by Mark Gardner
It was a lie. Viktor wanted to scream at him, to tell them all they were insane for stealing the Kerwood back because that’s what this slagging was, no matter how Hayes wanted to spin it. They were stealing the ship because they were too stupid, or too stubborn, to allow the Matsue to escort them back. And now, they flew in a glorified salvage wreck, glued together and barely holding atmosphere, needlessly risking all their lives for arrogance and pride.
Hayes’ men and women wanted it. The chief engineer and Crazy Ade wanted it. Viktor suddenly felt very alone in his opinion. His every instinct told him to go along with it, that it was too late to do anything else so he might as well appear cooperative.
“This is all a mistake,” he found himself saying.
Hayes looked surprised, and Viktor continued, voice raising in anger with each word as he addressed everyone on the bridge. “You have made a terrible mistake. The Matsue was taking us home! We were safe aboard her, with food and room and oxygen. What is the point of leaving? How are we to get home safely? The Kerwood was crippled. Torn apart! Do we even know what caused the explosion? That it will not happen again? Richard’s engineers were going to do a full evaluation to discover the cause, yet all of you have thrown that care aside to stumble home alone like stubborn children.”
Anger flashed from half a dozen faces. Telly spoke first. “You? Not us? Which slagging side are you on, miner?”
He threw his hands up. “There are no sides! What part of this do you not understand?”
“How many captains are you on a first name basis with?” Hayes asked, dangerously soft. “Richard is not your captain. I am. And I’m taking us home with all the resources we earned on Egeria-13.”
“The resources do not matter. The ship we fly home on does not matter. All that matters is getting home by the safest method.” Viktor looked around. “How am I the only one who understands this?”
“You say the resources don’t matter,” Telly said, with the look of a chess player who had just checkmated his opponent. “But Adelaide overheard you arguing with Connor about the contract shares. You wanted a bigger share than everyone else.”
The change of subject caught him off guard. “No. I wanted proportional shares, determined based on workload and time spent in the black. Plenty of other corporations use that system. Other miners would have benefited. Jessica, and—”
“Other corporations,” Hayes snarled. “You’re sounding less and less loyal with every breath.”
“No. This was all before. When the ship was whole and the job half done. Once the explosion occurred, everything changed.”
“An explosion you miraculously survived.” Telly took a step toward him and pointed at his chest. “Jimmy told me you intentionally chose one of the malfunctioning seats in the launch hallway. The fun seat. One you’ve always avoided before.”
“My mind was elsewhere,” Viktor said. “I wasn’t thinking, and by the time I realized what chair I was in, it was too late to switch.”
“How convenient.”
Two of the other bridge crew were on their feet then, forming a semicircle around Viktor. “Convenient? The explosion sent the seat through the bulkhead and into the next room! I was nearly decapitated.” He held up his bandaged arm. “My suit was compromised in the blast. I had to use industrial sealant. It fused my skin to my suit so that I could smell the pungent stench of burned flesh inside my helmet! I nearly died half a dozen ways.”
“You stabbed yourself, I heard,” one of the others said.
“I was trying to remove the seat straps before—”
“It’s sounding more and more like a choreographed plan,” Telly said to Hayes.
The captain pursed his lips and eyed Viktor.
What the slag? How could they think his surviving the explosion was something he planned? Unless…
“You think I caused the explosion?” he breathed, the words spilling out against his will.
Hayes was the one to answer, standing and moving close to Viktor. “This ship has run fine for years without any critical error. I’ve got a good crew who keeps the Kerwood in tip-top shape. Xenon is a safe, inert gas, I’m told. For there to have been such an explosion would require a nearly impossible combination of events and impossible odds. It must have been sabotage.
“And within two days of being stranded, the first ship that comes calling happens to be your old pile of steel whose Captain you’re still buddy-buddy with. A ship so close it was able to reach us with a quick, hard burn, and oh by the way, she happens to be recently outfitted for rescue.”
His eyes shone with the light of certainty as he challenged Viktor to deny it. The silence was like the calm before a stormy wind.
