The 13: Mission's End Book One

by M. M. Perry

  “I knew the first citizen on our ship to be counseled. He’d done nothing wrong. He wrote a very polite letter saying he thought Command was misguided in their efforts to control the population.”

  Alphea sighed and shook her head.

  “I spent the next few years trying to locate the builder on our ship. Command had hidden him away. When I found him, I woke him and asked him all about conformity and the fourteenth ship. Nothing Command had told us was true. Unfortunately, he was killed by the captain when she found out what I’d done. If I’d known I would endanger him by bringing him out of his cryogenic sleep, I wouldn’t have done it. I would’ve contented myself with the knowledge that there was a high probability that my hypothesis was correct. But dwelling on that mistake now is fruitless.”

  “So the fourteenth ship isn’t a prize for conformity after all,” Naomi said.

  “Correct. It’s merely an extra supply ship. There was no promise made about who would get access to it,” Alphea said. “Your Alphea suspected as much, as well. Just like me, she’s distrusted the information Command had shared with us regarding conformity. While she’d been unable to find the builder on the Magellan to confirm her suspicions, she found out Command had decided to tell Military what conformity actually meant to make sure they minimized casualties during missions.”

  “She…” Naomi faltered. “She did?”

  Naomi looked over at Mike, hoping he’d deny what this new Alphea was saying. Mike looked away from her, unable to meet her eyes.

  “Don’t blame them for keeping you in the dark, Naomi,” Alphea said kindly. “I’m sure they thought it would make it difficult for you to concentrate on the mission if you knew.”

  Naomi looked away from both Mike and Alphea, hurt and confused. She didn’t have time to ruminate on the lies she’d been told however, as at that moment, Chef and Book were escorted into the core. Book was dressed in a civilian jumpsuit, and looked slightly pale, but otherwise fine.

  “There’s the handsome devil,” Prof said. “Told you he’d be handsome.”

  Book smirked.

  “I imagine there’s a good story here somewhere.”

  “We’ll catch you up in a bit,” Mike said. “First, I want to know what the plan is. Our ship will never make Mission’s End without that part. Whoever you’re up against smashed it to pieces.”

  “That’s what I’ve been addressing with your Alphea. We’re going to leave this ship and join yours. You’ll take us and our fertile embryos.”

  Alphea gestured at the corner of the core where a large case giving off white steam sat connected to a power source.

  “In return for this, we’ll give you the power core from our incubation chamber. With that, you’ll be able to fabricate the part you need to get to Mission’s End. We’ll also,” Alphea said standing, “help you free yourselves.”

  Mike looked around at the hundred people in the room and couldn’t help but laugh disbelievingly.

  “This is what you’re left with after freeing yourselves? And you’re going to help us?”

  Alphea nodded.

  “You’re not wrong to harbor doubts. We made many mistakes, the greatest of which was underestimating the ruthlessness of Command. They wanted to burn us all down, start from scratch. We’re only here alive, in part, because they needed at least a skeletal crew to get the ship to Mission’s End.”

  “There are so many problems with your plan,” Mike said. “Let’s start with the fact that there’s no way the Magellan is just going to let us do this. The captain will have military waiting to shoot us down as we dock. But, let’s pretend the captain would let you on board. We come to our next problem. It’ll take fifteen or sixteen trips across the gap to get you all over to the Magellan. We can only fit six on the shuttle at any time. Eight with the pilots. How do you expect to survive that long while we go back and forth shuttling your crew over? The people you’re up against, they’re mobilizing. We saw them.”

  “We have a plan. Don’t you worry. No one on the Magellan will know we’re coming. And, you won’t have to make the flight that many times. We checked out your ship after you left the bay. We’ve improved on your design. As to the people on this ship preparing to act against us, we’ve got something in store for them, too.”

  “Oh yeah,” said Prof. “I forgot to mention. They had Trophy tied up. I shot him. So, there’s one less problem.”

  “That wasn’t Trophy you shot,” Mike said.

  Prof stared at him.

