Whispers

TOP SECRET DIRECTIVE

FROM:
2ND FLEET COMMANDING DIRECTORATE

TO:
COMMAND, CCN SCIENCE VSL 'ANAXAGORAS'

OBJECTIVE:
IMMEDIATE RECONNAISSANCE PLANET, NYX PRIME

DEPLOYMENT:
CCN ‘ANAXAGORAS', CCN 'AVICENNA'

ORDERS:

CCN ANAXAGORAS AND AVICENNA PROCEED WITH ALL SPEED TO PLANET
DESIGNATED NYX PRIME. UNINHABITATED POSSIBLY HABITABLE
PLANET. CYGNUS SPUR, PTOLEMY CLUSTER. RADIO TELESCOPES
LOCATED ON CYGNUS PRIME HAVE IDENTIFIED NYX AS POSSIBLY
COLONIAL CANDIDATES FOR SETTLEMENT. ESTABLISH VIABILITY OF
HUMAN COLONIZATION. AIR, WATER, GRRUND SCANS TO COMMENCE
UPON ARRIVAL. ESTABLISH SCIENTIFIC OUTPOSTS ON GROUND FOR
RECONOITER OF INDIGENOUS FLORA AND FAUNA. DETERMINE THREAT
LEVEL POSED BY ANY ANDALL INDIGENOUS FLORA AND FAUNA.
AVICENNA TO DETACH AFTER DETERMINATION OF HABITABILITY
CONFIRMED OR DENIED.

EMCON:

NO TRANSMISSIONS TO BE BROADCAST EN ROUTE TO NYX PRIME.
ESTABLISH IMMEDIATE CONTACT ANY STATION ASAP UPON MISSION
COMPLETION.

ROE:

UPON DETEMINATION OF PRESENCE OF HAZARDOUS LIFE ON PLANET
SURFACE ROE IS WEAPONS FREE. DETERMINE EFFECTIVE EXTIRPATION
STRATEGY IMMEDIATELY.

__SPEED OF ESSENCE__

Captain Tomlinson, commanding officer of the Combined Colonial Navy’s premier scientific research vessel, ‘Anaxagoras’, keyed the intercom on his desk. “Danny” was all he said before keying the intercom back off and laying down the orders onto the desk blotter. The intercom crackled and Danny answered, “Yessir.”

“Cancel all leaves and make ready the ship for soonest departure.”

“Aye Sir”, Danny answered. He brokered no questions and Tomlinson was thankful for it. Questions appeared in his own mind that very well would echo any reasonable one’s Danny might pose about the sudden change. Their original deployment had the ship making routine stops at a number of newly founded colonies or newly discovered planets in the Pleiades. Their objective was to establish the habitability of the latter and aid the settlers of the former particularly securing viable drinking water and determining the threat posed by newly discovered fauna. The trip was to conclude at the shipyards over Nye Svalbard before finally making the last few jumps back to Sol for evaluations. The stops they had made were routine and no hitches or surprises extended their tour. Succesfully and without delay they had assisted in every endeavor and completed every survey and the crew were looking forward to the trip home.

Speed and efficiency were the mandates of the moment. With the Combined Colonial Navy at the full deployment, spread out over Sol, the Ptolemy Cluster and the Pleiades, command had impressed upon every line officer that their missions needed to be completed with absolute haste. The pressure, ultimately placed upon officers like Tomlinson, he suspected was coming from the very top. The United Governments of Earth without any clear mandate from its claimed colonial holdings was taking the first steps into becoming a truly pan galactic power. To do so would require either many more ships or an absolute frenzy of activity from the modest number of ships they were currently disposed to field. Delay would mean implications for the legitimacy of the UGE to effectively project its power through the void, and any hesitation might make its first attempt at empire its final one.

Though the orders echoed the continued insistence on haste, they strenuously indicated to Tomlinson that something was very much out of the ordinary. Proximity meant little for a vessel that could transmit itself across the galaxy as if it were passing through a doorway, Tomlinson still couldn’t shake the feeling that someone closer to Nyx Prime could more efficiently and, most of all, more quickly make the trip to the new planet.

