Citadel: First Colony (17 page)

The problem was that damned speech.

Somar’s little soapbox revival against the Citadel module, with the sun glinting off it and blinding anyone who looked his way. That was the alien’s way of trying to turn everyone against Jack and his crew. It was his way of elevating himself, telling everyone that he was somehow better than them. It was the alien’s way of rising above his place, and that was something Jack and the others could never tolerate. Not from anybody.

We’re a
family
? Jack laughed about that.
Me, my crew, the rest of the Blue Collars—
we’re
a family
.

These White Collars and their little pet, Somar, were just vultures and carrion. They lived on the carcasses of good people.
Somar, telling us we’re a family
, Jack thought,
that’s his way of making himself our papa. He’s our daddy, and we’re all his helpless little children. Don’t stray to far, little ones, or you’ll die in the scary woods.

It made him sick when everyone, including a bunch of the Blue Collars, had joined in with the scrub, shouting “Citadel” like a bunch of idiots, as if the word meant
anything
. It was the name of a colony vessel. It was the name of a chunk of useless metal and wire that did nothing more than take up space now.

They weren’t a
family
, they were
cows
, lined up to be slaughtered. And Somar was the butcher.

Jack wasn’t fooled, and neither was his crew, and together they’d spent the past day or so finding others who weren’t fooled either. They went to every Blue Collar in turn, talked to them, hinted to them that something had to be done about the alien, about the
threat
. And many of them had agreed. Some, too many, had said they wanted nothing to do with a mutiny. A
mutiny
! How could they mutiny against someone who never should have been in charge in the first place? How could it be mutiny if the Captain was just some leaf-brained alien trying to con everyone into sitting in place, stupid expressions fixed on their faces while he cut their heads off one by one? He’d murder them all before it was over and this ... this is the man—no the creature, the monster, the
thing
—they wanted to follow?

“Jack?”

Jack was shaken from his rage, from the sick feeling that ran like a fever through his entire body. It was an unwelcome interruption. Right now, the hate fed Jack like mother’s milk. Being pulled away from it was like being pulled off of life support. He turned with near rage to the source of the voice.

It was Billy Sans. The young man had been working side-by-side with the scrub this whole time. Jack had written the boy off as a lost cause, a future casualty in the coming war.

“What do you want?” he asked.

“I ... I’ve been hearing things.”

Oh, that was it. He’d heard of Jack’s plan of mutiny, and he was coming to, what, bargain? To blackmail him? To threaten him?

“I want in,” he said.

For a moment, there was the feeling of shuttles colliding in space. The sick, slow feeling of an inevitable, jarring change in motion. The sickness within Jack faded for a moment as he had to readjust his thinking.

But he didn’t believe it. He thought it was a trick. This kid had been in private meetings with Somar the whole time, and Jack had assumed he was working with the alien. But maybe ... maybe the boy had been fooled and now was coming to his senses. Maybe he had realized the threat this thing posed to all of them. Maybe he had learned something that had turned him around.

“In? What do you want in on?”
Gotta play it cool
, Jack thought.
Gotta make sure he isn’t here to save the scrub.

“The, you know ... ” he looked around, making sure no one was in ear shot. “The mutiny,” he whispered. “I want to be a part of it.”

“No mutiny,” Jack said. “There’s no mutiny.”

Billy looked confused. “But, I heard ... ”

Jack grabbed him by the front of his uniform, startling him. “I don’t care what you heard!” he shouted. “Who are you with? Are you with that thing in the command center, or are you here? Are you with us? Are you with
me
?”

Again Billy seemed confused and shaken. “I said it, didn’t I? I said I wanted in.”

“You can say anything you want, but that don’t make it so.” Jack quickly grabbed him by the back of the neck, squeezing painfully. Billy let out a small cry and struggled to pull away, but Jack’s grip was too strong for him, his passion and fury were too much. They stopped him from squirming, as Jack leaned in close and whispered, “So here’s what I’m asking you, Billy Sans. Who are you with?”

Billy swallowed, and sweat was beading on his forehead. His face and his neck were beet red, and an artery in his neck undulated with his pulse, which Jack could almost hear thumping out of the boy. “You,” Billy said hoarsely. “I’m with you. I’m in. Like I said.”

Jack stared into the boy’s eyes for a long moment.

This is it
, he thought.
This is what I am. My whole life I’ve worked in space, worked with these people, and I never really knew who I was. I was a crewman, a crew chief even, but never anything else. Never myself. And now, looking at this boy, holding his neck so hard I could snap it with one hand, now I know who and what I am. I’m in charge. This is the first time I’ve ever been myself.

“Good,” Jack said. “Then go back to the command center.”

He forcibly pushed Billy back. The boy recovered, stared, blinked. “But ...”

“Go back,” Jack said intensely. “Listen. Learn. And when you have something, you tell me about it. We’re not ready to move yet but we’re growing. We will be ready. And you’re going to help us get there. You’re going to listen to that thing and tell me everything it says and hears and sees. And then, when it’s time, you’re going to have the honor and privilege of stabbing it in the heart. When I tell you, you’ll kill him.”

Billy hesitated, as if on the brink of deciding to change his mind, to walk away and refuse to be a part of the mutiny after all. Then, slowly, he nodded. And with that he turned and ran back towards the command post and the alien monster waiting inside.

There
could be no doubt
that communication with the orbital platform had been fully restored. It was receiving and even transmitting as normal. It had relayed their communications with the shuttle, which was far too distant for radio contact, and that meant that at the very least the secondary systems were functional. If they could talk to the shuttle, they should be able to talk to the platform.

So far, however, Somar had experienced no luck. For hours he had patiently called to the platform, taking up the duty personally when Billy Sans had become tired and restless and, Somar assumed, angry. When Somar had relieved him, the boy had hurried from the communications equipment as if it were on fire. He obviously had urgent business elsewhere, though Somar couldn’t imagine what it might be.

