by A. B. Keuser
The ship, Oath Breaker, will be decommissioned. It will be stripped and all vital components melted down. Her armaments will be transferred into Pääom custody. Captain Osiris Bowlin of the Abolitionist’s second fleet shall be remanded to Pääom custody. He will be tried as a civilian in accordance with the edicts and preclusions there entailed.
“There’s no reason to believe they would have followed through with this. Losing you would mean crippling any chance the Abolitionists had to fight back if the Pääom went back on their word. The second you were dismantled they’d have lost the war regardless.”
Another page of text flashed on the screen. He saw the official Abolitionist’s seal, something that was easily duplicated, and the signature of Heinrich Villhelm IV at the bottom. Heinrich’s signature was not an easy thing to copy—as far as Osiris knew, he never used his official signature for anything other than military documents. And though fifteen years had passed in the blink of an eye, Si remembered seeing the sweeping curve of the V in Villhelm of that signature on a declination of supply acquisitions as though it had been two days ago.
They’d sold him out for a handful of planets without Pääom rule, a flimsy promise to cease attacks… and a single fission generator. He could have spit. His fingers were clenched so tightly his knuckles discolored under the strain.
Still, an end of the war could have saved thousands of lives. Nine thousand four hundred and sixty….
“The Pääom never held up their end of the bargain.”
“Did you stop to think that maybe that’s because you kept Heinrich from holding up his?” Si focused on the lives she’d taken, not the few she’d saved.
“If you were dead, if I was dismembered… do you believe the Pääom would have withdrawn their camps? Do you believe they would have changed at all?”
“No, I don’t.” He grated his teeth as he sat back on the console, not willing to look at Heinrich’s signature any longer. “Was this really the best solution?”
“It was the one option that held the least likely chance of you dying.”
Blowing out a long breath, he tried to keep his voice calm. “Obie, this isn’t about me. This is about the countless lives ruined by the Pääom.”
“And you are the best suited of anyone to fix what is wrong. I could not allow them to sacrifice you.”
“I might have been… but you kept me in that cryo capsule so long… I’m out of my depth now.”
“That is why I waited for someone to help you. I only need her to see that you are more important than her crew…”
Hot prickling washed over him as he clenched the edges of the console. He had to stay calm with her, else wise she might kill the rest of the crew in one fell swoop.
“Is that why you killed José?”
“I need her to be completely reliant on you. If José had questioned you, she would have also. His death was necessary to ensure completion of the final plan.”
Osiris tried not to laugh. Bitterness ate at his soul like acid. The situation wasn’t funny. The fact the ship was still headed toward a mission objective a decade and a half gone…
“The final plan doesn’t apply anymore, Obie. Don’t you get it? There can’t be a final plan, because the Abolitionist Party is gone.”
“Not in its entirety.”
It dawned on him then, the reason she’d disguised her course heading and dragged them across the system. “That’s why you’re taking us to Kosz, isn’t it? The few who are left of the Abolitionist leaders, they’re there. The one place Pääom officials rarely venture.” A sickening thought entered his mind. “Is Heinrich there?”
“No.”
The answer was too clipped. There was something that she hadn’t told him yet. “But he’s still alive?”
“He is”
She paused and Osiris waited. He wouldn’t play this game with her.
“He changed his name, but those who knew him before will have no trouble identifying Pääom official number eighteen.”
The picture that filled the screen was unquestionably Heinrich. Older, but still the man who had brought Osiris to the Abolitionists cause in the first place. The close-cut blonde hair, the dull brown eyes, the cleft palate scar…. There was nothing other than the official Pääom uniform and the name at the bottom of the screen to suggest the man had changed with age.
“Jumped ship and found his way back to the top, just on the other side.” Osiris thought back to what Stugg had said about people changing sides. The weasel of a mechanic was accurate, at least.
“Never underestimate the potential of a charismatic and ambitious man. The characteristics are particularly volatile when contained in the same being.”
