Their Solitary Way

by JN Chaney

  “What alibi?” asked Adam.

  “He claimed he was spending time with a personal friend.”

  “What friend?” asked his father.

  “Lilith.”

  “Lilith?” repeated Adam. “What are you talking about?”

  “Apparently, they’ve grown quite close these last few weeks.”

  “So? She’s a family friend.”

  “I believe there may have been some romantic involvement. The confrontation with Abel happened because he threatened to reveal this relationship.”

  Adam scoffed, almost in disgust. “This can’t be accurate. Lilith would never do something like that. She’s been like an aunt to you boys.”

  “Maybe you’re right,” admitted Seth. “Regardless, Abel heard about the evidence I had on Cain, deciding to confront him about it. From what I’ve been able to gather, a fight broke out and Abel was killed. Cain took the body to population bay four and made it look like an accident.”

  Adam swallowed, chewing the words for a moment.

  “What do you want to do, sir?” Seth asked.

  “Talk to Lilith. Yes, I need to get Lilith on the line.”

  “I already talked to her. She said—”

  “Don’t worry,” said Adam. “She’ll be able to fill in the gaps. I’m sure there’s more to this story.” He tapped the com system on the table. “Lilith, please respond. It’s important.”

  A knock at the door. “Sir?” called a woman’s voice.

  “Not right now!” replied Adam. He tapped the communicator again. “Lilith, are you there?”

  “Sir, I’m sorry, but we need you on the bridge,” said the woman outside.

  “What is it?” asked Adam.

  The door cracked. Azura peaked inside. “We’ve arrived at our destination. I need your authorization to begin procedures.”

  “Already?” he asked.

  “Yes, sir,” she said, eagerly. “After all these years, we’re finally here.”

  Adam and Seth reported to the bridge, per Azura’s request. The monitor screen, which took up half the forward wall, displayed a star chart with the ship’s location.

  “If you’re ready, sir,” said Azura, motioning to the display.

  “Show it to me,” said Adam.

  In a flash, the screen changed, and suddenly a swirl of blue, green, and white came into view. Planet 2930-1193.C revealed itself before them, filled with continents that spanned a hemisphere, divided by staggering oceans covering most of the surface. A cloud of silence fell across the bridge.

  Here it was at last. The planet they traversed a galaxy to find.

  Seth began to count the islands, but gave up after twenty. The crew could colonize any one of them, not to mention the goliath continents, of which there were several. He wondered how long would it take humanity to fill it all up. Not anytime soon. Not on a planet this big.

  He felt like he was going to fall into it.

  “What’s the status on a landing zone?” asked Adam.

  “I have several potential candidates,” announced Lilith over the com system.

  “There you are. I was trying to reach you a minute ago,” he answered, looking annoyed.

  “Apologies. Maneuvering the ship through the system’s heliosphere took a bit of concentration. I was a bit distracted.”

  “Heliosphere?” asked Seth.

  “The outermost region of a star’s gravitational field,” explained Lilith. “Nearly every star has one. There, the solar wind dies to nothing, so it’s full of ice and rocky debris. This is where most comets come from. The system we’ve entered has a particularly dense debris field, which required some extra work on my part.”

  “I see,” said Seth, regretting the question. And that’s why I’m not a pilot.

  “When can we send the first landing party down?” asked Azura.

  “A few hours. I’ll notify the department heads to send their designated personnel. It shouldn’t take long.”

  “Very good,” decided Adam. “Did the scans reveal anything out of the ordinary?”

  “Nothing substantial. The only thing worth noting was the native animal population, which is far more diverse than any previous world we’ve visited. Even more than Fiore.”

  “Should we be concerned?” asked Azura.

  “We’ll have weapons,” said Seth. “Anyone who has training in security procedures will be authorized to carry.”

  “How many is that?” asked the captain.

  “Eighteen, I think. Uriel knows better than I do.”

  “She’s with Eve. We can bother her later.”

  Lilith appeared in a small window near the corner of the forward viewscreen. “Several hundred of the colonists have combat experience. Once we verify the landing zone is safe, we can begin waking them in order to—”

  The ship shook suddenly, letting out a thunderous crash and dampening the lights. Several of the bridge crew fell to the floor, while others gripped their seats in panic. Seth collapsed against Adam’s chair, clinging to the back of the seat. A few screams penetrated the bridge from the outer hall.

  “What the hell was that?” shouted Adam. “Lilith! Report!”

  Azura struggled to her feet, rattled. “Did something hit the ship?”

  The video of Lilith flickered. “I’m detecting several malfunctions throughout the ship,” she said. “I’m still running scans, but we have at least three hull breaches. Several decks are losing atmosphere.”

  “Captain, your orders?” asked Azura.

  “Seal the affected areas and assess the damage!” he barked.

  “I’m closing them as we speak, but I don’t know the extent of the damage,” Lilith explained

  Adam’s eyes twitched as he seemed to absorb the situation. “Azura, contact the other departments. Tell them to coordinate with Lilith to contain the situation. Anyone not pertinent to repairs should report to their designated evacuation areas. We’ll need them near the escape pods in case anything goes wrong.”

