My Sweet Satan

by Peter Cawdron

  Mike said, “I love you, babe.”

  “No,” Jasmine replied abruptly. “Don’t you dare! You are not playing with my heart like this.”

  She watched as Mike pushed away from the glass. He seemed to be as frustrated as she was. He drifted there helpless in the cramped airlock, bumping into his floating spacesuit.

  That Jason hadn’t spoken bothered Jasmine. He had to have heard their exchange, but he neither confirmed nor denied Mike’s claims. Why? Jason was an enigma. Just when she thought she understood him, his reactions, or in this case his lack of response, would confuse her. Was he just like her? Was he, too, trying to get to the bottom of what really happened? She wanted to talk to him, to get his opinion. She felt she needed another perspective, but she knew Jason and Mike were at loggerheads. That was probably why he’d stayed out of this conversation, she thought. Mike’s attitude toward Jason was dismissive.

  “Jazz, please,” Mike said, but Jasmine was weary of the lies. She couldn’t stand talking to him anymore.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “It seems neither of us is who we say we are.”

  She switched off the intercom, cutting off his protest midstream.

  “Wait—”

  Too late. She could still hear him inside the airlock, but his voice was muffled and indistinct.

  The lighting in the Engineering bay was dim. Warmth radiated from the engines. For a while, Mike continued tapping at the glass, trying to get her attention, but she ignored him.

  Jasmine felt strangely detached. She didn’t know what to do or where she belonged. The only other person she knew on the spaceship was a murderer. The others hated her. Hate was perhaps too strong a word as neither Chuck nor Anastasia had shown any animosity toward Jasmine, but she couldn’t suppress the feeling that they resented her. She wanted a simple solution: to go home.

  Jasmine curled up, hugging herself and closing her eyes. She was exhausted physically, mentally and emotionally. She wanted to escape. She wanted everyone to go away, to leave her alone. She wanted to forget. With her eyes closed, she wished she was back on her porch, swinging gently on the wooden seat. She tried to picture the lush, green lawn, the birds flitting in the trees and the white picket fence, but these were a mirage out of reach. As much as she wanted to feel as though she was back in Georgia, the sickening falling feeling in her stomach wouldn’t let her forget she was floating freely in space.

  Slowly, darkness crept over her and she drifted off to sleep.

  After what felt like days, but had probably only been a few hours, Jasmine woke to the sound of muted voices. Her eyes opened. The lights in Engineering were dim to the point of being almost completely dark, but the beam from a flashlight rippled across her eyes, pulling her out of a deep sleep. Mike must have been moving around inside the airlock talking to himself as he looked for something.

  Still half-asleep, Jasmine’s body shook violently, convulsing for a second. She suddenly felt overwhelmed by a falling sensation not unlike dreaming of a fall from a cliff, only the jolt didn’t mark her waking in her bed but rather still floating in space.

  Jasmine had drifted up against the control panel. The knobs and switches were covered with transparent plastic flaps to prevent them from being accidentally pressed. Lying against them should have been uncomfortable, but she was barely touching them and the heat radiating gently from behind the panel was warm and inviting.

  Jasmine blinked.

  A light shone from the airlock.

  Slowly, she pushed off and saw Mike signaling her from behind the glass. He must have seen she was awake. She held onto a handhold by the airlock and pressed the intercom button.

  “Sleep well?” he asked.

  “Up until a few minutes ago,” she replied, more than a little annoyed at the light flashing in her eyes. “What time is it?”

  “Ship time is 4am.”

  “Why the hell did you wake me?”

  “I have to talk to you.”

  Jasmine didn’t want to hear excuses. She felt she knew what he was going to say before he spoke.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, his eyes dropping away from hers.

  That wasn’t enough. She was sure there was nothing Mike could say that would make up for what had happened to Nadir. She yawned.

  “I know you don’t believe me. I know no one does, but I wasn’t trying to kill Nadir. I was defending myself. He slipped.”

  Jasmine was still waking and wasn’t listening that closely. She wasn’t interested in his confession.

