by Chris Kuhn
He was wrong. About a lot, probably, but certainly about this.
Other than Byers, the Captain, and maybe Chief Abeen, I was pretty sure that no one on the Pridemore had killed anyone before.
Maybe I was wrong. Maybe someone else had had a personal experience with killing and - had they been alive - could've provided me with some form of digestive aid. But there was no such person available.
I only knew one other man who'd killed before, and he wasn't around. Hadn't been around for years.
I was on my own. I had to work it out myself. But I don't have to do it now.
I was tired. Drugged. Preoccupied. I could just set the whole thing aside. It was a problem for later, a fun mental knot for future untangling.
Convenient.
I wanted to promise myself that it would never happen again - that this one act, performed under the most extenuating of circumstances - would not be repeated. But I couldn't do that. My brain wouldn't let me. I didn't know if I'd ever make it off the ship. If I did, it was a fair bet that there'd be some scars along the way. I didn't know what would happen, or what I might have to do.
No promises.
My brain was finally starting to quiet down now. My eyelids were sliding shut.
Dear bad guys, please don't be too damned clever while I sleep.
Personal Log 422: Men
*the sound of ice clinking as someone takes a drink*
So a man walked into a bar.
He was the only one wearing a suit, and possibly the only one there who owned one. The man had never been in the bar before, and he seldom went to bars at all. When he drank, he preferred to do so in his study.
But on this one night, the man hadn't wanted to drink in his study. He'd wanted to get away from his house and his belongings and as far from the familiar as possible. He'd wanted to escape the world that had turned on him, revealing a truth that he'd have preferred not to learn.
*belch*
But ignorance had not been possible.
The message had been delivered by a family friend, saying that his wife might have been among the victims of a Morning Star transport crash. The man had shaken his head at this message. He'd laughed and said it was bullshit, because his wife had been visiting friends in some sunny vacation spot. And then it dawned on the man that he hadn't heard from his wife for some time.
So the man had tried repeatedly to call her. He hadn't reached her, but he'd discovered that she wasn't with her friends at all - that she never had been. The man pulled up the newsfeed on the Morning Star crash. He'd reviewed the profiles of the victims. There'd been no mistaking it. Even though the newsfeed had gotten his wife's name wrong, the picture was unmistakably her. She had, in fact, been aboard the transport that had burned up over some shitty backwater planet.
The man's first emotion was grief. Devastation. Eventually, though, he'd started to experience something else.
Confusion.
What the hell had she even been doing there? Why hadn't she told him where she was going?
He wondered who might have the answers. His son wouldn't know. His son had left years ago and didn't keep in touch. The man wanted to speak with the one person who might know, the one person his wife might have confided in. But that person was his daughter, and his daughter wasn't there.
*ice clinking*
The man sent his daughter an urgent message asking her to come home. Then he'd sat on the couch. He'd done way too much thinking. He'd thought of conversations and behaviors and tiny signs. He'd though of the hundred awkward silences and odd expressions on his wife's face. From all of these thoughts, the analysis of his recent past, the man was forced to conclude that something had been off. Something had not been right. All of the signs had been there, but he - like so many others in his position - had been blind.
The man had sat on his couch until his daughter had finally come home.
He'd told her about the accident, and about her mother's death, and about the circumstances surrounding it. The girl had screamed and sobbed and buried her face in the couch. At first the man had comforted her. He'd hugged her. He'd told her they would get through it.
But eventually he'd had to ask.
Even though he'd known that it was the worst of all possible times, he'd asked her if she knew. She'd screamed at him and yelled and told him that she hadn't known, that she'd had no idea and that he was an asshole, a terrible asshole for asking her. She ran out of the house and he'd let her go. The man had mulled over his daughter's reaction and tried to decide if she'd been telling the truth. Her response had seemed genuine, but he'd lost faith in his ability to figure out if a woman was lying to him.
It hadn't made sense.
He couldn't believe that if his wife were leaving him - as evidence now suggested - that she'd not have mentioned this to their daughter. The two had been inseparable.
As the man had sat there, he'd become increasingly certain that his daughter had been lying.
So... the man had started to dig. He'd poured over their financial records. At first, nothing had seemed amiss. But there had been oddities, small amounts that didn't seem right.
...and he dug deeper.
He'd found masked transactions, transfers of money. This man couldn't see where the money had gone, but he'd understood the significance. And then he'd had another thought. He'd checked the rates at Morning Star Transport Services, the subsidiary that had operated the ship.
The amount of money that had gone missing was twice the cost of a ticket, and this had confirmed his earlier suspicions.
He went to his daughter's bedroom.