The Ptolemy Cluster was in the operational theater of the 1st fleet and the 1st had capable scientific vessels commanded by competent officer. The Heraclitus and the Cleanthes were stationed at Cygnus Prime and could traverse to the edge of the system for the jump to the Nyx system quicker than it would take the Anaxagoras to pass through the heavy asteroid and comet strewn space around Nye Svalbard and its gas giant parent. More than that the crew of the Anaxagoras had been taxed significantly by its 8 month tour. Though Tomlinson could not be sure of the achievement, he felt it very possible that the Anaxagoras had been the first ship and first crew to endeavor on such a long and far-flung journey in Space. The weeks of transiting from jump site to planet had been boring for the crew and the psychological effects of their distance from home had been evident at times. Tempers were short and nerves edgy and brittle as the ship seemingly crept through the dark. But at each moment of need and activity the crew had performed with absolute professionalism and, above all, speed.

The detour to Nyx Prime could entail a significant delay to their return home. In fact from the indication the orders gave, their return home was postponed indefinitely. Tomlinson thought about his counterpart on the Avicenna reviewing his copy of the orders at the same moment somewhere in space and the relief he must feel at the knowledge that his ship and crew would be the ones to return immediately with news of their successful mission. While the Anaxageras did what exactly? Tomlinson thought about the question and then detemined that it would be best to leave the consideration of such a question to someone who could change it.

Tomlinson’s mind lingered instead on the next steps. As the ship’s captain and accomplished scientist in his own right, he felt obliged to understand the technology and procedures that allowed the travel they undertook every day but he only had a command of the history of the science and a vague impression of the physics that created it. But in graceful moments he could acknowledge his ignorance without judgement recognizng that his own graduate studies were spent reading ecology and not physics.

The wormhole network, as currently understood, allowed for instantaneous travel between known points. Travel between such points was instantaneous but limitations in the technology meant that trips between systems connected by the network entailed long haul intrasystem burns. Tomlinson considered their course from Nye Svalbard; there was first the hard burn the planet’s orbit to the system’s edge where the ship’s navigator could ascertain their appropriate path through the network.

The initial demonstration of wormhole travel was made by the ESA science vessel ‘Indominatable’ a little over a hundred years before, the result of the European Space Agency’s century long dominance in technological innovation. The first papers published on the subject of wormholes speculated that the newly created Kunz-Jefferis Drive would allow a ship to make an instantaneous jump anywhere in space from its origin. This would allow all the galaxy and universe to be at the very footstep of the Sol System as the distance between any two points would be fundamentally collapsed. The term ‘jump’ in the context of wormhole travel was a misguided nominalism, a simple metaphor the human mind use to render the incomprehensible relationship the wormhole created into something legible. Wormhole travel fundamentally undermined the taken for granted understanding of things considered rather ordinary and straight forward. Proximity, continuity, extension, concepts that had straight forward and intelligible meanings in everyday life, failed to faithfully describe the impossible relationships created by the wormhole.

It remained technically true that the technology could be used to travel to any point in space from an arbitrary origin, but two hurdles remained in establishing the mode of travel as a reliable and safe one. First, the destination, opposite the origin of a wormhole needed to be identified as safe. Physical limitations on the technology required a narrow window of acceptable deviation for the creation of a conduit through space-time. The space connected by the wormhole had to be relatively similar in a number of characteristics, chief among these the local gravitational forces at the origin and destination.

The seocnd substantive problem was an ancient one. Space does not contain an immutable and absolute origin by which one could orient themselves.^[See Kent’s Critique of Pure Reason] The problem of orienteering was resolved incidentally. School children learned that the great leap of mankind was made by scientists that christened their new invention the Kunz-Jefferis Drive, after its creators. But the development of this technology took place a full decade before its final and momentous demonstration. The harder problem of orienteering was finally solved by the invention of Quantum Resonance scanners. These orbital scanners performed quantum resonance mapping to identify points in space that were quantumly entangled. In doing this a network of connected nodes in space were identified and the destination of a wormhole could be approximated before becoming confirmed upon passage. Further innovations would follow to aid in the process of mapping the network of quantumly entanged locations in the galaxy. Tachyons, long an exotic and mysterious phenomenon, more speculative than real, were determined to be involved in the entanglement phenomenon. The tachyon interferometer, ultimately greatly aided in astronavigation.

Tomlinson rose from his desk and shook his head, clearing his mind of the relentless thoughts that flooded the moment he finished reading their new orders. Rising, his mind fell upon the train of thoughts that led him from the orders to his own inadequacy. He caught this second plunge into the abyss of his own mind before he straightened the cuffs of his grey uniform. Keying the door to his quarters he exited and began the short march to the bridge. Passing crew members hurried and feigned salutes as they noticed his steady gait.

