by Kelly Curtis
“Aye, Captain,” Christopher replied evenly. He did not think they were going to find anything more than some low level pirates on this ship. Not much worth taking for themselves and only a lot of paperwork to be done afterwards. “Should we put a wager on this?” he said quietly only to Alma as they left the bridge.
“Sure. If this is the Dante, you owe me dinner at Antoine’s when we get back.”
“Done. And if it’s not the Dante?”
“It’s the Dante, but I want to know why the Admiral wants them dead and destroyed before I do it,” she said walking towards the armory confidently. She was sure this was the Dante, it just all fit together too neatly for them not to be. She planned to board it, confirm it and then destroy it and its crew. Mission accomplished by cocktail hour.
Once Squad A was assembled at the hatch that would allow them to board with other ships, they docked with the Dante.
Alma was ready to lead the party on board, her gun at the ready. As Captain, she felt it was her duty to always lead her teams. She would tell people it was because she believed that if she wasn’t willing to do it herself, how could she ask one of her crew to do it. But, the truth was she loved the adrenaline rush of being the first to walk into potential danger.
Alma pounded on the spaceship’s hatch door a few times.
No movement of any kind could be heard from inside the other ship.
A couple of minutes passed. All Alma could hear in the silence was the hum of the ships and the sound of her crew’s breathing in anticipation.
Alma looked back and commanded Squad A, composed of five armed men and two women, to open the door with force. Once the door was open, Alma resumed the lead and slowly entered the other ship, followed closely by her team, “This is Captain Johnson, please come out for a routine inspection. We’d like to talk to you,” she said loudly as they continued to move in. Her voice echoed on the hard walls of the ship’s corridor.
Within seconds of her finishing her sentence, Alma and her team were ambushed by armed men from an adjoining passageway. Then the lights went out. There were shots in the dark. Alma herself shot at an assailant trying to strangle her, “Get those lights back on,” Alma yelled.
Finally, red security lights came flashing on.
She and her team killed some of their assailants but she lost one man too. Alma just ignored that for the time being and grabbed an old and dirty man by the neck with her knife near his throat, “Who’s in charge here? You?” Alma’s adrenaline was pumping and her heart was beating so loudly she could hear it in her ears.
The man opened his mouth, and said shakily, “No, you killed him already.” He indicated to a dead man at their feet. A shot through his chest.
Alma cut the old and dirty man’s cheek and he screamed.
“Are you lying?” she asked, as she watched his warm blood flow onto her hand.
The old man moaned in her grip and tried to use his other hand to stop the blood, but screamed again when his dirty fingers touch the open wound.
“I wouldn’t recommend putting your filthy hand in that,” commented Alma. Then she addressed the other men, now unarmed and being held at gunpoint by Squad A, “I’ve not got much patience. Who’s really in charge here?”
“No one. We are all equals,” one younger, dirty man said while wiping the blood back into his brown hair.
“Real pirates, then,” Christopher said sarcastically.
“Fine,” said Alma not letting go of the old man and shaking him a little for effect. Some of his blood splattered onto the faces of those nearby, “Then, you all tell me the name of your ship. The real name.”
No one answered her.
“Should I cut this old man into pieces while you all watch? “Alma asked. “Maybe, I chose the wrong man and you all hate this guy anyway?”
There is some muttering among the enemy crew.
Alma nodded to Christopher.
Christopher grabbed a young man he saw muttering. He was trembling, young and an easy target, “What did you say boy?”
The young man, looked to be about 18 years old, not a day older. Christopher took out his knife and held it up to his face, “We can make you pretty too.”
The young man instinctually backed away, just a few inches into the wall, and shook his head, “All I said,” he stammered, “W-w-was that I told him it was Alma J-J-Johnson, ‘the Little Lioness’.”
All of the Indy crew laughed at his comment. Alma had the nickname as the Little Lioness because she was not afraid to get into a fight and come out with some blood on her face. Apparently, some of her former crewmates thought she looked like a hunting lion when she returned from a fight.
Alma didn’t particularly like the nickname, but she didn’t care, if it got them to tell her who they were and more importantly, maybe a clue as to why the Admiral wanted them destroyed if they were indeed the Dante, “Who are you?”
Christopher took the young man roughly in hand and began to cut the tip of his ear.
It was enough.
“We’re really the Dante. The Explorer is just an ID we use sometimes. One of many. We don’t have any cargo. It’s just us. Please, please sir, don’t cut my ear.”
Christopher didn’t remove his knife, but he paused.
“We’re the Explorer,” the old man in Alma’s grip protested, “don’t listen to the boy, he’s fanciful and lies all the time. He was dropped on his head as a baby.”
Alma kicked him as well as she could given their closeness, “I’m not an idiot, you know,” she said sarcastically. “I want to hear ‘ayes’ or ‘nays’ to this being true or the young man loses an ear and we all know the fake ones really don’t work as well as the real things, nor are they attractive.”
No one spoke.
Alma nodded to Christopher and he began to slice down.
The young man screamed an ear shattering scream as only young men can do and the old man in Alma’s bloody grip shouted, “Aye!”
