by Dan Davis
“The bodies for spare parts and stuff? She wanted us to liberate them but instead she accidentally killed them?”
“A hastily planned terrorist incident does not usually go as intended.”
“Noomi was a terrorist? A real one?” Ram said. “How did she get on the mission?”
“How can we ever know what intentions someone harbors in the deep of their soul? If there was any sign before, it would have been picked up and she never would have made it onboard the Victory.”
“Which were the two AP bodies that survived?”
“One was Sifa’s,” Milena said. “The other was yours, it happened to be in having a standard medical exam. Sifa’s survived through more dumb luck. It was at the far end of the room, the initial small shockwave dislodged a broken wall panel which knocked it down behind some exercise equipment and then served as a shield while the fire burnt itself out. But Sifa’s brain is beyond salvageable at this point.”
Ram felt as mindless as his own blank. Just numb, more than anything.
“What about using the surviving APs for one of the other subjects?”
Milena sighed. “There has to be a genetic match or the grafting between human and AP will not take.”
“I see,” Ram said, just as a blinding flash of headache rose and faded behind his eyes. He winced until it passed. “How can we carry on without Mael or Alina or anyone?”
“That is what they will decide right now. Chief Executive Zhukov has called a meeting in the crew ring and we will go there immediately. But obviously, things are not good. Not good at all.”
“I have to be there?” Ram asked.
“You’re not invited,” Milena said. “But if you don’t step up now, they will disregard you. If you don’t step forward now, you’ll likely not get another chance and humanity needs you. So, get your giant ass up and let’s go.”
The medical personnel helped him to get to his feet, though his head spun enormously and he had to hold on for some time before anyone dared let go. His first step, he fell against the wall. His second, he found himself bent at the waist, dry-heaving and sweating.
“You’ve had a lot of anesthetic in the last couple of days,” Milena explained. “It will wear off quicker if you get your heart rate up. Come on, we’ll be late.”
By the time they got to the huge communal mess hall that the crew shared, Ram felt much better, physically. Emotionally, he felt little more than a sense of wonder. A sense of awe at how badly things had gone. Clearly, Milena was pumping him full of something or other to keep his grief and guilt from overwhelming him. He was grateful.
Director Zuma, on the other hand, looked awful. She stood at the far end of the mess hall, which was the full length of the ring section. As far a distance as someone could see onboard the Victory and yet even from that distance, Ram could see she was defeated.
The mess was full. Every person on the ship, surely, was there. They had never told Ram how many crewmembers there were, nor exactly how big the ship was and he had never pushed for answers. But he guessed there were a hundred people in that room or more, sitting in tightly packed chairs and at tables that faced a clear space at the far end. It was so full that people stood at the sides and back of the room.
Ram noted a handful of marines, fully armed, dotted around the room, two of them flanking the people up at the front of the room. Milena saw him looking at them.
“Don’t worry about them,” she said quietly, as they took the last spaces at the rear of the hall. “They are just a precaution.”
“Right,” Ram whispered. “Against me?”
“No,” Milena said. “You are innocent of any wrongdoing, either in the run up to or the execution of the event.”
“Do they know that?”
“That’s their commanding officer down the front,” Milena said, pointing out a big, blond, grizzled man sitting slumped sideways in his folding chair, one arm slung over the back of it. “He knows he messed up as much as anyone. No one is looking to blame you.”
“Who’s the badass in the shiny uniform?” Ram muttered. An immaculate, naval style uniform and perfectly groomed hair couldn’t disguise how much the man at the back looked dangerous.
“That’s Commander Tamura, the ship’s captain,” Milena said. “His rank is Commander of the UNOPS Victory. We don’t see him, he is never involved in ludus activities but him and his crew are responsible for getting us where we need to be. Commander Tamura is senior to the Captain of the Marines. The crew loves him but he scares them, too.”
Zhukov was there next to Commander Tamura, standing back from Zuma with his head bowed like he was at a funeral.
Director Zuma, about to address the crew, looked worse. Her shoulders rounded, her whole being sagged as if pulled down by a heavy weight. Simply standing before them took almost all the strength she had. Her richly brown skin had a gray pallor. Before speaking, Zuma took a deep, shuddering breath.
“Many times, I spoke of this mission as a spear thrust, aimed at our enemy's heart. I said that our spearhead was made up of our subjects. That our crew was the shaft, that we were aimed by all of humanity. Hyperbole, clearly. A handy metaphor and no more than that. But a few days ago, we lost the point of that spear. All our subjects, dead. The redundancies built into this mission have been overcome by a combination of malicious acts of terrorism, murder, chance and human error. I take full responsibility for the tragedy. It was my decision to pursue the policy that we pursued. It was my plan to forgo ethical concerns to increase the performance of Subject Alpha. It was my...”
Zuma broke off and rubbed her face.
“We must go on. Somehow. But how, exactly, will not be up to me. I resigned my commission a few minutes ago and Chief Executive Zhukov will take up the Managing Directorship from now on. He will take us onward from here. Whatever our personal and professional failures, they are irrelevant and I will continue to advise and support with whatever expertise I can provide. But stepping aside will mean a fresh start, a new approach. We have asked you all here to hear what we propose and to discuss it. Only critical crew are not in attendance and they will have the opportunity to comment later. In a few hours we will hold a memorial service for the fallen. But now I will hand you over to the Chief Exec and Director.”
