“Maybe he just didn’t want to bother anyone.”
Dr. Martin snorted again. “Again, not hardly. He didn’t do it, because he doesn’t trust the other groups. Watch the passengers when you’re about the ship, Jaelyn, and you’ll see it. Have Ace pull up some history for you on the war. You’ll start to see it.”
She stood up, holding the glass in one hand. Her expression was twisted in a look Jaelyn hadn’t really seen before, one that seemed distant, maybe even a little sad.
“Take the afternoon off. I’ll see you bright and early tomorrow, Jaelyn, alright?”
“Sure.”
Dr. Martin started walking in the direction of the bar, then paused and half turned back to him.
“Think about what I said. It’s an important thing to understand. Even for a botanist.” With that, she walked away, leaving Jaelyn in a tumble of overlapping thoughts and emotions.
Captain Amara looked down at her datapad screen for perhaps the fourth time in as many minutes and, once again, realized she wasn’t overly fond of the bureaucracy of running a colony ship. And that was putting it mildly. During the war, it had all been about actions and counter-actions. Movements and response. Aboard this ship, in its undeviating course toward the far reaches of space, toward a distant planetary system thus far only explored by probes, it was all about reading reports, sitting around, and attempting rather futilely to get everyone to work together and coexist. She felt more like someone attempting to herd cats into a bath than the captain of a grand colonial mission.
She sighed and forced her mind back to the task at hand. Regardless of her personal preferences, she still had a duty to perform. The door sounded a proximity alarm as someone approached her office. She’d stopped calling it a ready room as much as possible in an effort to shift away from Fleet staff regulation and toward a more lenient colonial role.
“Enter,” she said, without looking up.
The door slid open and Rajesh Kuthar, the master chief, walked in, a datapad in one hand, a small book of prayers in the other. Amara had been surprised to discover that her chief of staff was a practitioner of the Hindu religion during their first meeting. Most religions had died away over the course of the last few centuries. When she’d asked him about it, his response had been that “eternal law” didn’t fade simply because fewer people believed in it.
“Punctual as usual, Chief,” she said, looking up.
Rajesh didn’t respond outside of taking a seat opposite her on the other side of her large desk.
“What’s the report this morning, Chief?”
“Medical reports a few minor injuries during an accident in one of the science labs along with a couple bruises from a fight that broke out between passengers,” Rajesh said in the same matter-of-fact tone he said everything in. “Sciences report an accident in the labs, but also note they’ve cleaned it and repaired the damage already. The engines are operating at above peak efficiency due to a few modifications the XO made this morning. All other stations report no change.”
“Thank you, Chief. Anything else to report? Any other trouble or activities of note?” She asked the question every morning, even though Rajesh had never had anything additional to say. If it wasn’t a part of his official report, it simply didn’t exist, as far as he was concerned.
“No, Captain. I – ”
The speakers crackled and then the three notes that preceded an official council transmission blared through the room. Amara steeled herself for the transmission, feeling a small flash of annoyance at the interruption. A female voice, one Amara didn’t recognize, began speaking.
“We are saddened, today, by the loss of several key members of the Earth United Council. Sitters Esquina, Verithas, Clark, and Mutahma were killed in an explosion perpetuated by persons as yet unknown.”
Amara felt a cold fist of fear close over her insides.
“While we do not yet know how, who, or why, rest assured these losses will not go unpunished.” A hard edge crept into the woman’s voice, one which turned the fist of fear into a sharp knife instead. “Those responsible will be found and dealt with most severely. While this takes place, the Fleet will be securing a perimeter around Earth to prevent departure from the planet. Once the terrorists are caught, the blockade will be lifted. At this time, we request a moment of silence in honor of those who have fallen. May God bless them on their way.”
The haunting echo of the woman’s words faded away until it was swallowed by the thick, tense silence that followed. A long moment passed, during which Amara did her best to order her thoughts and give proper respect to those who had died, while at the same time wrestling with the torrent of conflicting emotions waging war within her. When the shrill whistle sounded again to signal the end of the transmission, it took all of Amara’s force of will not to jump. Still, her mind and body urged her to move, to go and do something. She was a woman of action, of conflict, of resolution.
“Damn,” she found herself saying instead.
Rajesh didn’t look up from his datapad, but he made a small grunt of protest even as his fingers flew over the screen.
“Why did they have to send this to us? We’re already well outside the solar system.” Amara voiced her thoughts more to have something to focus on than in an attempt to actually get an answer.
“They didn’t.” It was the edge in Rajesh’s voice more than the response that made Amara’s eyes dart to him, her entire focus resting on the man. He still hadn’t looked up from his datapad, but he did continue as if feeling her gaze. “It was a general broadcast sent to all Fleet vessels, simultaneously transmitted on every frequency to every communication array in the entire grid. We received the message fourteen separate times within microseconds of each other.”
“Who reported that so quickly? The communications engineers?”
