EMERGENCY MEETING

"Just double checking, but we ALL saw what just happened, right?"

Everybody at the table nodded and answered my question in the positive...Except for Red, who remained as silent and as still as ever, hands folded and shoulders tensed.

"Plain as day," Black nodded. "And to top it all off, we'll have the rest of you know that me, Cyan AND Brown all saw Red go INTO the vent system on the security feed when the lights were still down. Guess it was good for us to have stuck around there a bit longer..."

Blue raised his hands into the air to emphasize his incredulity.

"I knew it was a bad idea to leave Red behind like that! Imagine if we had NOT seen him do what he did! He could have...He..."

He faltered for a moment, and his arms slowly fell back to his sides as he thought about what could have been...Finally, he turned to look my way.

"...He could have killed you, Brown...He almost did."

Lime rested his head in one hand as he leaned his elbow against the table.

"Well...At least in leaving him by himself, he was dumb enough to vent, thinkin' nobody would see it."

Red slammed a hand on the table and snapped back at him.

"What did you call me?!"

"Well, am I wrong?"

Black huffed and nodded in response to Lime's remark.

"Certainty not, mate. All in favor of tossing Red out into the cold, lonely void of space and dooming him to a death worthy of his crimes?"

"I!"

Everyone raised their hands in agreement before casting their vote...EVERYONE. Which meant one of two things; either Yellow had indeed been our first Impostor, or the second one on board was turning against his partner to feign innocence in a last-ditch attempt to keep their sabotage mission from goin' bust...I wished there was a way to know for sure.

BLUE: *
ORNG:
WHTE:
BRWN:
BLAK:
CYAN:
PURP:
RED: ****
YLOW:
LIME:

SKIPPED:

It was settled, then...Red was gettin' the boot.

And this time, we were CERTAIN about the situation.

Black stood up and approached Red; the latter practically fell backwards onto the floor as he tried to escape into Weapons, but the former was able to grab hold of his boot in the nick of time and hoist him up onto his feet again before grabbing hold of his arm.

"OHH, no, you ain't goin' anywhere."

"No, stop, STOP, DONT-!"

Lime joined him again to help wrangle the Impostor into the airlock.

"Do say hello to Yellow. Hope you two are happy out there..."

"Agh-!"

Just like last time, Lime used his free hand to open the airlock chamber, and they both readied to throw him inside as they slowly opened.

ACTIVATING AIRLOCK DISPOSAL...

Red didn't shut up and stare like Yellow had. He just kept yelling like it'd do him any good at this point...

"Let me out, LET ME OUT!"

Lime shook his head.

"You're too dangerous to be kept alive..."

The rest of us followed the two brits over to the doors and stared down at Red...This would be a lot more satisfying to witness than the last ejection, considering the solid proof.

Blue rested a hand against the glass, looked back at Purple Jr standing next to Cyan, then turned to face Red again.

"Red...Why did you do it?"

The Impostor hesitated to answer him, but when he finally did, an accent came out of hiding...One that sounded just like Blue's.

"You...you don't deserve to know...traitor."

DOORS OPEN

That was when the back hatch opened, and Red was sucked into the void, vanishing into the black abyss of space in a flash.

Red was ejected.

Lime was the first of us to speak once Red was gone, turning to look at Red.

"...Traitor, did he call you?"

"I...I'm confused, Lime. I thought he was from America, l-like Brown...I don't know where that came from, or why he..."

That was where he stopped, and he turned to face me.

"...Brown. Did ground control give you any information on the Impostors' potential motives when you spoke to them?"

I figured someone would ask me something like that eventually...But I didn't expect the question to come from one of the people I'd suspected the most.

"Yes, they did, as a matter of fact...And they think the spies on board were sent by your corporation, CARSA, in order to try and take advantage of our co-op attempt and take whatever they can from the Polus expedition for themselves."

He didn't respond right away...He just stared right back at me for the longest time, hands dropping back down to his sides...Looked like he was in denial.

"...You are not serious."

"I am serious. Why do you think you've been one of my top suspects this whole time?"

He turned to face the rest of the crew as everything became more obvious to him...This is why I hadn't returned his trust."

"No, I...Y-you have to believe me, everyone, I'm not...If it IS them behind this mess, I-I didn't know anything about-"

"Blue...It's alright."

Lime interrupted him before he got the chance to finish, then looked at the rest of us.

"Everyone, listen. I think I have everything sorted out now...Brown. You remember how you sent me with Yellow, right?"

"Yeah...?"

"If Red was an Impostor, too, then I believe the reason they didn't pull off a double kill when they did was because it would have immediately put the suspicion on BOTH of them at the same time. And considering that Cyan and Brown were on the cams at the time, that'd have REALLY botched up their mission...I know what I saw back with Yellow, and we ALL saw what happened with Red...I do believe we're in the clear, mates."

"...You do?"

"Yep. There were only two Impostors on board, right? If both of 'em are off now, that means we can focus our attention on the mission again and breathe easy."

Black was in agreement with him.

"It does seem that way, doesn't it?"

Cyan straightened himself out a tad more, and a hopeful glimmer flashed in his visor.

"So...we're safe now? The Impostors are gone?"

"That they are, Cyan...Ey, Brown. You did some nice sleuth work. It really helped to pull us through."

...I didn't answer to his praise.

"Uh...something wrong?"

"I don't know, Lime...Somethin' still ain't sittin' right with me."

Blue stepped up to my side.

"Is there something that does not add up? From the photos of the crime scene, perhaps?"

Lime spoke up again.

