"No, I suppose not," Skinner said. "Then again, who cares what you like? Make no mistake, gentlemen. What I tell you now is not out of some sense of obligation. You need to know now so you can make proper preparations to do your job and complete the mission."
Skinner had absolute power here, and the Atlas was at her disposal. Still, Stellan and Pierce had an edge. The Atlas required a crew to run it, and they were confident this crew, their crew, would go nowhere under her direct command.
"Let's hear it then," Pierce said.
"Please, sit." She motioned toward the conference table with a graceful hand. Pierce and Stellan took seats opposite each other. Skinner sat adjacent to them. She waved her hand over the table, and it lit up, projecting streaks of blue light that appeared out of thin air and poured onto the tabletop like falling steam.
The light settled, and a holographic planet appeared. It rotated lazily, a soup of browns and reds looking like nothing more than a mixture of mud and clay.
"This is the two hundred and fifty-ninth identified celestial body in the Apophis system," Skinner said. "This is where we're going. As you may know, Apophis is one of the farthest systems we've been able to reach, and two five nine is out farther than any planet we've ever mined. That alone makes this mission special. The Atlas will set a record on this run." Stellan and Pierce caught her mocking tone.
"We can handle it," Pierce said.
"Indeed," she said. "As you don't know, two five nine has something we've never seen before, and the Council wants it."
She reached forward and grabbed the projection with both hands, a gesture Stellan thought looked much like the Council's crest on her upper left breast, two hands wrapping around New Earth. Then she pulled the projection apart, and it separated into two halves, revealing an inner layer, which was gray in the projection.
"Under the crust is a thick layer of an unidentified material. There's an entire layer of the stuff wrapped around the whole planet. Solid. The excavator Shiva of the Trinity is on-site now and will break ground in the next few hours."
"Why now? What's the rush?"
Skinner shoved two five nine aside, and a big red ball crept into the view.
"Apophis, the star of this system, is a red giant. Soon it will engulf its own system, and our precious cargo will be gone forever. It's already dangerously close for our ships."
"So you don't know what it is, but you plan to rush to it, put it on our ship and have us take it to Earth, banking on the hope that it's something good?" Stellan said.
"Yes."
"I'm sorry, but I can't allow that."
"Why not?"
Stellan had to be careful. "This is a civilian ship," he pressed his index finger down on the table, "and its crew depends on us to keep it safe and secure, to ensure they return home in the same condition as they left. What you expect us to do is just reckless. You already have us running out deeper than we've ever been and dangerously close to a red giant, and now you want to put some alien material on our ship? No."
"This is a Council ship, Mr. Lund," Skinner said, "and to the Council, Apophis two five nine is the only planet in the galaxy that matters right now. Think about the possibilities. It could cure disease. It could be the secret to eternal youth. It could be a new fuel that would extend the range of our fleet tenfold. It could end instability and conflict on New Earth."
"The war?" Stellan said, descending into reflection. He closed his eyes and remembered. He didn't want to. Flames danced before his eyes. The smell of smoke filled his nostrils. Inexplicable anger rose from deep within him. "Or it could make us all dead! Have you thought about that!?" He slammed the table, and the image of Apophis fractured and distorted. It disappeared and was replaced with a message informing them the holotable had encountered a problem and needed to shut down. The table chirped for their attention, requesting it be manually restarted.
"We have," she said, "but if your crew follows proper procedure, there should be no problems, should there?"
She was right, and Stellan knew it. The Atlas had protocols in place to prevent harm to its crew, and as long as there were no accidents, there shouldn't be any danger. As long as there were no accidents.
"Well," Skinner said, slapping her thighs. "I suppose you two have some work to do." She stood and walked toward the door.
"May I ask where you are going?" Pierce said.
"Keeping tabs?"
"I just want to know where to find you if we need you, since you declined to wear a link." Pierce tapped his wrist.
