Chapter 3
Sara Rin found herself slowly sliding back into the waking world as she stared at the ceiling above her bunk with only a vague idea of what time it was. She wondered if her alarm was only moments away from ringing or if she had only been out for a couple of hours. Reluctantly she leaned over to the end table on her right and fumbled around looking for the little card sized piece of reflective plastic she, and every other S.M.M.C. member wore around their necks. The S.M.M.C. referred to it as a Digital Identification Token, but everyone else referred to them as ‘DITs’. She nearly knocked it off the table but caught it by its chain just before it hit the deck plate. To her amazement her ‘DIT’ read five hundred hours. She wasn’t due back on the bridge until seven hundred hours. Instead of trying to fill the next two hours with a little more sleep, she found herself tossing off the covers and slipping back into her uniform. As far as she was concerned she was now awake and she was sure the Captain needed her. Leaving her sleeping quarters she walked down the corridors of the Deviant Rising with a hurried speed that few young cadets would have on their first tour in deep space.
The morning shift was just about to start and the hallways were beginning to bustle with the early morning business that would normally accompany a vessel with nearly fifteen hundred people on board. The shifts were designed to overlap by an hour so while some were heading to bed, others were hopping in the shower to get cleaned up for their daily duties.
For a moment Sarah contemplated heading to the cafeteria and grabbing a cup of coffee but even she had to admit she was a lot more alert than she would have normally of been at this time. Deciding to skip the detour she made her way to a lift that would take her to the bridge. The lift that came to greet her was empty of personnel and she slipped in she knew exactly what she would find when she stepped onto the bridge; Captain Pacius would be standing over somebodies station, checking and double checking everything some poor third mate was doing and insisting that he was as alert as ever, despite looking like hot death. The worst part was he would probably be telling the truth. Rin looked forward to the day she became a captain so someone could tell her the secret of staying up for days on end and not missing a beat. Even when she was in her twenties the best she could ever do is forty eight hours, and even then she suffered.
As the lift carried Rin to the bridge, she couldn’t help but let her mind drift to what was going to happen when the Deviant Rising reached the Occasio Ultima star system later that day. The Captain was sure that what they were doing was right, so sure infact that to him it was the only real option, and while Rin had listened to him speak, she was sure too. The problem was that Rin kept thinking about the possibilities that their actions could open. The Captain believed this would open a few eyes, force the U.P.E. to step back and listen to what Strife and the other colonies were saying, but Rin wasn’t so sure. It was possible things would play out like the Captain thought, and for Strife’s sake she hoped that’s how it would go, but she couldn’t shake the image of warships in orbit around Strife, U.P.E. soldiers standing beside lines of Strifers as technicians clamped Helix earrings onto them. Maybe the Captain had these thoughts too, maybe they haunted him like they haunted her. Or maybe he was so convinced of his rightness that he couldn’t conceive of things not working out.
When the lift opened out onto the bridge, Lieutenant Sara Rin found herself scanning the room back and forth. It was busier than she might have expected for such an early hour, but other than that it was exactly as she thought it would be, right down to Captain Pacius leaning over the navigation station, a cup of coffee clenched in a hand that trembled only slightly. She stepped out of the lift and onto the bridge and took up her post next to the captain’s chair.
“So if we drop the cargo there, it will take how long to drift into the star?” Rin heard Captain Pacius ask the officer at navigation.
“About the same, sir.” came the reply.
“I don’t love the idea of it taking months to drift into the star. The cloud of debris could disrupt transit to and from Archer’s Agony station.” Pacius said.
“Isn’t that kind of what we’re aiming for, sir?” the navigations mate asked.
“Not if it’s going to damage anyone’s vessel… No we better drop out of sprint closer to the star… Maybe at point oh seven astronomical units. We’ll need to arm a nav, beacon to drop as well to warn any nearby vessels of the debris cloud.”
“That might bring us a little close. Transit around the gate gets pretty congested at that distance.”
“What if we fired our cargo into the star?” Rin proposed, and watched as all the heads on the bridge turned her way.
“First mate, you’re not supposed to be on duty for a couple more hours.” Pacius said.
“Just following your example, sir.”
Maybe it was her imagination but she could have sworn Captain Xander Pacius paused just long enough to shoot her a proud smirk.
“If we don’t decompress the cargo bays before releasing their contents, we can turn them into crude cannons, firing everything inside. I doubt it would shorten the trip by all that much, but it would do something and it’s a solution the other ships will be able to implement as well.” Rin watched as the mate at navigation pondered her suggestion and quickly run a few calculations.
“It would shorten the time, Captain.” the mate hypothesized.
“By how much?” Pacius asked.
“Several weeks.” he replied reply.
