“ 3 5 5 1 : The Burden Of Earth’s Children. ”
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longer to reach Sol’s outer-bodies. Often, people had to undergo suspended animation while their craft hurled through space in order to conserve resources and energy. By Captain Reinholm’s generation enough advancements were made that such long-term, induced pseudo-sleep had long been out of practice. A trip out to Saturn from Earth still took several months to traverse via a ship typical of Jorus’s caliber. But it was a lot faster than the days of space antiquities.
………..
It had been about a week since the Jorus crew had left Earth. They yet had several more weeks before they reached Mars, where they would re-stock upon spaceboat fuel and food for the crew and the Earthen immigrants at any of Mars’s several space ports. In the mean time, some of the Jorus crew had taught classes, as it were, on the cultures and rules of colonial society in Mars, Europa, and Titan. With such ratio of 1,000 crew members to the 80,000 immigrants, much of the courses were given in large numbers at a time, sometimes via virtual communique, other times by several crew members all at once…and that’s when the power to the Jorus surged.
From his quarters, Captain Reinholm summoned one of his ship officers to determine what happened. The communication system was apart of the emergency power backup for just such occasions.
“Yes, Captain,” the husky woman responded at full attention on Reinholm’s liquid monitor. The only light sources, at the moment, on the ship came from various emergency equipment. Some smudges of light also glowed from the liquid monitors scattered throughout the ship.
“I think you know why I’m calling, Jacquoline…and how long before we have full power?”
“Should be within five minutes, Sir!”
“Good.” The captain then worked his terminal so that the next image was of Jorus’s top security officer. “Chongle, I want all your people at standby at the immigrants’ quarters.”
“Yes, Sir,” Chongle curtly replied as he visibly waved the command to some of his subordinates that were out of transmitted sight of the captain’s monitor. The monitor blackened and the liquid rectangle dissipated as Reinholm turned in his chair to check out vital telemetry on the ship. His monitor was, for obvious reasons, also on emergency power-mode, as was all the liquid glass monitors within Jorus.
While the captain patiently read the various reports in his computational in the darkened cabin, some of the Jorus crew began to whip out their emergency kits, making the command cabin laced with hand-held spotlights. After a couple more minutes, Reinholm called up Ester to see how her area of the ship was holding out.
“Captain,” she inquired after her image formed in the glassy liquid on the captain’s computational.
“Commander, when was the last time the ship’s been inspected?”
“Oh, I don’t know…nearly a year before we left for Earth. You think the power surge has anything to do with the ship’s maintenance?”
The captain thought for a moment as his eyes drifted toward the main liquid monitor of the command deck, displaying nothing but stars that moved so slow in their perceived motion, that for all practical purposes the stars were static. “I don’t know…are the auxiliary engines doing their part?”
“As far as I can tell,” Ester said as her eyes glanced toward a corner display, indicating how the ship’s emergency systems were functioning. “So are the life supports, the water, the induced gravity…oxygen levels are great.” She shrugged with a dismissive face. “Sir, the Jorus is an older boat in the fleet.”
Alund nodded his head reluctantly. He then thanked the commander for her work and cut communications with her. Of course, all the systems-check that she conferred with him was available to the captain from the command center. But he just needed an additional set of trained eyes to be sure. The ship continued its course on emergency thrusters for the next ten minutes before the entire power finally kicked back on. Humans being what we are, regardless of the era, several of the crewmembers applauded and whistled out of joy. Even the captain, who was as straight as they come, had to throw out a yelp. After all, hibernation was rarely used in space travel anymore. Not with the advancements in speed…it would have been a very long and boring trip if the Jorus had to proceed at a fraction of its capacity!
“Chongle, my friend,” Reinholm announced for the benefit of the command crew as well as for the security officer, “I promise you a ration of Martian liquor when we finally dock there!” The command center was filled with guffaw. Usually, with such banter there’s a reply, at least, an equally benign one.
