by Geoff North
He settled back into his comfortable chair and took a sip of cold coffee. A soft chime sounded. “Come in,” he called out.
SIC Corwin Barret entered his quarters. “You’ve been holed up in here for the better part of a day. I was beginning to wonder if the ship’s command was mine again.”
Edmund placed the coffee cup back on his desk next to the computer screen. “You handed command to me six years ago. You want it back?”
“God, no.” Barret sat in the chair facing the desk. “I was too old to be ordering this crew around when we commandeered this ship, I sure as hell don’t want to start again.”
“Coffee?”
“Got anything stronger?”
Edmund smiled and reached for the bottom drawer next to his right leg. “Of course I do. You left me well stocked.” He produced a half-filled bottle and a single glass.
Barret took the drink and raised it in the air. “To the Commander of Retribution… whoever the hell it may be.”
Edmund poured some of the fifty-year old scotch into his coffee cup and took a healthy swig. “Any more contacts?”
The SIC shook his head and finished the drink. “You would’ve been called to the bridge.”
Edmund refilled the glass. “You really have to stop calling me Alex in front of the others.”
“Old habit. You were Tarrace’s husband long before you were my commanding officer.”
The mention of her name was enough to make him pour more liquor into his cup. “And we’ve been in space long enough for you to make the adjustment. It isn’t that much to ask.”
“No, I suppose it isn’t… Commander Edmund around the crew from here on in, and Alexander when we’re drinking booze alone and remembering the good old days. Sound good?”
Edmund nodded, accepting the eighty-year old ex-Commander at his word, knowing full well he wouldn’t keep it. He grinned openly, unable to sustain the perceived feeling of insult to his authority. Corwin Barret had held one of the highest ranks in the Republic of Sol Planets—four-star Admiral—while still in active service. His pull had allowed them to steal Retribution from the ship-yards orbiting Earth’s moon, and his experience had given him the wisdom to hand the command off to a younger man. Barret wasn’t a vindictive, petty man; titles and position meant little to him—saving the entire Sol system from its own corruptness, did.
Edmund filled the man’s glass a third time. “I suppose it will have to do. This is my last bottle, and you seem to be the only person onboard able to restock my desk when I’m not around.”
The SIC held out his drink and Edmund clinked it with his cup. “That’s my boy. Now what’ve you been up to in here all day? What’s on that computer screen?”
The Commander turned the monitor on its swivel slightly so Barret could see the frozen static. Barret grunted when he saw the paused digital numbers up in one corner. 00:00:47. “Not that damned thing again. Why do you torture yourself with it?”
“Because it shows what we’re up against… what’s waiting for us ahead.”
“We’ve already engaged the Pegans, Alexander. Their numbers seem endless, but it isn’t anything this ship can’t handle.”
“You know I’m not talking about them. We didn’t set out for the Pegan system eleven years ago.”
Barret was nodding impatiently. “No, but the Pegan star system is enroute to where we’re actually going. If we hadn’t picked up Captain Agle’s long-range transmission, we’d still be headed directly for Alderamin.”
“Twelve more hours,” Edmund offered. “We’ll give the search twelve more hours. If we haven’t found the Exodus shuttle by then, I’ll order us out of this system.”
“Thank you, Alexander.” Barret rested one elbow on the desk. “Play that old video for me. I haven’t seen it in years.”
The Commander hit repeat, and the forty-seven-second-long, six-hundred and seventy-one-year-old video began playing once again.
00:00:01—A grainy black and white image flickers into view of an ancient shuttle interior. A single, dishevelled-looking man seated in the pilot’s seat faces the cockpit camera. He leans forward and begins to speak.
00:00:03—“My name is Lieutenant Commander Jacob Artemus. The year is 2370, and I was, along with ten other crew members, found guilty of attempted mutiny aboard the warship Ambition twelve months ago. Our Captain took mercy on us and spared our lives. As punishment, he exiled us from the ship and sent this shuttle on an automated course back to the Sol system.”