“I’m starting to wonder if the same could be said for a ship.” He gripped the sides of the console in front of him and considered his options. They were few.
“We both know I am not charismatic. I’m sorry, Osiris. It was wrong of me to put you in that capsule.”
“I’d feel better if you apologized for all the people you’ve killed.”
“You told me to never apologize for something I do not regret. Their deaths were in the service of a greater good.”
Si rubbed his right eye and looked up at the ceiling. “At least you’re honest.”
It wasn’t heartening. If she wasn’t sorry for killing the ones she’d already laid to rest, there was absolutely no reason to think she’d stop now. He might be safe from her, but he wasn’t going to start thinking that way… she’d walked him into a cryo capsule when it had been convenient for her, he could only imagine what she’d do the next time. God, he hoped there wouldn’t be a next time.
“Who will I find on Kosz?” he asked.
A grid of faces appeared on the screen, as the locks cycled behind him. He turned, hoping to see Yella—though he’d told her he’d meet her in the medbay. There was no chance she’d be here this soon. He knew Obie well enough to expect Chin would be in need of serious medical care.
He fought back a scowl as the ridges of a black braid peeked around the hatch.
“Aren’t you supposed to be helping Stugg in the engine room?”
“Finished it. Had to get away.” Adi shrugged and leaned against a console on the other side of the room. “ He’s smitten with your girl and that is annoying enough to drive anyone away. I’m not sure how Gill puts up with it.”
“Gilroy wears ear plugs for the majority of the shifts they spend together. He too has voiced an annoyance at the boy’s infatuation. You should be happy to know, Captain, the interest is not returned.”
“Wow, even the ship knows you’re nursing a crush on that one. You must be slipping.” She cracked her knuckles and moved closer to him, stopping when she was still five feet away. “Hide an affair for over a year, and all it takes is a quick stint in cryo for us to read you like an open book.” She leaned on the console next to him as he tried to focus on the faces in front of him. “So, Si. It’s been fifteen years, you gonna tell me who she was? She’s probably married with a passel of kids by now… or maybe she’s dead for all I know. The war was getting pretty dicey when Jarrod pushed us into the cryo units. I mean, if nothing else, she’s fifteen years older and I know you’re into older women, so—”
“Adi, drop it.”
“Oh my God, she is dead.” The momentary astonishment gave way to gloating fast enough. “You looked her up, and she’d dead. That’s why you’re all sullen… and yet you’re still going after the Cholla’s daughter.”
“She’s not dead, and she’s not married.”
“Okay… so why the long face, sourpuss?”
“The answer to that would take a lifetime to explain fully,” Si said, knowing it was easier than that.
“He is disappointed in me.”
“Oh, don’t get upset, Obie. I’m sure he still loves you. It’s me that’s the irritation.” She turned back to him. “I’m still not sure why you unfroze me. Seems like you would have been a lot happier without me h
anging around.”
“You say the stupidest things sometimes. And for your information, I didn’t unfreeze you, Obie did. She’s been a little ‘defrost’ happy since Yella took over. First me, then you and Ric… I really hope there aren’t any more ghosts down there waiting to be woken up.”
“At present, all cryonic stasis chambers are empty.”
“Good to know we won’t have any more unexpected guests,” Osiris said.
“What’s with the old yearbook?” She looked at the screen as though she didn’t want to see any of them. “God, is that Jordan Krace? He looks so old.”
“Remember, we’re the only ones who’ve been sleeping for fifteen years.”
“Yeah, I know… it’s just difficult to digest.”
“You want difficult to digest?” he paged back on the screen, not bothering to ask Obie to do it.
As the face of their once intrepid leader filled the screen, Adi smiled, “God, It’s like time passed us… wait, what is he wearing?”
“Exactly what it looks like.”
Adi’s face had gone ashen, she moved to stand next to him, her eyes never moving from the screen. “No. No fucking way. I don’t believe it, Si. It has to be propaganda, or something. It has to be fake.”