"Brown, it's okay. Prob'ly just your nerves acting up; we've ALL been on edge since this mess started, so it's no surprise that some of us might still be lookin' over our shoulders, even with the two Impostors gone and done for...What's say we finish up our tasks and take a well deserved lunchbreak? That ought to put us at ease."

"Hmm..."

Even though I was still iffy about the situation, Lime DID have a point; there were still a few things left on our to-do lists, and the sooner we got 'em done the better, regardless of whether or not there were still any Impostors on board...Besides, we DID need to make sure Purple Jr got something into his system here soon, out of anyone.

"...Alright. But I want to keep the group plan enforced. Just in case something-"

beep

beep

beep

The signal was coming from Communications...It wasn't an emergency alarm. It meant that ground control was trying to contact us, and someone needed to get to there and answer their call on the double.

And that someone was me.

I lead the herd down to the room, and I was the first one to step inside and answer the call.

"Brown to ground control, do you read?"

"Loud and clear, Brown. Before we give you our own set of information from back at HQ, we'd like an update on the situation. Anything else go down?"

"Oh, you bet your sweet ass it did...I got good news and I got not-so-good news."

"What's the good news?"

"Good news is that pretty much the entire crew caught one of the Impostors in action...Red climbed out of the cafeteria vent with a pistol in hand."

"Dear God...Did you eject him from the Skeld?"

"Affirmative. And to top it all off, it turned out the guy was Russian, contradictory to the stars and stripes on his upper arm. He let his accent spill out right before he was thrown out into space..."

"Ugh...That's pretty hard evidence against CARSA, then."

"I know..."

"What's the not-so-good news?"

"Well...I know Yellow was the first guy voted off the ship, because the vote against him massed...But I still don't know whether or not it was true. So we could still potentially have one Impostor on board the ship."

"Well, that brings us to what we have to say...When you first contacted us, we mentioned to you that there was a bug in the Skeld's ID sensor system as you were boarding it, which prevented the internal scanners from going off and comparing the number of ID cards to passengers...We've processed the data you sent from Communications, and we just sent a digital transmission to the ship to help combat the issue and fix the scanners...By the time we're done talking here, they should be up and running again. Check the TV screen above the airlock system once you get off, and it should tell you how many illegitimate crewmates there are left on board."

"Really? Wow...That definitely helps."

"You've all done an excellent job so far. And the apprehension of one confirmed Impostor does give the crew more of an edge, in the case that the second one is still among you."

"Question...If it IS CARSA that was behind this infiltration, do you think they have plan to kill the rest of us once we get to the Polus outpost, should there be any of us left?"

I heard Cyan whimper, and I turned to see him shrink where he stood.

"Well...we're not sure what to do about that yet. But we do have two months to consider our options, so we should be able to think of something...The best thing to do right now would be to check the screen and finish whatever tasks you have left. Understood?"

"10-4."

"Good...Over and out."

That was that...Without wasting any more time, we all piled out of Comms and headed back up to the cafeteria to check the monitor...As was promised, the scan was already under way, and we all stared up at the screen, anticipating the results.

Red was ejected.
(Scanning...)

(Processing...)

"...It's takin' a bit, ain't it?"

Black scoffed and put his hands on his hips like he was some kinda prima donna and turned to face me.

"Come on, Brown, your denial is ridiculous at this point! I can't see how it couldn't have been Yellow. After Medbay? After what happened in the hall? After everything he SAID that contradicted the given evidence? With all of that in mind, tell me. Do tell me how he could have been-"

Security Scan Complete.

Red was An Impostor.
1 Impostor remains.

"...Innocent..."

Dead silence followed...After staring blankly at the grim results of our deduction thus far, we finally looked back at one another...I could feel a lot of mixed emotions circling around the room. Remorse, confusion, fear...Anger.

The further it sank into my head that an innocent man had been executed by means of the crew's impulsive negligence, the hotter my blood boiled...My fingers curled into a fist so tight that if anything weaker than a small rock were in my hand, it'd have probably been either bent or snapped in half.

I turned my head to look at Black...One of the people who's vote had gotten Yellow killed.

"Is my denial still ridiculous, Brown?"

I couldn't bear to look at his ugly horned head anymore, so I just turned and left the scene...I had wiring to fix just outside Admin, and the sooner I focused my attention back on my tasks, the more I'd be able to drown the urge to side with the Impostor left on board and bash someone's brains in...And the sooner I'd be able to re-connect the dots drawn out before me to see if I'd overlooked anything crucial to our survival.

Cyan followed not too far behind me, an unnerved Purple Jr still curled up in his arms. But he dared not get any closer to me than six feet or so; he could sense the adrenaline pumpin' through my veins as well as I could feel it, and he wasn't about to find himself on my bad side.

I heard Lime speaking from the other room.

"...Come on, Blue. We've got a few things left ourselves, y'know?"

"Black...Are you not going with Brown and Cyan, like we planned?"

I heard him drone out a long and heavy sigh before he answered him.

"...I don't know yet...I've got a lot on my mind."

"Well...Lime and I will stay together and leave you be. But I would not stay in that spot by yourself for too long, just in case..."

That was all I heard before the two sets of boots stamped down the hall back towards the front of the ship...At about the same time, I'd just gotten done reconnecting all of the wires in the panel. It was a good thing, too; my vision was almost too blurry at that point to make anything out. So I slammed the wire box shut and headed down to storage to fix the last set...God, it's a shame you can't reach your face through this stupid helmet. I need to dry mine off...and it ain't sweat that's running down the front of it.

"Brown...? A-are you-"

"Just leave me alone, Cyan."

...That doesn't sound like me. Sounds more like he did when we were all in electrical...I don't like it.

I hope I can sharpen myself back up before it's too late...before I let everyone down.