by Colin Weldon
“What is it?” he shouted unable to contain his annoyance at being disturbed.
“Sir, it is General Escat. May I enter?” came the voice from the comm system.
“One moment,” Arturo said rising from the chair and placing a robe on, that was draped over the back of the chair.
“Enter,” he said.
The door slid back revealing two Colonial Guards standing on each side. Escat was standing in front of them.
“Come in, General,” Arturo said.
The two guards stood aside allowing the general to enter. Escat’s thin frame moved swiftly into the room.
“Have a seat,” Arturo said to him.
“Yes, sir,” Escat replied taking a seat next to a small coffee table under one of the circular windows. He almost stumbled sitting down as the lighting in the room was almost non-existent. Arturo liked to keep the levels low to minimise the likelihood of catching himself in a reflective surface. It was the closest he could come to privacy.
“How are the preparations coming, General?” Arturo asked.
“It is not without its challenges, sir,” Escat replied.
Arturo looked at the general awaiting an answer to his question. The general cleared his throat realising he had not answered directly and straightened himself in his chair.
“Sir, without the exact calibration from the FTL ring design that was incorporated into The Agathon’s primary reactor, The Kandinsky cannot enter hyperspace. We need to make direct contact with the ship to ascertain that knowledge. As you know, that data was lost after the war and quite frankly we have not been able to replicate it,” he said.
Arturo sighed. The scientific endeavours of his people had been allocated to the dire power situation in the colony. It had not left much time or resources to devote to FTL development, much to his constant frustration. While he had practically worked Vishal to death, trying to work on both projects, it simply wasn’t humanly possible with the power plant taking up the majority of his day.
“The Unity received a signal last night,” Arturo said to Escat.
Although the general’s face rarely showed any sign of detectable human emotion, this information elicited a very minor response from one of his eyebrows. Arturo couldn’t help but be slightly amused by it. The pair had practically been raised by the same father. Like Arturo, his entire family had been killed by a mob of rebellious fools over food shortages when they were children. They had banded together in the holes of the space stations trying to stay alive, living off unfortunate mistakes of others. Escat had, at the time, been far stronger than Arturo. Killing had come naturally to him. He relied heavily on Arturo’s ruthless intellect and he on Escat’s brutal way of dealing with anyone who stood in their way. It was Escat who had formed the Colonial Guard. It had been Escat who had recommended the modification of the soldiers to elicit complete obedience. A process that had originally taken months, but now only took weeks with the refinements made to the temporal lobes of the ‘volunteers’.
“What sort of signal?” Escat said.
“Static,” Arturo replied pouring himself a glass of water.
“Hmm,” replied the general.
“Indeed, General,” Arturo said.
“I presume that Stanley is keeping a close eye on Elstone?” Escat said.
“Of course,” Arturo said.
“I would rather have killed him myself you know,” Escat said with an almost insubordinate tone.
Arturo let it slide knowing how passionately he felt about the topic.
“You never know, Charles, you may still get the pleasure. Stanley has orders not to act, unless he gets a direct command from me,” Arturo said.
“Fingers crossed, sir,” Escat said smiling through yellow teeth.
Arturo understood fully the general’s feelings on the matter. He had offered him the option of making the insubordinate pilot disappear when he had learned of the incident with the two of them, but Escat had declined his offer. He seemed to have some wish to personally blow him out of the stars using The Kandinsky’s cannons. He only had the opportunity to use them once to date. Several years earlier a small makeshift craft carrying three colonists had attempted an escape from the stations. Needless to say they did not get far.
“So, how did he get in, Thomas Greenly I mean?” Arturo said swirling his glass of water around and changing the tone to one of formality.
Escat suddenly looked flush. Arturo already knew of course, but he felt a sudden need to play with the general somewhat. Casting doubt on his abilities to maintain security kept him neatly in line. Escat cleared his throat. He shifted in his seat and cast his gaze against the wall of the room.
“I thought you already knew that?” the general said sounding halfway insubordinate.
Arturo didn’t answer. He looked at Escat coldly showing him that he still wanted an answer.
“He had been doing the same task for thirty years. Never a hint of displeasure above the norm. He had cleared his psych evaluation that very week and there were no signs that he was feeling disloyal, sir,” said Escat, “If Vishal had not been running a diagnostic on the life support systems of those plugged in at the time, we would never have known. It was bad luck on his part. It may be that he was acting alone,” Escat stopped and looked at Arturo who was frowning at the naive idea.
“I agree it’s probably not the case, but we got nothing out of him under interrogation. His resolve was … impressive,” Escat said.
“You are sure the data rod was erased?” Arturo said. He had asked the question multiple times already.
“One hundred percent, sir,” replied Escat confidently, “Sir, I know Elstone had something to do with it. I don’t understand why you keep him around.”
Arturo thought about it for a second. Of course the general had his personal reasons for getting rid of him, but he had built loyalty. It was not as simple as that. He needed more time and he was more valuable to him alive. For the moment. He placed his feet up on the desk and turned away from the general. There was a growing silence between the two as they sat there in the darkened room.