  “I tried to help him. Honest. I don’t know what you saw, but I knelt down there trying to grab him. I got hold of his forearm, but he was too heavy.”

  Jasmine raised her hand, signaling that she’d heard enough.

  “He’s dead, Mike. I don’t think you get that. This isn’t like making a mistake on an exam or cutting someone off on the freeway. There’s no apology that can satisfy any of us. You can never bring him back or make up for his loss.”

  She held her finger over the intercom button, poised to cut him off as she added, “Don’t wake me again.”

  With that she turned off the intercom and moved away from the airlock. There must have been better places to sleep on the Copernicus, but she didn’t know where they were, and she didn’t feel as though she belonged in the main cabin. She held herself gently against the flat of the control panel, again feeling the warmth coming through from beneath, and closed her eyes.

  Jasmine wasn’t sure how much time had passed when she awoke, but the lights were on in Engineering. She felt refreshed. Hunger pangs woke her stomach, urging her to eat.

  She yawned and stretched. Her body arched in the weightless environment, with her hands reaching high above her head and her legs splaying beneath her.

  A light flickered inside the airlock on the far side of Engineering. Her eyebrows furrowed. Something was wrong. This was the inverse of what she’d seen in the middle of the night. The bright lights in Engineering were a stark contrast to the darkened glass porthole. Sporadic flashes of light lit up the interior of the airlock.

  Jasmine moved over to the airlock unsure what had happened. She peered in through the glass, struggling to make out anything other than shadows. Arcs of light flickered from a panel just inside the lock. Wires had been torn from the panel. A metal cover drifted to one side, lit up by the flashes.

  “Mike?” Jasmine asked, pushing the button on the intercom. “Mike, are you there?”

  There was no response.

  Jasmine cupped her hands over the glass, trying to block out the light of Engineering as she peered into the darkness of the airlock. Her heart jumped. There were stars. Was the outer hatch open? It took a few seconds for her eyes to adjust, but she could see the dark outline of the outer hatch and a peppering of stars dozens to hundreds of light years distant from the Copernicus.

  Her heart raced in her chest.

  “Chuck?” she yelled. “Jason?”

  “Jazz?” Jason replied as Jasmine swam through the air, pulling herself toward the hatch leading into Medical.

  “Where is he?”

  “Who?” Jason asked.

  Jasmine’s reply was curt. “Mike. He’s not in the airlock.”

  “What? Impossible.”

  “How can you not know?” Jasmine asked, soaring up through the hundred foot shaft, calling out, “Chuck? Ana? Mei?”

  A head peered down the shaft at her. Blonde strands of hair drifted around a petite face.

  “Ana,” Jasmine cried out. “Where’s Mike?”

  “Mike?” Anastasia asked in alarm.

  Jasmine underestimated her forward momentum. She was moving too fast. She reached out to grab a rung near the top of the shaft and struggled to slow herself. Her body flailed around, twisting as her inertia dragged her onward. She collided awkwardly with the bulkhead and bounced off a stainless steel cabinet. Jasmine felt like a pinball, bouncing out of control. She crashed into the command deck, grabbing at the edge of a console with her
hands to bring herself to a halt.

  “What the hell?” Chuck exclaimed.

  “It’s Mike,” she gasped, ignoring the pain in her ribs. “He’s gone. He got out of the airlock.”

  “Jason?” Chuck yelled.

  “Still trying to figure out what happened,” Jason replied as Jasmine struggled with her swirling inner ear. She may have stopped moving, but her body thought she was caught in a tumble dryer.

  Mei was no more than two feet from her, working on one of the consoles. Their eyes met. Jasmine wasn’t sure what she was thinking, but her heart went out to the poor woman bereaved of her husband so violently and unexpectedly. The pain and anguish she’d gone through was apparent from her bleary eyes. Her hair was a mess. She looked like she hadn’t had a wink of sleep.

  “Checking tapes,” Jason said.

  “Jason,” Chuck said with stern authority. “I told you to keep him contained, not to let him out.”

  “I didn’t,” Jason protested.

  “Then how the hell did he get out?”

