by Paul Harm
“EVA, we need a secure connection to commander Cromwell on Ruby.” “Connecting.” EVA’s calm voice replied. After about half a minute Commander Cromwell answered their call. “Ah Commander Hoshiko, what can I do for you?” Commander Cromwell was on the bridge and surrounded by subordinates. “Ah Commander Cromwell, you might wanna take this one in your private office, family business.” She winked at him as he rose an eyebrow. “Mr. Katache, you’ve got the bridge.” When Cromwell sat down in his chair he seemed as relaxed as anyone could be. “Ah Juno I haven’t heard anything from you in quite some time. So, what’s it you want from me?” “Your accident from about a week ago.” Cromwell’s face darkened a bit. “Yes, what about it.” “I read the report the other day, a hangar malfunction it turns out.” “Stuff like this is rare, really rare but it happens. Unfortunately, when it happens in deep space it’s lethal.” Cromwell fell back into his chair. “Well you won’t like what I’m about to tell you but first here is a file you need to take a look at.” She gestured the file transfer to her communicator and Cromwell took a look at it. “Why am I looking on a cargo list, Juno?” Cromwell’s face darkened and his voice grew menacing. “Captain Romero here tells me she’s missing some stuff and if you have the right equipment, say like laboratory equipment, you can build quite a bomb.” Cromwell’s eyebrow went as far up as humanly possible almost reaching his dark hair. He looked at the file and looked back at Hoshiko and Romero. “Well holy shit if that isn’t the rain that starts to piss on my parade.” Cromwell was leaning forward looking directly into the screen. “Our investigation came to the conclusion that they used roughly a fifth of the missing supplies for the hangar door. If they used it at all on that, you said it was a malfunction?” Cromwell stared down the file and winked away the math with a. “Yes, yes a door just opened because it thought a ship is docking and the safety protocol malfunctioned.” “That sounds like a lot of strange coincidences to me Auron.” Commander Auron Cromwell looked up at Juno in a mixture of disbelief and fear. “God damn it. Are you telling me what I think you are telling me? You think we have a saboteur on board? Well shit. Did that even happen in the last century?” He shook his head as if he could just shake the whole thing away. “I don’t think we did.” Hoshiko grew colder as the conversation continued. “Well thank you for the information Juno I appreciate it, why am I getting this just now?” “Thought it was too risky to send it from my ship, Commander.” Lucia Romero replied. “Didn’t know who might be listening.” “Good job Captain I send this information to Admiral Gondak and figure out a way to find this stuff.” Cromwell’s voice was as dark as any of the two had ever heard it. “Good luck, Auron.” Juno replied with worry in her voice. “Yeah thank you for the information Commander, Cromwell out.” Cromwell dropped the connection. “He seemed pissed.” “We just told him there’s a bomb and a saboteur on his station. If he didn’t seem pissed I’d think he was an idiot. Now let’s run some background on those people in your hibernation chambers, shall we?” Lucia nodded.
Thirty-two people in cryostasis circles, twenty-seven of them were in cryostasis when the Cetacea left Lunar Station and the other five were picked up at Ruby. “Cornelius Umbron, microbiologist assignment in Europa’s Genesis division.” Commander Hoshiko stated stoically standing in front of the man’s cryostasis pod. “What’s Genesis?” “It’s basically a search for life under kilometers of Europa’s ice shearing. You might say they’re looking for Europeans.” Lucia cuffed suppressing a laugh. “The next one is Hermine Floran, another microbiologist. Here we have Katherine Ospen, a physicist.” She continued her tour through the hibernation deck. “And here we’ve got... oh that’s interesting, an engineer, Mr. Yusuka here might be the only one able to actually wield a welding torch.” She tapped the pod, already very satisfied to have a prime candidate. “Oh, look Captain.” She pointed to a pod on the other end of the room. “Here we have a perfect candidate, Ms. Kira Yagovkin.” She paused staring at the profile in front of her. “Chemistry expert.” Commander Hoshiko searched through her file. “Are you serious?” Captain Romero yelled surprised, looking at her file, this was too easy. “Yes, I’m serious and her appointment here was forwarded shortly before you arrived at Ruby.” “We have to tell Cromwell.”
