by Joseph Rhea
Juno faced him. “I told you, that was an accident. My new navigator accidentally released ballast while he was trying to hold station.” She glanced at Ash. “I assure you that Mr. Fields won’t be getting his Guild card this trip.”
Ash lowered his eyes. “Yes, I’m sorry, Lieutenant. I hope your shuttle wasn’t damaged.”
The lieutenant glared at Ash. “Ships don’t get ‘damaged’ at this depth, Mr. Fields. If the hull is compromised, you simply implode.”
Ash bowed his head. “I’ll remember that, sir.”
The lieutenant turned to his men. “I want every centimeter of this vessel searched. You know what we are looking for.”
As the five men spread out, Jake asked the lieutenant, “Do you mind telling me what you’re looking for?”
“It’s classified,” he replied without even looking at Jake. He then walked back to the deck crew quarters door and headed through it, leaving Jake and the others alone.
Jake raised an eyebrow to Juno, who shook her head. “No idea what they’re looking for,” she whispered. “If they were looking for the you-know-what, they wouldn’t bother checking anyplace besides the cargo bay.”
“Agreed,” Jake said. “So what else was taken from that dome today?”
“Nothing,” Juno said. When he gave her a “really?” glare, she added. “Seriously, we took only what you saw us take.”
“Maybe someone else was there before us,” Ash said, “or right after. Maybe we really are innocent in all of this.”
“Innocent is not a word I would use here,” Jake whispered back.
“Either way,” Juno said, “nothing points to us, so let’s just play nice, and maybe they will leave us alone.”
The lieutenant came back in. He had a smile on his face that only made sense if his crew had found what they were looking for. He motioned to Jake. “Come with me, Mr. Stone.”
Jake followed him back to find another guard standing just outside his quarters. For a minute, he thought they might have found some sort of contraband in his bunk, maybe left over from the original crew. It wasn’t as if he had searched the room before moving in. But then the lieutenant turned to face the door leading to the rec room. “Open this please,” he said.
Jake was confused. “That door just leads to our recreation room,” he said.
“Open it,” Winnick repeated.
Jake shrugged and pressed the open button, but the display flashed that it was in use and locked. “Who was using this?” he said as he entered the unlock code. The door slid open, revealing the small lockout chamber. “I’m afraid all three of us can’t fit in there at the same time,” he said.
The lieutenant grabbed the firearm from his man and motioned for Jake to lead the way. They both stepped in, and Jake closed the outer door. “Takes a few seconds to clear the air,” Jake said as they stood there. “If any of the utility fog particles made it out of this room, they would—”
“I know how recreation rooms operate,” the lieutenant said.
The inner door opened, and Jake nearly fainted. His own program was up and running, without his authorization, and he was furious. Stacy was standing there, nearly naked, for the entire world to see. He suddenly forgot all about the man with the gun standing beside him. “I’m going to kill them,” he fumed.
The lieutenant walked up to the woman and stroked her arm. Jake nearly jumped the man. “She’s quite beautiful,” the lieutenant said then looked around the clearing. “Your design?”
Jake nodded. “But no one is authorized to run it.”
“A clever place to hide someone,” Winnick said. “Believe me, Mr. Stone, you’re not the first person to think of it.”
“Hide someone? You mean you’re looking for a person?”
The lieutenant raised his rifle and pointed it at Jake. “Turn off the program now, Mr. Stone.”
“Who are you looking for?” Jake asked.
“I said, turn it off, or I’ll simply start firing around this room.”
“You do realize that firing a weapon inside a recreation room is not a good idea,” he said. The default settings of the utility fog would prevent the gun from firing, of course. If he had the programming skill, he could even instruct the room to rip the gun right out of his hands, or even lift him up in the air and hold them there immobilized. The power of utility fog was impressive when wielded by a skilled programmer. Which, of course, he wasn’t, so he gave in and yelled, “Program off.”
