Oblivion Flight

by J. R. Mabry

  Jo noted how deadly quiet it was on the bridge. The security guard stood two steps behind her, weapon at the ready. A full bridge complement of five were sweating into their panels. The captain presided over it all imperiously. For a moment, it seemed as if time were standing still.

  She stole a glance at his puffy face. She had spent her entire career being pushed around by assholes like this one. She had been passed over for jobs, seen her record ignored as less-qualified men were raised to ranks above her, and been nearly gang-raped twice by military mooks with too much testosterone and time on their hands. They didn’t win then, she thought. They sure as hell aren’t going to get the best of me today.

  Anger flooded her, filling her veins with something more powerful and volatile than hope or despair. She relished the feeling of it and seized onto it like a shipwrecked sailor seizes a piece of flotsam in a storm. She fastened her hands behind her back and stood at parade rest. She dug her nails into her palms again. She fed on the fire of her hate, reveled in its ecstasy, stoked its flame.

  Captain Federer was staring at the tactical and seemed to have lost interest in her. That was just fine with her.

  “Boarding party, report,” he barked.

  “No report, sir,” the communicator said.

  “Tell the team leader I want a report.”

  The communicator’s face went slack. “Uh…sir, team leader appears to be offline.”

  “What?” the captain bellowed. “Put me through to the team leader immediately.”

  “I…I would if I could, sir.”

  Captain Federer blustered.

  Jo blinked. What is this? she thought. A shudder of hope nearly undid her.

  “Uh…Captain, we’re being hailed by the Talon.”

  “On screen!” The captain’s face was red. Jo could tell he was a man unaccustomed to not getting his way.

  Suddenly navigator Chi was on the main viewer, nearly twice her actual size, her face contorting with some unknown effort that Jo could not discern. “Captain Federer, you gave us just enough time to take our boots off, which was very kind,” Chi said. She gave up the fight not to reveal her feelings, and a smile broke out across her face. The mousy girl that Jo had been commanding just yesterday was nowhere in sight. “Thing is, no one goes into battle without their boots on, and when we tripled the magnetic gravity assist in the bays, your troops were pretty much glued in place. We disarmed them before any of them thought of taking their boots off. Some of them lost their weapons right away to the magnetized floor. There was a lot of clanking going on.” She waited a beat for that to sink in.

  Jo blinked. Her anger mixed with hope to create something much more volatile, much more dangerous, something utterly unpredictable.

  “Your men are enjoying the hospitality of our brig now—your commanders, anyway. The others are safely contained in one of our cargo bays, harmless as kittens.”

  “Security, prepare another detail—” Federer barked.

  Chi interrupted him. “Oh, if you have any more men for us to eat, we’re hungry, so you just send them right on over.”

  Jo’s mouth gaped in disbelief.

  “Oh, and Captain,” Chi said, her face taking on a note of mock sobriety. “I regret to inform you that a fifty-megaton nuclear device is gliding up your exhaust ports toward your main power generator—don’t bother trying to find it, it’s cloaked. It should be moving into place right about….” she looked off screen, her index finger raised, “…now.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  The ship was drifting. Jeff always imagined he could feel a bit of weightlessness when they were drifting. It was all in his mind, of course. The artificial gravity worked the same whether they were moving or still. But it still felt different to him.

  Before him were his crew, each seated at the large mess table, with Emma directly to his right. There didn’t need to be anyone navigating. The ship would alert them if any danger presented itself.

  “I called you here to let you know what Commander Nira and I found when we began to investigate Mr. Pho’s trajectory anomaly.” A couple of them had grabbed coffee or tea, but no one was drinking. All four sets of eyes were on him. He licked his lips.

  “We found this,” he said. He tossed one of the detonator patches onto the table. He picked it up again and ran one hand along the wires trailing from it.

  “What is that?” Mr. Pho asked.

  “It’s a detonator.”

  Mr. Pho’s eyes were wide.

  “A detonator for…what?”