“High priority message incoming.” EVA’s voice echoed through the room. “This is Admiral Gondak. Today at 14:37 we detected an energy spike from the Martian orbit. As our long range sensor arrays confirmed, the energy spike was the result of a chain reaction in Ruby’s fusion core, resulting in its ultimate destruction.” Lucia felt as a cold blade sink deep in her chest, her eyes filled with tears. “John.” She whispered. She screamed at the top of her voice as she sank to the ground while her heart broke in her chest into a million pieces, burning on their way down just as the parts of Ruby did when they entered the thin Martian atmosphere. While she sank to her knees Lucia saw John sitting on his bike when she first saw him back when they were kids, when the bullies degraded him and he stood tall all alone in the middle of desperation, when they found him in the cabin in the woods where he refused to cry and kept the demons in his heart at bay. She saw him growing up and she saw how the man was forged out of the boy. She felt his chest moving up and down after their first night together, she felt his disappointment when she refused the officer’s post on Ruby and instead chose to follow her passion, sailing through the solar system. She felt his gentle kiss on her forehead and she felt his hand stroking softly through her hair. When she reached the floor, her knees gave away with a cracking sound, she did not care in this moment, any other pain would have been a relief. Commander Hoshiko’s hand on her shoulder wasn’t getting through to her just yet. As she felt sorrow and a certainty that these memories shall be the completed collection, no longer shall there be another new memory, a new moment or a new conversation.
When she started to feel the Commander’s hand on her shoulder she slowly, very slowly returned to the presence. She did not notice the pain in her knees, she felt it like it was another person’s problem far away in a fading reality. She stayed on the ground for almost fifteen minutes while commander Hoshiko did not leave her side. After Lucia exhausted all her emotions of loss she felt what most people do not notice, a split second of peace. It is almost like the perfect feeling, wholesome, she felt whole for a fraction of a second. After all this agony and soul crushing loss she felt whole. It always felt like this is not like taking a breath to reorganize your priorities, but it is a simple neutral gear from where you align your path and in Lucia’s case the path unfolded as the split second of wholeness left her consciousness. She opened her eyes and all the world around her was burning. The hibernation pods burnt in red flames, the deck burned, flames consumed everything around her and she knew her calling had ended. Even though she was already a minute or two gone from soul crushing grief into the sensation and salvation of anger and hatred she was still slumped on her knees and her head hung almost lifeless from her shoulders. The first thing that moved was her hand as it reached for the captain’s badge and ripped it from her uniform tossing it away, her movements still under the influence of utter darkness, slow and weak. Her next step was to rise from her knees which seemed to threaten all the space around her. Commander Hoshiko let go of her shoulder as Lucia’s hand vanished in her overall pulling out a gun. As she headed for Kira Yagovkin’s cryostasis pod, the world around her still burnt as did her eyes.
“What’re you doing, Captain?” Lucia heard a distant voice from some other dimension more like a mumbling not really clear words. “WHAT’RE YOU DOING, CAPTAIN?” The voice intruded into her burning world as it was reinforced with authority. Lucia looked around her, the flames were gone, she felt something in her hand, she looked at the gun. She dropped it and the fire in her eyes went out. She looked at Hoshiko and Hoshiko saw a rare sight. Lucia looked like a shot animal in fury and panic, pure instincts ruling in her skull, damage control. “IT WAS HER! SHE SABOTAGED RUBY!” Lucia was screaming in both rage and ago
ny pointing at the cryostasis pod. She did not even knew she spoke out loud until her words rang in her ears. Her body and mind are now driven by another pilot. Behind Hoshiko’s dark eyes flashed the authority and the strength that is necessary to keep running one of humanity’s deep space stations and she did not fail to reach Lucia. “We don’t know that for sure. We need reason to settle this situation and I order you now to come with me to sick bay.” Lucia gave in, because her anger vanished, her pain vanished, her love vanished and somewhere within the last twenty minutes it almost seemed as if she had burned out.