“Captain Reinholm,” a woman’s voice came from the main liquid glass in the front of the deck. From the looks of her, she was in her late-forties, handsomely-built—almost like a mid-sized man, and she had a very serious countenance to go with it all. “Let me introduce myself to you. My name is Shelnai…otherwise known to the diaspora project under the nomenclature of DNA Codifier 1,961.” The captain glanced down at her upper-chest area and saw her immigrant identification number, embossed on her red jumpsuit. She continued.
“I’ll get to the point, Captain. Your ship has just undergone a mutiny. I’m sure by now you’ve pieced together that your power-loss was due to our commandeering the Jorus. I suggest that you do not order the remainder of your security crew to try to countervail us—“
“—wait a minute,” the captain broke in, indignation finally settling in after the shock of the events. “What do you mean by, the remainder of my security crew?”
DNAc. 1,961, her face on all the monitors in the command center, looked away for a second, an expression of regret on her lined face. “We offered your security to place down their weapons, but not one heeded our request.”
There were gasps within the center. Alund’s eyes closed tightly as he slowly lowered his head. “Why are you doing this,” he put to her once he raised his head.
For a few seconds, Shelnai seemed to be considering how to respond to the captain’s inquiry. “I’m sure you’ve heard of the so-called rumors about the desecration of our fellow Earthen immigrants by the hands of your Colonial Collectives.”
From his peripheral vision, Alund could see several of his command crewmembers glance at one another. Apparently they’ve heard of the rumors and he wondered if Ester had told them…at this point, it was moot! There was no kidding himself about the issue. Shelnai and her people had already proved themselves to be taken seriously and there was no sense in provoking her by playing coy.
“If you’re referring to the alleged abuses by some of our fellow citizens back on the Collectives’ soil, yes. Yes, I’ve heard of the rumors. But—“
“—The reports are quite real, Captain,” 1,961 interposed, agitated. “In fact, several of us immigrants on this ship have lost relatives and friends by the hands of the Collectives!”
“Okay,” Reinholm said, a bit impatient now, “let’s say that these rumors are true. All right, I agree with you, something should be done. But what does hijacking my ship have to do with it? You seem like a person with strong leadership qualities. You should already know that there are grievance procedures for situations you’re in, and trust me, what you are doing right now is not one of them!”
“Captain, when the ship arrives at Mars-proper you and the rest of your crew will debark. Is that understood?”
Alund cast a ponderous glance at his most senior crew in the command center at the time. He shrugged at the captain’s glare. “Now hold on, Shelnai. I’m a ranking member within the Collectives. I might be able to pull some strings for you. That is, if you’ll let me help. Secondly…” He straightened in his chair, careful not to sound too confrontational. “How do I know that all you’ve done was cut the main power? All I have to go on is your word, Shelnai, and I’m afraid that I don’t know you well enough to consider it a good currency.”
Shelnai simply shrugged. �
��Has your chief of security even contacted you lately?” Alund felt a chill run down his spine. DNAc. 1,961 continued. “And what about the rest of the security officers? Wouldn’t they have—“
“—Commander,” Captain Reinholm blurted out to Ester over his communications as he keyed in an emergency code to her, “tet’naught procedure…go now!”
The captain, like most of the commanding officers in the suite, held his breath as he waited for the crisis logistics to kick in from Commander Kolnan’s team. By that time there should have been a total blackout in the ship and a total loss of power. Not even emergency power would have worked in the tet’naught action. In theory, the crew would have at it with whoever the mutiny instigators were, kind of a pile-up on the assailants while Kolnan’s team did special ops throughout the ship…but that did not happen. Not this time. The ‘naught procedure was used by Reinholm’s crew only one other time of the years he’d been in charge, and even then it was for a single crew member that was suffering from a psychotic breakdown during a war.
The captain had last talked with Ester just before the ship had regained power. Apparently, DNAc. 1,961 had that covered as well. In fact, her virile face had a bit of a smirk to it on the liquid glass monitors