Novum: Rubicon: (Book 3)

by Joseph Rhea

  “In other words,” Steele interrupted, “we will find out what happened to your ship, even if you can’t remember.”

  “We’re ready to go again,” a voice said from overhead.

  “Very well,” Steele said. “He’s all yours, Doctor.”

  Jake felt the bed rotate backwards as something cold touched his neck. The doctor’s face looked down at him as he began to fade away. “Just relax, Jake. Let the memories come. Let the…”

  Chapter 05

  “What the bilge is going on?” Jake yelled as he climbed the stairs to the bridge, his ears plugged by his index fingers in a futile attempt to block the loud static blasting from the overhead speakers. He had just completed a grueling workout: a combination of lifting makeshift weights in the diver locker, followed by a jog around the C-deck, and he was in no mood for games.

  “Isn’t it beautiful?” Jessie replied from her acoustics console. When he shook his head, fingers still protruding from his ears, she frowned and tapped something on her dashboard.

  The sound stopped abruptly, but when he uncovered his ears, he could still hear a distant ringing. He wasn’t sure whether it was coming from the speakers or just an aftereffect of the assault on his eardrums. “What in the sea are you listening to?” he asked.

  “Music,” Jessie said and then leaned her head back and closed her eyes, head swaying back and forth to some unknown rhythm.

  “You call that music?” he asked, trying to sound calm. It was the eleventh day of their trip, and the thought of one of his crew going crazy so soon was more than a little disconcerting. “Where’s AJ or Vee? Why are you on the bridge alone?”

  She nodded, her eyes still closed. He was about to ask again when someone poked him in the back. Startled, he pivoted around so fast he nearly hit Vee in the face with his right hand.

  “Sorry, Captain,” she snickered. “I thought you were Ash.”

  “Did you tell the others?” Jessie asked as Vee walked past.

  Vee sat down at her helm station without answering. “What’s the frequency?” she asked as she put her own headphones on.

  “Everybody stop,” Jake said, his hands raised in frustration. “Will someone tell me what’s going on?” He looked at Jessie. “You’re not pinging those things out there again, are you?”

  Jessie shook her head and pointed to her headphones.

  “What are you listening to?” he asked.

  She stared at him for a moment, her face drooping slightly. “The last sounds we’re ever going to hear,” she finally said. “From home.”

  Jake stood there a moment, letting her words sink in. Then he turned and picked up the headphones on the engineering console. “I want to hear it,” he said.

  Jessie raised her hands. “I think I can clean it up enough to put on the overheads.” The static blasted from the speakers again, but before Jake could cover his ears, it faded away, and a sound almost forgotten filled the room. Music.

  “Where’s it coming from,” Ash asked as he came up the stairs.

  “I don’t know,” Jessie admitted. “I was skimming the channels because, you know, there’s not much else to do, and I just picked it up.”

  “Can you clean it up a little more?” Vee’s grandfather, Norman Raines, asked as he rose up the stairwell next, followed by AJ.

  “Did I miss anything?” AJ asked as she walked past Jake and sat down on the chart table.

  “Only a few minutes,” Jessie said. “Where are the others? They will want to hear this too.”

  “I’m here,” a small voice whispered from the bottom of the stairwell. Jake looked down and saw Jane sitting in her usual fetal position on the bottom step. She had been keeping to herself since their brief conversation in the rec room.

  “You know you can come up to the bridge,” he offered.

  “I’m fine here,” she replied as she wrapped her arms tightly around her legs. He was tempted to go down and sit with her, but then Dr. Wood appeared around the corner of the galley and looked up at him.

  “Is it someone’s birthday?” he asked dryly. “I forgot to buy a gift.” He snapped his fingers. “Oh, that’s right. I can’t buy a gift because the nearest speck of civilization is over seventeen hundred kilometers behind us.” Before Jake could think of a clever reply, Wood turned and headed down the lower set of stairs to C-deck.

