by JN Chaney
“Stay back, girl!” ordered Alphonse. “Don’t come any—”
The recording stopped, cutting him off. Abigail and Freddie both looked at me, confused. “Is that it?” asked Fred.
“Seems so,” I said.
Sigmond chimed in. “Internal devices ceased to function properly at this time. I apologize for the inconvenience.”
“What does Lex say about it?” asked Freddie.
“She told me the two of them started fighting, beat on each other, and then Alphonse got the upper hand. That was only about twenty seconds before I got here, best I can tell.”
“I don’t get it,” said Freddie. “Why did Alphonse stop him from taking Lex?”
Abigail looked at me. “He knew we’d kill him if he tried.”
I nodded. “In a heartbeat. Besides, he didn’t know Siggy was having problems with the ship, or even what the turbulence was from, so maybe he figured taking the shuttle wouldn’t work. Siggy has protocols to stop that from happening, unless I authorize it.”
“I guess that makes sense,” muttered Freddie.
“Either way, we’ll question him when he’s awake,” I said.
Freddie stared at the body. “What do we do with him in the meantime?”
“We’re still in slipspace for another hour,” I said.
“Space him now,“ said Abigail, flatly. “That’s the only option for him.”
“Are we sure about that?” asked Freddie.
“She’s right,” I said. “It’s what he deserves.”
I helped the two of them pick him up and carry him. We wrapped him in a sheet and made sure Lex was in her room before taking him to the airlock. After placing him inside, I had Siggy open the hatch, releasing him into the slip tunnel.
They say when you release a body into slipspace, its atoms are destroyed and reformed into new energy. Scientists believe that the walls are in a constant state of nuclear fusion and fission, creating and destroying atoms on a constant loop. Some scientists think this is part of the reason it looks the way it does, but no one has been able to explain why or how it happens, only that it does.
Regardless, we sent Docker’s corpse into the stream, letting it float and collide with the inner wall, disintegrating upon impact. In less than a moment, his body ceased to exist. The truest form of death I could imagine.
TWENTY
After sending Docker’s body into the slipstream, I wanted to turn my attention to the only remaining prisoner in my possession. However, Alphonse was incapacitated at the moment, which meant that would have to wait.
I gave Freddie a gun and told him to stay with both our resident cripple and the ensign. Even if Fred couldn’t shoot straight, Octavia was there with her own weapon, ready to kill if it came to it.
As for me and Abigail, we returned to the bridge right as the ship arrived at the next S.G. Point. Without missing a beat, I took us into the new tunnel, beginning the final slip towards our destination.
Abigail had the star chart up, examining our route. “It looks like we’ll pass over where we need to go,” she said.
“How’s that?” I asked.
“The tunnel is two lightyears too long. We’ll need to turn around, once we arrive.”
“Turn around? Without a slip tunnel, it would take us days to get there.”
“It’s the only option we have,” she said, giving me a light shrug.
“Meanwhile, we’ve got two armies after us, an unconscious prisoner, and a ship full of problems.”
“One thing at a time,” she said.
Abigail and I spent the next twenty minutes going over damage reports from each of the ship’s systems. From what I could tell, most of it was superficial, with some slight damage to the hull, cargo bay gate, and internal sensors. No serious problems with the atmospheric systems, weapons, or the engines, thank the gods.
I considered going back to check on Alphonse when Siggy’s voice came over the com. “Sir, we have a slight problem with our flight path. It’s—” Before he could say anything else the swirling green of the screen in front of me suddenly changed, reshaping to form the dark, black void of normal space. “—broken,” he finally finished.
“What just happened?” asked Abigail.
“As I was saying, internal scans of the tunnel showed that this slip gap point was prematurely formed,” said Sigmond.
“You mean this tunnel was cut in half?” I asked. “How the shit does that even happen?”
“Unknown, sir. However, it would seem we have arrived at our final destination.”
“Hold on, you mean that breach in the tunnel took us—”
“He’s right,” Abigail said, pulling up the star chart. “Look here. This is where the tunnel was supposed to take us—” She followed the line with her finger, then pulled it back. “—and instead, we’re here, right at the end of the original line.”
“The map still shows the tunnel going further out,” I observed.
“It must be outdated,” she said.
“Siggy, why did this happen?” I asked.
“It could be artificial, based on the instability of the current rift. However—”
“Artificial?” asked Abigail. “Is he saying that rift isn’t supposed to be there? That someone put it there?”
“I’ve heard of these,” I muttered. “People talk about breaks in the tunnels. They say they’re not supposed to be there, like someone dropped a bomb inside and tore open a new hole. I always thought it was bullshit, like the guys who say they’ve seen the gods sitting at the far end of the galaxy. You know, real kooky shit.”
“Sir, if you’ll allow me to continue,” said Sigmond.