Approaching the door to the bridge he gave a crisp salute to the colonial marines in pale slate grey green uniforms guarding the door, and entered. The bridge hummed with a low-level of frantic activity. Ordered, but energetic and decisive. The clean light of dozens of monitors and the control stations for various systems indicated the ship’s change in readiness. A radio operator was relaying orders that leaves were cancelled to the ship and then to the shipyard they were docked with. Some crew members had already disembarked hoping to catch shuttles to the planets surface to spend their relatively short leave as the Anaxagoras did routine maintenance and inspections of critical systems.

Tomlinson found Commander Danny York, his executive officer and second-in-command at the navigational station, conferring with a junior grade lieutenant. ‘Lieutenant, go and find the latest updates from command on the status of the wormhole astronavigation charts.’ Tomlinson instructed the lieutenant.

‘Sir. All personnel have been apprised of your latest instructions and the ship should be ready to be underway in two hours.’ Danny, was noting figures on the navigational console as he spoke to Tomlinson.

‘Very good. I wanted to share our latest orders with you.’ Tomlinson made a few gestures on his own personal data pad sharing the orders with Danny. Commercial and personal pleasure craft were frequently manned by crew with the benefit of neural implants, but such technology presented too great a security risk for the CCN to adopt.

Danny completed reviewing the orders in moments and a sour look came over his face. ‘Can’t very well say I am surprised by this. Scuttle butt for months has been that 1st Fleet is overtasked and understaffed. Probably someone throwing around weight to ensure they don’t get a black mark on their record and risk getting past over next time high command is filling an empty slot in the admiralty.’

‘You sized it up just about the same as I have. Between me and you Danny I fear what this will do the crew.’ Tomlinson glanced over his shoulder to ensure that they still had some modicum of privacy on the crowded bridge. ‘I can’t say that I know of another CCN vessel undergoing such a long tour to date.’

‘I have received reports from all the section chiefs and they indicate that crew morale is satisfactory and performance well above that. These are professional sailors. They are up to the job.’

‘I don’t doubt that, but these men have been away from home a long time and in space for longer. It isn’t insurrection that worries me. It is simple mistakes. Reduce the watch to a skeleton crew and ensure what shifts the men do have, are as short as you can manage.’

‘Yes sir, right away. And I am happy to report that we have been able to restock the larder while stationed over Nye Svalbard so we have some real meals to look forward to for a while,’

‘Yes very good and keep the orders under your hat until we are underway. I’ll make the announcement then.’ The journey would begin in less than two hours. First the push from Nye Svalbard to the edge of the system to the known wormhole exchange point. From there it would be an instantaneous jump to the Ptolemy Cluster and per- haps no more than a single jump till arriving at the Nyx system. From there the final approach would take another several weeks. Nyx from the intelligence reports Tomlinson reviewed in the brief packet forwarded from command indicated that Nyx was a system of extremes. A binary star system that had developed several huge gas Giants, lining the edge of the system like sentries. Nyx Prime was the planet closest to the binary star cluster and from initial reports was habitable but harsh itself. Great winds buffeted across vast oceans as the planet’s 48 hour day left one half in cold darkness and the other in great light and heat. {{I don’t know aboutt this description as it isn’t consistent with later description of Nyx. Of course they couldn’t know much.}} Vegetation was sparse but present and the main appeal of the planet seemed to be the rich mineral resources and proximity to gas giants that always held the promise of more precious Helium-3 for the continued expansion of humanity.

From these indications, Tomlinson had the vague impression that the colonization of Nyx would be a long term investment and so the haste with which the mission was to be urdertaken seemed at odds with prudence. Such considerations, Tomlinson thought, would have to be firmly set aside so he could better accomplishment t is assignment with all haste and return his crew to their homes.

Danny York spent several days completing his duties between nights of restless sleep. Most evenings after his watch on the bridge, he would skip eating and go directly to his quarters. After a few minutes of trying to read quietly on his bunk he found that the letters and words and sentences on the page began to swim and he would have to put it down for fear of getting queasy.

