by Adam Moon
The scenario turned Michael Stevens into a bloodthirsty killer.
He was the reason Jane had hid in the kitchen cabinet; she thought he'd come for her next.
Sarah closed his dossier. Why would the testers deem a guy like Michael fit for this sort of duty? Just ten days ago he'd killed two people. Not for the first time, Sarah got the sinking feeling that they were all just being tested again. A wild card like Michael would give them all fits in a simulated test setting.
She made a mental note to talk to the other two members of her team about Michael as soon as it was time for them to wake up. Jane might have further insights about the man.
She browsed through the dossiers one last time, focusing mostly on Emma’s. Something about it didn’t ring quite true. The tests had fooled them all too easily. Her suspicions demanded she sought out the truth, so she called down to ground control and asked to be put through to Doctor Davis, the doctor in charge of the sadistic, deadly experiments. In less than a minute, his familiar voice came over the comm.
She cut right to the chase. “This is Captain Sarah Miller on board the outbound vessel Seeder.”
The throat cleared and a few seconds later the doctor said, “Go on, Captain.”
“I’ve been poring over the test results of my crew members and something doesn’t feel quite right about them.”
Davis cut her off with, “You can not have those files. Who gave you them?”
“Screw you, Davis. My question is this: Why did we fall for your charades?”
“I don’t know what you mean. We put obstacles in your way, some easily overcome and others impossible to overcome. You were simply evaluated on how you performed.”
“I mean, why were we so easily tricked by your tests? We’re all extremely intelligent and yet none of us figured it out.”
“Oh, yes. We administered a mild morphine cocktail while you were in your mock stasis pods.”
“So you drugged us? Wouldn’t that skew your results?”
“We didn’t feel we had given enough to any of you to completely cloud your judgment.”
She didn’t know she’d been drugged. She hadn’t felt it at the time. But she was glad there was a reason none of them had figured out they were being tested. She didn’t feel like such a dipshit anymore.
She barked accusatorially, “Do you blame yourself for the deaths of the four crew members who didn’t pass your tests?”
“Actually, there was an entire four man crew who all perished while under our observation, so the number of fatalities is technically eight.”
“And you feel no remorse for that, do you, you piece of shit?”
“I already explained this to you. This mission to the seed planet is a multinational, multibillion dollar endeavor. We couldn’t risk it failing because of inept personnel.”
“And do you know that this is not a secure channel we’re speaking on, and everyone at mission control has heard your confession?”
“I have done no wrong. Our experiments are completely legal under the circumstances, not to mention that they were also sanctioned by the President of the United States.”
“I don’t care about legalities. I don’t care if you go to jail or not. I just want people to know what you’ve done. You’re a sick man and I can only hope you get what’s coming to you one day.”
With that, she switched channels and asked ground control for a secure channel to the guy who had sent her the personnel files. She felt like an idiot when she said, “I only know him as Greg. I didn’t get a last name.”
Ground control came back moments later to tell her there was no Greg in the program.
"Whatever," she sighed.
The guy from ground control said, "When did Greg get a hold of you?" There was tension in his voice.
"Maybe forty five minutes ago. Why?"
“This is a matter of national security, so this is strictly confidential, do you understand?"
"Of course. Who cares? I’m in outer space, dummy."
Forty two minutes ago, a nuclear warhead was launched into space. We tried to track it to see where it would land. We thought the Chinese might be striking Japan again, or even United States soil, but so far the warhead hasn't touched down."
"Does that mean what I think it means?"
"We don't know yet. What did Greg say to you?"
"He sent me files on my crew. He said it was important."
"Good. I'm going to go into your computer and find out where he sent the files from." After a few seconds he said, "The files were sent from China. The warhead was fired from China. I'm going to go out on a limb and say he only contacted you to get a reading on your location. That’s why he asked to send those documents, to get your bearings. Make a mild course correction and you should be okay. We'll do our best down here to find the nuke before it finds you. Once we do, I'll let you know when you're out of danger."
"Jesus Christ. Why would the Chinese want to shoot us down?"
"Probably because we excluded them from the mission."
"What are you talking about? There are a bunch of Chinese colonists here."
"We excluded the Chinese government, not the citizens. And now I'm pretty sure they took more offense to our slight than they let on. Now, enough yapping. Change your heading already."
"I changed it while you were talking."
"Send me your new coordinates so I can draw up a new course once the danger has passed."
"You'll have to forgive me, but I think I'll wait to give you my coordinates until after the nuclear threat is over. I don't know you any better than I knew Greg."
"Copy that."
Sarah was sweating. She had no idea the Chinese would go to such lengths to exact revenge. It was mindless rage. The Seeder program was trying to ensure the human race lived on past the destruction of Earth, and those idiots were trying to spoil that chance, for their own petty revenge. Once again, she was glad to have left that cesspool behind.