He couldn't recall the last time he'd been in that room, and he didn't know exactly what he was looking for. But he wasn't a stupid man, and he'd had experience with hiding things himself.
It hadn't taken him long to find the ticket.
With the ticket had been a note - a physical note written on paper. The words had made no sense, and the man had known it was some type of code. His wife, despite being an intelligent woman, hadn't had a background in mathematics or cryptography other spy stuff. More importantly, his wife had not been accustomed to hiding things, and the man knew that people who weren't accustomed to hiding things were generally not good at it. And so the man had typed the letter's contents into his computer and gotten to work.
It hadn't taken him long, and the results had enraged him.
He'd been angry at his wife, angry at his wife's friends, and angry at his daughter. His daughter, who had obviously known but had decided neither to share the information nor to prevent his wife from leaving. His daughter, who had insulted him for merely suggesting that she might have known of it.
The man stood up and walked around his house and looked at photos and trinkets and furniture. Then he'd moved to his study, where he had usually gone to think, and he'd looked at the walls. The walls had not helped. He'd seen the oil painting of his own wedding, the beautiful and expensive painting that his wife had convinced him to purchase so many years before. He'd seen his daughter's tiny footprints on a scrap of rice paper. He'd seen a photo of his son, the son that no longer kept in touch. He'd seen all of these things and more, and he'd been overcome by the intense desire to be anywhere but where he was.
So, after trashing the house he had made for his family, the man walked into a bar.
Shortly afterward, this man who was not known for either anger or drunkenness had become very drunk and angrier than he'd ever been. As he ordered more and more liquor, it became apparent to the other patrons that there was going to be a problem. The bartender - an older woman with a gentle manner - cut him off. She told him he could have no more liquor, and it didn't make him any happier.
He yelled at her, and in so doing he drew the attention of the heavy and muscular man smoking by the door.
The bouncer extinguished his cigarette and came up to do his job. As the angry man sat there, the bouncer looked at the bartender for confirmation, and she gave him the nod. The
bouncer nodded back, intent on doing what he was paid to do. The bouncer put his hand on the drunken man's arm. It wasn't a hostile move, but it caused the drunken man's hand to shake as he raised his glass. The glass tipped slightly, and the liquor splashed onto the man's suit.
That had been all it took.
The drunken man took a swing. The bouncer, having experienced a shitload of bar fights himself, would normally have seen this coming. But the drunken man- despite being loud and angry - was wearing an expensive suit and not moving or speaking in a way that the bouncer associated with danger. This was a mistake on the bouncer's part. He hadn't known that the drunken man had only recently purchased the suit, and that for many years the man had been a machinist and a dockworker. He hadn't known that the angry man grew up in a harsh world, a world not dissimilar from the bouncer's own.
So the bouncer had no idea what was coming.
The drunken man's fist impacted the bridge of the bouncer's nose, fracturing the cartilage. Stunned and now infuriated - both at the drunken man and himself - the bouncer hit back. He hit back hard. For the next twenty seconds, the two men pounded on each other, inflicting terrible injuries that - at least in the moment - they were unaware of.
The drunken man was not the better fighter. Even if he had been, his lack of sobriety would have put him at a disadvantage. He was, however, more willing to absorb punishment and less concerned with anything but the present moment.
And so less than a minute after the fight had started, the drunken man stood alone in the bar.
Alone except for the bouncer crumpled at his feet. The bouncer wasn't dead yet, but would be soon enough, and as the drunken man stood there, the minutes passed. He couldn't have said how many, but eventually he heard faint sirens in the distance. He knew what they were, and that they would soon become louder.
So he left the bar.
He ran as fast as he could, becoming aware of the extent of his new injuries. He had lost feeling in his left hand, and he didn't think all of the pieces were properly connected. He had difficulty breathing, and there was a sharp pain in his side. But the adrenaline had not worn off, and neither had his buzz, and so he moved pretty quick. He moved toward a destination that was - he'd later conclude - the last place he should have ever gone.
Home.
It was dark when he'd gotten there, and a heavy rain had started falling. He'd opened the door to his house and walked inside. His daughter, who'd been curled up on the couch with her white cat amidst the shattered living room, turned to look at him.
She stared at his face and he stared at hers.
He watched her process his drunkenness and bloodiness and the wetness of his clothes. He watched as she drew conclusions, as she realized what the sounds in the distance were about.
She ran and he chased her.
