what we were supposed to do."
Justice sighed and glanced at Indigo, who was sitting to her right. "Orders from Command weren't this specific. I was supposed to keep your trail safe, but now that that's been blown, it's up to us to decide what the next best course of action is."
"That's easy," Indigo muttered. "Tell them what they want to know."
"What?" Lieutenant Galeforce and Justice said at once.
"Commander, that is seriously jeopardizing your safety!" Lieutenant Galeforce said.
"Exactly," Justice agreed. "Also, not to be a pessimist, but do you remember the reaction the last time?"
"It's different this time," Indigo protested. "They already know that this is the answer that they expect. There's no use in hiding it any longer. This crew needs to know that we are on their side, but we can't let them know if we're keeping them in the dark. Justice, please. Trust me."
If the past missions had taught Justice anything, it was that trust was a very, very fragile thing. Like a butterfly, the slightest misstep or move could kill it. That concept was already created from her childhood, and just reinforced from the last mission. Trusting the wrong person could be fatal.
But the past missions had also taught her that some people could be trusted. And Indigo was one of them.
Justice nodded. "If this fails, I swear I'm going to kill you."
Indigo might have grinned. "If it fails, I might already be dead. We might want to warn Lieutenant-Commander Saeturn, though. He might be under as much questioning as us."
"You're the one who's going to be under the most questioning," Lieutenant Galeforce remarked.
Indigo shrugged. "What do I have to lose?"
"Your life." Lieutenant Galeforce shook his head. "I'll just go talk to Clasher, then. How should we initiate the whole conversation?"
"Just literally go to the central table and ask for everyone's attention?" Justice said.
======
"Alright, everyone..." Justice said, standing up at the table, "we've decided that it's no use in keeping you in the dark; that it's time for disclosure." She sighed. "But, we have a few requests. One, don't freak out. Two, we aren't going to start fighting over this. This is simply disclosure, not an invitation for debate. Three, please don't ask questions until we are done. We'll answer all questions after the initial explanation."
Ensign-Lieutenant Stamets and Ensign-Lieutenant McCoy gave each other a look. Lieutenant Sawyer-Galeforce shrugged and sat down while Lieutenant Galeforce and Lieutenant-Commander Saeturn exchanged anxious glances. It was the first time that Justice had seen the Lieutenant-Commander without his helmet on and was slightly surprised to see red-brown eyes, but brushed it off.
"Are... we good?"
"I believe so, Captain," Lieutenant Sawyer-Galeforce replied.
Justice nodded to Indigo. "Okay. Do your thing."
Indigo let out a breath and took off her helmet. Ensign-Lieutenant Stamets flinched back, while Lieutenant Sawyer-Galeforce and Ensign-Lieutenant McCoy only looked slightly shocked. Ensign Richer looked concerned and Lieutenant-Commander Saeturn just looked relieved.
Underneath that helmet was a set of very pronounced midnight-blue and indigo eyes, smoldering and dark. Justice noticed that a small amount of deep-seated hurt always seemed to be in those eyes, although not everyone noticed it. Only people like her and Epsilon (and maybe Commander Chao) ever thought something of it, but only Justice got an explanation to why that was.
"Oh, thank goodness I'm not the only one who has to deal with this," Lieutenant-Commander Saeturn said, letting out a sigh of relief and gesturing to his own eyes.
Indigo shrugged and tensed up slightly. "I've only been dealing with it for six years. You've probably been dealing with it longer."
"Yeah, but I've never actually heard the voice. It's more trying to fit in and not accidentally kill anyone when I hug them." Lieutenant-Commander Saeturn looked away and muttered, "Not like I have had the chance to... hug anyone in a... long... time..."
"That... is equally disturbing and equally sad," Lieutenant Galeforce said. "Would you like a hug?"
"What, right now?" Lieutenant-Commander Saeturn looked slightly panicked. He backed away with his hands up. "I don't think it's the time!"
"It's always the time for hugs! Bring it in, you." Lieutenant-Commander Saeturn let out a grunt as Lieutenant Galeforce embraced him.
"Hrmph... this actually... doesn't feel that bad..." the Lieutenant-Commander said grudgingly, sighing and returning the hug. Justice was shocked; she would have thought that the Lieutenant-Commander would have pushed the scientist away from himself.
"Guys, can we focus?" Ensign-Lieutenant Stamets shouted, slamming a palm onto the table. "Our commander is literally an Impostor! Is there anything that you want to, I don't know, act upon? I mean, I know that it's been pretty obvious and this is just confirming what we know, but this is seriously big news!"
"How is it big news if you already knew about it?" Lieutenant Sawyer-Galeforce asked in an almost bored tone of voice.
"I don't know, it's like the government declassifying files that you know the answer to, but when you actually see the information canonized, it makes you jump?"
"Not particularly, it just makes me feel excited that I can give my friends a hard time by saying that I was right, and then blackmail them. Usually for money or sometimes favors."
"That is... disturbing..."
"And so was convincing Omega to lock us in Office," Lieutenant Sawyer-Galeforce replied. "You gotta lower your standards and deal."
Indigo sighed. "Are we done?" When no one replied, she went on. "Okay, so, this is going to take some time to explain. I'll start at the beginning. Justice, feel free to correct me if I get some details wrong.