Like before, Stacy and the jungle scenery broke into a billion particles and, after swarming around the room in a little dance, poured themselves back into the corner receptacles. When it was over, Jake and the lieutenant stood together in an empty white room.
After a few moments of utter silence, Juno appeared in the doorway and addressed the lieutenant. “Captain Steele said if you haven’t found what you’re looking for by now, she wants you back on the Scimitar immediately.” She looked at Jake and winked. “Apparently, there is a Guild convoy heading this way, and she’d like to be underway before they arrive.”
The man looked incredibly irritated, if not a bit embarrassed. Jake was careful not to say, “I told you so,” because the lieutenant still had the upper hand, and his men were armed. “I hope you find what you’re looking for,” he said as the lieutenant was heading for the exit.
Winnick turned and walked back to stand toe to toe with Jake, anger still showing on his pale and slightly sweaty face. “Understand that while I can’t technically arrest you for something I can’t find,” he said, “I have the ability to make your life very difficult. When you return to Capitol City, you can count on a full inspection, and I assure you that my men will find violations—everywhere.” His emphasis on the word “everywhere” made Jake realize he had just made an enemy for life.
“Get in line,” he mumbled to himself as Juno escorted the man to the door. When it closed, he asked her, “Guild convoy heading this way? Some of your friends, perhaps?”
She smiled, but the crease on her forehead told him she was still dealing with Nia’s death, at least internally. “No. Just a communications decoy I dropped off awhile back. Thought it might come in handy.”
“That was clever,” he said.
She turned and entered the now-empty airlock. “It’s what I do.”
Chapter 17
When Juno left, Jake stood in the empty rec room for several minutes, enjoying the absolute silence. It had been a traumatic last twenty-four hours; the woman who had rented his ship was dead, the cargo they were carrying was gone, and on top of that, the lieutenant’s final words had made it clear he that would find only trouble when he returned to Capitol City—trouble he really couldn’t afford. He looked at the exit door and realized that he wasn’t ready to rejoin the real world on the outside.
“Attention, everyone,” Juno’s voice said from the room speakers a few moments later. “They’re off the ship, and we’ve been cleared to leave. Since I don’t know where we are going next, I think we should all meet in the galley to discuss our options.”
Jake was heading for the exit when he heard a female voice say, “Program off.” This voice didn’t come from the speakers, but somewhere behind him, inside the room. He spun around in time to see the far wall dissolve into a swarm of particles, revealing Jane Doe lying in a fetal position on the floor.
“What did you do?” he asked, but it was obvious; the girl had somehow found a way to run a program within another program, allowing her to build a fake wall to hide behind when his program ended. It was brilliant. Then something dawned on him. “Are you the one they were looking for?”
She stood up, then walked over, and placed her hand on his chest, the way Juno had on the bridge. “Why do you carry such responsibility?” she asked.
“I have a ship to maintain,” he said. “I also have bills to pay and not enough credits to pay them all.”
She shook her head. “Responsibility is not the correct word. I mean liability.”
&n
bsp; “Liability?” he asked.
She shook her head again, and then her face lit up. “Guilt. Guilt is the word.”
He raised his hands in protest. “Listen, I feel really bad for what happened to Nia, but I don’t feel guilty. It was an accident.”
“Not for Nia,” she said. Utility fog suddenly began to pour out of the storage units. No one had initiated a program, but the fog was quickly building a simulation all around him. When it solidified, there was Stacy again, looking up at the waterfall. Jane pointed to her. “Your guilt is for her.”
“I don’t need this,” he yelled and turned to leave, but the exit door was nowhere to be seen. He waved his arms, trying to feel the back wall, but the simulation was keeping him from locating it.
He turned to Jane. “I don’t know how you are able to override the rec room controls, but you need to turn this off right now.”
“Why do you carry such guilt?” she asked again.
“Look,” he said, “I’m trying to be nice here, because I don’t know your past, but you need to listen to me.” He took hold of her arms. “Turn this simulation off and show me the exit.”