00:00:24—Artemus pauses and looks quickly over one shoulder. He appears startled, extremely agitated. Someone behind him starts to scream. He turns toward the camera again and continues speaking in a frenzied and fast tone.
00:00:28—“We knew we’d never make it back to Earth. We’d accepted our fate of dying out here in space, but we never expected it would end like this. They’ve gotten inside the shuttle! They’re infecting all of us!”
00:00:32— The Lieutenant Commander’s body jerks violently. A streak of liquid black appears on the side of his neck. It works its way to his throat, and slithers up onto his chin. He grabs onto the armrests of his chair and attempts to control his quivering limbs. Something is taking control of Artemus’s body, and he gasps out a final warning.
00:00:38— “They’re headed for Earth… prepare yourselves… prepare for—”
00:00:41— The black liquid pulls at his lower lip and slips in over his teeth. His cheeks puff out, and his throat bulges as it works down inside him. Artemus reaches forward with a shaking hand and pushes a button on the control board, ejecting the shuttle’s video drone out into space.
00:00:47 — Video ends.
Barret swung the monitor back towards his son-in-law. “Never gets easier watching.”
“Imagine how the men and women stationed on Triton Base felt when they saw it the first time.” Edmund tapped at the top edge of the monitor, and the entire computer sunk cleanly back into the surface of his desk. “Or how they reacted when that same black crap slithered out of the drone itself.”
Barret shuddered and ran his hands down his wrinkled cheeks. “Eleven-hundred and thirteen people infected within hours… An entire colonized moon lost in half a day.”
“And it didn’t stop there.” Edmund placed the almost-empty scotch bottle back into its drawer and closed it with one foot. “Even after Triton was nuked, the infestation continued. It reached Saturn’s moons, wiping out the populations on Titan and Dione. It spread in towards Jupiter, killing a hundred thousand more living on Callisto.”
SIC Barret stood and went to the cabin window. “They thought it had ended there.” He stared at the distant oval blurs of stars caught in Retribution’s fold drive. “They were wrong. Four years later it showed up on Mars, and the first Worlds War broke out. A billion lives wiped away as moon after moon, and planet after planet fought against each other to contain the spread.”
“It worked,” Edmund said. “The planets became separated, terminating the disease’s ability to travel through space.”
“It plunged us into a five-hundred-year Dark Age. Hardly what I’d call a victory, son.”
Edmund joined him at the window. “Not a victory… but we survived. Mankind battled back. We resettled the outer planets and moons, winning back our place in space.”
Barret faced him. “We won nothing. The disease made it to Earth, and it’s still there. Until we’ve destroyed Alderamin completely, the entire Sol system will remain infected… controlled by those bastards.” The old man grabbed Edmund by the shoulders and shook him. “Give up on this idea of rescuing Agle. The disease originated on an Ambition shuttle, and you’re about to pull another one in. Don’t repeat the mistake Triton Base made. Get us out of here.”
The Commander pulled free of his grip and went back to the desk. “Agle wasn’t infected. He’d already been in space for four months when we received his transmission.”
“Artemus’s people had been in space even longer when the infection
hit their shuttle. Don’t let heroic intentions cloud your judgement.”
Edmund sank back into his chair and sighed heavily. “I can’t do it, Corwin. There’s just too much missing history there to turn our backs on. If we find Exodus, we’ll take every precaution. Our scanners will be able detect any infestation before we bring the ship onboard.”
“That kind of curiosity could end up getting us all killed.” Barret made his way to the cabin door. “If you’re wrong, we’ll never see home again. I’m sure Tarrace can recover from the loss of her father… but her husband as well?”
The SIC exited from his quarters. Edmund stared at the closed door. After a few more moments of troubled thought, he tapped on the surface of his desk. The computer monitor re-emerged. “Triton Base library,” he ordered. “Play Artemus video again.”
