The Siege of LX-925

by J.J. Mainor

  Chapter 3

  Remy sat at his workstation, pouring through the UN Charter, treaties, and rules to find anything that might guide him on Freedom’s mission. The forced relocation didn’t bother him as much as the thought of those miners being dematerialized and “stored” in the Freedom’s computers.

  He had noted to Anders the lack of personnel aboard. Only a handful of officers had been spied around the ship, and Remy hadn’t noticed a single enlisted man since he came aboard. His liaison explained that most of the crew was “stored” as the Colonel planned to do with the miners. Resources were tight aboard a ship, even though half to three quarters of the ship was used for storage of the raw materials the molecular scramblers needed. Because they needed so much room for storage, living space was also at a premium.

  Nonessential crewmembers had their patterns scanned into the computers. They were dematerialized only when required. The idea left Remy with a cold knot in his stomach, imagining himself removed from reality and stored in a computer like his software. But Anders assured him everyone knew what they had signed up for when they trained for the Space Force.

  Like the military, the miners signed up for the same thing. Remy understood their life patterns had been stored for the journey to their job to save space and resources during transport. The closest he could find to a conflict with UN standards was the Convention on the Treatment of Prisoners, but feeling no pain in storage, it was clearly not inhumane. Since the reality of space travel forced rationing, he doubted he could make the case that this was unusual punishment. As long Colonel Freedom kept his word that those men would be rematerialized, he didn’t see the proposed solution leaving the nebulous gray area he found himself navigating.

  Anders buzzed the door, and Remy went out to greet him. Before retiring to his room, Remy had asked his babysitter if they could get a beer on this ship. Though the crew was but a handful of officers, he had yet to meet a military man of any rank who could go without alcohol for long periods of time.

  Anders seemed delighted by his request and divulged they had an unofficial officers’ club aboard. One of the scramblers in one of the vacant quarters had been loaded with the programs for some of the crew’s favorite beers. Though it was against regulations, their Commander pretended ignorance to keep up morale. After all, he had his own unauthorized vices and refused to become a hypocrite by keeping his crew from enjoying theirs.

  Remy stepped into the club to find one member already at the table enjoying himself. “Who do we have here?” The officer rose from the table, pleased to find he had company.

  “Dr. Duval.” Remy extended his hand to the officer, who uncapped his beer and placed it in the open hand.

  “I’m Lt. Pittman, your armory officer.”

  Remy found it comforting they expected so little trouble as to allow the armory officer to get drunk. He couldn’t imagine this guy leaving here to operate a high-output energy weapon.

  Pittman ordered two more beers from the console and gave one to Anders. Given these two men were almost half his age, Remy felt old and unsure how he was going to relate to them.

  “I noticed there are no women aboard.”

  Pittman face was aglow, misunderstanding the comment. “You’re looking for companionship?”

  “Not for that,” Remy backtracked. “Don’t you let women in the Space Force?”

  With a clearer head, Anders decided to field the question. “Not that we don’t let them. Our traditional services are 40% female, and every recruiting class has its share of applicants, but so far we haven’t had one woman complete the training.” As if he could see Remy counting the equality complaints within his head, Anders went on. “95% of the men don’t even make it.”

  “Yeah,” Pittman piped up between swigs from his bottle. “We’re not just the best of the best, we’re the best of the best of the best.”

  “It’s dangerous out here. We can’t lower standards for the sake of diversity.”

  Pittman leaned in to their new comrade. “But if you’re still looking for companionship, the Imperium has some female officers.”

  How encouraging that sounded to Remy! Though he had to wonder if a man’s pattern and a woman’s pattern were stored too closely in the computers, would it constitute sexual harassment? Given what he had seen so far, the entire rule book would have to be rewritten when he reported back to his bosses.

  As he took a drink from his beer, Remy swore he heard a scratching at the door. It was after Anders got up to check it out that he knew he wasn’t crazy. The door melted away and a bulldog ran in.

  “What the heck are you doing aboard?” Anders picked up the animal as its owner raced in behind it. “Murillo, I thought pets were banned.”

  The new arrival spied Remy at the table and lost himself in the stranger. The dog no longer existed. Anders no longer existed. Remy felt a bit uncomfortable as the gaze lingered too long. To him, it seemed as though Murillo might have recognized him, but couldn’t be sure. Yet that was silly, because like his fellow soldiers, he was too young for their paths to have crossed before. It was only when Anders snapped the young man out of his daze that Murillo broke the awkward connection.

  “Please don’t tell.” Murillo snatched the dog and clutched it protectively in his arms. “The Colonel said he’d scramble Hedley here if I didn’t get rid of him.”

  “Then why do you still have him?”

  Murillo looked into the pet’s vapid eyes. The creature’s tongue panted as if nothing was wrong. “Hedley’s important. I can’t get rid of him. Besides, he’s my friend. He keeps me company.” With that, he took the dog and left their club.

  Pittman described Murillo as a bit of a simpleton. If women were kept from the service because of training, there was always a man like Murillo leaving everyone to wonder how he survived the program. Either someone took pity on him and carried him through, or he completed the program out of sheer luck.