For a split second she worried that one of the Chinese colonists on board might be some kind of sleeper agent. Maybe one of them had a beacon or something that the Chinese nuke could home in on? But then the call from Greg wouldn't have been necessary, would it? She dismissed the paranoid suspicion out of necessity. It made no sense, and if she wanted to check into it, it would take her all damn day to find, and then wake, those of Chinese descent. They'd all been searched anyway, inside and out. There was no way someone could get on board with anything out of the ordinary.
She told the computer to watch out for projectiles closing in from the rear. She had never prayed in her entire life, but she considered it now. If the warhead was guided, then any course correction she made would be useless because it would just chase her tail. Maybe she could outrun it? There was no way to know what she was up against until she saw it for herself, and by then it might be too late.
Then the computer suddenly said, "I have spotted a nuclear device approaching at twice our speed."
She gasped and told the computer to show it on the monitor.
But when she saw it she breathed a sigh of relief. It was way off target now that she'd altered their course.
Her sense of relief didn't last long. The projectile noiselessly exploded and a few minutes later the shockwave rocked the ship.
Luckily, the impact wasn't so drastic that the sirens went off or the colonists got revived. But it meant she had to make additional course corrections just to get the ship to head nose first again. She was doubly thankful that the electromagnetic pulse wasn’t strong enough to affect the ship’s electrical components.
She called ground control and told them what had happened. Then she gave her bearings. Moments later they came back with a new heading based on her current position. They set her up with a new secure channel, but it would be useless soon because she’d be out of communications range before long.
It was nerve racking, but it was over now.
She leaned back in her chair and took in a deep lungf
ul of air.
She deleted the files the saboteur Greg had sent her, but she regretted it immediately. What if the files were legit? Emma's was spot on and so was Jack's. That could mean that the files on Jane and Michael were authentic too. If the files were real, then a stone cold killer was in their midst. But could she trust files that came from a man who’d tried to destroy their ship?
Maybe.
The addition of Michael to the crew could mean only one thing: the testers had been desperate.
She checked the clock, saw that she still had half an hour before she could safely go back into stasis, said, “Who cares,” and got back in her pod anyway.
She was exhausted and she dearly missed the sweet bliss of nothingness that stasis provided. She attached the IV’s and waited for the cold to steal the passage of time from her.
Michael
Her heart was hammering a hole out of her chest. She had to consciously slow it down with deep breaths. She pulled the IV’s loose and sat up. She looked at the large clock above the command controls. When she read off how much time had expired she was perplexed. It had been just a hundred and twelve years since she’d gone to sleep.
She crawled out of the pod and mumbled, “Why do I keep getting woken up ahead of schedule?”
The tinny but masculine voice of the computer issued over the loud speaker: “There was a problem with your vitals. I will monitor your signs while you wait to go back into stasis.”
She shivered as she thawed. “How can you read vital signs while I’m in stasis? Everything stops during the freeze.”
“I ran a scan on you when I noticed you were going back in ahead of schedule. There’s nothing to be concerned about, but if I’d left you in stasis for the entire four thousand years you would have died upon revival.”
“Okay. Thank you, I guess. Next time I’m about to do something dumb, like go into stasis too soon, just warn me not to do it. Let me know when the three hours are up so I can get back in.”
“You’ll need to remain active for six hours to undo the damage already done.”
“God dammit! Fine.”
“I was forced to wake Mr. Stevens as well. His pod had a hydraulic malfunction that needed to be fixed.”
“Shit. Where is Michael Stevens right now?”
“He’s repairing his stasis pod below deck.”
She put her clothes on in a hurry. The exploding nuclear warhead was quickly becoming a distant memory. That was because there was an imminent threat here and now: Michael Stevens the murderer was awake.
Her imagination was running terrible scenarios that all involved Michael in one way or another, and in each scenario he was covered in other people’s blood.
She decided to arm herself before approaching him. He was a murderer and he couldn’t be trusted. Now she was thankful for the firearm she’d been provided. No one else knew of it but her. It was to be used only under extreme circumstances. She didn’t know if this situation warranted it now, and she didn’t care to give it a second thought.
She pulled the panel from the navigation module and reached inside for the hidden gun, but the holster was empty. She got down on her knee and looked around, hoping it had simply fallen out. She desperately wanted to believe that mission control had simply forgotten to put it there, but that was an idiotic thought; they missed nothing. The mission was too important for mistakes.
Now she was even more afraid of Michael. He was the only other person awake. He must have taken it. That was not good.
She made sure her pocket knife was in her pants where she’d left it. It was. It wouldn’t do any good in a gunfight, but it was better than nothing.
Then she had a thought. “Computer, who took my firearm?”
“I did not witness that.”
“How can you not know? You don’t go into stasis. You were on-line to see Michael’s pod malfunction. You saw me break the rules and get in mine too early. You must’ve seen it.”
“I go off-line periodically to conserve power.”
