Colonial Prime_Humanity

by Kevin L. Nielsen

  “So, you miss it too, don’t you?” the girl said.

  “Miss what?”

  “Earth. The green. Plants. Life.” The way she said it, Jaelyn didn’t have to see her face to notice the eye roll.

  Jaelyn shrugged, feeling dumb. Was he really having a conversation with a strange girl while she sat fifteen feet above him staring at a tree?

  “I didn’t really spend much time on Earth.”

  “Spacer?”

  “Not at all. My mom was in the Fleet, but I was born on Earth.”

  The girl was silent for a long moment and Jaelyn wondered if the conversation was over. Oddly, he found himself slightly saddened by the thought. He shrugged again and moved to return to his work when the girl spoke again.

  “So, you’re him, huh?”

  What was with her way of asking such vague questions? “Him who?”

  “The captain’s son.”

  “Jaelyn Corrin,” he said. He looked up and noticed the girl was looking down at him from almost directly overhead. When had she moved? He smiled and nodded at her, making it almost a small bow.

  “Kathryn.” She nodded at him and then frowned, her eyes meeting his with an intensity that Jaelyn found uncomfortable. “So, what is she going to do? Your mother? Are we going back, or not?”

  “I don’t know. She doesn’t talk about that sort of thing with me.”

  The girl made a face. “Well, I hope she’s as strong as the stories say.”

  “You want to keep going, then, to the new planet? I thought you wanted to go back to your friends. Didn’t you say they were both bad choices?”

  The girl rolled her eyes. “I wasn’t serious.”

  Jaelyn shifted his weight from one foot to the other, not saying anything. He wasn’t sure what else there was to say. Eventually the girl sighed, then yawned and waved one hand down at him as she turned away.

  “Good luck, Jaelyn Corrin,” she said over her shoulder. “Come what may. Maybe I’ll see you around.”

  She was gone in a moment, the door sliding closed behind her. Jaelyn looked after her for what seemed an eternity, watching the door and thinking over both what she and Dr. Martin had said. They seemed at odds with one another, but, at the same time, very similar. What was going on? How would his mother handle this?

  With a sigh, Jaelyn pushed the thoughts down and returned to work, but his movements were slower now, his worries refusing to be tamed.

  Amara leaned against the doorframe, peering into the darkened room and, for perhaps the first time in her life that she could remember, felt unsure how to proceed. Stars streaked by through the window on the far side of the room, their soft incandescence the only light falling across the silent form that sat at a desk near the window. The silent form of Commander Nathan Esquina.

  She wasn’t sure how she felt about the man in that precise moment. Oh, she definitely had feelings, ones that would have landed them both court-martialed in a regular military unit, but right now those emotions mixed with a smoldering anger. He’d taken her son into that hell hole in the mess. He’d then gone and put himself, unarmed, into the middle of the three groups, and lectured them. Amara was sure she would have been even angrier if it hadn’t worked. The nerve it must have taken, the anger, the passion…the pain. She felt like smacking him upside the head. Or kissing him. Probably both.

  “I’m sorry, Amara.”

  Nathan’s voice was almost a whisper, though Amara heard it easily enough. The room wasn’t that big after all. A simple, rather spartan affair. They weren’t even his quarters. It had taken her far longer than was necessary to find him after she’d seen to the clean-up in the mess. Somehow, he’d disabled his wristband locator chip, which had made finding him a matter of asking around and hunting him out the old-fashioned way. Disabling a wristband wasn’t supposed to be possible, but he’d managed it somehow. Maybe she really should have made him the chief engineer.

  “Sorry for what?”

  Nathan didn’t answer. Amara wasn’t sure if he intentionally remained silent or if he hadn’t heard her. She stepped into the room, letting the door slide shut behind her.

  “Sorry, for what, Commander?”

  Nathan shifted in the chair, turning his head to look in her direction. She could only make him out in profile, his silhouette outlined by the backdrop of passing stars.

  “He’s really gone, isn’t he?” Nathan said.

