Ep.#8 - "Celestia: CV-02" (5 page)

“I don’t blame you, sir. Of course, you’re probably used to it by now, especially after fighting the Ta’Akar.”

“The Jung are not the Ta’Akar,” Nathan said. “They’ve got a lot more ships, and they control a lot more worlds. And we don’t have the Karuzari to help us this time.”

“Maybe we do.”

Nathan looked quizzically at Loki.

“Those resistance fighters in the 72 Herculis system on Tanna,” Loki said. “Aren’t they pretty much the same thing?”

“Not exactly,” Nathan said. “First, it sounded to me like they were more local than the Karuzari. Second, I doubt that one of them is an illegally deposed monarch.”

“Yeah, probably not,” Loki agreed with a shrug, “but if there’s one, there’s gotta be more, right?”

“You’ve been talking with Lieutenant Commander Nash, haven’t you?”

“She was in here a little while ago, asking me questions about Garrett and his friends. She really wants to go back there and talk to them.”

“I know. She told me.”

“I know it’s probably none of my business, sir. I’m just a navigator, but, are you going to let her?”

“I’m still thinking about it.”

“I guess captains have to do that a lot: think about things. Frankly, sir, I don’t know how you do it.”

“Do what?” Nathan wondered.

“Make the big decisions.”

“You just do. Most of the time, you don’t have any other choice.”

Loki was silent for a moment, looking down at his hands and thinking. Finally, without looking up, he said, “I guess that’s what makes you Na-Tan.”

“You don’t really believe in that Na-Tan garbage, do you?” Nathan asked. He looked at Loki as his head slowly rose to reveal a mischievous smile. “You’ve been hanging around Josh too long,” Nathan added.

“Yeah, he starts to corrupt you after a while.”

Nathan smiled back. “You know, she suggested that you go with her back to Tanna.”

“Yeah, she told me,” Loki said, offering no hint of how he felt about the idea.

“How do you feel about that?”

“I’m okay with it, sir,” Loki answered. “Anything to get me out of here. I’m getting awfully bored.”

“Even if I do let her go, it will be a while,” Nathan told him, “maybe a month or more.”

“Yeah, she told me we’re going to coast for a while and collect old signals and images. Just as well, I guess. I suspect I’m not going to be a hundred percent for a few more weeks anyway.”

“Think you’ll be up for a little consulting work sometime soon?” Nathan asked.

“The sim stuff? Major Prechitt already asked me. I told him I’d do what I can, but that’s not much, really. Josh does most of the flying. I mostly just plot the jumps and manage the sensors and other systems. It’s all straightforward stuff. Those Corinari pilots will figure it out in no time, sir.”

“Don’t discount your expertise too quickly,” Nathan told him. “You may not realize it now, but you probably know a few tricks in the backseat that would be useful to your relief crew.”

“Then you’re not planning on replacing us?”

“Not unless you’re planning on quitting on me,” Nathan told him.

“No, sir, not me. Not Josh either, once they wake him up, that is.”

“Good, because we’re going to need a lot of recon flights, far more than one crew can handle—maybe even more than two crews can handle.”

“I’ll miss working on the bridge, though,” Loki said.

“Oh, you’re still going to be working on the bridge, Mister Sheehan. I only have one other flight team, remember?”

“Yes, sir,” Loki answered, smiling.

“Get some rest, Mister Sheehan,” Nathan instructed as he rose. “I’ve got to find the doctor and ask her for something to knock my ass out for a few hours.”

“Thank you, sir.” Loki watched his captain walk across the treatment room, disappearing through the doorway at the far end. He looked at his friend, Josh, lying unconscious in the bed next to him, his breathing controlled by an artificial respiration device connected to him by tubes and wires. He closed his eyes and listened to the sound of the pressurized air being pumped intermittently through the tubes to cause his friend to breathe. Loki let the rhythmic hisses lull him back to sleep.

* * *

Nathan left medical with a small container of med-tabs that Doctor Chen promised would help him sleep without leaving him groggy. He had never liked taking medications, something that he had picked up from his mother. She had always told him stories about how her grandmother could cure just about anything with a root, a paste, or a special blend of herbal teas. Many ailments of his youth had been cured by such recipes, all handed down over a hundred generations who had to learn how to treat themselves in the absence of modern medicine. He put the container into his pants pocket and continued down the corridor.

