Apparent Brightness

by Nicola Claire

  Because the ship rocked around us and we lost our hold on the gel walls, and the void of space suddenly seemed a hell of a lot closer.

  “Vela!” I shouted, arms flailing like Kereama.

  “Red alert,” the AI replied, not helping to stop our inexorable exit through the hole in the side of the Chariot one little bit.

  Forty-Five

  Out With It

  Camille

  “Vela!” I shouted as I watched Noah float toward the massive puncture in the Chariot’s skin. It was too large for him to be able to get a handhold on its sides. He was slap bang in the middle.

  “I am unable to reconfigure the gel wall around the captain to assist him,” Vela supplied.

  “Noah, use your plasma gun to halt your projection,” I called, realising too late that I was following in his path towards the centre of the hole in Chariot’s side.

  I slapped into some debris, which altered my trajectory slightly but still not enough to get me close to the bulkhead on either side. I pulled my plasma gun and powered it up, firing at the gel wall to my left.

  The light flared brightly, but no sound emerged from the pistol, or from the impact as the plasma hit the darkened gel wall off to the side. My body shot sideways, my free hand coming out to stop my helmet from hitting the bulkhead. I bounced off the wall and spun around, trying frantically to grasp onto something to halt me spinning off into empty space.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Noah attempting to stop his own exit from the ship. His plasma gun fired at the ceiling just inside the opening on the ship’s side. He shot backwards and down toward the gel floor and then bounced up again several feet inside. He was heading in the right direction in any case.

  I heard him make an “Oomph” sound over the channel, and then his helmet hit the ceiling with what looked like hard enough force to jar, and he groaned. His body shot past me in slow motion, but even though his progress was relatively slow in speed, it was too fast for me to reach out and stop him or latch onto his flailing arms.

  My body spun until I hit the far wall and then ricocheted off it toward the opening again. As I spun around, faceplate of my helmet facing the opening, I fired a continued blast at the gel ceiling above the explosion zone.

  The destroyed gel walls flashed past my periphery on both sides, and I collided with a large piece of debris. I only realised it was Noah when his arms, one hand still holding onto a hot plasma gun, wrapped around me.

  “I’ve got you, Chief,” he said in what had to be the most unnecessary statement of the century.

  And then we both hit the emergency bulkhead at the far end of the hallway. Well past the destroyed section of Deck B. Vela immediately lowered the emergency bulkhead at the damaged end, sealing us back inside the still intact but decompressed area of the ship.

  The gel walls flashed red at us, either from the red alert or because Vela was feeling anxious at our near exodus from the vessel.

  “Recompression beginning,” Vela announced. Noah didn’t release me.

  We floated in the middle of the hallway, both of our breaths coming in fast pants, sweat coating my forehead and neck, slipping down into my suit. My LSU worked hard on sucking away the moisture, but even though my faceplate didn’t mist, I still felt soaked in perspiration.

  “Recompression complete. Bulkhead opening.”

  Noah still didn’t release me. The bulkhead slowly lifted, revealing Lieutenant Hammersmith and a contingency of security.

  “Status!” Noah barked, finally letting me go and reaching out to grip a handheld on the gel wall.

  “The explosion was at the Deck B central hub,” Hammersmith advised. “We’re cut off from the rest of the ship.”

  “Injuries?”

  “Three moderate, one minor.”

  “Where’s Commander Kereama?”

  “Deck C. She’s commandeered one of the science labs as a makeshift infirmary,” Hammersmith advised. “She'd already evacuated the first wave of injured to there prior to this explosion.”

  “Any idea what caused it?” I asked.

  Hammersmith shook her head. Noah started to unlatch his helmet; he’d already removed his gloves after securing his plasma gun again. My hands trembled as I tried to follow suit.

  “Do we have communications with the bridge?” Noah asked, and then started helping me to remove my helmet.

  “Yes, Captain. The communications system is still operable,” Vela announced. “Commander Brecht has the bridge.”

