Apparent Brightness

by Nicola Claire

“Damn,” Noah said. He accepted the datapad and shook his head at me. “Good work, Chief,” he said softly, glancing down at the open communiqué with Pavo. “Now what?”

  “We ask for his help,” I said, reaching into my locker and pulling out various tools that I thought we might need. I attached a hammer and a laser cutter to one side of my belt, and a mini-toolkit to the other. Then as a last thought, I added duct tape. Duct tape was excellent equipment to have in space.

  Noah huffed out a laugh and then started tapping the datapad screen.

  “Pavo confirms it was Deck C,” Noah announced. “The computer core as you said, Chief. He’s trying to locate Vela now.”

  I smiled grimly. I hadn’t wanted to be right, but the guess worked. Vela being offline could only mean one thing. It was better than the bridge, but I thought they might be next.

  “Has Blackwell been to the bridge recently?” I asked Hammersmith.

  She glanced down at her datapad and then sighed. “I can’t be sure he hasn’t from memory,” she said. “And I can’t access his assignments. He might have been assigned to guard it at some stage; we’ve been on at least yellow alert for days, and I’ve been rotating shifts up there.”

  “Not good,” Noah said. Everyone agreed silently.

  “But for now, he’s down on Deck E,” I pointed out, checking all my fastenings and reaching over for my LSU helmet where it was secured against the gel wall. I had to force it loose, Vela not being able to help me. But it appeared unharmed. I donned it.

  Noah floated before me with his hands on his hips, a scowl on his face.

  “And we’re stuck on Deck B,” he said. “The central hub lifts and emergency tubes destroyed in that second blast. He’s effectively cut us off from everything, Chief.”

  I tapped the laser cutter attached to my belt. “But he didn’t count on me,” I said, gleefully.

  Noah snorted. “Bloody hell,” he said, reaching for his own helmet. “Lead on then, Chief. I’ll follow you anywhere.”

  Hammersmith and her two security guys suited up in their own quarters and then met us in the destroyed central hub. Blood splattered the dark gel wall in one spot. Scorch marks fanned out from the lift doors like charred fingers reaching. The emergency tubes off to the side were in bad shape, but not as bad as the lifts. Blackwell had concentrated his explosives there with the tubes as a hopeful byproduct. He’d got lucky.

  Whoever’s blood that was hadn’t.

  I clenched my fists, feeling the LSU’s gloves dig into the skin.

  “Everyone ready?” I asked, still staring into the mangled remains of the tube.

  “How the hell are we going to get past that?” Noah demanded.

  “Brute strength and a hell of a lot of pissed-off-ness.”

  “That’s not a word, Chief,” he murmured.

  “It is now.”

  I attacked the opening to the tube with vigour. Hammersmith’s guys dug in with me, careful to not rip their LSUs in the process. Hammersmith hung back with the captain talking softly, but I could still hear them in-between the wrench of metal and our grunting.

  Frustration wanted to make me go faster. I forced myself to handle each piece of sharp metal with care. When I couldn’t get a good handhold without damaging my suit, I pulled out the laser cutter and worked to burn the offending piece of the Chariot to nothing. It was slow going, but ten minutes later, we were all inside the tube and heading down a deck.

  “What can you tell me about this Midshipman?” the captain asked Hammersmith behind me.

  “He’s a good worker,” she said and then scoffed. “He was a good worker. Never rubbed anyone up the wrong way. In fact, he was always the peacemaker.”

  “Unlike Smith,” I offered, burning away another section of debris.

  “Yes,” Hammersmith agreed. “Midshipman Smith was a hot head. A pay-for-passage with military experience. I signed him up a few days before we launched.”

  “Was Blackwell a pay-for-passage?” Noah asked. It would explain why a psychopath hellbent on destroying the ship he was on had made it past the ESA psyche tests.