“Why change his name then? Why sign off on an order that would see me hanged and Obie torn to scrap metal?”
“There’s got to be a mistake… he was like—” The rest of Adi’s words died in her mouth, unspoken.
“He brought half of our old crew over to the abolitionist cause, I know.”
As Adilyn read through the two documents on the screen, Si moved to the far wall, sitting on a bench he couldn’t remember the purpose of. Though, if truth be told, he hadn’t spent too much time in this part of the ship. He should have taken the damn time.
“This makes about as much sense as Jarrod Mandall shoving us in cryo,” she said as she finished it. “Why the hell would they turn over Obie? You, I understand. Hell, I’d be willing to pitch you over now if Obie didn’t object so much. But Obie… without her, the fleet was nothing.”
“Thank you for your vote of confidence, Adilyn.”
“Anytime. We girls have to stick together. Especially since this new set’s come in.”
“I couldn’t agree more.”
“Don’t encourage her, Adi. I don’t want anyone else dying.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means, that Obie is feeling overly protective. Which is why she vented the rest of the crew, it’s why she locked the three of us in Cryo. Why none of Yella’s crew are safe.”
“You were the only ones I could trust.”
“I’m… touched?” Adi didn’t look touched, she looked cosmically freaked out.
A step in the right direction.
Osiris chewed on the side of his tongue steeling himself to his new resolution. He was ready to let the whole crew know—those that were still living and conscious. The thing stopping him was a lack of knowledge. He’d have to hold off until he knew how Yella would react to the real reason for José.
He stood and went back to the console. “Is there anything else we need to know, Obie?”
“For the moment, no. I have nothing new to report. But I do miss this.”
Osiris turned away as a picture he remembered too well formed on the screen. Richter stood in the foreground, a lime green flamenco dress over his duty uniform, a chopstick in his mouth as though it were a rose. In the background, clearly visible, Adi hung off of Si’s shoulder, her lips close to his ear as she whispered some forgotten words.
Adi’s hand moved to his shoulder, her voice hushed as she spoke, “That was the night I dared you to marry me.”
He looked at adi, but movement in his periphery drew his eyes back to the hatch.
His eyes met with a pair of molten chocolate ones as Yella slipped away from the hatch. Shit. He moved quickly to the corridor, leaning out only to see her coattails swish around the corner.
He’d go after her later, explain what was going on though he wasn’t quite sure what she’d seen… or thought she saw. He knew what she’d heard.
Stepping back inside, he cursed Adi for leaving the hatch open. Her eyes fell on him coldly. “Sorry if I pissed off your girlfriend. Might be for the best, since you’ll probably just cheat on her, too.”
“Adi, I don’t know what makes you—someone I’ve known for a decade—so incredibly insecure about our past.” He turned back to the console. “You know me well enough to know that I’m not the type who would cheat on you… and if I did, you know I’m not the type of man to lie about it.”
“What about the ring?”
“I gave the goddamned ring to Yella.” He saw the look on her face as she turned away. “By then, we’d been divorced for nearly ten years.
“When would I have had time for an ongoing, clandestine relationship, by the way? You knew my schedule. Hell you or Ric were with me practically every moment of the day, and when you weren’t I was in the middle of something a bit more important than sneaking off for a quick fuck.”
“I thought—”
“You didn’t think, Adilyn. You just acted. You always do that. Come to a conclusion without bothering to think it through, and then you go with it. Hell, that’s probably why you made the bet in the first place. Ric was twirling about having a blast being his usual clowning self, you got caught up in the moment, the idea came to you and you didn’t think it through. I’m a damn fool for not thinking it through either, but facts are facts, Adi. We jumped in head first and were drowning because we didn’t put our feet down to find out we were in the shallow end.
