by Adam Moon
He smiled and said, “Sure, but if you hadn’t caught me, you girls would all be begging to get on this dick.”
“Ugh,” said Sarah as she turned her back on him.
Michael cut in: “Now we need to figure out what to do with him. Someone can have his pod, so that means one less colonist who has to go without.”
Sarah added, “But we can’t trust him to roam around the ship.”
Jack and Jane already knew where this was going.
Jane said, “So we put him off the ship. What’s the big deal?”
The man’s eyes went wide. He looked to each of them and said in a pleading voice, “I harmed no one. My only crime is that I decided when in time they would live their lives. They would live out the rest of their lives on board the ship rather than the seed planet.”
Jack yelled, “It doesn’t matter that you didn’t actually harm anyone. What matters is that we can’t trust you while we’re stuck in stasis.”
“Then restrain me or something.”
“You’ll eat through all of our food and then die of starvation anyway.”
The man stared at the floor. “I’m a human being. I’m someone’s son. I’m someone’s brother. I don’t deserve to be treated like a useless piece of garbage.” Then he said with a tiny hint of hope in his voice, “Plus, I’m one of only four botanists on this ship.”
Jack shrugged. “Three botanists will have to be enough then.”
And Michael added, “Botanists are overrated.”
“Who among you will kill me? My death will be on your heads.”
Unfazed, Jane said, “I’ll do it.”
They all looked at her, but she just shrugged and said, “I was a captain once and captains have to make the tough decisions. Fortunately for me, this decision isn’t all that tough.”
The man whispered, “You’re a murderer. My name is David Teves. Remember that for the rest of your life.”
Jane said, “Okay, David Teves. Got it. Let’s get you off this boat, buddy.”
Michael hefted David to his feet and Jane led him from the command station.
They heard screaming, followed by the sound of the airlock opening. Then the siren blared signaling that the outer airlock had been opened.
Michael looked around the room when Jane failed to return right away. He said, “I’ll go comfort her.”
He left, and Jack looked at Sarah with guilty eyes. Sarah avoided his gaze. They’d allowed a death to happen for the safety of the mission. This was why they’d been subjected to the rigorous tests, to ensure they could make the brutal choices necessary to save the mission.
Jane came into the command station. The guilt was overcoming her. She was crying and ashen. Then, out of the blue, the warning siren went off again.
She whispered, “What the hell is that?”
“That’s the airlock. There’s no way David could get it open from the outside, is there?”
Sarah shook her head. Then she said, “Did Michael find you?”
“Yeah. He patted me on the back and then said he was going to check on the colonists in the kitchen.”
Jack screamed, “That son of a bitch!” And he ran towards the airlock with Sarah in tow.
Jane brought up the monitor and saw a man clawing at the vacuum of space as he tumbled end over end. He was holding his breath, trying to swim back to the Seeder, to no avail. Saliva streaked from his open mouth and froze to his lip. He suffocated as she watched.
The man was not David Teves. He was one of the four colonists from the kitchen.
The Coward Emerges
Jack slammed his body into Michael before Michael could duck out of the way.
Sarah hit the button to close the outer airlock. Then a moment later, she opened the inner one. Air rushed past her, sucking on her hair as the door opened.
To their utter disbelief, one of the colonists was still inside, unconscious but coming back to life. His hand clutched at the air, trying to find a handhold he no longer needed.
Michael yelled, “Flush him before he gets up.”
Jack spat on Michael’s face and then kicked him in the balls.
Sarah dragged the man from the airlock before any more harm could come to him.
Then she made a split decision. “Michael, get in there. You’re off this ship.”
Michael laughed shrilly. “You’ll have to throw me off yourself, Captain. I’m not about to make this easy on you.”
Jack grabbed Michael by the hair and said, “I’ll do it,” as he started to drag the large man towards the airlock.
Michael said, “I only did it to take the decision out of your hands. It had to be done. We couldn’t have four colonists wandering around the ship unsupervised.”
They all knew how true that was, but Michael had gone too far.
Jack said, “Well, this lone survivor needs a pod now, so I guess yours will have to do.”
Michael tried to strike out at Jack, but Jack was too fast.
Sarah dropped the colonist she was helping and ran forward to help Jack drag Michael's flailing body into the airlock.
Just then the sirens blared again, but they were cut off by the voice of the computer issuing over the loudspeakers.
“Warning, we’re approaching a weak gravity well. Evasive maneuvers are necessary.”
“What is it?” Sarah demanded.
“It appears to be a rogue planet, untethered from its parent star.”
“How the hell did that get out here in the middle of nowhere?”
“From its trajectory, it appears it came from the direction of the solar system.”
“From our own solar system?”
“Yes.”
Just then another siren went off, but this one was different, more urgent.
The computer voice said, “We are under attack.”
Attack
Sarah yelled, “We need to get to the command station.” She let go of Michael Stevens. She would deal with him later. He’d just jettisoned three colonists, and that kind of crime would not be tolerated, but for now they had bigger fish to fry.