“I heard the slight glitch in the voice when it first started, before the computer compensated for the overlap, and pulled up the logs.” He touched something on his datapad and a report appeared on the screen set into one of the room’s walls. “Look there. And here.” Another report appeared alongside the first. “We’re already getting reports of transmission requests to people earthside. Three dozen already. People are wanting to check on loved ones left behind, searching for sources of information on their own.”
Of course they were. Amara wanted to do the same herself, but knew she couldn’t if she wanted to maintain order aboard her own ship. If the captain didn’t obey the rules, why would anyone else?
“The captains of the other four ships have also requested a meeting,” Rajesh added.
Amara suppressed the urge to groan or massage her temples. This wasn’t what she’d meant when she said she needed a little action earlier.
“Let’s get to it, then. Have Commander Esquina report to me after my meeting with the other captains.”
Jaelyn snapped his book shut and sat up as the transmission ended. He didn’t even care that the motion threw the book onto the floor, potentially damaging the expensive binding. His mother would likely get after him for it later – the books were relics of an older day, after all, antiques – but even that threat paled in comparison to the news in the transmission. His mother now had far worse problems to occupy her time.
He’d come back to their quarters after wandering the halls of the ship for a couple hours after lunch. Dr. Martin’s words had left him deep in thought and he ended up leaving the mess with his plate still half-full and his eyes wide open. He studied each person he passed in the halls, both crewmembers and passengers alike, and noticed the small things Dr. Martin had pointed out. The suspicious glances, the closed off way in which they avoided one another in the halls, even the way in which people always seemed to travel in clumped groups through the halls.
Most telling of all, however, was the silence.
Normally, a ship buzzed with the soft hum of movement and life. Conversations in the metal halls bounced, echoed, and carried down an entire passage. The mo
vements of machines, of people, of animals even, created another layer of sound that mingled with the low conversation, creating something altogether new and different from either parent sound. The sliding of doors, the whirring, clicking, and beeping of people about their daily tasks, and the movement of air through the ship added a third note on top of that. It was as if the ship itself were breathing, pulsing with a lifeblood made up of the people who lived within it, like the sound of the wind rustling leaves in the forests back on Earth.
The corridors here were silent. Still. The calm of fear before a battle.
The realization of it, and the fact that he’d missed it up until this point, left him so ill he’d come back to his quarters and grabbed one of his mother’s books as a means of calming himself.
And now this.
Jaelyn stood and walked to the center of the room, not really knowing what it was he was doing until he’d fallen into the capoeira stance he practiced with his mother each night. He almost fell into the opening sequences, but stopped himself. That wasn’t what he needed right now.
His thoughts immediately went to the gardens even though Dr. Martin had given him the day off. He could still go there, but he didn’t think it would bring him the comfort he needed right then either.
“Ace, where’s my mother?”
“She’s in her ready room, though she is in a meeting and cannot be disturbed.” The computer’s voice was immediate and precise.
Of course she was.
The proximity alert for the door sounded. Jaelyn jumped despite himself. He almost told whoever it was to simply enter without question, then changed his mind. “Who’s at the door, Ace?”
“Commander Esquina.”
Commander Esquina, her mother’s executive officer. He’d spoken with the man a few times in passing, more so recently than before. He’d even been by their quarters a couple times to speak with his mother. Wait, Esquina…?
Jaelyn stepped up to the door and pushed the button next to it, forcing it to open. Commander Esquina stood framed in the doorway, the stronger lights of the corridor behind him casting his face and body into shadows.
“Commander?” Jaelyn said.
“Hello, I – ” For half a moment, the commander seemed at a loss for words, his hand waving in a decidedly vague gesture. Then his back straightened and he tugged on the front of his blue-grey uniform as if to straighten it. “Your mother requested that I join you here until after her current meeting is through, then we are to meet her at her ready room. By your leave then, sir?”
Jaelyn nodded and stepped aside. A small voice in the back of his mind that sounded remarkably like his mother snapped at him for letting a “stranger” into his room, but he pushed it aside. His mother had let the man in several times. She’d never done that with anyone else that he could recall.
“Thank you, young sir,” Commander Esquina said as he stepped into the room and the door slid shut behind him.
“Do you want to sit?” Jaelyn asked. “I think we’ve got some drinks or some food or something if you want.”
Commander Esquina nodded, though Jaelyn wasn’t sure to which offer, and walked over to the couch. Jaelyn turned toward the small kitchenette, then back to Commander Esquina, opening his mouth to clarify, then snapped it shut again. He wasn’t good with social situations.
“Is that a book? An actual book?” Commander Esquina’s voice dripped with surprise.
Jaelyn almost sighed with relief. He seized on the question, looking up from his twiddling fingers in time to see Commander Esquina bend over and pick up the book he’d let fall to the floor earlier. The tall young man flipped it over in his hands to look at the cover, hands surprisingly gentle on the cracking leather cover.
“Les Misérables?” Commander Esquina’s voice was a mixture of surprise and respect, though the look he gave Jaelyn was a quizzical one. “That’s pretty heavy reading.”
