by B. C. James
Thompson gave him a questioning glance. “Sir?”
“You heard me, Commander,” Pierce yelled. His practiced stoic veneer was cracking, and his madness was seeping through the fissures.
“Yes, Sir,” Thompson corrected himself as he looked down at Sharp’s pleading expression.
Pierce left the room, and Thompson released Sharp from the chair then led him out of the galley by one arm, his hands still tied behind his back.
Sharp looked at Thompson. He seemed like a reasonable man. He hadn’t displayed the insanity Pierce had. Maybe he could get through to him, convince him of the captain’s folly and the fate awaiting if they followed him.
“Were you conscious too? During cryostasis?” Sharp asked.
Thompson took a moment before he answered. “Yeah, we all were.”
“I’m sorry, that sounds terrible,” Sharp said in a sympathetic tone. “How did you manage to deal with it?”
“It was terrible,” Thompson agreed. “I didn’t exactly deal with it. It’s just something that happened. Nothing I can do about it, so why worry.” He paused as if collecting his thoughts. “I suppose meditation helped. Not much else you can do while trapped inside your own mind. You have to control your thoughts, or they’ll wander off in your head to places you never knew existed. Places you never wanted to know existed. Once the wandering thoughts became too much to bear, I would just try to clear my mind and meditate. Avoiding physical distractions was easy, there was no external stimulus. All I had to do was recognize when my mind started to wander and then pull it back to the task of clearing my head of all thought. After a while, all I did was meditate. It helped pass the time I guess.”
“Wow. So you meditated for five hundred years?”
“It didn’t really seem like that long.”
“Look, Thompson, this is nuts,” Sharp pleaded. “You don’t have to do this. The Alpha Centauri system is already populated by billions of people. You don’t have to go there. We can find you and your embryos a new planet to colonize. An uninhabited one that will be all your own. The Centaurians have lived in their system for generations. Most of them don’t know any other worlds. Their grandparents, grandparents, grandparents settled that planet. Look, I know you had your mission, and I’m sorry it didn’t work out, but the situation has changed and any captain worth his salt has to adapt to new circumstances. It’s a big galaxy, and we’ve only explored a small fraction of it. There are millions of planets out there, plenty of room for all of us. Wouldn’t you rather have a fresh new world to start out on? To build your own colony? To start a new civilization?”
Thompson was quiet, absorbing all Sharp had said as he led him to the docking boom. Sharp knew Thompson wasn’t as intelligent as Pierce, but he had the advantage of not being completely insane.
“It’s not up to me,” Thompson finally answered. “Pierce is in charge. I have to follow his orders.”
“Don’t you see?” Sharp begged, “Pierce is mad. You need to stand up to him. Surely you have a duty to relieve him if his orders are endangering the lives of the crew. And not only is he endangering your crew but mine as well. And the lives of all those people in the Alpha Centauri system. What do you think Pierce will do when they refuse to recognize him as their leader? Do you think he’ll just give up and walk away? Look what’s already happened dammit. Lewis and Franklin are both dead. You can stop this, Thompson. You have the power to end the killing.”
Thompson considered for a moment before answering. Finally, his head drooped with defeat. “I’m sorry, Captain Sharp. You give me too much credit. I’m no leader. Pierce is my captain, and I must follow him.”
Sharp looked into his eyes, seeing the pain and hopelessness expressed in them. He had tried. It was as futile to argue against Thompson’s impotence as it was to argue against Pierce’s lunacy.
Sharp hung his head and watched the floor as they marched toward the Endurance.
11
Frozen
From her seat on the bridge, Commander Cormac watched the main viewer. Like the image on the screen, her mind was far off in space. She questioned her actions. Had she done the right thing? Could she trust Pierce not to hurt anyone else after he’d used Morales as a hostage, and after what she’d just heard?
She had remotely switched on the comm panel in the galley and listened in horror to Pierce’s machinations. His plans to conquer Alpha Centauri and subjugate its people to his rule. She’d betrayed Captain Sharp because she wanted to save lives and stop the killing between the two crews. But now, that paled in comparison to the lives that would be lost if she allowed Pierce to reach his destination. She could see now Sharp had been right, the loss of two lives was nothing next to the death of millions.
