Colony One (10 page)

Niko was nodding, “That has to be it.”

“Send the coordinates of the first container to my console.” Charlie clipped. Niko complied immediately.

“No, absolutely not!” Avery took a step closer to both men, “We do not have the time or the fuel to run off on wild goose chases. Mr. Foster, maintain your heading.”

“There’s nothing at the coordinates the confederation gave us,” Charlie insisted without looking up from his console. “It’s not worth our time or our fuel to continue that course.” He keyed in the new coordinates and engaged the long range engines.

Captain Avery’s eyes widened at his disobedience, and her body tensed as she warned, “Mr. Foster, I am giving you a direct order to change course back to the approved coordinates. If we run out of fuel out here, we’re all dead.”

“We’ll be fine.” Charlie dismissed her concern with a wave of his hand.

At his response and in one swift and abrupt moment, Captain Avery drew her side arm and circled Charlie to stand to his left, barrel trained at his head. He glanced over and, realizing what was happening, jumped slightly in his seat with a muffled curse. He took his hands off the console and raised them slightly. She walked forward and pressed the cool tip of the gun to the side of his head. The atmosphere in the bridge immediately transformed. Makenna and Niko were on their feet in seconds, but stood still to avoid any accidents on the Captain’s part.

“Hey!” Niko exclaimed with his hands out, “There’s no need for this level of response.” Charlie was quiet as he stared ahead, refusing to touch the console. It was difficult to know, but Niko suspected if their roles were reversed, his main emotion would be fear of a mad woman shooting him.

“I gave you an order,” her voice trembled with restraint. “Change. Your. Heading.”

Charlie slowly lowered his hands to grip the sides of the glass interface. A warning alarm began to chime from the ship’s audio system, indicating the override had been engaged for autopilot. No one was keying in commands and the ship recognized the potential danger. Unwilling to chance being shot, Charlie continued to look straight ahead through the viewscreen, acutely aware of the gun pressed against his temple.

“I said change it!” The woman yelled, applying pressure to his temple.

“I will not.” He held his ground, grinding his teeth as his eyes darted from the viewscreen to the console and back.

“Izvinite,” Makenna’s voice cut in from behind them. Her social skills may have needed work, but her survival instinct was alive and well, “Here is idea. Let us not kill only pilot.”

“He is going to kill us all if he doesn’t change course.” Avery countered.

“Charlie?” Another voice sounded – it was Finn trying to defuse the situation. “What are you doing?”

“I am completing this mission.”

“I don’t think so,” the woman changed her grip on the pistol and used her thumb to pull back the hammer.

“Captain! No!” Niko took a step towards the two with raised hands. It was enough for Avery to hesitate. “I’ll mark our fuel reserves to indicate when we’ll need to turn around. That way we’ll have enough to get back to earth if we all agree that we will turn back when the alert sounds.”

She looked conflicted. She did not want to back down; she did not want her orders disobeyed in any way. But with Niko’s compromise, she had no plausible, respectable alternative. She set her jaw and narrowed her eyes, “I don’t know, Charlie Foxtrot. Can you agree to those terms?”

Charlie nodded and swallowed hard.

“Good. You two can take the fall when this mission fails and both the Confederation and Citizens United wants to know why.” Avery uncocked the pistol, holstered the firearm and stalked off the bridge.

Charlie immediately keyed commands into the console, calming the warning alarms. A sigh of relief was felt in the entire cabin.

“Why are there no more buoys?” Finn stepped onto the bridge now that Avery was gone. “You said Colony One ran out? I thought they were supposed to be placed before the colony ship left?”

“They were,” Niko answered. “Apparently, that plan was not completed. The colonists seem to have improvised. The ship, or ships that placed the buoys up to this point are not compatible with the placement of these indicators.  Those ships were too small to have this many large containers aboard.”

“And the coordinates we were given…” Finn trailed off – she was saying what everyone was already thinking. “Something is not right.”

“I’m hoping this is just a case of bureaucratic incompetence.” Charlie breathed and wiped his brow. His voice sounded shaky despite his efforts to hide it.

“This would not surprise me,” Makenna spoke. “In Russia of century ago, government official can barely find bathroom.” That broke the tension. Mak looked mystified as to why people were laughing – she was being serious.

Winston stepped out from the briefing room and joined Charlie at the pilot’s console, “Are you alright, son?” he asked softly.

Charlie nodded, “Right as rain.” He smiled, and then laughed with a slight nervous tinge.

