by JN Chaney
Abel nodded. “Yes, sir.”
“No problem,” said Seth.
“Give me a minute. I need to check on your mother before we go.”
“Of course,” said Abel.
As his father went inside, Abel followed, and Seth’s eyes drifted to the window. In the distant blackness, thousands of stars flickered, twinkling and glowing from untold light years away. Here in the far reaches of the galaxy, the Eden floated in a vacuum, spiraling towards some unknown end. With every passing moment, the ship moved further away from the only home its crew had ever known. The birthplace of their race. There was so much at risk out here. So much to lose if things went wrong.
Seth saw his face reflected in the glass, and he looked into his tired eyes. He would give anything to be home on Fiore, walking in the summer fields of the open country, Azura by his side. He longed for it now more than ever, and wondered for a moment why it couldn’t be.
A scrap of debris floated across the window, startling him. It resembled the hull of the ship. A shredded piece of gray metal. Had there been an explosion? Had they hit something?
Several more shards emerged, coming into view. Each varied in size, growing steadily larger by the moment. The longer he watched, the more he saw, until at last a cloud of dust and chunks of metal appeared, filling the area outside the window.
As Seth backed away, preparing to tell his father, he saw what looked like the head of a man, severed and burned, floating gently in the dark.
Five
Nearly two hours after the incident, Seth and the rest of the department heads convened in one of the conference rooms. Adam had called them together once the communication system came back online.
At the center of the table, Lilith appeared in a holographic display, attempting to explain the situation. “Most of bay four is gone. We lost fifty-seven pods. Several others were damaged.”
“How many dead?” asked Adam.
“Seventy-three.”
Several officers gasped. In all the years since the Eden had departed, there had never been a disaster like this.
“Run us through what happened,” said Adam.
“There was a power surge,” Lilith explained. “From what I can tell, several power relays were already damaged. I think they were the cause of the explosion.”
“Why didn’t we know about this? What’s Engineering been doing?” asked Adam.
“It’s not their fault,” said Lilith. “We run scans every single day, but none of them picked these malfunctions up. They never received proper maintenance because no one knew they needed it. If the accident hadn’t occurred, we never would have known.”
“Does this explain the power outages we’ve been having recently?” asked Uriel.
“I believe so,” said Lilith. “I’m still running diagnostics to verify.”
“I can’t believe we lost over seventy people,” muttered Azura.
Seth thought of the floating head outside the window, and flinched. He wished he’d never seen it.
Adam nodded. “Be that as it may, we can’t let anything like this happen again. I want teams from engineering to sweep the ship. If our scans couldn’t detect a couple of faulty relays, then there could be others. I want them found. Understand, Chief?”
“Yes, sir,” said Chief Codan, the head of Engineering. “My people are on it as we speak.”
“Good,” said Adam. “I want updates every six hours from each of you. Send them to me directly.”
They all agreed.
“Dismissed,” ordered Adam, and the officers began to leave.
Seth followed them, but as he reached the door, he felt his father hand on his shoulder. “Hold on for a second,” said the old man.
Azura glanced briefly at them from the outer hall, but continued. Once the door shut, Adam let out a sigh, leaning against the table and staring at the floor. “Lilith, I need the room to talk with my boy, if you don’t mind,” he said, looking at the hologram.
“Of course, but Captain, I should also note that we are about to begin our deceleration towards the next planet. We’ll need to start preparations soon.”
“How soon?” he asked.
“I was supposed to start this evening. Thanks to this evening’s events, I’ve had to push them back. Right now, I’m predicting midnight.”
“Can we deal with this at a later time?”
She frowned. “I’m afraid not. The window for deceleration is rather small. Only about twelve hours. If we don’t start soon, we’ll miss the arrival point, which means we’ll have to double back around. Also, once we’re out of warp, we’ll only have six days before we get there, which leaves little time to prepare. I’ll need to perform several long range scans. Our departments will have to recheck supplies. I need your digital signature on all of it.”
“Understood. Thank you, Lilith. I’ll meet you on the bridge shortly so we can start.”
“Yes, sir. See you soon.” The hologram evaporated into thin air.
Adam glanced at Seth, motioning for him to sit. “I need a favor, son.”
“What’s wrong?”
“I need you to run an investigation.”
“What do you mean? What kind of investigation?”
“I need you to look into this accident. Ask questions, check who was nearby, look at video feeds. That sort of thing.”
“You want me to investigate the crew?”
“That’s exactly right,” his father said.
“What for?” asked Seth.
Adam hesitated. “There are a few things about the incident that don’t sit well with me.” He thumbed the edge of the table. “Earlier, when you were helping me on the bridge, I asked Uriel to check the video feed when the incident happened. She came back a few minutes before this meeting and said they were blank.”
“It was probably the power outage,” suggested Seth.
Adam shook his head. “The power was still working several minutes after the recordings went dark. It’s a little strange, right? Uriel’s checking to see if maybe someone deleted them manually.”