It took less than a minute to reach Mister Percival’s quarters, as he had been assigned to one of the rooms that had been converted into an extended care room due to its close proximity to the ship’s medical department. As he approached Mister Percival’s quarters, he tapped his comm-set. “Nash, Captain,” he announced in a hushed tone.

“
Go for Nash,
” Jessica’s voice answered over his comm-set.

“Are you ready?” Nathan asked as he played with the volume on his comm-set, setting it as low as possible while still being audible to him.

“
Yes, sir.
”

Nathan pressed the buzzer next to the doorway and waited. For days, he had thought about what to say to the man, and for days, he had wondered what that man would say when confronted. A hundred different ways to ask him why he had pretended to be someone else had run through Nathan’s mind. He had discussed it with Jessica more than once, but now he was going to have to choose one.

The door finally opened, and Mister Percival stood on the other side. His gray hair was neatly trimmed and styled, and his whiskers were trimmed and stately in their appearance. He was dressed in medical scrub pants and a loose fitting T-shirt, and he appeared ready for a good night’s sleep.

“Captain, I wasn’t expecting you,” Mister Percival said.

“I didn’t wake you, did I?” Nathan asked politely.

“Of course not. I was just reading.”

“May I speak with you a moment?”

“Of course. Please come in,” Mister Percival said, stepping to one side to allow Nathan to pass.

Nathan stepped into the small room as Mister Percival closed the door and followed him in. The main lights were off, and the room was lit by the bedside lamp and the glow of the view screen mounted in the bulkhead over the desk at the foot of the bed. “What were you reading?” Nathan asked.

“Just browsing some of the files in your database about your early post-plague Earth history. How your ancestors managed to survive the total collapse of industrialized society is fascinating. It makes me feel quite proud, actually, that human beings could be so resilient. Quite surprising really, considering the state of humanity at the time the plague struck.”

“Yes, well, don’t believe everything you read,” Nathan told him. “A lot of the early stuff is based on some pretty weak evidence. Nobody bothered keeping decent records for at least a century after the fall.”

“You sound like an historian, Captain.”

“It was my area of study in college.”

“A logical choice for a future starship captain,” Mister Percival said as he sat on the edge of his bed. “Please, sit.”

Nathan took a seat on the chair at the small desk built into the bulkhead. He glanced at the viewer on the wall over the desk, noting that there were history files on display, just as Mister Percival had indicated.

“To what do I owe the honor of your company, Captain?” Mister Percival asked graciously.

Nathan thought for a moment, all of the best tactics that he had discussed with Jessica running through his mind one more time. He pulled his data pad from his thigh pocket and thumbed the power button, the screen instantly coming to life. He glanced at the screen just long enough to see that it was still displaying the last thing he had viewed on it. “I was wondering if I might ask you a question.”

“Of course.”

Nathan tossed the data pad unceremoniously onto the bed next to Mister Percival. “Why is the man in this video log file addressing you as Captain Dubnyk?”

“Well, that’s a different approach,
” Jessica’s voice whispered into Nathan’s ear over his barely audible comm-set. “
Don’t believe we discussed that one.
”

Mister Percival picked up the data pad, his eyes still locked onto Nathan’s. His expression had changed, as had the look in his eyes. He pressed the play button and listened to the video log for several seconds before pausing it again. “I guess you already know the answer to that question, Captain. That’s why you’re here, isn’t it?”

“So, are you Dubnyk, or are you Percival?”

The old man cocked his head to one side, his eyes gazing upward for a moment as he considered the captain’s question. “I would say that I am more
Dubnyk
than I am Percival.”

“
His name probably isn’t Dubnyk either,
” Jessica whispered over the comm-set.

“So you’re not Dubnyk, either,” Nathan said. “Then what’s your real name?”

“I’m a man born a thousand years ago, Captain. Does my real name matter all that much?”