Jaelyn shrugged, though he felt a flash of annoyance course through him. Would people ever stop commenting about him not fitting into their mold of “normal” for his age? “It’s my mother’s. She says that hanging onto relics of the past can ground us in the present.”
Commander Esquina nodded, a hint of sorrow creeping across his face as the set of his eyes narrowed ever so slightly and the muscles of his jaw tightened almost imperceptibly. “My father says – used to say something very similar. He and your mother served together in the late war.”
Jaelyn shifted uncomfortably, the question dancing on the tip of his tongue for the space of two long breaths. Commander Esquina must have seen Jaelyn’s discomfort because he shook his head and blew out a long sigh.
“Yes, that Esquina. My apologies for becoming maudlin. I thought I’d left it all behind, but apparently some connections run deeper than distance.”
Jaelyn met the man’s eyes. “You got to know your father, at least. I never met mine and I still find myself thinking about him sometimes, wondering who he was or why he did what he did to my mother.”
Commander Esquina looked at him with what Jaelyn took to be a mix of surprise and annoyance, mouth slightly open as if he’d been about to say something, but stopped partway there. The man held the expression for long enough that Jaelyn started to squirm under the scrutiny. In retrospect, what he’d said didn’t sound exactly how he’d meant it, but he had meant it as a helpful comment, rather than a chastisement. Still, communication was more about how people took what was said, rather than how it was meant. Jaelyn tensed, ready to spring away if necessary.
Commander Esquina started laughing. Jaelyn watched in confusion as the man laughed for almost a minute, tears filling his eyes. Jaelyn took a few steps away from him.
“Are you alright?” Jaelyn asked, not bothering to hide his confusion. Had the man cracked? Some people did when exposed to long periods of space travel. The confines of a ship were only so expansive. Some people buckled under the restriction of it all, of the thought of all that space on the other side of a ship’s wall, ready to boil their blood in seconds, and suck out their air.
“You definitely inherited your mother’s directness,” Commander Esquina said, holding up a hand. “Thank you. I needed that.”
Jaelyn gave the man an awkward smile, still not understanding. “Are you ok?”
Commander Esquina smiled and wiped at his eyes with one hand. “I’m fine now, thank you. I promise, I’m ok.” He coughed and shook his hand out, flipping little beads of moisture onto the couch. “Your mother tells me you enjoy plants and growing things. I’ve never been able to grow so much as a flower.”
Jaelyn shrugged, though inside his mind raced. It wasn’t like his mother to talk to other people about him. She, well, she was a bit overprotective at times. Some might even call her paranoid in some regards. Trust never came quickly with her, or ever, for that matter. If she was talking about him to Commander Esquina, she clearly trusted him as much as she trusted anyone. That realization made him wonder why she’d never really talked much about Commander Esquina with him. Did she, perhaps, not trust her own son? Jaelyn didn’t know what to think about that.
“Jaelyn?”
Jaelyn looked up, pulled from his thoughts by the quiet earnestness in the commander’s voice.
“Hmm?” Jaelyn asked.
“Are you alright? You seemed lost in thought just then.”
“Fine. I’m fine. Just remembering that I’d forgotten to check on the southern fields down on the garden level earlier today.” The lie was simple enough. He had actually forgotten to do just that, but he’d remembered earlier and rectified the situation.
Commander Esquina smiled, and it was a warm, welcoming one that immediately made Jaelyn feel at ease. Again. “I think Dr. Martin will forgive you. She seems a decent enough woman.”
“She’s a genius with plants.”
“You’d know that better than I. I just – ” Commander Esquina cut off as Ace’s voice chimed from the man’s wristband.
“Commander, security r
equests your presence in the mess. There’s been an incident.”
Nathan forced himself not to turn his brisk walk into a run, though his boots made loud echoes off the metal floor and corridor walls that worked in time with the much softer, muted thumps of Jaelyn’s footfalls. The boy – no, young man – walked alongside him, keeping close. Amara had been very specific in her instructions to remain close to her son until the aftereffects of the…of the transmission could be ascertained and contained. That meant he had to come along.
Despite the echoing retort of their steps, silence hung heavy between them. The air was thick with it, which was never a good sign aboard a ship. Even through the wash of conflicting emotions running through him, Nathan could feel the thick weight of the ship, the collective tension of its many occupants. It was…well, it only made Nathan want to break into a run all the more.
A pair of security personnel met him in front of the doors to the mess hall. Armed security personnel. Trepidation mingled with the other emotions within him and made his hands tingle as if circulation were returning after long disuse.
“Sir,” one of them said, “I don’t know how it happened. I mean, here, aboard our ship?”
“How what happened?” Nathan let some of his frustration slip into his voice, allowing it to snap a bit.
The man shifted his grip on his concussion rifle, knuckles immediately going white as his grip tightened.
What happened? Nathan felt his mouth go dry, though he was able to push down the surge of—was it anxiety or fear—that surged through him.
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