  “Four tons of a poly explosive pumped between our secondary and tertiary hulls.”

  Susie Wall shrank, her eyes darting from side to side.

  “Uh…why is there four tons of poly explosive between our hulls?” Pho asked.

  “That’s a very good question, Mr. Pho, and I’m eager to hear any theories you might have—that anyone might have. That’s why I’ve called you together. Together, the five of us are smarter than any one of us is alone.”

  Pho nodded, as did Wall. Nira gave him an affirming nod as well. He looked over at Emma, who seemed lost in thought.

  “Here’s what we’ve been able to figure out about this,” Jeff held up the detonator patch. “It’s wired to detonate in proximity to a particular neural serial number.”

  “Whose?” Pho asked.

  “We don’t know,” Jeff answered. It was a lie, but it was a strategic lie.

  “Was there only one detonator patch?” Wall asked.

  “Yes, we only found the one,” Jeff answered. “Do you think there are more?” He looked at Wall, feigning curiosity.

  “No…I mean, I don’t know. It’s a scary thing. So I’m just…asking questions.” Wall looked scared.

  “And it’s a good question. Commander Nira thought of that, too. These patches are poly, so they’re hard to detect—they have no metal and no mass to speak of, so they don’t show up on the imager. So we did a physical surveillance of every one of the holes they drilled into the tertiary hull, looking for detonators. This is the only one we found. We looked hard,” Jeff gave her a grave nod. “Don’t worry, we’re sure we got them all.”

  “That’s a relief,” she said.

  I’ll bet it is, Jeff thought.

  “Who would do this?” Emma asked. She was pretending to be more out of the loop than she was.

  Jeff played along. “As near as we can figure, Captain Daniel Hightower did it.”

  They all blinked at him.

  “Isn’t that…your friend?” Pho asked, his Vietnamese face seeming even longer as it registered his surprise.

  “Yes. He was my friend. In our universe, he was my best friend…until he was killed.” Jeff swallowed. He wished he had gotten himself some coffee. Emma seemed to intuit what was going on and passed him her cup. He accepted it gratefully and drained the lukewarm tea from it. Shit, he thought. I fucking hate tea. “In this universe, we were friends, too, apparently, until I was killed. But the me from our universe and the Captain Hightower from this universe were never friends. I thought I knew who he was. I thought he’d be just like the Danny I…” He looked down at the empty cup in his hands. He put it down. “I was wrong.”

  He nodded his head a few times. The silence in the mess was almost stifling.

  Pho broke it. “Why…why do you think he wants you…us…dead?”

  Jeff shook his head, slow and sad. “Son, I have absolutely no idea. The best guess we’ve got is that whomever this neural serial number belongs to is the real target. Who it belongs to, or how they knew we would ever find her…that’s a mystery.”

  Emma leaned back and stared at him. “How do you know it’s a her?”

  “What?” Jeff asked, blinking.

  “You just said, ‘how they knew we would ever find her’—how do you know that neural code belongs to a her?”

  Jeff’s breath caught and his mind raced. He hadn’t told Emma about Jo. It would only upset her. “Uh…I—”

  Nira’s voice int
errupted him. “Distribution protocol,” she said. “Odd numbered units go to males, even numbered units are assigned to females.”

  Emma didn’t look like she was buying it. “What about transgendered people?”

  Nira didn’t blink. “You only get the one neural. Its number is assigned with whatever gender you have at the time of implantation.”

  “Uh-huh…” Emma shot him a look that he took to mean, We’ll talk.

  He didn’t look forward to that talk.

  “But we’re safe now,” Pho said, more of a question than a statement.

  “Yes, we’re safe now,” Jeff said. “Unless…”

  “Unless?” Wall asked.

  “Unless Captain Hightower set some other booby traps for us,” Jeff said. No one said anything to that. Once more the ominous silence descended over the table. Jeff glanced at Wall. She was staring at her fingers.

