by Amie Kaufman
Now, on a spaceship, you’ve got options, because of the whole no-oxygen thing. The bacteria and other creepy-crawlies in and on and under your skin need oxygen just as much as you do, so deprive them of that oxygen (say, by leaving your body in a cargo bay that’s been opened to space), and most of the decay will stop pretty quick. Which is fine, I guess, if you’re talking about a body or two. But after AIDAN flooded Levels 3 and 4 of Mao and killed the people it considered detrimental to the fleet’s chances of survival, Captain Syra Boll was left with a little over two thousand.
Two. Thousand. Bodies.
After consulting with her officers, she decided flying back to Kerenza with all those corpses in the hold would erode whatever morale remained in the fleet. And so, after regular atmo was restored to Levels 3 and 4, volunteers were sought, and every one of those dead refugees was carried down to the docking bay.
They looked like they were asleep. When the doors of Level 3 opened and Boll made the sign of the cross and stepped out into the charnel house it had become, that’s what struck me most. Every person in there looked like they were just resting. Eyes closed. Faces peaceful. In the same position they’d lain down in the night before. I watched a few minutes of footage. Enough to know I didn’t want to see any more.
Boll worked the shift herself. It took six hours. She didn’t take a break until every one of those bodies was down in the docking bay. Mothers. Fathers. Kids. Her face was a mask behind the visor of her hazmat suit. Her eyes like a dead woman’s. It’s hard to imagine what she was feeling. The responsibility. The rage and the pain.
Kady Grant was there. Shell-shocked and stumbling after cutting AIDAN off at the root. Ezra Mason helped too, despite the dressing-down he’d received from Boll the day before. Hanna Donnelly. Nik Malikov. Winifred McCall. None of them speaking. Shuffling like the walking dead. The horror of it sinking into their bones. And when every one of those almost-sleeping bodies was laid out in the docking bay, the ragtag crew of the Mao tried to hold a funeral.
See, the second reason we have burial rites is that they give people a chance to say goodbye. Watching a body get put in the ground or go up in flames or be consigned to the deep, you get the sense there’s no coming back. You feel that door slam closed. And you cry or laugh or whatever’s your deal, but in some place deep inside, you know things will never be the same. They call that closure.
That’s the theory, anyway.
About half of the remaining crew and refugees make it to the service. Some couldn’t be spared from duty. Others were too frightened or angry to attend. The bodies are laid out in the hangar bay in orderly rows, faces upturned to the humming fluorescents above. There are no coffins, see. Nothing to hide the sheer enormity of what had been done.
Kady Grant stands among the group, pale as a ghost. She looks like she’s not quite…there. You’ve gotta wonder how much more death this girl can take.
Ezra Mason is beside her, arms wrapped around her for support. Nik Malikov stands nearby, eyes still blackened from his brawl in this same bay. Hanna Donnelly is next to him, her eyes wide and rimmed with tears. Maybe she’s thinking of another funeral. One she’ll never get to go to. A goodbye she’ll never get to say.
Malikov reaches out to squeeze her hand.
She squeezes back.
Among the mob of crew members and refugees stands Chief Garver, his face dark, his mouth thin. Around him are gathered a pack of former Heimdall staffers, a handful of the pilots Ezra Mason had been training before he was decked. Garcia. The big hunk of beef named McCubbin, still sporting a fat lip and broken nose from his dustup with Malikov. Not one of them looks like they’re in the mood to grieve or say any kind of goodbye. All of them are staring at Boll, anger and contempt written on every face.
Boll herself looks like she’s aged ten years in a single night. Sunken eyes. Hollow cheeks. Stripped back to her insides, bones exposed. She stands before the group, a datapad in one hand. The captain has a PhD in theology, and she’s conducted more than one interfaith service aboard the ships she’s served on. But this one…
She looks down at the screen. Her breathing is uneven and her hands are trembling. All eyes in the room are on her, but her own are fixed on the bodies. The thousands who’d looked to her for leadership. Who’d trusted her. Who’d lived through a BeiTech genocide, a fear virus, trekked halfway across a nowhere system, surviving everything the ’verse could throw. Now lying lifeless on the floor of a stolen warship, without even a bedsheet to cover their faces.