“Captain Alonzo, this is Captain Somar. The Citadel survivors are here with me. Rescue operations are in progress to retrieve the colonists and return them to this location. We are in need of medical support. Please respond.” It was the exact message he had spoken dozens of times already. It was his hope that whatever was happening on the station eventually would be resolved and someone would think to check the planet-side communications network.

It had occurred to Somar that perhaps something had happened to the crew on the platform. Perhaps they had perished, and the automated systems had brought them into orbit. If this was the case, then there would be no help coming, and they would have to make due with the resources they had available. It wasn’t an unbearable situation, but it was unfortunate.

They had the shuttle, which according to recent reports from Mitch Garrison would eventually be able to leave the atmosphere again. After the colonists were recovered and returned safely to Citadel, a team could take the shuttle up to the platform and assess the situation there. In the meantime, Somar had the remaining engineers and crewmen working to repair Citadel as best they could. They were stymied by the lack of replacement parts, but once the shuttle returned with the components from the pods and the colony module, they should have everything they needed.

Everything depended on the shuttle. This made Somar quite nervous.

He ignored his anxiety, deciding to momentarily abandon the attempt to make contact with the orbital platform in favor of reviewing the work roster and agenda for the next day. They were going to attempt to bring Citadel’s power distribution system online.

This would be an incredible boost to the battered humans. Electricity meant they could have lights. It meant heat for cooking, and hot water for bathing, once they could replenish their water supply. Bathing was becoming more and more of a necessity as the sweat of the hard-working humans brought with it odorous bacteria. Somar’s sense of smell was no more acute than a human’s, but at times the rank odor seemed overpowering to him. His people did not produce such foulness.

But they did suffer from other maladies. For instance, Somar was becoming aware of the dryness of his skin. He hadn’t had access to much water during the journey to this world due to the long cryogenic sleep. And now, because they were forced to ration water until they found a reliable source, he had been forced to make due with the small amounts allotted to each individual. No human guessed that this tiny share, which was barely enough for a human being, was completely inadequate for his needs. His people required much more water than the humans. On the Esool home world, each home had a large vat of purified, cool water in which the Esool would immerse themselves for short periods. The water would be absorbed through millions of ducts and pores in the Esool’s skin, each of which served to sip a tiny bit of water into the body and distribute it everywhere. An Esool could go a great length of time without water or food at all, taking nourishment from the sun if need be, but they would inevitably have to spend time immersed in water in order to replenish the reserves in every cell of their bodies.

Somar had been working on this issue when the rest of the work that fell on his shoulders did not preoccupy him. There was a river close by, with shallow areas where he could sit and absorb moisture. It could also serve as a source for replenishing the water supply and putting an end to the rationing. But almost of greater importance, it could be used as a power source for the community that would grow here, once they placed turbines and laid power cables.

At this point, though, there was no community here. There were only survivors, refugees who needed to concentrate only on those things that mattered. What mattered most to these people was more water. Perhaps a great swath of their problems could be solved all at once.

Billy Sans returned to the command post, much to Somar’s surprise. Though he had appointed Sans as his aide and given him many duties, Somar expected the young human to chafe against his authority. He expected him to be late for his shifts, to be short-tempered and sullen, and to show up only for the time he’d been assigned. No more and no less. These were the traits that Somar had learned were part of the human character. A sort of passive resistance undercut with belligerence. Perhaps, though, he had been wrong in this assessment. Or at the very least, he must have been wrong about Mr. Billy Sans.

“Welcome back, Mr. Sans. I hadn’t expected to see you again until your next shift.”

“I thought you might need help. You haven’t appointed any other aides,” he said.

It was true, though it wasn’t actually an oversight on Somar’s part. There simply weren’t that many people available for that sort of task. Most were working hard on simply keeping themselves and those around them alive. Repairs were being made, shelters were being built, and the wounded were being treated. Somar had determined that Billy Sans, a Junior Grade crewman, was one of the few that could be spared to do administrative work. It had seemed at first that the young man had resented it, but Somar was pleasantly surprised to find him eager to help.

Billy’s availability, however, was only part of why he was chosen. Somar found himself suddenly surrounded by enemies, and there were few he could trust. He had sent three such trustworthy humans out on a mission of vital importance. That left him woefully short of allies here among the survivors of the crash.

With tensions rising between the two castes and with a general mistrust and hatred rearing its head towards Somar himself, it was imperative that he find people he could rely on. Mitch Garrison had told him that Billy Sans was reliable and trustworthy, and that despite having “a few rattling brain cells,” as he put it, he was prone to doing the right thing. It was as close to an endorsement as Somar could hope for at this point, and so he had assigned Billy to be his aide.

“I do indeed need help, Mr. Sans,” Somar said, with a slight bowing nod. “You honor me. Thank you for your diligence and resolve.”

Billy seemed taken aback by the Captain’s gratitude. “Th-thank you,” he said. He took his post with only a brief, quick glance over his shoulder at the Captain. He then began attempting further communications with the orbital platform.

Freed from that responsibility for the moment, Somar turned back to the next day’s schedule. The day was already filled with vital tasks that could mean the group’s survival, but by moving things around, reassigning certain personnel and including himself as the project leader, Somar found a way for a group to make their way to the river and bring water back to the camp.

Somar thought for a moment. Leading the team to the water would solve many problems for the community, but it didn’t necessarily solve his personal issue. Hauling water was a difficult and arduous task as it was. To haul back the amount Somar would need would seem unnecessarily tough and perhaps even wasteful to the humans. There was no telling how they might perceive his need to immerse himself.

“Mr. Sans,” Somar said, “there’s a matter I need to discuss with you.”