For the past few months, she had become increasingly aware that Zodo had not just merely crossed over the boundaries of acceptable corruption, they had left those boundaries far behind. All large organizational structures were corrupt to a certain extent. Saeliko knew this. It was less a problem with bureaucracies than with human nature. You put people in positions of power, and they’ll find ways to abuse that power for the good of themselves and their inner circle of friends and family members. Department heads will tip the balances in hiring committees to see a relative get recruited. Resource managers will dish out construction contracts to firms owned by a high school chum. Heck, the guy manning the cafeteria counter will put a free chocolate macaroon on a cute girl’s tray in the hopes of a blush and a smile. All companies tolerated such abuses of power because trying to quash them outright was like kicking water uphill; probably a waste of time.
If that were the depth and breadth of Zodo’s malfeasance, Eliska would have happily towed the company line and worn the corporate logo on her lab coat with a sense of pride and accomplishment. If only.
A year ago, after her most recent promotion in Zodo’s Science Division, Eliska had started attending high-level policy meetings with various division heads and, from time to time, the QM. Most of it was routine. Procedural. Mundane. Virtual snooze-fests. But some of it offered glimpses into the sordidness that went on behind the curtains of the interplanetary corporation. Occasional winks and elbow nudges. A few kickbacks here. Some outright fraud there. The more Eliska familiarized herself with the upper echelons of corporate power, the more she realized how commonplace it was for Zodo to blatantly disregard the rules and regulations that were intended to keep the corporation (and all other interplanetary corporations) in check.
She detested the infractions, each and every one, but she also understood why they were happening. To borrow a phrase from political science, the connected planets collectively existed in an anarchic environment. Here, anarchy referred not to utter chaos – for there were social norms the corporations operated under – but to the absence of a true governing power. In simpler terms, Zodo no longer had to answer to anyone. They weren’t accountable.
Of course, it didn’t start out that way. Zodo and its competitors all started as VGCP One entities, and they were bound by VGCP One corporate law. VGCP One governments not only had unified extensive legal frameworks in place to prevent corporations from running amok across the seventeen worlds, they also had small armies of investigators and compliance officers hopping from world to world to make sure those frameworks were being adhered to.
Technically, the investigators and officers were still present. MOAC, ARCOB and all Zodo’s other bases had one or two rooms on the administrative floors reserved for compliance personnel, but the actual work being carried out by these lonely individuals had become something of a running joke. They had no one to report to; VGCP One had been cut off for more than two decades. Two long decades. When a compliance officer uncovered an infraction, protocol demanded he submit the details to the authorities back on the home planet, and those authorities would distribute the appropriate punishment. That couldn’t happen anymore, so the most they could do was to request Zodo to punish itself, or at the very least, stop breaking the rules. As years went by and it became more and more apparent that VGCP One might never reconnect to the multiverse, Zodo felt more and more comfortable telling the compliance officers to go stuff themselves.
At the same time, Zodo gradually became more brazen in its immoral conduct. Replenishing its own ranks with local populations was just the beginning, and possibly even justifiable if the corporation was only selecting poor souls who otherwise would have died in conflicts, plagues or the like. However, Zodo’s more recent interactions with local populations were far from justifiable. When the QMs saw opportunities to increase Zodo’s power, either absolutely or relative to its competitors, there was almost nothing they wouldn’t do.
In the past five years, just here on VGCP Sixteen, Zodo had financed armies in two civil wars and one inter-state war to secure access to resources, carried out an assassination to destabilize a region that a competitor was operating in, revealed the identity of the verse gates to two VGCP Sixteen governments, leaked the identity of operatives from competing corporations that had managed to infiltrate those governments and, perhaps most shockingly, started a narcotics cartel to raise additional funds.
Zodo did all this in the name of self-preservation and progress. QM Brennov called it moral disengagement for a moral future. He argued that Zodo had to use whatever means necessary to become the dominant organization across the multiverse. Only then could it establish a utopian interplanetary human civilization.
Eliska called it hogwash. This was power seeking more power.
About six months prior to her big promotion, Eliska had received an encrypted message from an anonymous sender. The mystery individual knew everything about her and wasn’t shy with details. More than that, he was clearly keeping tabs on Zodo’s inner workings, including both civilian and military activities. At first, Eliska had wondered if it were a test. She considered reporting the messages to Zodo security. That would have been the right thing to do.
But something had told her that it wouldn’t have been the right thing to do. Zodo weren’t the good guys. She was on the wrong team. Sure, she wasn’t directly responsible for Zodo’s more heinous crimes. She was a scientist working in a lab, not a scheming politician. And yet, her inaction was an action in and of itself. She wasn’t standing up for what’s right.
Still, she had hesitated. Days turned to weeks, and weeks turned to months. The messages continued to appear in her inbox, sometimes once a week, sometimes more. Often, she ignored them. Occasionally, she replied asking him to identify himself.
The sender called himself Mr. Toad. It was a strange name, to be sure, but rather fitting all the same. The common toad was one of several species that were found in all seventeen worlds, essentially without genetic differentiation. By naming himself after a ubiquitous amphibian, he was reiterating his anonymity.
