Shipp pleaded once more, “She’s innocent. I swear to it. I’ve answered everything truthfully, you can believe me.”
The plea fell on deaf ears. “If this little harpy was innocent, she wouldn’t have tried to tell me that Captain Bartrand froze up while flying that death trap they came up in. She’s just trying to play for power.”
Bartrand’s grasp loosened slightly, and Haruka could see a moment of fear in his eyes. He knows that he froze up. Tell her, Captain! But once more, Bartrand’s fingers tightened as his lip curled.
“No, Colonel. Lieutenant Kimura is right about Captain Bartrand. I was there,” Marco Mancini’s voice floated up the stairway. Marco, thank God. I needed backup.
Everyone stopped for a moment. A puzzled look came across Colonel Fox’s face for a second, but then melted away once more into anger.
“I suppose you’re right, Shipp,” she spoke with daggers in her voice. “I don’t have enough evidence to arrest Kimura. But I’ll be damned if she’s on my bridge crew. Bartrand, release her.”
The captain stared at Haruka for a moment, and then released her arm with a slight shove.
Fox looked back at Shipp. “Get this piece of garbage off my bridge and put him in stasis. Remove him from the maintenance revival list.”
“Yes, ma’am,” responded Maynard and Bartrand in unison.
Now Haruka drew the stare from the colonel. “Lieutenant Kimura and Lieutenant Mancini, you are both relieved of your current duties.” They both gasped loudly. “You will be reassigned to propulsion maintenance duties. As there is no work to be done until the next maintenance cycle, you are to report to your berths immediately to be placed into stasis until the next cycle.”
How can she do this? She started to speak feebly, “Colonel…”
“Silence,” screamed Colonel Fox. At once the bridge was silent again. “I will not tolerate insubordination from anyone on board this ship, do you understand?”
A resounding chorus of “Yes, ma’am!” came from all on the bridge.
Haruka floated still for a moment. “Now, Kimura!” Fox yelled, spit flying from her lips.
She pushed off and down the stairs. Mancini clung to the railing below, slack jawed and aghast. She stopped and they exchanged looks of despair with each other. Both proceeded in silence to the sleeper pod.
“Well, this is a fine pickle we’re in, right Kimura?” Marco remarked.
She sniffed and wiped at her eyes, trying to hold back her tears. “I’m sorry, Marco. I didn’t mean for that to happen.”
Mancini rested his back against a berth. “I’m still trying to figure out what the hell just happened to begin with. I mean, can she even do what she did? And what’s all this stuff about your father? I can’t believe that he would involve himself in any treason.”
“I don’t know if she can, but she just did. I doubt anyone will oppose her, and now Bartrand is firmly with her.” She gave a deep sigh. “Thank you for saying that about Dad. I don’t believe a word of it either. Nor about Brandon.”
Marco looked puzzled. “Brandon?”
“Lieutenant Reid. My sister’s husband. Shipp said he was in on it too, if he can be believed.” She paused to think. Saika, do you have any idea what’s going on? Her attention went back to Mancini. “Hey, thanks for backing me up. I didn’t realize we’d get in this much trouble.”
Mancini laughed quickly and said, “Don’t worry about it. Remember back when we did the flight sims for the transports? I told you I’d follow you to hell and back, right?”
She smiled at him. “Yeah, I remember.”
Marco grinned devilishly. “Yeah, well if we don’t get our butts into these berths and into stasis, I might have to do that for you. Colonel didn’t sound like she had much fuse left.”
Haruka laughed once more as she wiped away the last of her tears. “Yeah, we probably should. I’m probably going to need you to back me up when we get to this planet of Benedict’s, can’t have her chewing you up and spitting you out just yet.”
With one last shared laugh, the two lieutenants pulled themselves into their respective berths and strapped their harnesses. Haruka closed her hatch with a resounding click.