  That wasn’t the question she’d asked, but she’d seen enough soldier’s reactions to death to recognize where his thoughts were lingering.

  “He’s really gone,” she said. She took a step closer to him. “I’m sorry, Nathan.”

  She saw his head move up and down and recognized him nodding.

  “I thought I’d dealt with this already. This is a one-way trip, after all. I left him behind. He was too attached to the world he’d just helped conquer. He’d fought too long and hard to unite it to leave it behind.” His voice trailed off.

  Amara stepped closer. “He would have been proud of you today, with what you did in the mess hall.” Why was she saying that? Part of her wanted to berate him for his foolishness, but she knew what she said was true. She’d spent far too long under the late admiral’s command to not know the truth of it. “He always believed in directness and absolutes.”

  “I know.”

  “I’m glad you came, Nathan.” Amara stepped closer, stopping only a few inches from him.

  “I believe in this mission, Amara. I believe in the cause. I wouldn’t have come on this voyage if I didn’t believe, whole-heartedly, that this was the only way to start fresh. Humanity reforms itself on a new world. A better humanity not doomed to repeat its past.” He sniffed and swallowed, the sound a hollow click in the darkness. “But maybe we’re not meant to leave Earth. These people won’t leave it behind if I can’t even do it. Maybe we should just go back. Maybe…I don’t know.” He leaned his head down, forehead coming to rest against her sternum.

  Amara’s heart pounded in her chest. She raised one hand up to the back of his neck, leaving it there. The other she rested against the side of his head in an awkward sort of embrace.

  “I know.” She said softly, fingers wrapping into his hair.

  “I’m sorry,” Nathan said, and wept, his hands coming up to meet hers and his fingers intertwining with her own.

  Amara held him there, long into the night.

  Amara sat in her room, waiting for the doctor and her intern to return. The contents of her stomach seemed to flutter, reflecting the nervous tension she felt. So much was going on right now. Her ship, the colonial voyage itself, was fit to implode, and they were only a year into the trip. How were they going to survive forty-three more years?

  They were going to pass out of range of the transmission network soon, and that would help, but the seeds of those earlier missives had already taken firm root. True, there did seem to be a small group of individuals that were devoted to the mission itself and were working to build bridges between the factions, but they were few and far between.

  She blew out a long breath and cleared her mind, realizing she was allowing her thoughts to wander. Where had her stern rigidity gone? Where was the military decorum, the sense of duty and iron-hard will? Still there, likely, just covered now in a layer of pragmatism. This was far from a military mission. If it had been, Amara would have court-martialed the dissenters and left them on some asteroid prison in the Keiper Belt months ago.

  The proximity alert on her door sounded.

  “Enter.”

  The doctor, a tall, thin woman who looked far too young to be a medical professional and whose name Amara could never remember, walked in. Her intern was noticeably absent. The woman walked over to where Amara sat on the low couch and took a seat next to her, one hand wrapped around a small rectangular container of some sort.

  “Well, Captain,” the doctor said with a pert smile. “Congratulations are in order, I think. You’re pregnant.”

  Amara sucked
in a breath. She’d suspected, known even, but hearing it confirmed was still a small shock to her system. A swelter of emotions made war in her chest, though she did her best not to let any of it creep into her expression.

  “I trust I can count on your discretion in this matter, Doctor,” Amara said, licking her lips.

  The doctor inclined her head. “I ran the test myself and logged the results under my personal records. They’re all locked under my password and voice control. No one can access them but me.”

  “Thank you.”

  The doctor nodded again. “Doctor patient confidentiality actually means something to some of us, Captain. Not all of us are as accustomed to the lack of privacy that comes with being in the military as you are.” She lifted the container she held and proffered it in Amara’s direction. “Here. These are some pre-natal vitamins and something to help with the nausea. There’s nothing I can do about your stomach starting to show, but I can at least help you maintain a little dignity. It wouldn’t behoove a captain to have to run from the Command Bubble to go throw up.”

  Amara gave her a grateful smile. No, it most certainly wouldn’t do to have her running off like that. Or showing weakness of any sort right now. She took the container, placing it on her lap.