Mr. Toad wanted to flip her, to turn her, to make her a spy. He appealed to her sense of justice and preference for moral righteousness. He provided her with top secret Zodo documents detailing the depths of perversion that the QMs had succumbed to in their respective quadrants. He gave accounts of particular Zodo military units that functioned as death squads, taking out strategic targets with little to no oversight. He even offered financial data that reflected Zodo’s gradual shift from a purely civilian entity into a ‘war machine’ – Mr. Toad’s words, not hers.
And still, she hesitated.
Then Mr. Toad sent her one little document that tipped her over the edge. Later, when she had time to reflect on her life choices, she was ashamed of herself. Prior to that single communique, Mr. Toad had given her dozens of legitimate reasons to do the right thing, and she had equivocated. Then he sent her personal file, and she grew sick to the stomach.
It wasn’t her standard employee profile; it was her classified file. How he had gotten hold of it, she had no idea. After reading it, she understood why he wanted her to see it.
When Eliska was old enough to know that she was an orphan, she asked why. Her caretakers, with warm smiles and gentle voices, had explained to her that she had been rescued from a plague that had swept across an impoverished, war-torn region on Dremmos. She had been the last survivor of her village. Zodo had saved her life. Zodo was her mother and father now.
Mr. Toad showed her the lie. The file was an incident report. It documented a Zodo raid on a small farming town. It didn’t offer the motives for the attack, but rather listed the facts as they were recorded. Seventy-three adults killed by gunfire, forty male and thirty-three female. Twenty-two more adults killed by explosives, ten male and twelve female. Seventeen children found and transported to the nearest Zodo facility for processing. One of them, a two-year-old girl, was named Eliska Tannishoy.
Zodo ha
dn’t saved Eliska’s life from a drought. Zodo had murdered her parents and kidnapped her, and probably for no other reason than to increase profits or influence planetary politics.
After crying her eyes out the whole night through and calling in sick the next day, Eliska had responded to Mr. Toad. She would do whatever he asked.
She hadn’t imagined at the time that he would ask her to hijack a Kye-shiv.
In all honesty, she wasn’t doing the heavy lifting anyway. Dallas and Soup had everything under control. In fact, they looked as comfortable as she had ever seen them, and she had to remind herself that this was what they were trained for. They were soldiers, and they had been given orders to carry out. This was their comfort zone.
Not Eliska. Beneath what she hoped was a calm demeanor, she was terrified. She kept imagining that she was flying into a trap, that Zodo shock troops would be waiting at the landing site, ready to put her in prison for life. She tried to push these thoughts away by focusing on the here and now. She watched the pilot and co-pilot navigate the landscape. She paid attention to the speed and altitude information displayed on the HUD. She watched for any signs that they might be planning to fly anywhere other than the given coordinates. She studied Dallas’ calm expression and tried to replicate it.
“Stop rubbing your fingers together,” Saeliko said quietly.
Eliska turned to stare at the Saffisheen, unsure of what she was talking about. It was only after a few seconds that she realized that she was rubbing her thumb, forefinger and index finger rapidly over and over. She willed herself to stop. She watched her fingers go still and then looked back at Saeliko, who nodded ever so slightly.
“You’re in control. Take a deep breath and relax.”
“I don’t think I’m going to relax for a very long time,” Eliska said, shaking her head.
Saeliko smiled and released the air out of her nose. “You’ll be fine.”
“I’m far from fine.” The gravity of what she was doing began to weigh against what little composure she had. This wasn’t supposed to be her life. She was supposed to be analyzing data on her computer and writing academic papers, not . . . whatever this was.
“Sit down.” The Saffisheen tilted her head to an adjacent chair.
Eliska exhaled slowly and said, “Yeah, maybe that’s a good idea.” She planted herself in the seat and looked over to make sure that Dallas and Soup were okay. Not seeing any problems, she placed her elbows on her knees and her head in her hands. She closed her eyes and rubbed her temples, wishing that she was at home in bed, as if it were all a bad dream. Her hands pressed against her skull and moved in small, tight circles.
“Stop being melodramatic,” Saeliko commanded, though her tone was placid rather than confrontational. “Lift your head up. Moping and feeling sorry for yourself won’t do you any good.”
“Sorry.”
“Stop apologizing. I told you already. It’s annoying.”
“Okay, okay.” Eliska straightened her back and folded her arms over her midsection. “I’m just having trouble dealing with all this.”
“With what?”
“This!” She gestured toward the cockpit and the rifle-wielding Marines. “I stole a Kye-shiv. I’m a master criminal now. A fugitive from the law.”
“Way too melodramatic.”
“I’m not like you. I’m not like them, either.” She pointed at the Marines. “I don’t have the stomach for this kind of stuff.”
“Yes you do.”
“I’m a scientist.”
“Not right now, you’re not.”
“I feel like I’m going to throw up.
“That’s because you’re overthinking things. You’re making this way harder than it needs to be.”
