Gallono’s face contorted into a grimace as his composure faltered. His voice cracked and waivered as he continued, “The bad news is everything else is gone. Not in the lost but soon to be found sort of way. We’re talking the chopped up, pulverized, torched and scattered to the six corners of the universe sort of gone.”
Gaining control of his emotions again, Gallono gave one last update. “The really bad news is there’s no way to make repairs. Basically, everything is either missing or fried. To even have the ability to manufacture replacement parts is hundreds of thousands of years away.
“We can’t just pull up some minerals and make nanochips. Nor can we simply hammer out some metals to reconstruct the hull. These are complex alloys that require massive and extremely precise processing facilities. To be frank, no one on this bridge, or in the Nexus, has the technical know-how to construct those kinds of facilities. The bottom line is this ship will never fly or send a transmission again. We’re stuck here; indefinitely.”
“Indefinitely, did you hear that Captain, all twenty million of us are stuck here indefinitely,” Tomal barked, while Tonwen administered his inoculation. “We should have been home days ago by purging half the Nexus, but you were right. Being marooned here for a virtual eternity is preferable.”
Hastelloy looked over at his first officer. Not a word was spoken, only a look between two men who had served together for numerous life times was exchanged. Confident his order was understood, the captain turned his back on Tomal.
Gallono sprung into action and raced toward Tomal. Before the arrogant young officer had time to react, Gallono delivered a hard snap kick to the stomach. From the force of the blow, Tomal buckled forward at the waist bringing his head down. Using that movement to his advantage, Gallono followed with an uppercut delivered with so much force and anger that Tomal’s wife back on Novus probably felt the impact. The heavy blow sent Tomal flipping backwards over the science station and crashing to the deck.
The Captain turned back around and walked towards Tomal, who was still on the ground trying to remember who and where he was. Hastelloy grabbed the lieutenant under his armpits, pulled him up to his feet and brushed some of the dust and soot from the man’s shoulders. “Oh my, Tomal, it looks like you had a bit of an accident. You need to be more careful.”
Tomal locked eyes with Gallono and lurched forward against the captain’s steely grip. “You son of a bitch, I’ll kill you.”
“Like you keep insisting we should have killed ten million of our own soldiers? Let him go Captain, he’d learn an interesting lesson,” Gallono said dryly while rubbing the knuckles on his right hand.
“Captain, he hit me; twice. He may have even broken my nose. That’s striking a fellow officer. I demand he be punished accordingly.”
“Is that so? From what I saw you tripped over Tonwen’s workstation. Did anyone else see commander Gallono hit the lieutenant?” Hastelloy asked of his crew.
Tonwen served on ships long enough to know what was going on and had the smarts to keep his mouth shut. Valnor was simply too dumbfounded by the events to utter a word.
Hastelloy held the dead silence until Tomal relaxed against his grip; conceding defeat. “Let’s take a walk, Tomal.” On his way off the bridge the Captain handed Gallono a data pad. “Make the necessary changes to the Nexus, and reconfigure the regeneration chamber to the exact specifications on this data pad. Then have the crew meet Tomal and I outside,” Hastelloy said as he attached a weapons belt to his hip.
With that the captain ushered Tomal, who was still wiping blood from his face with his sleeve, off the bridge and down the main corridor. The two men came to the double door exit hatch and went in. Once the first set of doors closed behind them, Hastelloy felt a rush of warm air fill the airlock. When the pressure and temperature matched the exterior environment, the outer door opened and the two men stepped out onto the southern beach of the island.
The scene the two men encountered was picturesque. The sun was beginning to set over the horizon while a soft breeze gave a refreshing deliverance from the heat. A faint scent of salt filled the air, accompanied by the rhythmic beating of waves against the sandy shores.
“Wow, the temperature is a bit hot for my taste but this is an absolutely stunning planet,” Hastelloy commented. Turning his attention to Tomal he took measure of the man as he slowly looked him over from head to toe. The intimidation tactic was extremely effective as Tomal looked like he wanted to crawl into a hole and vanish. “I’m curious Lieutenant, what did you hope to accomplish with your insubordinate outburst back there?”
Without pausing for a reply, Hastelloy continued. “Your captain already ruled out your suggested course of action. What’s more, your fellow crew already showed extreme disgust with your plan. Most importantly, the events you were commenting on had already happened, nothing could be changed. Now I know you’re a smart man, so I have to assume there was some rationale behind your tirade. Explain it to me please.”
Tomal stopped holding his wounds, and straightened up to deliver his reply. “When you put it that way sir, my comments were clearly based on anger and not a carefully considered agenda. It was a mistake, and I regret it.”
Hastelloy held his stiff posture and continued with a piercing stare. “I can dismiss rash words spoken in the heat of the moment, but your tone has been insubordinate for a while now. We have a very difficult task ahead of us, and I need to know I can count on you to follow orders. It’s not your place to question my judgment; I command and you follow. You’re by far the finest engineer with whom I have ever served. To be frank, I need you. However, if you cannot follow orders without question then you will be a liability to our mission. In that case, I’ll have no choice but to return you to the Nexus and keep you there. Do I make myself clear?”
