Black Box

by Ivan Turner

  Cabrera was waiting for them when they arrived back at the Valor. Her first question was about the mutineers. She wanted to know if he had executed them. If he thought his decision to leave them behind would appease her, he was wrong. She was outraged. That made him outraged. He told her that he planned on cleansing the ship of every person on Tedesco’s list as well. If she was so upset by it, she could join them.

  That was that.

  He had a similar conversation with Tunsley, who was less concerned about the people being marooned than he was about being the only engineer left on board.

  “At least leave me one,” he complained. “How the hell am I supposed to run an engine room without engineers?”

  “You’ll manage,” Beckett told him.

  Tunsley grabbed him by the arm. Thankfully, it was the uninjured one. “You don’t understand, Ted. Someone needs to be in there at all times.”

  “You don’t understand, Mr. Tunsley. I will put a deckhand into that room before I put someone who is a potential saboteur. If you have a problem with that, you can walk the plank with the rest of them.”

  Tunsley snorted. “Right. Let’s see you make it home without any engineers.”

  “We’ll get by,” Beckett answered, dragging out each word so that it was abundantly clear that he meant what he said.

  Beckett had put his remaining military force, Boone, Bonamo, and Massey, to work right away. Armed and armored, they gathered up all of the people on Tedesco’s list and judged them guilty without trial. Beckett would hear no cases and offered the penalty of death as an alternative to being marooned. He and his three soldiers presented enough of a show of strength that there was little resistance as the handful of traitors was herded into the hangar bay.

  Tunsley, standing by, was keenly aware of the attitude of the expelled crew, now gathered at the foot of the large bay doors. Despite his brazen mouth, he didn’t have the courage to join them. His engineers looked only at him, their eyes a mixture of anger and pleading. In his heart, he agreed with the captain’s decision, but that rationale did nothing to make the situation any less awkward.

  “Captain,” Applegate protested, as the hangar door began to slowly drop open. “Our orders came directly from the Admiralty.”

  Beckett nodded. “Your orders were to slaughter Walker’s crew and then kill your captain. But your captain’s still alive so where does that leave you?”

  Ukpere cleared his throat. “Captain, I assure you that Mr. Applegate and I had no such orders. We were sent to observe and record. These people gathered here with us operated under similar circumstances.”

  “Spare me the bullshit,” Beckett said to him. “The only way you observe and record everything properly is if you are fully informed. Just because you didn’t pull the trigger doesn’t mean you don’t have blood on your hands.”

  “I am no murderer,” Applegate declared defiantly, daubing at his sweaty head with a handkerchief. “This mission is about preserving history.”

  Beckett slammed his teeth together so hard that the jolt sent a spike through his forehead. “You can all join your fellow conspirators at the Einstein.”

  “Captain,” Ukpere said, stepping forward. He was close now and his voice had dropped to a conspiratorial whisper. “You’re not likely to be lauded as a hero upon your return.”

  Beckett gritted his teeth, but he didn’t make a move.

  Ukpere cleared his throat. “Perhaps if you had someone to advocate for you...”

  “Fuck you, Ukpere,” Beckett suddenly shouted, getting right in his face. Sam Ukpere had about four inches on him, but the captain could still break him in half with his wounded left arm.

  “Captain,” Ukpere said, stepping calmly back. “There’s no need for such irregular language.”

  Beckett backed up a step and addressed the group. “You all are dismissed. Permanently.” Then, as they started to file down the ramp, he added, “Good luck.”

  A New Plan

  Beckett did not bother to supervise the launch. Instead, he ordered Dorian to take command and set a course for a place called Moner’s Port. If anyone thought it odd that they weren’t going straight home, they didn’t mention it. Beckett dismissed his officers and his soldiers and took himself to Rollins’ quarters.

  “Don’t say a word,” he said to the Ghost. “Come with me.”

  Rollins did not argue. He stood up and followed Beckett out the door. Beckett marched him halfway across the ship to the infirmary. Rollins didn’t know what to expect when he was led inside, but he certainly hadn’t expected to see Nicholas Walker. Walker was sitting up in one of the bunks, looking at something on a reader. Beckett recognized it as one of the patient readers assigned to the medical department. There wasn’t much else but entertainment on it. There were books and films, some old television shows. He wondered if Walker was watching something from the current era or from his own.

  “You’re dismissed,” Becektt said to Cabrera, who was going through her logs. She looked up at him coldly, opened her mouth to reply, but he cut her off. “So help me, Samantha, I am not in the mood.”

  Rollins and Walker watched the exchange with some curiosity. Cabrera held her ground for just a moment. It was hard to believe how much Beckett had intimidated her at one time. All of that was gone, faded in the wake of the events of this mission. She gave in anyway, grabbing up her reader and leaving the room.

  When she had slid the door shut behind her, Beckett introduced Rollins to Walker.

  “Colonel Walker is considered the greatest explorer humanity has ever known,” he told Rollins.

  Walker was still too despondent to even acknowledge the accolade.

  Beckett turned to him. “Mr. Rollins was my computer operations officer before I found out that he’s a spy. Apparently, he comes from the future and is part of a group of pirates who have been popping into our time and terrorizing our ships for a hundred years.”

