by Eric Warren
“There is no threat the Coalition could dream up that we wouldn’t be prepared for.”
“This isn’t the Coalition. Our—I mean their telescopes have detected—”
“Your story is already false,” the voice interrupted. “The evidence says you are an appointed agent of the Coalition. I don’t even know if you are the person who made that distress call seven years ago. This is nothing more than a bluff. An elaborate attempt to infiltrate our borders.”
“It’s not a bluff,” Cas protested. “I’m telling the truth. There really is a threat and it’s unlike—”
“Present your evidence,” the Sil said.
His heart sank. He’d been so stunned by the creature coming to collect him he’d forgotten the data on the shuttle. “I have sensor logs…on my ship. They can confirm—”
“Your information has been examined and no threat was present. Do you wish to advance any other evidence?”
The logs weren’t there? How could that be? He’d made certain to bring the information with him knowing the Sil would want proof. He’d specifically downloaded everything before leaving. He remembered doing it.
“Lack of further evidence only confirms our position. You are charged with the death of ten Sil civilians and will face the appropriate trial and punishment.” The Sil turned to leave.
“Wait.” Cas tried moving to stop the Sil, only to find his head immobilized now as well. He only had his mouth to work with. The Sil turned slightly. “Wait, what is your name?”
“Zenfor. Consul of Renglas, this ship.”
“Consul? Is that like a captain?” Cas asked. “Never mind. Consul Zenfor, please listen to me. I would not have violated your borders by myself without a good reason. What logical goal could I have by coming here alone?”
“Without evidence to the contrary your words mean little,” Zenfor said.
“I’m telling you, the evidence you need is in the shuttle. The information has been downloaded on the ship’s computer. I have astrometric data, images, video. Everything you would need to show that I am telling the truth.” What could have happened to that data? Could they be bluffing?
The problem was he knew next to nothing about these people, though from his short experience with Zenfor they seemed to have a reliance on evidence. Or at least a strong inclination. Was that how their society was structured? Or was it this particular Sil? He needed more information and more exposure to them to understand.
“Your ‘shuttle’ has been searched. Must I tell you again? The data does not exist.”
That isn’t possible. She must be lying in order to give them a reason to fight him. The data was there, he was sure of it. But for some reason she wanted to pretend like it wasn’t. “Then you tell me, why am I here?” Cas spat. “Why risk myself in a shuttle that is obviously inferior?”
“It does not matter. You have been restrained and will be dealt with in short order.”
“Why go to all the trouble of capturing me if you were never going to listen in the first place?” he asked, struggling against the restraint.
“Your crimes require a trial. To which you will be subjected.”
“Crimes?” Was crossing their border such an unreasonable offense they went to this much trouble for everyone?
“No wonder your species is so inferior. You do not listen. Your crimes are the deaths of the ten civilians. Prepare to be charged.” Zenfor said.
“I had nothing to do with that,” Cas protested. “I was the one who tried to save them. By the time the ship was captured I was running for my life from the Coalition. They betrayed me.”
The imposing figure stood before him for a moment. “This makes no sense. They betrayed you and yet you claim to represent them? Present your evidence.”
“I don’t have any evidence!” Cas yelled. “I did it for the benefit of all the innocent people who could be killed by this thing coming straight at us. And it’s not going to stop with the Coalition.”
Zenfor shifted in front of him, her long arm raising up and landing on his shoulder. “You will have another opportunity to present your evidence at trial,” Zenfor said. “We won’t meet again.” She dropped her arm and left him in the darkness, with only his thoughts as company.
24
“Did you take care of it?” Page asked as Izak Ronde strolled up to him in the corridor. He kept his voice low, even though the corridor was empty.
“Yeah. I thought for a minute he might put up a fight, but unfortunately he went quietly,” Izak said, rubbing his hands on his pants as he approached. “Got stupid lubricant all over my hands.”
“You’re not trying hard enough,” Page replied.
“Hey, I got him to punch a wall before, and I reported it to the admiral and it didn’t do jack shit. They’re both still here.”
Page smirked. “One of them is still here. My job is done. The other one; he’s your department.”
Izak sneered at him. “Just because you got lucky and yours decided to jump ship doesn’t mean your job is done. I need help with mine; he’s got some kind of weird Zen thing going on now. I can barely get a rise out of him.”
Page sighed and pushed off the wall, taking a few steps down the hall. Izak caught up with him. “Maybe it won’t matter anymore. With the traitor gone and the machine locked in his room this might be the best situation we could hope for. I already know the captain’s faith in the traitor is shaky, no matter what our first officer says. He wouldn’t have authorized my request to have the robot confined otherwise.”
“What do you think Cas went off to do? Face them alone?” Izak asked.
Page shook his head. “No way. He ran. Just like he ran when they put him on parole. He’s probably headed back to Sargan space though it will take him a season to get there. If he’s even got that many supplies.”
“I overheard one of the Spacewing guys talking about how he faked a shuttle breach to get them to back off.”