  “No, he wasn’t,” Hammersmith said. “But he wasn’t ESA crew either. I signed him up when Smith suggested him. They seemed to have become fast friends outside of work hours, but I don’t know how or why. Smith was quartered on Deck H with the pay-for-passages. Blackwell was on Deck G in the 2nd and 3rd tier berths.”

  “He was a paid passenger?” Noah enquired. “Why the hell did he want a job in security?”

  Hammersmith looked devastated at having facilitated that.

  “He said he was bored,” she explained, voice subdued. “Said he was used to pulling his own weight. His passage had been paid for by his father, he said. Someone he’d left behind. I gathered his father could only afford one berth and he gave it up to his son; to Midshipman Blackwell. Paul, that’s Blackwell’s Christian name, wanted to prove himself worthy of his father’s sacrifice. Those were his words, actually, if I remember rightly. He said, ‘I have to prove myself or my father’s sacrifice will be for nothing.’”

  “How noble,” Noah said, dryly.

  “I’m sorry, Captain,” Hammersmith said. “If I’d known… But we were on yellow alert almost from the start, and I needed the extra men. He had martial training. Civilian martial training, but none the less, it was something I could work with.”

  Noah sighed. “It’s OK, Lieutenant. There’s no point beating ourselves up about it now.”

  Hammersmith said nothing, but I could practically hear her guilt from where I was slowly making progress toward Deck C.

  “If he wasn’t in security,” I said, tugging on a particularly belligerent section of the tube, “before we took off, then he couldn’t have tampered with the engineering console that killed Daniels.”

  Silence.

  “Perhaps that was Smith,” Hammersmith finally said quietly.

  “So, they were working together?” Noah asked.

  “Or Blackwell singled him out even before we took off and somehow duped him into doing something to that console,” I suggested. “It was poorly done. Good enough to cause an explosion, but not quite as precise as the launch bay, docking hatch, or the central hub bombs. Not to mention the multitude of smaller malfunctions we’ve experienced, which I’m inclined to believe were not all due to Vela stowing away onboard.”

  “I agree with that last sentiment, Chief,” Noah said. “But we cannot know for certain whether your first conclusion is correct or not. Not without confronting Blackwell and asking him, that is. Smith is dead as you all know. Whether by chance or incompetence, I can’t be sure. So, that just leaves Blackwell. And I intend to ask him what the fuck he’s up to as soon as I can.”

  “Well,” I said, pulling the last obstacle out of the way and burning it to dust. “You might get that chance, Captain.”

  I slipped out of the tube onto the Deck C central hub.

  “We’re not quite at the brig yet, but we’re getting there,” I offered, as Noah and Hammersmith followed. The two security officers at their heels.

  “Well done, Chief,” Noah said, slapping me on the shoulder. “Well done, indeed.”

  I smiled at his over-the-top complimenting style.

  And then the Chariot let out a groan and a shudder, and the dark gel floor at our feet rocked.

  “What now?” Noah growled, tapping the datapad he’d brought with him. His hand stilled in the air above the screen for a long moment and then his eyes came up to my face. He looked bleak.

  “The bridge?” I said, feeling desperate now.

  But not as desperate as I did when Noah finally answered.

  “Engineering, Chief,” he said softly. “He’s taken out the main boost thrust.”

  I turned away from all the concerned and wary faces watching me and screamed every swearword I knew in my native tongue.

  Forty-Eight

  Aye-aye, Captain!

  Noah

  We were screwed. He was systematically
taking us offline. Destroying us piece by little piece. And there was nothing I could do about it. Camille was desolate. Pavo had advised we’d lost four good crewmen in engineering. One of them was Midshipman Russo. Camille’s Rat.

  Have you located Vela yet? I typed into the datapad.

  negative, captain

  but i can confirm midshipman blackwell is still in the brig

  Fat lot of good that would do us. He had his radio transponder and was prepared to use it willingly.

  Can you block his radio frequency?

  i am searching for it now, but it is scrambled

  he expected such an attack from vela

  Before he’d managed to screw Vela over as well.