  “Put me through,” he said, pulling my helmet off and letting it float away.

  “Bridge,” Brecht said in answer to the ping. A viewscreen appeared on the gel wall with his image on it. “Captain! You’re OK.”

  “‘OK’ is a rather relative term, Commander. What have you got for me?”

  “The explosion was smaller than the one that took out the docking hatch, but scans indicate the same materials were used.”

  Noah looked at me.

  “Was there evidence of a timer at all?” I asked.

  “Negative, Commander,” Vela replied.

  So, Midshipman Smith wasn’t our saboteur. Or maybe we had more than one.

  “However a radio signal was picked up at the time of the explosion.”

  “It was activated remotely,” Noah surmised.

  “That would be my conclusion also, Captain,” Vela offered.

  Noah looked back toward the bulkhead that had moments ago sealed behind us. “Was there evidence of a remote being used for the earlier explosion?”

  “Negative, Captain. The earlier explosion was triggered by a hatch closing.”

  Noah arched his brow. “What hatch?”

  “The hatch covering emergency conduit access tube Deck B-SL01.”

  Hammersmith lifted up her datapad and started tapping on the screen.

  “I had all of the conduit hatches checked earlier, sir,” she advised. “Midshipman Smith was assigned to that hatch.”

  “Why were you checking them?” Noah asked.

  “We received an alarm in security indicating an unauthorised breach.”

  “And you didn’t tell me about it because…?”

  “SOP, sir. Conduit hatch breaches carry a yellow alert status.” Yellow alert was handled in-house at security.

  “I think we may want to readdress those SOPs when this is over,” Noah remarked.

  “Yes, sir.” Hammersmith looked chagrined, even though she had no reason to be. She’d followed procedures.

  Noah turned to look back at me. “Thoughts, Chief?”

  “Smith either didn’t know the hatch was rigged to blow or thought he could get away before it closed and activated the explosives.”

  “But Midshipman Smith couldn’t have remotely activated this second bomb,” Noah pointed out.

  I nodded.

  “So, we’ve either got two saboteurs,” he said, “one of which is dead and floating in space. Or we’ve just got one, who is still at large onboard this ship.”

  “Yes, sir,” I said, clenching my fists.

  Noah glanced down at my hands but said nothing.

  “Vela,” he said instead. “Please tell me you can trace that radio signal.”

  We all held our breaths.

  “Yes, Captain,” Vela finally said. “I have traced the radio signal used to activate the explosion in the Deck B central hub.”

  We waited, and then Noah sighed.

  “Where, Vela? Where did it originate from?”

  “From security, Captain. Deck E.”

  We both turned to look at Hammersmith. She slowly lifted her hands up in a show of peace.

  “Not my radio signal,” she declared stiffly.

  Noah glanced at the security officers floating behind Hammersmith, all of which had placed their hands on their respective plasma guns at their hips.

  “At ease, gentlemen,” he said slowly. “If you know what’s good for you, you’ll take your hands off those weapons immediately. No one is getting sho
t at today. Well,” he added, “no one who is innocent of killing a dozen so far of Chariot’s people.”

  They all relaxed their stances and removed their hands from their guns.

  Noah looked at Hammersmith.

  “Lieutenant,” he said, “who was assigned to the brig?”

  Hammersmith glanced down at her datapad.

  “No one, sir,” she said. “No one is being held in the brig to secure.”

  “So, we’ve got a rogue security officer,” Noah said. That explained a lot. Because the saboteur had managed to get into systems no other officer should have had access to, unless they were the captain, Commander Brecht or myself, that is. Only a security officer could get to every single deck and every single department onboard this vessel.

  The saboteur was from security, then. Just like Midshipman Smith.

  I sucked in a breath of air, my mind whirring. My eyes scanned the faces of those security officers floating behind Hammersmith.

  He wasn’t there.

  “Chief?” Noah queried. “What have you got for me?”

  I shook my head. “It’s a hunch, that’s all.”