  Jake started to turn away when Jane looked up at him and whispered, “He’s afraid.”

  Jake took a slow breath as he thought of a response. We’re all afraid? Is that what he wanted to say to her? Did any of his crew need to hear that particular admission from their captain?

  Before he could actually say anything, however, Jane stood and jogged up the stairs to him. “I think I’ll join you after all,” she said then ran over and jumped up onto the chart table next to AJ.

  By then, Jessie had managed to clean up the audio and a distinct melody from his childhood filled the bridge. The sky could fall, everything could fade away, but in twenty years I’ll still want you. In twenty years I’ll still want you…

  “I know that song,” he said.

  Raines nodded his head. “Impressive, Captain. I didn’t realize that you listened to Pre-Fall music. Not many people have access to it these days.”

  “My parents were food growers in Capitol City,” he said. “One of the city elders used to secretly loan them music tabs in exchange for extra rations.” He smiled at the memory. “That song was my mother’s favorite. She used to sing it to me when I was feeling down.”

  “It’s nice,” Vee said, “but I prefer music without words, like that guy, Beethoven, made.”

  “Beet-hoven,” Ash repeated. “That’s a funny name. What did his ancestors do for a living? Farm beets?”

  “It’s a Pre-Fall name, idiot,” Vee snickered. “They didn’t pick family names based on what they did for a living back then.”

  “Actually, in this case, Ash is correct,” her grandfather said. “Beethoven is a name derived from beet farming.”

  Ash sat down on his navigation console and poked a finger at Vee. “Who’s the idiot now?”

  She swatted it away. “So, where’s it coming from?” she asked. “The music. We’re so far away from home.”

  “Did you say that this song was your mother’s favorite?” Raines asked Jake. “Quite a coincidence, wouldn’t you say?”

  It took a second for Jake to figure out what the engineer was asking. “You think it’s coming from the Scimitar? You think Steele’s trying to call us back? Call me back?”

  “Makes sense,” AJ added as she jumped down from the chart table and walked over to Jessie’s console. “Captain Steele’s had plenty of time to study your past.” She looked around the bridge. “Study all of us.”

  “Shut it off,” Jake ordered.

  “What?” Jessie asked, her face turning pale. “Why?”

  “Because we are being manipulated. Because I won’t be manipulated by that person.”

  “But it’s just music,” Jessie pleaded, “and it’s been so long since I’ve heard music.” Jake could see tears welling up in her eyes.

  “Captain’s right,” AJ said. “Shut it off.”

  “Doesn’t matter,” Jane whispered. “It’s going away by itself.” As she spoke the words, the music began to crackle and static slowly replaced it.

  “We’re losing it,” Jessie sobbed.

  Within a few seconds, only silence filled the air. Jake could feel the sense of loss in the room. It hung there like an invisible sore. If this was Steele’s plan, she had succeeded.

  “All right,” AJ said. “The party’s over. Let’s all get back to our duties.”

  Jake turned to leave when Jessie asked, “How much longer, Captain?”

  He stopped and turned to her. “How much longer till what?”

  She lowered her gaze. “You know.”

  “You mean Rubicon?” Jake asked.

  “Our point of no return is tomorrow at about noon,” AJ said sternly. �
�You know that, Jessie. Everyone knows that.”

  “But if we had just held onto the reactor a few more days, we could…”

  “We dropped the reactor when we had to,” Raines corrected. “It was becoming quite unstable. Even another few hours might have been disastrous for us.”

  “But once we pass Rubicon,” she said, “we can’t change our minds and go home.”

  “We don’t have a home to go back to,” Jake said. “Just a jail cell.” He could see the fear building in his crew and realized that if he didn’t stop it now, the situation would only deteriorate. Crews had mutinied for less. “I guess it’s time for a meeting,” he said as he turned and headed back down the stairs. “Let’s talk after dinner. Eighteen hundred in the galley.”