“You didn’t think through where the ring might have gone, you just assumed I was having an affair. Do you know how many of the female crew and officers on this ship filed complaints against you? Doc Matherson kept count, if you want to go check the record. I did my best to keep it quiet. As far as I know it never got back to Heinrich, but then, the crew got vented, and we were shoved in cryo for fifteen years, so maybe it did.
“It doesn’t really matter. What matters is that you get off my case. I’m tired of it, Adi. I have more than enough to deal with right now without you chewing on that dead horse every time you get a chance. In fact I’m going to turn that into an order. Are we clear? I’m ordering you to get over it.”
Adi stared at him silently, nodding to intimate she’d understood.
“This clears up several things in my files that were confusing before. Thank you, Captain.”
“I’d ask what you mean by that, Obie, but I’m not sure I’m in a mood to know right now.”
Adi had made her way to the hatch, but turned back to him.
“Si?” She paused as if deciding what she wanted to say, and then shook her head. “If you love her, make sure she knows it. No one wants to spend their time with someone they’re not sure of.” She disappeared through the hatch, leaving it open.
Trying not to think about what Adi had said, Si stared at the gaping maw into the corridor briefly before looking up to the ceiling. “You sure you don’t have anything else to tell me?”
“Only that sometimes advice given in anger is still good advice.”
“Noted. Now, if that’s all, I’d like to be left alone for a while.”
“I will continue to monitor Cholla’s crew.”
“Just don’t kill anyone else, please.”
He took her silence as a disheartening sign. He’d need to talk to Dani. Her crew needed to know what was really going on, and soon.
He sealed up the hatch to navigation and turned to follow after Yella… though he realized he had no idea where she’d gone. If he hadn’t been sure he’d burst a vessel by asking Obie again, he might have considered it. As it was, the walk might do him some good.
He turned the corner and stopped. A man blocked his path.
“Osiris!” The pilot whooped and smacked him on the back. “Just the man we’ve been looking for.”
“We?
”
Gilroy popped his head out from behind the hulking mass that was Yella’s pilot. “Hiya.”
“You’ve found me. Interestingly enough, I was looking for your captain, have you seen her?”
Gill smiled wide as he stepped out from behind the pilot. “Oh yeah, she’s in Lyz’s bunk, don’t worry, she’ll be occupied for a while. You know how girls can be.” He flapped his thumb and fingers together. “Yak, yak, yak.”
“As if we’re any better.” Mopeña rolled his eyes at Gill before turning back. “She’s why we’re here, Broseph. Think it’s time someone talked about you and her.”
Osiris’ eyes narrowed, “If you’re worried that I’m going to try to take over, you shouldn’t be.”
Laughing, Mopeña tossed an arm over Si’s shoulder. “Are you always so businesslike and to the point? ‘Siris needs to chill out.”
“So this isn’t about me taking over the ship?”
“Shit, we don’t care if you two are having a pissing match… that actually might be fun to watch.” Mopeña waggled his eyebrows as his face split with a too white grin.
“Stuff it Willy.” Gill said from Si’s other side, moving to walk beside them. “Here’s the thing, Dani’s our girl. We love her like a little sister.”
“I don’t love her like I love your little sister,” Mopeña joked, throwing an elbow toward the engineer’s ribs and missing as the man deftly stepped out of his way.
“That’s something we’ll get around to later. When we have the proper room for me to knock your teeth out.” Gill turned back to Si, “But like I was saying, she’s our girl. We don’t want anyone doing anything to hurt her.”
“Have you had this discussion with Stugg?” Si thought about the gangly engineer Gill worked with so closely, he couldn’t be oblivious to the kid’s crush.
“Nah, I’ll just beat the crap out of him when he gets too intense.” Willy said, flexing his fist. “There’s no chance she’ll take his attentions seriously.”
Gill nodded beside him. “Besides, she’s never looked at Stugg the way she looks at you.”
Si thought back to the look Dani gave him most often. “Like she’d like to murder me?”