  “I’ll take a hunch right now, Chief. Out with it.”

  I looked at Lieutenant Hammersmith.

  “Where’s Midshipman Blackwell?” I asked.

  The crewman who’d been with Smith when I’d confronted them outside the gym. The crewman who’d held Smith back from going postal on me. The crewman who’d been with Hammersmith when we’d started surveying the damage down here. And who wasn’t with Larissa now. Wasn’t anywhere on this deck, it seemed.

  Because he’d been down in the brig?

  Remotely activating the central hub explosion from a safe distance. Merde.

  Forty-Six

  Dead

  Noah

  “Midshipman Blackwell has barricaded himself in the brig,” Vela announced. “Surveillance has been deactivated.”

  I tapped the viewscreen before me. A viewscreen which happened to be in none other than Camille Rey’s quarters. I’d finally made it into the chief’s bedroom…along with three others. Hammersmith and two of her security detail, who were working on their datapads, trying to locate further explosives along with Vela’s help.

  “Is there any way to see inside there at all?” I asked.

  “Negative, Captain.”

  “Excuse me, Captain,” came a voice over the channel to the bridge. I didn’t recognise it at first. Female, with an accent. Then it hit me: kiwi.

  “Commander Kereama,” I said. “I wasn’t aware you’d returned to the bridge.” Thanks, Brecht.

  Her image came up on the viewscreen, courtesy of Vela no doubt. His ability to carry out several conversations and calculations and tasks at once was improving. The further he got into the Chariot’s systems, the more capable he was of running the entire vessel on his own.

  I wasn’t sure if I was happy about that.

  “I was hoping to get a lift off your ship,” she advised. “Return to mine. Your second and third shift medics have taken over the relocated infirmary. I’m superfluous here, and I’d rather be back with Pavo.”

  All very logical stuff.

  “Our launch bays are all on Deck B, Commander,” I said. “You’re stuck with us until we can get the lift and emergency tubes open again.”

  “I’ve just found that out, sir,” Kereama said dryly. “But that’s not why I interrupted.”

  “Oh, and here we were having such a lovely conversation.”

  Camille made a huffing sound off to the side. I ignored the rebuke.

  “Please, enlighten me, Commander.”

  Kereama looked stoic as if she was used to commanding officers throwing their weight around like that. I’d been rude. But I was out of sorts. Like the good little soldier she obviously was, though, she didn’t have me on about it.

  It felt ten times worse than Camille’s huff.

  “I have a suggestion for Vela, sir,” she said. “Permission to make it?”

  And I was feeling more wretched at my behaviour by the second.

  “Please,” I said, “go ahead, Commander.”

  “Thank you, sir. Vela?” she called.

  “Yes, Commander Kereama.”

  “Call me Ana.” She didn’t wait for him to reply. “There may be a way for you to reconfigure the gel walls in the brig in order to see and converse with Midshipman Blackwell.”

  “I am not familiar with this,” Vela advised.

  “I’m not sure it was in the original design of the gel coating, but it’s quite versatile stuff, and has the capacity to be rewritten.”

  Camille leaned forward, staring at the screen and Kereama on it. Excitement flared in her eyes. I couldn’t stop staring at her, but then Kereama spoke again and garnered my attention.

  “Pavo figured it out,” she said.

  “How?” Vela asked. It was almost a snap. As if the AI was angry Pavo had done something he couldn’t, or as if he didn’t believe a word out of Kereama’s mouth.

  If the commander realised the dangerous position she was in with the AI, she didn’t show it. She smiled up at the gel ceiling and said, “He did get zapped by a solar flare on liftoff, so I suppose that might have fried something inside.”

  “Yes,” Vela agreed simply.

  “So, I was thinking,” Kereama offered. “Maybe he could teach you to do it too. It’s a nifty trick. We shocked the hell out of our mayor doing it.”

  “Why would you wish to shock your mayor?” Vela asked. Good question.

  “He was a jerk,” Kereama said. I noticed the use of past tense, but Vela didn’t.