The rest of the Dante shouted “Aye!”
Christopher stopped, but didn’t let go of the young man who was crying now, begging to be let go.
“Good, we are getting somewhere. Now, tell me what you are doing. Where is your cargo?”
The young man spoke again, this time Christopher was playing with the point of his knife in front of the boy’s frightened eyes, “Not my eyes, please sir, not my eyes.”
“Someone tell me where your cargo is or the boy will lose an eye maybe two.”
No one spoke but the young man began to wail.
“Come on now,” Alma said and then looked at him, “Boy, tell me where is your cargo? You’ve got some nice eyes I’m sure you want to keep those too.”
“W-W-We had a rendezvous with a ship and they took it.”
All the men tried to hush him.
Christopher took the young man’s head strongly in his grip and put the knife so close it cut some of his eyelashes, “What was the cargo?”
“Don’t you answer boy, if you lose your eyes, then so be it,” said another man.
“No,” screamed the young man. “ W-W-We didn’t know what it was. It was guarded at all times by a group of old men.”
Alma shook her head and tsked, “What kind of idiots are you? You transported cargo that you didn’t know what was in it?”
The boy screamed as Christopher cut the top of an eyelid, “Y-Y-Yes sir, ma’am, the-they paid us well kind of idiots.”
“In UCs?”
“Y-Yes,” said the young man through frightened tears, “we all got a handsome cut.”
“Who were these people? Humans? Were they a part of the twelve?”
“I think so, humans from Earth,” tears were running down the young man's cheeks still fearing for his eyes and at the betrayal to his crew. He wished he could be braver. He began to sob that he wasn’t brave and to say he was sorry.
Alma looked at the young man and wondered if she could take him with her. He didn’t deserve to die. But then she reminded
herself orders were orders and got back on track. Nothing so far was that extraordinary though, except carrying unknown cargo, but that could have been anything.
“What was the name of the ship you rendezvoused with?”
“The Yomi,” another man said as the young man could no longer speak consumed with tears. “I’d never heard of them before and they were an odd bunch, just like the old men. They paid us well to make a short trip from Titan twice. We scanned the cargo both times with proper scanners and there was nothing out of the ordinary or dangerous so we agreed.”
“The crew of the Yomi, were they out of the ordinary in anyway?” Alma asked the man.
“They were rich,” he answered.
“When did you do this?”
“February and then just a six hours ago.”
Alma shoved the old man in her grip and he groaned, “I think we should all go on a little trip to your cargo bay and check this out.”
The old man started walking as did everyone else slowly to their cargo bay.
“Stay alert everyone, we don’t know how many more there might be,” Alma said remembering that they were masking their life signs.
When they reached the large cargo bay it was mostly empty.
Alma thought about all of this and couldn’t put the pieces together to make heads or tails of this. She turned to Christopher, “What are scans showing?”
Christopher walked around the cargo bay with Afia’s new scanner, “Not much. Some trace levels of neutron.”
“Radiation?” Alma asked, that was odd.
She looked at the crew of the Dante, “For the last time what were you transporting?”
“We don’t know and we didn’t pick up any radiation. I think your equipment is faulty,” the old man spit out at her.
Alma knew she could hurt the young man and they would talk but she decided it wasn’t worth it. “There must be something else. I’ll stay here.” She looked at two men from Squad A, “Erik and John stay with me. We’ll guard the crew. The rest of you search the ship. This isn’t right.”
Christopher left the cargo bay with the rest of Squad A.
Alma and two of her men held the rest of the Dante’s crew in the corner of the cargo bay at gunpoint. “Is there anything else you’d like to tell me now? If you admit guilt, I’m likely to go easier on you.”
The old man just spit on the floor, wincing afterwards from the cut on his cheek.
They waited silently. All that could be heard was some random sounds of muffled footsteps and talking.
Twenty minutes passed and then Christopher returned, breathless and with more blood on his uniform, “Captain, we found women and children all huddled in a hiding place with a lot of Jukoio. They attacked us if you can believe it? Jukoio was a banned narcotic in the JC. It was innocent enough for the rest of the galaxy but had ecstasy like effects on humans.
“Drug smugglers and human traffickers,” Alma said accusatorily to the Dante’s crew.
“And there were two cats, maybe more. I only saw two before they ran off,” added Christopher.
“We weren’t trafficking them. They’re our family.”
“I highly doubt that,” Alma replied. “I only see pirates who have suspiciously nothing in their hold, but have women, children, pets and Jukoio onboard.”
Alma wondered, Why does the Admiral want them dead? They’re criminals to be sure, but nothing they have done warrants death or even worse, the loss of a valuable ship.
“There’s something else,” Christopher said to Alma but she didn’t take her eyes off the crew as they continued to try to explain their situation to her and her crew. “They’ve weapons and forbidden technology. They even have a sophisticated AI lifeform on the bridge. I disabled it.” Christopher also stepped closer to Alma and whispered in her ear, “And this is the Dante. The AI lifeform confirmed it before I disabled it. All their other data had been wiped before we boarded them. I guess that is what took them so long to answer the door.”