  “But you had him tied up.”

  “Yes.”

  “He’s from your ship?”

  “Yes.”

  “He was working with you?”

  “Not exactly.”

  Prof leaned on a wall and shoved his hands into his pockets.

  “Are ya mad I shot him?”

  “Not really.”

  “Then, I guess you’re not going to like this next bit,” Prof said, disappointed. “I really hoped I’d shot the bastard. Would’ve saved everyone so much trouble.”

  Naomi sat in the shuttle bay, fidgeting as she watched civilians, along with a few soldiers, finish modifications on four shuttles. Unit power cells were spread across the shuttle bay floor in various levels of deconstruction. She realized that was how the Tereshkova had altered the plans her Alphea had sent them. They weren’t constructing a power cell strong enough to shield a shuttle from jerry-rigged bits and pieces like the Magellan had. They weren’t planning on keeping the Tereshkova in working order. They were cannibalizing it. Their power sources only took up a small section of a shuttle’s cargo area compared to the clunky patch job the Magellan had assembled. They were also much easier to install. The four modified shuttles would each have a slightly smaller capacity than the normal thirty-two passengers. The shuttles were already warming up and would be ready to launch for the Magellan in under twelve hours.

  “Kitch said it takes forty-eight hours to get the shuttles back to temp,” Naomi said distractedly.

  The Tereshkova’s Alphea, who Naomi had begun calling Alsophea in her head, was sitting next to her, overseeing the work.

  “We’re goosing the engines a tad with the power cells we’re installing. It’s hard on the reactors. It can’t be done too often or they’d become unstable. But, this one time, we must risk it. We don’t have enough time for them to warm up properly,” Alsophea said.

  Naomi spotted Alicia Wright, one of the two Magellan pilots. She was in the cockpit of a shuttle with a group of pilots from the Tereshkova. From her gesturing, she was training the pilots how to traverse the gap between the two ships smoothly.

  “Why can’t we just leave now?” Naomi asked. “Why do we have to do anything to the people staying here? I know they’ve killed most of the people on this ship, but why risk more lives? We could just leave,” Naomi said.

  “We can’t risk them radioing the Magellan and telling them we’re coming. As soon as we leave they’ll be able to boot up the central computer again. Everything that can come back online, will. They’ve been guarding the communications power cell since we took the core. We’re sure they know we’re going to make a run for it. They’ll have the com power cell back up and running as soon as we take off and your ship must be taken with the element of surprise if we’re to have any chance. And in the longer term, we can’t risk them trying to take the Magellan for themselves. Once they realize we’ve left a large portion of the Tereshkova out of commission, they’ll know they won’t be making it to Mission’s End. They’ll be desperate. Desperate enough to launch an attack.”

  Naomi, crestfallen at the thought of more death, tucked her knees under her chin. Alsophea’s face softened.

  “You still don’t understand why we must take over your ship. You’re worried about your friends there.”

  Naomi looked around the shuttle bay at the people.

  “You had almost two thousand people on this ship. There are about eighty here. Twenty-five more are getting ready to risk their lives to
get us off this ship, several of whom are very important to me. So yes, to say I’m worried about my friends is an understatement. I don’t see how you can be so sure tactics that didn’t work over here will work over there.”

  “Do you know why that man Casings was trying to kill you, Naomi?”

  Naomi shook her head, unwilling to think about it.

  “Soldiers have their orders. They take commands. They do what they’re told. If they came over here and saw something that might have dire implications for the Magellan, they would keep it to themselves because that’s their job. Civilians are less disciplined. Sometimes the military is tasked with missions to address civilian issues. Tearing apart two lovers who had eloped to a secret hideaway. Destroying an entire unit because they had begun to clandestinely plan something contrary to Command’s desires. Killing someone who had seen the truth of the conformity, who could tell others of this truth, ruining everything Command had carefully built. These missions happened all over the Tereshkova and the Magellan. No one outside of military and Command ever knew because it was kept quiet. You’re one of those missions, Naomi.”