"There's a stool with my name on it down at the bar if you must know," she said. "Ingenious, by the way, turning half of the mess into a full-service bar. If I were you, I'd hope the Council doesn't find out about that." She pulled the hatch, and the metal rubbed again, sending a shiver through their eardrums.
Stellan stared across the table at Pierce, and Pierce watched the door almost longingly as it closed behind her.
"I really ought to have someone up here to fix that door," Pierce said, gazing into another realm.
"We're working with unknowns here, Gordon."
"It isn't the first time," Pierce said and stood. He walked to a small table in the corner where a half-full, unlabeled bottle of golden whiskey waited.
"Yeah, but we used to be able to get our own recon if the brass shorted us on intel. Take every precaution we could. This is just reckless," Stellan said.
"What do you want me to do?" Pierce asked, picking up the bottle and removing its glass stopper. He smelled the fumes, and a pleasant look crossed his face. "Good for meditation," he said to no one in particular. He leaned the bottle over on its side as a man might dip a woman in a dance. The head spilled into the rocks glass.
"You know, we're out here running back and forth, and I think all we need, all anyone needs, is a fine bottle of whiskey to keep them warm at night," Pierce said. "You ever think about the old days?"
"The Unity Corps?" Stellan asked.
"Yeah."
"I try not to."
"I remember some of those long, cold nights in the field. We couldn't risk even starting a fire to warm our hands. The wind would blow, and it was like Mother Nature was taking bites right out of you, blowing the heat right off your face like it was dust. The rain turned to needles, and you couldn't shake the chill from your bones. We'd pass around that whiskey that, who was it? Torrington? The whiskey that Torrington's father made? And even though I'd tell you boys to shut your mouths, you'd drink and tell jokes and stories and laugh. And all that heartache would melt away. I didn't realize I loved that. Out here, there's no wind. There's no rain. No adversary for our spirit, and I wonder if we need that to feel alive sometimes."
When Stellan tried to recall those times, he didn't think of the cold. He recalled heat and smoke. He remembered the whole world burning.
"I want you to do your job," Pierce said. "The best you can. I want you to keep an eye on her. We're playing nice now, but we still have some leverage. She may not admit it even to herself, but the crew won't take orders from her. She can't fly this boat herself. She needs us, and I'm not about to risk the Atlas or this crew. The first sign of trouble, and we're out of there, regardless of what she says. I'll tie her up myself if I have to." Pierce carried the glasses and the bottle to the table and slid one to Stellan. The table continued to chirp, asking one of them to reset it.
"I'm not about to see lives end out here," Pierce added and sipped his whiskey. He exhaled the heat through clenched teeth. "If it comes to that, this time, I'll take the responsibility when we get back."
"Why risk it at all?"
Pierce held another sip in his mouth and thought for a moment, gazing into nothing.
"Maybe some risks are worth taking. Maybe because I need to know I still can," he said. "And anyway, we don't have much of a choice."
The two of them swirled their whiskey, staring down into their glasses. Pierce laughed, and Stellan understood the fear of losing his edge, of becoming as worn down an
d soft as Pierce's ancient desk, as the old books he kept around him. He supposed Pierce kept them because it reminded him what happened when you let time and complacency rub against you for so long. When Stellan put on his weapon at the beginning of every wake cycle, it reminded him that he needed to be like it, ready to fire when called upon. And the truth he had come to realize was he wasn't sure whether he still could, whether the decay of age had reached his spine and made it brittle.
"What if she's lying?" Stellan asked. "You know she's lying about something. They never shoot straight with people."
"She's here in a supervisory role only. Mining crews have never been out this far. She's just here to help make sure everything goes smoothly."
"You don't really believe that."
"I haven't the luxury of believing anything, but I have to accept what she tells me."
"And what if she brings hell down on us?"
"That's not going to happen. I won't let it."
"Still," Stellan said, "what if?"
"We'll figure something out," Pierce said. "Like always. We'll do what we have to do and find a way to live with it."