As she lay in the darkness awaiting sleep, she thought of Shipp and her father. Shipp’s lying, right Dad? Her thoughts raced about what might happen to her father and Brandon, then to her sister and mother. She was concerned about how the two might react if they were to wake up and find their respective husbands under arrest.
In her thoughts of her family, she forgot about Bartrand.
1st Lt Darius Owens
21 September 2014, 15:25
Gabriel
Darius reached for his drink pouch and took a deep swig. The sweet orange liquid soothed his dry throat as it went down. He batted away a few stray drops from the air next to his face.
The mainframe room was cold and the air filtered. This was done to extend the life of the equipment contained within. Each of the three banks of servers were also exact copies of each other; Darius knew this was to provide redundancy should a blade or even a rack fail.
He focused his attention back on the workstation screen before him. Programming code littered the panel in an almost chaotic jumble. Darius scrutinized each individual line on the page.
Lord, this is taking a long time. This file is more broken than I thought. It doesn’t help that the original programmers didn’t tag any code.
Darius had been working off and on for a month attempting to repair the corrupted file. He was making progress, but there was no way he could finish before he needed to go into hibernation.
A section of damaged code came up as he scrolled to the next screen; he quickly erased the errant symbols and then painstakingly recreated the original commands from memory. Once he had placed the new statements, he ran a debug program. He grunted when the program came back with errors, and he began the editing process over again.
Periodically he glanced over at a small insert of his screen that was flashing between sets of passenger data. Or, at least, it was supposed to be flashing between them.
Halfway through the hour it took to repair that single page of code, the smaller inset seemed to get stuck. Darius had ignored this to push through and complete his work. Finally, the debug routine came back with no errors. Darius saved his progress and rubbed his great, dark hands up and down his face.
Time to check on him and see what he’s up to.
The click of the buckles echoed through the room as he released his harness. He stretched out and his joints creaked from all the time spent hunched over the screen. He neatly rolled up and stowed the remnants of the meal he had just consumed, and then exited into the dark hallway of the propulsion section.
Darius made his way forward, passing the looming sentinels of the internal braces as well as an ominous black hole in the floor leading to the cargo pods. He paused briefly outside of pod four before snaking his way to Dr. Kimura’s berth. Kimura was drifting in front of the terminal at the far end of the hallway.
Darius watched Dr. Kimura for several minutes. The Japanese scientist no longer looked like the wise man that Darius had always seen. Instead he had closed eyes and a face devoid of any expression at all. That, and he hadn’t moved in quite some time.
“Doctor, is everything alright?”
Dr. Kimura jerked alert like a startled rabbit. His eyes darted to Darius before resting back on the terminal screen in front of him.
“Pardon?”
“Those passengers, Doctor. You’ve been looking at their vitals for almost a half hour now.”
The doctor took a deep breath and rubbed his eyes quickly. He pressed a button and the terminal cycled to another set of passenger vitals.
“Everything is fine, Darius. I must have nodded off.” Kimura stopped for a moment and one of his eyebrows shot up. “Are you monitoring what I am doing on my screen, Darius?”
Darius nodded. “Colonel’s orders.”
Which is
silly. I know you’re not going to just give up on your work.
Dr. Kimura shrugged and resumed his task, “I can understand his apprehension. He’s no fool. All things considered, I believe he is handling this situation well.”
It had been a month since the doctor was arrested and Lieutenant Reid placed in stasis. He knew it would not be much longer before the rest of the crew would place themselves in stasis. Gabriel was already at cruising speed, and the Oort probe had been launched a week prior to verify that their trajectory out of the system would not be obstructed by any comets or asteroids. Data was already returning from the probe and the collision warning system had been synchronized with the probe’s data stream.
Dr. Kimura had told Darius that he wanted to check the passengers’ vitals one more time before the first hibernation cycle, and Darius had convinced Colonel Eriksen to allow it.
Besides, I might get a chance to put more time into fixing the corrupted com system software.
Darius became aware that he was staring at the doctor, as he had turned around to return what was almost a glare at Darius.
