Hell of a way to go.
# # #
“That concludes the status reports. Any discussion?” The Captain set aside her commpad and surveyed the room.
Ri followed her gaze about the R1L3 North conference room. The sunken central floor was occupied by a large holo of Stellar One with every bit and piece in place. The remains of the unfinished R5 hung still, as if latched to the central core. The other four great spoked ring-wheels rolled in mesmerizing circles, completing a revolution once every minute. Even the antenna completed by Johns during The End could be seen on the edge of R5.
As she watched R1 flip through a full circle, her stomach flipped empathetically. At this moment command was at the top and they were all upside down in the real-time display. No sensation of that while running. No sensations at all but the wind and her breathing.
She dragged her eyes away and observed the gathered leaders of Stellar One seated in a circle. Their chairs perched in a ring a step above the central floor.
The ship’s command crew, the leaders of air, water, and maintenance divisions, the chief scientist, head agronomist, the six remaining biome leaders, and Fabrication Chief Johnson Merkar.
He had threatened to leave when Captain Conrad refused to allow his henchmen to dance attendance upon him. When she offered to run the meeting with or without his presence, he grudgingly relented.
In retribution, he had not said a single helpful word during the meeting, even when asked direct questions. His occasional sarcastic observations were ignored by the Captain, and as no cronies were there to laugh them up, they fell flat until finally the man just stewed in silence.
“Is there any way we can get the mess in R2 East cleaned up?” James Roder asked. His dark tan from the desert biome made him harder to see in the depths of his chair.
Maintenance Chief Tina Clark shook her head. “It will be a while until we get to that. First, we’re still fighting problems in a dozen other systems. Second, I’m not willing to risk essential maintenance crews until the chief of fabrication can assure me that the breech in the decompression zone from R2L2 section 14 through R2L3 section 5 have been properly resealed.”
The head of maintenance cast a tentative glance at Merkar who was busy inspecting his fingernails. She shrugged her apology to Roder, whose biome was closest to the blowout that had killed two hundred, including five from his own crew.
“I will send a team to make sure that it won’t spread to your biome.”
Roder nodded his thanks. “At least if I know that, I’ll sleep better at night.”
“Anyone else?”
Jaron, the leader of the jungle biome unlimbered himself from his chair and stepped down to stand before the holo of Stellar One. He moved about it as if studying it carefully until he stood before the Captain. He turned to face her.
Ri tried to guess what the gangly man found so urgent. He’d rarely been able to speak in her presence, let alone in front of a group. She half expected him to sidle up to the Captain and whisper his question to her so that she could repeat it aloud. But he didn’t. He stood tall before her, his Adam’s apple giving away his nervousness, but his voice was steady when he spoke.
“You have asked us to once again dream of the stars. You have asked this group to focus all of their efforts upon this seemingly impossible task. That,” he waved a hand toward the holo behind him as if they were not inside it at this moment. “That has no engines. No fuel. Nothing with which to make any form of propulsion known to the greatest scientists of the Earth, never mind our humble collection here. No offense intended.”
He didn’t quite turn to face the various scientists he had just attacked. That the chief scientist Kurt Bamker was considered to be one of the greatest thinkers of the age and had been aboard at The End apparently made little impression on the jungle man.
“First, Captain, first we must fight to preserve what we have. How many have died aboard?” He might have been asking how much milk to put in her tea.
“Three hundred and seven,” the Captain answered with an equal calm.
“How many species?” He whirled to face Ri. His voice had acquired an edge, it was clear what he cared about.
“Over a hundred and fifty, I think, across the biomes and ag-bays.” She should know, but it was such a depressing task maintaining the extinction database. And she didn’t have the training. Marcus James did, but he died on the final gathering mission for the forest-and-lake biome when the Earth burned.
“One hundred and sixty-two.” He moved around the circle until he was toe-to-toe with the ocean biome specialist. “Forty-three in your biome alone, Yerke.”
The tall, Nordic blonde hung her head until her hair slid across her broad face. “Forty-four. The last Echinarachnius parma died about five hours ago.”
Ri opened her message queue on the chair arm commpad. There it was. The last sand dollar was gone. No viable germ plasm had yet been added to the banks. There’d be no cloning. No test tube baby creatures. No more sand dollars. Ever.
Jaron had the decency to pause for a moment. She barely heard his whisper.
“I’m sorry.” They both hung their heads for a moment.
Then, as if stabbed with a cattle prod, the stick-figure burst to life and rounded once more on the Captain.
“We must fight to preserve what we have. All our energies,” he sent an accusatory glance at the maintenance chief, “must be applied to the survival of all the species which have come into our care.”
“Of course we struggle to preserve life. But we must also look forward to humanity’s future. There we—”
“Humanity’s future.” It took a brave man to cut off the Captain. Even Merkar hadn’t yet dared such a thing. Jaron ranted on.
“What future does the sand dollar have? Or the misbegotten travesty of genetically-engineered polar bears? We are failing those species that relied on us. That we ripped from their good, safe Earth and transported into this space vehicle. That is what you must fight for Captain. Not that…thing.” He waved a hand at the holo behind him.
