“ 3 5 5 1 : The Burden Of Earth’s Children. ”
Page 5
scattered throughout the cabin.
“Captain,” Shelnai finally said with a patronizing tone, “the ratio of each Colonial vessel during the diaspora transporting phase of immigrants is eighty to one! You had to have seen a mutiny in the diaspora program in the works, eventually. Especially with the way you Colonialists have treated us Earthens!”
Alund looked at a nearby officer who had been trying to contact anybody over the communications system. The officer solemnly shook her head toward the captain.
“Would you like to see proof of our offensive abilities, Captain,” Shelnai questioned, incredulous that he would.
Reinholm normally would want to see proof that his enemy had either captured or killed his people. But then he thought of the implications of his surviving crew seeing the casualties. As most military people would conclude, he decided against it. “No,” he finally responded, and just as he did so, an indicator beacon chirped on his console.
“Ah, that would be some of our reinforcements,” Shelnai stated matter of fact. “Well, go ahead, Captain Reinholm, take a look for yourself…you should see about sixty Earthen immigrants securing your front door.”
The captain keyed instructions on the computational to display for him the lobby area that lead to the command center. It was simulcast on all the liquid monitors in the center, including the large one at the front of the suite. The image was a split between 1,961’s face and the lobby. Indeed, just as she said, there were scores of heavily armed immigrants standing in a semi-circle around the entryway to the command center. Alund could also see some of his crew seated on the lobby floor cross-legged with their hands clasped upon their heads. Several of the red-clad Earthens were pointing some mean-looking rifles at the Jorus crew. Those same guns had belonged to Captain Reinholm’s own crew…so, the diaspora immigrants had done this mutiny without any foreign weapons. That was even more embarrassing!
“Okay, you’ve convinced me,” Alund stated with genuine resolution to the facts at hand. He sighed and then gestured to his command crew to stand down. Some had brandished their own weapons, but it was clear that DNAc. 1,961 had successfully check mated the captain at this game. “You mind if I ask what has become of my second-in-command?”
Over the monitors, those in the command center saw Shelnai quickly snap her head in a direction where, apparently, some of her people held Ester. A few more seconds later and Shelnai stepped aside and let the commander step into view. Colonial Collectives guns were visibly pointed right at her head. Her face was bruised and bloodied, but she seemed all right.
“I’m sorry, Captain,” Ester immediately said, her head shaking and her voice cracking.
Alund threw up one of his hands, trying to discourage her from getting herself into further trouble. “Ester, don’t worry about it. I just wanted to make sure you were all right…put Shelnai back on.”
Ester was roughhoused out of the way as the lean woman, her mid-length hair pulled back into a disheveled bun, stepped back into the monitor.
“Shelnai,” the captain said, “I’m curious…what is my crew supposed to do during the rest of the trek to Mars?”
“The Jorus has hibernation capabilities, doesn’t it?”
The captain’s stomach tensed up. “The Collectives discontinued the use of transit hibernation generations ago. As did most interplanetary liners.”
“True, but as a fail-safe most government-issued crafts are equipped with cryogenic stations…that will be yours and your crew’s brig for the remainder of the trip, Captain.” She smirked again. Clearly she knew she had the upper hand over the captain.
Provoked by such arrogance, the captain came out a bit more aggressively. “Tell me, DNA Codifier 1,961,” he said, attempting to remind her of her status in life, “did you craft this scheme or did you get help from the Majordomo?”
That remark caused everyone in the command center to flick their heads toward the captain, some with their mouths gaped. Even some of Shelnai’s people were surprised by the captain’s insinuation. For her part, Shelnai seemed to stir with discomfort. This time the captain had won points.
“Open the command center now, Captain,” Shelnai demanded, her mood quickly souring.
“I knew it,” Alund said quietly with satisfaction. He then turned toward his crew and nodded his head, indicating that he wanted the doors to the command suite opened. With a simple push of a button from an officer, the industrial-grade doors slid open.