  Finally, Emma spoke up. “If we’re running around terrified all the time, we’re going to mess up. We’ve got to relax. There was a trap—we found it. We have to trust that we’re safe unless and until we find something else. Otherwise we’ll be jumping at shadows and second-guessing ourselves all the time. We’ll be miserable.”

  Jeff nodded. That sounded like wisdom. “As FDR said, ‘The only thing we have to fear…’” He let the phrase hang in the air.

  “…is fear itself,” Wall concluded.

  Jeff looked around at the confused expressions.

  “Who’s FDR?” Emma asked.

  “President Franklin Delano Roosevelt,” Jeff answered.

  “There was a President Teddy Roosevelt, but never a Franklin.”

  “No,” Jeff said. “Not in our universe there wasn’t.” He stared across the table at Susie Wall. “Mr. Wall, perhaps you can explain your familiarity with the quotations of a President we never had?”

  Wall’s eyes were wide. She sat ramrod straight. Instantly, her eyes rolled up. Jeff didn’t know whether she was intending to send a warning message to Sol Station or whether she was intending to detonate the explosive, but it didn’t matter—they were ready. Instantly, Commander Nira was behind her. A silver blade flashed in the cold, bright lighting of the mess as Nira drew it across Wall’s neck. Blood spewed forth onto the table in front of her. Nira held Wall’s head up by the hair for a few seconds, then pitched it forward. Wall’s head hit the table with a sickening thud.

  “My god,” Emma breathed.

  Pho leaped back, as much in horror as to avoid the growing pool of blood.

  “Mr. Nira, check the communicator’s log and make sure you got her before she was able to send any messages,” Jeff said.

  “Aye, sir,” Nira said, wiping her blade on a handkerchief.

  “Mr. Pho—” Jeff began. Mr. Pho looked like he was going to be sick. “Resume our course to Epworth Station.”

  The screen went blank, and it seemed that everyone on the bridge began shouting at once. Captain Federer stabbed at the comm unit on his command chair. Over the din, Jo heard him shout, “Find that nuke, goddam it!”

  What’s chaos and confusion for if you don’t make good use of it? Jo asked herself. She lined up her gaoler out of the corner of her eye. Then she took one extra-large step backwards, placing her boot squarely on both of the woman’s feet. She swung her elbow back and around as hard as she possibly could, catching the young woman in the ribs, sending her flying backwards. As her elbow completed its follow through, Jo extended her arm and snatched up the blaster as it tumbled backward too.

  It was useless without an ID of course, but Jo could certainly use it as a club, and did. The other two security guards flanking both sides of the bridge were only now taking notice of her acrobatics. As if in slow motion she watched their eyes widen and their shoulders slouch as they reached for their guns.

  They would be too late. Swinging the blaster by its strap, she aimed the whole of its weight and fury at the captain’s chair, catching Federer in the head, and lifting him out of his seat. He fell back into it, but he slouched forward, head gushing, before toppling to the floor.

  Once finished with her arc, Jo remained in motion, leaping to the floor and rolling behind a science console. She didn’t stop until she was on top of the blonde gaoler. Without even pausing to think or consider or shudder, she took the woman’s thumb into her mouth and bit as hard as she could, grinding through muscle, gristle, and bone. The warm, coppery taste of blood filled her mouth, gushing through either side of her lips. She gagged, but kept at it, employing her elbow again to spear the screaming woman’s throat to the floor. The gaoler thrashed and hit, but Jo’s jaws held fast, grinding, grinding until she felt the last morsel of cartilage snap, and the final shred of soft tissue rip free.

  She spat the thumb out, rubbed it on the carpet, and held it on the ID pad, pressing it down with her own. The gun lit up like a navigator’s panel. She couldn’t hear the whine as it powered up, but she could read the gauge. Out of the corner of her eye she saw one of the security men come into view, and reflexively she shot his legs out from under him. She shot again, more carefully, aiming for his falling head. She felt the kick of the blaster as the man’s brains sprayed across the far wall.

  As far as she knew there was only one other armed person on the bridge, though surely more security would be on the way. She pushed the thought aside and rose, eyes darting, lighting on the final security officer.