  “You haven’t asked who the father is,” Amara said.

  The doctor got to her feet with a small smile. “It’s none of my business how you spend your free time, Captain.” She turned to leave, then hesitated at the door and turned halfway back around. “Whoever he is, I’m glad you have him. Being captain is a lonely, solitary thing sometimes, I’m sure. Especially here.”

  “Thank you, Doctor.”

  The doctor smiled and left.

  Amara leaned her head back against the DuraGlass window, feeling the cool of empty space bleed through the foot-thick barrier. Pregnant.

  How could she bring a baby into this mess? A wash of emotions filled her, battling with one another. She was thrilled, that wasn’t in question at all. Despite their age difference and the impropriety of it all, she’d come to love Nathan more than she’d ever thought possible. He was earnest, gentle, and kind. What was more, he complimented her stern practicality with a stolid optimism and earnest vulnerability that always made her want to do more and be better. Not that she’d ever admit that to him aloud. She didn’t need him thinking he’d got the upper hand in their relationship, after all. She was still the captain. She had to keep outranking him somehow.

  But beneath that happiness, fear swam in the darkness, like an enemy ship shrouded in the shadow of a nearby planet. Her relationship with Nathan was secret. Sacred. The one bit of privacy she’d allowed herself aboard this mission. This would shatter that, one way or another. And how would Jaelyn react? It was all she could do to keep it from him to begin with. After all, how many meetings did a captain have with her executive officer that lasted all night long and took place in the captain’s bedroom?

  Beyond that, Amara knew the ship itself was primed and ready to explode. Old fears, biases, and alliances she’d hoped had been left behind were now stronger than ever. If the mounting tension boiled over, she’d have a mutiny on her hands, a riot aboard ship that she wasn’t sure she was equipped to handle. And they still had forty-three more years left to go.

  Amara sighed and let one of her hands move up and rest on her stomach. She wasn’t far enough along to show yet, but all the same, she swore she could feel the little life pulsing within her. With her other hand, she picked up her datapad and pulled up an image of the planet to which they were headed. It didn’t have an official name yet, just a designation, P3X11A. About Earth-sized, but with fewer oceans, the planet looked as innocuous and innocent as any other image.

  “You’ll need a name,” Amara said. “Sooner or later. Let’s just hope we all live to see you.”

  “Make sure you space those trellises out far enough,” Jaelyn said, looking up at the other apprentices. “Place them too far away and the vines won’t be able to climb.”

  Several of the apprentices grumbled softly to themselves, but made sure to shift their trellises a little closer to the plants.

  “I don’t see why we have to do this by hand,” one of the girls muttered. “We’ve got machines that can do it.”

  “We won’t have machines when we get where we’re going. Best learn how to do it by hand now so you don’t have to relearn it then,” Jaelyn said. The girl glowered at him and whispered something to her friend.

  Jaelyn almost smiled. It amused him more than he would ever admit how much the other kids hated work. It was almost humorous enough to make him forget the last three months of tension and stress that had left the ship ready to burst at the seams, the inhabitants aboard primed and ready to burst into flame like dry wood in a fire. Almost.

  “The shift is now over.” Ace’s computerized voice chimed from everyone’s wristbands at the same time.

  At the same instant, the security guards who had been lurking in the shadows of a nearby corridor stepped forward to escort the other apprentices on to their next duty stations or else back to their rooms. The other apprentices left their equipment where it lay and formed into a rag-tag line, following the security guards from the room.

  Yep, definitely just almost.

  “Well,” Dr. Martin said, walking up to him from another direction, “best get this done and settled. Here, I’ll lend you a hand.”

  Jaelyn shrugged. “I can handle it. Don’t the people from the mess hall incident get released today? I figured you’d want to be there when Sheawn gets out.”

  Dr. Martin dusted off her hands and gave Jaelyn a wry smile, one which made the slight wrinkles deepen along one side of her face more than the other. “That’s thoughtful of you, but no. He dug his own grave this time. Let him climb his way out of it.”