One of the first fusion reactors was a cute project titled: a star in a jar. From there it took almost a century to turn the energy equilibrium into an actual clean source of power. Ruby’s fusion reactor is one of the biggest and most powerful single reactors ever built, well of course Sapphire has the same core. The reason why there are no bigger reactors is mostly because households and buildings are nowadays built with internal energy supply. Increasing the cities’ resilience against natural catastrophes. The energy spike occurred at 14:02 Earth Standard Time, which is Greenwich time. Therefore, the reactor must have been sabotaged around that time. When the bomb blew up the reaction mass separation shielding caused a chain reaction resulting in enormous energy spikes. Firstly, the explosion caused the station to lose the two inner rings’ stable orbits. The outer rings stayed somewhat stable due to the magnetic forces the reactor now produced. This caused the outer rings to gain momentum and thus creating a constantly rising G force for its inhabitants. The two inner rings lost their stable orbit around the core and fell first slowly but constantly accelerating into the Martian sky. The violently expanding magnetic field looked on to one of the rings and thus started to drag Ruby with the two inner rings. Heading for Mars as well. The outer rings in the meantime started to increase their rotation speed so tremendous that staff members were pressed into the wall or the ground at a gentle 4G holding them in place. After fifteen minutes of falling towards Mars the reaction in the fusion reactor was so intense that the reactor shell and the metal chamber melted away from the inner reactor which now basically was a very, very, very small neutron star, not very bright but incredibly hot. The magnetic couplers no longer increased the rotation speed of the outer rings because the reactor was raw power instead of a controlled energy source. While the increasing temperature slowly but steady burnt through the three outer rings while it fell into the Martian sky. The falling star headed for Olympus Mons. And thus, the falling star while the rings around him burned in the Martian atmosphere Ruby’s core, a newborn neutron star crashed into the highest mountain in the solar system and parched a molten swath of destruction through it. Ruby’s core burnt all his fuel on its way down and the fusion stopped when it was melting into the Martian surface about five kilometers into Olympus Mons.
At least 180 million years that mountain stood in the western hemisphere of Mars untouched. The first monkey like thing jumped happily through the jungle approximately 65 million years ago. It has been told that 4 million years ago said monkeys started to swing somewhat modified wooden sticks to use as a weapon or a gathering stick. It is just funny that throughout all this time Olympus Mons just sat there unharmed, little did he know a bunch of stick swinging monkeys were coming for him. And it took another four million years and thirty minutes for the said animal in its current evolutionary state to scar him for the rest of time. Well at least until the sun is collapsing again and reinvent the whole place we call solar system, panta rhei. The mountain probably will not mind anyway. Mountains do not mind, suns do not mind, all the worlds in all the solar systems do not mind if they carry life or not. For all the worlds and all the stars, for all the seemingly infinite lifelessness in the universe you are nothing. But for one person you might be everything.
The doctor injected Lucia Romero with a vitamin injection and a tranquilizer to follow it up even though Lucia did not seem to need him any longer. Feeling such intense feelings wore her out, burnt through everything she had and now she felt nothing, well not nothing but it did not reach her consciousness for now. Every now and then a memory flickered up in the back of her mind, but she could not follow its trails. Even before the tranquilizer hit her she was exhausted far beyond her limits. She did not notice, nor did she care what the doctor shot into her arm. She did not even see her XO entering the room, well she saw him but like her memories she could not follow because she was not really there right now. All she did was sensing like a soulless automaton seeing, hearing and smelling but except noticing she could not find the will nor the strength to act upon impressions any more. Of course, she laid on a bed but really, she was collapsing into herself all the world around her just white noise, an out factored variable. She was entering the real world constantly sinking into herself until the med bay was nothing more but a window in a dark empty space she now inhabited. Distant voices trying to reach her, but she was hearing them through water. The tranquilizer softly sent her to sleep and the last thing she saw was the look on Brian’s face and from the last two years serving with him she could tell. He did not like what he was seeing.