“Are you saying you think there’s a saboteur on the ship?” asked Seth. “A traitor?” It was an outrageous assertion, to say the least. They were using a bare-bones crew, with most of the colonists asleep in the population bays. A little more than two hundred people were actively living on the vessel, and he knew a lot of them. Seth couldn’t imagine any of the crew being a terrorist or a murderer. The thought of it turned his stomach.
“Relax, son,” said his father, who must have seen the worried look on his face. “I don’t think anyone intentionally did this. I just think it’s worth looking into. We need to explore every angle when so much is at stake. It’s part of the burden of command. You can’t leave anything unchecked, not when there are lives on the line. Do you understand?”
“Yeah, I do,” said Seth.
“Good,” said Adam. “I need you to do this for me. I’m too busy or I’d handle it personally. You heard Lilith. Between the mission and the aftermath of today, I’m sure I’ll have my hands full. You and Uriel are the highest ranking security officers we have. Do you think you can handle this?”
“I’ll take care of it,” said Seth.
“Thank you, son. You can start by checking in with Uriel. She’s down in Security. If all goes well, she’ll tell you there’s nothing wrong and the video is fine.”
“And if she doesn’t?” asked Seth. “What’s the next step?”
“For now, let’s just hope it ends there.”
Six
Seth and Uriel sat together behind the video monitor, waiting for the analysis of the footage to finish. The machine had been going for nearly thirty minutes.
Uriel tapped her fingers on the desk. “This is taking so long,” she finally said.
“Should we come back later?” asked Seth. As much as he enjoyed playing sleuth detective, he also promised Azura they’d meet up later. Accordi
ng to the clock, her shift ended ten minutes ago. She’d head to his quarters next, expecting him to be there.
“No, it won’t be much longer. Maybe twenty minutes.” She tapped the screen on the console, pointing to a timer. “Ignore my complaining. I’m just tired.”
It was understandable, given today’s events. “It’s almost midnight. I get it,” said Seth.
Uriel sighed. “I hope Adam’s wrong about this.”
Seth sat behind his desk in the corner, stretching his legs and cracking his back. His eyes burned after an increasingly long day. He closed them and tried to relax. A moment later, a hand touched his shoulder. He awoke to see Uriel standing over him. “Hey, get up,” she said.
“Huh?” He must have drifted off.
“You were snoring,” she explained.
Snoring? He only did that when he was truly beat. I need to go home and get some sleep.
“The results are ready,” she said, pointing to the workstation.
“What’s it look like?” he asked, joining her there.
“Hold on. I’ll bring them up.” She typed in a command and leaned back, tapping the sides of the chair and clicking her tongue. “Give it a second.”
A readout appeared on the screen, covered with numbers and, as far as Seth could tell, random nonsense. “Good news?”
Uriel stared at the screen, scrunching her nose. “Um…”
“What?”
“It looks like there’s a problem with the recording.”
“What kind of problem?”
She paused. “I’m not sure.”
“Did someone delete the video footage?” he asked.
“I don’t know if anyone came in and deleted it, but they definitely altered the data.”
“What do you mean?”
“Normally, I could go in here and check the records to see who modified what. I’d get the name, typically, along with the date and time. There’s nothing here.”
“So? Doesn’t that mean no one accessed the logs?” asked Seth.
She shook her head. “No, you don’t understand. The analysis is still showing a modification. See this break in the feed here?” She pointed to one of the red lines on the screen. It had a small gap near the middle. “Normally, you might see this during an outage, but look over there. This number near the edge of the screen. You see it in the corner?”
Seth had to lean in to spot it. “You mean this?” he asked, motioning to the tiny number. It currently read Cam225x41.
“Right. Any idea what it means?”
He shook his head. He didn’t have much experience with the surveillance systems.
“The screen we’re on is for this camera, hence the Cam part. Next is the designation the camera falls under. This one is number 225. With me so far?”
“Sure,” he said.
“The next part is the 41. That’s how many times the data on this screen was modified. The feeds don’t get dumped or altered very often unless we’re running a maintenance check on them. In this case, camera 225 was altered 41 times.” She clicked on Cam225x41 and the screen changed. A long list of names and timestamps appeared. “This is the log. We can see almost all of the 41 entries.”
“Almost?” asked Seth.
She scrolled to the bottom. “Notice anything next to the final two timestamps?”
Seth leaned in. “There’s no name next to the dates.”
“Right,” she said, nodding. “Someone deleted their name from the log, which frankly shouldn’t be possible. We have security checks in place to prevent this sort of thing.”
“Does this mean the video was tampered with?”
“The feed itself gives no indication of being modified, but this log entry says otherwise. We can see right here that someone accessed the file. First at 1920 hours, then again at 1930.”
“Before and after the explosion,” said Seth.
“Exactly,” said Uriel. She held up her hand. “Don’t get me wrong. This could be a weird glitch. Maybe.”
“But you don’t think so?”
“I don’t know,” she admitted. “It’s just suspicious.”
