Fearless

by Allen Stroud

  “Yes, of course.”

  “Show me.”

  Travers hands me a portable screen, and I quickly scroll through a set of pictures showing the various mutilations Shann must have inflicted. “Rocher has a lot to answer for,” I say.

  “Determining the guilt or innocence of one clone for another’s actions would be a complex judgement,” Le Garre says. “It certainly wouldn’t be something we’d do here. Once Rocher was immobilised, he should have been taken into custody.”

  “I’m not disagreeing,” I reply. I pass her the screen. “I’m just saying I can understand her reaction. Doesn’t mean I’m condoning it.”

  “Then we come back to making a decision,” Le Garre says. She looks at Travers. “If we do this, the burden falls on you.”

  “I get that,” Travers says. “But we have to be unanimous.”

  “Okay,” I say. “In which case, I can make it easy for you both. I’m backing Captain Shann.”

  Le Garre’s expression shifts. She’s clearly not happy. “Ensign, I’m sure you’re aware we wouldn’t have brought our concerns to you if they weren’t serious.”

  “Yes, Major, I understand that.”

  “Do you want to take a little more time before you make your decision?”

  “No. I think I have a clear take on the situation.”

  There’s an awkward silence between us. Eventually, Travers murmurs, “We should let you get a little more rest.”

  “If you don’t mind, Lieutenant, I’ll get up, check on Ensign Chiu and work on a terminal for a few hours.”

  “Okay, but don’t tire yourself out.”

  After that, they both leave and I’m alone with my unconscious companion.

  I touch the strap release and push off from the mattress very carefully, so as not to tear my stitches. I make my way toward Chiu. She looks peaceful, lying there with her eyes closed, an oxygen mask strapped to her nose and mouth. Her chest rises and falls regularly as her body continues doing the basic thing it has to do to keep her alive.

  All the terrible things that have happened to her in the last few days haven’t marked her face, but I know where her injuries are. I helped put her back together.

  She lost a lot of blood. We gave her a transfusion. Like all Fleet ships, the Gallowglass is equipped with a full bank of universal donor blood. The fact that she’s survived the last six hours without incident is good news.

  She’s wounded inside and out. We all are. Some of the damage will heal; other parts will leave scars and weaknesses. Mind and body, changed by what we’ve experienced.

  But for now, she’s alive and so am I.

  I’m glad the captain ignored me when I urged her to execute Chiu. I’m glad she has a second chance. By the time this is over, we’ll all need that kind of forgiveness in one way or another.

  I’m thinking about the captain again. Strange how the situation is reversed from what it was. I’ve spent weeks and months on this ship desperate to get her approval for a promotion. Now, I don’t care, but she needs my validation, even if she doesn’t know it.

  Le Garre and Travers have their doubts. Those doubts haven’t gone away. I can only hope I made the right call.

  I move across the room to the medical terminal. It’s the same as the one in airlock control, but I haven’t modified it with the rootkit yet. There wasn’t time or need when I was helping Travers perform emergency surgery on me.

  The system is still logged in. I start accessing the same communications programmes I was working on before, pulling down the latest sensor data on the remains of the Khidr. I task some of the Gallowglass’s remaining cameras to locate the generator room, where Duggins last went.

  The system registers a whole heap of transmissions. The objects are still talking to each other. I hear the strange whistling sounds again, fainter this time. I wonder what it all means.

  Once again, I activate a long-range channel and adjust the frequency to the range we used on the Khidr.

  “Duggins, can you hear me?”

  This time, the background sounds don’t change, but there’s a pop and a hiss on the channel.

  A single word comes back. “Johansson?”

  Did I hear that? Did I really hear that?

  Chapter Sixty-One

  Shann

  It’s been seven hours since I killed Rocher and we took over the ship.

  The seven of us left alive and functional have been working and resting where we can. Any last vestige of adrenaline or endorphin high has worn off, leaving us all to try to make sense of what happened and make sense of ourselves.