“Oh, sorry, pal. I thought you were done.”
“Think nothing of it, sir,” he said. “As I was saying, the new rift could be artificial. However, the tunnel appeared to be intact when we entered it. I performed a long range internal scan of the tunnel and found that it would take us approximately two hours to reach the next S.G. Point.”
“In other words, that rift wasn’t there when we went into the tunnel,” I said.
“Correct.”
“What do you think that means?” I asked, looking at Abigail.
“Maybe it reacted to us, somehow,” she said.
We both sat there in silence for a minute, trying to put together what just happened. “Could it be something about the ship?” I finally asked.
“It could,” she said, “or it couldn’t. How do we find out?”
“I don’t know. Maybe we don’t.”
Abigail shook her head. “Sigmond, can you scan the system and show us where we are, specifically? Give me a detailed map of the area.”
“Working,” said the A.I. “Analysis complete.”
The holo display changed to show a binary star system. Six planets, twelve moons.
“Are any of these planets habitable?” asked Abigail.
No answer.
“Sigmond?”
“Apologies, madam. I was attempting a deep scan of one of the planets, which at first appeared incapable of sustaining life, but it seems I was mistaken.”
“So, it’s habitable?” I asked.
“Only a small portion, but I have no explanation for it. There is an area, twelve kilometers in radius, where the atmosphere is breathable.”
“So, there’s a circle of land where we can breathe?” asked Abigail.
“A three-dimensional semi-circle, by point of fact,” explained Sigmond. “It ends on the ground and extends two hundred meters at the center.”
“What the hell?” I muttered. “Is it some kind of colony?”
“There is no indication of colonization. I detect no humans or architecture.”
I leaned in to examine the circle. It was in the center of a spot of land near the middle of a continent. Nothing was particularly noteworthy about it, other than the fact that this existed. I’d never seen anything like it.
“And the atmosphere outside of whatever this is?”
asked Abigail.
“Highly toxic,” answered Sigmond.
I couldn’t help but balk at all of this. “First we’re taken out of a slipspace tunnel without warning; now we’re looking at two atmospheres on a single planet, with no apparent reason. What the fuck is going on today?”
“It seems the closer we get to our goal, the more out-of-the-ordinary things become,” said Abigail.
“Siggy, list the contents of the atmosphere outside this so-called habitable zone,” I said, leaning closer to the dash.
Instantly, the display changed, showing a detailed list of the planet’s makeup.
95.31% carbon dioxide
1.91% argon
1.58% nitrogen
0.974% oxygen
0. 226% carbon monoxide
I glanced over the numbers. Yep, totally unlivable, I thought. You wouldn’t catch on fire from contact, but you’d sure as shit suffocate.
“Now, show the readout for the habitable portion,” said Abigail.
The screen changed and another list appeared, only this time was drastically different.
78.09% nitrogen
20.95% oxygen
0.93% argon
0.04% carbon dioxide
0.002% neon
0.0005% helium
0.00018% methane
“That looks much better,” said Abigail.
I scratched my head. “Why do you think it’s segmented like that?”
“You’re asking me?”
“I’m asking anyone. You just happened to be here,” I said.
She ignored my jab. “It can’t be natural, can it? There’s no way a bubble of breathable air just forms on a planet for no reason. Someone had to put it there. Sigmond, do you see anything artificial down there? Any signs of human technology?”
“Initial scans revealed none. However, I can perform a deep scan of the planet and provide more in-depth information.”
“Go ahead, please” said Abigail.
“Please stand by. This may take several moments.”
I got on my feet, continuing to stare at the planet sitting before us. My eyes found the continent where the circle was, and it didn’t take me long to spot the little green dot. It was small, though not so much you couldn’t see it, since it was surrounded by brown.
A little piece of life at the center of a wasteland.
* * *
Hitchens met me in the lounge. If anyone could help us figure out this mess, I figured it was him.
“Gracious, I really couldn’t say, Captain,” he said, staring at the pad I’d given him, which contained all the data we’d collected so far on the planet.
“Fucking seriously Professor?”
He raised his finger. “Doctor.”
“You need to give me something better than that,” I said.
He examined the data again, scratching his ear. “You say the tunnel opened prematurely?”
“That’s right.”
“And we have no idea why, except that it reacted to us?”
“Also right.”
He thought for a moment. “Could it be that it is something we have with us, rather than the ship, itself?”
“You mean our cargo?” I asked, trying to think of something that might be a match. “What about those artifacts of yours?”
“Ah!” he exclaimed, tapping his nose. “Now, there’s an idea!”
“You think so?” I asked.
“Could be, yes, could be! Oh, but,” he frowned, “without traveling back into the tunnel, we won’t be able to test it. Speaking of which, have you tried to reopen the rift? What happens if we can’t get it open again?”
