by B. C. James
It was too late. Franklin was gone. No amount of technology could bring him back. Sharp screamed in agony as he pounded his fists against the machine again and again. Cormac came up behind him and caught his hands. “He’s gone, Captain,” she said, gently holding him. Briggs fell against the wall and slumped to the floor, his face buried in his hands.
Arnold walked over to Lewis and kicked at him violently, shoving his body to the side of the corridor. “Serves you right you piece of shit,” he said coldly as he grabbed the knife handle. He yanked on it, trying to pull the blade out, but it was wedged in tight. He put his boot on Lewis’ throat and pulled hard on the blade. It stuck for a moment, lodged in the bone. Lewis’ head lifted an inch or two before the knife popped free, sending the lifeless skull thudding to the floor with a sickening thump. Arnold wiped the blade on Lewis, smearing his blood and brains onto his shirt. He slipped the knife into his pocket and looked up at the others. Sharp saw the wrath in his eyes.
“Let’s go,” Arnold said calmly then turned toward the bridge.
***
Sharp watched Baker and Daniels on the bridge’s main view screen. They were working on the airlock door, trying to get it open, oblivious that Sharp and his crew had retaken the ship, and they were locked in.
“We’ve gotta get in there and release the docking clamps,” Arnold declared.
“And how do we get past those two?” Sharp asked, gesturing to the viewer.
Arnold paused for a moment. “Cut the O2,” he said coldly. “Let the bastards suffocate.”
“Captain, no,” Cormac interjected. “We can’t just murder them.”
“Why not?” Arnold questioned. “You saw what they did to Franklin.”
“Those two didn’t kill Franklin,” she snapped back, getting up in his face. “We’re not animals. At least give them the chance to surrender.”
Briggs glanced over his shoulder at them from where he stood guarding the door. “I agree with Arnold,” he said calmly, almost to himself.
They turned to look at him. His clothes were soaked with Franklin’s blood from lifting him into the med pod. Bright red and fresh, it hadn’t had time to turn brown. “Kill the bastards,” he added, choking back tears. “You’ve seen what they’re willing to do to take our ship. What they did to Morales, what they did to Franklin.”
“There you have it,” Arnold spoke up. “Two to one. You’re the deciding vote, Captain.”
Sharp glared at him. “This ship isn’t a democracy,” he said firmly.
Arnold rolled his eyes and fell silent.
Sharp leaned back in his chair, thinking. He didn’t want to kill the two men, but he didn’t see any other way. It was doubtful the men would surrender of their own volition, and they had no weapons to help persuade them, save for the knife Arnold had collected from Lewis. He doubted engaging them in hand-to-hand combat would turn out well for anyone, especially with a knife involved. They could try to rush in and sedate them like Arnold had done to Thompson, but they would need to float out of the docking boom one at a time and were likely to get hurt or killed in the process.
He looked over at Cormac’s pleading eyes. He knew she was right. They couldn’t just execute them. Even though tempers were running hot, he had to keep a cool head. He decided to at least talk to the men and give them a chance to surrender.
“Arnold, grab a couple vials of sedative,” he ordered. “We’ll slip them through the docking boom door and give them the option to inject themselves or else we’ll cut the oxygen supply.”
Arnold’s mouth dropped open in astonishment. “You can’t be serious, Captain,” he scoffed. “After all they’ve done?”
“I am serious goddammit!” Sharp barked. “I don’t have time for your bullshit insubordination. You will carry out my orders, or I will relieve you of duty and lock you in your quarters for the rest of this mission. Understood, Lieutenant?”
No one moved, stunned by his sudden outburst. Sharp could feel their eyes trained on him. They had never witnessed him snap like that before. Sharp frowned and shook his head. He hated being so hard on Arnold, but they were in the middle of a crisis, and he didn’t have time to be second-guessed. “Come on. Let’s get this over with already,” he sighed.