“I’ll say,” said Seth. “Can you get me a copy of the logs?”
“Sure, but why?” she asked.
“The captain asked me to investigate, so that’s what I’m going to do. I’ll start with all the names on that list. Everyone who’s touched this file.”
“They’re mostly engineers,” said Uriel. “I know most these people.”
“So do I, but we have to stay impartial. We can’t let our personal feelings stop us from getting to the bottom of this. Understand?”
Uriel nodded and turned back to the computer. She transferred the list onto Seth’s com. “Who are you starting with?”
He pulled the list up and scrolled through it, spotting several names he recognized. They were friends and associates. He couldn’t picture any of them as a murderer. Oh well. Better to start at the end. The last person to touch the file. “Tess Rorsha,” he finally said. “I’ll work my way back from there.”
Seth went home after his meeting with Uriel. He needed some rest before he could continue investigating the incident. When he arrived at his quarters, he found Azura sleeping in his bed. Opting not to wake her, he crashed on the couch.
Lying in the dark, his mind raced with what tomorrow might bring. Earlier today, the idea of sabotage seemed all but impossible, but not anymore.
Now, he wasn’t so sure. If Uriel was right, then the video feed had been intentionally altered, and a killer could very well be living among them. How long before this person grew bored and tried again? How many more colonists would die?
Seth closed his eyes, giving into sleep. He faded quickly, drifting in a sea of dreams.
He saw the cerulean skies of Fiore, stretching far and away over a vast, green country. Alone, he walked through fields of golden wheat, wind blowing against the stalks. Kadmon Farm was near, he knew, somewhere in the valley.
Suddenly, a loud snap cackled through the sky, parting clouds and echoing. The ground shook, wildly. Towards the capitol, a great flame erupted, consuming everything around it, filling the sky with smoke. The burning metropolis raged like the sun, igniting so bright he could almost feel the heat.
Seth ran like a frightened child, trying to escape. As he neared the edge of the field, he found his childhood home atop the solitary hill. The door opened and he paused. Standing on the steps, he saw his mother, crying and holding a basket.
Behind them, the fire swarmed, blazing through the valley towards them. Seth motioned for his mother to stop, to return to the house before it was too late, but she wouldn’t listen. She ran past him, headlong into the flame—the living incarnation of death—smiling as she died, and laughing. Laughing until her skin melted and she collapsed into dust.
Seth ran inside, slamming the door behind him. The fire beat against the wood, taunting him with a whisper. “Let us in,” it said, softly.
“Go away!” he cried.
“Let us in,” it whispered. “Let us in. Let us in. Let us in.”
A girl appeared on the other side of the room. It was Azura, young and wearing the same clothes as the day they’d met. Her eyes were empty, replaced with green and red marbles. “Help me, Seth,” she begged. “I don’t know what to do!”
“Get back!” he told her.
The window nearby shattered, and the fire leapt into the room, laughing as it spread, inching towards the girl, catching on her dress. It consumed her in seconds. Screams filled the cottage home, shrieks of chaos and boiling blood.
“Come come come come,” whispered the fire. “Burn burn burn burn.”
“Stay away from me, please!” he begged. “I don’t want to die!”
“Everything dies,” whispered the living flame. “Even you. Even us. Even God.”
The alarm on Seth’s communicator woke him. He wiped the sweat from his forehead and accepted
the call. “Hello?” he muttered, and coughed. His throat was dry and scratchy.
“Seth, the captain would like to see you. Please report to his office immediately,” said Lilith.
“I’m on my way,” he said.
“Acknowledged,” she said. “See you soon.”
The call ended and he sat up on the couch. With a deep breath, he got to his feet and wiped his eyes. “Azura?”
There was no answer. He peered into the bedroom, but found it empty. She must have gone to work already.
He changed his clothes, then splashed his face with some water. He’d shower on his break if time allowed. For now, he had work to do.
When he arrived at the office, he found his father working busily behind his computer. “Come in,” said Adam, motioning for him to have a seat. “Any news from yesterday?”
Seth nodded and sat down. “Yes, sir. We have some leads, but I’m still working on it.”
“What did you find?”
“The logs may have been tampered with, but we don’t know how or why. There’s no concrete evidence, but Uriel thinks there’s reason to be suspicious.”
Adam leaned back in his chair. “What do you think?”
“I agree with her. I pulled a list of names from the logs…everyone who’s touched the video feed. I’m planning on questioning each of them, starting with the most recent entry,” said Seth.
“Right,” said Adam, glancing at his computer. His eyes lingered on the screen for a while, and he sighed.
“Something wrong?”
“This couldn’t come at a worse time.”
Seth didn’t know what to say. His father looked so stressed, like he had the weight of the world on his shoulders. Maybe he did. “I’ll start with the names on the log. It shouldn’t take long.”
Adam nodded. “I’d send you some help, but I’m afraid they’re all busy. Between the mission and repairs, the crew’s spread pretty thin.”
“Don’t worry about it,” said Seth. “I can handle asking a few questions.”