  Chiu remains in a coma, but she’s still alive.

  I’ve tried to sleep, but I can’t. I keep seeing Sellis dying with his face pressed up against the glass, or Jacobson in agony, or the messy remains of the clone I murdered. The images come back whenever they want, bringing with them a wave of paralysing guilt. It’s like a spasm or a fit. When it happens, all I want to do is curl up into a ball and hide from myself.

  I’m the captain. I can’t do that.

  An exploration of the ship gave us a better idea of the layout than just reading the schematic. There are three bunk rooms with two beds in each. Little need for privacy on a ship of clones, I guess. At this stage, two to a room, with Chiu still in medical, is a good idea. It means no one is left alone for too long to start hating themselves for what they’ve done, or what they’ve been forced to do.

  Of course, that doesn’t stop me wanting to be alone, to shut everyone else out and wallow in my self-loathing. My training tells me there are no answers in doing that, but it doesn’t stop the urge.

  I’m lying on the top bunk now, staring at the ceiling as I listen to the comms chatter between Arkov, Le Garre and Travers. They are working on rebuilding the bridge controls, pretty much from scratch. There’s an awkward tension behind their conversation. People are hiding their pain, withdrawing, trying to deal with it, understand it, rationalise it. There’s a part in all of us that doesn’t want to share because everyone we might share with has their own problems.

  Fuck this…

  I’m up and moving off the bed to the hatch. I’m out into the corridor and making my way toward the bridge. The corridors are unfamiliar and my shoulder hurts. Turns out I dislocated it and kept going, wrecking a lot of the socket and tendons. The medical computer analysed and reset everything, but the healing will take time, and I might never regain full mobility.

  If I push too hard, it’ll break down again. I need to go easy and not let my fitful temper get the better of me.

  Easier said than done when you’re angry at the world.

  I reach the damaged doorway and make my way through. They’ve restored lighting by rigging some new connections to the power conduit in the corridor. I see Vasili Arkov floating over an open floor panel, surrounded by cables. Sam Chase is on the other side of the bridge, sitting in one of the crew chairs. They’ve cleared out all the bodies, but there are still marks on the walls and a faint smell in the air. Both men are absorbed in their work. They haven’t noticed me.

  I take a moment to enjoy that, watching people I’ve come to feel bonded to work. When I was a newly promoted captain, I’d do that sometimes, just watch my crew at their jobs, taking a little pride in the way what I’d asked for got done. Now there’s a different reason. Both Sam and Vasili are quietly keeping busy, getting on with what needs to be done. There’s a way to healing in that, I guess, if you can find it. Sometimes, throwing yourself into some mundane tasks is just a distraction, but there’s an honest lift you can get from fixing something, building something or just seeing the difference you made.

  It’s a moment I have to break. I almost feel guilty, just for that.

  “Gentlemen,” I say quietly, pitching my voice loud enough to carry. “We need to get everyone together.”

  Arkov t
urns toward me. For a moment, Sam doesn’t. But then the chair swivels around. “You want everyone in here, Captain?” he asks.

  “Yeah, I think so. We should make a start here. That’s where we’ll begin.”

  Sam looks at me. I don’t think he quite knows what I mean, but he will in a bit, along with all of them.

  I pick a chair and sit in it, letting Arkov do the comms stuff, calling the rest of the crew. One by one they file in. Travers is first, then Le Garre, and finally Johansson. I guess they were probably lying in their bunks like me, staring at the wall rather than sleeping. I can’t fix that right away.

  No one talks. I let them settle into comfortable spots, waiting until they’re all looking in my direction.

  “Okay, we’re here. We’ve all been through worse than anyone has a right to expect, but we’re alive and we’re here. People died. People who we care…who didn’t deserve…” I have to stop and swallow. My voice is shaking. I grip the arms of the chair. “We’re here. We need to work out what happens next.”