Swearing under his breath, Arnold turned and unbolted the bathroom door. Thompson’s upper torso rolled out like a rug, his back plopping against the floor, and his arms flying straight up over his head. His eyes squinted open, and he gave them a giant idiotic grin.
“Good… morning,” Thompson slurred out.
Sharp rubbed his forehead. “Briggs, get him locked up with the others before he wakes up completely.”
Briggs nodded and dragged Thompson off the bridge as Arnold gathered the sedatives from the lavatory. His irritation from being overruled sat plainly on his face. Sharp waved him and Cormac off the bridge. Cormac smiled and stepped through the door with Arnold in tow.
Sharp paused and took a deep breath, exhaling slowly before following them down the corridor.
8
Choices
Pierce couldn’t move. His eyes would not open. He knew where he was. He could sense the cryochamber around him. He tried to scream, but nothing came. Had it all been a dream? Everything? The Pescado Rojo, Captain Sharp, waking up five hundred years in the future?
Nothing seemed real anymore. It felt like centuries had passed since he’d been placed in the tube, but how could one truly judge the passage of time while trapped inside your own mind? For all he knew, they could almost be to Alpha Centauri. Or maybe they were just starting out. His mind rolled his thoughts over and inside out, imagining all the possible scenarios. Were any of his memories real? Was his life on Earth real? Or were they only fabricated delusions of his subconscious? He wasn’t certain anymore.
They had told him it would be a dreamless slumber. He would fall asleep, and then wake up as if no time had passed at all, let alone the nearly fifty years it would take the Endurance to reach the Alpha Centauri system. But when he had awoken, it wasn’t to look upon a glorious new star system, farther than any humans had traveled before. Instead, he awoke to the prison of the cryotube; the empty blackness of his mind; and his paralyzed body, unable to move, unable to open his eyes, unable to scream.
How long Had it been? A day? A Year? A century? It was impossible to tell, and his dreams were starting to feel like reality. This latest one, the one with Captain Sharp finding them drifting in deep space, was especially vivid.
His brain willed his arms to move. They remained still. He strained to wiggle his toes. They refused. He stopped fighting and accepted the futility of his situation. Letting his mind wander to more comforting thoughts, he imagined the worlds they were heading for. The Tarkez Simon Space Telescope had confirmed two rocky planets orbiting the twin stars of the Alpha Centauri system. One around Alpha Centauri A and one around Alpha Centauri B. Both of them in the Goldilocks Zone, that is the distance a planet could orbit around a star and have the right temperature for liquid water to be present. If there was water, there was the possibility the planets could support life.
The Endurance was built as the first interstellar spacecraft. Its purpose was to investigate these planets and begin colonization if they were found to be suitable.
He imagined how it would feel to be the first interstellar colonists, to be the first to explore a new world outside the Sol system. Sure, there had been colonies on Luna and Mars for years. Even Ceres, way out in the asteroid belt, was home to a small manned outpost. But their proximity to Earth had made those colonies a relatively simple endeavor compared to this mission. To be the first people to visit another star system filled his head with wonder.
He imagined finding a lush green world full of water and plant life. Tall dense jungles and roiling oceans. They would carve out a civilization on their new home, and history would remember them amongst the greatest explorers in human history.
Thoughts of life turned his mind to the containment unit layi
ng in the Endurance’s cargo hold. By themselves, the twelve members of his crew would be enough to establish a new colony, but the cargo would ensure the colony’s future.
He and his crew were just caretakers. Their descendants would be the true colonists. The first generation of humans to be born outside the Sol system. They would be Alpha Centaurians, not Earthlings like their parents. Thousands of them, building a new society from the raw materials of their new world. He would do anything to protect them and give them a fighting chance in this new era of humanity.
His thoughts turned back to his latest dream. To Captain Sharp, who had tried to separate him from his cargo, who had tried to force him to abandon it in the black void of space. Never, he thought. With his dying breath, he would protect it, at all costs, by any means. But it was just a dream. The cargo was secure in its containment unit. Carefully preserved until they reached their destination. Safe until they would build a new civilization.
