Against A Rock

by Kalin Ringkvist

  And Floreina looked beyond the tactical, to see the shattered remains of the other half of the cargo bay, the packing material and shredded sections of container hulls. Food rations littered everything, now powdered and torn; electronics, repair drones and piping lay battered across the floor.

  …and body parts scattered randomly near the far end of the bay… And she noticed bodies in the remaining aisles, some just one or two crates closer to the blast, either lying dead and scorched or writhing and screaming, shaking or sobbing.

  Was this what the Lord wanted her to experience?

  But many of their friends knelt beside them, or were rushing to their aid, or scrounging through debris for medkits… barking orders, and information. They all seemed to be moving and conversing to find ways to help their partners.

  …so perhaps that’s what the experience meant… to endure great horror, and then come together to overcome it… but the horror still being an integral and vital part of the experience… and the great loving Lord is behind all of it.

  She came back to point her weapon down at one of the Minmatars now peeking over the top of her own crate. “Get down!” she shouted. “Everyone, get off the crates, or I will kill you!”

  “You did this to us!” screamed a slave named Sheepnir from below. “Floreina! You did this to us! We’ve been ordered to kill you!”

  The closest slave, named Rotundo, continued hauling himself up, with help from below, clearly more loyal than he was intelligent. Floreina opted for a sudden boot to the head, and he tumbled back to the floor with a cry. Behind her, on the last row of cargo crates, another slave poked his head above the edge and lifted a pipe section to set it on the top of the crate. The database immediately identified him by the name of Steined.

  “Kill her!” shouted a slave identified as Grandan, standing near an adjacent crate. “They’ll simply drop another grenade unless we kill her first.”

  “Everyone, grab a pipe and start climbing!” shouted another, identified by the name of Hyphorn. “She can’t kill all of us!”

  Floreina moved sideways, to get a shot around an overhead beam, and jumped to the next crate. The target centered and stuck on Steined as he hauled himself up over the ledge, still clutching his pipe. His face seemed to melt away as she fired the laser into his forehead. His body staggered and fell backward against the lip of the crate, the pipe falling to the top surface. He seemed to hold on the top as his body twitched, then his leg slipped over the edge and pulled the rest of his corpse down with it.

  She turned toward Hyphorn, centering her target on his forehead. “I believe that I can,” she replied. “I don’t want to, but I can.” And she screamed as powerfully as she could handle: “I don’t want to kill you; I am not your enemy. The Amarrians who lied to you about my status as the traitor—those are your true enemies.”

  Her combat system registered a motion behind her, and ordered her to duck as she became aware of a pipe section coming toward her. She dodged; though the pipe descended off to the side to roll into another gap between crates. She turned around, her rear vision already processing to identify the thrower.

  The slave was identified as Morgion as he slipped behind a crate. Floreina began moving to come out behind him and get a downward shot at him. She leapt over a gap, seeing other, less aggressive slaves below her, and came up behind him. She targeted and fired a shot into his head as he leaped over another slave innocently attempting to bandage someone’s tattered leg.

  Floreina looked around to see other slaves peeking their heads up, and ‘secretly’ signaling to each other for an attack. She had only a moment to prepare her position, and made a decision to gain higher ground. She leapt to the next crate, holstered her weapons and jumped up to grab the steel support girder over her head and swung her legs upward to scramble on top. Straddling the beam, and crossing her feet beneath her to lock herself in, she drew her pistols and allowed her systems to target the nearest of the slaves.

  She fired off two more shots, one from each hand, connecting with the heads of two more aggressive Minmatar as they peaked over the tops of nearby crates.

  And Floreina screamed furiously, her face burning hot and her eyes unwittingly closing as the force of her words caused the nanites to power up within her throat. “Get down! Get down! Get down! Or die!” She continued into a torrent of screaming insults. “This is not your path to salvation! I am not your enemy and you have been misled. If you continue you will die for nothing. Your lives will be a waste and you will not gain salvation! I am no enemy of our Lord, nor our people, nor our way of life!”

  She shot another slave as he came too close.

  “Please don’t make me do this!” she screamed, her temples feeling as though they would burst, the sound echoing painfully against the steel interior.

  “Traitor!” someone shouted, his face hidden below the edge of the crates, and several other slaves, now hiding themselves below, began repeating. “Master Floreina, the traitor!”

  “That’s a lie!” she shouted. “I can prove it.”

  She stared into the eyes of another Minmatar, identified as Fargar as he looked over the top of his crate, his comrades holding him up precariously from below. Floreina trained her weapon on him, and simultaneously watched his partner, by name of Feen, with her rear camera as he crept toward her from behind. Her left hand came up and from behind her back, her targeting systems centered through her rear camera, accounting for an upside down pistol.

  And she fired into Feen’s head, just as he crawled over another nearby space between cargo containers. His body fell to the floor unceremoniously and meaninglessly, as though he had never existed at all.

  At the same time, she continued staring into the eyes of his friend, Fargar.