Perhaps she could send a message ahead of them and have Pierce arrested the moment he stepped off the ship. But he’d been monitoring the comm system. He would certainly detect any messages she transmitted. She had to do something. She couldn’t let him hurt anyone else, even if that meant she had to kill him herself.
She cringed at the thought. She’d never killed anyone and wondered if she could even do it if it came to that. She hoped it wouldn’t. She’d think of another way to stop him, she told herself to comfort her fears. She’d think of something. If all else failed, she could just blow up the whole damn ship.
Cormac shuddered and tried to shake away the dark thoughts as she looked around the empty bridge. Where was everyone? In all the confusion of Sharp’s escape, she’d been forgotten about. Pierce had hardly allowed her to be left alone since she’d agreed to help him. He always made sure to have someone watching her. She didn’t blame him after what Arnold had pulled.
But now, she sat alone on the bridge, unsupervised. Maybe now was her chance to do something. To take action. Her hopes dried up as Alice stepped through the door. She was looking much better. After having been drugged by Sharp, they had found her out cold in his bunk barely breathing. The sedative dosage had been meant for a large middle-aged man, not a small twenty-something woman, and it had nearly killed her. Luckily, they had gotten her into a med pod and reverse the effects of the drug. Any longer, and she may have never woken up again. Cormac shook her head at the thought of all the violence, death, and destruction.
Alice saw her shaking head. “What is it?” she asked.
“Oh, nothing. Just thinking,” Cormac replied. “Hey, where is everybody? It feels like I’m on a ghost ship here.”
“You haven’t heard?”
Cormac’s eyes narrowed. “No, what is it?”
Alice paused. She seemed reluctant to divulge any information.
“Come on, tell me what’s up?”
“I probably shouldn’t tell you this, but they took the rest of your crew over to the Endurance.”
“What? Why? How long ago?” Cormac yelled, stumbling over her words.
Alice’s eyes went wide. “I don’t know why, they left about fifteen minutes ago, they didn’t tell me what for.”
Cormac jumped out of the command chair and darted through the door.
“Where are you going?” Alice called after her.
She ignored her as she ran through the corridor toward the docking boom. When she reached the access hatch, a burly woman stood in front of it, blocking her way.
“You can’t go over there,” the woman stated boldly, crossing her arms over her chest.
“The hell I can’t,” Cormac replied as she knocked her down.
A moment later, she was floating through the docking boom tube, the angry woman yelling after her. She reached the end and entered the other ship. Having never been aboard the Endurance, she was unfamiliar with its interior. Nevertheless, she found her way to the stasis room by following the sound of voices. As she entered, she spotted Pierce, Thompson, Baker, and Daniels facing several cryotubes with their backs toward her. Pierce was speaking, and she saw the tubes held her four fellow crew members. Sharp, Briggs, Arnold, and Morales were all tightly restrained and propped
up in the tubes, struggling against their bonds.
“What the fuck is going on here?” she demanded.
Pierce stopped talking and turned toward her. “Ah, Commander Cormac. So good of you to join us. We were not expecting you, but I suppose it is good you are here to say your goodbyes.”
The stout woman who had been guarding the docking boom came rushing in behind her. “I’m sorry, Captain, she forced her way through,” she said through gasping breaths as she moved to apprehend Cormac. Pierce raised his hand for her to halt.
The thin arrogant smile on Pierce’s face made the anger rise inside of Cormac. “You promised not to hurt anyone else. Why the hell are they in those tubes?”
“I have decided this is the best course of action to avoid any further violence,” he said, spreading his arms out as if trying to pacify her. “They will not be harmed. Quite the opposite. They will be kept in perfect condition during cryostasis.”
“You lied to me, Pierce. This isn’t what we agreed on.”