A warm glow filtered through his eyelids. What was this? Was he slipping into another dream? The glow grew more intense, and his eyes slowly opened. A woman stood over him.
“Captain Pierce,” she spoke. Recognition bloomed in his mind as he studied the woman’s face. But that was impossible; she was a dream. He looked around. The ruddy-brown walls of the room seemed familiar.
“Commander Cormac?” he questioned, his tone revealing underlying uncertainty. His voice echoed in his head. This dream was more vivid than the last.
“Captain,” the woman said again. “I have to tell you something. Are you awake?”
Confused, he sat up from the bunk. Things were becoming clearer now, the fog of sleep slipping from his mind. These were Captain Sharp’s quarters, he remembered. This was no dream, and the woman before him was supposed to be locked up. He shot up from the bed and stood in front of her.
Cormac backed away, her hands lifted defensively. “Wait, Captain,” she pleaded. “I’ve come to help you.”
Ignoring her, he made for the door and finding it locked, he spun around to face her once more. “What is this? What has happened? You are supposed to be locked in your quarters?”
“Just listen to me,” she replied. “The lives of Baker and Daniels depends on it.”
“Make it quick,” he demanded.
She moved to the small round table in the corner and waved him over. “Lieutenant Arnold was able to free us, and we retook the ship,” she explained as he sat down across from her. “Franklin and Lewis were killed.”
He leaned back in his chair, stunned. He hadn’t liked Lewis much and had only met Franklin briefly, but their deaths still pained him. He had hoped no one would be hurt. He just wanted to save his cargo and get it to Alpha Centauri. Now, two men were dead.
“Two more of your crew will be killed if we don’t act soon,” Cormac continued. “Baker and Daniels are in the airlock, and Sharp has cut off the oxygen supply. They’ll suffocate within the hour. I don’t want anyone else to die.”
He studied her distraught face, searching for any sign of misdirection. “What do you propose we do?” he probed.
“I can’t get Sharp to listen to me. He insists on killing them so he can get to the docking ring and detach us from your ship. I can’t stand the thought of those two men slowly suffocating. I need your help to stop him. In return, I’ll help you get to where you want to go. I’ll take you and your cargo to the Alpha Centauri system, drop you off, and we can go our separate ways. But you have to promise you won’t hurt anyone else.”
He thought about it for a moment. “Captain Sharp will never go along with that,” he finally replied.
“I know,” she acknowledged as she reached into her pocket and produced a handful of thin white tubes. “That’s why I brought these.”
She spread the tubes out on the table. “What are they?” he asked, looking down at them.
“Pneumatic syringes, loaded with enough sedative to knock a person out for a few hours.”
“We will need help,” he said as he picked up a tube and studied it.
“I can get the comms to the other rooms working and unlock the doors. I’m here with you, and Morales is in the med pod recovering. That just leaves Sharp, Arnold, and Briggs. So, between us and your other crew members, we should be able to capture them without too much of a fight. I don’t want anyone else to get hurt. If we do this, you have to promise there won’t be any more killing.”
He smiled at her. “Believe me, I do not want that either. My whole reason for taking your ship was to preserve life. I just wanted to save my cargo from the cold of space.”
“Good,” she replied. “Once we get Sharp and the crew subdued, we can keep them locked up for the rest of the trip to Alpha Centauri.”
She went to the control panel near the door. She poked at it and waved him over. “Comms are open. Contact your crew and let them know the plan.”
He grinned and stealthily slipped the syringe into his pocket as he stood up to join her.
***
Sharp leaned forward. His palms pressed against the metal door on either side of the tiny porthole. He studied the two men in the small room that lay between the docking boom and the door. They had ceased banging on the hatch about a half hour ago and now sat with their backs against the curved walls, heads slumped forward and moving up and down as they inhaled, trying to catch their breath in the thinning air.