Instead of reading, he laid on his bunk and reviewed his day. The tasks accomplished, the orders issued and the performance of his crew. He would take a review of everything that transpired and all on its face, seemed well and fine. But there was this persistent gnawing ache somewhere inside him that kept him awake and kept the routine of efficiency and duty from being the soothing meditation it usually was. He racked his mind for somehting that he’d forgotten or for something that was overlooked. In these moments the words of the captain lingered in his mind and he worried that he was falling victim to the very problem he was meant to be safe guarding the ship from. Disasters, rather than being the result of decisive and unchangeable forces, unseen and unanticipated, were nearly always the opposite. They were the slow accumulation of naive optimism and quiessence, of half-hearted vigilance and good intentions that slipped over inconsequential things. They were not the result of malice or real ineptitude but the coordination of a few minor but consequential mishaps. On the ground or in the atmosphere, disasters when not averted could be moderated and contained. The quick thinking and sure action of intelligent and dilligent people could overcome the blunders of a few bad decisions. But in space? Danny couldn’t think of a more extreme place in which the tolerance for risk and the necessity for vigilance mas more paramount.

The mission ov the CCN Anaxagoras was a strictly non-combat one, but they needed to maintain the same security posture as every other ship in the fleet. Despite the security efforts of local defense forces and the newly formed Combined Colonial Navy, piracy remained an enduring problem of the new frontier. Wayward captains would decide to abandon their former commercial and decidedly modest payrolls in favor of intercepting cargo liners and passenger ships in the quiet solitude of deep space, or occassionally raid small colony habitats for loot and possible indentured servants to be trafficked to some industrial moon somewhere in colonized space. Though the Anaxagoras was armed and maintained the livery of a CCN ship, it might not be enough to deter a particularly aggressive privateer who might want to make an example of a lone science ship.

Their ordinary scientific missions frequently bordered on combat. The modest complement of Combined Colonial Marines were well accustomed to missions of search and destroy against novel forms of megafauna that presented significant hazard to future colonization. There had been a multi-armed creature that most approximated a kind of feline, swarms of aggressive seemingly non-carnivorous but avowedly hostile birds, and a large winged mammal like creature somewhat resembling a bat that had evoked a great deal of alarm in the survey team and so provoked a violent response from the marines. That particular species turned out to be docile and rather charming upon closer inspection.

Before his elevation to the rank of Commander an initiation into the CCN York had been Lieutenant Commander in the European Space Agency’s armed wing, managing security for colony and scientic missions in Sol. The tours of duty were shotrer, interrupted more frequently by pleasur- able diversions and held less significant dangers, particularly from unknwwn an undiscoverered threats. They afforded more comfort and less anxiety than his duty in the CCN as his time on the Anaxagoras had been filled with long tours, few distractions, and boundless novelty and discovery.

Frequently their discoveries were of an inverse type. The ship would arrive at unexplored systems discovered through the use of their tachyon interferometor and would find nothing at all. A hole in space leading nowhere. The planets they visited frequently held sights he nor any human could have previously anticipated seeing. Immense mountains and end endless plains, unceasing oceans and ice packs a mile high. In quiet reflective moments he could put his mind in a place where he could appreciate the same phenomena on his home system as they were not completely unprecedented, but somehow beholding such things for the first time with human eyes filled him with endless awe. In those quiet moments he too would get this strange feeling of distance press upon him. He could imagine in a very vague way a map of the galaxy and a pale blue dot showing home and another more vague dot showing where he was. He would try and do the math in his head about how long the light would take to exchange images between these points and came to the conclusion that either sun would likely be burned away before that time came. Only a ghost in the sky seen through glass.

In his initial training at ESA and in CCN indoctrination in a more sincere and serious way, officers received instruction on the prevalence and character of these kinds of feelings. Psychologists in the CCN described to new officers that the novel context of deep space and long haul tours of duty far from the home worlds led to an increased rate at which they were observing adjustment and dissociative disorders. From his training York could recite the clinical definitions used in the diagnostic process: the development of emotional or behavioral symptoms in response to an identifiable stressor(s) occurring within 3 months of the onset of the stressor(s). Derealization was characterized as ‘experiences of unreality or detachment with respect to surround- ings (e.g., individuals or objects are experienced as unreal dreamlike, foggy, lifeless, or visually distorted).’ He couldn’t also help but recall an addendum to the former diagnostic criteria; ‘Normative Stress Reactions — When bad things happen, most people get upset. This is not an adjustment disorder.’

‘How the fuck will you be able to tell the difference in space’, York recalled one of his fellow officer cadets asking in the middle of the lecture. York decided that this restless nights were not doing him any good and so he would put slesplessness to use and make his early rounds.