“Don’t you have motion sensors that wake you up?”
“I think motion sensors are a great idea given the mission, but I am not equipped with them.”
“God dammit. You’re as inept as the fake test computer was. Tell me how many people have been woken up since we departed? If it’s only been me and Michael, then I know he’s the one who stole my gun.”
"I’ve had to wake Michael six times to repair stasis pods. He repaired his own and the pods of five colonists. Do you want to know the names of the colonists who were revived?”
“No.”
Confrontation
The pocket knife felt far too dinky in her pocket, but she held it in a death grip like it was a mighty sword. If Michael tried anything she could have it out of her pocket and across his throat in a flash.
She saw him crouched down, tending to his own pod. He had removed a fluid line and was right in the middle of replacing it with a new one when she said, “Well, hello, sleepyhead.”
He jerked and bumped his head on the underside of the pod. He was rubbing the pain away as he turned to face her, a big dopey smile spread across his face. Was that the smile of a demented person?
“I didn’t know anyone else was up. Is everything okay?”
“Yeah. I broke the rules and went into stasis too soon after waking up, so I have to stay awake now for six hours before going back.”
“You were already woken up? Why? What happened?”
She thought about lying but decided against it. “A man from mission control sent me dossiers on the entire crew. It detailed the testing we went through and how each of us got through it.” She left out the part about the contact being a ruse to ascertain their position. He didn't need to know that Greg was not actually with mission control or that he was an enemy of the United States, because that would not help her accomplish what she was after. She was trying to put the guy on the spot. She didn't want to give him an out.
“Anything juicy in the reports?”
She wondered why he was trying to deceive her. She saw his report. She knew what he’d done to get here.
“Your report was interesting.”
He furrowed his brow and waited to see what she had to say.
“It detailed what you did to the other crew members.”
“I don’t know what you mean.” He stood up straight and stretched his back out. She wished he hadn’t, because he was a monolith-sized man, easily three times her weight and twice as tall.
She took a furtive step backwards and said as authoritatively as she could muster: “You killed two of your crew mates.”
He visibly flinched. “No I didn’t. What the hell have you been reading? Show me the report.”
“I deleted the files already.”
“Who sent them? Whoever it was is setting me up.”
“A man named Greg from ground control.”
“Greg? I don’t know anyone called Greg.”
“Well, he sure knew a lot about you, and now I do too. By the way, where’s my gun?”
She gripped the pocket knife and tensed, ready to defend herself if it came to it.
“Firearms aren’t allowed on the ship. Why would you even have one?”
“To defend the crew and colonists from a threat. I want it back.”
“Well, I don’t have it. Listen, Captain, are you sure you’re okay?”
“I’d be a lot better if you weren’t a killer who just stole my weapon.”
He ignored her insult. “I only ask because you seem to be coming apart. You’re accusing me of some outrageous crimes which are not true. I have never killed a soul and I didn’t even know you had a gun on board. In fact, are you entirely sure the gun even exists?”
“What are you implying? Are you saying I imagined it?”
“Yes I am. I don’t believe you about the gun or about the test reports.”
She sure wished she hadn’t deleted those files. If he kept denying everything, then this c
onfrontation wasn’t going to bear the fruit she’d hoped.
Did he really believe she was going crazy or was it an act?
He put a halt to the conversation by turning his back on her and crouching beneath his pod, ready to get back to work. Over his shoulder he said, “I wish I could say it was a pleasure to finally get to speak to you, Captain, but it was not. You be sure to let me know if you’re having a hard time, okay?”
As she left him to his task, she said, “I will be woken each time you are revived. I don’t care if you’re woken up to fix every pod twice, I’ll be there to shadow you. I will not have a murderer walking around my ship unescorted.”
“Do what you gotta do, Captain.” He sighed as she left the pod chamber.
Reality
Sarah hated to admit to herself that Michael might be right.
So did that mean she was going bonkers? Was it because she’d broken the rules about how long to stay out of the pod after revival? Maybe memory loss and hallucinations were a side effect?
A more horrifying realization hit her: there was a very real possibility that this was just another test. Maybe they weren’t really on a spaceship traveling to a new planet.
She decided she had to know for sure. The monitors showed what lay ahead of them: stars, tiny and distant. But the monitors might not be showing reality.
Vacuum
She still had some time to burn before she had to go back into stasis, so she headed for the airlock doors and inputted her code. The doors opened slowly. Then she closed them again. She inputted her code that opened the outer doors to the vacuum of space. Then, after a few seconds to be sure all of the atmosphere had evacuated into the vacuum, she closed it up. When she opened the inner doors, the vacuum in the air lock should suck air in quickly. She opened the inner doors, and sure enough, as soon as they started to open, she heard and felt air rush inside the airlock. So it wasn’t another test. They really were on a spaceship. She really was losing her mind. She didn’t know if she should be elated or terrified by the result of her test.