“So what?” Page spat. “Are you impressed? Any rookie could have done that.” Though, it would be a delicate bit of work to keep the ship from igniting and reallocating the matter back into their holding pods. Page hated to admit it, but maybe Cas wasn’t all talk after all.
“Why do you have it in for him so badly anyway? I get he’s a deserter, but as far as I can tell he’s a competent officer. Well, not officer but former officer.” Izak said.
Page could feel himself darkening. “The Sargan Commonwealth isn’t just some jumble of Coalition-reject humans. They are a well-organized superpower controlled by a massive crime syndicate. Why anyone would ever want to live there is beyond me. But all that power comes with consequences. Especially when they run into people who don’t agree with them.
“By the time I was your age I had spent fifteen years defending my home against border skirmishes from people who wanted to rob, rape and kill me and my family. My home, my friends, we were all part of the planetary resistance; fighting off the Sargans every time they landed looking for supplies, fuel or parts. You don’t know what they’re like. I watched a Sargan ship bombard an entire city from orbit because the city refused to allow the ship to land and take refuge from a skirmish with the Coalition. Sometimes they would try to sneak in during the night, take our fuel supplies. I learned to sleep with a weapon in my hands at all times. One night I woke to my mother’s screams as a group tried to kidnap her along with all our food. My father killed three of them that night. I killed the fourth.”
“Fuck,” Izak said.
Page turned to him. “When we encountered them back outside Car’pr was that the first time you’d ever faced Sargans?” Izak nodded. “Then yeah, you just don’t get it. Out there, on the frontier where Coalition support is weak or non-existent, the Sargans will do anything they can to gain a foothold. I grew up knowing nothing else.”
“You’re from Meridian right?” he asked.
“Meridian Three,” Page replied.
“That’s technically not even in Coalition space, no
wonder you were under attack constantly.”
“I’ve been defending what’s mine since I could pick up a knife,” Page said, pushing the memories away. He couldn’t relive those right now, though they were threatening to break through anyway. “And I’m not about to let some Sargan scum come on this ship and pretend like everything is okay. You heard him, he worked for them. A former Coalition officer!”
Izak shrugged. “I’m just saying, whatever he was doing with that shuttle he was determined to do it or die trying. I’m not sure that sounds like someone who is running away.” Izak wiped his hands on his pants again. “I should get that machine disassembled for this,” he mumbled.
Page needed to calm down or he was going to have another attack right here in the hallway. The drugs only did so much and the last thing he needed was another reprimand on his record. He needed to focus on something else; something other than bad memories. What had the kid said? Disassembled? “Maybe that can be arranged,” Page replied, focusing his mind. “How did that happen?” He pointed to Izak’s hands.
“Oh, I was escorting him back to his quarters with those security officers you sent and as soon as he got inside the door some port opened on his side and I got lubrication all over my hands. Then he made some kind of chuckling sound and a half-hearted apology.”
Page furrowed his brow. “So, would you say he malfunctioned in front of you?”
“I wouldn’t call it a malfunction,” Izak said. “It was pretty obvious he was doing it intentionally.”
“But could you call it a malfunction?”
“Yeah, I guess so,” Izak replied. A young ensign jogged past them. Page avoided eye-contact even as the ensign acknowledged them.
“And my security guys, they saw it too?”
“It was hard…fuck…hard to miss,” Izak said, still wiping his hands. “Whatever this stuff is it isn’t coming off. I might have to go to sickbay to get them to remove it.”
“Listen. As soon as you’re done with that, file an official complaint to droid control. Tell them the new bot on board isn’t working quite right. We might be able to get around the brass.” He rubbed his chin.
“Do you think they’ll pay attention? We are in the middle of an emergency at the moment.”
“Yeah, I know. But maybe DC is having a slow day. Either way it can’t hurt.” He narrowed his eyes. “Oh, I hope he does come back. Can you imagine the look on his face when he realizes his ‘friend’ is in about a million pieces down in one of the repair bays? He’ll never want to step on this ship again.”
“Or he’ll kill me for putting him down there,” he said.
“Let me worry about that,” Page replied, imagining Cas’s shocked face when he came back aboard.
“Don’t you think that’s kind of extreme?” Izak asked. “Getting them kicked off the ship is one thing, but having the robot disassembled? Isn’t that—?”
Page spun on him. “What? Harsh? Cruel? Did you already forget about Blackburn? The girl you told me you planned to date as soon as you got the courage to ask her out? If not for that scum and his robot you two might be strolling hand-in-hand right now.” Page was pushing too far but he’d run out of options. If the robot wasn’t going to make a scene or cause any danger there had to be another way to get rid of him. And often the simplest answers were the best. Get the diagnostics teams on him. They’d have to take him halfway apart to figure out what’s going on inside there and by then it will be too late. And even if they did get him back together he might not wake up the same machine he was when he went down. They might even be able to reprogram him to better serve the ship.
Izak’s face had gone red but he wasn’t saying anything. Only staring Page down. Perfect. “You’re a bastard,” he finally whispered.