“Winchester,” Viktor began softly, but the captain was already responding.
“I am your captain, Sharapov, not your friend. You had the means: access to lockers full of drilling caps and other rock-penetrating targeted explosives. You had the motivation: a higher share percentage demanded from Connor, and you probably were working out a share distribution with the Matsue bigwigs.” Hayes took a step forward until Viktor could smell his sour breath. “Admit it, Sharapov. Admit you crippled my Kerwood for your own personal gain.”
Viktor could sense their certainty, feel his own ground slipping away from him as swiftly as if a landslide were washing it away. They’re insane. All of them were, that was clear, either from space sickness, which most space faring men didn’t truly believe in, or general paranoia brought on by stress. After everything they’d been through, no sane collection of people would abandon the safety of a rescue ship and accelerate back through the black on their own way home.
There would be no reasoning with them. No angle to defend himself.
He’d heard of military tribunal style judgments in extreme cases. It wasn’t legal, not on commercial vessels, but in the harshness of the black there was little love lost for someone suspected of sabotage or mutiny. Most ships weren’t meant to hold a prisoner. A kick out an airlock and sixty seconds of vacuum was a quicker, easier solution than holding someone for the entirety of a return journey. It was an action that probably felt intuitive and comfortable to men with a military background. Men like Hayes.
Viktor took a deep breath to say what was starting to feel like his last words. He stood up straight and stuck out his chin. “I am an honorable man, Captain Hayes. I have worked hard my entire life, on Luna and the Jovian bodies and all the belts in between. If you believe me guilty of these accusations, there’s little I can do to stop you. But I will go to my fate an innocent man, loyal to the Kerwood and my wife Helena no matter what you may believe. I am scared, and just want to go home, like all of you. Do with me what you will, Captain.”
A pregnant silence stretched. The sound of computer drives and ventilation fans hummed in the background while they all stared at Viktor, and the big Russian stared back.
There was a length of metal debris leaning against the bulkhead in the corner, triangular and sharp. If they came at him, he thought he could dive toward it and swing it around before anyone stopped him. He might have a chance. He readied himself to do just that with the resignation of a man who has no choice.
The radio crackled to life, severing the moment. “Hey, I need some help down in the ancillary cargo room. Pronto!”
Viktor was the first one to move to the nearest comms device on the wall. “Jimmy? What’s going on?”
“Adelaide’s losin’ her mind on Rebecca. Just get down here.”
Viktor looked a question at Hayes, a resumption of the previous moment. The certainty in Hayes’ eyes had disappeared, replaced by concern.
It was all the confirmation Viktor needed. He turned and left the Bridge, letting out a long exhale of breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding, his hand trembling with the aftershock of adrenaline.
Days Until Home: 26
He found them in the cargo room, which was foreign and familiar to Viktor all at the same time. Rebecca, Harry, and four ot
her Matsue crew were tied up on the floor in various uncomfortable positions. Siebert stood against the far wall, holding Jimmy’s hands behind his back, confusion and uncertainty on his face.
Harry saw Viktor enter first, and tried yelling through the cloth stuffed in his mouth. All that came out was a muffled moan.
Adelaide crouched over Rebecca, the latter woman’s shirt ripped at the shoulder. A flash of steel shone in the Kerwood engineer’s hand. Dark red dripped from the tip and trickled down Rebecca’s arm.
“It’s not hard,” Adelaide said. “Just a few words. The right words, though. No more of these lies.”
The Matsue crew member let out air through her clenched teeth. “I don’t understand—”
“Those aren’t the right words!” Adelaide said in a melodious tone, moving the knife through the air like a fish.
“Please!”
Jimmy wrestled against Siebert’s grip, then saw Viktor. “She’s torturin’ them! They don’t know nothin’, they’re just crew.”
“How are we supposed to know that,” Adelaide said as if it were obvious, “unless we question them?”
Viktor stepped toward the woman, careful to keep her knife a safe distance away. Things were getting out of control. Viktor held his hands up in what he thought was a placating gesture.