Winston squeezed his shoulder, “Let me know if there is anything I can do for you.”

“Sure, Doc.”

Winston left, looking slightly shaken at the whole ordeal himself. Niko leaned towards Charlie from where he sat nearby at his own console, “Thank you.”

“Autopilot is engaged until we reach the first marker. We can investigate more when we get there.” Charlie said, refocusing to avoid a nervous breakdown. On his list of life achievements, having a gun pointed at him was nowhere to be found – up until now. “What’s our fuel situation?”

Niko double checked the calculations he had entered into the system, “We have more than sufficient quantities. I believe the Captain was overreacting a small amount.”

Charlie huffed and shook his head, “You have a gift for understatement.”

ɸ ɸ ɸ

Avery slammed the door to her quarters and paced the small open space between the desk and the bunk. She wasn’t sure how, but she had to prevent this excursion. She had expected Charlie to back down immediately at the first sign of force. She was most upset because she might have had an easier time convincing him to stay on course if the entire ship hadn’t decided to take audience.

She felt her head begin to throb as she tried to consider her options. She was too angry to think and had to take several minutes to calm herself. The Confederation had cursed her with a civilian crew – how did they expect her to get anything done? In her line of work, people took orders and those who disagreed with you were shot. Life was simpler that way. It was one of the few benefits of overpopulation – employers didn’t get touchy-feely about body count so long as the job got done.

Margret Avery was the person the world government called in when they couldn’t ask their regular soldiers to get their hands dirtier than usual – same for corporations around the globe. Back home, she had a handful of trusted partners she worked jobs with and between them, they had seen and done more questionable things than an average person could imagine.

If they had sent her professional colleagues with her on this mission, she would not be having this dilemma.

That reminder made her anger flair. She should have been able to control the situation easily. Was she losing it? It was not often the case that she was confined to a small space with people she might eventually need to… her thoughts trailed off. She was not supposed to get attached to any of these people. She had gone out of her way to avoid it and yet – something had gone wrong. With this non-prescribed deviation, she was beginning to think that she was the weak link.

Despite all her efforts to learn nothing about these people, she knew Finn’s laugh was infectious, Makenna was so earnest it was funny to everyone else watching, Charlie was reliable and thoughtful, Winston was quiet while comforting to the rest of the crew, and Niko was loyal to the point of self-sacrifice. She had observed all this by just the briefest encounters with them. It had humanized them and that wasn’t an option.

Avery sat down at her desk and keyed on her glass tablet. She secured a channel back to Earth, bouncing off one of the last communications buoys and activated the projection setting. Once the line was connected, a ghostly face hovered over the tablet.

“What is it?” The holographic man asked.

“We’ve got a problem,” Avery explained.

The ghost of a man listened to her report but did not respond immediately. He contemplated what she had said finally settled on an order, “Do not interfere with the new course.”

“What?” Avery exclaimed. “The mission was clear with no room for variation. That was not part of the plan,” she reminded him.

“We are curious to see the outcome. Relay anything that you find and report back to receive new orders.” He said and him image disappeared as he disconnected the channel.

That was one way to prevent a debate, Avery thought as she angrily keyed off her tablet.

10

Present Day, EMP Headquarters, Earth
 

“What do you expect they’ll find if they
do
find Colony One?” asked an older man with thin black hair of Richardson, who was seated at his desk. The office was opulent only in that it was large – space being one of the most sought after commodities on Earth. It was so large that Richardson often preferred it to even his own home, which was only slightly above average in size. He knew he would be able to afford better soon, however, as he planned to climb the ranks of the Expansion Manifest Partnership. He was surprised it wasn’t happening faster, frankly, considering the colony missions were his brainchildren.

He had warned that there might be public backlash – though even he did not anticipate just how much and how quickly. He, as many others, assumed that the remaining population of Earth would appreciate the extra breathing room that the colony missions provided.

“For the last time,” Richardson sighed. “They won’t find anything, Thomas.” He answered with confidence.

“We don’t know that,” Tom insisted. “We can’t know that. The only colony ship that ever returned was Three.” As they spoke, the empty returned ship was being upgraded to accommodate the fifth colony mission.

Richardson flashed the man a defiant look, “I do know. And you’re just going to have to trust me.”

“Have you read the transcript of Avery’s last report?” Tom asked. “One of those colony ships left a damn breadcrumb trail.”