Then, as abruptly as he’d come to life, he wound down. Suddenly the meek jungle man was cowed under and clearly wondering how he’d landed in the center of the room. He scuttled toward his seat, passing through the holo of Stellar One as if it weren’t there. His body temporarily replaced by the image of the whirling machine, left Ri with the impression of a man with no feelings for humanity, more mechanism than flesh and blood. He settled into his seat quietly next to Yerke, careful not to disturb her continued retreat from the human company in the room.
Into the waiting silence, the Captain at last offered some words.
“We do not, and will not ignore the survival of all species aboard this craft, both Homo sapiens and others.” She paused but Jaron offered no nod of acknowledgement.
“For the time being, I ask that you all look to your systems. We are out of danger. Let’s get a safety margin and an equilibrium established. Perhaps this will be our last loss and we may then look to a future where both the stars, and the precious burden we wish to carry to them, are within our grasp. That is all.”
Captain Conrad rose and disappeared into the darkness at the back of the conference room.
Ri watched the members disperse. Yerke left alone, though several of the other leaders hovered in her wake. Close enough to show support, but not so close in case her problems proved contagious. No one accompanied Jaron, but Ri didn’t think he’d notice the lack of mere human companionship.
Merkar glared at the hologram of Stellar One until the room was empty but for the two of them. It was like a child’s staring contest, Ri mustn’t leave until he did. But this was no game. What the man was thinking? Did she care? She’d better.
Before she could speak, he rose and circled slowly around the spinning model. Apparently ignoring her, but she knew better. Her senses were
alert, triggered as they only were when hunting with the cadre or sparring with Levan.
He stopped at the end that showed Ring One. He moved his hands until they hovered above the spinning ring. Like some god who could reach out and jerk it to a halt, tumbling about all those inside. Wrenching control for himself.
“You think I should cooperate with your Captain.”
It wasn’t a question. He didn’t face her. He continued to watch the ring spinning within the curl of his cupped hands. Either a yes or no would be twisted until she was somehow wrong. Word games and political maneuvering were not her strengths. Give her an enemy, her cadre on the streets, and none could beat her. Words? Elusive, tricky, filled with double, even triple-meanings that always wandered out of her grasp.
“If you say yes, I will ask you to prove why her ideas are any better than mine. If you say no, that I should follow my conscience for the betterment of humanity, you fear what that unknown might be.” His eyes were upon her.
“I watch people. I see what you are. You are the Captain’s steel. Her sword of truth. You would die to defend what she commands. Where does that loyalty come from? Where do you come from? There are no records of you. No database entries. No history. Just your slitted eyes and dark skin. I know where you are from but not how you came to be here.”
Merkar shifted his weight, but his eyes didn’t leave her.
“You are the enigma aboard this ship, not me. I fought my way here. I dug my way out of the rubble of Darwin, Australia, ruined by the tsunami from the earthquake that destroyed your country. Orphaned at eight after spending two weeks in a collapsed building. Two weeks before any help came. We fought for food and water. Those who needed medicine were out of luck. I climbed up through the corps of the WEC by being the toughest son-of-a-bitch, and usually the smartest. I’m your worst nightmare. I’m granite. I’m iron. Tell your Captain that her damned steel blade had best take care if it doesn’t wish to get snapped.”
He glanced back at the model. The command sector passed between his hands and he smacked them together with a crushing blow that echoed about the room. Ri ducked, she couldn’t help herself. For a moment it seemed that Merkar had crushed the room.
He laughed and was gone without glancing in her direction again.
How had he known? None had been there but Ninka and the Angel-lady at the moment of her greatest failure. Ninka hadn’t survived the hour. Suz Jeffers had died with the Earth. No one else knew that she had shattered the sword of her ancestors against the iron chain confining her cadre’s leader, the only mother she’d ever known. Unable to free her from her prison, Ri had used the steel blade to kill Tinai, to release her from the torture of Diabutsu-den cadre. Her life’s blood sprayed upon the hard granite of the underground chamber.
The chair beside her creaked forcing the past aside. The Captain settled into the cushioning and scanned the empty room for a moment before facing Ri.
“He is such a charmer. Analysis, Officer Jeffers.”
Ri glanced at the other empty chairs before meeting the Captain’s gaze.
“Jaron is not a problem. He is passionate about life as well as its preservation. However skewed, he is on our side.”
The Captain raised her eyebrow.
“On the side of… I can’t think of the right word.” Why did she always demark groups into our side or not? Think Ri, you fought for your life and the life of your cadre every day until you were fourteen, that just might have something to do with it.
Then Commander Levan drove you to the limits to make you the best fighter he could. To protect a woman now dead with the world. Futile. She shook her head to clear it of the weight of her past, but it still hung heavy, heavier than any mere crushing weight upon her body could possibly attain.
The Captain watched her with raised eyebrows.
“There are those who are concerned for their own good. And there are those concerned for the good of others. Jaron MacAndrews is a great leader of the jungle biome because the life within that biome comes before all else, human or not. Preferably not.”