“I know. It takes a bastard to do my job. My number one concern has always been this ship and I won’t let these two disrupt what we have here. I will do anything to protect this ship.” He resumed his path down the hallway.
“Anything.”
25
Evie approached the doors to Engineering, still debating how to handle this. She didn’t want to come off as an interrogator, but she didn’t want to go soft on them either. The ship’s internal sensors registered Engineering as the last place Cas had been before taking off for Bay One and the shuttle. If she was going to find anything it would be in here.
Her comm chirped. “Commander?”
“Box? What’s wrong?” she asked.
“Did you know?” he asked.
“Know what?”
“About the captain’s decision. To contain me to quarters.”
She stopped in her tracks. “No. He never said anything to me about it. They confined you?”
“As of twenty minutes ago,” he said. She caught the hint of not only anger but sadness in his voice. Did the captain really think he was a risk without Cas here?
“I’m sorry, Box, let me investigate this and I’ll call you back. I’m sure there’s a reasonable explanation. And if there’s not I’ll talk to the captain.”
“But—”
“I’m sorry, I’ll call you back soon. I’m on an assignment,” she said. He didn’t protest any further so she cut the comm. There would be no need for this assignment had Cas talked to her before going off half-cocked. Whatever he planned it had to be something bad; something he didn’t want to risk anyone else stopping him over. Which made her job much harder because he probably didn’t tell anyone. Between him and the robot Evie might soon find herself at the ship’s bar if she wasn’t careful. But to be honest she was glad she was the one investigating; she didn’t trust anyone else to do it. Greene was right, everyone had their own prejudices and concerns and none of them could be trusted.
“Commander,” Ensign Yamashita said, passing her in the hall. Evie caught a glint in her eye and a smile wider than most of the rest of the crew offered her as Yamashita passed. Evie turned, watching her as she made her way down the hall and couldn’t help her eyes from drifting downward.
No. The last thing she needed to do was get involved with a junior officer. Not only would that make things complex aboard this ship it would give Page an unending stream of comments to hurl at her behind her back and she already knew she was on his shit list. It was obvious he was gunning for her job but as long as his temper kept getting the better of him it was unlikely he’d ever leave tactical. Unless he was reassigned altogether. Evie smiled at the prospect.
Ensign Yamashita turned to look back at her, her own smile growing larger in response. Evie whipped her head back around and cursed herself. She’d have to take the ensign aside later, explain nothing could ever happen between them. Though Yamashita had proved herself more than capable on the weapons of Cas’s old ship. Maybe Yamashita could be the new tactical officer once Page had been kicked off. That thought made her smile even more.
She needed to focus. Depending on what Cas knew before he left could potentially influence how the captain was willing to react.
Stepping forward the doors opened for her, revealing Engineering. Most of the main conduits had been repaired and the crews seemed to be winding down, prepping to start everything back up again. Sesster stood in the middle of the room, his appendages on two consoles at once reprogramming the input parameters for the new engines.
“Commander Diazal,” Ensign Tyler said, approaching. “I wasn’t aware you would be supervising.” He sounded strange. Worried even.
“I’m not,” she replied. “I’m here to check on your status and I wanted to see it for myself. When can we be back up and running?”
Tyler turned so he was staring in the same direction she was. “Another hour, I think. Sesster says he can get it done quicker but I believe in being cautious.” As if on cue one of Sesster’s appendages turned to “look” at Evie. She hadn’t been around many Claxians, but always found them an interesting species. No optical nerves at all and yet they “saw” better than most humans. Either with their appendages and how their ta
ctile touch created an image in their minds or their otherworldly perception of things. She often wondered if Sesster could sense everyone on the ship at once.
Not everyone. Only those within a certain radius of myself. The words were like a bucket of cold water running down her back and she shivered.
“Did he talk to you?” Tyler smirked. “I used to have the same look on my face whenever he would speak to me. You get used to it.”
She shook it off. “It’s fine. An hour you say? I’ll report it back to the captain.” She surveyed the room as the crews continued to work.
“Is there something else, Commander?” Tyler asked.
“Yes. Did you or anyone else in here have contact with Robeaux before he left?”
The air in the room stilled. At first Evie thought it was just her, until she noticed the work crews glancing up and taking notice as well. As if they’d all felt the same thing at once.
“He was here,” Tyler said, seemingly the only one unaffected by the strange sensation she felt. “But not for long. He worked on that terminal over there for a while. Ironically he said he was here to do an inspection for the bridge too.” Tyler eyed her with a renewed curiosity.
“Relax, Ensign. I’m not going to run off with another shuttle. But I do need to know what he was looking for.” The temperature in the room seemed to drop a couple of degrees and Evie rubbed her arms at the chill. “Is there a problem with the environmental units in here?”
“Not as far as I know.” Tyler led her over to the terminal.
“Do you know what he was doing over here?”
“I couldn’t tell exactly, but it seemed to me he was looking into something he shouldn’t have been.” Tyler opened the station. The screen glowed to life immediately.
“Why do you say that?” she asked.