There was a stream of red jumpsuits pushing their way into the command deck, each immigrant with a Colonial rifle jutting from his or her face as they took aim at the Jorus command crew. 1,961 was at Commander Kolnan’s section of the ship, so she was not there to sit at the captain’s chair after the coup became official. But she had the look of victory on her face, broadcast on every liquid glass monitor within the command center as her people forcibly removed the Jorus crew from the center. One of the other Earthen immigrants, DNA Codifier 25,031, went to Captain Reinholm’s station and simply stood before the communicator as he talked with Shelnai…he wanted to reflect the symbolism of her being in command, even to the point of him not sitting in the seat.
“Shelnai,” 25,031 said over the computational monitor, “the ship’s ready for your command!”
This time Shelnai gave her warmest smile yet over the fluid monitors. “All right, Michael. Great job, mate.”
“Should I contact the Majordomo and let her know?”
DNAc. 1,961 thought for a bit. It was tempting for her to relish in the conquest that she and her comrades had planned for so long and had risked their own lives, while the continental queen sat back at her meetings with other heads of state, millions of miles from where the action was taking place. Truth was, it wasn’t only Captain Reinholm that did not get along with her. Even her own fellow Earthens found her personality hard to swallow. But, in the end, it was because of Majordomo Lucindo’s leadership did any of this happen, and for that, at the very least, she should have that much respect.
“Yeah…I suppose we should, huh?”
The young man nodded with a smirk, understanding Shelnai’s apprehension, and started to contact the Majordomo.
“Wait, Michael,” Shelnai interrupted, a hand suspended in the air. “Tell the others on the other ships first…I think they should know before our beloved Napoleonette!”
…………….
Word about the Jorus mutiny spread to the myriad of synthetic space habitats found across the solar system. The other mega-boats taking part in the diaspora program had also gotten word of the coup. First the message was smuggled to the other immigrants via a complexity of communicative technology, then, as what always happens, rumors began to spread to the non-immigrant population as well. And, of course, rumors of the Jorus mutiny had landed on Mars, Europa, Titan, and Earth. For those colonies within the Collectives it was disconcerting hearsay. For such rumors could only encourage many of their Earthen immigrants to also revolt against their society. There had been thousands—perhaps hundreds of thousands!—of Earthens in the Colonial Collectives missing and/or found dead. In many of those cases, the immigrants were simply never found again. So, for the many immigrants being shipped off to the Collectives or already there, to them the rumors of the revolt was just the spark they needed for their own mutinies. And before you knew it, there was a solar system-wide uprising of the Earthen immigrants! Not just on the various ships transporting the immigrants, but at Mars, Europa, and Titan. Even Earth itself and several artificial planetoids did not escape the revolution.
Over the next several years more facts about the human diaspora project surfaced. Thirty-sixth century versions of the news media investigated various connections between Earth governments and the Colonial Collectives. There had been, in fact, a conspiracy by many Earth-based gov
ernments to “relieve” the planet of many of its citizens. It had started so many years ago when the diaspora project first began. The reason for the project was accurately told to Earthen citizens back then: Earth’s human population growth and our depletion of its natural resources had, indeed, surpassed its carrying capacity. By that time the ocean and sea levels had dropped enough that it had finally alarmed humans throughout the globe.
Where the conspiracy came in was when those certain Earth governments disguised their diaspora program as a simple ecological easement scheme…that by convincing Earthen citizens that they were being sent to the Collectives and would receive comparable living standards was an outright deception! The Earthen governments knew they did not have the public funds to maintain their expatriates in the Collectives, nor did the governments intended to. This was the absolute worst of the conspiracy…
Earthen scientists hundreds of years ago had already calculated the losses to the Earth’s biosphere as a result of human activities and its resulting affects on humans because of it. Scientists, their respective governments, and with the help of some private feudal lords, devised a grand scheme to “cull” the human population. They reasoned, if we can’t reverse the worsening of Earth’s ecological