J Mauldin - Final Solution

I’d known girls like Griffin back on Mars. They were manipulative wenches from the lower levels that worked as candy stripers for the big dealers, using their feminine wiles to push product and get the boys hooked. Next thing you knew, they’d flip ’cause they were just as bad off as you were. Then you’d be left with a broken heart, no credits, boots or pants, running down the main drag of town naked from the waist up chasing after them—a dozen six headed elephants at their heels. She’d just been in it for the fix.

I punched the edge of his bunk so hard it should’ve hurt, but my rage suppressed those nerve endings into a numb existence. I knew I needed to calm down but couldn’t. I stuffed the pills in my pocket and stormed off to the cargo bay. That was where she’d be right now, laying out solar panels and scanning them for repair.

“Where are you going?” Liberty asked, having appeared in the hall just behind me. She’d seen me like this before after a bar fight in Arsia Mons two weeks before the skimmer wreck.

“None of your business, ma’am.”

She raised a hand. “The hell it isn’t!”

Security #2, Lank Hair, spotted me and took off, stun stick at the ready. I hurried my pace.

Jane was working alongside two other crewmembers in the cargo bay. They were studiously using handheld scanners to model the damaged bits of solar panel, feeding that data back into the PVA printer and making exact replacements that matched the original down to the nanoscopic scale. The damage was extensive, but luckily, since we were so far off course the enemy would have a hard time finding our heading for a while. We were cloaked in the darkness of incomplete sensor information. No firing solutions, little danger of attack.

I went straight for her. “Griffin!”

Her bloodshot eyes snapped to attention, handheld scanner trembling in her fingers. “What? What is it, sir?” She sniffled and wiped off her nose.

The other crewmembers halted their work to exchange shocked expressions.

“You’re a candy striper. You’re the one that fed him.”

“I what?”

I produced the baggie with a flourish, shaking it in the air. “Gave him the goods, put the pills in his hand, sprinkled the dust on his damn toast! You know exactly what the fuck I’m talking about! You gave him the drugs.”

Her eyes went wide, fresh menace shading the edge of her black streaked face. “I knew something was off.” Her hands drew up over her mouth and shook. “Why didn’t I see it? Why didn’t I bring it up? I know all the signs, I mean, we’ve all been there. Oh, God. Oh, God.”

“Quit the shit ass act!” I hurled the baggie at her face. It bounced off her nose and came to rest on the broken panels.

“Master Engineer, David Goddard!” Liberty shouted in a voice very much like her father’s. My hear skipped a beat. “Back off, now!”

I flung an open hand back as if to say, as nicely as fucking possible, that Liberty should shut the hell up. “Why, Griffin? Why? You knew it was a problem of his. If you really cared you would have protected him, not enabled him.”

Jane’s expression went from sullen to hard in an instant. “You think? Oh… How dare you tell me how I feel?” Her hands balled into fists. She stalked around the panels and took several calculated steps forward, closing the distance between us. “How dare you!” She was now only a stride away, so close I could feel the heat of her voice roasting my cheeks like sunlight.

She had to be the target. Clever, clever, clever.

“It all makes sense,” I said through gritted teeth. “You wanted him to fuck up. You wanted him to die.”

Her right shoulder twitched as if drawing back a fist, and out of reflex, my right palm shot forward, catching her square in the chest. She went sprawling back onto the floor, screeching in shock. A panicked gasp rippled through the room.

Less than a breath later I was on the floor, nose to metal. Lank Hair and Liberty had me by the arms, a knee was in my back. They rolled me over to reveal Dour Face leering down at me with Higgins at his side. Everyone had joined the party.

“Let me go!” I growled, struggling to get free. “That bitch did it.”

“That’s it, Goddard,” Dour Face said. “Hitting a fellow crewmember, especially one weaker than you… It’s a right time for a few quality weeks in the brig.”

“Fuck you. I didn’t mean to hit her. I thought she was going to hit me.”

“Then let her next time,” he whispered in my ear as he hauled me to my feet.

Jane was balled up where she fell, crying in the arms of a fellow crewmember. I hadn’t noticed certain glaring details until now. I was too angry to see what was obvious. Her hair was greasy. Dark eyeshadow clung to her face like black, melting wax. Her chapped lips were bright from being chewed on, a small line of dried blood running over the edge onto her chin. Her uniform was stained down the front, rumpled and ripped. Either she was the most convincing liar I’d ever seen, or I was the biggest damned idiot God had ever been foolish enough to give breath.

“Come on, Goddard,” Lank Hair said. “To the brig.”

“David…” Liberty hissed, that word carrying a crushing weight of disappointment. No one noticed her informality.

Dour Face’s watch crackled. “Take him to his quarters.”

“Captain?”

“I said, take him to his quarters. Let him sleep it off. It’s been a hard day for all of us. Is Griffin okay? Is she hurt?”

“Yes, sir. Looks like he, well, he just pushed her down. Might have a sore bum is all.”

“Get some sleep, Goddard. Don’t let me catch you doing this again.”

The blood rushed back into my arms as their death grip eased. I sagged and nearly fell over. I nodded at his watch as if the Captain could see me. One of the cubes was well within view.

“He won’t do this again,” Dour Face said, eyes narrowing to razors. “We’ll be sure he won’t.”

“Liberty,” the Captain said. “To the bridge. Being they don’t know where we are, I want to attempt a firing solution.”

“On my way,” she replied and turned to leave, peering at me over her shoulder with those glassy eyes once more.

I retired to Crew 1 and collapsed face first on my bunk. Every time I was just about unconscious, something trivial would wake me. A disturbing mental image. The thought of César’s empty bed. A random noise. My fucking bladder. It’d been almost an hour when the alarms went off and woke me fully. The ship turned yellow, then red, then yellow, our weapons powering up. I knew we were in good hands. Griffin and Kelly could handle the reset if it came to that, but it was impossible to sleep through. What was the damn point? Might as well wait till it’s over, exhausted or not.

“Firing,” XO’s voice boomed over the intercom.

The ship’s power fizzled for a moment, looking as if it might remain on, then the lights winked out, plunging us into darkness. Despite being nestled under the sheets of my bunk I felt as if I was falling. Darkness in space made orienting impossible as sight did most of your sensory correction in low gravity. I was compelled to sit up and feel it out, keeping track of the world before it made me sick.

I tossed my legs over the side of the bunk, phantom vertigo dissolving any tangible sense of direction. My toes probed the darkness in search of the floor, but found nothing.

Pain, sudden and hot, flashed through my skull, radiating in mammoth waves as I was flung back and pitched face first on the floor. I reached for anything to haul myself back up. Before I could manage a handhold—a shelf, a drawer, anything—I was hammered in the back of the head. My forehead cracked the corner of the bunk, splitting the skin wide open. I lashed out blindly, questing for purchase, and caught the middle of someone’s uniform, the fabric balling up in my fist. I drew them close and punched as hard as I could, over and over and over, fist landing in what I hoped was their gut.