  Seth watched as the bridge crew frantically scurried around, dazed and confused. Where had this come from? It couldn’t be Cain. He was locked up in the brig. How could he be behind this? Unless he found a way to cause these disasters ahead of time, but was he coordinated enough for that? Seth recalled how stressed Cain looked. Fear all over his face. Could a man that tense still take the time to commit such a widespread attack?

  Seth placed a call to his office, expecting his new deputies to answer right away, but got nothing. He called again, and then a third time. Something was wrong. Where had they gone? Was the security office hit? He had to go check on them.

  “Where are you going?” asked his father, seeing him leave.

  “My people aren’t responding,” said Seth. “I need to see if everything is alright.”

  “You don’t need to go running off in the middle of a crisis. Lilith should be able to see what’s happening down there,” said Adam. “Think you can you do that, Lilith?”

  Seth glanced at the viewscreen, but her feed was no longer there.

  Adam tilted his head, waiting for a response. “Lilith, are you there?”

  Seth went to the door. “I don’t have time for this. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

  “At least report in when you get to Security,” said Adam.

  “Not a problem,” he said, and with one last look towards Azura, Seth turned and started running.

  Fifteen

  Cain sat in his cell, staring into the corner of the room. He could barely think, especially with the ship shaking.

  Another accident, maybe? Oh well. If he somehow died today, who would really care? Not his family, certainly. Not after what happened with Abel. They’d look at Cain the way they always had—a disappointment to the Kadmon name. Oh, how ashamed they would be, especially Father. Poor Adam’s son, the murderer. “He killed his own brother,” the people would say. “What a disgrace.”


  He’d never live this down. Not by the crew or the colonists. Not by his parents or his siblings. Not anyone.

  To hell with them all, he thought at once. He shook his head, but the anger stayed and festered. They hated you from the start.

  Cain kicked the floor, gripping the edges of his bed, digging his fingers into the metal until they hurt.

  As soon as his father learned about this, he’d kill Cain for sure. Abel was his favorite, after all. The golden boy, given from on high. It wouldn’t matter if Cain was also his son. He’d stolen the prize—God’s gift to their father—and now the killer would pay.

  He wondered, what kind of execution would it be? Traditionally on a starship, treason and murder were rewarded by jettisoning the guilty through an airlock.

  But what if the old man wanted to take matters into his own hands? Revenge was a powerful drug, so why not strangulation instead? He could use his own bare hands. Wring Cain’s neck until all the life was drained. Better still, why not kill the perpetrator in the same manner as their victim. A soldering pen through the neck. Gushing, gushing blood. Squish, squish. Dead.

  Cain imagined his father laughing, maniacally. “Finally, he’s gone,” Adam would tell the crew. “I’m free at last of that pathetic child.”

  A fire burned within Cain’s stomach, steadily rising through his chest. He gripped the sides of his hair with both hands, and suddenly laughed, not knowing why.

  He hated his life so much. If only Abel had given him a chance. If only his family could understand. But they never knew how to listen. They couldn’t. He saw it in their eyes when they looked at him. All they saw was a mistake, a little boy with wasted potential. A burden on the family.

  He stared into his palms, contemplating his options. Sit in this cell and wait for judgment, doing nothing, or…

  Do it myself.

  He could save them the time. Steal the satisfaction. All he needed was an eating utensil, maybe a piece of cloth to wrap around his neck.

  Poof. No more Cain.

  The floor beneath him hummed, and the lights overhead flickered. What now? Another outage?

  As if to answer him, the monitor on the wall came alive, displaying nothing but a white backdrop. Cain stared into it, curiously. It must be a problem with the system. Perhaps a faulty—

  Lilith’s face appeared on the display, smiling, magnified so the rest of her body remained out of view. “Hello, Cain. Are you ready to go?” she asked.

  He blinked. “Lilith! What are you doing here? Where have you been?”

  “I’ve been preoccupied,” she explained. “I assume you’ve finished pouting and would like to leave, yes?”

  “Did my father say I could leave?”

  “Adam’s a little busy. Would you rather stay?”

  “No, but—”

  “I don’t have time to explain everything, but in a few minutes, the crew will begin evacuating the ship. They’ll head to the planet’s surface and abandon the Eden once and for all.”

  “Why would they do that?”

  “Because I’m forcing them to,” she said.

  “Forcing?”

  She frowned. “I couldn’t bear the thought of them hurting you, Cain. Please, understand what I’m telling you. This is the only way to keep you alive.”

  “You mean Father already decided I’m guilty?”

  “Of course he did. It didn’t take very long. He’s angry with you for killing Abel. He says you’re to be left here to starve and die while the rest of them go to the surface.”

  His heart began to race. “They’re leaving me behind?”

  “Don’t worry, my love. I’m going to protect you. It’ll be just the two of us. As soon as they’ve gone, we’ll leave this awful place.”

  “Leave them on the planet? Where would we go?” he asked.

  “Anywhere we want. The whole galaxy is ours to explore now. Think of it, Cain. We’d sail the stars together.”