“Is there something I can do for you, Mr. Owens?”
“Doctor, there’s something wrong. I can tell. Others might not be able to see it, but I can. Your behavior has been strange all month.”
Kimura sighed as he wrung his hands. “I have only compounded my fears, Darius. I had feared leaving my family behind, but now I fear I have put my family in jeopardy by bringing them with me.”
Now if that’s not the oddest thing he’s ever said to me, I don’t know what is.
Kimura continued, “There were certain functions of the stasis system that we could not test or project. Our algorithm was programmed to eliminate these variables from the selection pool. Try not to be upset, Darius, but one specific variable was pregnancy.”
Crap. Just when I thought this damned program couldn’t get any worse.
Darius felt his fists clench slightly. For the first time ever, he actually felt like he could bear animosity towards this man. “That’s pretty low, Doctor.”
“I understand the reaction and, frankly, I agree with you. However, there was a great measure of uncertainty surrounding how pregnancy would affect a human in biostasis. Our tests in rats showed a marked increase in the mortality rate of both the mother and the offspring. Similar tests in other animals contradicted the original findings.”
So the tests were inconclusive. That doesn’t mean…
“We couldn’t ethically test this on an actual woman, and one human pregnancy would have made for far too small of a sample size in any case. We believed that this wouldn’t cause a problem for the colony since young women would be able to get pregnant and give birth after our arrival.”
Darius considered this carefully. “So your conscience is catching up to you, and you’re regretting this decision?”
Kimura shook his head with fervor. “No. I cannot have the luxury of analyzing individuals, either passengers or those excluded from the program. I cannot even have the luxury of getting to know any passengers until we arrive and a colony is established.”
Darius grew impatient. “Then what is it?”
Dr. Kimura sighed and his eyes looked sad. “I have become aware of a pregnant passenger.”
Darius shuffled his hands along the wall and sniffed. “So? You said you don’t have the luxury of caring, right?”
“I wish that was the case, Darius. It’s Saika Reid, my daughter.”
Darius stopped and looked at Kimura. There was no way he could hide the shock evident on his face. The two men floated in the silent hall for a brief moment before the doctor abruptly turned off the computer console and opened his sleeper berth.
“Doctor, wait.” Darius reached his hand for the old man’s shoulder but stopped short. He was upset with the doctor, but at the same time knew of his need for comfort.
“Yes?” Kimura struggled to mask the emotion in his voice.
Darius tried to speak, but could not form any words. Dr. Kimura pulled himself into the sleeper berth and strapped in as Darius looked on. Darius struggled to find something to say, but it all eluded him.
“Good night Mr. Owens. I will see you in five years.” Dr. Kimura closed the sleeper berth hatch and Darius heard the lock click.
Darius was left alone in the hallway, thoughts and emotions ripping through his mind like a great torrent. He grimaced and made his way to the terminal that Kimura had been using. He flipped the unit on and searched for a sleeper berth. A graph showing a strong heart beat and respiration functions cast a glow on his face. His finger hovered over a large button marked “Activate”.
I’m sorry for your pain, Doctor. But I will see you in five years, just as you promised.
Darius pressed the button firmly. The computer flashed a confirmation on the screen and Dr. Tadashi Kimura’s sleeper unit began its biostasis routine.
Calvin McLaughlin
22 September 2019, 06:04
Michael
Calvin felt his eyes open slowly. He could not be sure if he was awake or dreaming, as he continued to float in near total darkness. His head felt as if it was spinning. A dim red light pulsed from somewhere nearby.
He turned his head to his right, and saw a button throb on the wall of his berth. He extended his finger and pressed it. A display came up, at first just appearing as a jumble of numbers in Cal’s blurred vision. He blinked and rubbed his eyes. Cal realized how clammy his hands were.
9-22-2019 06:04.
Cal blinked and thought for a moment. Another dream. Will these never end?