  Have the bridge crew found his explosives up there?

  affirmative

  the explosives has been dismantled

  That was at least something. He couldn’t get to the bridge now.

  Have them double check he didn’t have a backup, I wrote.

  they have been advised to perform a manual sweep again

  the mayor’s offices have also been cleared

  Because the mayor didn’t fly the ship, so he hadn’t been targeted. We had. Because we were vital to the Chariot’s operation. And so had engineering and the core computer been to the success of that endeavour. Blackwell had already hit us hard; the rest was just him tidying up the stragglers and picking the ship apart bit by bit.

  Have you been able to contact him? I wrote.

  he is ignoring all hails through the gel wall

  and i must be careful how far i integrate myself within your systems

  i cannot afford to be damaged further

  I sighed. He was right. If we lost Pavo too, it would be disastrous.

  I looked around at the officers we’d managed to gather. Camille was off to the side, stewing. Mourning. Hammersmith was giving a debrief to those extra security we’d picked up on this deck. They were all waiting for me to give the order to move out.

  But we’d needed a moment. A breather. A second to think. To assimilate what was happening. And I’d needed to touch base with Pavo.

  The Anderson Universal AI had helped us tremendously, but it was obvious what we were facing here.

  Pavo, I typed. Move back. Take the fleet with you. Take our fleet with you, I corrected. He’s already tried to take you out as well. He plans to stop the fleet anyway he can. Don’t let him get to you too. You’re the last hope Sector One and Two have.

  I lowered the datapad, feeling sick to my stomach. Feeling angry and hurt and not just a little wild. How dare this midshipman do this. Why did he do this? There had to be a reason, a motivator. Something that made killing himself and ten thousand others worth it.

  He was a 2nd or 3rd tier paid passenger. He’d bypassed psyche tests to gain access to security. This had to have been planned. He had explosives that hadn’t been picked up by our onboard computer. But that wasn’t saying much. Vela’s arrival had thrown our systems out of whack. They could have been overlooked.

  He’d been overlooked. But Midshipman Smith had spoken for him. Why? What did they have in common?

  The datapad buzzed. I lifted it up and stared at the screen. There’d been several messages from Pavo. No, not just from Pavo, I realised. From Jameson as well.

  i do not wish to leave

  i want to help my brother

  are you there, captain?

  i want to help my brother

  noah!

  reply!

  this is jameson

  if you think i’m leaving my commander on your doomed vessel, you’re mad!

  i don’t leave my crewmen behind

  and i won’t leave you either

  I shook my head in dismay.

  You’re the one who’s mad, I wrote. Leave before he blows you apart as well.

  fuck you

  we’re staying

  Idiot.

  Camille appeared at my shoulder. I hadn’t heard her approach. But when you simply float through zero-g space, you don’t need to make much noise. She glanced down at the screen and snorted.

  “It’s Kereama he wants back, not us,” she said.

  “I don’t care what his reasons are,” I offered. “I’m just glad he’s not given up on us yet.” I sighed. “But I am worried. Blackwell wants to stop us from getting to New Earth, that much is obvious. And he took the opportunity to try to stop their vessel as well when it docked. They’re no safer than us.”

  “But they do have Pavo; even if he’s malfunctioning,” Camille said.

  “Yeah,” I offered, strangely missing our malfunctioning AI right about now.

  “Let them help, Noah,” she said softly. “They know what they have to do to end this. And so do we.”

  I nodded my head and lifted the datapad up again.

  Find Vela, I wrote. Leave Blackwell to us.

  agreed

  I gathered that was Pavo replying, but then it could have just as easily been Jameson. He could be curt when he wanted to, too.

  “He’s in the brig,” I said, loud enough for everyone to hear. “We’ve lost engineering and Vela’s out for the count. But we’re not without options. Secondary engineering is on Deck E, the same deck the brig is. We head there. The chief will take a contingency of you to secondary engineering and get us back in control of this ship. The rest of you are with me. The bridge is safe for now,” I added. “This is in no way over. Pavo will find Vela, and together we’ll catch this son of a bitch. And get this ship heading towards New Earth once and for all.”

