by L S Roebuck
“I agree with that,” Dek said, “but I can’t believe that Amberly ordered my execution.”
“Believe what you want,” Wong said, as he drew his stun gun. “It won’t matter much in a few minutes.”
“Please don’t do this,” Dek dispassionately appealed to Wong. “There has to be a better way.”
“Begging for mercy?” Wong scoffed. “Did Chasm offer Commander Anderson mercy? Jindal? Synder? Topez? No! They butchered them all.”
“I see how it is then,” Dek said.
“Please step into the airlock. Once I close this door, I’ve programmed it to eject in two minutes. That’s my grace to you. Say whatever prayers you want to say.”
“And if I refuse to go in there?”
“What do you think this stun gun is for,” Wong said. “You were right. Your time has indeed come. If there is a supernatural maker, you are about to meet him.”
“I am ready,” Dek whispered, as he backed into the airlock. Once inside, he knelt on both knees, and bowed his head and said no more.
“Dek Tigona, by the authority of the Mission Commander, you are sentenced to death for violation of the terms of your exile. Your previously clemency has been revoked. With no valid clemency, I now legally condemn you.”
The interior door slid closed, and a computer voice informed Dek the exterior airlock would open in two minutes.
Wong leaned his head on the closed door, and began to cry, overwhelmed with the emotion he had been holding back. A shriek from down the hall forced him to snap to attention.
“Ramos?” Wong called out.
“The fool cut me,” Ramos yelled from around a corner. “Help me.”
Wong ran down about 10 meters from the airlock. He found Ramos clutching his side, with a growing pool of blood soaking out from an incision near just above his waist.
“What happened?”
“Midas and I followed you, because we suspected you might be going to kill Dek,” Ramos said in a pained voice. “We were right! Midas pulled out that knife,” Ramos pointed to a bloody utility knife a few meters away, “and he asked me to help him jump you before you could do it. I told him violence was not the answer and I was about to warn you when he stabbed me. I guess he was a coward, because as soon as I yelled out, he ran.”
“Midas did this to you?”
“Yes, if you hurry you can catch him,” Ramos said.
“I’ll get him, but first I need to get you some medical help,” Wong said. He looked down the hall another 10 meters and saw the standard emergency first aid kit. Wong stood up to grab it and returned to Ramos. He opened the kit and took out the wound spray, and applied the congealment and antibiotic foam to Ramos’ gash.
“Can you walk?” Wong asked.
“I think so,” Ramos replied as he slowly stood.
“Good. Get yourself to the sick bay,” Wong directed.
“Wait, you’re not going to take me,” Ramos protested.
“No, I need to check something,” Wong said. “Also, what you saw was classified, and disclosing classified information could be seen as treason, so I’d keep your mouth shut if I were you.”
Ramos nodded, and started hobbling in the direction of sick bay.
Wong turned and walked back over to the airlock. The exterior door had opened and closed, and the airlock re-pressurized. He opened the interior door and saw nothing.
Dek Tigona is a floating piece of space garbage, Wong thought. It’s about time. Now my comrades can rest in peace.
Wong punched a direct communication with Captain Trigs on his infopad. He dictated a message for Skylar.
“It’s done.”
Wong went to go find Midas before it was too late.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Skylar was in his conference room when he received Wong’s communique. He smiled, and knew the Chairman would be pleased to learn of Dek Tigona’s demise.
All he had to do now was divert blame, and finish prepping a runabout with enough supplies to survive a long trip back to Fuentes Station. Once there, he was confident he could manipulate Amberly, soon to be his wife, with his cover story, while secretly transmitting a message to the Chairman to come rescue him. The Chairman will come for me, Skylar thought, because I will have destroyed Magellan and I will have the daughter of Raven One. It would take years for Chasm rescue him, but he would make due with Amberly’s company to divert him until then.
Skylar sent a message to Wong to meet him on the bridge, and he stepped out of the conference room to head to the command deck. He decided that he needed to stop to use the restroom, and his quarters were close by.
Skylar noted that his door was unlocked – and he was certain he left it locked. Skip was still unconscious in the closet. He put his hand on his sidearm and touched open the door.