  Neither man knew how to respond to that, but Beckett watched their reactions. The normally impassive Rollins looked embarrassed. Walker was just befuddled, some of it showing through his shock.

  “Rollins knew about this all from the start,” Beckett continued. “If Rollins had just told me when the Einstein made planetfall, I might have been able to save your crew.”

  “Captain!” Rollins cried. “That’s not true at all. You’re seeing only a small fraction of the entire picture. For my research...”

  “I don’t give a fuck about your research,” Beckett told him. “The only reason you’re still on this ship is because you’re the only one who can fix this mess.”

  Rollins didn’t have a response. He and Beckett stared at each other while Walker looked on from his bunk. Since coming aboard the Valor, the colonel had been politely shoved into the background. He didn’t mind so much. In fact, he was relieved not to have been bombarded with questions. Still, he had a few questions of his own. Though the basics of what had happened had become clear to him, there were still so many details that had not. Walker and his crew were only a piece of the puzzle.

  “Where’s your ship?” Beckett asked Rollins.

  “I can’t give you my ship.”

  Beckett nodded his understanding and calmly began to explain his position. “Rollins, I want you to understand that you are absolutely no good to me if you won’t cooperate. You’re going to open up to me completely right here and right now or, so help me, I will throw you to the ground and choke the life out of you.”

  It was not an idle threat.

  “Captain, please,” Rollins said. The warning actually seemed to have had a calming effect on him. “You must understand my position. I have been studying this event for many years of my life. I’m trying to prove a hypothesis that will alter the course of history for everyone.”

  “Yeah,” Beckett said. “I heard all about your recursive time theory from Boone. All I want...”

  “I haven’t heard it,” Walker said.

  Both men looked at him.
>
  The colonel cleared his throat self consciously. “Captain, no one’s explained anything to me. I think I deserve at least that.”

  Beckett was about to tell him that he could have his explanation when there was more time, but then changed his mind. Maybe it would be better for him to hear it straight from Rollins. Beckett himself had gotten the information second hand from Boone and Tunsley. The two had told the story like children, battling for the captain’s attention and arguing over details.

  So Rollins told his story and outlined his theory. Time was not linear. Time was not even geometric. It was composed of recursive algorithms, all operating in a complex sequence and sometimes simultaneously. In the future, as an effort to avert and then escape a catastrophe, a plague that rapidly covered all of the inhabited planets, humanity had discovered a way to interject themselves into the algorithms and become part of the flow of time itself.

  “I’ve spent most of my life hidden in the past,” said Rollins. “The people of my era have studied different time periods, developed many theories, but never been able to drastically impact any of what happens in history. But now...”

  He trailed off, his eyes steeling far away into the void. He was running some program of his own inside of his head.

  “Now what?” Beckett finally said impatiently.

  Rollins looked at him, the effort to regain focus showing on his face. “I don’t know what the variables were that changed the event. You two gentlemen, who have always been killed, are now alive. Mr. Boone, who has always turned on you, chose your side. As we move forward, those changes have meaning. That portion of time will reoccur because the black box was launched. I don’t know how it will play out without me in the mix. For all I know, there may even be another version of me. We could go back ourselves and try to further impact the result. I imagine we could continue to do so, looping back into the operation over and over again, but it would be infinite work with little or no gain. No, no, what we need to do is dig deeper into the core of time and alter it irrevocably. We need to not only change the information being fed through the time stream, but the parameters themselves.”

  Rollins wasn’t even talking to the two other men in the room anymore. He was talking to himself, calculating his next steps as if he wasn’t among a crew of fugitives.

  His face suddenly brightened. “If we really can change any event in time, then we should start by changing what brought the Ghosts about in the first place. If there are no Ghosts, then there is no wormhole through which your black box can travel. The problem is not the nature of time, but the fact that we have learned to manipulate it. We need to remove time travel from the hands of humanity and we need to prevent the catastrophe that sent us running.”

  “How the hell are we going to do that?” Beckett cried.

  Rollins looked over at him. “I need to continue my research. I need to visit numerous sites and study numerous events over the course of this timeline. Only after I have gathered a considerable amount of data can I hypothesize where the tipping point might be. Then we can go and change the program permanently.”

  “And how long is that going to take?” Beckett asked impatiently.

  Rollins thought for a moment. “Three to five years.”

  Walker began to laugh mirthlessly.

  Beckett spared him a glance, then turned back to Rollins. “I’m going to be a wanted man in a couple of days’ time, if I’m not already.”

  “If we’re going to begin a long partnership together, Captain, then I think it’s best not to start by insulting one another’s intelligence. You’ve ordered Ms. Dorian to take us to Moner’s Port.”

  “What does that mean?” Walker asked, looking from one to the other.

  “Captain, why don’t you tell the colonel what it means.”

  Beckett nodded, his lips thin and the muscles on his face pulled tight. He didn’t like being second guessed. “Moner’s Port is a good place to pick up some extra crew, fill in the gaps. I don’t plan on going back to Earth and delivering myself to the Admiralty. My days in the Space Force are done. I’m deserting and I’m taking this ship with me.”