  Chapter 06

  After showering, Jake stepped out of his quarters and saw the entire crew sitting at the table, all eyes locked on him. “We still have another three hours,” he said as he walked over and grabbed his favorite cup off the shelf on the back wall then made his way to the coffee pot. It was empty of course. Old habits die hard.

  “We’re just eating dinner early,” Vee said.

  Ash pushed a soggy, half-eaten corn muffin across his plate with a fork. “If you can call this dinner,” he muttered.

  “You can make breakfast for everyone in the morning,” Raines said as he picked up his own plate and walked into the galley.

  “He didn’t mean anything,” Vee said.

  “Yes, I did,” Ash said, pushing his plate away from him. “I’m sick to death of corn mush for every meal.”

  “Do you have some other food source hidden away in your quarters?” AJ asked, leaning in her chair towards him. Her face said she was about to smack him. “If so, we would all love for you to share it with us.”

  Jake put his empty cup on the table between them. He would have preferred to eat something before getting into this, but like Ash, he was pretty tired of corn muffins. “Do I really need to remind you all what is at stake here? What’s happening tomorrow?”

  “We’re going to be making a decision that could very well end all of our lives,” Dr. Wood said from the stairway. “I think we all have a reason for our moods to be a bit dour this evening.”

  “I don’t recall inviting you to this meeting, Wood,” AJ said.

  Wood gave her a cold stare. “I was conscripted against my will into this madness, and my life is as important to me as any of yours is to you. I think I deserve as much a vote in this as anyone here.”

  “What vote?” Jake interrupted and then turned to AJ. The look on her face told him there had been some sort of previous meeting-one that he had not been invited to. “Have the rules of shipping changed since I last looked them up?” he asked her. “I didn’t realize the captain’s decisions had become something the crew could vote on.”

  “I believe the rules changed when you ran from a colonial guard ship and illegally crossed the border,” Wood said, seating himself across the table.

  AJ glared at Wood then turned to face Jake. “No, Captain, the rules of the Shippers’ Guild still apply. You are in command of this vessel, and your decisions are final.”

  “Final?” Dr. Wood asked, looking around the table. “Surely you’re not all going to sit back and allow this madness to continue, are you?”

  “You’re out of line, Doc,” Ash said.

  Wood glared at him. “But you told me…”

  Ash cut him off. “Doesn’t matter what I said. AJ’s right. We don’t get to vote on this.”

  Jake silently cursed himself for basically hiding out in his quarters and working out the last few days. He knew things were falling apart, but since he had no idea how to fix them, he tried pretending they would repair themselves. Obviously, that hadn’t happened. He stood and looked at each of the faces surrounding him. “Let’s say we did have a vote.”

  “Captain!” AJ warned.

  Jake glanced at her. “Hypothetical situation. If given a vote, would any of you really choose to go back and face charges of mass murder?”

  “Murder?” Vee asked.

  “Mass murder,” Jake repeated. “They think we caused the destruction of New Braska. Thousands of people, men, women, and children, all dead in an instant, and apparently we were the only ship to leave dock before it happened. Do you really think they won’t try to pin that on us?”

  “But, we can get legal counsel,” Jessie added. “They have to give us council. It’s the law.”

  “Everything was falling apart when we left,” AJ reminded her. “I’m guessing that right now, there is no law. Only brothers fighting sisters, families fighting families.” She stood up next to Jake. “Captain’s right. We can’t go back. At least not yet.”

  Jake was relieved to find that his first mate was still on his side, but he knew he had to get the rest of them to believe what he believed, no matter what. “Listen, people,” he began, not sure what he was going to say. “I know I haven’t been your captain very long, and I know we’re in a really messed up situation right now, but it really isn’t as bleak as I think some of you believe.” He walked over to stand behind his engineer. “We’re actually in pretty good shape, thanks in no small part to Norman Raines, here.” He patted the old man on his shoulders for effect. “He managed to nurse a very sick reactor in our hold, almost nonstop, for the entire first week of this trip.”