“Do you know what would have happened if we had not discovered our …solution to the power problem?” Arturo finally said looking into his glass.
“Yes, sir, we would be dead,” replied Escat.
A simple answer, but to the point.
“Yes, General, we would be dead. We would all be dead,” said Arturo. “Simple, isn’t it?” he said, “And who knows, maybe that is the way nature intended the human race to be. After all that happened to us after we lost contact with The Agathon, we practically ate each other. There is a sickness engrained in our species, General. We survive at any cost. Civility, culture, language, mathematics, family. All of it is suppressed and our basic animalistic instincts turn us into nothing but primal predatory creatures. We are bestowed with consciousness that tortures our very spirit. But,” Arturo turned to look at the general, “given the right conditions, we thrive as a species. Give us food, shelter, the basic necessities of existence and we evolve. We build. We create. We rule. In order to do that we must find the very best of us and we must seed our ideals into a new world. I agree with you that not all of us are created to be that seed. But we, General, you and I, will be that seed. These petty conflicts that we engage ourselves in must be laid to rest or there will be no seed,” he said.
The chancellor stood from his chair and approached the seated general. He looked confused. Arturo did not need his understanding of the greater plan. Just his obedience. He extended his hand to the general who stood slowly.
“Charles, I need you with me on this,” Arturo said widening his eyes.
He sensed a doubt in the general’s eyes as he took his hand and wondered if now would be a good time to kill him. He suppressed the sudden urge and pushed it deep inside him. He could feel another voice within him trying to break through to the surface and realised that he needed to end this meeting quickly. The general took his hand and sho
ok it firmly.
“I’m with you, sir, always, what are your orders?” Escat said looking worried.
“Increase speed, General, we need to catch up with The Unity. It is time to take our rightful place in the universe,” Arturo said letting go of his hand and turning back to his desk. He heard the door slide shut as Escat left his quarters. He felt a wave of nausea and had to steady himself by grabbing the back of his chair.
“He’s afraid of you, kill him now!” he suddenly shouted to nobody.
“Leave me,” Arturo replied to himself.
“You are a fucking coward,” his own voice shouted to himself, “Kill them all. Now!” it shouted.
Arturo collapsed into a ball on the floor.
“Kill them, kill them, kill them, kill them, kill them!” he screamed at the floor.
Tears began to flow steadily down his face as he grappled with the other personality that was pounding away inside him. He grabbed his head as a sharp pain stabbed through his temples. A large pressure began to build in his mind as his sense of self began to feel crushed by the onslaught of the other person inside him. He began to feel dizzy as his body crumpled into a heap on the solid floor. The world began to spin as he let himself slip into unconsciousness.
The Unity
“I’m locked out of the communications relay,” Aron said to India. She was in the middle of her fourth rep on the makeshift bench press in the rec room of The Unity. The small room was located on the lowest deck between the exhaust manifold and the environmental systems control. It was a prime place to sweat it out as the constant release of steam from the power nodes created a great place to flush out the toxins of any planetary surface work. It was one of India’s favourite places to work out. She blew out a large breath and brought the barbell down to her chest. She held the weight steadily before blowing out and pushing it virulently back up again. Her vest top was dripping with sweat as her eyes focused on the ceiling.
“So what?” she said with one of her controlled breaths.
She brought the barbell down slowly again.
“So, I am locked out of the fucking communications relay. I got what looked like a transmission last night and this morning I come back to the console and my entry code doesn’t work,” said Aron.
India flicked her eyes in his direction and placed the barbell back on the rack. She released several tired breaths and sat up on the bench facing Aron. He had to admit that he was impressed by her strength. Her short cropped hair was stuck to the side of her face and the tone of her muscles certainly made her look extremely sexy.
“Did you forget your password? You’re getting old, sir, not quite the brightest star in the sky anymore you know?” she said smiling at him.
Aron frowned letting his silence answer the question for her. She sighed and nodded, conceding that there was no way he would forget any aspect of running the day to day operations of his ship.
“Okay, so what does that mean?” India said.
“Someone has locked me out of the system,” Aron replied.
“Stanley?” she said.
Aron raised his eyebrows indicating his agreement. India sighed standing up from the bench press.
“Alright, let me grab a shower and freshen up and we’ll go have a chat with our resident overlord,” she said moving past him.
Aron had a feeling this was not going to go well at all.
“Hang on, India,” he said grabbing her arm, “You can’t just go and ask Stanley if he’s been messing around with the computer systems. He’s dangerous.”
India raised her eyebrows.
“I ain’t no slouch, sir, with all due respect,” she said clearly taking offence.
“Neither is he, India. I want you to try your command codes in the system first,” he said.
After a quick stop at India’s quarters, they made their way to the flight deck. Oliver Jones was making some adjustments to one of the navigation panels when they arrived.
“You got that torque sensor sorted Ollie?” Aron asked taking his seat.
