“But then I saw them confronting Captain Rosendo in the corridor outside the mess hall.” As she said that, text came up on the bottom right of the screen.
SURVEILLANCE VID APPENDED
Amanda tagged that vid for later viewing.
Mom continued. “As usual, KK did all the talking, with Go just saying, ‘Yeah, that,’ a lot. KK said that the engineers deserve more money than everyone else on the ship because they do all the actual work, while the rest of us sit at our stations and read words on a screen. Something along those lines. Rosendo reminded them that they signed a contract, and KK said the contracts were invalid, and Go said, ‘Yeah, that,’ and finally Rosendo just walked away.
“I was hoping that would be the end of it, but no such luck.”
Amanda activated the appended video, and the image switched to a view from the ceiling of a corridor. There was text in the lower left.
CORRIDOR J3 SURVEILLANCE
Rosendo walked toward the camera, and then two more people in filthy jumpsuits ran toward him. One was huge, with extraordinarily broad shoulders, and tall enough that his shaved head almost scraped the ceiling. The other was much shorter and extremely skinny, albeit with a halo of unkempt dark hair. Amanda wondered if the big one ate all the little one’s food.
“Yo, Cap’n!” the big one said.
Rosendo stopped and turned around. “What is it, KK?”
“I been noticing that you haven’t responded to my formal complaint.”
“Oh, that was a formal complaint?” Rosendo said, and it was clear to Amanda that he was irritated. “Fine, here’s my informal answer. You’re gettin’ paid what the contract says you’re gettin’ paid.”
Kahananui shook his huge bald head. “That contract ain’t valid on account of I hadn’t seen the sorry state of the Sotillo’s engines when I signed it. I was told this was a spaceship, and instead you put me on a demonstrator model for How Not To Build A Spaceship.”
“Yeah, that,” the short one added. That had to be Go.
“That’s between you and the company, KK.” Rosendo started to walk again, but Kahananui moved so that he was blocking the way forward. His frame was so massive that Amanda could no longer see Rosendo, as Kahananui’s huge back took up most of the camera’s field of vision.
“Maybe I ain’t made myself clear, Cap’n.”
“KK, you’re so clear I can see right through you,” the commanding officer said. “But it isn’t gonna happen. Now please step aside. We all got work to do.”
“Not at these rates.”
“Yeah, that,” Go added.
“Is there a problem here?” That was her mother’s voice. She must have walked up behind this tableau, still blocked by Kahananui.
“No problem, Ripley, just the grown-ups talkin’,” Kahananui said.
“Yeah, that.”
She heard Rosendo snort. “The only grown-ups here are me an’ Ripley. Now step aside, KK.”
Kahananui turned so that Amanda could see Rosendo again. Behind him, Mom and Go were standing next to each other.
“Fine, but this ain’t over,” Kahananui said.
“Yeah, it is.” Rosendo pushed past him.
“This is bullshit,” Kahananui said to Ripley.
“Yeah, that.” Mom smiled. “So maybe stop flinging it.” With that, she walked off.
Amanda grinned proudly at the sight of her mother mouthing off to the engineer. Part of it was her own experiences over the past few years, dealing with idiot engineers. Not that they all were—in fact, most of them were good at their jobs, and fun to work with. Like Jin. But the assholes like KK—and like Cisternino—stood out by contrast.
Amanda returned to her mother’s statement. The vid started up again.
“The next day, everything got out of hand. KK and Go confronted Rosendo again, this time in the mess hall in front of everyone. Rosendo faced them down again, but this time they got physical. KK tried to jump Rosendo, but Standing, Kamagai, and Ventura were able to hold him back. Then Go threw hot coffee in Kamagai’s face, causing him to let go and giving KK the chance to pull free. He and Go both ran out and holed up in the armory. I managed to figure a way in, and we were able to take them into custody.”
That sparked a memory, and Amanda clicked back to the main folder. There she spotted the one she’d remembered.
ARMORY TAKEOVER
She opened that one.
Rosendo again. “This is a compilation of surveillance footage from the hallway outside the armory and the armory itself, as well as the portside EVA camera.”