  I paused. Everyone hung suspended in the air before me.

  “Are we doing this, crew?”

  “Aye-aye, Captain!” they all said as one.

  “Then let’s hit the armoury on Deck E first and come at the brig from several directions. I want this wrapped up in time for dinner. There’s an MRE with my name on it.”

  Several of the crew laughed. Some grimaced. If we managed to get this bastard, there’d be a long period of rebuilding afterwards. Starting at the officers’ mess galley.

  New Earth felt farther and farther away with every heartbeat.

  Forty-Nine

  We Need You

  Camille

  Deck E was booby trapped. Somehow Blackwell had managed to clear the deck of crew, which was a relief in itself. But once he’d done that, he’d laid traps. We’d almost triggered one as soon as we’d arrived. If it hadn’t have been for the fact that I’d climbed through one too many of these emergency tubes recently and knew them inside out, I would have missed the signs.

  He’d even booby-trapped the hatch.

  I floated on my stomach in the centre of the tube and stared at the wires barely visible from this side.

  “If I open the hatch, it’ll blow,” I told the captain.

  “Can you cut the wires or something?” he asked.

  “Sure,” I replied dryly. “Should I start with the red one or the black one? Oh, wait, they’re all blue. Those movies are a complete lie.”

  “Sarcasm does not become you, Chief.”

  I sighed. “My apologies, Captain. I’m feeling…frustrated.”

  “We all are, Camille,” he said softly.

  I closed my eyes. “Give me a few seconds to see where the wires go.”

  “Take your time.” I thought, perhaps, ‘take your time’ was a euphemism for something entirely different, but I tried to ignore the mental clock ticking away inside my head and started wriggling the wires free. But not completely free. I just needed to know where they went.

  But no matter what I did, I couldn’t see past the hatch to what they were attached to.

  “Can I have your datapad, sir?” I asked, reaching a hand back.

  I felt him place the pad in my fingers and brought the device forward, having to shift sideways to manage the manoeuvre. There wasn’t much space in here to do things. I fired up the isolated channel to Pavo and waited for him to reply. He was no doubt busy trying to find Vela and at the s
ame time not get caught by Blackwell.

  this is pavo

  This is the chief. We’re on Deck E. Any chance of a video feed of emergency access tube Beta-01-S?

  video feed has been cut to that deck

  i can supply a gel wall feed

  will that suffice?

  Yes. Then I thought I might as well try to keep relations with the Sector Two Fleet lead vessel in good order and added, Thank you.

  you do not need to thank me, chief

  this midshipman must be stopped at all costs

  his attempts to destroy the fleet are unacc…acc…acceptable

  Huh. There it was. Evidence of Pavo’s malfunction. I could only hope whatever he was doing within our blown to shreds computer core wasn’t exacerbating the problem for him. And for us.

  A malfunctioning AI with such an obvious tick could not be good for our longevity prospects, could it?

  And we were relying on him to get our AI back up and running. I shook my head. The mountain we faced seemed to be getting bigger all the time.

  A view of the hatch on Deck E came up on the datapad’s screen. It wasn’t crystal clear, like a camera feed, but it was pretty damn close. I wasn’t sure if Pavo was just better at it than Vela had been, or if he’d done something to the system already to improve his gel wall spying algorithm.

  And didn’t that thought make me happy?

  I bit my lip and focused in on the wires. A headache started to form behind my right eye. I blinked a few times and sucked in compressed air trying to make it dissipate. My hands started to shake. My neck and shoulders felt too tight.

  “Chief,” Noah said from behind me. “Everything all right?”

  “Fine,” I said, shaking my head to clear my vision.

  “It’s just that I think you might be hyperventilating. Or having a good time. I can’t tell which. Either way, might be best if you took a breather.” He laughed. It sounded strained. “Well, less of the heavy breathing side of a breather, but you get what I mean.”