“Fine. Squad A, round up the crew and put them in the brig on the Indy. Take the women and children to the conference room and guard them. We’ll take them all back to Titan.” Alma dismissed Christopher’s surprised look with her hand, “Do it.”
“And our ship?” the bleeding old man asked.
Alma didn’t answer the old man. She knew as well as he did what she and her crew were going to do the Dante.
Chapter 6
June 16th 2635, The Joint Confederacy Military Headquarters, Atlanta, Georgia, North America
“What the hell were you thinking, Alma?” Admiral Jackson asked Alma rhetorically inside her office at JC Command in Atlanta. “Those were direct orders and you lost a man because you didn’t follow them. And on your first mission too. What was going through that head of yours?”
“There were innocent women and children on that ship,” Alma defended herself. “I questioned the crew and I didn’t find that it was necessary to kill them or to destroy a perfectly good ship.” She didn’t add, ‘And my crew probably agreed with me, which is important as the Indy has an unwritten history of a mutiny.’
Shana looked at Alma and slammed her hand against her desk, “You don’t disobey direct orders from me. You knew what you had to do. You knew that was the price of the captain’s chair.”
“And you knew that they travel with their families didn’t you? And still you wanted them dead. Was this a test to see if I would kill innocent children?”
“Those people. All those people that were on the Dante are outside the twelve. They have no place in the JC and do not deserve your consideration. And more to the point, it’s not your place to question me.”
“When I saw the women and children I assumed they were trafficked. When I discovered they were the crew’s family, I thought you must be mistaken wanting the ship destroyed. Tell me what they did to warrant such a devastating attack from us. I’ve considered this from every angle and it doesn’t make sense.”
“As I said before, and listen this time, the crew of the Dante and their families aren’t a part of the twelve. We don’t have the resources to save everyone. You, of all people, know that,” she pointed at Alma harshly, “You should have followed orders.”
“I don’t kill innocent children without good cause.”
Shana shook her head, “It wasn’t your decision to make, it was mine. It was your job to carry out orders, no matter what.”
“Are you demoting me?”
Shana didn’t answer for a couple of minutes, she and Alma just sat in her office in an awkward silence and then said, “No, you know I’m not. You’re too valuable to me. This was obviously too much to ask of you on your first mission. Your second mission will be a lot more straight-forward with no moral complications.”
Alma nodded.
“Mars One needs supplies. They are trying to build up the station and make it more important on the trade routes. Pick up the supplies and ferry them over. I assume you can manage that?”
“Yes ma’am.”
“Don’t ma’am me. I’m in no mood.”
“I’m not sorry.”
“I know you’re not sorry,” Shana said solemnly. One of the reasons she chose Alma as her protégé was because she didn’t follow anyone blindly and she did have a strong moral compass. However, she hadn’t imagined that Alma would have boarded the Dante to try and discern why they would receive such a harsh punishment. Shana had imagined that they would have easily crossed paths on the main trade routes and it would have been over in minutes.
“You can’t tell me you really don’t care about those innocent children?” Alma asked. She couldn’t believe that the Admiral would be so callous.
Shana waved a hand dismissively, “It’s not just that. It’s what the Dante did. I wanted to send a message to other pirates that there is a limit to what the JC will tolerate.”
“You don’t think my actions sent that message?”
“No, you sent the message, ‘MACs for everyone
as usual!’ Alma, come on, I know you aren’t this stupid. What is the one thing that frightens us all? That threatens our way of life?”
“Terra Nova.”
“Exactly. They were working with Terra Nova.”
“Then why hasn’t the ship they rendezvoused, the Yomi, been tracked and taken?”
“Because we don’t know who they are. Did you really think that was their real name? Now, what did you salvage from the Dante? I want my cut sent to me and then the points to the incentive program will be added to the Indy, not before.”
“How many points will we receive?”
“How much is my cut?”
“Fifty UCs,” replied Alma.
“More. I know there was Jukoio on that ship.”
“Seventy five.”
“Good,” she replied evenly and then said sarcastically, “Look at that, the Indy is topping the rankings of the incentive program.”
“Good,” said Alma.
“You’ve had your one mess up for the year. I need you Alma.” She hit her hand against her desk in rhythm with her words, “Always follow orders.”
“I will.”
“I don’t care if it’s an orphanage of human children out there, if they are outside the twelve and I say destroy the ship, you do it.”
“Understood Admiral.”
“Go celebrate Midsummer now. I heard you are going to Cameron Macondo’s party,” Shana said nonchalantly. After religion was abandoned along with technology, the government emphasized holidays that would support humanity’s harmony with nature.
“Yes, he comes into Scott’s restaurant frequently and so they know each other.” Cameron Macondo was a popular actor for the Drama Guild in Mexico City.
“I hear there’s going to be a lot of important people there. Macondo likes to swim with people with real power, watch yourself.”
“Are you going?” Alma asked.
“No.”
“Then there won’t be anyone with real power over me there. I’ll be fine. Have a good Midsummer.”
June 16th 2635, The Regional Chicago Joint Confederacy Administration, Chicago, Illinois North America