  “Get down,” she said, more calmly now. “Please don’t make me do this…”

  And finally, they began giving up, seeing Floreina’s nearly perfect accuracy and retreated back to the floor. She waved her weapons threateningly at the remaining few, and they eventually began their descent.

  “Good choice folks,” Floreina shouted. “Tend to your fallen comrades… ”

  Floreina allowed herself to relax, leaning against a vertical girder, and sat wide-eyed, staring in shock at the world, though her gaze only focused on a small section of ceiling.

  For a long time, Floreina simply sat and felt the breath passing through her lungs and throat, feeling her medical implant doing its job from behind the scenes, subtly altering her senses with the effects of the pain killers and steroids. She heard the voices of the Minmatar, some whispering of her treachery, unaware of her audio isolation software, others suggesting that they didn’t have all the facts and shouldn’t pass judgment, others claiming that she was Amarrian and that made it a sin to attack her, regardless of other factors, and still others completely ignoring the issue and focusing on helping bandage their injured shipmates. A hundred different voices processed in the background, separated from her forward consciousness, feeding her only occasional summaries of the conversations below.

  She scanned the bay for another half minute, then, despite the warnings, she leaned back and closed her eyes. Just for a few moments, she told herself.

  Hey, Mahran; what are you up to? She asked. I didn’t hear you giving me any advice up there. I just had to deal with a lot of hassle… where were you?

  Trying to think of some sort of advice to give you, and failing miserably… he replied. …I’m a Minmatar, remember… and… Master, I don’t know if I can handle this…

  What are you talking about? How is it that you’re worried about yourself after what just happened to me?

  I have a bit of a problem up here, he told her. I didn’t want to mention anything until you were safe.

  Floreina opened her eyes and simply stared outward, absently watching the blackened far wall of the cargo bay and the support beam before her and seeing little else with her human consciousness. She sighed. What’s the problem?

  The
capsule command crew is planning to break through the door to the central pod chamber with a series of explosives.

  Already? She asked. They’re willing to risk the electronics in that room?

  Yes, Ma’am. They’ve gotten word from other parts of the ship.

  Do they know what’s going on? She asked.

  For the most part, yes. They know you’re behind it, they know you’ve sabotaged the systems and crippled all major communications. They know you’re in the cargo bay and believe your goal is to get up here and re-fit your own body into Allihence’s capsule. So yes, they’ve got it all figured out… with the exception of me. They think I’m a computer virus.

  Okay, Floreina started slowly. You know what you need to do then. You know how important it is that we not allow them access to the pod chamber.

  I don’t think I can do this…

  Yes, you can, Little Buddy. We talked about this. We both knew this was a possibility. The drones are sitting ready and available for your use.

  These are Amarrians, he softly reminded her. I should be willing to sacrifice myself before killing Amarrians…

  But not in this situation, she replied. You know that we’re doing the right thing. Allihence must be removed from command somehow.

  With all due respect, Master, but is it really likely that we succeed in our original plan at this point?

  We owe it to our Lord and to the Amarrian people to try. We appreciate your desire to protect Amarrians, but you need to remember your obligation to me and to the long-term goals of our people and our Lord. Now I want you to do what needs to be done and I don’t want any more arguments about it.

  Yes, Ma’am, he conceded.

  Thanks, Buddy, she said.

  She scanned the cargo bay, making sure the slaves weren’t attempting another sneak attack, then put her head in her hands, covering her face and pressing, as though the pressure could push out the experiences. She couldn’t blame Mahran for hesitating. She had killed just as many slaves moments earlier, and watched the deaths of many more; but when you were talking about Amarrians, the morality and feelings were entirely different. Even the slaves could see that… but even though her slave was doing the deed, she was responsible.

  Floreina attempted to relax for another half minute as part of her consciousness stared blank and unthinking out at the world, barely able to process the situation, while the back of her mind was a whirlwind of data processing and tactical analyzations, though shut off from what she considered her ‘self’. For right now, she wanted blankness.

  She put her head against the support beam in front of her and felt the cold against her forehead.

  But finally she pulled up and focused on the slaves below. “The situation is very serious, as I’m sure you all can see,” she shouted. “I have been framed for treason, and the enemies of the Empire were willing to kill all of you in order to silence me. You saw it. You saw the other Amarrians plant that bomb, and I was right here with you. The truth is, folks, I have information about great abuses aboard this ship. Abuses toward our slaves… abuses that disgrace all of us. I wished to bring these abuses to light, but certain individuals decided to plant evidence against me in order to silence me.”

  Mahran, can you find a datapad in this room and connect with it.

  One moment—Mahran stuttered. Distracted.

  “I have proof of these abuses,” she continued. “If anyone has a datapad available give me the access code and I can connect with it and show you a video of the kinds of things our captain and her friends enjoy doing to their slaves.” Several moments later she heard shouts from several slaves, and picked the first one returned from her voice recognition. The slave shouted back the limited access code for the datapad, and Floreina immediately ordered Mahran to connect and begin streaming the video of the gladiator competition.