Boll was a navigator on a science vessel. She hadn’t asked for any of this. But imagine what life would be like if it only gave us what we asked for?
Wouldn’t that be grand?
Her mouth opens and closes, but no words come out. She seems to be looking for something, anything, to say to make this better. Some comfort in her scripture, some platitude or axiom to make any piece of this make any kind of sense.
But what the hell can you say at a moment like this?
AIDAN would say some must die that the rest might live.
Her scripture tells her that her God has a plan.
But in the end, she settles for a small “I’m sorry.”
She shakes her head.
“I’m sorry it came to this,” she says. “That you all had to be a part of this. None of you asked for it, and none of you deserved it. If there was some way I could make this right, I would. But I’m sorry. To all of you.”
“You ****ing should be.”
The entire group looks up at the snarl. It’s Chief Ben Garver, his fists clenched, his eyes glittering with rage. He points at Boll, spitting accusations like fire.
“I ****ing warned you. I’ve been trying for weeks to get you to realize you’re not cut out for this job. You’ve got no goddamn idea what you’re doing, and this here?” He waves at the bodies. “This is the result. This is your fault.”
Boll blinks in surprise. Ezra Mason scowls, releases his hold on Grant and squares his shoulders at Garver. “Hey, chum. Back off.”
“I don’t take orders from ****ing kids,” Garver spits.
McCubbin nods, sucking his fat lip. “Maybe if our glorious captain here didn’t either, these people wouldn’t be dead.”
Murmurs of agreement run through Garver’s mob. Other parts of the crowd.
“She’s doing the best she can,” Mason growls. “Nobody wanted this. Captain Boll has seen this fleet safely halfway across this goddamn system.” He glances at Grant. “She might not always get it right. But at least she’s trying.”
Nik Malikov nods. “All you’ve done since you arrived is ****ing whine, Garver.”
“If I wanted the opinion of a petty thug, Malikov, I’d ask for it.”
The gangster in Malikov gets the better of him, and he silently lifts the edge of his jacket, exposing the butt of the Silverback pistol in his pants.
McCubbin reaches to the small of his back, fingering some hidden blade or firearm.
Winifred McCall raises her voice above the gathering swell of discontent. “Everyone needs to just take a breath here. Settle down. This is a goddamn funeral.”
“Is this the way you want to pay your respects, Chief Garver?” Hanna Donnelly says. “Throwing around blame before the bodies are even cold?”
“Respect?” Garver laughs, points at Captain Boll. “With her in the room? She’s a goddamn murderer. She might as well have suffocated these poor *******s herself.”
“Chief Garver,” Captain Boll warns. “You’re way out of line.”
“We’re days away from Kerenza!” he shouts. “We’ve got children flying our fighters. Children formulating our strategy. Children running our systems and giving an insane AI the means to murder us in our sleep. And you want me to keep quiet about it? Are you insane?”
“Look at yourself, Chief,” Donne
lly says. “You’re the one acting unhinged.”
“I’m fighting for our rights!” the man roars. “Someone has to!”
“THE FIGHT IS OUT THERE!”
The scream is loud.
The silence afterward is deafening.
As the echoes fade around the cavernous bay, everyone in the room turns to the one who gave it. A small girl, pale as a ghost. Greasy pink hair run through with regrowth. Face twisted with rage. Tears shining in her eyes.
“We’ve all lost people we loved! All of us! But the ****ing enemy”—Kady Grant points to the bay doors—“is out there. Waiting for us. And if they could see us here tearing at each other’s throats, they’d be ****ing laughing, do you understand that?”