Out in the ships cprridor he noted that the day shift lighting was active as scheduled but despite the activity these lights were meant to indicate was largely absent from the ship in any obvious way. The captain’s orders to keep both day and night watches to a limtited crew meant and the recent departure from Nye Svalbard meant that much of the activity that kept the crew occupied and a heathy drone of activity throughout the ship muted. York imagined t e layout of the ship in his mind, planning an optimal route between the parts of the ship he would roundon in his insomniae.The Anaxagoras, a modifiedversion of the CCN standard corvette configuration, had three levels. The top comprised the # forward section with the bridge andcommunications cluster, the mid-ship section with the ward room captains quarters, and the aft section with scientific laboratories and the top level of the engineering section which crossed all three levels at the aft of the ship. Below the first level were the primary living facilities of the ship includingthe mess in the forward secetion, infirmary and common room in the mid-section and crew quarters in the aft. The different compartments on this level were trisected by two parallels quarte corridors that ran the leggth of the ship. The lower tevet deck,, the largest of the three confirming to the shipshull design, contained the ship’s cargo bay, armory, specimen laboratories and sundry other essential facilities.

York decided to use the aft engineering section to head to the lower deck and along the way check on the status of the teams work managingthe ship’s fusion reactor, recently restored on Nye Svalbard after months in space. From there heplanned to run the length of the lower deck before taking the forward stair to the bridge. The engineering section was staffed by no more than a few grey fatigued seamen, monitoring the outputs of sensors that measured the energy output from the ships main source ofe energy.» the drive. What was likely an intriguing and harrowing conversation seemedto beinterrupted as York entered the engineering compartment and the seamen seemed to find themselves sitting straighter and staring with more intent andconcern at their monitors. York, having risen through the ranks of the American Space Force, had been a navigation officer most of his career, and though he could command a ship, or near as command as anyone on the ship, with such a moder of power, he had only a vague understanding of the full depth of knowledge that was required to ensure that it was managed safely. He did not, however, let his ignorance beknown by his subordinates, and so he knowingly lingered over a few of the crewmen’s station, as if he was ensuring they were conducting themsleves with the greatest professionalism.

Making his way down to the lower deck he entered the large bay of the ship that contained the ship’s equipment for projecting its power across the face of a planet. Unlike its larger cousins in the fleet, the Anaxagoras could successfully land and take back off trom the face of a planet. Once landed it could deploy terrestrial and aerial vehicles to thoroughly reconnoiter the surrounding areas. Between planetary landings the ship’s detachment of marines largely reigned over the bay, spreading weight lifting and martial arts equipment and frequently creating all kinds of havoc. The conversion back to a servicable bay capable being used during planetary deployments had not begun as the Anaxagoras was still weeks from arriving at Nyx, and with the reduced duty obligations the marines were in full revelry force. York mostly bypassed the mass of marines lifting iron and cavorting in the bay and headed for the armory.

After keying in his access code to the armory door, it hissed open. Within the dark rows of shelving and racks, he saw the familiar glint of gun metal and pale green and grey boxes of munitions. Despite being scientific the Anaxagoras had an extensive cache of very lethal weapons. Casting his eyes around the armory in the dark he saw nothing amiss and turned to inspect the quartermaster’s station to double-check the manifests of recant supply transfers from Nye Svalbard. Turning the armory lights on and turning to the quartermaster’s station, a distant figure in the racks and stacks of gun metal grey stood out in York’s vision.

A human silhouette broke up the straight and right angles of the armory. The grey uniform of a colonial sailor shown in the new light and York called out, ‘Come out and make yourself known sailor.’ The figure didn’t move and made no movement that would lead York to believe that they would acknowledge the authoritative but courteous instruction.

‘That means YOU sailor,’ York called out again. Of the otficers in the Combined Colonial Navy, York could not claim to be a particularly harsh or draconian one. In fact, he had tried to distinguish himself from others he had served under in his own time, particularly executive officers, by being gentle, firm and fair. Rarely yellinng, never demanding, but communicating in incredibly direct and unequivocal ways his intentions and expectations for the crew. Despite having cultivated that tempermeant and that reputation, deep in him there was a temper and impatience that threatened to reveal itself when provoked. This sailor was working to motivate that temper by committing York’s most hated infraction, rudenesse. Not to begin to mention the odd behavior of standing in a dark corner of an otherwise empty and locked armory.