Jack Mayberry kneed Michael in the jaw, then took a step back and kicked him in the face. Michael rolled to his side and curled up defensively. Sarah grabbed the lone colonist who’d survived Michael’s treachery, and with Jack’s help carried him away from the airlock.
When they came into the command station, Jane was already there, watching the monitor intently.
The rogue planet was barely visible, but that just made the missile coming from it easier to spot.
“What do we do?” she asked. “We don’t have a weapons system and it’s coming too fast to avoid.”
Sarah sat at the navigation array and began the slow down so she could turn the ship around. As soon as it turned enough, she picked up speed. She knew it was a futile effort, but she had to try something.
The missile grew larger by the second on the monitor.
Jack placed the unconscious colonist in Sarah’s stasis pod, hooked up the IV’s, and shut the lid on him. He turned towards the monitor and said, “We’re screwed.”
Just then the ship jostled and shook, but not from an impact.
The computer voice said, “Weapons systems are armed and ready.”
Sarah looked to Jack and Jane and shrugged. A weapons system was news to her. As far as she knew, they were defenseless.
She said to the ship’s computer, “Fire at the approaching missile.”
“You are not authorized to access ship defenses.”
“What?”
“Only Jason Rodriguez may operate weaponry.”
“Who the hell is Jason Rodriguez?”
“I’m waking him from stasis. He’ll be with you shortly.”
Sarah turned to Jane and whispered, “No one told me about a weapons system or a weapons specialist.”
Jane’s mouth moved, but no reply came forth. She was too fixated on the fast approaching missile.
Acting Captain Rodrigue
z
The ship’s computer said over the speakers, “Yes, Captain. The crew is in the command station.”
Captain Sarah Miller said aloud, “I’m the captain. Who the hell are you talking to?”
The ship said, “Captain Jason Rodriguez is captain when he is awake. When he goes back into stasis, you will be promoted again.”
“You don’t get to demote me.”
Jack said, “Who gives a shit? We’re about to become space debris.”
Just then, a heavily muscled man came into the command station. He was pulling his shirt on when he said, “Hello, crew. What’s the situation?”
Sarah was about to address him, but Jack knew she’d lost sight of the situation, so he held his hand up to silence her. Normally, he wouldn’t have been so bold but the situation demanded it. “A projectile has been launched at us from that rogue planet.”
“Molly, give me the gun.”
The ship said, “Yes, Captain. Controls are descending.” Its voice had changed instantly from the male monotone voice Sarah was used to and spoke with a sultry female voice now that Jason had addressed it as Molly.
A hatch in the ceiling flipped open and a control station descended. Jason walked over to it, placed his head in the floating helmet and grabbed both joysticks that had jutted from the station. He spun around as if looking about and then stopped. He tapped a couple of buttons, moved his index finger around on a touchpad, and then squeezed the triggers on the joysticks.
They watched the monitor. The missile was now very close. It was odd looking, with alien markings and an alien shape, not unlike a cigar but with a splayed open front.
Silently, pockmarks appeared on the metallic surface from the hail of bullets Jason was plowing into it. Tiny sparks lit up the black of space. The pockmarks appeared more frequently until the missile exploded in a cascade of light.
Jason spun around some more and then said, “It looks like there was only one. Molly, keep an eye out for follow-up attacks and alert me if necessary.” Then he let go of the joysticks, pulled the helmet off, and shoved the control station upwards. It sunk back into the ceiling under its own power.
Jason smiled and said, “I could’ve just had Molly take it out, but I wanted a little target practice. The gun’s fun as hell.”
Sarah said, “You’ve named the ship Molly?”
“No. The program named the ship, back on Earth. How much information did they leave out?”
“Apparently a lot,” said Jack. “We didn’t know the ship had a name or a sexy voice. We didn’t know we had a weapons specialist on board. Shit, we didn’t even know this boat had weapons.”
“I’m a failsafe in case shit hits the fan. I suppose the program chiefs thought I’d never have to be used. But they still should’ve told you about me.”
Sarah said, “They’re a sneaky bunch of bastards.”
“I heard what they put you guys through. I was disgusted when I found out about those sadistic experiments.”
Michael walked into the command station, still wobbly and bloody. He asked, “Who’s this joker?”
Jason turned around and said, “You watch the way you speak to me. You don’t want to be on my bad side.” To the group, he asked, “What happened to him?”
“He put four colonists in the airlock and three of them got sucked out.” She left out the part about Jack beating the tar out of him. She figured it was pretty self evident.
“Are you kidding me? What the hell’s going on in here?”
Jack said, “We had a saboteur who destroyed several stasis pods. We had replacement pods but not enough for everyone. Four of the colonists would’ve had to go without.”
Jason pointed over his shoulder. “So this dipshit took it upon himself to get rid of four human beings? Why’s he still alive?”
Sarah said angrily, “We were getting ready to put him off the ship when the computer, Molly, alerted us to the incoming missile.”
Jason said, “Get this piece of shit out of my sight.”