“You can question them without cutting them. Everything is okay.”
Jimmy sputtered. “Everything is not slagging okay, Vicky!”
Siebert cleared his throat. “She was mouthy,” he said in explanation.
“Mouthy,” Viktor repeated. “That is not a crime.”
Adelaide whirled and pointed the knife at Viktor. “What about blowing up the Kerwood? Huh? Is that a crime?”
Viktor remembered Hayes’ accusations only moments before. The certainty with which everyone on the Bridge looked at Viktor. “We’ll figure out what happened,” he said.
“That’s exactly what I’m trying to do.” The knife lowered a few centimeters.
“We can do that later, if need be,” Viktor said. “But for now, we have plenty of other ways. Examining the engines. Figuring out what caused the explosion. Diagnostics on the Kerwood when we return home. Home, Adelaide. We will arrive there, safe and happy, and everything will be fine.”
The entire thing felt like a hostage negotiation. Or trying to talk a suicidal person out of jumping from a building. Except there was no down out here in the black, and whichever way they fell they’d fall forever, a never ending free fall around their roiling sun.
Viktor’s mind scrambled for a way to connect with the woman. A memory bubbled up, something he had once heard. A nickname. “Let’s just go home, Sapphire.”
Something changed in Adelaide, like a twig snapping beneath a boot. She snarled at him and said, “You don’t know me, you worthless rock-hauler. Alright? So don’t slagging say things like you—”
And then, as quickly as it had begun, all tension disappeared like it was turned off from a switch. Adelaide flipped the knife in her hand and tucked it into her belt, not bothering to wipe off Rebecca’s blood.
“Sure thing,” she said with a nod. “Home, safe and happy.”
She left the cargo room, whistling as she went.
Jimmy broke free and ran to Rebecca to make sure she was okay. Viktor approached Siebert.
“What is wrong with you? Allowing this to happen? Torture?”
Siebert ran an embarrassed hand through his hair. “She had a knife, boss. And she seemed so certain and calm about it. I wasn’t really sure how to say no, and then Jimmy started losing his mind.”
“Losing my mind?” Jimmy said, crouched by Rebecca. “Not wanting to see a woman tortured counts as losing my mind, now? What slagging planet were you born on, pal?”
To his credit, Siebert looked ashamed. Viktor patted him on the arm and said, “It is fine. That woman is not okay. You wanted to avoid confrontation.”
Siebert smiled weakly.
Viktor looked around the room at the other prisoners. Because that’s what they were now, prisoners, kidnapped from the flagship of a rival corporation and held against their will. Forced to make the journey home on a barely functioning ship that could suffer catastrophic failure at any moment. Simply standing there while the ship accelerated toward earth filled Viktor with a growing sense of unease, like a bomb was slowly ticking down inside the walls and nobody could hear it but him.
“I just want to go home,” Viktor said to nobody in particular.
Jimmy gave a bitter laugh as he helped Rebecca to her feet. “In case you haven’t noticed, we don’t have many friends right now. I’ll settle for just surviving the next few hours.”
The anxiety in Viktor’s chest deepened as Jimmy’s words sunk in. They were weeks from home, and yet it might as well have been years.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Days Until Home: 26
Winchester Hayes glanced over at Femke. She had been uncharacteristically silent since they took back the ship and hadn’t even bothered to look at him.
Gauge, on the other hand, was a different man. Smiling, offering up jokes—JOKES—Gauge Schneider, the navigator, was telling jokes. Winchester remembered a time when he, Angelo, and Booker had a wager going that Gauge was secretly an android the Kerwood brass had sneaked aboard to spy on their activities. None of them could prove it, but needless to say, the last thing Winchester Hayes expected out of his brilliant navigator was a joke.
He thought about the time on the Matsue when he had called his room and Marisol was in there with him. That would explain it, he thought, but the motivations of Marisol Vega were only understood by Marisol Vega. They were family now, they had bled together, and they had fought side by side to win back the Kerwood.
