Episode 115. Part 5
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Friday, 02 Dec 2518
En route to Salisbury
Kalidassa (Xuan Wu) System
23:02hrs., local/ship’s time
It’s a somewhat uneasy trip. Potemkin’s really rattled our cage, and hard. Little pops and ticks take on a significance well beyond their importance, and Rina unhappily keeps checking each one. Nothing appears to be wrong. Arden is still pushing for suiting up in the vac suits. There’s no point in it: we have six people aboard and only four vac suits. Arden dons his anyway. Christian carries around a roll of patch tape with him—all it takes is one pinhole in the hull to make this trip light years more interesting than we’d like.
Twenty minutes into our trip, Arden is sent a ‘Wave. It’s hours old and again, it’s Potemkin. Arden takes the message in the lounge. It’s a delayed recording.
Potemkin: If the good doctor is still on the vessel, I hope you’re up to the challenge. Enjoy your flight.
Message ends.
Christian: He poisoned the atmo.
Rina: I checked the atmo and the life support systems before we left.
Christian: But have you found everything? Either a) we’re being paranoid, or b) he did something.
Convinced that Potemkin has somehow infected the ship with a bio-weapon, we go over the ship’s systems again: air, water, purification and recirc, radiation…everything. Nothing is in the red, no alarms go off.
Nika warns Arden to check himself. After all, the last message targeted Arden specifically. If anything like a biological bomb happens, what better way to kill us all than to take out the one guy who could save our lives, dong ma?
We all submit to another round of medical checks. As best as we can tell, all human systems are running fine.
All except our built-in paranoia checks. The checks are off and we’re spinning into the red on that one.
Friday, 02 Dec 2518
In atmo, Salisbury
Kalidassa (Xuan Wu) System
09:37 hrs., local time
Rina is obsessively checking everything she can for the duration of the trip, including avionics, so she’s on the bridge for the approach to Salisbury. Actually, several others besides Rina and Nika are on the bridge. Arden and Mike are there and when Nika jumps on the ’wave to hail flight control, Mike steps forward and gestures at the comm equipment.
Mike: If you don’t mind my getting on the wave?
Nika: No, by all means.
She turns it over. We watch as he types in a few codes, waits a bit and says:
Mike: Weather Data.
What follows next sounds like nonsense, an odd mixture of words that are clearly military and clandestine jargon, peppered with what sound like references to old Cortex shows. It’s a dog’s breakfast, really, and hard to keep up with. And then out of the mess something unequivocal surfaces.
Mike: Mission coordinates.
Mike plugs a set of coordinates into the nav system, points to the spot on our screen.
Mike: You think you can set us down there?
Nika checks the location, sees they’re in the middle of nowhere, and looks askance.
Nika: (to Mike) Confirm?
Mike: (Affirmative) Oh, yeah. We should be out in the middle of nowhere.
Nika: Oo-kay.
It’s a hilly, quasi-mountainous region with steep canyons. There is no beacon to guide us in. Nika finds a clearing and sets us down, nice as you please. She shuts everything down and turns in her chair. It’s getting crowded on the bridge. By now, Christian has joined us, completing the crew complement, and we all stand a moment listening to the engines spinning down. Then:
Nika: Last chance, Mr. Carter. You could always try and stick it out with this twitchy bunch.
Mike: It’s things like that wanted poster that makes me think that, no, I can’t. It’s not, you know, for my own sake.
Arden: Given the choice between you and a wanted poster, and you leaving? I’ll take you and the wanted poster.
Mike: Well, I—.
Nika: Just don’t think you can’t contact us if you need any of us.
Mike: (A beat) All right.
Arden: How about we contact you if we need you?
Christian: A man has to walk his own path.
Arden: Yeah, I just wish his path was along ours right now.
Rina is conspicuously silent as we walk him to the airlock. The airlock opens, the stairs extend down, and the sunlight and air of Salisbury wash inside. It’s still verdant in the clearing, the season having little to do with the calendar, and the bottom riser of the stairs is buried in grass. We hang back, none of us willing to cross the threshold.
Christian: (coughing delicately) Well, I’m sure we all have things we can be doing elsewhere.
Rina: (to the general air) Give me a minute?
Nika: (grabbing Arden’s ear) Come with me.
Arden: Ow. Ow, ow….ow.
Mike: Rina. Help me with this stuff?
He’s got a duffel. More of a backpack than a duffel, really. Rina takes the straps and pulls the lot onto her shoulder, and follows Mike down. He moves a little distance away from the ship and looks around. Trees and underbrush surround the clearing, their leaves rustling in the breeze, perfect for masking conversation.
Mike: Might be a while before anyone’s here…
He turns back to Rina.
Mike: Irina. Since my capture, I’ve been doin’ some thinking. (A beat) I’m leaving the business. And… I think you have a fine crew, so I have no worries about you. I’d like you to stay with me here. Marry me. Stay here.
Rina’s floored. Just floored. Her jaw drops, her eyes go wide, and everything inside her head comes to a complete stop.