EVA? Amanda was really intrigued. She shifted position to be more comfortable in her bunk.
First there was another corridor camera, though a different one from before. Kahananui and Go ran toward it, then Go stopped and pointed at a door.
“In here!”
Kahananui stopped, looked at Go, looked at the door, then grinned.
“Knew there was a brain in there somewhere, brah.”
The vid cut to a dark screen, with a bottom-left caption.
ARMORY SURVEILLANCE
Light appeared as a door slid open, and then both Kahananui and Go entered. This caused the interior lights to flicker on. The armory was filled with shelves containing ammunition, large boxes with the type of weapon labelled on them, and wall racks lined with rifles of various types. As the door closed, Kahananui spoke.
“Change the code on the lock.”
Go nodded, and started entering numbers into the keypad next to the door. Kahananui walked over to one of the rifles—Amanda couldn’t tell exactly what it was, but it seemed to be a variation on an M42—and pulled it off the rack, then started checking the shelves for ammo.
“Code changed.”
“To what?” Kahananui asked.
“Very funny.”
“You kiddin’ me, brah?” Kahananui shot his shorter assistant a nasty expression. “Tell me the damn code!”
“Not kidding. No code. All mine.”
Muttering something too quietly for Amanda to hear, Kahananui started loading the rifle.
The image cut back to the corridor. Her mother was there, along with Rosendo, and one other person. Amanda assumed that the third was either Standing, Kamagai, or Ventura. Given that he looked to be of Asian ancestry, Amanda guessed it was Kamagai. Rosendo stood at the armory door and entered a code into the keypad, which resulted in a high-pitched beeping sound. The door didn’t open.
“Dammit, they must’ve changed the code.” He walked over to an intercom. “KK, you in there?”
The vid cut back to the armory. “That’s a stupid question, Cap’n.”
Back to the hallway. “What do you think you’re gonna accomplish, KK?”
Back to the armory. “We got all the weapons in here. And something else—we set a little trap.”
“What kind of trap?” Rosendo looked worried, but Mom rolled her eyes. Amanda was surprised at how familiar that was.
Then Kahananui spoke again, and the feeling fled. “If we aren’t back in engineering in an hour, something’s gonna go boom.”
Rosendo looked at Mom and the other guy. “Can you be a little more specific?”
“So you can stop it happening?” KK chuckled. “Nice try, Cap’n. You give us the pay we want—the pay we deserve—and we’ll come out and nothing goes boom. You don’t, and we just sit here with the guns.”
“Yeah, that,” Go put in.
Rosendo turned off the intercom and looked at the other two. “What do you think, Standing?”
So much for my detective work, Amanda thought, as she realized that the other person next to her mother was the executive officer, Asano Standing.
“I believe you should tell them that you agree to their terms,” he said.
At that, Mom turned to face him, with her hands on her hips. “Are you out of your mind?” she said, her voice rising. “We can’t give them higher shares—especially not after they pulled this shit. They assaulted—”
Standing held up a hand. “I did not say we agree to their terms, Ripley. I said to tell them we agree to their terms. It is the only way to prevent their trap from going off.”
“Bullshit,” her mother said. “There’s no trap. They’re bluffing.”
“You sure of that?” Rosendo asked.
“Those two have done nothing but piss and moan since they came on board. The repair schedule has had fifteen items on it, and they’ve gotten to six, and two of those they screwed up. They don’t deserve higher shares, they deserve lower ones. And I don’t buy for a minute that they planned far enough ahead to set something up. I don’t think they had a plan aside from yelling at you in the mess, and it got out of hand.”
Rosendo scratched his chin. “Yeah, I’m gonna go with Ripley on this one. But that still leaves us with them in there and us out here.”
“The way I see it, we’ve got three options.” Standing started ticking off the options on his fingers. “One, we crack the changed code.”
“Problem there,” Rosendo said, “is the two people best qualified to do that are on the other side of the door. Worse, they can keep changing the code while we’re working.”
“Two, we break down the door.”
“Which we would do with equipment that’s also on the other side of that door.”
“Three, we wait them out.”