He chased her as she moved toward her bedroom, uncertain why he was chasing her or what he might do if he caught her. He was fairly certain that he didn't want to hurt her. Maybe he wanted to explain. Maybe he wanted to apologize, or to demand she tell him everything, every last detail of his wife's betrayal and death. He didn't know what he'd have done if he'd caught her, but it didn't matter because she was too fast. She made it to her bedroom and slammed the door, locking it with the deadbolt that the man himself had installed.
Unacceptable.
The man needed to get inside. He wasn't sure why anymore, but he knew that it had to happen and he knew that he had little time. He threw himself repeatedly at the door, smashing into the solid oak again and again and again.
Only after he failed did he remember the spare key.
He didn't know where the key was, but he thought it might have been in the basement. And so the man had gone to look for it.
But halfway down the stairs something had happened.
It was as though a valve had opened and all of the anger and drunkenness and adrenaline and hurt had poured out of him. He looked in the hallway mirror, staring at his damaged face. And he thought of the locked door and his dead wife and the bouncer whose condition he didn't know. He listened to the sirens approaching, and realized they were getting rather close.
He stared at himself and realized - starkly - that the rest of his life would be different from everything that had come before.
When they came and hauled him off, the cops had knocked on his daughter's door. She hadn't answered, and they'd had to break it down.
When they found her she'd been sitting on her bed, playing a voice message over and over and over.
*ice clinks in a glass*
Log 012: The truth and nothing but the truth.
Adrenaline shot through me, ripping me out of my sleep.
Something was on my face!
I clawed at it and yanked it off.
Oxygenator.
I took a deep breath.
Right.
As I sat there, staring at the offending device, I realized that I was breathing.
There air seemed okay, but I decided to make sure. I yanked the E-sensor out and reached for the power switch. The thing was still on - I'd forgotten to turn it off the day before.
Guess I had other things on my mind.
The readings were all normal. Strange. Why didn't they mess with the air once they realized someone was alive? Seems like the obvious way to...
A thought occurred to me, and I felt goosebumps on my arm. I pulled up the E-sensor's logs. Until an hour ago, the air had been toxic. Deadly.
I let out a deep breath.
If I hadn't thought to put the mask on... if I'd been too tired... I'd be dead right now.
Not something to dwell on.
I pushed myself off the deck, wincing at the pain in my abdomen. The painkillers were wearing off. I took more, and opened one of the rations. Supposedly, it was corned beef. It smelled like a mop bucket and tasted worse. I devoured it. I glanced at the E-sensor's clock. The time was 0304.
An hour and a half!? Seriously? I was exhausted, injured, and drugged, and all I could manage was an hour and a half? Lack of sleep, however, was not my biggest problem. My biggest problem was that I needed a new plan.
I didn't have one.
There were - technically - still ways to get off the ship. The Pridemore had lifeboats, for instance, but they had only maneuvering thrusters. I couldn't get away, and I'd be a sitting duck.
Might as well call them deathboats.
The only reason to consider something like that was if horrible things were scheduled to happen to the ship. Once again, I was confronted by the scope of my ignorance. I opened another one of the rations. It was some type of grilled chicken, and it tasted better than the last one. Which isn't saying much. As I chewed the meat, I developed a plan. It wasn't a great plan. Or even a good one. But it was better than nothing.
I was going to capture a bad guy.
The dynamic thus far had involved me running and them chasing me. Not the hallmark of a healthy relationship. But it also meant - I hoped - that they wouldn't expect a trap. I had an idea for a trap, a trap that would be useful even if it failed to attract bad guys.
It was communications time.
I'd avoided sending a message before because I hadn't wanted to reveal my existence. But that feline had escaped its container. I packed up my shit, leaving my uniform. It would have been nice to leave some other things behind, too, but I had no idea if I'd be coming back to this particular locker. After some rummaging through nearby storage lockers, I found some janitorial cover-alls so I wouldn't be wandering around in my underwear.
Not that it's gonna matter. If anyone sees me, my state of dress will be the least of my concerns.
I made it to the crawlspaces without incident, and made my way out to a corridor near the Pridemore's COMMs Room.
I entered the room without incident.
The cramped space was filled with racks, boxes, and cables. So many cables. They were color-coded by function, and it looked like a can of psychedelic spaghetti had exploded. Mounted
to the forward bulkhead were the COMMs stations themselves. Lots of transmitters and shiny screens.
Before I sent a message, though, I had something else to do.
I moved to a far corner of the room and pulled back a section of deck grating. Directly beneath the grate was a one-meter-square piece of glossy metal.
Gravity plate.
I removed the plate's upper cover and stared inside. The coils were fed by a power cable in the corner. I unhooked it, and a small green light turned off. Having completed my sabotage, I replaced the plate's cover and put the grate back where it had been.