  Naomi stared into Alsophea’s eyes.

  “But you… my Alphea sent me here. I wasn’t even going to come. She insisted. How could I be a mission if you… if she was working against them?”

  Alsophea clasped her hands together and looked down at her feet. She wasn’t sure how well Naomi would take the news, and she wasn’t one hundred percent sure she had the whole picture. All she knew is when she met Mike “Eagle Eye,” she saw immediately that he was everything she had hoped she could lead Mike “Bullseye” to become. It was there, plain as day. So she pushed on, hoping to give Naomi some solace.

  “I don’t completely know the mind of my counterpart. She’s had different experiences than me. Only she can tell you what happened and how that justifies her actions. I can tell you this much. If I never took Mike under my wing, he wouldn’t have made it as far as he did. His moral compass would’ve eventually gotten him spaced for being a bad egg. Overcoming what he was raised to be, it’s quite amazing. Every day, they were taught to obey, much like you were taught that love was dangerous. From the time they were very little, they were taught, first and foremost, the essential nature of obedience and its importance to the greater goal of reaching Mission’s End.

  “I’ve been watching the soldiers for years, searching for the right ones, the ones that would be bad eggs in the eyes of the captain and Command, the ones that found it hard to do their jobs when things turned unpleasant. I taught them how to hide within the system to keep from being caught up in it, and how to find others like themselves and protect them, too. I helped them avoid the jobs that were the most unpleasant, those missions I told you about. I knew if they were ordered to do those things, they might not be able to hide anymore. That’s what I did. I wouldn’t be surprised that’s what your Alphea did. Mike, and the team he’s gathered, that’s evidence enough for me to believe I’m correct in my assumption.”

  Alsophea paused before continuing, picking her words carefully to cause Naomi the least amount of pain without compromising the truth. She felt Naomi deserved at least that much.

  “I can make a guess why she would have sent you here. She didn’t think you’d be unsafe. She thought sending Mike and letting him pick the team would keep you safe. She thought you would help Mike see something she’d been trying to help him see for a long time. She thought, maybe now, if I force him to see one of the missions I protect him from, maybe he’ll become the leader this ship needs. It’s something I would’ve done had the situation arose. It’s why this,” she gestured around them at the ship, “failed. My Mike didn’t understand the urgency of the situation. He pushed for us to wait, to gain more support in the military. He was even advocating holding out until Mission’s End. You see, it’s difficult for the soldiers to believe their superiors aren’t worthy of their obedience. They have to fight against the conditioning they grew up with. I wasn’t able to convince Mike. I couldn’t force him to do something he was uncomfortable with - turning on his comrades-in-arms. And I couldn’t force him to see through my eyes. He needed to see for himself.

  “When your Alphea realized a mission was going to be sent to the Tereshkova to retrieve a part, she saw an opportunity. You just happened to be the civilian that would make the most sense. She didn’t pick you, Naomi Tesla. She picked the civilian who knew the most about the part. One who she watched and could see was bright and inquisitive. And she paired that civilian with Mike, so he’d work with them. So he’d see them for what they were - pawns in a game they had no control over. Pawns to be discarded when they weren’t needed. Pawns put through a great deal of pain. Pawns, yes, but pawns with hopes, dreams, feelings, love. Human beings.”

  Alsophea stood up. She looked around the shuttle bay wearily, her voice melancholy.

  “I am aware of the hypocrisy of using you like a pawn. I don’t expect, if your Alphea did indeed make this decision, that she relished it. I would guess she feels remorse. When I look around and see all the people who were lost on my ship because I didn’t have that foresight, or perhaps it was opportunity, I’ll never know, I can’t help but feel she made the right choice.

  “There’s still a chance for your ship. Your Mike, a leader, he’s stirred to do the right thing. In all my calculations, all the scenarios I came up with, I always needed a leader within the military, someone who could talk to them the way I could not. A peer who grew up seeing what they saw. One of them. Someone who could speak the truth and convince his comrades. Your Mike is ready for that task in a way my Mike wasn’t until it was too late. Even now, he doesn’t have that grand purpose within him. He’s in survival mode. I don’t know how better to explain this to you. If you get a chance, spend some time with my Mike. I think if you do, you’ll see the difference.”

