“Private!” barked Hawes. “That’s enough!” But he avoided looking at Sparrow, same as the others.

“Yessir.”

Sparrow kept walking and didn’t react, as if she hadn’t heard. Confused, Kira kept pace with her. Once out in the hall, she said, “What the hell was that about?”

To her surprise, Sparrow leaned with one hand against the wall. The shorter woman looked as if she were going to be sick. Somehow Kira doubted it had anything to do with cryo.

“Hey, are you okay?” said Kira.

Sparrow shivered. “Oh yeah. Blasting on full jets.” She ground the heel of her free hand against the corners of her eyes.

Not knowing what else to do, Kira said, “How did they figure out who you are?”

“Service records. Every ship in the fleet carries a full set of ’em, aside from the black bag, spec-ops grunts. Bet they ran my picture through the files. Wouldn’t be hard.” Sparrow sniffed and pushed herself off the wall. “You tell anyone about this and I’ll kill you.”

“The Jellies might get to me before then.… What’s gas-head mean? Nothing good, I guess.”

A bitter smile twisted Sparrow’s mouth. “Gas-head is what you call someone you think deserves to be spaced. The blood boils off, turns to gas. Get it?”

Kira eyed her, trying to read between the lines. “So why you?”

“Doesn’t matter,” Sparrow muttered, straightening up. She started to walk away, but Kira stepped in front of her.

“I think it does,” Kira said.

Sparrow stared her straight in the eyes, jaw muscles working. “Get out of my way, Navárez.”

“Not until you tell me, and there’s no way you can force me to move.”

“Fine, then I’ll just sit here.” And Sparrow dropped into a cross-legged position.

Kira crouched down beside her. “If you can’t work with the Marines, I need to know why.”

“You ain’t the captain.”

“No, but we’re all putting our lives on the line here.… What is it, Sparrow? It can’t be that bad.”

The woman snorted. “You have a seriously faulty imagination if that’s what you think. Fine. Screw it. You want the truth? I got kicked out of the UMCM for cowardice before the enemy. Spent seven months in lockup as a result. There, you happy?”

“I don’t believe you,” said Kira.

“The specific charges were abandonment of my post, cowardice in the face of the enemy, and striking a commanding officer.” Sparrow crossed her arms, defiant. “That’s why gas-head. No Marine wants to serve with a coward.”

“You’re not a coward,” said Kira, earnest. “I’ve seen you in combat. Hell, you went right after that little girl like it was nothing.”

Sparrow shook her head. “That was different.”

“Bullshit.… Why do I think the whole ‘striking a commanding officer’ is the real cause of this?”

With a sigh, Sparrow let her head fall back against the wall. The impact of skull with plating produced a thud that echoed up and down the hall. “Because you think too damn much, that’s why. His name was Lieutenant Eisner, and he was a real asshole. I got transferred to his unit during the middle of deployment. This was back during the border war with Shin-Zar, see. Eisner was a shit officer. He kept getting his unit into trouble in the field, and for whatever reason, he seemed to have it out for me personally. Kept riding me no matter what I did.” She shrugged. “After one of our ops went tits up, I’d had enough. Eisner was using some bullshit excuse to chew out my gunner, and I went over and told him off. Lost my temper and ended up popping him in the face. Gave him a real doozy of a shiner. Thing is, I’d been posted to guard duty and I’d left my watch, so Eisner had me brought up on cowardice before the enemy.”