He cocked his head to the side. “Is it not? I agreed not to hurt anyone else, and in order to do that, I am removing the element of conflict that has led to the violence. If these people are allowed to stay on the Pescado Rojo, they will attempt to retake the ship, and that will lead to even more violence.”
“But you can’t just leave them out here drifting in space,” Cormac pleaded.
“It’s no use,” Sharp interrupted. “There’s no reasoning with this madman.”
Pierce winced at the derisive comment.
Cormac turned to Sharp. “I’m so sorry, Cap. This isn’t what I wanted. I just wanted the killing to stop.”
Sharp’s hard eyes stared up at her from his tube. “What’s done is done. You made your choice, and now you have to live with it. We all have to live with it.”
His condemnation stung deep. Tears of frustration pooled along her bottom eyelids. She swallowed deeply and blinked them away as best she could. What could she do to make this right? There must be a way to fix it. She had chosen the wrong side, but she didn’t have to be stuck with it. She could still make the right decision. She wouldn’t leave her friends to drift, frozen in the void of space, because of her mistake.
“Pierce, if you do this, I won’t pilot the ship for you,” she threatened. “Good luck trying to figure out the controls. You’ll be stuck out here on the Rojo just like you were on the Endurance.”
“Oh, I think you will,” Pierce replied, turning away from her. “Commander Thompson, initiate the cryostasis sequence.”
Thompson turned to the control panel.
“No,” Cormac yelled as she rushed toward him and pulled him away from the controls. Almost instantly, Baker and Daniels grabbed her by the arms. As she struggled to free herself from their tight grasp, someone came up behind her. A hand gripped her forehead and pulled her head back, exposing her neck. She felt a prick on the bare flesh of her throat and twisted her head, trying to pull away. The hand released her, and she knew it was too late. As her vision started to blur, she saw Pierce holding a thin white tube. One of the pneumatic syringes. She thought she’d accounted for all of them, doling out only what they needed to capture the Rojo. Pierce must have hidden one away.
The men laid her down close to the floor, and she floated there as the world closed in. She made a last-ditch attempt to push her way back to Thompson, who was still at the controls, but her limbs wouldn’t obey. The last thing she remembered before she lost consciousness was the stocky woman pulling her back toward the airlock.
***
Sharp felt a hopeless pride as he watched Cormac being dragged out of the stasis room. At least she’d tried, he thought, even if it had been too little too late. At first, he’d been angry with her, but now he felt sorry for her. She’d betrayed him, and he would never forgive that, but he knew she was just trying to do the right thing. Even so, her actions were seriously misguided. He was proud of her for standing up for her convictions, and in the end, she’d realized her mistake and tried to make it right.
Pierce’s haughty voice brought him out of his thoughts. “As I was saying, Captain Sharp, when we get to Alpha Centauri, we will send a ship for you. In the meantime, you will experience what we endured for five hundred years in these ill-conceived chambers of torment. You will be witness to the pain of conscious stasis. Perhaps then you will gain some empathy for us and what we have been through.”
“I really don’t give a shit what you went through, Pierce,” Sharp snapped. “Nothing gives you the right to do this, and I will see to it that you are stopped.”
“I have the right to—”
“Cut the shit, Pierce,” Sharp interrupted. “Get on with it. I’m tired of listening to your insane raving justifications.”
Pierce’s face twisted with rage, his cheeks flushing as he turned to Thompson. “Do it,” he barked through his teeth.
Sharp grinned at Pierce with satisfaction, amused at getting under his skin.
Thompson paused. “Are you sure, Captain? I mean, do we really have to freeze them? It’s torture in there. I wouldn’t wish that on anyone. Can’t we just leave them here on the ship awake?”
Pierce scowled at him. “You will carry out my orders, or I will put you in there next to them.”
“Yes, Sir,” Thompson said, turning back to the controls.
The clear glass of the tubes began to lower. “Farewell, Captain,” Pierce said. “Perhaps we will meet again someday. Hopefully under more pleasant circumstances.”
Sharp laughed. “Yeah, see ya soon, Pierce.”