“Look into her eyes, and your nightmare will end,” she said, and he let go of her. How did she know that? He had always felt that if he could look Stacy in the eyes, his memories of that night would return. But did he really want that? Would reliving that moment in his waking state be any better than reliving a small part of it every night?
He wanted to yell at her, but she looked so much like Stacy that he couldn’t bring himself to do it. “I don’t care about nightmares,” he said. “I just want this simulation to end.” Jane pointed to Stacy.
“Drown you!” he cursed as he began grabbing at the bushes behind him, fighting desperately to locate the exit door, even though he knew the utility fog was capable of disguising the door perfectly. He finally stopped, realizing that she had trapped him in there. He had no choice but to pretend to do what she asked. Once he was out, he would make sure she was locked up somewhere where she could do no more harm.
“Fine!” he said as he walked toward the Stacy simulation, but then he stopped abruptly. Something in the back of his mind told him to turn around. Don’t do this. Don’t look her in the eyes. The nightmares of seeing her falling, her face pressed against the jumper viewport, mouthing the words, “I forgive you,” came flooding back to him. Would those dreams really stop if he simply faced her? If he looked her in the eyes, would she truly forgive him? He decided it was worth a chance, because he was tired of it all. Maybe even too tired to live anymore.
He took a deep breath and stepped in front of her, then quickly turned and looked into the beautiful blue eyes of the girl he loved, the girl he’d intended to marry, the girl who had brought so much joy to his life, and the girl he had killed in order to save his own worthless life.
Suddenly, he was up on the bridge, standing by the helm, watching Captain Coal turn and walk toward the rear stairwell. Jake turned to yell at Jane, but she was no longer there. Instead, he saw Coal’s entire bridge crew get up from their stations and follow their captain down the stairs. Some were crying, but most sounded as though they were just praying or whispering goodbye to one another.
Jake was standing in the exact position he’d stood in on that fateful night, which meant that the ship was near crush depth, and Stacy was still alive. He turned and rushed to the command station, pressing his face against the glass for a better view, but there was nothing but blackness out there. “She’s below me,” he said aloud, as he stepped back and activated the exterior bow camera. In his dreams, he assumed she was right outside the forward viewport, but now he realized that was impossible. When the bow camera feed was projected onto the viewport, he saw the familiar image of her jumper hanging by the safety cable. The image was almost serene, until the sounds of that night came back to him full force.
Klaxons and bells were going off as the ship tried desperately to warn its human occupants that it was about to be crushed by the rapidly increasing water pressure. He stepped forward and turned up the low-light filter on the camera. Stacy’s face appeared in the jumper cockpit viewport, just as it did in his nightmares. He remembered her lips moving, saying, “I forgive you, Jake.” But now they were saying something else.
He turned up the volume on the ship’s speakers, and he heard her beautiful voice one last time. “Forgive me, Jake,” she was saying. Forgive her? For what? He saw the line separate from the jumper, and then the bridge lurched, knocking him backward. He hit his head on the navigation console, and the room went black.
When he opened his eyes, he was sitting on the floor of the empty white rec room. Jane was kneeling in front of him with her hands on his shoulder. He looked at her and said, “She cut the line, not me.” Jane nodded. “She cut the line to save me. To save her father. To save the crew.” Jane nodded again. “How did you know?” he asked.
Jane sat on the floor in front of him and held both of his hands. “We were inside the mind ship together,” she said. “Remember?”
The pieces of the puzzle fell into place. “The mind ship read my thoughts,” he said. “That’s how it knew I wanted the Range brothers dead.” She nodded. “It also read this?” he asked, waving at the bridge that was no longer there.
“That night was central to your thoughts,” she said. “I saw it displayed on the screen when your eyes were closed.”
He dropped her hands and stood up. “But the simulation… of the bridge that night. You got that from the security cameras, right? That night was recorded, and no one knew about it. Now I can show everyone what happened!”