Grant pushes through the mob, storms over to stand in front of Chief Garver. The man is over a foot taller than her, but the girl still stares him down. Fury is boiling in her eyes along with the tears.
“You want to get angry, get angry at them. You want to get even, get even with them. You want to help instead of slinging **** and stomping your feet, I’ve got a way we can fix those *******s once and for all. But if all you want to do is fight, anyone and anything, then they’ve already won, Chief.” The girl shakes her head. “It’ll all have been for nothing. These people will have died for nothing.”
Garver looks for a moment like he’s hesitating. Like maybe the sense she’s talking is eclipsing the fact that she’s a seventeen-year-old girl. But then McCubbin sneers. Garcia spits on the deck. The former Heimdall SecTeam members around Garver are all folded arms and set jaws. And the chief clenches his fists.
“They already died for nothing,” he says. “And I’m not going out the same way.”
The chief turns on his heel, strides out of the bay. His posse stalks beside him as one, leaving the rest of the crew and those dead bodies behind them. Mason puts his arms around Grant, kisses her on the brow and murmurs something unintelligible. The remaining members of the crew return to their places as Boll draws a deep breath, gets ready to return to the service.
All of them listening for the sound of that slamming door. The meaning they’re supposed to find in all this, the sense of closure they all desperately need. But deep down, every one of them knows this isn’t over.
No closure here.
This is just the beginning.
PALMPAD IM: D2D NETWORK
Participants: Kady Grant (ByteMe)
Hanna Donnelly
Date: 09/01/75
Timestamp: 20:02
Hanna: Hey, u there?
ByteMe: where else would I be?
Hanna: And by “professional,” I mean, are you averse to spider monkeys.
Hanna: Asking for a friend.
ByteMe: I don’t remember encountering any so far, but okay. Send through and I’ll add them to the master file.
Hanna: Bad scene in the bay today.
ByteMe: They’re scared. Angry. Can’t blame them tbh
Hanna: Ella told me about AIDAN. I mean, that it was AIDAN that caused the enviro fail.
ByteMe: Yes.
Hanna: It’s turned off now?
ByteMe: Yes.
Hanna: Look, I know
Hanna: i mean
Hanna: I don’t really know what I mean. I know you went through a lot with it.
Hanna: i guess i mean to ask if you’re okay.
ByteMe: i did what i had to do
Hanna: Sure, but are you okay?
ByteMe: I killed it. Of course I’m not.
Hanna: It’s a computer, Kady, you can’t kill it.
ByteMe: I’m not so sure.
ByteMe: And the worst part is that it’s right there. I could boot it up again. And I’m not. And I won’t. Never again.
Hanna: We can’t. Not after what it did.
ByteMe: I know. But you asked how I was.
Hanna: I did.
ByteMe: And the answer is that I’m standing over the dead body of someone I care about, holding the stim paddles that could shock them back to life, and I’m choosing not to do it. I feel like I’m killing it over and over again, every time I make that choice.
ByteMe: And I’m so ****ing angry I want to turn it on again just so I can scream at it. So I can demand to know what the **** gave it the right or how the **** I’m supposed to feel about it
ByteMe: I’m everything. I’m furious. I’m guilty. I should have seen this coming. I’m hurting. I’m guilty because I’m hurting.
ByteMe: But I’ve made the only choice open to me.
Hanna: God, I’m sorry. Look, I’ll see you in a minute. I’m going to bring you something to eat
ByteMe: No it’s ok. u keep working with nik. That’s more important
Hanna: ok
Hanna: just
Hanna: don’t think you have to do this all on your own, ok?
ByteMe: I won’t
ByteMe: thx hanna
Hanna: xo
To: SECTEAM, All
From: McCALL, Winifred
Incept: 08:00, 09/02/75
Subject: Heads up
Gentlemen and ladies,
After the incident at the funeral yesterday, I want you to consider yourselves on high alert. Chief Garver has made his discontent known, and he has most former Heimdall personnel at his back. But there might be any number of other personnel within the ship population who are fomenting dissent quietly. After what happened on Levels 3 and 4, we need to be ready for anything.