  The Valor

  Beckett ordered virtual radio silence while they were still a day out of Moner’s Port. The Admiralty had already started sending them messages. Each message was routed through Rollins’ station and given a cursory and repetitive response.

  Mission accomplished. Go to hell.

  There was some buzz among the remaining crew about what exactly was going on. They knew that half the ship’s complement had been left behind, and they had some inkling as to why. Beckett had split up some good friends and he didn’t necessarily trust the ones that had been left behind. He leaned heavily on Boone, who had become his trusted right hand.

  “I want you to know, Boone, that you’ve performed admirably. You saved my life and I won’t forget that.”

  Boone was taken aback. Though he’d provided support for the captain after the fact, Beckett had single handedly defeated both Rodrigo and MacDonald. Boone had considered his own role minor, if not ineffectual. Then he remembered the three soldiers attempting to board the Einstein when he’d arrived. He remembered Walker helping Beckett off of the ship. If Boone and Massey hadn’t been there to back him up, what would those soldiers have done? Had Boone actually, quietly, saved the captain’s life? Apparently Beckett thought so. “Thank you, sir.”

  “I’d give you a commendation, but I think a commendation from me would be more damaging than a formal reprimand.”

  “I appreciate that, sir.”

  Beckett harrumphed. He didn’t seem to be getting through. “All I’ve got left to offer is a well deserved spot as an officer on my ship.”

  This time, Boone was visibly surprised. He found it hard to believe that Beckett was so obtuse that he thought he would still have a ship once they reached home. But Beckett was not so obtuse. He quickly outlined his discussion with Rollins and Walker. If they were going to steal the Valor and make it their home for the next three to five years, they would need a crew and the captain wanted people he could trust to serve under him.

  Boone was reluctant. On the planet, he had stood fast against the mutineers despite his personal feelings because he’d recognized that an officer’s duty was to his captain. Now, though, Beckett was an outlaw and planning on stealing a Space Force vessel. If Boone went with Beckett now, wasn’t he betraying the same ideals that had earned him the captain’s respect in the first place?

  “Maybe you did what you did just because it was right,” Beckett told him. “Don’t forget that you did what you did knowing that an admiral’s daughter was involved. Once they pick up Tedesco, you’ll be just as fucked. The choice is up to you. Whatever you decide, though, don’t get in my way.”

  He went next to Tunsley. He would need a good engineer, and Tunsley didn’t really have anything to lose by taking his side.

  Tunsley didn’t see it that way.

  “I’ve only got a couple of years before I’m eligible to retire, Skip. I’m not sure I want to throw that away.”

  Beckett told him the same thing he’d told Boone.

  It’s up to you. Stay out of my way.

  Hardy was on board without question. He’d never been more content than during his tenure with Beckett and he wasn’t ready to give that up yet. Besides which, the admirals would crucify him whether there was evidence against him or not.

  There were a handful of noncoms that Beckett spoke to as well. He didn’t include all of the loyal crew in his plans. Many of them still had opportunities ahead of them in the Space Force and he didn’t want to rob them of that. His toughest decision had to do with Bonamo and Massey. The two of them were so young and had so much potential. But they had spilled the blood of their own. Granted, they had done so under orders, but Rodrigo and MacDonald were never going to let them off the hook. The Admiralty would never trust them again. If they went home, they might face some serious charges.

  Beckett pres
ented them with their options and left them to make their decisions.

  Finally, just an hour before landing, weary and spent, he approached Allison Dorian. For the past several hours, as he’d been interviewing applicants for his own traitorous act, he had spent an inordinate number of brain cells deciding whether or not he wanted to include his executive officer. Dorian had a tremendous number of good qualities, not the least of which was her ability to tolerate Ted Beckett. Her career wasn’t stagnant, but her past had landed her on the Valor and she wasn’t likely to see the light of day any time soon. Who knew what might happen to her without the Valor as part of the fleet?

  Better the devil you know.

  “Are you serious?” she asked him.

  He nodded. They were in her cabin, the one she shared with Cabrera. Beckett kept finding his gaze trailing to Cabrera’s bunk and her things. He had not spoken with her. As much as he would have liked a doctor, he knew that having Cabrera along was a bad idea.

  “How many do you have?” Dorian asked.

  “A few,” he answered candidly. “Enough. I can fill in the blanks at the Spacers’ Graveyard on Moner’s Port.”

  The Spacer’s Graveyard didn’t actually house dead spacers. It was mostly a place for spacers with dead careers. There was a Graveyard on every seedy little planet. The one on Moner’s Port had grown out of control a decade or two before. There was a heavily illegal commerce of information and odd jobs that kept these people fed, but that was okay with Beckett. Most of them were chomping at the bit to get off world and he would gladly have them with him. He was quite used to dealing with old time wash outs.

  Dorian wasn’t old, but she wasn’t young either. Beckett didn’t know what she saw when she looked at him. More relevant, however, was that he didn’t know what she saw when she looked at herself. It was easy for him to judge her and the state of her life and career, but he’d been surprised more than once by his officers.