The birds sing. The leaves rustle. The sun shines.
She manages a breath, then another, and she can think again.
Rina: (slowly) What could I possibly do here if I said ‘yes’?
Mike’s eyes are steady on hers.
Mike: Build a little home together. Raise some cows or sheep. Or vegetables.
Without a flinch or a fidget.
Mike: Just live normal lives. We can build whole new identities. No one’ll come here.
As he sinks the metaphorical knife in and twists it.
Mike: And if they do… then we’ll have our time here.
Right into the one chink in her armor, to what lies beneath.
Mike: Go out in the Black, try to do some good and what happens? Innocents die. We die. For what?
The one thing that keeps her going, save her love for him.
Mike: Nothing changes. The good we can do… is here. Together.
Damn him.
Rina: (evenly) I don’t see anybody here around. Who would we be helping? Look, I’m not saying ‘no’ to everything in your proposal, just to half of it.
What is he really after?
Mike: I’m not going out again. I’m just gonna bring pain where I go. I’m in no…There’s no—the War’s over. Everything’s over in that regard. For me at least. But I’d be more of a liability than anything else if I were on the ship. I barely have this…stuff under control inside my head anyway.
Self-pity? From him? It’s such a departure from what she knows of his character that everything inside her is screaming now, and she holds it in. Nothing is certain anymore, and more than anything, she needs to be sure. She slips his duffel to the ground and takes a step back.
Rina: Have you waved the Abbot? Does he know you’re coming?
Mike: He does. He’ll help us…establish something.
Rina: Everybody thinks you’re on our ship, right?
Mike: For now. But for how long?
Rina: So it doesn’t matter if you’re with us or not. They’ll be chasing us anyway.
Mike: Maybe. I may have ways of changing that.
That’s all the proof Rina needs. She has no doubts. Her course is clear. But what can she say?
Mike: You’ve given me your answer, I think.
Rina: I can’t stay. I can marry you, but I can’t stay. Spread the target around.
Make no hostages to fate. She’s never lied to him on that score. He’s known it all along.
Mike: We can’t be married if you’re gone. That’s not a marriage. But, you know... I’ll be here. When you’re ready.
Rina: All right.
Mike: You’ll find me. Somehow we always do.
Rina: Fine.
Mike picks up his duffel. Rina gives him some room.
Rina: Give the Abbot my regards.
There’s nothing left to say. Rina turns away and crosses the clearing for the airlock stairs.
Mike: (calling out) Watch your back.
She meets his eye and breathes a laugh.
Rina: Always.
She climbs right back onto her ship and closes everything up tight. She doesn’t look back. She knows he’s already gone.
******************************
Christian watches Rina following Mike down the stairs and then herds the rest of the crew out of the airlock.
Christian: When she gets back on the ship, she’s going to storm into engineering or her room and things are going to be broken or she’s going to be crying and either way, she’s going to want us to leave her alone.
Arden: Why?
Christian: Just trust me on this.
Arden: Yeah, but I’m wondering why?
Christian: She’s not—Just trust me. And you’ll get it out of her eventually, I’m sure, but this is a very private moment for her.
Arden: Oh, okay…
Christian: Probably the worst moment of her life.
Arden: Okay…
When Rina gets aboard and nothing loud happens in engineering, Arden turns to the others and Christian forestalls him with a word.
Christian: Don’t.
Arden: Why?
Christian: Just don’t.
Arden: She’s not going to break anything in engineering, is she?
Christian: No.
Arden: But you said—.
Nika: Stop chatterin’ on it, guys.
Arden: I’m just—! I’m trying to understand.
Christian: Just leave it alone.
Nika lets off an explosive sigh—Men!—and goes to the bridge, settles in her chair and comms the engine room.
Nika: (matter-of-fact) Spin us up, Rina.
Rina: (through the comm) You got it.
Christian and Arden still going at it as they enter the bridge.
Christian: (mid-sentence to Arden) --don’t chatter.
Arden: I’m human, thank you.
Nika: Actin’ like a bunch’a old ladies….
Christian: I don’t want you saying something stupid.
Arden: I wasn’t going to say anything. Just remember, the society where I come from there is no marriage.
Nika: We will have that conversation when Rina is nowhere nearby.
Christian: Yes.
Arden: I’m just sayin’.
Chrisitan: Now. But now's not the right time.
Nika flies us to the nearest spaceport on Salisbury that can take us. We need fuel and cargo. We need more money to keep us flying. We roll up our sleeves and get to work.
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No one’s waiting for Rina when she steps through the airlock onto the ship proper. She locks herself up in the engine room and waits for Nika’s order to spin up for take-off. The order is given and the ground falls away behind us. We make it to port and we’re too busy to dwell on anything but business. It’s late before Rina goes to her quarters and morning finds her waking with a raging sore throat. It’s not long before we find Nika’s in the same boat. And Arden suspicions seem to be coming true—our ship has been sabotaged, and possibly with a nasty bio-weapon.
God only knows what it is.
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