Devra Conrad smiled at the last.
“Security risks are those who don’t care about the greater good. We haven’t heard the last of Johnson Merkar, but I’m sure that you’re aware of that. The problem is that we have no direction. We are past raw survival. We have food, air, shelter. Now what? The real problem is how to survive until we find that direction, that common goal we had in reaching for the stars.”
“How did you come to this ship, Ri Jeffers?”
“You signed me aboard.”
“Yes,” the Captain slid down in her chair and stared out at the spinning holo that still filled the center of the room.
Ri hadn’t even known the Captain’s spine could bend, much less slouch. She covered her mouth to hide her smile.
“I signed you aboard. But why are you here? Why do you speak of a longing for the stars?”
Now it was Ri’s turn to watch the rings spin in their minute-long loops.
“I long…” for so much. “I want…” to be hunting with the cadre. Chasing down the streets of Nara, Mad Dog Cadre scampering out of their way. No one risked angering Tancho Cadre when she had led them. Their packs bulging with enough food for a month. Laughing together around the heat of the book-fed fire in their ruined bookstore that they had won with blood and cunning. To once again have Ninka and Tinai about her. She wanted to hear their laughs, their battle cries just one last time.
“I came to Stellar One seeking a new beginning.” She’d been thrown off the planet of her birth without a single word of protest. Chaff on the wind had led her here.
“A new beginning.” She tested the words, felt how the rolled across her tongue and tasted like the fresh buds of spring. “Yes. That’s it.”
“I’m glad you’re sure.” The Captain was once again inspecting her carefully. “I signed you on for my father’s sake. He sent a message saying you were the best. That’s all he said. And from him, that’s praise I certainly never earned.”
“The best. At what?”
“He never said. Just that. Levan was never a man of many words.”
Ri felt as if her gut had just been rammed through the back of the chair. “Levan? Commander Levan was your father?”
“Commander? That’s about a dozen ranks too low. The most decorated man in the WEC. Ever. He led the entire fighting corps until about five years ago. I heard that one day he just quit. Hadn’t heard from him personally for nearly a decade until he transmitted that one message. ‘I send you the best.’ That was all.”
Captain Conrad faced her and leaned in, all sense of relaxation gone from her rigid frame.
“The best at what? That’s my question, Officer Jeffers. I need a great deal of best at the moment.”
Ri could still feel the thousand bruises she’d received while sparring with him. The one man she’d never been able to outsmart, despite years of trying. Never good enough. Never meeting his standard.
“What was it like to be his daughter?”
“That is not an answer.”
Ri looked into the round, blue-gray eyes. As implacable as Commander Levan’s, they demanded. Why hadn’t she recognized those same eyes before?
“I don’t know. I fight well. I’m very hard to kill.” She choked on her own words but couldn’t look away. “I just kill everyone around me, especially those I love most.”
At last she hung her head. Tears stung at her eyes and she blinked them back. Stare at tight fists. Hard center. Tighten the center. Wrap the pain up in layer upon layer of black cloth. Black like the night the Ninja had ruled. Black like the pit of her soul.
“Ri.”
She couldn’t respond.
“Officer Jeffers!” The command snapped out with the drill sergeant manner that Levan had used when he was most frustrated by her. She snapped to her f
eet and managed to resist the urge to dive away and run. There’d been no escape from Levan’s retribution if Ri showed the slightest hint of cowardice.
The Captain stood before her, eyes as hard as crystal boring into her.
“I need you to fight, Officer Jeffers. I need you to be the best. You are the one who knows the ship. Did you know that you are the only member of the command crew to go past Ring Two in over a month except during emergencies?”
“Ma’am. No, Ma’am.” She shook her head still unable to release her body from its strict attention.
“I need you to fight. Fight for our lives, for they are in the balance far more than either of us imagine. Not only our two mortal bodies, but that of every member who remains in the circle of humanity.”
She reached out a hand so that it almost brushed the spinning rings of Stellar One just as Merkar’s had moments before. But with caress rather than greed.
“You are hereby charged with fighting for our lives, with full authorization of the Captain. I will trust my father’s judgment in this matter. Whatever it takes, you must do.”
The Captain walked around the model, despite its ephemeral existence, and exited the room without looking back.
Ri watched the rings swing through turn after turn. The never-changing rhythm relentless rather than soothing. Hadn’t the Captain heard her?
She’d always killed those she was meant to protect.
# # #
Jaron stepped out of the lift and headed for the jungle. Ring Four wrapped about him like a cocoon. He never felt like himself when he had to journey all the way to R1, even the smells there were wrong. The ocean biome added a different flavor to the air in R1 than his jungle did here in R4 despite the filtering. There was a richness, a solid texture to the air. Perhaps it was the additional oxygen the huge biomass of his jungle supplied to the station. Though at the moment, it smelled more like stale beer.
The bartender was standing in the middle of his bar. The various tables and chairs had been resurrected from the New Year’s battering they had taken the previous evening. He stood, arms crossed, before a clear expanse of wall.
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