“This seems like a situation where I should overthink things. I’m taking a huge amount of risk here.”
“Can I give you some advice?”
Eliska laughed. “God, yes.” Saeliko smiled again, which Eliska found oddly comforting. It was if a little of the Saffisheen’s calmness was rubbing off on her. Again, the doctor was struck by just how in control Saeliko appeared despite her frankly inconceivable predicament. The woman was a prisoner on a planet that until recently she hadn’t known even existed.
“Look,” Saeliko started, “it all comes down to two rules and one law. If you’ve got those sorted out, you don’t have to worry about anything else.”
Eliska looked into Saeliko’s green eyes, more than a little puzzled. “Two rules?”
“Two rules, one law.”
“Okay, I’ll bite. What’s the first rule?”
“Do the right thing.”
“Really?”
“That’s it.
“You mean, morally?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Do the right thing?”
“That’s right. You need to ask yourself, ‘Am I doing the right thing here?’ If your actions are backed by righteousness, you’re in the clear. If you’re acting purely out of greed or maliciousness, or if you’re following the orders of a leader who’s morally corrupt, you need to stop doing whatever it is that you’re doing.”
“That’s a little hypocritical, coming from a pirate, don’t you think?”
“That comment shows how ignorant you are of what it means to be a pirate. I understand your ignorance, so I won’t hold it against you, but you know nothing of the women of the Sollian who sail under the red flag. You don’t know the unjustness and inequality that they faced before becoming pirates. You don’t know what it’s like to be raised in a world where no matter how smart you are or how hard you work, your position in life is already set out for you by greedy politicians and despotic empresses born with silver spoons in their mouths. Make no mistake, when I raised the red on the Epoch, I had righteousness on my side. I was making a better life for my sisters.”
“And increasing your own power at the same time.”
Saeliko shrugged. “If doing the right thing coincides with improving your own lot in life, all the better.”
“Fine, so I need to be doing the right thing.”
“Are you?”
“Huh?”
“Right now,” Saeliko said. “Stealing this ship. Are your actions morally right?”
Eliska only paused a moment before answering, “Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because the company I work for has done some very bad things, and it is planning to keep doing bad things in the future.”
“And what about your actions?”
“My actions will hopefully stop them from doing some bad things.”
“Good. I told you it was simple.”
Eliska nodded. “What’s rule number two?”
“Don’t be stupid. Whatever it is that you’re planning, you have to ask yourself, ‘Am I being stupid?’ If you’re thinking rashly or implementing a plan without carefully considering the consequences of your actions, then you are being stupid, and you’re going to get yourself killed. Worse, you’ll get people killed who don’t deserve to be killed.” Saeliko paused and gave the doctor a long, meaningful look. “So, Eliska, tell me. Are you being stupid?”
“No, I don’t think so.”
“It’s not a ‘don’t think so’ situation. Either you are or you aren’t. Are you being stupid?”
“No, I’m not. It’s a good plan, and I’m not going to get anyone killed. The opposite, I think. I might save lives.”
“Good. That’s it then.”
“What about the one law?”
Saeliko cocked her head to the side and said, “Nothing goes the way you want it to. Doesn’t matter how careful you are or how brilliant your schemes might seem. Intelligent planning is one thing, applying those plans is something else entirely.”
Eliska let that sink in. She understood Saeliko’s warning, and it was something that Eliska had experienced countless times in the laboratory. There was a logical, methodical process in designing experiments. Data were collected, hypotheses were drawn and v
ariables were controlled for. It was always a source of amusement, albeit confused amusement, when the results ended up being ludicrously far from expectations. Scientists didn’t mind those moments. Many great inventions had started from one simple statement: ‘Huh, that’s weird.’
That was in the lab, though. This was life outside the confines of scientific facilities. Eliska was a newbie in the world of grand theft Kye-shiv, but she had the distinct impression that when the results were far from expectations, people got killed.
“I don’t like that law,” she stated, almost under her breath.
“I do,” Saeliko returned. “That’s where the challenge lies. Forces you to adapt and become stronger. Forces you to not take things for granted. Forces you to realize that when things go sideways in a hurry, disappointment is futile. Forces you to adapt and keep moving forward.”
Eliska thought about that for a while, too. She searched for meaning beneath Saeliko’s words. In a way, the Saffisheen was betraying her own callousness in asserting that everyone should expect plans to go awry. It was a method of justifying her own violent behavior. She was convincing herself that even though her intentions were good from the beginning, fate had thrown unforeseen obstacles in her way, so it was okay to bash people’s heads in.
But she was betraying something else as well. Saeliko wasn’t just hinting that Eliska’s plans weren’t foolproof no matter how well thought out; she was also alluding to her own plans. The Saffisheen’s grab for power in her own world had been thwarted first by a knife to the chest. Then she woke up in a different universe, in restraints. Those were gigantic twists of fate, to be sure, but they hadn’t forced Saeliko to throw in the towel. She was scheming again.
“It occurs to me that that’s what you’re doing, isn’t it? Adapting and moving forward.”
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