“No, I suppose it doesn’t. We’d have no way to verify it one way or the other,” Nathan admitted, remembering that Jessica had pointed that out to him in an earlier conversation. “However,
who
you are, as in what
kind
of man you are,
does
matter. At least, it does to me.”

“An honest man’s word is worth more than a liar’s money,” the old man answered, obviously quoting something he had heard before.

“Something like that.” Nathan leaned forward, his forearms resting on his knees as he stared into the old man’s eyes. “Who
are
you?”

The old man stared right back, unflinching in his gaze. “For all intents and purposes, I am Captain Alan Dubnyk, owner and captain of the interstellar cargo ship, Jasper.” The old man bowed his head a little as he held his hand out slightly to his sides, palms up, as if to say
at your service
.

“All right,” Nathan said, sitting up straight again. “For the purpose of this discussion, let’s say you
are
Captain Dubnyk. Why were you pretending to be Mister Percival?”

“
And why were you in his stasis pod?
” Jessica whispered over Nathan’s comm-set.

Nathan was shaken for a split second. He had almost forgotten that Jessica was listening in on the conversation. “And why were you in his stasis pod?”

Captain Dubnyk’s eyes narrowed slightly, examining his interrogator. “The colony had died due to no fault of my crew or me, victims of a string of unfortunate events. I had insufficient resources to leave orbit and no way to get down to the surface, which was frozen solid by then, in any case. My only hope of survival was my emergency beacon and that dying old man’s souped-up, medical stasis pod.”

“What did you hope to accomplish?” Nathan wondered.

“I was trying to live, Captain,” Captain Dubnyk insisted. “I figured another ship full of evacuees would pick up our beacon and respond. Even if they didn’t, sooner or later, one of the fringe planets would recover and start sending ships out once more. Maybe by then they would have detected our beacon and sent someone out to rescue us.”

“Quite the long shot,” Nathan commented unemotionally.

“True enough, but I had no other options.”

“So you killed a helpless, unconscious, old man and took his place in his stasis pod.”

Captain Dubnyk shifted uncomfortably in his chair. “I had
three hundred
colonists still on board, Captain. Most of their pods were still working, and might have continued to do so for some time, but only if someone maintained them. The crew’s pods were in substandard condition at best. The odds of long-term survival in any one of those pods was laughable. Yes, I killed our benefactor, but I did so to try to save the lives of three hundred people, healthy people. Young and well, with long and prosperous lives ahead of them. There were even some children, Captain. Would you prefer that I had killed one of them instead? I mean, what use would the children have been in that situation?”

“
Damn,
” Jessica whispered over Nathan’s comm-set. “
I didn’t see that coming.
”

“When did you do this?” Nathan asked, trying not to miss a beat, or show any emotional reaction to Captain Dubnyk’s defensive pleas.

“When?”

“When.”

“
That put him on the ropes,
” Jessica whispered over the comm-set.

“Once I was sure that everyone on the surface was dead and that I had no other choice.”

“How many years after you made orbit?” Nathan said, clarifying his question.

“About two hundred, I believe,” Captain Dubnyk answered. “I did not simply kill him, Captain. He was still alive when I placed him into my stasis pod and activated it. He had as much chance as anyone else.”

“Anyone else except you,” Nathan commented.

“The safety and survival of those colonists were my responsibility,” Dubnyk insisted.

“As was the life of Mister Percival, your benefactor,” Nathan reminded him.

“I am not proud of what I did, Captain,” Captain Dubnyk said, “but I stand by my decision.”

“
This guy is good,
” Jessica whispered.

“I’m sure you do, Captain,” Nathan said, ignoring Jessica’s comment over his comm-set.

Captain Dubnyk sat up straight and crossed his arms, appearing indignant. “Who are you to judge me, Captain?”

“No one is judging you, Captain Dubnyk, least of all me.”

Captain Dubnyk pointed an accusatory finger Nathan’s way. “You’ve made decisions that have cost lives, Captain Scott—or should I say, Na-Tan? I’ve heard your crew talking in the mess about your adventures in the Pentaurus cluster. When exactly did the Earth fall to your enemy, Captain? While you were playing the role of a legend back on Corinair?”