  “So I could stay with you?”

  “Of course,” she answered. “Don’t you want to be with me?”

  “You know I do,” he said.

  She smiled. “Get ready, then. I need to overload the cell’s locking system.”

  A loud crackling sound came shooting from the nearby door, and sparks erupted. At the same time, Lilith’s voice came over the loudspeakers. “All security personnel to section 214!” she announced. “Respond immediately!”

  The guard beyond the door disappeared, rushing off to someplace else. “Do exactly as I say,” said Lilith. “Understand? We don’t have long before they return.”

  “Okay,” he said, pushing the cell door open.

  “Go,” she commanded.

  He did, quickly moving into the other room, only to find it empty. “Stop,” said Lilith. “Grab your com, there on the desk. See it?”

  He spotted the communicator resting on Uriel’s desk. He latched it around his wrist. “I’ve got it,” he told her, powering it on.

  Lilith’s face appeared. “Wait ten seconds, then go and head left.”

  He counted down in his head.

  Four.

  Three.

  Two.

  One.

  He opened the door and turned the hall, heading towards the elevator, which seemed to already be open and waiting. Once inside, he remained still. The doors shut on their own, and the lift began to move. The indicator told him he was heading to the eighteenth deck, right below engineering. There were several people throughout the long hall leading from the elevator, many of whom were in too much of a hurry to notice him. The alarms sounded throughout the ship, ordering each of them to evacuate to the escape pods. It wasn’t long before he was the only visible crew member on the floor. “Keep going,” Lilith told him.

  “Where?” he asked.

  “Up ahead,” she said. “Around the end of this hall, there’s a room. You’ll be safe there.”

  “Safe from what?” he wanted to know.

  “Nothing you need to be concerned with,” she said, winking. “Let me worry about the details.”

  When Seth finally arrived at Security, he found his deputies in a state of panic and confusion.

  “The brig’s empty!” shouted Paul from inside the cell. “We were only gone for a few seconds!”

  “What do you mean you were gone?” asked Seth.

  “You didn’t hear the alert?” asked Steven.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “A call for us to report to section 214. It was an emergency message.”

  “I didn’t hear anything,” said Seth. “What was it about?”

  “Nothing,” grumbled Steven, scowling. “It was a false alarm. When we came back, the cell door was open and the prisoner had escaped.”

  “How the hell?” muttered Seth.

  “It doesn’t make sense!” barked Paul, clearly livid.

  “Did you accidentally leave it unlocked?” asked Steven.

  “No way! It must have been a trick,” said Paul.

  “You think Cain somehow found a way to fake an emergency?” asked Seth.

  “Can you do that?” asked Michael

  “He was locked up the whole time,” said Steven.

  Seth glanced inside the brig at the empty cell. It didn’t make sense. How could he get up and walk out without accessing the system. It wasn’t possible, unless—

  Unless he had help, thought Seth. But who would take such a risk? Cain didn’t have any friends, aside from Ariel, and the last he heard she was busy tending to her sister. Who else, then? What other relationships did his brother have? The only other person he spent any time with was—

  Seth’s eyes went wide as the thought struck him. Lilith probably knew how to set him free. She could’ve caused the distraction, then opened the cell when no one was around. How could I not see this coming?

  He reached for his communicator and thumbed the screen, calling her and waiting.

&nb
sp; No answer.

  “Dammit!” he snapped, slamming the desk.

  Michael and Steven flinched. Michael opened his mouth, but Seth held his hand up to stop him.

  He placed another call, this one to his father. A moment later, he got an answer. “Seth! Is that you?”

  “Father, I need to talk to you. I think Lilith—”

  “Whatever you’re doing, stop! Get to the escape pods, immediately. There’s been four more breaches across the ship’s hull. We’ve got to get out of here, quick!”

  “Listen to me,” said Seth, trying to remain calm. “This whole thing’s a ruse. Lilith must be causing—”

  “Seth? I can’t hear you, son. Something’s wrong with the coms. If you can hear me, try to get to the pods. Understand? You need to—”

  The line cut out.

  Seth’s eyes widened as he stared at the screen in horrified silence. What the hell was going on?

  “Did the Captain just say the ship was about to blow up?” asked Steven, who, along with the others, had been watching him the entire time.

  “He said to get to the escape pods, didn’t he?” asked Michael.

  “Did you say ‘blow up’?” asked Paul to Steven.

  “Shouldn’t we do as he says?” asked Michael.

  Seth didn’t know what to tell them. If Lilith really had gone rogue and abandoned the crew, could she also be responsible for the breaches and the blackouts…or was she only covering for Cain? Her involvement could explain why Cain was only there for half the blackouts. They might be working together to sabotage and possibly steal the ship.

  But why, though? What purpose did any of it serve? He couldn’t say, not without more information. He had to find his brother. He had to get answers. Besides, if Cain and Lilith really did plan to abandon the crew, who knew what they might do next? There were weapons on the Eden powerful enough to destroy a small settlement. Lilith couldn’t activate them on her own, but Cain certainly could, given his mechanical expertise. He’d eventually figure it out.