He didn’t expect to find his first officer in the room.
“Captain,” the XO said with steel in his voice. “Good. I’m glad you’ve come. I need you to explain some things for me.”
“How dare you enter my quarters without permission, Snodgrass?” Skylar demanded, his face reddening with rage as he clenched a fist in the air, and his golden locks swaying.
“Sergeant Wong reported what he thought was a broken steam pipe knocking in the executive suite,” Snodgrass responded, but not defensively. “Engineer Todum was going to check it out, but I told him that I was heading to my quarters next door, so I’d see if I could find it.”
“What did you find?” Skylar murmured. His eyes were fixed on Snodgrass and the sidearm still holstered on his hip.
“I found the source of the banging just as you were walking in,” Snodgrass said flatly. Then he threw open the closet door and in the same motion drew his stun weapon against his captain.
Skylar drew his weapon at the same time.
In the closet, a bound and gagged Skip struggled. His eyes were red and his forehead was bloodied from where he had banging his head on the wall.
“Careful, Snodgrass,” Skylar said, as they circled each other with weapons drawn. Skip renewed his struggling, but he was not getting free. “Mutiny is punishable by death.”
“If you have an explanation,” Snodgrass said, “now’s the time.”
“Isn’t it obvious,” Skylar hissed. He was silhouetted by the freestanding bronzed lamp behind him. “I found Skip on board trying to assassinate me.”
“Why would Skip want to kill you?” Snodgrass asked evenly. “You are friends.”
“He knew I figured it out. He’s the only one who could be doctoring the transmissions,” Skylar explained. “He is the Chasm Hawk. Skip is the mole. So, I lured him in here and apprehended him.”
“Why didn’t you tell us? Why didn’t you tell Wong?” Snodgrass demanded as he maneuvered himself between Skylar and the door.
“Because I don’t know who else is Chasm. I don’t know who to trust,” Skylar said. “If his confederates knew he’d been compromised, they’d probably come to kill him to keep him from talking.”
Skip was doing his best to flail wildly. Clearly, Skip was trying to communicate his innocence to Snodgrass.
“Well, that all makes sense,” Snodgrass said, and he partially lowered his weapon.
“I am glad you see reason,” Skylar said, “but I don’t know now if I can trust–”
“It makes sense,” Snodgrass interrupted him, “except for your secret order to Duke that would ram us into Magellan at one-fifth of light speed. And the fact you were preparing a runabout as a life boat, no doubt for yourself, coward.”
Skylar didn’t have a lie prepared to cover that fact.
“You are the Hawk. Surrender yourself peacefully, captain,” Snodgrass said as he lifted his weapon again, “and I will do everything in my power to give you only exile and not execution.”
“Never!” Skylar shouted as he simultaneously unloaded several ineffective, random rounds from his gun and let himself fall to the floor to avoid Snodgrass’ return shots. The impact forced Skylar to
drop his gun. Snodgrass fired in return, but his reflexes were too slow, and he missed. In the moment it took Snodgrass to re-aim, Skylar had grabbed the lamp post and thrust it into Snodgrass’ knee. The older man fell, and Skylar sprung to his feet. He swung the lamp repeatedly into his XO’s head, splattering blood. Snodgrass yelped and threw his arms up, but Skylar kept swinging and batted them out of the way. At some point, Skylar figured Snodgrass was unconscious, but he kept swinging. After a few minutes, Skylar saw that the XO was no longer breathing.
The captain then dropped the lamp to the floor and looked at Skip in his closet. Skips eyes were wide, pupils dark with terror, and he remained as still as possible.
“I’ll be back for you,” Skylar said as he closed the closet. Skylar knew time was of the essence now. Either he was going to get complete control of the situation, or he was going to fail. And Chasm Hawks did not fail. He looked at himself in the mirror, wiped off the blood splattered on his face, and headed for the bridge.