‘Hey fuck faces. I don’t know where you think you are but you better stand to pronto or I’ll bounce your head off the bulkhead.’ The violent outburst came without the prepatory buildup of anger. It rpse spontaneously and unbidden. If it were not for the fact that he was first-hand witness to his own life he would not believeethat he could so thoroughly and eem quickly lese his temper without warning. Collenting himself he began marching down a long alley of the armory, between racks of standard issue field rifles. Approaching the motion- less figure, York could make more details outs: there was a standard issue CCN haircut, the grey slate uniform, and other more distinguishing markings. The neck was thickly muscled, the deltoids forming an inverted chevron from the base of the skull to the back. The figure was short too, and the shoulder had the insignia of a bosun’s mate. With these coordinated pieces of information, York was able to ascertain the identity of the figure in advance of rounding on him. If he hadn’t been able to determine his identity before seeing his face, York was not certain that upon visual inspection that he would be recognizable by his features. Bosuns Mate Loganov was haggerede. His features were sunken and dark and his head hung forward as though he were on the edge of sleep.

‘I was having a dream and I had to wake up and remember it,’ Loganov enunciated the words clearly, though they did not seem to be directed to York.

‘Are you okay Loganov,’ York asked the anger that he had previously had to quell in his chest now evaporating at the sight of the sailor.

‘I was having a dream and I had to wake up to remember it, but when I couldn’t find the words to tell them I had to go looking.’

‘Loganov I’m not following you son.’

‘I am wearing Loganov’s clothes. It says so right here,’ he raised his finger to his breast where his name was embroidered in blue on they grey uniform, ‘and when I looked in the mirror I had Loganov’s face, but I haven’t been able to find him.’ Loganov was absently rubbing the close-cropped hairs on the side and back of his head as he continued to mumble. ‘There were voices in here and I thought they were the one’s that would tell me what happened to the memory of my dreams or why I have Loganov’s face and his uniform, but when I went looking they turned out to be the one’s that were finding me. So by the time I was starting they were finishing, so I could never find them.’

York held out a hand and placed it on Loganov’s shoulder. ‘I want you to stand to sailor and head back to your quarters.’ It was the best that he could muster on the basis of the training he had available to him. He had heard about extreme breaks as a result of long haul voyages, but this was the first that he had seen first hand, if it was truly what he was seeing.

York recalled his childhoood on Earth when his brothers who would sleep walk. His mother always instructed that he never wake up his brothers when they were sleep walking. She never could really say why, but she gave the definitive impression that it was dangerous, that a woken sleep walker could be violent in their disorientation. As a young boy the thought of one of his brothers being violent when they sleep walked instilled a fear in him that deep down there must be something else inside them that could come up when the sentry of their conscious mind was at rest and the body kept walking going. It was with the same naive childhood caution that he was now approaching Loganov.

Loganov rubbing his scalp started becoming a desperate clawing and York struggled to think of some means of pulling Loganov out of this state. The only thing that came to mind was to entertain his needs. ‘What was it you were looking for Loganov?’

‘It doesn’t matter that I was looking or what for. It matters that I wasn’t finding. They were finding. I look. They find. I remembered having forgotten something in a dream and when I got up to go to sleep it was like my feet couldn’t carry me to dream land.’

‘Well I’m here Loganov. I’ll help you find whatever you want. Or help you go wherever you want. Do you remember where you were going?’

‘Going, going, going. Always going and moving and crawling. Going. Here and there I though the finding would happen instead of the looking but I was found…’ Loganov trailed off mumbling and seemed to gain a new sense of tranquility. His eyes closed and he seemed to breath easily through his nose. ‘I’m getting tired Commander and I can’t be down here helping you looking for things.’ Loganov brought up his other hand, the one that had not been preoccupied with his temples and scalp and the one that York had also paid no attention to as he remained riveted on the tortured brutal movements of Loganovs lips.

Raising his hand as if to press it to the opposite side of his head as his other hand, York could see a balled fist. First tensing himself expecting it to be raised in anger, he then felt sincere panic flash through his mind. In his hand was a grenade primarily used in pest management on colony worlds. The marines found it to be particularly effective against Swarming insect analogs. It produced a pale plume of gas that expanded into a perfect half dome before a small burst turned the plume into a bright spot and a final fireball rocketed out at an impossible speed.

“Sailor what are you doing with that?’

‘With what commander?’ Loganov peered around at his feet letting his arms slack to his sides with the grenade hanging perilously in one hand.

‘Let’s just head back to your bunk Loganov.’ York reached out a hand to Loganov who seemed submissive before suddenly reeling back from York. Sudden jerky movement and just as quickly Loganov was ripping the pin from the grenade and disappearing into the shadows of the armory.

York dove for the ground and covered the back of his head, certain that the last thing he would ever see was a few centimeters of the Anaxagoras’ deck.