“Listen up,” he said, standing and grasping the back of the splintered seat. “I know this is crazy, not what any of you signed up for, but we did the thing and we’re getting home.” He looked over at Femke, trying to read her eyes, but he couldn’t decipher what was reflected there.
“Tempers are hot.” He stopped and laughed. “Ooh boy.” He patted the seat violently. “When I find out who did this—” he had to stop and collect himself. “The Matsue had no slagging right to offer up one-sided bargains when we were crippled and reeling for this …this …violation.” He shook his head and bit his bottom lip, struggling to keep things professional and somewhat positive.
Every muscle in his body wanted a fight. He wanted to punch someone or something, hard, for what happened. He never could talk when he was angry, and the thought of Angelo Lu only made his heart race with anticipation.
Telly spoke up, “We’re with you, Skip. You don’t have to go through this alone.”
“I appreciate that, Telly, but I just wanted to thank you all. Now let’s get to the gorilla in the room. We have some strong concerns about Mr. Sharapov, don’t we? Mhm, yeah, buddy, we have some strong concerns. We’re going to have to deal with that one way or another, and I don’t think it can wait, especially now that he knows we’re onto him.”
“Skip, he may actually be innocent,” Femke spoke up for the first time. “He seemed pretty scared when we questioned him, and he was actually shaking. You may not know it, but you’re pretty frightening when you’re angry. Plus, Telly chiming in. Well, let’s just say that most of us would have melted if we were in that same situation. It’s only fair to have him tell his side of the story, if anything we’ve accused him of even sticks.”
“I was just getting to that, Funky. I’m not about to airlock the man. I just want answers before we get home. There are countless lives lost due to one person’s selfishness on this ship. I can’t have that, the dead can’t have that, and we need to make sure it isn’t going to happen again.”
Marisol Vega raised her hand and Winchester nodded, “Skip, um, the Matsue’s still trying to get a hold of you. I’m not good on insults, and they’re getting nasty.”
Winchester furrowed his brow and slatted his eyes, “Marisol, you don�
��t have to answer just because they call.”
“No disrespect Winn, but what the slag? Let’s have you sit over here and wear this thing and have it buzz in your ear over and over. I answer the darn thing to maintain my sanity, and as you can tell, by the way that I am talking to you right now, I am on the verge of—”
Winchester punched a finger into the panel of his chair and donned the earpiece attachment. “Put `em on, Marisol, and check the way you talk to me.” He looked around at everyone else, “you’re embarrassing me in front of the staff.”
Marisol Vega exhaled slowly as his joke settled in, and connected the Matsue to his channel.
“You won’t get away with this, Hayes!” said an angry voice, which was a high-pitched version of Richard Sayid’s normally smug tone.
“Looks like I did, and now you’re upset. I’m guessing your next response will be a bunch of threats and promises of what the suits on Luna will do with me. I’m tired, brother, and you knew I was tired, but even a tired old cowboy knows the difference between a friend and a snake looking to capitalize. I lost people on this—”
“You have some nerve,” Sayid said. “You were dead in the black. To think I came to your aid because I respect you and your crew.”
“You came to my aid because you have a buddy below deck here. A buddy who knew what we hauled, how much of it we collected, and how much he stood to gain by having you and your crew come rescue us from sabotage. I’m sure you sung up a nice ballad for the boys and girls up top. Told them how poor Captain Hayes was floating around on life support, and you were only concerned with providing us help and a soft bunk to sleep.”
“Even if any of that was true, you are a criminal! What you’ve done is a crime. You’ve stolen parts from my ship, kidnapped my crew. Kidnapping, Hayes? Even I don’t have to tell you the penalty that comes with kidnapping people. Tell me how you intend to explain that little bonus to your theft, eh? Did they willingly go with you? Are they even alive, Hayes?” He scoffed, a sound that was very close to being a laugh. “In a couple of months, the only magnetic boots you will be wearing will be the ones holding you down inside a cell on Usteria Prime.”