I want patrols moving in fours at all times. I know the ship is big, and I know we’re spread thin. I know most of you aren’t trained properly for this job. But we need to stay frosty. Be on the lookout for large gatherings and anything that might point to sabotage. If someone decides they don’t want us heading back to Kerenza, the first thing they’re going to do is try and stop us moving.
Team 3, Team 4, I want you working alternating shifts in and near the engine room. Teams 5 and 6, take the hab levels. Teams 1 and 2 will take the docking bays, bridge and officers’ quarters.
Any alerts, any dramas, any questions, you hit me up on comms.
Stay safe, people.
McCALL, Winifred
Head of Security (Acting)
ID 001/UTA/Transfer
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Ben Garver’s footsteps echo as he walks into the biggest room on the abandoned Level 3. They wouldn’t have two days ago—it was too crowded with people then. Now it’s been cleared of their bodies, but make no mistake, they’re all still here.
Their possessions lie where they fell, blankets spread out, rations carefully wrapped up in jackets to keep them hidden from hungry neighbors, all the things the refugees from the Hypatia and from Heimdall had left in the world. Just lying here now.
He walks into the room and halts at the center of it. Turns slowly in a full circle, as if he’s making himself take in every grim detail, forcing himself to look at it. As if he’s witnessing something, memorizing it. His jaw twitches.
Near him is a dark blue shawl spread on the ground, the fringe pushed to one side as if by a breeze. On it lie a handheld gaming console, a neatly folded sweater and a small teddy bear sewn out of an old WUC uniform. It’s one of the toys made aboard the Hypatia when Our Little Stowaway was born. Her mother, Martina, had gifted it to a family from Heimdall whose child left the station with nothing.
Garver picks up the sweater, his fingers curling into the fabric, squeezing until his knuckles whiten. And then he picks up the bear, pushing to his feet as if the weight of the whole ship lies on his shoulders.
There are only a little over a thousand people left aboard.
Everyone lost someone. A friend, a family member, a lover, a workmate. A face they got used to seeing around the place.
Now there are two ghosts to every one soul left on this ship, and Ben Garver hears every last one of them.
And he holds AIDAN responsible.
And he holds those who let AIDAN range through the ship unchecked responsible.
And their grief at the mass funeral was not enough, not when he tried to speak for the dead—as he tried when they were still alive, every single day.
I’ll tell you this, chum. The folks on Kerenza, the crews of the Hypatia, the Alexander, Heimdall, the Mao—they saw it all. They faced down the Phobos plague, a murderous AI, attacking dreadnoughts, collapsing holes in spacetime and psychotropic alien beasties that want to suck your soul out through your face.
Who knew their greatest test would be figuring out who’s on the right and wrong sides of an argument about their fate?
Who knew the worst they’d face would be at the hands of other people?
Because as I write up all this footage, the one thing getting clearer and clearer is that just about everyone I see is doing the best they can with what they have.
Asha Grant, who never asked to be attacked.
Rhys Lindstrom, who never understood what he was signing on for.
Yukiko Oshiro and most of her squadmates, just soldiers doing their jobs—an invading force, sure, but against a criminal operation, right?
Everyone, chum. Ella Malikova, mourning her murderous crime boss of a father, a man plenty of people would have said got what he deserved. Nik Malikov and Hanna Donnelly and Kady Grant and Ezra Mason, who all killed people in their turn. And killing’s wrong…right?
Syra Boll, ignoring Ben Garver as she tried to hold her crew together.
Ben Garver, trying to fight, unheard, for the people on the Mao who so badly needed a hearing.
Even AIDAN, willing to do what others wouldn’t, killing two thousand so three thousand wouldn’t die.