It wouldn’t be long now. He wished he didn’t have to do this. He had killed before during his time in the OCF, but this was different. It was one thing to kill your opponents in battle, to give the order that destroys an entire ship without ever having seen your enemy’s face. Even hand-to-hand fighting was over quickly, lasting only as long as it took for a directed energy beam to snuff out a person’s life. It was another thing entirely to sit and watch as Daniels and Baker slowly suffocated before his eyes, to watch the color drain from their cheeks bit by bit. The faces of these men would haunt his dreams.
He had given them the option to surrender, and they had flatly refused, choosing to die rather than betray Captain Pierce. Reluctantly, he had given Arnold the order to cut the oxygen supply to the room. Cormac had passionately protested, and after seeing he wasn’t going to budge, she stormed off in a rage. He let her go, figuring she could use some time alone to cool off. He didn’t like the decision any more than she did, but sometimes it was necessary for a captain to make hard choices, even if those choices resulted in an undesirable course of action.
His mind had struggled over the last hour, trying desperately to come up with another way to resolve the situation, but none had come. He hoped they could pull the men out in time to save them, but deep down he knew it was doubtful. Even with their advanced technology, the med pods couldn’t reverse the brain damage that would occur from the lack of oxygen.
He thought of Franklin’s body lying on the med table, sticky blood matting his gray beard and soaking the front of his clothes from the wound in his neck. Even with his injury having taken place so close to the med pod, it hadn’t been enough to save him. He thought of Lewis lying dead on the floor, the knife still sticking out of his empty eye socket. He wished no one else had to die, but he wasn’t willing to take the chance with these two. The crew of the Endurance had already shown that they couldn’t be trusted, that they were willing to do anything to take over his ship, even kill. He had to put the safety of his ship and crew above all else.
He looked over to Briggs and Arnold seated on the bench along the wall. “Won’t be long now,” he said to them. “Let’s get ready.”
They nodded and stood up just as Cormac came around the corner. Her face was placid, a stark contrast to the fury it had worn less than an hour ago. “Briggs,” she began calmly, “I’m having trouble with the command console on the bridge. Can you come have a look at it for me?”
Briggs turned to Sharp with questioning eyes. “Go ahead,” he answered. “Arnold and I should be able to handle these two.” Sharp saw a shudder in Cormac’s eyes a
s he mentioned the men. He knew she wasn’t happy with his plan. She had argued with him fiercely before she had stormed off. He empathized with her aversion to killing, but he felt there was no other way. He hoped with time, she would grow to forgive him.
The two disappeared around the corner and Sharp turned his attention back to the porthole window. The two men’s breaths had become more shallow, their chests barely moving. He clicked the comm panel next to the hatch. “Baker, Daniels,” he called through the speaker. The men stirred, looking up in confusion before their heads dropped back down. Better wait a bit longer, he thought.
After a few minutes, Cormac came back around the corner. Briggs was conspicuously absent. “Where’s Briggs?” Sharp asked as she marched down the corridor toward him.
She didn’t reply, instead she pushed past him to peek through the porthole. “Commander,” he said louder. “Where’s Briggs?”
She seemed to snap out of a trance and turned to him, avoiding eye contact. “Oh, I uh, he uh,” she stammered. “He’s on the bridge… working on the console. I uh, thought I’d come down and give you guys a hand.”
“You alright, Commander?” he asked. “You seem… distracted.”
She stopped fidgeting and finally looked him in the eyes. “Yeah, I’m okay, just tired is all. I think I’m pushing into my third shift here.”
“Don’t worry. This will all be over soon, and we can all get some much-needed rest,” he said, turning back to the porthole.
As he looked through the glass, he felt a small sting on the side of his neck. He spun around, and his hand shot up instinctively to where he had felt the prick. His head started swimming, and he slumped back against the hatch as his legs became weak. Through his clouded vision, he saw Arnold held down by four women. As he struggled, one of them leaned over and injected something into his neck.