Tomal adorned his most contrite expression, but the sincerity in his voice was lacking. “Your point is very clear, sir. You have my word that I am dedicated to the mission of getting us and our fellow soldiers home.” Gaining confidence, he continued. “You have my word. I’ll stop at nothing to accomplish that goal. I’m still an asset to this mission and request permission to remain active in this assignment.”
“Very well, Lieutenant.” Hastelloy then shifted the tone of the conversation from a dressing down of a subordinate to seeking advice on a plan of action. “I need you to design an ocean fairing craft that can get us to the main land quickly.”
“About that, I have a suggestion. Rather than reworking the Nexus and locking everyone away, why don’t we use the regeneration chamber to bring them all out of the Nexus? With 20 million trained soldiers we could dispose of the Alpha threat and take over the Sigma species settlement. In fact, we could take over the whole planet. Then we’d be able to get home in a few years, rather than several hundred thousand.”
Hastelloy exhaled a frustrated breath. Did this man before him have any semblance of Novan moral values at all? “We’re not species Alpha. I’m sure, given the opportunity, the Alpha would do exactly as you suggest. The difference is we are the Novi. We don’t conquer civilizations and invoke slave labor for our own benefit. This ideal is the heart of what it means to be Novan. We will not dishonor ourselves by violating it.”
“Understood,” Tomal responded while looking at the ground. “In that case, I think we can reshape sections of the outer hull of the ship to make a boat. The trick will be coming up with a way to propel the ship. Give me a few hours to work up a design and we can get the crew working on it.”
Hastelloy heard footsteps coming up from behind and turned around to see the rest of his crew join them on the beach. “The Nexus and regeneration chamber have been reconfigured as you requested,” Gallono reported.
“Very well.” Hastelloy gestured for Tomal to join the rest of his crew. He needed to stand alone as the commanding officer to deliver his next set of orders. “Suicide for the sake of changing forms or circumstances is strictly forbidden by our people, but in this situation we
have no choice. We need to blend in with species Sigma in order to attack the Alpha with the element of surprise on our side. This is an amoral act I ask of you, but it needs doing nonetheless.”
In unison, the four members of his crew exploded with protests. Even Gallono and Tomal set aside their feud for the occasion. Their disgust at the idea was completely justified. When the Nexus first became widely used throughout Novan society, people would kill themselves on a whim. Maybe they had a bad day and wanted to end it. Maybe the person despised life with their spouse or family, so they ended it. Using the Nexus was a pretty convenient tool to get around the till death do us part section of the union vows.
Others abused the Nexus to improve their physical forms. If they didn’t like the look of their nose, a new one was just a quick slit of the wrist away. The abuse reached its most perverse levels when people started altering their physical forms completely. If they wanted to know what it was like to fly like a bird, they only had to adjust the regeneration chamber, kill themselves, and away they flew.
Those were dark years for the Novi. The only thing that saved their society was the council signing user guidelines into law. Individuals could only be regenerated into their original physical form; ugly nose and all. Each death was to be evaluated by the courts before regeneration was allowed. If a person’s death was ruled a suicide their life force was expunged from the Nexus and terminated.
For almost 12,000 years, using the Nexus for form alteration was the most despicable act a Novan could contemplate. Not only were the individuals executed, their remaining family members were treated as pariahs and shunned. The last incident of suicide declared by the courts occurred over 9,000 years ago. What Hastelloy now asked his crew to do was simply not done - period.
Shouting over the protests of his crew, Hastelloy continued. “This is my order and you bear no responsibility for this action. The dishonor is mine, and mine alone.” Upon uttering his last statement, with a lightning quick movement he pulled his wave blaster from its holster and shot Gallono square in the forehead. Before Gallono’s body had time to fall lifeless on the sand, Hastelloy shot the other three crew members with equally lethal precision.
Now standing alone on the beach with four dead bodies, Hastelloy was overcome with doubt and despair. What had he just done? The choices he’d made during the last couple days led him to murder his own crew and force them to violate their most sacred ideal. The magnitude of his actions caused his knees to buckle. Hastelloy collapsed into the sand and vomited violently.
Eventually he got back to his feet and turned to face south toward the Alpha vessel’s landing site. “Damn you for making me do this,” he screamed. He then raised his wave blaster till the muzzle came to rest against his temple. He closed his eyes, and could only think of the profound dishonor he brought upon himself and his loved ones. Hastelloy took a deep breath and uttered his last thought. “For the greater good,” and pulled the trigger.
**********
Dr. Holmes watched his patient intently. Hastelloy’s reaction was not that of a story teller simply reciting a tale; there was real passion and pain behind his words. The man truly believed these events happened to him in the past.
Obviously it was a delusion of some sort to help cope with something traumatic he did or had done to him. Only time would tell, so Jeffrey jotted his observations down for use in future sessions.
Chapter 14: You Really Want to Know?
Feeling nervous, Mark drove up to the checkpoint. He was a field agent, so getting called back to the National Security Agency’s headquarters in Fort Meade, Maryland was usually not a good sign. He showed his identification to the guard and was waved through.
