J Mauldin - Final Solution

My leaning chair wobbled. I adjusted the balance, doing my best to keep up this smug demeanor. I didn’t get to do it often. César’s eyes darted between us. “Oh, they did,” I said, “and that’s why I sought the horse’s mouth for this bit. I can’t help if the supposed truth was also a lie. Do I look like a polygraph?”

“Poly moron, maybe,” Liberty shot back. “You ever consider that sometimes people lie to protect themselves? That maybe the truth is a dark place they have a difficult time facing?”

“I’m confused,” César mumbled. “Who lied? What are we even talking about?”

“Ever consider that some people don’t like games,” I told her. “And that if we were all just a little more honest with each other we might have peace and harmony all over the solar system?”

Liberty’s face tightened. The ship screamed. Alarms wailed throughout the cabin in an ululating cry. Red lights flashed. The chair tumbled back onto the floor, my balance overshot. The back of my head cracked against the deck, dazing me for an instant. César helped me to my feet. It was too bad my pride had melted itself to the floor.

“Señor? You okay?”

“I’m fine,” I said, standing tall, but my heart had leapt up into my throat. I glared at Liberty, her lovely features illuminated by the red glow of alarms. She was a warrior ready for battle.

The intercom shouted, “Lieutenant Fryatt, to the bridge. General quarters. Everyone to their stations.”

She took off and I followed after.

“You can’t come inside,” she shouted back at me. “You’re not allowed.”

“I can stand in the hall and watch.”

“How’s that any different, hard head? They don’t want you knowing what’s going on.”

“But don’t I have the right?”

She stormed back and shoved something hard and cold into my palm. “Now go. Off to your station, Master Engineer.” And she was gone.

I opened my fingers to find a silver ear piece. I went back for César and put it in my ear. “We got work to do.”

“Si, señor,” César said, picking up his tool belt, red handled combo torch and all.

“Can you hear me?” Liberty’s voice was in my ear.

“I can,” I mumbled, trying not to let César catch me talking.

“Don’t talk. Just listen.”

“Okay.”

“I said, don’t talk!”

“I won’t, I swear.”

“You’re such an idiot.”

The Captain’s voice found its way into a mélange speakers from Navigation, to Communications, to XO. Through the low fidelity earpiece it was a challenge to pick them out individually.

The alarms in the ship ceased, and my ears ached for its absence. The red lights continued to flash.

“Range?”

“Sixteen million kilometers.”

“Time?”

“Three minutes.”

“How have they fired their rail already?”

“Creative use of gravity?”

“Will it hit us?”

“Sixty-eight percent hit probability.”

“Course correction. Five degrees positive Z.”

“Burn?”

“Do you think we need to?”

“No. Save it for later.”

Liberty’s voice came in clear, “Do we return fire?”

“We haven’t done the calculations, besides, our sensor data is old. We’ll have a better shot in a few days.”

“We have a full complement of ammo, yes?”

“Yes. Let’s wait till we get… there. Can you make a shot from there?”

“Yes, sir,” Liberty replied , “but we’ll only get more accurate the closer we come to the Razor . They have to be running a tight trajectory, just like us.”

“Orders?” César asked as we floated in the engine room. The Vindicator made its course correction and he floated gently to the wall. He scratched his arm so hard I thought the flesh might peel off. I put a hand on his shoulder and patted it.

“Calm down. It’s okay, son.”

“Hey! Are you talking to someone?” He leaned to the side to get a better look at my ear.

I put a finger to my lips. “Shh.”

“Here it comes,” a voice said, and I tensed. “Five… four… three… two… ” I closed my eyes, images flashing on the back of my lids like an ancient film reel. I could see the Vindicator below me, grainy and in black and white. A tiny, tiny projectile pierced the front of the ship, venting the crew into space with a white flash as the pressurized gasses dissipated. “One.”

The red lights went green and I took a breath. My heart would be a long time in slowing back to normal. I needed a drink, pronto.

“Are we okay, sir?” César asked, looking around the room. “Is that it? We’re still alive.” He grinned. “We’re still alive! You breathin’?”

“We’re okay for now,” I whispered. “But hang on, parce . It’s only going to get worse. That right there was a warning shot.”

The first time we fired back at the enemy I shit myself, literally.

I’d just come off duty and gone back to my quarters, eaten a healthy plate of slop and laid down for a minute. The Thai peanut flavor I’d chosen for dinner hadn’t settled well on my stomach, and so I got up sprinting for the bathroom, tablet and headphones in hand. The Scorpions, Rock you like a Hurricane , blasted in my ears as I browsed the most recent data packet off the Sol Net. In the middle of reading an article on South American politics and the changing face of Chile, my tablet froze, a red warning box informing me all data was being backed up to chemical storage. I should have known what that meant immediately, but at the time I had too much of an upset stomach for rational thought.

A fizzling sensation rippled through the Vindicator , sending a shiver of electric-ice jolting down my spine. The lights in the stall winked out, the air shut off and my headphones died, shocking my senses with a sickening silence. I was disoriented in the black, and so I threw my hands out to be sure I was still in the bathroom stall, and not just dead. Distant screams came through the bulkhead. I scrambled around, bumping knees, elbows and head as I cleaned myself up and tumbled out of the stall. The air was already turning cold, thin. We were dying.

Feeling your way through the dark is hard enough on flat ground, but the ship was curved, and so I fell on my hands and knees several times, tripping over invisible steps, fixed storage crates or chairs. I decided to crawl instead of stand. Less bruises that way.

We had about an hour of air before we suffocated, ten minutes of heat before we began to freeze, and less than forty-five seconds before I freaked the hell out. But I was in charge. I could do this. I just needed to locate César. We could fix this.

A loud click echoed throughout the cabin as power whirred back to life. I glanced at the open bathroom stall and saw the tablet laying on its side, rebooting. My headphones resurrected to life, shouting at me like a madman, “Here I am…”

“Shit,” I spat, yanking them out and throwing them to the floor.

A hand reached down to help me up. “Master Engineer, you okay?” My eyes went wide.

Dour Face was lording over me with a hungry expression. “I’m fine,” I replied, getting to my feet without help.

“You best be careful stumbling around in the dark. Especially under a yellow alert. Didn’t see the lights, hotshot?”

I dusted off my uniform, even though there was no dust to be found. “It seems that the designers didn’t think to put alert lights in the bathroom. Didn’t know it was happening until it was over.”