Day 2
Day two's attempt was a lot more creative. At least in comparison to day one.
Honestly, Finley was a bit let down by the first attempt. The sanitizer had pinged on three more dishes that had apparently had a contact poison wiped on them. Some derivative of a tree frog toxin and she'd had to sanitize the cubbies where the dishes had been just in case.
At least Littlefoot had an easy morning. She hadn't even noticed someone had tried to kill her human.
Finley's had to wait until a couple of hours, until she was able to swing by the mess hall to get coffee and she hadn't been in a good mood by then.
Finley needed her morning coffee and Russo had steered clear until she'd had a couple cups.
He was just as disappointed by the lackluster attempt as she was. Especially because he had the logs and access lists for the entire period of the loading, so he knew exactly who had put what where. It took him less than fifteen minutes to flag the soldier that had put the dishes in Finley's kitchenette and the one who'd loaded them into the sealed boxes on Earth for travel to the ship.
The soldier on Earth wasn't a crew member, just someone on the base that had been on an equipment detail, so Russo considered him the lesser threat, but the one who'd unloaded everything into the kitchenette had been a weapons specialist that was currently assigned to the Flight Deck.
Russo had pulled his crew file, unsurprised to find out he was Republican, though he'd never faced Finley on the battlefield. He had no direct tie to her at all, but he had been written up for fighting multiple times.
Just a hired gun, but Russo would keep an eye on him to see if it was going to become something more.
It was curious how he got his hands on tree frog toxin, so Russo would figure that out before writing it off as a one-time thing.
The black markets had boomed when humankind had moved to space and soldiers were an industrious and creative bunch. They could get their hands on anything given enough time.
Today's attempt didn't happen until after lunch and the completion of short update briefing. Finley had been the last to leave and the doors had stopped working, leaving her trapped in the room with nothing but a table and a few chairs. Littlefoot was off playing with some of the other dogs on board, thankfully. She didn't have a problem with enclosed spaces, but she did have a problem with being bored and the longer she was bored the less obedient she became.
Finley was sure there was a point where she could be so bored for so long that Littlefoot might just decide to kill her for something to do.
Truely a missed opportunity for the second assassin.
They're timing was also off. If they'd managed to get her trapped at the end of a day the shift, the slow suffocation through the removal of oxygen might have worked. The ship's life support system was so well attuned that the only way to remove oxygen to a dangerous level was to do it very, very slowly. It would take hours to get it low enough to affect an adult.
Unfortunately, after lunch Finley tended to have briefing after briefing. Daily status checks, minor updates, possibilities for the next day. Finley preferred minimal meetings in general, with as few as possible in the morning and the afternoon taking the brunt of it.
She was just starting to notice the lower oxygen level two hours later when the door opened, and a frazzled Evan burst in.
The whole thing was easy to write off as an accident. As the oxygen levels hadn't dropped significantly enough to ping in the system and the door locks were always one of the most troublesome areas in the ship. The constant usage and abuse, because when people were angry and stormed or weren't paying attention, they tended to be more forceful than necessary, meant they were the part of the shop most often damaged.
Security cameras had caught the assassin smacking the door panel multiple times since the launch, walking by and knocking against it.
Lowering the oxygen level had taken more work, but the assassin was one of the system engineers and the worm they'd put in the system was found relatively quickly by Russo's engineer since they knew where to look.
Russo flagged them. Another Republican, but one who had a bit more of a history with Finley, having lost a cousin to her in the early years of the war.
Evan briefly suggested having one of Russo's trusted security officers remain with her, but Finley hated the idea of being followed around on her own ship. These first two attempts were more childish than anything else. The worst part was Finley staying up late to make up all the meetings she'd missed, that naturally devolved into explaining what had happened, minus the assassin element, over and over.
On the long list of things Finley wasn't fond of, was repeating herself.
And dwelling on things.
By the time she made it back to her room that night, she had a low-grade headache and her patience was thin.
Littlefoot was exhausted from her day of playing and already asleep when she got back, and Finley ducked into the shower long enough to wash off the day and then just fell into bed.
She'd learned a long time ago that the best thing you could do to a bad day was sleep it off.
~ tbc