“Slow down, Hitchens. You’re getting way too far ahead of yourself. What about those artifacts?”
“Ah, yes, I apologize.” He cleared his throat. “Little Lex was with me during the rupture. We were playing with the cube that your friend, the teenage girl from the mining town gave you. Now, what was the name of that city?”
“Spiketown,” I reminded him. “The girl’s name was Camilla.”
“Camilla!” he exclaimed, happily. “Such a nice family, those two. Her and her father. Bolin, was it?”
“Let’s reminisce later,” I said, trying to pull his attention back to what actually mattered. “This artifact, what did it do?”
“Ah, well, it was actually rather similar to the one that injured poor Lex’s hand.”
“Did this one do the same? Is she okay?” I asked.
“Oh, she’s perfectly fine, Captain. I tried to stop her from playing with it, but she’s so fast at her age, it’s hard for me to keep up.”
“What did it do when she touched it?”
“It activated a beam, the same as the other one, although it seemed to do nothing of note. I suspected it might simply be an artificial light source. Perhaps a toy of some kind.”
“Seems to me it’s more than that. Where’s Lex? And where’s the box?”
The answer to both, I learned, was in a bedroom down the hall. I found her fast asleep, sprawled out like wild animal. She must have been exhausted from everything that happened in the cargo bay, or maybe it was just the highs and lows of being a kid. Watching Alphonse kill Docker had to be stressful, but she’d been through worse since I met her.
I sat on the side of the bed and nudged her with my knuckles. “Kid,” I said, bluntly. “Hey, kid.”
She squirmed, clawing the pillow with her fingers, like she was reaching for something, and then went back to her original position.
I tapped her forehead with my index finger. “Hey, you little razorbeast. Wake up.”
She cracked her eyes and I could tell she’d been dreaming, just by the look on her face. It was like she’d been someplace else, far away from here. “Huh…? Mr. Hughes?”
“Hey, kid. You doing okay?”
She nodded, flinging her head up and down like she’d just had a burst of energy, and smiled.
“I wanted to ask you where that box you were playing with went to.”
“Huh?” she said. “Oh, the box!” She turned and reached beneath the pillow, inside the gap between the bed and wall. “It fell down here.”
I watched her pull it up with both hands, scratching the paint on the wall in the process, though I didn’t say anything. After a second, she handed it to me with a wide grin on her face. “This is it?” I asked.
She nodded. “Yeah, that’s the one Mr. Hitchens gave me to play with.”
“Think I can borrow it for a little bit?”
“Yeah!” she exclaimed. “Are you gonna play, too?”
I gave her a pat on the head. “Sure, kid. As soon as I figure out what the hell it does.”
* * *
I was on my way back to the cockpit with Hitchens when Siggy informed me that Alphonse was awake. “Tell Octavia I’m on my way.”
I told Hitchens to come with me so we might have a chance to figure out what was going on with this box. I took a deep breath as I thought about the day I was having. One thing at a time, I heard Abigail’s voice say inside my head. One thing at a time.
Alphonse was sitting up on the table with a patch over his forehead, looking dazed and half-asleep. It was a similar look to the one Lex had had only a few moments ago. “Welcome to the party,” said Freddie as Hitchens and I entered the upper deck of the cargo bay.
“How’s he doing?” I asked Octavia.
“Better, but he’s got a cracked skull. I’ve already applied some medi-gel, but that will take a few days to heal.”
“You hear that, Alphonse?” I asked.
He looked at me, blinking. “R-Right.”
I whistled. “Oh, yeah. He’s messed up bad.”
“He’ll be fine, as I said,” remarked Octavia. She swiveled in her chair to face Hitchens. “How’s Lex doing?”
He approached her side and placed a hand on the arm of her chair. “She’s tired herself out. We left her resting in Ms. Pryar’s room.”
I leaned in closer to Alphonse.
“Hey, you and I need to have a conversation.”
“A…conversation?” he asked, trying to focus on my face.
I nodded. “About a few things, if you think you can handle it.”
He held the side of his head. “Your nurse here has me on some kind of—”
“Not a nurse,” interjected Octavia.
“—some kind of painkillers. I’m not sure…what, exactly, but…they’re definitely working.” His voice was suddenly wavering, like he could barely keep the words together.
“You stuck him full of drugs?” I asked.
Octavia shrugged. “I had to do something. He kept screaming when I tried to sew the wound.”
Alphonse started to close his eyes.
“Hey!” I snapped my fingers in front of his eyes. “Wake up, you idiot!”
He blinked, rapidly. “Sorry! I’m just so tired.”
“Before you pass out, tell me what happened with Docker,” I said.
“He tried to hurt the girl, and I…” He closed his eyes, briefly, then reopened them. “I…don’t know.”
“You don’t know?”