"Six years ago, I went on my first mission and found out that I was infected. Two others were with me, a cadet and a lieutenant, and we were all freaking out. We didn't know what to do except to keep everything secret and hope that we didn't kill anyone. Of course, this didn't work, and two weeks after the mission started, we killed two people and injured a third.
"Now, Lieutenant Honorato attempted to kill someone else shortly after this incident, but failed when he realized what he was doing. We... ejected him and that's when Cadet Aster and I started to really panic. We didn't know what the heck we were doing and we were working off of some records from Lieutenant Saeturn when he was trying to treat himself.
"That night, Cadet Aster and I were in MedBay, losing our minds and trying not to kill Lieutenant Reed, whom Cadet Aster was treating for the injuries that I inflicted on that night. Little did we know, Justice was outside the door and heard everything that we were saying. So after a bit more panicking and losing more of our sanity, we... did Epsilon come into this?"
"Yeah," Justice said, looking down. It was hard to keep the memories from flooding back. Flashes of light, a muffin and a glass of milk in Cafeteria, Cadet Aster's tentacles extending and her lunging towards Lieutenant Reed. "The next day, he busted into MedBay right when Cadet Aster went into stage five. That's how we got Lieutenant Reed out, remember? I locked—tried to lock—her in and you guys dragged them out."
"Right... so long story short, we had to eject her. At this point, I was preparing to just eject myself and get it over with, but you and Epsilon wouldn't let me near the airlock."
"You tried to commit suicide in MedBay two hours before that," Justice said, slightly indignant. "Don't blame us for following regulation."
"And as an Impostor, it was kind of your responsibility to eliminate me," Indigo replied with a slight undertone. Justice wasn't sure what that was about, was she only saying that because that was what she was supposed to think?
"Which was why we had you under sedation for the remainder of the mission."
"Yeah, and then they confined me to quarters for three weeks. My memory gets fuzzy around here, so I can't... recall... what exactly happened, but... one day, I woke up and actually felt... fine. Of course, Tal was talking nonstop in my head, but that was it. And before you burst in," Indigo said pointedly to Ensign-Lieutenant Stamets, "yes, Tal was who Lieutenant Jaeger was referring to when he lost his mind. Dax is probably the symbiont of whoever is also infected."
Indigo rubbed her temple and under the table, Justice reached out and gently twined her pinky around Indigo's. "So, now that I was a confirmed sixth-stager, MIRA had two choices, take me off active crews and do what they did to Lieutenant Saeturn, or keep me on and hope that nothing else would happen. Obviously, they chose to do the later and that's why I'm here. And... that's about it."
Ensign Richer raised his hand. "Question. Why was it that you had to be on a mission for Petri to take the scans?"
Indigo winced and let out a slow breath. Her hand went and completely grasped Justice's, squeezing it tightly. Good thing that Justice didn't really feel anything in that hand anymore. "MIRA thought that the parameters of Lieutenant Galeforce's study should... match what a regular Impostor would have to deal with. I don't get why it had to take place on... Polus instead of back at HQ, but I don't have the jurisdiction to ask."
"It was also partly from my section," Lieutenant Galeforce said. "My group voted that the results would be more accurate if it was on a mission."
"Okay..." Ensign-Lieutenant McCoy said slowly, "why is it that there aren't more people that have gotten to the sixth stage?"
"Most of them are ejected... before they can get to the stage or commit suicide during the fifth stage... I think. The symbionts aren't meant to sync with humans, so it just... causes general confusion in all of the stages, but mostly in stage five. There's just... too many variables for me to say for certain."
"Where do they come from, then?" Ensign-Lieutenant Stamets asked. "These... symbionts."
Indigo made a pained expression. "Tal... doesn't want to say. All I can get is that it's around eighty... something light-years from here."
Lieutenant-Commander Saeturn looked like he was studying Indigo. Then, "Does it hurt to talk?"
"Actually, it does," Indigo replied, slightly shocked. "How did you... right. Your father was Lieutenant Saeturn."
"My mom always told me that he never liked to talk much to anyone other than her after he got in sync," he said with a shrug. "Something about it being too taxing when he was trying to keep the symbiont under control. But it was easier for him when he knew that he was safe. Somehow that information completely went over MIRA's head when they were interrogating him."
"Do you know what your father's symbiont was called?"
Lieutenant-Commander Saeturn thought for a moment. "I think it was something like Al..."
Indigo nodded, then winced, letting go of Justice's hand. Justice's augmented eye noted that Indigo seemed... more tensed than usual. Even more tensed than how she was after Petri was finishing up the analysis. Maybe it was because she couldn't afford to have the tentacles and the tongue come out now.
"Was this too much?" Lieutenant-Commander Saeturn asked. "This is the most that I've ever heard you speak."
Indigo shrugged and put her helmet back on. Some people seemed to be even more wary than they were before the whole "I'm an Impostor" confession, but Justice figured that almost nothing could be worse than that first mission. If only Epsilon was here, he'd probably crack a joke right now. And Justice wouldn't get it, but Indigo would laugh. After this, she probably needed the break.
The rest of the crew would like him, though. If only he didn't jump in the way of that... if only he let Justice take the fall.
Dang it, Epsilon. But then again, whoever died on the mission probably had someone to poke fun at them and make them laugh when they transitioned.
Unless death changed him, but Justice highly doubted that.
Then again, anything could be possible... not that it was welcome.