“Listen, Thomas,” Richardson stood as he spoke harshly. He put his hands on his desk and leaned down to address the man, “I have bigger things to worry about than the Hyperion mission. Avery will contain it. It’s what we hired her to do. Have
you
seen the news lately?” He keyed on the viewer from his OMNI and images of riots filled the screen. He tapped more commands into the handheld and the images shifted to a map of the world with red flashing dots on areas that were experiencing conflict. They peppered every continent. “
This
is the issue we should be focusing on.”

“They’re two aspects of the same problem,” Tom persisted. “What will make this all worse, “ he indicated with a sweeping arm toward the viewer, “is if the Hyperion comes back with a negative report.”

“That won’t happen,” Richardson repeated and rubbed his forehead. “Worst case scenario, we make sure they don’t come back at all.” He waved his hand to dismiss the line of thought, “What we need is a distraction. A mutual threat. Maybe a bombing or coordinated attack on a civilian location.”

“That could escalate things just as likely as it will calm them,” Tom pointed out.

“It has proven effective in the past,” Richardson snapped.

Thomas shook his head, “Not anymore, Lance. People are seeing through it, or are desensitized to it – I’m not even sure anymore. What is evident is they’re not afraid to engage in violence or vandalism. Production zones are reporting catastrophic returns. War has been raging for two years now. You know better than anyone what a failed endeavor that has been – it’s barely put a dent in population and it’s only accelerating the planet’s demise.”

“Yes, which is why the guy who proposed war as a quelling technique is now missing.” Richardson shifted his thoughts to accommodate the reality he knew to be true, “We’ll hold contests for lifetime supplies of candy bars, then. Or stage spontaneous food charities.”

“They’re not upset about being hungry this time.”

Point, counterpoint – all exhausting. “Then,” Richardson threw up his hands, “All passengers for the next colony ship will have money given to their families who stay.”

Thomas simply shook his head, “It will be seen as nothing more than a pay-off.”

“I don’t hear you coming up with any bright ideas,” Richardson grumbled. Like the war effort, the three colony ships previously launched had only made a small dent in the population troubles of Earth. With time, it would all but solve the population question – but only with the support and cooperation of the people to fill them. There was a moment of silence from Tom, and then a look crossed his face that somehow simultaneously lit it up and sobered him. Richardson took note. “Well?”

“You wouldn’t like it.” Tom warned.

“I’d be willing to try just about anything at this point.” He said and paced away from his desk to a window that wasn’t really a window in the traditional sense. It was glass, but it projected an artificial image of a green landscape with trees as seen from the 30
th
floor he was on. It even simulated a soft breeze that made the trees and long grass sway.

“Sign up for the next colony ship.” Tom said plainly.

“Me?” Richardson spun on his heel and pointed to his chest, a look of pure incredulousness on his face.

“Yes,” Tom asserted.

“You jest,” Richardson laughed and shook his head.

“You don’t have to be aboard when it launches,” Tom pointed out. “Just make a public announcement that you’ll be joining the next colony, based on reports of success from the other missions.”

“And then credibility is destroyed and we have to do this all over again when everyone realizes I backed out.” Richardson dismissed the idea.

Tom shrugged, “Not if your mother or some other loved one becomes ill and you needed to be there with her during her last moments of life.”

Richardson pondered the thought, surprised by how much it seemed to make sense. Much of the outrage manifesting into violence was directed at the EMP for not being able to provide more of an indication that the colonial missions were thriving. If one of the key members of EMP agreed to go… it would speak volumes.

“That might just work, Tommy.”

“We’ll have to get permission from the Board,” Tom pointed out.

“You leave them to me.” Richardson assured. “I’ve been spoon feeding them this long, it shouldn’t be difficult to sell them on this.”

“I hope so. The United Confederation Army is already spread as thin as it ever has been.”

Richardson was nodding, “You know what would be even more convincing?” He asked with a designing look in his eye. Tom gave him a questioning look. “If a whole team of government officials signed up for Colony Five.”

Tom considered the idea, “It has potential. So long as we made it clear we were not setting up another world government. One of our selling points was complete autonomy.”

“Sure,” Richardson shrugged, not caring to consider the details. That was Tom’s job. “Get a list together. Create incentives – whatever you need to do.” He laughed, “It’s probably a good time to settle any political scores you may have.”

“Remind me to never get on your bad side,” Tom joked, though there was a tinge of sincerity in his voice. “I’ll schedule you for a press conference once everything is arranged. Try to avoid making any long term plans.” He winked at Richardson and left him to his spacious office.