When she woke again Lucia was still in the med bay. She looked around, but the room was empty. After a couple of minutes, she heard the door slide open. A man entered. “Ah good to see you’re up already.” It was Brian she was glad to see him, but the tranquilizer had not yet completely faded. “We’re on Sapphire, right?” “Wrong. We’re on the Cetacea. Supply drop completed, and we’re, as you very well know, on a tight schedule.” “Yes of course.” “We’re heading for Lunar Station to resupply.” “Alright. I’ll stay here until I feel better. I don’t know with what the doc hit me back on Sapphire, but it was something nasty.” “You had a psychological breakdown, Captain. The Commander told me you drew your gun. They sent you sleeping.” “Point taken XO, dismissed.” “So, you’re still the Captain of this ship then?” Brian seemed somewhere between angry and tense. “Excuse me?” Brian reached into his overall and pulled out Lucia’s badge handing it to her. “I guess you going to need this thing.” She took it and wrapped her fingers around it like she just received some sort of salvation. “I will.” With that Brian turned around and was about to vanish behind the door. “And Brian.” He turned around half way through. “Yes?” “Thank you for holding on to it.” “Anytime Captain.” While Brian left her, she felt another embrace of tiredness wrapping her up. As she fell asleep she felt the heaviness in her heart hiding in the dark just waiting for her strength to return just to tear her down again. Time heals all wounds as the old proverb goes. But it is naive at best to think it is that simple.
XXII. Part of the Truth
“I didn’t expect to see you here.” Joseph smiled at Akachi as he spoke. “Well as chance would have it, I thought I’d find you somewhere around here.” Claire mustered Akachi and she was not comfortable with this man showing up out of nowhere. “How did you find us?” She snapped at him cold and sharp. Akachi looked up to her and smiled a broad friendly smile at her. “Your chips.” “The psyblocker?” Claire pointed at her neck with her finger. “Yes. They allow me to find you.” She shook her head in disbelief. “Do you hear that Joseph? He’s tracking us, I don’t trust this man.” She yelled alarmed pointing the same finger at him. He kept smiling his apologetic smile and her anger vanished. She wasn’t sure why it vanished though. What did not vanish was her sense of something being wrong with that man. There was something almost unreal about him. “Why do you need to track us?” Joseph asked in a mixture of concern and curiosity. “The white lady.” Akachi sighed. “If she catches you Melinda needs to drop her connection to you. The chip works both ways you know, transmitting and receiving not only your location but it allows her to find you in crowds and reach you.” Joseph looked at Akachi in a confused way. “What? Melinda’s connection?” “Don’t tell me you can’t see certain things and can’t feel certain hints.” Claire did notice it and it was crystal clear to her now that Akachi pointed it out. “He’
s right Joseph, the glowing photograph, the box underwater. Something guided us. I know it sounds strange, but I believe him.” Akachi’s smile did not change. “Thank you, Claire, now where were we. Yes, your next destination where’s it going this time?” “Now wait just one second there.” Claire was already accusing him of the next bad thing. “Why is she not doing this herself why do we have to do this instead of her, she knows where all the stuff is we’re looking for anyway.” Claire shook her hands around while she complained.
“The full explanation is very long but for now you have to be satisfied with this. Melinda now shines like a beacon if her enemies get close to her. This as well is true for her entering the cascade system which is now scanning everyone in order to find Melinda, every time someone enters his or her pod.” Akachi pointed towards the pods. “But how can she reach us?” “The chips you’re wearing are like a secured line of communication like tunneling in data traffic, it uses the network but anyone who listens gets a fake communication and underneath it the true message stays hidden.” “And why are you not doing it?” Joseph felt like he pinned him down. Akachi started to laugh. “Because I don’t meet the necessary specifications.” He handed them two pieces of paper, each one with a number on it, 742 for Joseph and 323 for Claire. “You find the safety deposit box at the main post office in Dhaka.” As Claire and Joseph opened the envelopes a little key appeared in them. “Go now and make haste I’m afraid the recent events alarmed our enemies on a whole new level.” Akachi sighed. “What do you mean?” “You’ll hear it soon enough. Make haste now!” Akachi walked away and Joseph and Claire looked puzzled at each other. After collecting the new communicators from the safe deposit, they headed for the central cascade system. When they walked by a wall of monitors a red headline flashed over them interrupting the program.