Stellan took comfort in his Captain's optimism, but he hadn't touched his whiskey and felt then that he couldn't stomach it. He pushed the glass away and stood from the table, pulling the hem of his overcoat to straighten the wrinkles.
"I don't think I need to tell you the crew's at a bit of unease," Pierce said. "With that woman aboard and our destination a secret, I'd expect some of them to act a little out of the ordinary. Take extra precautions. We've got enough on our plate having to deal with Ms. Skinner. We don't need unrest among the crew."
"I'm going to make my rounds," Stellan said.
Pierce nodded, still staring into his glass. Stellan opened the hatch door and barely noticed the scuff sound, but it shook Pierce from his trance. Pierce watched his friend leave and felt a sadness he couldn't understand, like seeing only glimpses of a premonition of dark times. It nagged at him, so he finished his whiskey and picked up Stellan's glass. It was a gift, and Pierce didn't take back gifts. If Stellan wasn't going to drink it, no one would. Pierce walked it to his bathroom and poured it down the drain. The Atlas' water filtration system would detect it as a contaminant and jettison it out to space.
Pierce walked back into his office where he sat in his creaking chair behind his antiquated desk. His hand absently fumbled for the bottom drawer and pulled it open. From it, he retrieved a single bullet. He held it close to his eyes and tumbled it in his fingers like an alien object full of wonder, curious about the way the light gleamed across its metal skin.
"Like always," he said.
Nine
Pierce entered the bridge, his footsteps on the glass walkway announcing his presence to Arlo and Evans, who quickly hid a game they were playing against each other using an application they had illegally installed on their links. They closed the application and turned to their workstations just as Pierce stopped on his command platform and leaned on the railing in front of it, his shoulder blades poking up under his heavy officer's coat.
"Light drive spun up and ready to fire, Captain," Arlo said. "Say the word, and I'll kick off the training wheels." The Atlas breathed as the steady fire of the thrusters propelled them forward and the light drive swelled.
"Destination solution achieved," Evans said. "Coordinates locked. Scans indicate no anomalies. Should be smooth sailing, Captain."
Pierce looked down upon the two young men on his bridge, one who'd barely escaped his teens. The danger they accepted to fly in space and break the law of relativity was minimal. In the history of space exploration and mining, there had only been one ship lost. At least, there had only been one ship they knew of. The price they would pay for a mistake would be absolute. One miscalculation, and the whole ship and everyone aboard would perish. More than that, it would be like they just ceased to exist. They wouldn't have time to process the end, and no one on New Earth would know what happened to them. They just wouldn't return home. Perhaps they flew into a star or too close to a singularity. Perhaps they slammed into an unmonitored asteroid. Perhaps the light drive glitched and warped the ship along with space.
The dangers were infinite. Pierce saw a thousand different anomalies and variables, and not all of them were in the deep black. However, the chances were remote that any harm would come to them from out there. Statistically, with all the thorough protocols and redundancies, they were more likely to die in a fire or earthquake on New Earth. They were safe here.
The only dangers that concerned him were within the Atlas' hull.
Arlo and Evans looked up to Pierce looming on his platform; he did not see the impatience they clearly bore. He saw dependence.
He thought about the Atlas and its civilian crew. He never considered himself a civilian. He wasn't delusional. He was cognizant he had left the military years ago, and he presumed he accepted the command of the Atlas as a form of retirement, graceful or not. He presumed Stellan had joined him on this ship for similar reasons, though Stellan's reasons were probably more for seeking escape, as he still had so much life left to live. They all did.
He had faith in Stellan. He had faith in himself. Trust. He knew they could handle any challenge they would encounter, and he knew they'd all come home, one last triumph from the greatest beyond from which any man could ever return.