  Jaelyn wasn’t sure how to respond to that, so he switched topics. “I could definitely use the help, in that case.”

  Dr. Martin smiled. “They probably didn’t do it right, anyway.”

  Jaelyn returned her grin. “Probably not.”

  They worked in silence for a few hours, straightening the trellises and planting the shoots so they’d grow the right way to make the trellises work. Over the time they’d been working together, they’d both grown used to the way the other worked, their process for getting things done. Talking was unnecessary, and Jaelyn liked that just fine. Even still, after the second hour passed without a word, Jaelyn couldn’t take the silence any longer.

  “So, you suppose they’ll do anything for the anniversary?” he asked.

  “Anniversary?” Dr. Martin didn’t look up from the shoot she was adjusting.

  “Of when we left Earth. One year ago today. Colonial Prime’s birthday, if you will.”

  Dr. Martin paused, looking thoughtful. “It is now? Well, there’s still forty-three more long, depressing years to go, Jaelyn. I doubt they’ll celebrate it.”

  “Well, you didn’t have to go and make it all sad and depressing.” Jaelyn didn’t care if it sounded pouty. She’d crushed his budding ease with a single sentence. That was just rude.

  “Realist.”

  Jaelyn threw a clod of dirt at her.

  The little clod of dark, rich earth struck her just as she turned, exploding on her chest and covering her in a fine, dark powder. A bit of the dirt landed on her nose and stuck there. Surprise followed by anger crossed across Dr. Martin’s features. Jaelyn wasn’t sure if he should apologize or just start laughing.

  “Really, Jaelyn?”

  Jaelyn couldn’t help himself. He started laughing, not bothering to even try and stop. Dr. Martin spluttered for half a moment, then started laughing herself.

  The speakers crackled, the whistling trill of an Earthside communication sounding through the room.

  The laughter cut off immediately. Jaelyn felt immediate dread spread through him as feedback blared through the speakers, like the sound of falling water.

  “No!” Dr. Martin said, steppin
g close to Jaelyn and wrapping one hand around his forearm in a painfully tight grip.

  A faint voice cut through the static and noise.

  “…fallen. War has…” A sharp retort, like the snap of a whip or perhaps shattering glass cut through the voice. After a moment, the voice returned. “Help us! Anyone out there. The Council has fallen. Thousands have died. Factions are killing one another again. I – ” The sound came again and the voice cut off with a scream.

  Dr. Martin’s grip on Jaelyn’s arm stiffened into iron. Silence stretched into the eternities. Even the sound of Jaelyn’s beating heart sounded like the thunderous roar of starship engines. The speakers crackled again and then another voice spoke.

  “Unitatis Sangrinus forever!”

  The speakers cut off abruptly and this time, Jaelyn was sure they wouldn’t come on again. No final whistling tone sounded, but it was as final and complete as any blaring call.

  “Well,” Dr. Martin said in a low whisper, “damn. That complicates things. I’d half hoped they’d failed. I guess not.”

  Jaelyn licked his lips and tried to turn, but her grip on his arm dissuaded any movement.

  “Can I have my arm back?” he asked.

  Dr. Martin didn’t release him. Instead, she stepped around in front of him. Jaelyn looked up at her, surprised to see anger, pain, and a raw, smoldering something in her eyes as she looked down at him. Jaelyn felt a cold shiver of fear work down his spine and come to rest in the pit of his stomach, like a great weighty stone.

  “Dr. Martin?”

  “I’m sorry, Jaelyn,” she said.

  Before Jaelyn could even ask, the light vanished as something fell over his head and thick, calloused hands closed around his torso, squeezing him tight.

  The conduit had clearly been severed. Sabotaged. Nathan wished it surprised him, but it simply didn’t. Not anymore. Not after four other similar incidents over the last week. He suspected they were all carried out either by the same individual, or at least by someone working with a group that had the same goal. Taken individually, none of the incidents amounted to much. Taken together, they would render the engines useless for anything other than minute adjustments to trajectory and velocity.