No one made a move until Jason said, “As acting captain, I’m ordering each of you to do as I say.”
Sarah decided to eat humble pie. She walked over to Michael and took him by the wrist. Jack joined her, but Jane was still staring at the monitor. The rogue planet spun beneath them, but otherwise the sky was empty.
Jack said, “What’s the matter?”
“I just feel funny. It’s like something’s looking back at us.”
Jason said, “I doubt that, but something fired that missile, something that wants us all dead. We’ll be orbiting this planet until we find out why.”
Sarah said, “What does this planet have to do with the mission? It seems like a distraction to drop into orbit.”
“Those are my orders. They don’t have to make sense to you.”
“Yes, Captain.”
“Put that asshole somewhere safe until I figure out what to do with him.” He pulled a gun from a holster none of them had seen and tossed it to Sarah. “Use that if necessary. In fact, use it for fun if he gives you a reason.”
Sarah juggled the gun and dropped it. She felt like a dumbass in the presence of the new captain. She picked it up, considered explaining what a bad idea it was to discharge a weapon on board the ship, but decided against it and tucked it into her waistband. She would use it on Michael if he made a wrong move. If there was a hull breach from the gunshot, well … that would be Jason’s fault and he could just fix it by himself.
Orbit
Jack must’ve been feeling particularly vindictive. He made Michael get inside the double-wide oven in the kitchen and then he latched the doors shut. He said, “If you’re lucky, I might not turn it on.” Then he turned the burners on for a few seconds to put the fear of God into him.
Michael was whimpering like a child when they left him. A terrible part of Sarah wished they could just cook him to death and be done with him for good. He was more trouble than he was worth.
When they came back into the command station Jane was flirting with Jason as she filled him in on the situation. She said, “We’ve been in flight for less than two hundred years,” as she ran her knuckles across his shoulder.
He tried to hide his discomfort, but they could see it all over his face. He laid a hand on her back and whispered, “Then we still have a long journey ahead of us. You’d better go back into stasis before we lose even more pods.”
Sarah was relieved to see a hint of compassion and diplomacy from the stranger. Up until a few minutes ago, none of them had even known he existed. The unknown always made her uncomfortable.
Jane nodded, but it was obvious she enjoyed the physical contact. She was smiling ear to ear as she went below deck.
It was an odd sight, especially since she had put the pod saboteur off the ship only minutes before Michael had went on his rampage, killing those colonists. Maybe Jane was a sociopath? It was hard to tell, but she sure seemed unaffected by the fact she’d murdered someone recently. Then again, any of them would have gladly done the same thing. A saboteur could not be tolerated on a mission to ensure the survival of the human race. Sarah hoped she’d at least feel some remorse over it though.
Jason said, “So far there haven’t been any more violent overtures, but Molly detected a faint heat signature on the opposite side of the planet, so we’re headed there. If the attack was just a fluke or an anomaly, and the heat signature ends up being something natural, then we’ll get back on with the mission. Until then, I only ask that you both trust my judgment.”
Jack said, “I doubt it was a fluke. We showed up and right away a missile was launched at us. That’s a sign of life if ever there was one.”
Sarah didn’t like where this was going. She had the lonely feeling that no one cared about the mission besides her.
Jason said to Jack, “That could have just been an automated defense mechanism. I was trained to watch for stuff like that.”
“You mean a computer might have decided to fire at us?”
“Exactly. Look at the planet. It’s a frozen dark ice ball. We’re not going to find anything alive down there, certainly nothing with higher intelligence.”
Sarah was glad to hear that. The last thing she wanted was to spend time trying to figure out an alien race. It wasn’t that she wasn’t intrigued, because she was. But she’d been programmed to put the seed planet first, above all distractions. She was focused on one thing and only one thing. When the ship came under attack, she was ill-equipped to make an informed decision. Only then did Jason Rodriguez’s inclusion in the mission make sense to her. To train her to operate the weapons systems would have split her loyalties. Likely, that was why she had been kept in the dark about them. But she still felt betrayed. And worse than that was the fact that this stranger now outranked her.
She said with authority, “How long until we’re done with this nonsense? I’d like to get back to the mission as soon as possible.”
“They told me you were driven. We’ll know in about an hour. Then the ship’s all yours.”
“It’s still my ship, sir. Just because Molly says you’re captain doesn’t mean a thing to me or my crew.”
Jack nodded an affirmative, but it was half-assed. He was clearly enjoying Jason’s company.
Jason said, “I understand, Captain. I’m only here to help, but until I’m finished I expect you to do as I tell you.”
“Of course, Captain. Sorry for the outburst.”
“Don’t be. I’d be pissed too.”
First Contact
The ship’s voice came over the loudspeakers, but there was a demented quality to it. Its words were jumbled, all running together. It was a distortion of the monotone male voice and the sexy female voice … and something else too. The lights flickered and the engine cut off for a split second.
Sarah almost shit her pants.
Jason yelled, “Status update, Molly.”
The ship struggled to respond. Then its voice came out crisp and eloquent, but it was odd.