The glass sealed with a click and a calmness washed over Sharp. He looked down at the I.V. stuck in his arm. It had begun pumping a cool liquid into his veins. Must be some kind of drug, he thought while shivering from the chill as it spread from his arm to his torso.
Through the glass, he saw Pierce watching him with a thin smirk. Sharp ignored him and turned to check on his crew in the adjacent tubes. The curvature of the room made them all visible. Arnold was next to him looking calm with his eyes closed, and his head leaning back against the small pillow. Sensible, he thought, fighting the cryosleep process would be futile.
In the next tube over, however, he was greeted by the opposite reaction. Morales twisted wildly, struggling against her restraints. Her slim body contorted in impossible directions.
Next to her, Briggs stared calmly out into the center of the room. His face was placid, but in his eyes Sharp saw wheels turning, calculating different scenarios and possibilities of how to escape. Always the problem solver, even in the face of overwhelming odds.
Sharp’s eyelids drooped as a second round of drugs flowed from the I.V. An intense fatigue swept over him as he tried to keep his eyes open. It was a losing battle, and as the feeling grew, he surrendered to the darkness. He took a deep breath and lay his head back against the pillow. Sights and sounds faded, his senses numbed, and his mind slipped into a cold ocean of unconsciousness.
12
Out from the Cold
Sharp awoke in a sea of blackness. His mind was slurred from sedation. He couldn’t move. He couldn’t see. He couldn’t hear. Memories drifted in and out of his head. He remembered his first day as a Captain. Or was that today? Was he remembering it, or living it? The past blended with the present, and the images filled his mind.
Sharp stepped onto the bridge of the OCS Cayenne. His arms were crossed behind his back, and his chest thrust out. Pride projected from his face. The command deck bustled with activity. He drank in the energy as he watched the crew tend to their duties.
The Cayenne was an older cruiser but still quite capable. He suspected OCF command was reluctant to hand over anything newer to such a young captain, especially one with his reputation. He’d risen through the ranks quickly. Proving his competence and instincts were solid. Taking risks where necessary, but playing it safe when needed. His colorful career had gained him a certain notoriety in the fleet. One that showed his capabilities, but also evoked a sen
se of mistrust as a loose cannon, a risk taker. He suspected his reputation had more to do with OCF’s choice of ship for his first command, rather than his age.
To put it plainly, the Cayenne was expendable. Her best days were behind her, and she was far from the cutting edge of fleet technology. None of that deterred Sharp’s endearment toward her. When she’d come into view in the personnel transport window, it had been love at first sight
He was on the transport now, seeing her for the first time. Her long sleek gray body hung in space against the bright blue backdrop of the massive northern ocean of Caylon III. Four thick rings encircled her shining hull. The rings provided warp field generation, deflective shield emitters, and served as weapon platforms. She wasn’t the biggest or the fastest ship in the OCF, but she could hold her own in a firefight. He grinned wide as he looked at her, knowing she was his to command.
His mind pulled back to the command deck. Someone noticed him standing in the doorway, “Captain on the bridge,” they announced. Everyone stopped what they were doing and turned to salute. He returned the salute and sat down in the command chair. “As you were,” he directed while feeling out his new seat.
As he looked up, the image changed. The dim red glow of emergency lighting illuminated the bridge. Showers of sparks rained down from above. Explosions rocked the ship, reverberating through the deck and jarring the crew from their stations. Visions of burnt faces flashed before his eyes. Their flesh blackened and torn, sloughing off in places, exposing white bone beneath. Their eyes were wide with terror, their mouths hanging open in an endless scream. A burning mess of cables dislodged from the ceiling and slammed into his sternum, knocking him to the floor. He writhed in pain, clutching his charred chest as the scene went black.
The bridge was gone now. Sharp watched from the escape pod’s viewport as the Cayenne burned below him, the flames raging against the blackness of space. Its once elegant shape now rent and broken. Plumes of debris erupted from her hull as directed plasma charges cratered her thick armor plating. A bright flash filled the viewport as the charges set off the ammunition magazines. When the blast cleared, the Cayenne was gone.