The compound was unassuming to the civilian eye. On the surface there were two cube shaped low rise office buildings, but underground lay over ten acres of super computers, data storage servers, communications gear, and command centers. The Department of Defense got all the attention with the Pentagon building. It was big and flashy, but was also a target as 9-11 proved. The NSA liked to stay off the radar and Fort Meade was perfect for that purpose.
Mark made his way into the smaller of the two office buildings and proceeded down into the hidden levels below ground. How fitting, Mark thought, considering how dark and dirty most of the work that went on from this part of the agency really was.
Everyone worked in their own little knowledge silo on a strict need to know basis. Contrary to popular belief, no one in the agency had control over or knew everything. No one person or even a committee could possibly keep track of it all. A few individuals certainly wouldn’t be able to react quickly enough to run the almost infinite number of covert operations going on at any given time. Projects were proposed. Once they were staffed, funded, and given a priority level, that group was left to their own devices with minimal supervision from the executive committee.
Mark ran his own operation which had an unmatched priority level within the agency. This basically gave him a blank check to use any resources within the NSA: money, spies, wiretaps, code breaking, and even military weaponry. This made gathering dirt on people like officer Williams a rather simple exercise.
The only limitation was keeping his executive committee watcher loosely informed. Terrance wanted to know just enough to justify the funding, yet not enough to be jailed for any of the activities.
Mark walked into a medium sized conference room with a wall of two way mirrors opposite the entrance door and absolutely no windows or artwork to fill any of the other walls. The recessed lights in the ceiling were dimmed to only half power, which accentuated the dark oak conference table with eight black leather chairs arranged four to a side. The room meant business, and so did the man already seated at the table.
Mark shut the door behind him and took a seat. “Let’s make this quick, Terrance. I have a lot going on right now and I need to be in the field managing things not sitting in the principal’s office.”
Terrance regarded Mark with the look a father usually reserves for his children when they misbehave. “You know, it’s not like I expect you to be perfect. A bad operation every couple of years comes with the territory, but you’ve had six career ending operations in seven weeks. Tell me why I shouldn’t ship you off to Antarctica to spend the rest of your career taking the rectal temperature of penguins?”
“I have a four letter word for you,” Mark said casually. “NASA.”
“NASA?” Terrance repeated. “You sure you want to bring that up, because it hasn’t been a stellar piece of work on your part these last few years either? Besides, what does NASA have to do with this radiation frequency you keep padding after like a teenager trying to score with the prom queen?”
“Please, I landed the prom queen when I was a freshman,” Mark chided. A curt look from Terrance let him know the flippant attitude was not scoring any points so he changed his demeanor. “The frequency and the probe NASA is about to launch are exactly why my operation exists. They’re all intertwined and need to be contained for the sake of national security.”
“Is that so?” Terrance sighed. “Enlighten me then because right now I see your operation as an embarrassing money pit. Let’s talk about NASA and this probe business then. I thought you were supposed to keep them under control. Now I find out NASA is due to launch the thing later today. You said if that probe got off the ground we may as well kiss our collective ass goodbye. Why is this still an issue?”
“Usually I can get these pet projects dismissed in the proposal stage before any real money gets spent. This time Senator Reid has decided to use the probe project to fund his reelection bid,” Mark said as he leaned back in his chair to take a relaxed and leisurely posture. “Boeing and Lockheed Martin landed parts of the contract in exchange for some extremely generous campaign donations. You’ve just got to love politics in this country. Who cares if you piss away ten billion dollars of taxpayer money as long as you get a few million to buy some votes. A solution is in the works though, so t
here’s really no need for your concern.”
“A solution?” Terrance asked gruffly. “You mean like how you solved the Mars Lander that was supposed to search for signs of past or present life on that planet. How much did that probe cost, $125 million?”
“That’s about right, and in my defense I tried to get that thing killed in committee, but again, they were determined,” Mark responded. “As it happened, I thought having the probe interpret its orbit entry instructions in English units rather than metric was an elegant disguise to covertly torpedo the mission. NASA still thinks it was their engineer’s mistake that caused the probe to burn up in the atmosphere. It needed to be done though; otherwise they would have known for sure that life once existed on Mars, which would lead to a whole slew of problems down the road.”
“What’s so dangerous about this transmission probe?” Terrance asked point blank. “Full disclosure this time, not your usual bob and weave to get a wink and a nod from me. I need to know exactly what’s at stake and what’s being done to resolve it.”
“Exactly,” Mark repeated while looking around the room toward the two way mirrors. A subtle nod from Terrance let Mark know the recording devices were off so he was free to speak candidly. “You told me you’d never want to know the specifics so you’d still have deniability. The situation is going to get ugly. Now is not the time to change your policy.”
“I asked for full disclosure,” Terrance stated forcefully, ignoring the warning.”
“All right, but just remember this phrase for future use: I do not recall, Senator.” Mark replied as he sat up straight in his chair again. “The probe is dangerous because it’s propelled by a fusion reactor capable of generating constant acceleration up to the speed of light. Within a matter of hours the craft will blow right past the Voyager probes launched back in the late 1970s and head towards the core of the Milky Way Galaxy.
Origins Page 10