J Mauldin - Final Solution

“Take some rest, Kelly, we have time before dealing with this. Have a few drinks, maybe find a pretty face for some much needed company.”

Kelly’s eyebrows crinkled.

I raised my open palms. “I’m just sayin’. If it helps get you through the day I hear Lacey, one of Harold’s girls, isn’t currently occupied.”

Griffin entered our section with a piping hot cup of coffee and a handful of pills. My angel.

“Are you trying to pimp us out, sir?” Kelly asked, and gave Griffin a wary look.

She handed me the goods and held back her chuckles. “I always come in on the best parts. What were you talking about?”

“Nothing,” I said, turning to face the controls, coffee to my lips. “Not a damn thing.”

“Goddard,” XO said as I entered the conference room, harsh light forming deep shadows across his face. He was sitting at a small, black table with six chairs. The surface was spattered with papers. Advanced planning was going about old school.

“Sir.”

“Have a seat.” Liberty extended a hand at the chair beside her. “Are we on track?”

“Looks like it.” I eased into the high backed chair, amazed at how comfortable it was. “Weapons have had another full system’s check. Life support systems are within operational limits, no issues with water reclamation or the oxygen generator. The plants are doing their job’s keeping up with Co2 consumption. Ion thrusters, liquid boosters and navigational controls are nominal. We’re good.”

“Glad to hear. XO?”

“Yes, ma’am.” He placed his hands on the table and clasped them together, forming a triangle with his bent arms. “Goddard, Captain Fryatt has informed me of her plans in detail for once we get back home. I understand you’ve been read in.”

“Which plans,” I asked, playing the least bit dumb. I knew we’d kicked William out of the Captain’s chair, but wasn’t sure how far Liberty had brought in our XO.

“Our plans to retake the government,” Liberty supplied.

“Oh.”

“Oh is right,” XO mused. “I have had to do some serious thinking. Where I do believe that the former Captain was wrong for hanging us out to dry—and he will pay for his traitorous crimes—I’m not sure we have the authority to reform the government, even if I agree it’s necessary. What the common Martian must endure under our current Brethren rule is immoral. I’ve been a piece of the problem and carry part of that weight as a result.”

“We don’t have the authority?” Liberty snapped, tapping her pen absently against the table like a drum stick. “Oh, we have it alright, thirty times over.”

And there it was. It always came back to the nukes.

XO’s mouth went tight. “In military might, there is no doubt. They are powerless to stop us, but the question is, would we make good on our bluff? Is our threat enough? Do you have the political resolve to undo your father’s work? You wish to hold the government hostage, sure, but would you go as far as to bomb them if they do not meet your demands? How do you show them you’re serious without turning into your father? That bastard would have let countless people die. He would have let my family die, murdering them by proxy just to bump our stock prices up a few points.” The shadows of the room gathering around his eyes along with his anger.

Stock prices? I thought, my teeth gently grinding against one another.

Liberty considered this for a minute, tossing down the pen, her eyes narrowing. She leaned forward on her elbows, breasts resting atop the table. “We know where the hidden city is, the one only important personnel are being kept. If those same people would be willing to let the rest of Mars burn for their survival, knowing what father did, then threatening the populous wouldn’t be useful in any event. I have their exact coordinates, so if they don’t take us serious enough, we can drop a smaller bomb just outside the zone, scaring them enough to co-operate. I can tell you now, they don’t have a spine of steel like you, XO.”

“That’s risky.” He began to flip through a tablet, light reflecting back onto his face. “There’s the radioactive fallout, and a small chance we could kill those traveling between the hidden city and Arsia Mons. I’m not sure what sort of damage it will do. The computer models are only so accurate.”

“We’ll warn them ahead of time, but not too far ahead, and there will be nothing they can do to stop us.”

XO pinched the bridge of his nose. “Have you decided on a political platform? Sure, wanting to see change is one thing, but you must have a solid plan. We can’t just walk in and demand that the wealthy give everyone a hand out.”

“Sure we can.”

“No.” He shook his head. “We can’t. You’re going to need to think about that. The only thing we can do is control the flow of money into their accounts. Taxes and fees. Have you considered setting up a profit sharing fund for the colonies? These families did take a substantial risk moving away from Earth, and we could give back to them in this way. That would equal out some of the income gap without causing too much political wake.”

“I have thought of that.” Liberty tapped her lips with a finger. “But we will need something more drastic than that method alone. We need a revolution.”

“Listen, ma’am, you can take peoples’ money and property with your weapons, but you can’t change their minds. Remember that. I’m not saying we shouldn’t do this, but making more enemies won’t do you any good.”

Out of the corner of my eye I caught a glimpse of Kelly loitering in the hall—or was it eavesdropping? A man after my own curious heart.

Liberty went on, “If it comes down to it, I’ll bomb the city and see their bunkers turned to dust.” She struck the table with her fists. “We have to see an end to this war and poverty, once and for all. And this will be the end. No more deaths. No more suffering.”

Kelly’s face blanched at her words. I nodded at him and he scurried off up the hall, looking shaky.

“Who’s that?” XO asked, leaning to look out. “Knew we should have shut the damn hatch.” It was a rebuke intended for himself.

“Kelly,” I replied. “He’s not been doing so well lately. I think he misses his family, lost them on Ceres those years back. You know how it is, certain events can bring it all back. Things are coming to a head.”

XO raised a fist. “Remember Ceres.”

Liberty and I returned the gesture. “Remember Ceres.”

The three of us stood, our meeting silently adjourned.

Liberty palmed her coat flat and pulled on the hem. “Are you with me?” She glared at XO. “Because if you’re not I can replace you. I’d rather not have to do that.”

He let out a sigh that betrayed more emotion than I’d ever seen in him. “Yes, ma’am. I’m with you. But if this little game threatens my wife and daughter, so help me—”

“Understood, Stone.”

XO left the room, leaving Liberty and I alone. I hadn’t said anything during the meeting, but something XO brought up had gotten me thinking again.

“You alright, Davie?” Liberty asked, snapping me from my reverie.

“Yeah, I’m fine.” But the thought he’d summoned wouldn’t go away. I had to get to the bottom of this.

Liberty and I spent the day in bed. It was nice no longer having to hide how we felt. This made some of the crew uneasy, an enlisted engineer and the Captain hooking up being a scandal and all, but as Liberty and I had decided awhile back, fuck ’em. Life was too short to worry about what others were thinking all of the time. We were far past the point of reprimands, so why the hell not?