  AJ stood up then. “He is also responsible for loading up more supplies than I asked for in New Braska,” she said. “And even though some of us don’t show it”—she glanced sideways at Ash—”the corn meal we have is keeping us alive.”

  “All right,” Ash said, “give the man an award, already.”

  AJ glared at him. “You’re out of line!”

  Raines raised his hands. “It’s okay,” he said calmly. “I’m tired of eating bland corn every day, too. To be honest, I’ve been too busy to get very creative with our meals.” He looked at Ash. “There are actually a number of dried herbs in storage that I haven’t tried yet. Maybe you, or someone else here, can help me do some experiments with them once we pass Rubicon.”

  Ash looked embarrassed, but before he could say anything, Wood stood and spoke. “So, thanks to the great Dr. Raines, we’ve gone where no man, or woman, has gone before.” He looked at Jake. “Our Rubicon point is tomorrow at noon. Can we at least agree to discuss the subject of whether or not to return then, or are we still expected to just keep our mouths shut and do our jobs?”

  AJ opened her mouth to speak, but Jake cut her off. “Let’s remember that you’re the one who stole away aboard my ship. No one forced you to come with us.” Wood looked angry, but Jake didn’t let up. “And while you may not be an official member of this crew, we might need a medic out here. Therefore, I’m going to make a deal with you: act like a member of the crew, do your job without complaint, and I’ll discuss our options again tomorrow at Rubicon. Agreed?”

  Wood sat back down, shaking his head. Then something just short of a smile formed on his face. “I will agree to your terms, Captain, as long as you keep your promise.”

  AJ set her cup on the table with a bang. It had the illusion of a judge’s gavel pounding. “All right,” she said. “Meeting’s over. Let’s get back to work.”

  Jake jumped back into the white room without warning. Someone on the outside, one of those faceless jurors, was asking a question.

  “Can we just move ahead to the end of this story?” he asked. His voice was muffled, as though it was being altered to keep his identity concealed. “I just want to know what happened to the crew.”

  The doctor’s soft voice answered him. “Forcibly recalling memories is actually a rather dangerous procedure. Memories are stored in a sort of ribbon format, meaning they have to be traced in order, and at certain speeds.”

  “Also,” Steele’s harsher voice cut in, “we need to learn what happened aboard his ship beforehand, determine what events would lead a captain to abandon his crew.”

  “I didn�
�t abandon my crew!” Jake yelled, but no one seemed to be interested in what he had to say. Should he just tell them what they wanted to hear? Make something up? Get this whole debacle of a trial over with?

  “In the interest of time,” the doctor said, “I will jump forward to the next day, to their Rubicon point. Is that sufficient?”

  The jurors nodded their heads, and Jake felt himself slipping back into the darkness.

  Chapter 07

  It took a while for Jake to fight his way out of the strange dream he was having. By the time he finally stood and started his morning stretching routine, the images had already started to fade. Something about a white room and people asking him questions. Isolation could play havoc with your brain, he reminded himself. A strange dream from time to time was to be expected.

  Today is the big day, he thought as he reached for his clothes draped over the back of his desk chair. He smelled them and wasn’t happy with the aroma. They had shut down all non-essential equipment three days ago to conserve power, which included clothing recyclers. He was standing there, lost in thought, when the general alarm sounded.

  He ran to his desk and touched the wall screen. An image of AJ standing on the bridge popped up. “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  “We’ve got company,” she said, not taking her eyes from whatever she was looking at.

  “What do you mean by company?” he asked as he quickly pulled on his smelly shirt and pants.

  “Just get up here and see for yourself.” She shook her head. “You’re not going to believe it.”

  He didn’t even bother putting on his shoes as he ran out the door, down past the galley, and up the stairs. Most of the crew was already there, standing around the chart table next to AJ, fighting for a better view of whatever she was displaying there.

  As he stood at the top of the stairs, he had a flashback from his dream. “Is it the Scimitar?” he asked.