  “That occurred on this very ship,” she shouted at the few slaves who could see the datapad. At the same moment, her tactical planner warned that while this was worth a shot, the chances were low that this would cause a stir among the Minmatar. They would see that these were not highly regarded slaves, and that any slave who had been as successful and loyal in his studies to become a crew member on an Abaddon would not have to worry about being exposed to such abuse. Besides, Minmatar weren’t well-known for caring about others.

  But a moment later, her seemingly solid and reliable character analyzers were proven wrong as she heard the gasps of horror of several slaves. She shouted for codes for other datapads and within a couple minutes, Mahran had connected a dozen of them and began feeding the stream. She heard gasps from all over the room as the slaves began to see it, and Floreina realized that they were intelligent enough to differentiate between an abuse that is arguably necessary, such as the detonation just minutes earlier, and one that is not.

  “This is what our captain enjoys in her spare time,” she told the slaves. “Her view on you is not about protecting you or protecting society, or guiding you toward salvation. Her goal is to take pleasure in this kind of suffering. Her mistreatment of you is a result.”

  She paused and listened, focusing and quieting her mind to help her systems isolate and interpret so many different voices.

  “Do any of you know who attacked us?”

  And the collective answer from the slaves came back no.

  “They are abolitionists.”

  And there were gasps throughout the room.

  “They want to set all of you free, and to be honest, I believe it would be better for your souls, and better for The Empire if you were to be set free instead of supporting someone who is as disgraceful to our people as our captain. As free men and women, you can still devote yourself to our Lord, and that is why I will not attempt to stop the abolitionists today… besides the fact that they are too powerful and too cruel.”

  “They come to steal us?” came a shout from below.

  “They have somehow crippled this ship…” Floreina continued. “…and, folks… I must remind you, that yes, they are trying to steal you, however, you must understand that these abolitionists have worked with Allihence in the past to help her cover other slave abuses.”

  She took a deep breath and felt her head still swimming as she tried to coherently form her words in a manner the Minmatar could understand.

  “The abolitionists wish to quote-unquote ‘rescue’ you, but if they cannot rescue you, mark my words, they want you to suffer as much as possible whilst in the care of Amarrians. They hate our way of life with such a blind passion that you cannot understand the lengths they will go through to promote the abuse of the Minmatar within our culture and otherwise attempt to make the Amarrian way of life look evil. However, if they board our ship and attempt to remove you from our protection, you should go with them, and the Lord will not punish you, for there is nothing to be gained for fighting for a corrupted captain. As long as you remain faithful to our Lord, you will be fine. You can all be free… We have no other choice to avoid the counter-productive nature of our captain… But do not trust the abolitionists beyond that.”

  Mahran, hows it going up there? she silently interrupted herself. Are the pod crew dealt with?

  After a long second, he responded, They’re… dying… The words came through garbled and twisted, as though he were having trouble focusing.

  It’s okay, Little Buddy; it had to be done… I’m sorry it had to be this way…

  Pushing the thought aside, she returned to the slaves. “I need your help. I need to get out of here; to get off this ship so that I can inform the proper Amarrian authorities of the abuses occurring, because we all know that the abolitionists and the Republic have no interest in ending these abuses because they provide such convenient excuses for their actions against the Amarrian people.”

  “How can we trust you?” someone shouted.

  She picked his voice out of the crowd and turned to see a slave named Steinmar. She targeted and raised her weapon to point at his head, leaning awkwardly t
o the side to get a view into the alley between containers. He stood in the aisle and stared back, either aware that she did not intend to shoot, or just not caring.

  “Because I’m not killing you,” she replied. “I have only killed those of you who tried to kill me, and I don’t feel good about it. True Amarrians, the ones who honestly care about God’s love and the deeper meaning of The Scriptures are the compassionate ones… we are the ones who care about our slaves and do not treat them as though they are not God’s creatures. You have all been around long enough to know that most slave owners are good people, but there are a few bad apples out there, even Amarrians, and once in a while, you must choose a side, and our Lord expects you to make the correct choice… but he gave you a tool to make that choice: your hearts. Look into your hearts, Minmatar, and feel God’s love, and take a look at one of the datapads being passed around, and ask yourself if our Lord would wish you to support that, and look at your injured comrades and ask if our Lord wants us to obey someone who would slaughter the very ones they’re supposed to protect, simply to silence someone who wishes to speak the truth.”

  She sat, trying to calm her nerves, and scanned their voices, paying particular attention to the whisperers, who believed they were speaking under her radar. But they seemed to be less and less active as her speech went on.

  Floreina spoke for several more minutes, repeating the same concepts in different words. Finally she asked, “Can I come down now? Can I trust you all to know who your master is? I am Amarrian, and I am here, right here and right now. Our Lord expects you to respect that.”

  And she began to lower herself from the beam, placing her weapons in their respective storage locations on her thighs. “If anyone attempts to attack me, I expect the rest of you to do what is necessary to stop them.”

  She dropped to the surface of the crate and drew her right firearm again, just to have it in her hand. She began pacing, wandering across the tops of the cargo containers, ducking under the support beams, hopping the alleyways and studying the slaves below and the destruction all around.