  Alsophea walked off towards a group of three engineers who were arguing over one of the power cells. Naomi watched her, too much information swirling in her head to address at once. She wished Carrie had survived the coup. Then at least she’d have someone on the Tereshkova to talk to who wasn’t scheming to complete some great political maneuver; someone who was just like her, just trying to get home safe and sound to the people she cared about. She began to doubt everything she thought she knew about Alphea, every act of supposed kindness suspect. The idea that she hadn’t been paired with Mike to keep her safe, but might have in fact been paired with him to awaken something noble, even at the cost of her own life, unsettled her visibly.

  It was impossible for her to think of Mike as someone of great portent the way Alsophea talked about him. Naomi knew him as a soldier and a friend. She was worried for him, about to embark on Alsophea’s plan, a plan Alsophea assured her was essential. But right at that moment, Naomi didn’t know if she could believe anyone anymore. All she knew for sure was that she wanted to be where she was happiest - lying next to Jeremy in the quiet of the pod.

  She fiddled with the radio for the sixth time in the last hour, calling out Alphea’s name softly. Once again, she got no answer. If she was indeed only Alphea’s pawn, she hoped at the very least she was a pawn who had earned a favor. She hoped with all her being that Alphea kept her promise, and was keeping Jeremy out of harm’s way.

  “You look like you could use something nice and normal. Something without hidden meaning. Something that lacks, what is it Book said once? Oh, yeah, something that lacks moral complexity. Like say, killin’ us some bad guys,” Chef said from behind her.

  Naomi turned around, glad to see someone she felt she could trust.

  “Isn’t the mission really about something else?” Naomi half-joked.

  Chef was glad she could raise Naomi’s spirits. She was quickly developing a feeling of kinship for her.

  “Not for me, Patches. They can say whatever they want about it. For me, it’s about getting rid of a guy who thought killing two thousand people was more reasonable than making peace with ‘em. An
ything else ain’t none of my concern.”

  “You heard all that then?”

  Chef shrugged.

  “Most of it. Don’t let it bother you much, Patches. The gennies are good at pretending to be something they ain’t,” she said darkly.

  She noticed Naomi staring at her and lightened her tone.

  “Not Alphea. Not our Alphea I mean. I don’t think she’s a bad guy. Just that gennies are good at pretending to be normal. Like us. But they aren’t. Everything they do is about three different things at once. People like us, we just mainly do things for one reason.”

  “What reason is that?” Naomi asked.

  “Keep our friends safe. Keep us safe,” she said.

  “You don’t think gennies want to do that?”

  “Well,” Chef said, shifting her gun strap, “sure. They want the ship to be safe. They’re here to get us to Mission’s End. That’s why they get warmed up and popped out every ten years. To make sure we get there. But, while they’re doing it, they have a lot of other things they’ll do. Maybe they think it’d be useful to see if we can handle stress, so they pit us against each other. Maybe they think we’d be more efficient if they cut into our heads and sliced out our feelings,” Chef said quietly.

  “You think a gennie thought that up?”

  Chef sniffed and looked away from Naomi’s orb-like eyes.

  “Gennies can think up reasons to do lots of things. If someone’s got enough smarts like them, they can connect someone eating a toadstool to becoming the next leader of our new world, justifying force-feeding everyone toadstools ten times a day. So yeah, I wouldn’t doubt it.”

  She turned back toward Naomi and smiled.

  “Don’t worry though. I’m pretty sure Alphea isn’t too fucked-up in the head. I’ve met a fair few gennies. She’s a good one. Doesn’t mean she isn’t a little cold sometimes the way she goes about things. You wanna sit around here and watch them build ships? Or do you wanna get a little justice for your friends here on the Tereshkova?”