“You bet, sir, turned out to be a faulty relay. I’ve patched her up, but she’ll need a little dry dock time when we get back,” he replied, “Stanley was snooping around the engine room late last night. Thought you should know.”
This peaked Aron’s interest. He turned around and looked at him frowning.
“Oh?” he said.
“Yep,” replied Oliver rubbing his hands with a worn out cloth, “He didn’t touch anything, he just came in, looked around and left,” he said shrugging.
Aron didn’t like the sound of that. He looked at India who seemed troubled.
“Run a full ship-wide diagnostic,” Aron said to her.
She nodded in agreement and began punching commands into her control panel.
“He’s a big lad, isn’t he?” said Oliver rhetorically.
“What is it with men and their preoccupation with size?” India replied concentrating on the computer.
The door to the flight deck slid open and Hector Stanley suddenly entered. The three Unity crew members all turned in unison and looked at the man as he stood in the doorway. Stanley looked coldly at Oliver. There was an awkward silence on the flight deck when Aron decided to break it, before it became worse.
“Mr Stanley, good morning,” he said, “Please come in.”
“Well, I think I’ll go check on the rest of the… eh… torque sensors,” said Ollie squeezing past Stanley.
He glanced back at Aron as he left through the entrance and widened his eyes as if to wish him good luck. Aron did not reciprocate. Stanley stepped inside the perimeter of the door mechanism which allowed it to close behind him.
“Report,” Stanley said looking at India.
India frowned. Aron had a tough enough time giving orders to people, but most of all to India Walder. She did not like being told what to do by anyone. She cleared her throat and took a deep breath flicking her eyes back to Aron who nodded at her.
“We are just running some ship-wide diagnostics at the moment, Mr Stanley,” she replied through gritted teeth.
“Why?” he asked.
“It’s standard procedure, Stanley, we don’t want any surprises this far out,” replied Aron looking straight at him.
“Where are we with the deployment?” Stanley replied not reacting. He stepped closer to Aron’s flight chair and looked out at the stars.
“We have five of the buoys set in place, we’re moving onto the sixth. All systems normal,” replied Aron turning to face the forward windows. He could feel Stanley getting closer to him and moved his eyes gently down to the panel where his pulse gun should have been. The tension on the flight deck was thick.
“Can I ask you a question, Mr Stanley?” India suddenly said from the left chair.
Aron looked at her, a little nervous as to what was about to come out of her mouth. He saw Stanley look over at her curiously.
“What do we intend to do when the relay is in place?” she said.
Aron looked up at Stanley who had turned his head back to look out the window.
“That is not your concern, Ms Walder,” he said, “You are here to position the relay buoys, then return to The Village once that is accomplished.”
“I see,” said India frowning and looking at Aron, “Thank you for clearing that up.”
“Mr Stanley, all due respect, but shouldn’t we wait here until the effectiveness of the relay has been confirmed? At the moment we seem to be having some difficulty accessing our communications channels, so we don’t even know if the damn things are gonna work or not,” said Aron.
Stanley looked at Aron.
“Your communications system will not take your access codes because I have reset them, Mr Elstone,” he said, giving a hint of a smirk.
“What?” Aron said fighting a burning rage that had suddenly lit a fire in his stomach.
He hated anyone messing with his ship’s systems without his express permission. Especially a member of the Colon
ial Guard.
“How did you get access without my command codes?” he asked him trying to restrain the anger.
Stanley looked blankly at him.
“Mr Elstone, I am head of security for Arturo Verge. There is no system in the colony that I do not have access to. This ship is under the command of Chancellor Verge, not you,” he replied averting his gaze back to India.
Aron could see India’s face was beginning to redden as she took a deep breath and pretended to ignore the comment by pressing a few random buttons on her flight control system.
“I see,” Aron replied, “Well, if it is not too much trouble I would like to have access to it again, as it is part of the normal operations of this ship and as I’m captain, I think it necessary to be able to get into it.”
Stanley turned back to Aron and looked at him with a nonchalant expression that told Aron that it wasn’t going to happen.
“Access to the communications system is restricted for the remainder of this journey,” he said, “Those are the chancellor’s orders. I will release the lockout upon our return to The Village.”
Aron thought about reaching across and strangling the arrogant man to death, but took a deep breath instead and turned to face the windows.
“What happens if there is an emergency, Mr Stanley?” said India through gritted teeth.
“Should that occur Ms Walder, I will contact The Kandinsky personally for a rescue,” said Stanley.
“And if you are injured?” she replied.
“Let us hope that I am not,” he said.
Aron sensed that Stanley was becoming acutely aware of how angry India was getting. He wasn’t sure if he could control her much longer.
“India, can you go to the engineering bay and check on the sub light drive? I think it’s out of flux,” Aron said to her.
He could see one of her fists was clenched and needed to defuse the tense situation. She looked at him frowning, but nodded a thankful reply. She shifted out of her flight chair and squeezed past Stanley making as little eye contact as was possible. When they were alone, he turned to Stanley.