  But Anders refused to dismiss him as Pittman had. He had seen too many guys like him when he was still in the Marines back on Earth. The simpleton routine was nothing but an act he put on so his superiors wouldn’t look to him for anything challenging. He would do his job competently, but screw it up just enough so the Colonel would look to someone else next time. He skated by so he wouldn’t get in trouble or get put in a situation that might get him in trouble.

  Anders was inclined to report the dog, but in the short time he had been aboard the Freedom, he noticed the guy tended not to socialize. Whenever he said “hi,” Murillo would greet him back and rush away. If he couldn’t rush away, he would avert his eyes as if he was in the middle of something too important. Nobody on the ship counted this guy as a friend, so Anders figured he needed the dog to keep him company.

  Remy tried to keep these two officers, talking. He suggested more beer every time a bottle fell empty. He had been such a pro with alcohol, he made the mistake of trying to keep up with the younger men, forgetting no matter where he went, military men were the end all of alcoholic consumption.

  It occurred to him briefly that they may have been playing him, that they were the ones getting him drunk for information, but that was ridiculous. They couldn’t have been ordering nonalcoholic beers for themselves. He had taken the bottles and handed them out many times throughout the night, hadn’t he? It seemed unlikely, but it was enough of a suspicion to test it out the next time they scrambled up a round.

  The indifference he received when he took the bottles eased his mind. Remy wondered if the secrecy of these space programs led him to see conspiracies around every door, on every face, in every smile. He had been on enough of these inspections to know better. He knew all the secrets rest at the top of the chain of command. Wherever he went, guys like Anders and Pittman were only out to do their job. If there was secrecy among these lower ranks, it was only because they were not kept in the know.

  These lieutenants, were fresh with
power. Though still officers, they weren’t trusted with any serious responsibility until they proved themselves and earned it. When all they had to do was monitor the power to the cannons or babysit the UN representative, the enlisted men became the targets of their authority. They were the ones running around making sure salutes were properly given. These were the officers concerned that sleeves were rolled, hats were worn or removed when they were supposed to be, and camouflage colors appropriately matched the situation.

  As he ordered another round from the scrambler, Remy almost took pity on these boys. He was sure the Space Force was highly coveted, but the lack of subordinates must have been frustrating for someone that came in as an officer looking to lead.

  Pittman decided he had enough. He gave his beer to Anders and stumbled from the table. Though he claimed he was off to bed, Anders smirked sheepishly as if the two shared a secret. Anders was growing tired himself, so he scrambled both beers back into storage.

  “Think you can find your way back to your room?”

  Remy couldn’t believe his escort was trusting him to roam the hallways alone, though he was beginning to wonder if there were any secret areas to discover. He gave Anders about ten minutes to reach his quarters before scrambling his empty beer bottle and venturing out on his own.

  The corridors were quiet, and eerily dark, more so than usual. Remy glanced down toward his own quarters, then turned down the other way. As he took in the nondescript doors and unremarkable corridors, he understood what the Colonel meant about getting lost. He would have to keep a map in his head because there were no distinctive landmarks by which to navigate. There weren’t even names to the quarters. It was curious how the men knew where they were supposed to sleep.

  He neared one door and heard scratching at the base, imagining Murillo’s bulldog trying to get out. Remy thought the creature’s determination to leave the room rather strange given bulldogs weren’t known for their activity. He chalked it up to discomfort in space, unless its owner was miserable company.

  A couple doors further along, and he heard activity. The noise was faint, but he made some of it out when he pressed his ear to the door.

  “Come on baby. Come on. Give it to me.”

  It seemed Pittman wasn’t as tired as he let on. Strange, though, the moaning from the second individual seemed to be feminine when they had said there were no women in the service. Apparently girlfriends and wives weren’t held to the same high standards the servicemen were held to.

  He left Pittman’s quarters behind and rounded a corner into another corridor that looked identical to the one he left behind. His head spun from the alcohol. As much as he tried to tell himself he could remember his way back, Remy knew he couldn’t risk losing his way. Nor could he get caught wandering around or he would lose any trust the Colonel had in him. One snafu could mean the UN never gets another inspector into space.

  Remy turned back and stumbled to his own quarters. He took off his shirt to prepare for bed before realizing how cold the temperature was kept aboard the ship. Beyond food and drink, power was also rationed. That blanket on the bunk didn’t look too warm, so he figured he better sleep in his clothes for the extra warmth.

  As he climbed beneath the blanket and drifted toward sleep, he thought about the dog. Out of everything he had seen and experienced on the Freedom, it was odd a simple animal should be the last thing on his mind at the end of the day. But it was a creature as out of place on this ship out here in the emptiness of space as any of the officers were. It was a creature typically lethargic, but loyal. Hedley should have been content with his master, unless it wanted to be scrambled as Anders warned.

  Remy’s last thoughts before the lights went completely out in his head was an imagination of that dog sitting on the tabletop. Taking a swig from a beer, Anders tapped the panel in front of him, and poor Hedley faded away in a slow flash of white light.