Soundless Conflicts

by S. Walker

  "So that is the plan?" Paul looked hopeful, but skeptical at the same time. "Start the smelter's Krepsfield and then, what? Sabotage the plasma setup to cause an explosion? Could that even work?"

  Janson was already nodding. "Hell yes, ah could set it up if you give me a day! Just need to turn on the systems and- aw, shit."

  Jamet echoed the big man. "Shit."

  Siers looked at them both in mild confusion. "Problem?"

  "The systems are on lock, sir." Janson looked pained, then motioned towards the back of the ship. "An' the last person left alive in Pilster-3 with an ID to unlock them would be-"

  Everyone said it in chorus: "Upper Executive Rachel Targer."

  Jamet slammed both palms on her already broken console. "Well fuck me all over again!"

  The bridge hatch swished open. Emilia's rainbow visor panned around the anger filled space, eyebrows raised in surprise. "What'd I miss?"

  Chapter 30

  Missed Anniversaries

  "Let's just kidnap the hell out of the her."

  Emilia had her console output displaying on the ceiling, hands waving in the air as subsystems reflected and updated off her visor. Both feet perched on top of the Comms workstation, only the secondary harness keeping her from floating across the bridge under zero gravity. The arrangement basically rotated her ninety degrees from everyone else and made Paul internally queasy just looking at it.

  Which was, of course, why she delighted in doing it. "Look, it's not hard! Just gag that stupid Exec, pretzel her up in restraints and toss the whole privileged package in the lifeboat. Bam! Solved."

  "I doubt it would be that easy," Siers murmured. He was plotting a long travel arc from the Kipper's current position to the middle of the asteroid belt. "Considering we would need her voluntary assistance at the other end of the trip. She could simply refuse to unlock any of the subsystems. Hold them hostage, as it were."

  "Which would have us stuck," Janson rumbled. "Nah, gonna have to rely on the lieutenant talkin' the Exec around on this one." He tossed a countdown onto the shared forward workspace, three minutes and dropping. "Ready on gravity, captain." He spun a finger in the air towards Emilia's Comms station. "Maybe turn yourself back 'round before it comes back on."

  "Meh." The small tech deliberately spun the opposite direction in midair, timing her feet drop to stop perfectly upright. "I was enjoying that."

  Paul moved his display away from where it was covering up his view of Emilia at Comms. "I was definitely... not." He looked slightly green. "Objectively I understand there is no 'up' or 'down', but visually speaking you sitting like that was highly unpleasant to see."

  "Aww, give you tummy troubles?" She grinned at him, teasing.

  "Vestibular endolymph hyperexcitement, actually."

  Dead silence. "You made those words up."

  He grinned weakly back at her. "Bet me."

  "Ah have two minutes," Janson announced. "Bringing power relays up slowly on the local gravity, don't want to blow anything. Lot of damage midship ah have to route around. Captain, you want to tell everyone?"

  Siers froze his course display, pushing it to the edge of the screen. "Good call. The last thing we need is a flood of new injuries." He tapped icons on his console, then started broadcasting directly through the overheads. "All personnel on board: Local gravity is coming online in less than two minutes. Secure yourselves and any loose items in the immediate area." He clicked off, then coughed wetly while looking upward in thought. "Paul, Emilia-- what are the odds our boarders are close enough to attack passengers?"

  "I think we got them all, sir." Paul glanced at Emilia, then brought up an Environmental schematic. "But just in case, I have tamper alerts on all of the ducts and cutoffs. If any drones start to force one, we will know."

  "Then we'll just cut grav again, head down and burn it up. Hey, wait-- there's a thought. Could we put one of 'em in with the Executive?" She seemed positively excited by the idea.

  Janson ignored her, watching power levels on his console with a wary eye. "One minute. Hope everyone's got their feet on th' deck by now. Has anyone heard from the LT?"

  Siers checked harness clasps, then pulled the saved course plot back on screen. "No, nothing for the last hour or so. But I trust her to handle the situation with our Exec, or at least give it a good try. It's why we brought her aboard, after all." He paused to cough wetly into one elbow, then pulled a cloth out to wipe his mouth.

  "Actually, can we talk about that?" Emilia tapped her Comms screen closed, then swiveled to face the CEO station. "Don't get me wrong, sir: She's growing on me a little bit. I'll admit it. Janson's got a big puppy heart-"

  "Thanks, Em."

  "-and even Paul over there's getting suckered in." She flicked away the tall Medical tech's glare with a casual wrist snap. "So yeah, you've got us all buying into Reals. But there are a couple problems with her and I'm not going to lie-- that whole Corporate Management bit makes me feel like this is all some kind of long trick." Emilia crossed both arms defensively, eyebrows slanted down under her visor. "What's going on?"

  Everyone's boots hit the deck with an audible thump as local gravity came on. Paul put a hand over his mouth and urp'd once, then took deep breaths. "I will never enjoy that feeling."