Less than five minutes later, Skylar entered the bridge full of steam, and his presence was immediately felt by the half-dozen officers populating the various duty stations. Most of these women and men were new bridge officers appointed by Dek during the return back to Magellan space, after many senior officers had been killed in the failed Chasm coup. The oldest was Todum, at 29 years old. The youngest was Ensign Elizabeth Hawkins, just 19, who was barely proficient enough in basic communications technology to be a bridge comms officer. Most the crew just called her Betsy.
“Ensign,” Trigs said, “please bring up the ship wide intercom. I have a troubling announcement to make.”
“Sir,” Betsy acknowledged, looking down at her comm board so that her short purple hair fell over and covered most of her face.
The main bridge door slid open again, and Sergeant Wong stepped in, flanked by two armed Marines.
“Reporting as ordered, sir,” Wong told Skylar.
Skylar stood from the command chair and stepped up to Wong, and extended his hand.
“Your sidearm, please?” Skylar asked for Wong’s gun.
“Sir?” Wong was confused.
“Sergeant, just hand me your weapon. That’s an order.”
Wong reluctantly pulled his pistol from its holster, emptied the ammo on the floor, and then handed the gun, butt end to Skylar, hoping to get a quick explanation for the odd request.
“Private,” Skylar addressed one of the Marines flanking Wing. “Under the authority granted to me as captain, I am ordering you to arrest Sergeant Wong.”
“What?” said a shocked Wong. “What’s the charge?”
“The murder of Dek Tigona.”
The bridge erupted into a series of gasps. Until now, the officers had been content to wait out to see how Magellan would deal with the injustice of Dek’s further incarceration. Dek’s leadership had assured their survival, and this survival had won loyalty to Dek.
“No!” Todum fought back tears. “Wong, how could you!”
“I… didn’t… no, wait…” Wong stuttered.
“You couldn’t wait for the tribunal, could you? Your blood lust was too great,” Skylar joined in the bridge crew’s anger. “And in killing Dek, you could punish Amberly – who you once assaulted because of her alleged ties to Chasm, and so you could get revenge. Biometrics show Tigona was checked out earlier today into your custody, and now he is no longer onboard.”
“I don’t understand, you said this was an order from—”
“What’s more, I’ve just received a report that we have an eyewitness, Pastor Ramos.”
“You… you set me up,” Wong said, then he looked around the room. “This is a set up. I don’t know why Skylar wanted Dek dead. Maybe he was jealous because Amberly liked Dek, but this was a setup. Skylar told me that … Amberly had ordered Dek’s death.”
Skylar made a show of suppressing a snicker as the Marine private began to zipcuff Wong.
“Why, Skylar? What did I ever do to you?” Wong couldn’t understand how he had fallen so quickly from grace.
“If only your crimes ended there, Wong. I have additional sad news,” Skylar addressed the rest of the bridge officers. “When the XO Snodgrass confronted Wong about this crime of rage just moments ago, Wong has appeared have also murdered Snodgrass in a struggle. Because of the sudden death of our XO, I am appointing Chief Engineer Duke Todum as acting XO, to assure the chain of command.”
“Snodgrass is dead?” Wong said.
“You drunken butcher!” Besty shouted.
“No, I wasn’t ordered to kill Snodgrass,” Wong said. “I only killed Dek. He was in violation –”
“Sounds like a confession to me,” Duke said. “Looks like we don’t need an eyewitness account from Ramos. Let’s toss him out, now!”
“I’m sure that the sergeant will be seeing the outside of an airlock soon enough,” Skylar said as the Marines grabbed Wong and started to lead him off the bridge. “The best justice is a swift justice.”
“Come with us, sir.”
Skylar pointed at Betsy, who activated the comms, and the he addressed the ship. “American Spirit. This is the captain speaking. Our XO Snodgrass has been brutally murdered, and former captain Dek Tigona was airlocked by a vigilante. Sergeant Eli Wong has been arrested and charged with both crimes. Chief Engineer Duke Todum will be taking the responsibilities for both security and the XO duties in the interim. I know many of us lament the loss of Tigona, but we must—”
As the door slid open to allow the Marines and Wong to exit, three people stood waiting to come onto the bridge: Midus, a seriously beat up Skip and a quite living Dek Tigona.