“Is that really the best we can do?” Pacius asked.
“Without irradiating everyone on the cargo decks, I think so.”
“Very well, work out the details with engineering and cargo control. Once you have everything, prepare some instructions we can send out to everyone else once they arrive at the party.” Pacius said, turning away from the navigation station, and taking his seat.
“That wasn’t bad thinking” he whispered to Rin as he sat down.
“Thank you, sir. So does this mean you’ve made an announcement to the crew?” Rin asked.
“Not yet. But I have started informing those few who need to know before we get there.” Pasius answered.
“So the entire crew will know in about twenty minutes.” Rin asserted with a very slight smile.
“If it takes them that long I’ll be disappointed.” Pacius said with another one of his trademark smirks.
Rin was just about to sit down at operations and look over the morning duty roster when the Captain spoke again; “Have you ever looked at one of these?”
He was pinching a small chrome hemisphere between his right pointing finger and thumb and studying it intently through one eye. On one side of the little chrome half sphere it had a short needle like spike, and a short stiff but flexible wire running from it.
“It’s a Helix earring.” Rin answered, wondering where her captain was going with this.
“I mean have you ever really looked at one of them? They’re so small, so deceptively simple. But they’re so powerful... One of these has more computing power than all the computers built before the turn of the last century... With one of these things, you can access almost any information you could ever want, perform almost any task, communicate with people on the other side of the galaxy instantaneously, and store the complete memories of a lifetime. And you’d only be scratching the surface, because its real trick is far more impressive. It does all this by reading your mind, all you have to do is think... and it reacts.” Pacius continued, not seeming to have heard Rin at all.
“It is remarkable.” She said into the pause.
“...And yet it’s something we’re about to take a stand against.” He continued.
“Sounds like you’re ready to address the crew.” Rin said confidently.
“Not really, but I should. Better to get it over with before the rumor mill turns this adventure into something even more ridiculous.
“Sir, we’re firing Helix earrings into a star that’s also a gate to another galaxy so far away that we can’t even see it from here, to protest a law from our race’s homeworld. There is nothing that the rumor mill can do to make this more ridiculous than reality already has.”
“There could be chicken suits involved someplace.” Captain Pacius joked, a bit of tension leaving his face.
“It might be worth asking the steward’s department about that, I wouldn’t want to disappoint anyone.” Rin replied as professionally as she possibly could.
“Maybe next time.” Pacius said, and from the smile on his face, Rin knew he was already envisioning the two of them commanding the bridge, covered in yellow feathers and beaks. Rin had to suppress a smile at the thought herself.
“Communications, give me a channel to the entire ship.” Pacius ordered, turning away from Rin, and rising to his feet.
“Sir, you’re live in three.” the mate at communications said, silently counting down his fingers for the Captain.
All around the bridge heads turned from their stations to watch and listen, most of them had picked up something of what was going on, either from conversations with the Captain, or from the ever present rumors that a ship like this more or less ran on, but she also knew not one of them wanted to miss hearing the whole story from the Captain’s lips directly.
“Attention crew of the Deviant Rising, This is Captain Pacius speaking. For too long, the United Planets of Earth have held Strife by the throat. I don’t have to give anyone a list of reasons to hate them. They’ve already given us the only one that matters…”
Rin watched as Captain Pacius paused and pulled from his pocket the Helix earring he had been considering earlier. He held it out in front of him, and let it catch the light from the main view screen.
“They’ve assaulted our very freedom by hoping to shackle us with their technology. Today we say, ‘No more.’ When we arrive at our destination, we will be joined by a fleet of civilian ships from all over the Frontier. In full view of one of the Frontier’s busiest space stations, we will throw overboard these chains they’ve tried to tether us with… I’ve never been much for speeches, but today I hope to send a clear message. If history should recall our names, then I have no doubt someone more eloquent than I will put words in my mouth that are worth remembering, but until then, my inadequate little speech will have to do. Thank you all for the exemplary service.
Even on the bridge there was a cheer, one Rin knew had to be echoing all across the Deviant Rising and her crew. For so long the United Planets of Earth, or UPE, had regarded most of the Frontier as nothing more than an indentured labor force, Strife Colony in particular. The crew had reason to be elated.
“You all should be made aware that the actions we’re about to take are illegal and will likely bring action down on myself and possibly the rest of you. At this time, any crew member who wishes to lodge an official objection to our actions, they may do so with their superior officer. But when the time comes, I expect everyone to do their job. That is all.”
The Captain gave the signal for communications to cut the channel and sat back in his seat.
“You know Captain, the chicken suit might have actually helped that speech.” Rin said, as straight face as ever.
“I’ll keep that in mind for the holo version.”
...