  Siers smiled briefly without opening his eyes. "Me neither, Paul. Always feels like hitting the bottom of a long drop, but at least I can start drinking caf again. And I'm not ignoring you, Emilia." She closed her mouth, biting off an angry complaint. "I'm not hiding anything, either. It was just time to fill in our missing member and the lieutenant came... highly recommended."

  "That was the best non-answer ever, sir. We were doing just fine for years; it's not like we needed a fifth to get by. But suddenly we need to fill the co-CEO spot? With a Management type? Talk about scraping the bottom of the scum barrel."

  "Emilia..." Janson looked uneasy. "Maybe not the time, yeah?"

  She stomped one foot. "Pfft, it was never going to be a good time. But when are we going to have another chance with her out of the room? And I think we deserve an explanation before this goes so far we can't imagine going through life without a checklist. Or something else all Corporate-like." Emilia looked unhappy but resolute, small shoulders pulled downward. "Come on, Timothy. What's the deal?"

  Siers deflated suddenly, looking older than he should. "That's playing dirty, Emilia."

  "Not gonna be sorry. Fess up."

  He raised one finger in a 'hold on' motion. "Paul, please check for Environmental tampers. I don't want more damage while we're not paying attention. Janson-- please lock the bridge hatch. This is not a conversation I want our lieutenant to walk into. That would be," he thought for a moment. "Let's go with 'criminal betrayal' as a start."

  Paul cycled through schematics, tapping and eyeballing each with a practiced eye. "Nothing has changed. Either they are slow to restart or we may be clean. Time will tell."

  "Janson?"

  "Hatch locked, sir. Ah just took the LT's identification out of the access list temporarily."

  Siers nodded to confirm, then settled back into the command chair with a tired sigh. "Alright. I will admit there is a reason. Two, actually. But I think the right place to start would be with an apology." He stared ahead for a long moment, then planted elbows on the console and fisted his hands together, resting his chin across both thumbs. "I've been... out of sorts, lately. Drinking, mostly. I could make excuses-- some of them extremely good-- but that doesn't help."

  Emilia looked embarrassed. "It hasn't been that bad. Sir."

  "Bad enough." He smiled at her, but shook off the implied pardon. "So the first problem relates to me, and me alone: I've been thinking about it for years now and I've decided this would be my last Anniversary."

  He dropped that disclosure with a capital 'A', heavy with implied meaning. Emilia's eyebrows knotted together, then she aimed a confused look at the other two. Janson shrugged, but Paul frowned like he'd just figured something out. "You are pla
nning to die."

  Siers twisted in surprise, eyebrows raised. "That was a hell of a guess, Paul. If you don't mind my asking, how...?"

  "Medical records, mostly." He seemed troubled. "I have access to the entire crew database, going back to whenever they came on board, or a bit further if they came from a Corporate HQ. Even yours, captain-- years worth of routine tests and such. But I noticed something odd: Your records only go back five years."

  "Why's that bad?" Janson looked confused. "Are you sick or something, sir?"

  Siers shook his head at the worried engineer, smiling faintly the whole time. "No, but let our Medical technician explain. Go ahead, Paul."

  "Thank you. So: Five years. Which was not interesting at all, really, I just assumed that was a limit on recordkeeping. But then our Engineer here," he nodded to the surprised man. "Hit his sixth year aboard... and his record updated to reflect the fact. That made me suspicious."

  Emilia waved, looked irritable. "Is there a rest stop between here and the point, Paul?"

  "Em was next, actually." That shut the small woman up. "Janson hit eight years a couple of months before Emilia got to six. Same thing: Her record updated correctly. I was last to join the crew, but my records clicked over just fine as well. But not yours, captain. Not Timothy Siers." He waved at the Medical console, indicating the ship systems as a whole. "Yours never accumulated past five. Anything older simply dropped off without explanation."

  Paul pulled up an interface, then put it on the forward shared workspace. "So I started looking into it. And you are, no hyperbole, the cleanest and healthiest person that has ever existed. In fact," he threw a graphic onto the screen, two twisted strands of recognizable DNA looping around each other. "Your telomeres are perfect. Long, matching and untouched."

  Siers watched the colored helixes rotating around each other, then glanced at a visibly confused Janson and Emilia. He smiled slowly, then clapped twice in a tired way. "That's rather clever, and you caught me out. But if you wouldn't mind explaining for those without the benefit of a medical chip...?"

  "Of course, although this is greatly simplified." Paul highlighted the end of the DNA strands, bringing them into focus. "Telomeres are, for lack of a better word, garbage. They are stuck on the end of chromosomes in human cells as a block to keep the cell from unraveling or accidentally combining." On screen the DNA strands split, becoming two side-by-side columns slightly shorter than the original. "When cells divide, the telomeres are lost. Eventually, over time, there are simply no more of them to hold the end of a cell together."