She put a finger to his lips. “No,” she said. “Recordings were deleted long ago.”
“But…” He looked into her green eyes, realizing that her similarity to Stacy was only superficial. “You’re saying all of that—what I saw—was a hallucination?”
She nodded one more time and then stood up, took him by the hand, and led him toward the exit.
Chapter 18
When they reached the stairs to the B-deck, Jake could hear the voices of his shipmates coming down from the galley.
“We could try sneaking back into Capitol City,” Ash was saying. “One of the unused docks.”
“They’ll be waiting for us,” Juno said. “Jake wasn’t the only one threatened with payback for our little stunt.”
“What about the border towns?” a girl’s voice said. It took a moment to realize that it was Jessie. She was out of med bay.
“She’s right,” Vee said. “Maybe we could find work in another city, on another ship.”
“What about this ship?” Raines said. “There’s plenty of work for a small hauler in the border towns. Most folks wouldn’t even ask for credentials.” Several voices chimed in agreement.
“You are all forgetting something crucial,” Juno said. “This isn’t our ship. It’s for sale, remember? It has absolutely no value to us.”
In the silence that followed, Jake walked up the stairs, with Jane close behind. When he reached the top, he stopped and looked around the galley at the faces of the people surrounding him. There was Ash, the tough navigator who also happened to have a good ear for listening. His sister, Jessie—well, he didn’t really get a chance to know her, other than the fact that she was great at her job. Vee was a decent helmsman, but perhaps more importantly, she seemed to be the glue that held this crew together. Her grandfather, Norman Raines, made Jake feel at home on a ship that he used to fear. There was also Jane Doe, the strange and obviously brilliant girl who seemed to be wanted by the Colonial Guard. She might be a criminal, but she’d helped him, and he owed her for that. Finally, there was Juno, the brash, headstrong first mate who was able to keep her composure under pressure. She was a lot like Stacy in that way.
He walked up to Juno. “I overheard you saying something about my ship having no value.”
She faced him squarely, but there was no sign that she was going to hit him this time. “D
idn’t mean to be derogatory,” she said, “Just stating the facts for the crew. In the Shippers Guild, we have a saying. ‘A ship is just a worthless hunk of metal without a captain.’ The Rogue Wave doesn’t have a captain anymore.”
Jake took a slow, deep breath before responding, because he knew his words would change his life and maybe the lives of everyone aboard this ship. His reply was simple and directed at the entire crew.
“It does now.”
Juno wrinkled her face. “That’s very dramatic and heroic and all, but don’t make promises you can’t keep.”
Jake turned back to her. “What do you mean?”
She glanced at her crew before responding, “You might have noticed that we’re not your average, ‘follow the leader’ kind of group. If you want any of us to crew with you, you have to prove yourself to us.”
That made him smile a bit more than he wanted to. “So you’re saying I’m on probation?”
She shrugged. “It works both ways. You think you know us, but you really don’t. Being a captain is more than just making decisions and giving orders. You have to trust your crew to follow those orders, and your crew has to trust you enough to follow them without question.”
Jake nodded. “I know all of that, and I’m not saying that I will be a great captain, or even a good one. But the way I see it, we don’t have many options right now. Because of decisions we’ve all made, none of us can go back to Capitol City, and we can’t just sit out here waiting for our batteries to drain and our air supply to run out. We need credits to keep this ship running, and this ship needs a captain and crew to earn those credits.”
Raines stepped up and faced Juno. “I’m willing to give it a shot.” He then turned to Jake and added, “Captain.”
“Me, too,” Vee said.
“Hell, what have we got to lose?” Ash said.
Jessie winked at Jake. “Didn’t I say that you would fit right in with us?”
Jake looked them over and then turned back to Juno. “This has to be unanimous. Captain Coal used to tell me that a crew is only as good as the first officer.”