He took an oath to himself then, and it transcended every oath he'd ever taken. He'd sworn to uphold peace and order once. He'd sworn to serve humanity as captain of the Atlas. He'd maintain both of those oaths, but above all else, he'd do what was necessary if the time came. He would accept the consequences and never look back. If that meant defying the Council's agent, so be it; necessity was the only justification he needed.
"Captain?" Arlo said.
"All right, then. That's it," Pierce said. Standing straight, he took a deep breath, his wide chest billowing like a balloon. "Start the countdown."
Arlo's voice boomed throughout the ship as he announced the Atlas would jump and counted down from ten. The pulse of the light drive grew. The sound changed in volume and intensity but not pitch. The pitch never changed, and Pierce considered that was the reason it was so maddening. It echoed a perfectly constant frequency, like being tied down while water drops tapped your forehead. It was impossible to escape.
"Seven, six, five..."
A steady stream of something in the air flowed over them. It might have been static electricity, but their hair didn't stand on end. It might have been like the sudden magnetic tightening of the deck when the tram arrived at the platform, but there were no knocks of the stabilizing paddles. All sound became distant. The bridge expanded, as did the distance between each of them.
"Three, two, one…"
They all knew these effects were no trick of perception. The light drive warped space around them. It would draw their destination closer while pushing their point of origin farther behind them. It was how they were able to travel faster than light.
"Zero."
"Mark," Pierce said.
Arlo pressed a window on his workstation. The light drive silenced. They could only hear themselves breathe. Then everything inside the hull of the Atlas snapped back into place, returning to normal, even the mechanical rise and fall of the light drive.
The Atlas trembled and then streaked across the stars faster than light, disappearing into the great expanse of the deep, dark black.
Chapter 2: Black Madness
One
If anything about spying on Agent Skinner surprised Stellan, it was that it didn't feel good. He'd expected it to feel justified, like he was serving some kind of poetic justice by spying on someone who professionally invaded others' privacy. She deserved deceit and mistrust, but something about playing such cloak-and-dagger games didn't feel right. It felt like cheating. He knew she wielded lies and deceit with grace, like delicate fingers that gently pushed the chins of onlookers to direct their gaze, and those tools felt fore
ign to him. They felt wrong in his hands, like they'd been made for someone else.
If there was anything that didn't surprise Stellan, it was that she wasn't at the bar where she said she would be, and it concerned him that perhaps he had done precisely what she wanted and was looking in the wrong direction.
"Where are you?" Stellan said with his eyes above the crowd, the din of vagrant voices stealing his words from his own ears.
He weaved between patrons, the body heat pooling in the air like a haze. A stereo played old rock tunes in the corner. Laughter sprouted like gunfire in a war zone. He felt out of place.
Every wandering elbow that stabbed his chest and every stumbling crewmember he caught made him wonder why they congregated here. Having the bar on the ship was a risk. They risked speaking regretful words with fleeting tongues. They risked poor performances on the job. They risked accidents that could cost lives.
Stellan couldn't afford these risks himself, but he supposed it felt nice to let go. He supposed it was the spirit of why they were on the Atlas in the first place. They just wanted to get away. And he remembered what Pierce had said; maybe he just wanted to know he still could risk something. Maybe risk was what made them feel alive.
Leaning over the bar and scanning for the agent's face, he recognized everyone with the lighthearted expression of release, an extra curl at the corner of their mouths, wide eyes wired with energy and excitement. They were sensations he thought Skinner would be incapable of feeling.
Behind the bar, a small holoterminal displayed the news feed from New Earth. Shelly Sheltonson's unwavering stare informed them a political representative for a district in Eastern Europe won his re-election, a nail-biter right down to the end, and Stellan knew it simply had gone according to plan. The Council passed a bill that would improve public transportation services. Of course, Shelly failed to mention the tax increase that would pay for it. Global law enforcement brought to justice a man accused of stealing what they appraised to be a fortune in copyrighted digital property. Their tax dollars at work. All was well in the Council's land. There was no more about the ongoing fighting, and everyone could rest easy tonight.
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