“Oh, yes,” said the pale, craggy-faced exomale. “We’ve seen the commander around the neighborhood often enough.”

“They’re rather distinctive, don’t you think?” the smaller, silver-skinned endomale said. “All that loose, drooping skin. Hard to mistake for any other species.”

“But this definitely wasn’t the commander. Wrong uniform, and the build was different. Taller, leaner. There was something about their movement that seemed… dangerous. Like you wouldn’t want to be in their way.”

“Oh, do you think they killed the commander?” the endomale asked, clasping his husband’s hand for comfort. “I’ve heard about these warrior clones on the nets. There’s no telling what they’re capable of.”

“We can’t say anything for sure yet,” Sulu said. “We’re just interested in talking to anyone who might have been in the vicinity. Can you give me any more details about the cadet you saw? Anything distinctive about their uniform?” He knew there was little chance the witnesses could have noticed anything distinctive about a Warborn Arcturian’s face or build from such a distance.

The exomale snapped his fingers. “They had some kind of metallic epaulets, and a, a sort of tube wrapped around their chest and shoulder.”

“Did you notice any color patterns on them?”

“Hmm, maybe. I’m not sure I remember specifically.”

Sulu worked his data slate to call up personnel files of the Warborn cadets, setting it to display their identifying epaulet and bandolier patterns without showing their faces or other identifying information. He asked the couple to look through them for any familiar patterns. The Rigelians did their best, but they were only able to narrow it down to five patterns with common elements.

Still, their description of the cadet’s path let him narrow his canvass, and before much longer, he turned up another witness, a black-haired human ballerina who’d been returning from an evening dance recital. She described spotting the cadet coming down the sidewalk toward her, freezing for a moment as if surprised to see her, and then turning off at the intersection between them. “They were nowhere to be seen by the time I got to the corner,” she said.

“Did you get a good look at the cadet?”

She nodded. “They were right under a streetlight. I’m not sure I could tell them apart from another Arcturian, though.”

“Can you describe what this person was wearing?”

The ballerina mentioned the epaulets and bandolier, and this time, when Sulu showed her the patterns on her slate, she was able to narrow it down decisively. “It’s this one. The gold and black with the red diagonal stripe between them.”

“Are you positive?”

“Honey, my father’s a fashion designer. I grew up learning the business before I decided I loved dance more. I can’t look at a piece of clothing without deconstructing its design and tailoring. I wish I could unlearn that.”