Besty screamed.
“You’re alive?” Wong was shocked.
“No… how,” Skylar reached for his sidearm, but it wasn’t there. In his haste, he had not recovered the weapon from the floor of the captain’s quarters.
“Simple distraction, really. Sorry, Wong, I didn’t stab Ramos,” Midas said. “He did it himself while I freed Dek from the airlock.”
“Let me go then, I haven’t killed anyone,” Wong demanded.
“So, Snodgrass is not dead?”
“No, he’s dead. Skylar beat him to a bloody pulp,” Skip said. “I saw it with my own eyes. Skylar is a Chasm Hawk.”
The whole bridge erupted into a shouting chaos. Skylar produced a serrated knife and grabbed Hawkins from behind, holding the knife over her throat. The bridge instantly became quiet enough to hear a pin drop.
“Easy, Skylar,” Todum said, putting his hands up. “Don’t do anything rash.”
“Don’t do anything rash?” Skylar shouted as he quickly grabbed Hawkins’ gun from her side holster. “You imbecile. Everything the Chairman has done for the last 20 years has been precisely calculated. I am just one of a dozen contingencies to carry out her will.”
Skylar pushed Betsy to the floor and in one quick motion flung the knife out of his hand and replaced it with the gun, now pointed at the kneeling young officer’s temple.
“Todum, Dek, Skip,” Skylar said with gravely intensity, “come kneel next to Betsy, or I’ll blow her head off. You have five seconds. The rest of you, clear the bridge. That’s an order.”
The engineer, communications officer, and the revolutionary kneeled next to Betsy. The rest of the bridge crew looked around at each other for a hint of what to do next. The captain was the enemy; the first officer was dead.
“Go ahead,” Dek reassured the bridge crew. “I’ve got everything under control.”
Skylar chuckled.
The others left the bridge. Once the main door was sealed, Skylar tapped Todum on the head with his gun. “Go lock it. And the underdeck hatch, too. Keep your hands where I can see them.”
“Yes, sir,” Todum said through gritted teeth and he moved to follow Skylar’s instructions. “If Eaton were here, she would have kicked your ass and made you her bit —”
“Shut up, fool,” Skylar commanded. “She’s not here. In fact, I’m pretty su
re it was one of my fellow Hawks that ended her tenure as captain.”
Todum used the manual latch lock on the bridge door that had been installed after the last Chasm assault on the bridge. He then moved to secure the lower deck hatch.
“Dek,” Skylar said in a tone sounding more like his cover personality that wooed Amberly and less like a Chasm Hawk, “you can redeem yourself now in the eyes of the Chairman. This crew trusts you. Help me figure out how to complete our mission — our mission — brother, to end Magellan and break away from the old, corrupt ways.”
“I don’t trust you, and you don’t trust me,” Dek said. “I don’t see how we could make that happen.”
“Believe in Chasm, believe in the Chairman like you once did, brother,” Skylar begged. “If we can trust each other, we can fulfill our destiny, survive and take our rightful place among the Chasm elite, and be honored forever.”
Dek slowly stood up, hands up and faced Skylar. “I have to see your eyes,” Dek said. Skylar’s gun moved from behind the head of the sobbing Betsy to being aimed at Dek’s chest.
“Do you know the book of myths you now read?” Skylar asked. “The one that charlatan Ramos peddles?”
“Yes, what of it?”
“The people in that 3000-year-old book, they are immortal on Earth. Moses. David. Samson. Paul. John. Remembered forever. Unlimited glory. On Arara, we – you and I – will be the saints.”
Todum finished securing the hatch and stood up next to the round floor portal, facing Skylar.
Skylar continued, “The new holy books will be written about us, and what is going on here and now. Our names will be praised and our deeds will be sung about by the children of Arara for millennia. You are the new prodigal son. Come home.”
Dek considered the truth of Skylar’s words. “And if I don’t help you?” Dek asked.
Skylar answered and demonstrated his lethal aim by putting a bullet through Todum’s skull. The engineer’s lifeless body dropped to the floor. Betsy shirked.