Chapter 6
Deimos City, Mars
Tarrace knew he would be coming. If a rock got turned over on the far side of the planet, August Hegstad would find out about it—almost bludgeoning a starver to death would not go unnoticed. She picked up the mess her kids had left strewn about the small living area of their two-room home, and pushed Charm’s cat through the front door with her foot. Its back arched, the hair on its orange tail puffed out, but the animal didn’t hiss or attempt taking a swing at her as it padded reluctantly outside into the cold morning.
The new pet was a lot like August. It would be back, demanding a share of their food and water, and offering nothing in return. No, that wasn’t a fair comparison, Tarrace thought as she leaned against the open doorway watching it forage through the garbage littered along the street. The cat purred contentedly when scratched behind the ears. It ate and drank for free, but didn’t frighten the children.
August was never content, and he certainly didn’t purr. The magistrate scared her children. He scared the hell out of all the kids and most of the adults still living in the rundown houses and habitable apartment buildings left standing in Deimos City.
The sun had begun to rise. Its weak pink rays attempted to shine through the distant churning towers of black smoke belching up from one of the last terra-forming factories left on Mars. Even on the mornings when the chimneys weren’t as active, the sun struggled to cast its heat throughout the city. The atmosphere had been thinning for decades. The planet was dying again. The people left on its surface were fleeing back to Earth—those that could afford it—and starting their lives over.
Tarrace would’ve fled from Mars years earlier and returned to Earth if she hadn’t been aware of the truth. If there was one place even less safe than the red planet, it was her home world. Earth hadn’t been a home for any of the indigenous species living there for more than five hundred years. It had become a ‘squatter’s planet’ as her father used to say—‘a conquered sphere of ignoramuses’.
Tarrace thought fondly of her father, and of her husband. It hadn’t always been the case. When they’d sped out of the Sol system more than a decade past in a stolen warship, Tarrace hated both men for leaving her behind. She was supposed to have gone with them. She was part of the team chosen to travel to Alderamin and wipe out the alien species that had insidiously rooted itself into Sol’s ruling governments.
But Tarrace hadn’t traveled with her father and her husband. A random shuttle inspection had ended that plan. She was to rendezvous with Retribution the moment it dropped out of fold a half million kilometers beyond Deimos. The inspection discovered impurities in the shuttle’s fuel lines. What should’ve been a fifteen-minute fix turned into a two-hour delay. By the time Tarrace had arrived at the pre-designated coordinates, Retribution was no where in sight. Three other smaller warships and a dozen fighters were scouring the region instead, searching for the stolen starship and its renegade crew. She had returned to Mars after her shuttle was boarded and she’d undergone a gruelling interrogation. Her children were born seven months later with no father or grand-father to welcome them.
The questioning of her involvement with Retribution’s theft continued for another three years. Eventually even that came to a stop, but Tarrace hadn’t been left alone. The Mars Revolutionist movement, and her possible involvement with it, kept her under steady surveillance. The Republic was watching her. Mars officials and Earth governments were watching her.
The Alderamins—some form of them—were watching her.
And the one man that watched Tarrace the most was now walking towards her house. August spotted her standing in the open doorway and waved. Trailing close behind him were Raleph Green and Kent Ducette. They were his administrative assistants by title, but every Deimos City citizen knew they were thugs—enforcers and bullies paid to protect the magistrate and carry out his dirty work. She could see August grinning from half a block away, his big white teeth gleaming an unnatural pink in the early morning light. The once blonde dreadlocks trailed down over his slumped, meaty shoulders, bobbing like lifeless grey snakes. He was overweight, but by no means obese for a man in his late fifties. There wasn’t enough food left anywhere on Mars for people to make over-eating an issue. Only those with comfortable positions in the Deimos City Council could consume more than they needed, and August sat in one of the highest council seats.
“Are you unhappy to see me on this fine morning, Tarra?” He called out, still more than twenty meters from her doorway.