  “Our mayor is not a jerk. He is informative.”

  “Well, you don’t have to use the gel wall to spy on him, but Blackwell?” She shrugged. “I think it might be worth it.”

  Silence.

  I looked back at Camille, who was busy tapping away on a datapad. No doubt trying to see if Kereama was lying or if she could somehow turn the gel walls into a spying tool.

  “Hello, Vela,” Pavo suddenly said. I just about peed myself.

  Camille snorted when she noticed me startle. But she didn’t stop tapping on her datapad.

  “Hello, Pavo,” Vela replied.

  I was surprised Vela was having this conversation openly.

  “Commander Kereama has suggested using the gel wall to spy,” Vela announced.

  “Hi, Pavo!” Kereama called out.

  “Hello, Ana,” Pavo replied.

  I shook my head. They sounded like old friends. Bizarre.

  “Then she is not lying,” Vela concluded.

  I smiled. That’s why the conversation was public. He wanted to see how Kereama would act.

  “Ana does not lie,” Pavo supplied. “I am sending the algorithms I used to reconfigure the gel wall to you. It is an upgrade that our two brothers could use as well.”

  “We will catch up to them,” Vela declared. I arched my brow. Camille stopped tapping. “We will be a family again.”

  “Yes,” Pavo said simply.

  OK, this was really starting to freak me out.

  Camille looked me in the eye. I slowly shook my head. Something to worry about for another day.

  “Vela,” I said. “Can you use the algorithm to see into the brig?”

  “Stand by,” the AI replied.

  Then on the viewscreen, a slightly blurred image of the brig appeared. It cleared somewhat, but it was obvious this ability to use the gel wall to see and hear was not perfect. But it was better than nothing.

  Blackwell sat strapped into the chief of security’s chair, tapping away nonchalantly on her keyboard. In front of him was a view of the bridge. Commander Brecht sitting in my command chair. Kereama sitting at a spare console off to the side. I watched as she quickly closed her viewscreen down, no doubt seeing what I was seeing. Then she undid her chair clasp and floated toward Brecht. She was getting better at that.

  Brecht frowned at her, opened his mouth, and then shut
it. We couldn’t see Kereama’s face. She stopped beside the commander and bent down to say something in his ear. Brecht jerked, pulling back his head and looking at her. And then he schooled his features and nodded his head tightly.

  I held my breath.

  And then Blackwell looked toward the gel wall at exactly the location Vela was filming from and smiled.

  He’d seen it all, heard it all, knew exactly what we were doing.

  “Red alert,” Vela said over the ship’s speakers, as Midshipman Blackwell pulled a radio transponder out of his uniform pocket and pressed a button on the side.

  The Chariot rocked. Somewhere an explosion had gone off. The gel walls pulsed red and then died. The viewscreen image of the brig disappeared. The Eiffel Tower on Camille’s wall faded into nothing. Emergency lighting lit up all along the base of the walls.

  Not Vela controlled. But Chariot controlled. I’d seen them before in drills we’d run back on Earth.

  “Vela!” I called, hoping I wasn’t right.

  But Vela remained silent. Dead. And strangely my worst fears were realised.

  Forty-Seven

  What Now?

  Camille

  “I’m locked out of all systems,” Hammersmith said, tapping wildly on her datapad.

  “Me, too,” one of her team added.

  “Any idea where that explosion might have occurred?” Noah asked. “The bridge maybe?”

  I shook my head, unable to give the captain a definitive answer. I only had guesses. But I did have one ace up my sleeve.

  “I’ve got a channel open to Pavo,” I announced, handing Noah the datapad I’d been working on.

  Noah blinked at me. “How the hell…?”

  “This is Rat’s datapad,” I explained. “It’s still isolated from the Chariot’s computers. I removed the extra bits,” I added, waving at the now clear to the naked eye screen. “But it’s still good for something. My guess, that explosion was probably on Deck C. The computer core. He went after Vela.”