“I’ve got a fourth option,” Amanda’s mother said. “They have all the weapons, but there’s a metal drill in the lab.”
Standing gave Mom a sidelong glance. “That drill will take an hour to make a tiny pinhole, and they’ll hear us doing the drilling.”
“Sure, if we use it to get in the door or the bulkhead.”
“How else would we get in?” Rosendo asked.
“From the outer hull. I can go EVA, drill a hole in the hull. It’s space, so no one’ll hear me drill, and given the structure of the bulkhead, it’ll barely register as a vibration. Once it’s done, the air will leak out of the armory and they’ll fall unconscious.”
“And eventually die,” Rosendo said. “This ain’t quite a death sentence yet.”
“No, but you guys can keep working on the code while I do that.”
“Won’t work.” Rosendo shook his head. “The hull seal will kick in as soon as you make that hole.”
“No, Ripley is correct—it will work,” Standing said. “One of the nine repair tasks that Kahananui and Go have not yet completed is the portside hull seal systems. They’re offline.”
“Well, okay then.” Rosendo smiled. “Looks like we got a plan. Ripley, go get the drill and put on your EVA suit. Standing, let’s get crackin’ on this code.”
The image then cut to the portside EVA camera, and someone in a suit—Amanda couldn’t tell by looking at it who it was, but it had to be her mother—crawling across the outer hull.
“Almost there, Ripley,” a voice that wasn’t Mom said. “About two more yards.” It wasn’t Standing or Rosendo, so it had to be another member of the crew.
Then her mother’s voice. “Thanks, Ventura.” The suited figure settled on a particular spot. “This good?”
“Yeah, that’ll do it. Start drilling.”
From the belt of her EVA suit, she pulled out a tether line and hooked it to one of the handholds. Then she pulled out a drill from one of the suit’s outer pouches. Knowing how it would go down, Amanda sped up the playback until her mother finished making the pinhole.
“Done. Heading back,” she said as she unhooked the tether line.
“Good job, Ripley.” That was Rosendo. “We broke the code twice, but Go managed to input a new one before we could get in. We’ll keep at it, since he should be gettin’ woozy pretty soon.”
Back to the corridor outside the armory. Rosendo and Standing were both by the door, wearing EVA suits except for the helmets, which they held under their arms. A woman knelt by the keypad.
“How we doin’, Gridneva?”
“Almost there, sir.”
Standing looked at Rosendo. “Would you like me to say it this time?”
Rosendo shrugged. “Won’t do any good, but sure.”
Turning to Gridneva, Standing said, “There’s no need to refer to us as ‘sir,’ Gridneva. We are not military.”
“Of course, sir.” Gridneva stood up and grinned. “Got it. New code is zero five zero two.”
“Good work, Gridneva. Get out of here and seal this section.”
“Yes, sir.” Gridneva turned and walked away from the camera. Seconds later, Amanda heard the unmistakable sound of bulkheads lowering, though they were out of the camera’s range. Rosendo and Standing put on their helmets, and the latter went to a console on the other side of the corridor.
“Bulkheads down. Depressurizing now.” A very loud hissing dominated the feed for several seconds. Once it stopped, Standing said, “Depressurization complete.”
Rosendo then entered the code into the keypad, and the door slid open.
Back to the armory interior, where Kahananui and Go were both lying on the deck.
“Let’s get them to the infirmary.”
The image cut to Rosendo again, logging the report. “Both Kahananui and Go are in custody in the Sotillo’s infirmary, recovering from extreme hypoxia. Commendations to Executive Officer Standing, Navigation Officer Gridneva, Warrant Officer Ripley, and Helm Officer Ventura for their assistance in putting down this mutiny. All crew will be available for further depositions and testimony, as required.”
The screen reverted to the menu. Amanda stared at it for the better part of a minute before deciding to play the vid of her mother again. She watched it seven or eight times before finally going to sleep.
* * *
The next day she grabbed some coffee and then went to Mendez’s office to tell her that she would accept the deal, though it would take two or three months of wage-garnishing for it to be enough—especially since she needed some of her salary set aside to cover food and rent.