  There’s silence. I know issues lie under the surface. Again, I can see the bloodied mess of the Rocher clone and hear Le Garre shouting at me to let go. The haunted expression on her face from back then isn’t there now, but it isn’t far away. If I start into that, start into talking about my mistakes, our mistakes, all of it, we’ll fall apart. This is where I have to be captain and rely on the rank to get us through.

  I remember captains like that, who I suffered under. They were shadows, not really part of the crew, but existing above it, making no effort to prove themselves to their people. I swore when I got my own command, I wouldn’t be that type.

  Right now, though, I have to be.

  “I need information. Tell me where we’re at.”

  Le Garre glances at Travers, who nods. Then she turns to me. “Captain, we’re three hundred kilometres from the remains of the Khidr and the battle. We executed a burn and completed braking to bring us into a static position at distance. There’s no sign of the external force that was pulling us in. We have power, heat, air and food. For now, we’re out of immediate danger.”

  “Stores will last about six weeks,” Sam adds. “If we can repair the engines, we might just make Phobos Station by then, but it’ll be tight.”

  “What’s our progress on that?” I ask.

  “It’s been difficult,” Arkov says. “The Gallowglass took a fair amount of damage. All the systems that were in this room are burned out. This ship doesn’t have replacements, so we’re trying to identify noncritical systems and completely rebuild the controls with whatever wiring we can rip out and repurpose.” He shrugs and looks down at the floor. “If Sellis were alive, he’d be better at this,” he adds in a low voice.

  I find myself nodding in sympathy. I get the problem. The engine room controls worked to get us away from the Khidr, but that was moving in a straight line. The kind of careful course plotting and monitoring we need just isn’t possible.

  “We do have the cryogenic pods,” Travers says. “They weren’t built for us, but they should work. If we set a course, we can cold sleep a few or all of us so we don’t have to use up all of our supplies.”

  “That’s how this ship was designed to work,” Arkov says. “Half the clone crew would sleep while the other half stayed awake.”

  I look around at the group and find myself facing Johansson. “What about medical?” I ask.

  She flinches, as if being asked is like being slapped, but then she composes herself. “Six crew, all injured, but capable of light duties, Captain,” she reports. “I’ve compiled individual assessments on everyone, with recommendations for diet and workload over the next few weeks. We need to be careful we don’t push it. Right now, we’re all on the edge.”

  “What about Chiu?”

  “No change as yet. She’s suffered head trauma and oxygen deprivation, but I’m hopeful she’ll wake up. The computer is monitoring her, and if the situation changes, we’ll know. A cryo pod remains an option if things get worse.”

  “Okay. What about our communications?”

  “The system is damaged, but working,” Johansson explains. “They have some advanced masking equipment, but once you deactivate that, it’s pretty much the same as ours was. With the data brought over from the Khidr, we could send messages to Phobos or farther that should be accepted as authorised Fleet transmissions. I’ve also tested several of the receivers in the last hour. That’s what led me back to something else.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Somehow, the objects we let go from this ship and the one left on the Khidr are talking to each other, and I think, in the middle of all that debris, Duggins is still alive.”

  The room goes quiet. We’re all struggling to process Johansson’s conclusion. The first thing I want to do is laugh or dismiss what she’s saying, not because I don’t want to believe her but because there’s nothing I can draw on to rationalise this. We’re all scientists and military people. We don’t base any conclusions on magic, miracles or faith.

  “Could you be wrong?” I ask.

  Johansson nods. “Yes, absolutely, but I don’t think I am.”

  “If he’s still out there…” Sam says. I glare at him and he falls silent, but we all know the rest of the sentence – we have to help him.

  I look around the group again. They want to act on what they’ve learned, to start working on the ship so we can head back and rescue Duggins. The idea makes sense on several levels. Leaving all the emotions aside, Duggins was the Khidr’s chief engineer. If anyone could repair this ship, it would be him.