  “It’s an airlock, Chuck, not a prison. It’s designed for egress and ingress, to let people move freely in and out. There’s no bars or concrete walls.”

  “Goddamn it,” Chuck replied. “You were supposed to keep him in there!”

  “It’s not my fault,” Jason said in reply with a surprising amount of emotion in his voice. He sounded defensive. “I set an alarm, but he tore up the wiring in there. None of the sensors registered. Hell, he didn’t need to egress. He could have opened the inner hatch and I’d have never known.”

  “How long has he been out there?” Anastasia asked.

  “He’s not out there,” Jason replied, and Jasmine felt her blood run cold. “He’s in here!”

  Chapter 07: Bestla

  “Here?” Mei cried in alarm. She look scared, almost fragile.

  “I don’t understand,” Anastasia said.

  “Look at the main monitor,” Jason replied. He brought up an image of Mike inside the cramped airlock down in Engineering in the early hours of the morning. It was considerably smaller than the airlock Jasmine and Nadir had used, and Jasmine had found the main airlock bordering on claustrophobic. Mike’s airlock was little more than a broom closet lying on its side. His suit hadn’t been stowed and had drifted up against the outer hatch.

  Mike was right below the camera, so close his face looked distorted in the fisheye lens. He was working with a set of pliers. A couple of screwdrivers floated freely beside him, but they weren’t the classic flat-faced screwdrivers Jasmine was familiar with. They had exotic, hexagonal shaped heads. He twisted the pliers and pulled. Suddenly, the screen went black.

  “That was 3:43 this morning,” Jason said. “He cut the camera feed and the internal pressure sensors.”

  “Damn it!” Chuck replied.

  “Well, he is a flight engineer,” Anastasia noted. Chuck glanced at her with repressed anger, pursing his lips.

  “What did you mean, he’s in here?” Mei asked again.

  “At 4:23 the main airlock on the bridge cycled,” Jason replied, bringing up an image of an astronaut drifting through the open hatch of the airlock.

  “Fuck!” Chuck cried. “How the hell did this happen?”

  “I’m not sure,” Jason replied. “He disabled a bunch of subsystems. I’m checking the log files.”

  “Damn it, Jason,” Chuck yelled. “You were supposed to be watching him.”

  “No, I was supposed to keep the inner hatch to Engineering locked. I think you’ll find it’s still locked.”

  “Don’t get smart with me,” Chuck replied, looking around and picking out a tiny camera on the far side of the bridge.

  “I’m not.”

  “What were you doing during this time, Jason?” Anastasia asked.

  “I—I was in maintenance mode. I was on a low power cycle.”

  “You were asleep?” Mei asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Well, that’s fucking great,” Chuck replied, drifting to one side and checking something on one of the consoles. “We’ve got a goddamn computer that falls asleep on the job.”

  Jason was silent. Jasmine couldn’t know for sure, but she felt as though Jason was angry. His clipped sentences and curt replies were reminiscent of how her brother used to respond when scolded by her dad. To her, Jason seemed passive-aggressive, resentful of imposed authority.

  “Where is he now?” Jasmine asked. From her perspective, it seemed the others had missed the real point. Where had Mike gone? What was he doing?

  Jason didn’t reply. He had to be fuming, thought Jasmine. Instead of speaking, he played another video. The crew watched as Mike removed a grate from the side of the command deck and pulled himself into a maintenance duct. He disappeared into the shadows in a single, graceful, fluid motion. One second he was there, the next his legs and feet faded into the shadows of the duct as he swam away. Swimming was the best analogy Jasmine could think of when it came to floating in zero-gee.

  Mike must have reached a point where he could turn around, as a few seconds later, his torso emerged from the darkened access point and he pulled the free-floating grate back in place. Without the video footage, no one would have known he’d been there.

  Chuck swore again. “Son of a bitch!”

  “Can we track him in there?” Anastasia asked.

  “No,” Chuck replied.

  “I don’t understand,” Jasmine said. “What can he do from in there?”

  “Anything,” Chuck said. “From there, Mike can go anywhere in the ship.”

  “I don’t get it,” Jasmine said, confused by the relevance of the ducts.