She didn’t answer until he was standing directly I front of her, his hands planted nonchalantly on his wide hips. Raleph and Kent stood behind him, silently surveying the filthy streets and still darkened alleyways around them for any sign of trouble. “My name is Tarrace. You can call me Mrs. Edmund.”
August placed a single finger to his lips. “Ssshh. You shouldn’t be going by your married name anymore, Tarra. How many times have I warned you about that? What would the neighbors think if they realized a traitor’s wife was living in their midst?”
“What neighbors? There’re less than twenty families left living in this district, and those that are know damn well who I am and who my husband was.”
The smile hadn’t left August’s face, but it had transformed into more of a leer. She could see the remains of his breakfast stuck between a few of his teeth. “You’re a loyal woman, I’ll give you that. After all these years, you still hang onto him. You’re actually proud of what he did.”
“Alexander was twice the man you’ll ever be.” Tarrace knew it wasn’t wise to get on August’s bad side. It only made the weekly visits worse. But she couldn’t help herself. She glanced down at his substantial belly and raised her eyebrows. “If you know what I mean.”
The leer dropped but didn’t disappear completely. “Don’t be like that, Tarra. I love that fiery side, but the physical insults are beneath you. It’s the type of talk you wouldn’t want your children to pick up.” August looked past her into the house. “Where are the little darlings?”
“Out.”
The grin came back, wider and more malevolent than before. “Then we have the place to ourselves.”
“Just do what you came to do and leave.”
August gave her a hurt look and thumped up the steps. “Wait out here, gentlemen,” he called back to his assistants. “I can handle today’s search on my own.” He swept his dreadlocks to one side as he passed, bumping a few of them against her arm and neck along the way. Tarrace tried her best not to flinch but failed. The Deimos City magistrate went about his work with disinterest. Years before, when August was slightly younger and weighed thirty kilos less, he would tear through the meager belongings of the remaining Edmunds with an almost manic pleasure. These days the weekly inspections didn’t take half as long. Any connection Tarrace Edmund may have had with the revolutionists had never been proven, and August’s drive had slowed with the ongoing attempts. He still showed up on her doorstep every week, he still searched throughout the home, but Tarrace suspected there was more to the visits than just ‘doing his job’. She shivered at the thought.
“Looks good, darling.” He took a pee
k under the small living room table and grunted when he straightened back up. “Nothing naughty as far as I can see.” August was getting lazier. Not that long ago, he would’ve at least dropped to his knees to look under the table.
“I’m a good girl, Hegstad. You know that.” Tarrace was still standing in the open doorway, hoping the magistrate would take it as a hint to leave.
August shrugged and hiked his thumbs into the waist bands of his pants. “I know you’re guilty as shit… I just can’t prove it.” The floor creaked as he moved slowly towards her. “But it doesn’t much matter anymore. Soon this house, this whole goddamn district will be empty.”
“Your talk doesn’t scare me. The Mars government has been threatening to abandon the planet for years.”
He stood in front of her and scraped the bit of food stuck between his teeth away with a dirty thumb nail. “More than talk this time.”
She pushed up against the doorframe attempting to distance herself from his sour breath. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Pavonis factory was shut down last night. A few weeks from now the air won’t be fit to breath. You and the rest of your traitor friends will choke before your demands are met. It’s over.”
Pavonis City was on the other side of the planet. The terra-forming facility there was the largest left running on Mars. Without its continuous discharge of carbon dioxide and other essential greenhouse gases, the Earth-like atmosphere would begin to dissipate, even with the Deimos factory still running at full capacity. Breathing would become the least of their worries; the remaining Mars citizens would be denied fuel to heat their homes—Tarrace knew the Martian government tactics all too well. They would likely freeze to death before they asphyxiated.
August rested a hand on her arm. “Did you hear what I said, Tarra? There’s nothing left to fight for. The revolution has ended. Mars will die once again. Come back to Earth with me. You and the kids… we can start over there.”