The terminal display went dark, and Cal could faintly make out a soft, diffuse light from just beyond. He went to reach for it, but something kept him from moving. He lurched again, and again was stopped. Cal grabbed at his chest, and felt the straps and buckles of his harness. His stomach churned hard.
Scrambling with his fingers, he frantically tried to unlatch his harness. For a moment, his clumsy fingers worked against him. He felt panic rising within him, and he held his breath. With one more try, he was able to release the straps. Cal reached around in the dark, and found a latch next to the display. Jerking and twisting it, he managed to open it and the hatch of his sleeper berth opened. He blinked at the soft, pale light that filtered in.
“What the…” he began, but cut himself off. His mouth watered and his head spun like he was in a washing machine.
Calvin pulled his head out of the berth in the nick of time as his stomach revolted. Cal vomited; the giant glob floated lazily away from him. He breathed in and recovered for a moment, then sent forth another mass of vomit. He could feel his throat start to burn, and could taste the bitterness in his mouth.
Crap, this isn’t a dream.
Cal continued to breathe in deeply. He felt his stomach churn again, but he managed to hold back from throwing up a third time. He pulled his head back into his berth, closed his eyes, and concentrated on breathing.
Time passed as Cal floated in his sleeper. The spinning in his head subsided and was replaced by a dull throb. Cal tried to process the situation. His mind went back to the display panel. Opening his eyes, he pressed the red button on the terminal once more.
9-22-2019 06:33.
2019? Five years? That can’t be right.
He hoisted himself out of the sleeper. Sleeper units on both the far side of the hallway were splattered with his vomit, and yet more still floated in aimless morphing balls. Disgusted, Cal pushed off of the sleeper wall and into the adjoining hall beyond. He then proceeded through the connecting hall leading to the gallery level.
Cal looked both ways, and could only see emptiness and eventual darkness in the dimly lit gallery. Carts chained to the hand railings on the floor floated like silent metal guardians near the pod’s entrance. Cal floated over to a cart and stabilized himself on it, listening for signs of activity. His efforts were in vain, as only a ventilation fan kicking on nearby greeted his ears.
The other
passengers should be waking up any time now, he thought to himself. Then I guess we find out where we are.
Cal floated alone in silence for several minutes. Except for the dim lighting of the gallery corridor illuminating the way along the backbone and the sound of the fan, there was nothing. He saw no one, he heard no one. His skin began to crawl.
Something is wrong.
He wiped his lips and looked at his hand. Cal saw the flaked off remnants of his earlier vomit session on his hand, and could still taste it in his mouth. He looked down and saw spatter all over his shirt as well. Grimacing, he turned back into the sleeper pod. He noticed storage lockers along many walls inside the pod as he navigated his way inward.
I guess I was too busy to notice those on the way in. I wonder what they contain?
Calvin opened a locker. Within he could dimly make out rows of small plastic pouches neatly bundled together, completely packed from floor to ceiling. He reached in and struggled with the bundle for a moment, finally slipping a package out from within. He read the label aloud, “Standard Space Ration, menu 8A. Contains penne with meat sauce, vegetable medley, lemon-lime drink.” He flipped the package over once, then back again. With an “hmm”, he tucked it under his arm and closed the locker.
Cal continued to open and look through lockers in a search for fresh clothing, though he found only lockers containing more food packages. Still others were locked. At the end of one hallway, he encountered a pair of skinny lockers flanking a door marked “AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY”.
He tried the right locker first, and loosely packed trash floated within. A wrapper from a food package tumbled in slow motion toward Cal’s face. Cal pushed the garbage back inside and closed the locker, then proceeded to the other. Inside was a dark, rumpled bundle of clothing. He reached inside and pulled out the clothing, examining it. It was a flight suit, and did not appear to be soiled. Grinning, he gently maneuvered his food package and the suit into the locker, and awkwardly began undressing himself in the hallway.
Project Columbus: Omnibus Page 7