Mendez grinned and said, “Congratulations, Engineering Technician Ripley, and it’s more like one month.”
Amanda spit her coffee out in surprise, and coughed for several seconds.
“Ex-excuse me? Engineering technician?”
“Jiao called and said you fixed the Lune Buggy up better than anyone ever has, and she actually gave us a little extra as a thank-you. So fuck it, you get the promotion. Which means you’ll be able to pay off the flight recorder in four weeks, at which point you’ll finally get to find out what happened to your mother.”
* * *
A month later, Amanda went to Mendez’s office late one afternoon.
“Can I help you, Ripley?”
“Just finished fixing those baffles, so there should be enough to cover the Nostromo recording.”
“Great! It’s at home, but I’ll have it for you tomorrow.”
“It’s in your apartment?” Amanda asked.
“Yes.”
“And you’ll give it to me tomorrow.”
Mendez chuckled. “You paid me for it, so of course.”
“Perfect.” At that, three uniformed officers from Lunar Law Enforcement entered the office, along with a woman in a suit.
“What the fuck?” Mendez said.
The suited woman pointed to the badge clipped to her belt. “Detective Nessa Folami, LLE Fraud Squad.”
“Fraud?” Mendez stared daggers at Amanda. “What the hell did you do, Ripley?”
“Reported a crime,” Amanda said. She got to her feet and faced the newcomers. “You have all you need?”
“We may need you to testify later, but the deposition you gave and what we just recorded of your conversation will be enough for now. So yes, thank you, Ms. Ripley.”
“‘Recorded’?” Mendez also stood up. “This is—”
“I would advise you to remain quiet, Ms. Mendez, as you are under arrest for fraud, for misrepresentation of unskilled labor as skilled labor, and for illegally copying private archives.” Folami smil
ed. “Oh, and our forensic accountants have started looking at your financial records, and I have to say they are salivating.”
“You bitch,” Mendez said.
“Back atcha, ‘boss’.” Amanda shook her head with disgust. “Took me all of an hour to figure out that the Sotillo’s records are freely available to the public. You just have to request them to take a look—but you’re not allowed to copy them the way you did. I knew you didn’t have the Nostromo’s recorder, and I figured you were losing engineers by the truckload because you didn’t pay them—which is why you came up with a way to pay me less while stringing me along. So, after I accepted your fake deal, I went to the cops and accepted a real deal with them.” Amanda sneered at her erstwhile employer. “You’re not the first person to try to use my mother against me.”
“Ms. Ripley has been very helpful,” Folami said. “Please place your hands behind your back.”
Not needing to see Mendez bound, Amanda departed the office. She wouldn’t be charged with presenting false credentials—that was the deal she’d struck with Folami, to not be prosecuted in exchange for helping to bring Flora Mendez down.
But that wouldn’t be the end of it, as Amanda knew from hard experience. She had to figure out who would employ her, now that she’d established herself as someone who would rat on her boss.
GEMINI EXOPLANET SOLUTIONS
A SEEGSON COMPANY
MEMO
From: Dr. Liza Soohoo, San Cristobal Medical Facility To: Dr. Tirsyris Lingard, Marshal Jethro Waits
Date: November 29, 2137
We’ve located all three remaining members of the Anesidora crew. Two are deceased, and the other is likely to be soon.
Alan Meeks is currently in a coma and has been placed in stasis. His face contains the scarring we have seen on victims who have been attacked by the parasite-seeding creature that covers the head. Mr. Meeks is housing a developing alien creature, hence his being in stasis.
Dean Lewis was one of the people trampled to death when the alien was spotted in the food court.
We were only able to identify Crispin Heyst by DNA, as his face was completely blown off. Based on the residue on his hands, and the angle of the damage to his face, it would appear to have been self-inflicted, albeit sloppily. Deputy Marshal Garcia provided us with security footage that showed that Mr. Heyst attempted to shoot one of the parasite-seeding creatures as it was about to clamp itself to his face. Mr. Heyst was unsuccessful in hitting the creature, but he did succeed admirably in keeping the creature from clamping itself to his face. Death was instantaneous.
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