I twisted to face the port hallway. Griffin was plodding towards me. This was as good a time to flee an uncomfortable question as any. “I gotta go, Lib. I’ll contact you later.”
“Right. Right. Bye, Davie.”
“Bye.”
“You rang, sir?” Griffin asked, attempting her best to stand at attention without actually saluting. Her hands remained clasped behind her stiff back, a smoldering anger clinging to her expression. I didn’t really care. Protocol seemed unnecessary at this point. Not like I had a hungry ego that required it, unlike our Captain.
“I did.” I pointed over my shoulder, finger trembling like a spider’s web in the breeze. “I need help going through nuclear storage, looking for micro shielding holes and checking guidance computers.”
She sighed and slowly raised her eyes. “All fifty warheads? Sounds like busy work to me. Does the computer not monitor these on its own?”
“It’s sixty warheads, not fifty, and yes, it does. Is there a problem? Do you have somewhere better to be? Would you rather the Captain drop you off at the next convenience store so you can hitch a ride?” My face started to get hot.
“No, it’s fine.” She climbed the eight-foot ladder into storage, tools tapping hollowly against the rungs. Her motions were as limp as a deflated balloon, the weight of César’s death still heavy in her every action. I couldn’t blame her; she had grown very close to him in a short period of time. I desperately needed to apologize for my actions, but every time I tried, the words were unconjurable. It was hard to apologize after being beaten up in retaliation. If César hadn’t died, none of this would have ever happened.
Griffin stuck her head through the hatch. “Actually, it’s not fine.”
“What was that?” My eyes fixed on hers.
“I said, it’s not fine. Why don’t you just do it by yourself?”
My hands tightened into fists and my head felt swimmy. “This is your fucking job. You will do as I order you.” My back broke out in a sweat, the power core feeling unusually warm.
“He did everything you ordered him to and look where he ended up?” Her voice became a snarl. “You know why he was out there? It was because of you. Because he wanted to impress you, show you he could do it on his own. And what happened to him? He died trying to impress you!”
“So you’re saying this is my fault?” I shook my head and grinned sardonically. “Because he was a good crewmember? Because he was willing to put himself at risk for all of us? Listen up, buttercup, I would have gladly put myself in his place. If I could go back, even now, I would.”
“Then why didn’t you? Huh? Why?”
“Why?” I sucked in a full breath. “What the hell are you talking about? I was locked in that damned hyperbaric chamber. How could I have done shit to help? I ordered César to come back inside but he wouldn’t listen. Not to a single word. That hard headed little shit wouldn’t listen!” Pressure built behind my eyes.
She licked her lips. “Little shit? I see what you think of him now, just another worthless Colombian you can throw out as fodder. You’re just like the rest of those Arsia assholes.”
“You back off, Griffin. You have no idea what you’re talking about, and I don’t want to do or say anything I’ll regret later.”
She wiped her face with the back of her hand and vanished inside the hatch.
“Fuck,” I growled. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.” I’ll apologize only when she does.
My forehead thudded against the bulkhead, air wheezing in and out of my lungs. God, why the hell was this room so damn hot and cramped. It was making me dizzy.
I reached for the first rung and paused, a soft, precarious whisper vibrating my eardrums. Everything I did here reminded me of him, even her. He was like the little brother I never had. He’d had his shortcomings, but his heart had been set to a better moral compass than anyone on the ship—especially mine. I had hoped I could save him from himself, but I’d failed. Griffin had failed. We’d all failed. The compressed madness of this place had crushed his heart and driven him to his end.
I looked back at the empty controls of the PV array, and imagined him dancing like an idiot, humming the tune to some shit ass music he snatched off the Sol Net. Then, he’d tell me all about it, explaining how complextro and glitch fab really were different, but instead of finishing he’d get off track and tell an inappropriate joke.
“Don’t tell my sister I ever told that joke. She’ll bring Mámá back from the dead and kill me.”
A shiver ran down my spine, forcing me to swallow. I heard the voice again. I let go of the ladder and slowly turned. I checked the port hallway, searching for its source, then the starboard side. No one was nearby. I removed the forgotten earpiece and stowed it in my pocket. Was a similar signal bleeding in on its private channel? Is that what I’d heard?
“David?” the voice queried, merely a whisper on the edge of my perception. I walked from one end of the section to the other, peering around transformers and AC inverters, controls for the PV arrays, breaker panels and bundles of high voltage conduits. All was quiet but for the vibrating hum of off-phase wires as they conducted electrical currents about the ship.
“Sir? You coming?” Griffin asked, head poked through the hatch above me. Her brows were still furrowed but she didn’t seem quite as angry.
I licked my dry lips and peered down the hall one last time. I swore it was narrower. “Yeah, I’m coming,” I responded with an edge.
I wasn’t looking forward to being in a confined space with someone who hated my guts. Though nuclear storage was no less spacious than the maintenance core, at least in the core I knew open rooms were just outside its relatively thin walls. Storage was a different story. In there one is cocooned by a radioactive apocalypse in wait. Each one of these fusion warheads had the Axis’s name on it, and it was only a matter of time or opportunity before they would see their suicide mission fulfilled. It was easily my least favorite place. It reminded, all too well, of the crushing moral weight of genocide I might be paid to deliver. If thousands were to die at the Brethren’s hands, I would be as complicit as the Captain, just like I was with the Claymore.
God, let that day never come.
Halfway up the ladder the ship went red as a klaxon sounded. Griffin and I met eyes. With each ululating cry of the alarms, Griffin’s grew. I wanted to reach for the earpiece out of reflex, but held back the urge. I couldn’t let anyone know I’d been talking to Liberty. Nevertheless, I needed to know something of our status.
“I’ll be right back. Stay here.”
I took off for the bridge, though not at a dead run as I would have liked. That would draw too much attention. The hallway appeared to bend the farther I went. The earpiece vibrated in my pocket over and over, but I couldn’t put it on, not here. Dour Face was watching my every move, then there was Lank Hair talking to Doc and Higgins a little farther down. I slipped inside Crew 2 and tried again, but as soon as my fingers wrapped around it, Kelly appeared, a startled look on his face. The earpiece remained where it was. He ran a hand through his hair and gave me an uneasy smile. The old style tablet in his right hand flashed a torrent of numeric values. He removed a small flash drive shoved in its base and stowed it in a jumpsuit pocket.
The alarms screamed on, swelling louder with each wail. I swallowed my heart and felt unsteady. The bunks in our quarters were sliding closer together, leaving only enough space for a set of legs to pass between.
“They finally found us,” Kelly wheezed. “God help us.” I sidled back into the hall without a response.
Two more steps and the nurse was staring at me, an uncapped hypodermic needle in her right hand. I edged back into Crew 2, shut the hatch and dashed for the opposite hall. The air was thin. The hatches were small like port holes not doors.