  She must be quite a sight, she knew. She rose slowly from behind the console, blood streaming from both sides of her mouth, covering her chin, creating a crimson beard on her white paper jumpsuit. Her eyes shone with berserk brilliance as her lips turned up into the dreadful grin of ecstatic battle. The bloodlust raced through her veins. She reveled in it. She loved it. It was better than Morphex. And she knew without a moment’s reflection or regret that she would be chasing this high again and again for the rest of her days.

  Jo squeezed the trigger and watched the young man’s eyes widen. Saw him quail, saw him fall as his abdomen exploded, saw his guts tumble out of him onto the immaculate charcoal carpet beneath him.

  There was no one to oppose her now, and no time to waste. She jumped onto the captain’s chair and squatted there, with her feet on the cushion, poised like a cat ready to pounce. The blaster hung between her legs, one thumb on her grisly trigger.

  Nearly every crew member was standing, their backs to their consoles, staring at her in open-mouthed horror…all except for one man, who kept pressing a square on his console and shouting for security. Jo aimed for his legs and grinned again as he screamed and writhed on the floor.

  When the bridge door swung open, she wasn’t surprised. If it was to be her end, she was content with that. She had mastered her enemy. She had exacted her revenge, no matter how fleeting. But from the corner of her eye she saw not the black uniforms of the Authority, but red. Blood red.

  There is a God, she thought, as her own security men fanned out around her, their own stolen blasters at the ready. Jo wiped the blood from her chin onto the back of her hand as she looked every member of the Authority crew in the eyes, feeding on their disgust but gorging on their terror.

  She met the eyes of the communicator. He gulped. “Communicator, what is your name?”

  “Prescott, sir.”

  “Mr. Prescott, open a ship-wide channel.”

  “Y-y-yes, sir.” He fumbled at his panel, then turned back to her and nodded. “Channel opened, sir.”

  “Greetings to the crew of the Eisenhower. This is RFC Captain Joleen Taylor. Your captain is dead and your bridge is under my command. This ship…is my ship. You will not underestimate me or my people. I am a tiger. I fucking eat people.”

  She watched the eyes of the Authority bridge crew as she said it. These people, she thought, these people, at least, know that I am telling the literal truth.

  “But I am not a monster,” she continued. She cocked her head compassionately, not losing eye contact, not ceasing for a second her maniacal grin. “I am going to spare
your lives. You have exactly four minutes to get to an escape pod. Anyone not launched in a pod four minutes from now will be shot on sight. I suggest you not test me on this, because I will fucking hunt you down and shoot you myself. And I will enjoy it. Captain out.”

  She watched the light on the comm button wink out. The bridge crew remained frozen in front of her. “That means you, assholes,” she said. “Run—before I pounce on you and rip the arteries from your neck with my own teeth.”

  Epilogue

  There were probably nicer restaurants on Epworth Station, but Jeff doubted he would feel comfortable at any of them. The one he picked was already two stars above his standard fare, and they had accommodated his request for a private room without hesitation.

  Despite his crew’s shock over Wall’s betrayal—and execution—they seemed to be bouncing back. Nira was laughing—an unnatural sight that would take some getting used to—and Pho seemed downright gregarious. Emma was cautiously upbeat. She met his eyes, but her smile was tentative. She knew something was up, and it seemed like she sensed she wasn’t going to like it.

  She was right, and Jeff felt his stomach tighten. He had good news and bad news, and he didn’t really know where to start.

  A few minutes after they’d been seated, a waiter came by to fill their glasses. He wore a scarlet suit, from foot to head, and was so poised Jeff wanted to give him a push just to see how he’d cope with being off balance. Instead, he chose to respect the man’s dignity, however affected it might be.

  Just beyond their table was a large window, running floor to ceiling. Beyond was the Epworth space dock. It was an impressive view.

  “What are those?” Pho asked, pointing to a stack of yellowed, ancient paperbacks at Jeff’s right hand.