  Both images started dividing rapidly, getting shorter and shorter until they suddenly spun apart. "That is what we refer to as 'dying of old age', and it typically takes a literal lifetime. Everyone on board the Kipper has an expiration clock built right into their body." Paul wiped the screen, then turned to look at the CEO workstation. "Except yours, captain."

  "So... wait." Emilia struggled, frowning. "That means, what?"

  "Ah think he's saying the captain isn't getting old." Janson scratched his beard, eyes thoughtful. "And now that ah think of it... ah have been on the crew a long while now." He plucked a few hairs, holding them up ruefully. "Started gettin' a few grey ones myself. But captain-- you sure look the same. I'd have ta check some of our group images, and I wouldn't have noticed if I wasn't lookin' but... yeah."

  "Okay, so-- what? He's not getting older? Big deal, what's the problem?" Emilia shot a look around the room, irritated at not seeing an issue.

  "Well, for starters," Janson looked embarrassed. "Ah would say we're not the first crew. Or even the first dozen, ah'd guess."

  That landed like a bomb, dropping her mouth open. She closed it again. "Wait. So. No, wait." Emilia couldn't seem to get her questions in the correct order. "How old are you, captain?"

  Siers tapped his nose, then pointed to her. "That's my first reason for needing this talk. The exact number isn't going to mean anything, but you've all had the discussion about Corporate. Boards reporting to Boards in a chain going all the way back through systems." Everyone nodded slowly. "Then there's the easy to understand answer: I am not the first group of Shareholders... but I would be very, very close to it."

  Paul abruptly shut down his console, then sat back in his chair with an angry look. "And now you are looking to die? Explain that."

  "Mmm." Siers idly played with his display, bringing up star system records and shuffling them around. "There are a lot of things, really. Not the least of which is seeing my own mistakes over and over. But, fundamentally: I have come to believe the Corporate system was a mistake. A sin, if there every really was such a thing to begin with. By remaining attached to it, I am helping to keep it alive. Propped up."

  Galaxies spun and twirled, stars and planets passing in a blur. He guided each with a finger, flicking them out of the way or pulling them closer on a whim. "I am... tired of it. So this Anniversary-- which is the calendar new year, by the way, two months from now-- I was going to opt out. Terminate employment, to use a phrase our lieutenant would understand." He smiled at a hundred systems all at once, swirling through and around the workspace. "Which is going to be a rather spectacular event, I imagine."

  Janson got up, crossing over to stand by the CEO workstation. Putting a hand out, he halted the whirl of systems and closed the display so he could look Siers in the eye. "Spectacular how, sir? If I can ask."

  Siers smiled thinly, eyes older than starlight in vacuum. "Shareholder assets revert to workers upon death, Mr. Parks. At least, ours did. Before the system changed to only benefit those at the top. So when I die, after all my years of accumulated interests and dividends?" He put both hands together, then flicked fingers outward in an exploding motion. "Pfff. Every worker, all at once. Richer than any Corporate CEO in existence."

  Paul reeled without moving, eyes closing and face going slack. Emilia followed suit, hanging her head down low enough to smack her visor on both knees.

  Only Janson didn't seem bothered. "And the other reason?"

  "What about it?"

  He wouldn't let it go. "What was the second reason, sir?"

  "That is for our new lieutenant to know. I'm not being mysterious," he promised with a faint smile. "It just wouldn't be fair, otherwise."

  The bridge hatch clicked, then jammed as the locks stayed engaged. A moment later the console next to it beeped in annoyance, displaying an entrance request and a short message beneath: Not in the mood, Emilia. Open up.

  Siers glanced at the Engineering workstation, then nodded once. "Would you mind?" Janson frowned, but retreated to his area and tapped a couple keys. Seconds later the bridge hatch clunked and swished open.

  Jamet walked unsteadily into the room, favoring one leg and making a direct line for the co-CEO workstation. She looked like hell: Hair in a disarray, uniform shoulder ripped and a clear line of three parallel scratches across one check. One boot heel seemed to be missing entirely, forcing her to walk on the toes of that foot.

  It was only after sitting down (and painfully buckling her restraint harness) that Jamet looked around the room and noticed how tense it was. She squinted at a hunched over Emilia, then transferred the look to Paul. Who appeared to be sleeping-- eyes closed and hands clasped over his chest. "What the hell? Was everyone taking a break up here?"

  Siers laughed, then started coughing. "Not... quite. Were you able to convince our captive Executive to work with us?"

  Jamet gingerly touched her face, fingers probing what looked like the beginnings of a black eye. "More or less. Emilia, when you have a second- actually, scratch that, I need you to do this immediately. Scrub me out of the ship systems entirely. Zero access."

  The Comms technician slowly sat up, confusion evident above and below her visor. "Whyyyy?"

  Jamet answered by holding her wrist over the co-CEO workstation. The console read her implanted ID, then buzzed a harsh rejection and an error display. She pointed at it. "That's why."