  “We have to make decisions with all the information available,” Le Garre says.

  “Yes, we do,” I agree. “Which is why I need to tell you all something.”

  There’s no going back now. They’re all looking at me. Maybe I could have gotten through this briefing without mentioning anything, but that wouldn’t be me. I can’t lead without my crew’s trust. When they saw what I did to Rocher, I put that in jeopardy. They need the information.

  They need to know why.

  I start slowly. “Travers, you remember the priority message we got from the relay point? The one you forwarded to me that had the same date stamp as the archive?”

  Travers takes a moment to think about this, but then nods slowly. “Yes, I remember.”

  “We never discussed the message contents, Bill.” I focus on him, trying to read any change of expression at my use of his first name, but there’s no tell, just that same look of hurt exhaustion. “It was a priority message with orders from Admiral Langsley.” My voice catches and almost fails me, but I swallow and continue. “The admiral ordered us to stand down and ignore the distress call from the Hercules. They didn’t want us anywhere near all this.”

  “But we didn’t receive that message until—”

  “It doesn’t matter. I didn’t tell you, we didn’t turn around and we didn’t surrender to Rocher.” I turn to Le Garre and Arkov. “I think that’s the alternative instructions the clone was talking about in the engine room. I take full responsibility and I’ll answer for it, if we get home.”

  Le Garre’s eyes narrow as she stares at me. “I think you’re reading too much into it. Whatever Admiral Langsley said, he can’t have known we’d end up in this situation.”

  She’s right. Langsley didn’t mention the Gallowglass, but I remember the look on Rocher’s face – his knowing expression. “Maybe you’re right,” I say. “But… I can’t see it… Everything’s just too much… People have died…”

  They are all looking at me differently. Instead of the togetherness and purpose they found in rescuing Duggins, they’re divided now, all struggling to work their way through what I’ve told them. The words won’t come anymore. I’m crying and trying to blink away tears, but that doesn’t work in zero gravity. I wipe them away with the back of my han
d, letting the little tendrils of water cling to my wrist.

  I find myself staring at Sam. He’s the person I’ve known longest, the person who I’ve had the strongest connection with since I left Earth. It’s hard to look at him, but I need to so he can see I’m not hiding anything.

  He holds my gaze. Then he nods and tries to smile, but he can’t. “Ellie, is this why you did that to Rocher?”

  “I don’t know,” I sob. “I didn’t think I was capable…”

  A hand touches my shoulder. It’s Le Garre. She’s moved around the room, positioned herself beside me. “Captain Shann, under article four of the Fleet commissionary code, I need to inform you that we, the senior officers of your crew, are relieving you of your command.”

  The words are spoken softly, with quiet, reverent authority. I look at her and nod. “I understand.”

  * * *

  An hour later, I’m back in the room, on the bunk, staring at the ceiling once more, counting the screws, noting the tiny abrasions along the edges of each metal panel, the patchy discolouration of the steel handrail within arm’s reach. It’s something to do as a distraction, I guess.

  But it doesn’t really work.

  I feel raw, unburdened in a strange way, but all control is gone. Le Garre had to do what she did. I’d have done the same in her position. By confessing, I’ve hurt them, wounded them by revealing Langsley’s orders.

  Who am I now? So much of how I’ve defined myself has been through my rank and my responsibility. My journey to commanding the Khidr felt like the culmination of everything in my life. In being a captain, I have a purpose, an identity that separates me from the girl who grew up needing help to get out of bed.

  Now who am I? Am I back to that place, where I need help?

  Would that be so wrong?

  I’m thinking about Mom and those last messages before she died and how she talked about me growing up – You didn’t need our pity, she said. When she told me that, I always felt proud, like I’d been validated as an equal. But maybe now, that’s exactly what I need. What we all need. A little pity, a little sympathy and compassion spread around to soften the hard, military lines of our lives.