  Jason spoke, saying, “The Copernicus was designed to be in flight for decades without servicing. The craft is completely self-contained. There are access points for every part of the ship in the ducts. There has to be, as any repairs that need to be undertaken have to be accessible. Imagine going on a trip into the desert with no gas stations for a hundred miles. You’ve got to take everything you need with you because if anything goes wrong and you can’t fix it, you’re screwed.”

  Jasmine swallowed a lump in her throat. She’d asked a newbie question, one that revealed just how little she understood about the workings of the Copernicus. She wondered if anyone would pick up on her ignorance and figure out her secret. Jasmine felt conspicuously out of place.

  “And the converse is true,” Mei added. “From those ducts you can sabotage any part of the ship if you want to.”

  “Can you find him?” Anastasia asked.

  “Negative,” Jason replied, which surprised Jasmine. In her dealings with Jason, he’d always made an effort to sound human. With Anastasia, no such pretense existed and he sounded distinctly robotic. “My cameras are only in the habitable areas.”

  “So what’s his next move?” Chuck asked, throwing open the conversation. Chuck looked at Jasmine. She didn’t know. Wait, she thought, yes she did. She knew precisely what Mike was going to do.

  “He said something about a bomb being onboard.”

  “A bomb?” Anastasia asked in surprise. If she was faking her surprise, she had Jasmine fooled. From the look on her face, this was the first she’d heard of any such concept, which Jasmine found unusual given she was married to Chuck. Mei raised an eyebrow. Chuck, though, looked more annoyed than surprised.

  “He said the power core was rigged to explode, that if Bestla turns out to be hostile, there are orders to detonate.”

  “Now, hold on a minute,” Chuck said. “That’s crazy talk. Mike’s insane, right? We all know that.”

  Anastasia looked at Chuck. Jasmine felt as if she could read the Russian’s mind. The expression on her face wasn’t one of shock so much as perhaps confirmation. To Jasmine, it seemed as though Anastasia expected something like this at some point during the mission. Each of the couples may have been married, but with the exception of Jasmine and Mike, they represented a mix of nationalities. With that, there had to be some external inf
luences, perhaps some kind of nationalistic loyalty or even direct orders made by opposing governments. Chuck hadn’t told her, Jasmine thought, and Anastasia clearly thought the concept was plausible and not the ramblings of a madman.

  “Is that what this is all about?” Mei asked.

  “Yes,” Jasmine replied. “Mike thought he was doing the right thing by disabling the communications dish. He thought he was preventing the bomb from being remotely detonated.”

  “I don’t believe it,” Mei replied.

  “There’s no bomb,” Chuck insisted.

  Jasmine kept her eyes on Anastasia. She seemed deep in thought. Her eyes glanced up at the darkness in the dome overhead.

  “And if she is evil?” Anastasia asked.

  Jasmine followed Anastasia’s gaze. At first, she didn’t see anything. The lights on the bridge were on, but they weren’t glaringly bright, and the stars were easily visible against the pitch black of space. There in the distance, though, was a faint smudge. At first, Jasmine thought nothing of the shape. It could have been a smear on the dome, but the shape was irregular: Bestla.

  “How far out are we?” Jasmine asked, feeling her heart thumping in her throat.

  “Roughly a thousand kilometers,” Jason replied. “On a slow free-fall approach.”

  “Honey?” Anastasia said, looking Chuck in the eye. “What will happen?”

  Chuck said, “We don’t know that Bestla represents any kind of threat.” He was lying, Jasmine was sure of it.

  Mei called his bluff.

  “You heard the message. You know as well as I do that’s bullshit! I’m all for doing whatever it takes to figure out what’s down there on Bestla, but let’s not sugar-coat the truth.”

  “There’s no bomb!” Chuck insisted. “What the hell is wrong with you guys? Why don’t you believe me? What do I have to do to convince you? You’re playing into Mike’s hands, buying into his paranoia.”

  “So what happens?” Anastasia asked softly.

  “Nothing,” Chuck replied. “We follow the plan. There’s no active scanning, only passive. We glide past recording everything.