She slumped away and stood with her head down. Shrunken, reduced. Defeated by her failures.
Zhukov stepped forward.
“This is not a democracy. We will not be taking a vote on courses of action. But I wished to look you all in the eye when I tell you this. The mission goes on. We all go on. And we will succeed. Anyone expressing a contrary view will be regarded by me in most unfavorable terms. Now. You know what happened in the ludus three days ago. The footage, from every angle, has been made available to you all for at least twenty-four hours so there's no need to go over the specifics as it unfolded. I have heard many of you asking how this could have happened and this is the question we also asked ourselves. There were a number of factors. The subjects' drivers were designed to support the subject in combat but also to provide personal psychological support and assessment. The drivers also met with the Chief Psychologist and the Director, with written reports evidenced by recordings of conversations and footage of the subject.
“In this case, however, Noomi had been deceiving us for some time. Filing reports that drastically misrepresented her conversations with Alina as well as deleting, obscuring and editing the recordings of their conversations. We believe many of the recordings she submitted were concocted purely to keep us off their track.”
A pale hand near the front shot up.
“I wanted to keep questions for the end but I will take one now, go ahead.”
“Sir, we carry out regular audits and random inspections exactly so that we can avoid this kind of deceit.”
“Thank you, Beaumont. Indeed, we do and yet because of technical assistance from Diego, they were able to hide the secret conversations that they did have. We are not clear on how the
y did it but we will uncover full details. It may be they had help and that there are other people on this ship, in this room, who helped them. If you are out there then hear me when I say this. We will find you. It would be better if you give yourself up now. Just like Diego, you will not suffer punitive punishment and if your skills are required for this mission then you will carry on with increased oversight. Punishment will have to wait until the mission is complete, perhaps when we are back on Earth. On the other hand, it may be that Alina, Noomi and Diego formed the complete cabal. Between the three of them, it is entirely possible they could have carried out everything that they did.”
Ram leaned down to Milena as subtly as he could, heart thumping. “No mention of us?”
“Zuma is an idealist,” Milena muttered. “Zhukov is a pragmatist. He can see the big picture.”
Ram let out a breath. Plainly, she had made a deal with the man.
A voice called from the center the audience. “What did they want?”
Zhukov sighed but he allowed the question. “They did not want this. They did not want to kill everyone and destroy the mission. They believed in the mission so much that they were willing to kill for it. They believed that Director Zuma was wrong with her Alpha First mission design. They discovered, through Diego we believe, that each of them was on the list for potentially sanctioned targets for Mael's homicidal incidents and they were unwilling to be so. The group believed, for many reasons that were perfectly valid, that Alina would make a better subject Alpha than Mael. Better in terms of our ultimate outcomes on the Orb. The only barrier, as far as they could tell, was the continued existence of Mael himself. The plan that they carried out was designed to kill Mael alone, yet Alina was willing to kill more subjects, should they oppose her. She was willing to kill non-vital crew, such as the drivers and marines if they attempted to stop or harm her.”
“So she lost her mind?” Someone shouted.
Zhukov had clearly decided to let his audience vent a little. “No. Why would you think that? Did you not hear what I just said? She considered herself the best chance for this mission to succeed. We had demonstrated, over and over, that the lives of individuals on this ship were unimportant compared to Subject Alpha. Her willingness to kill to protect herself made perfect sense. But it was not only to kill Mael. Noomi euthanized most of our Artificial Persons and all backup subjects through improvised explosive devices. A day before, Alina allowed herself to be beaten so severely by Mael in order to gain access to the switches that would paralyze Mael and the other subjects that she felt would physically protect him. Noomi set the explosives while Diego controlled the security for all of them. He blocked our cameras and microphones. He locked the door to the barracks and our security team worked to counter his lock. When the lock was overcome, the individual in the team who was responsible for hacking the hack believed he had overcome Diego's program through his own skills. And we believed him. Of course, it was a trap. Four marines were sent in with nonlethal rounds to subdue Alina but they each had four magazines of expanding hollow point, each magazine with ninety-six rounds. That meant when Alina killed the marines, that she had over fifteen hundred live rounds. It looks as though well over a thousand rounds were fired between Alina and Eziz and the second team of marines fired some two hundred to bring them both down.”
“Why didn't Team Two use the nonlethal rounds?”
Zhukov glanced at Captain Cassidy, sitting in the front row. Cassidy waved a hand at Zhukov, declining to comment.
“They tried that,” Zhukov said, clearly he had been fully briefed by the Marine Captain. “The rounds had practically no effect on the enhanced bodies of the subjects. It was our prior belief that they would work, based on laboratory tests. Evidently, there are cascading errors going back months and even years, even to off this ship back on Earth and to before we left orbit. There is still much we don't understand. How did Diego access ship control and fire the thrusters to stop the ship spinning? That should have been compartmentalized. Why did Noomi murder herself during the detonation of the device? Was it accidental or intentional?”
“Were they terrorists?” Someone shouted.
“Certainly, Noomi seems to have felt strongly enough about Artificial Persons to be willing to destroy them. I am not an expert in pro-human terrorism but I believe they release the sims, when possible or kill them if not. What is more confusing is why she destroyed the backup subjects kept in deep coma. They were all heads without bodies and so would require an Artificial Person if they were ever to be used but I do not know what problem she may have had with them simply existing in storage, unconscious and unaware. Not offending anybody. Diego claims to know nothing of any bombs. Noomi’s motivations may forever remain unknown. Is it even important? All we can do now is recover and move on.”
“Move on? How can we move on? All our subjects are gone. It's all over.”
Ram stood up straighter at the back. He felt Milena glance up at him. Being discounted to such an extent, after all his hard work. After all he had fought for. He wanted to wade into the crowd and lay waste to them.
“I know it seems that way,” Zhukov said. “And perhaps you are correct. But we cannot allow you to be correct. And this is what I want you all to hear. We must leave this room, feeling and knowing that the mission is not over. That we do have a chance at victory. Because we must do so. We must or the alternative is too difficult to contemplate. So, a way forward. We have options. We have opportunities. There are still people on board this ship who would stand against the alien. We have Bediako. The only human to survive battle with the entity.”
Bediako stood up straight, looked around the room once, slowly and nodded at Zhukov.
“It would be an honor,” Bediako said. “To fight once more would be an honor. I have decades of combat experience at the most elite levels anywhere in the Solar System. You all need not worry about my skill and my fitness. Trust me. I am an expert.”
A few people chuckled and Ram sensed a certain relaxation spreading through the room. A small collective sigh.
But not everyone was placated.
“Oskar?” Zhukov said to a hand sticking up in the center of the room.
“No offense, Bediako,” a red-faced man with blond hair said, standing and addressing the room as well as the instructor and Zhukov in turn. Ram recalled that Sifa's driver was called Oskar. “But you had an attempt thirty years ago. And you failed.”
Zhukov waived down the mumbled protests then invited Oskar to continue. Bediako's face was thunder.
“There is no one alive with more experience, that is indisputable. But we all know why you were not part of the intake for this mission and instead were lead instructor. Your body is simply not capable of achieving the required standard. Your second fusing with an Artificial Person body has seen to that. And an old model body, one that was not suitable for a primary candidate. I am sorry but you are too slow. Too weak.”
“You impudent little twerp,” Bediako said. “Who are you to judge me? You know nothing of combat. If you did, you would know that timing beats speed. Experience and skill make up for strength. Who would you prefer to fight the alien? You?”
“No,” Oskar said. “What about one of the marines?”
All eyes in the room turned to the large Captain Cassidy sitting slouched in a chair at the front, who climbed to his feet and looked down on the seated audience.
The marine officer had lost a squad of his precious men and he looked like he had not slept in days. His rugged, bony face was deeply lined, with a weathered ruddiness seemingly undiminished by years in space. Still, the menace in his eyes was like a pair of lasers he was shooting around the room at everyone, one after the other. He looked like a man who wanted vengeance and, with the way he exuded competence, he knew how to get it.
Ram hoped that Milena was right and the man did not hold him responsible for the massacre. Captain Cassidy of the UNOP Marine Corps looked like a bad man to have as an enemy.
“Hell,” the Captain said. “You got to have rocks in your head, Oskar. There’s no way me or any of my guys can face that thing without our augmentation. Look at me, for Christ's sake.” The Captain held his arms out. “We’re all so full of augments that we’re practically cyborgs. You take out enough that we can get below the Zeta Line and it would ruin our physical abilities right away.”
“Obviously,” the driver called Oskar replied. “I know that, I just thought you could select the best hand to hand fighter from your company, I mean, of the survivors and have their augments removed.”
The Captain was clearly horrified for a moment, then recovered to shake his head. “You don’t understand, Oskar. Our augments have been part of us for years. They are a core part of our training right out of basic, everything we do relies on those components, from synchronized communications to neurochemically enhanced reactions. And we’re just not trained to fight as individuals, we operate as part of a team.”
“I understand all that but I have seen your marines training one on one, with knife fights and grappling. You do know how to do this.”
“Don’t presume to tell me my job, Oskar, you’re, what, a medical doctor?”
“Biochemist originally but I also have a doctorate in human psychol—”
“Well, doctor, that’s damned impressive but I’ve been a Marine for over twenty years and I know what I’m talking about.” The Captain sighed and Ram saw for a moment a commanding officer who had just lost four people in his company. “Look, I understand, alright, you see my company and you see the finest killers humanity has ever produced and you think, why not throw them into the Arena? But you will also remember, that our predecessors in UNOP tried that in Mission Two. We simply do not have the mass to compete with an entity that size, nor do we have the reaction time without our augmentation, we just don’t.”
Oskar threw up his hands. “Fine, of course, I know. I know.”
Captain Cassidy threw Ram a quick look from across the room. Ram’s heart skipped a beat.
Was the Captain going to denounce him?
