Generation Cerberus
“You’re lucky, John, you know that, right?” Aegis said, taking a bite of her rations. She’d let down her hair and changed into civilian clothes, which consisted of a t-shirt and jeans. It had been two weeks since the incident with Engel, and she and Callow had been seeing one another regularly since then.
“Of course I am. All I have to do all day is sit around and occasionally deal with the slag that shuffles through from time to time. We’ve had this conversation before.” He was dressed about the same as she was, his brown hair covering his eyes whenever he bent down to shovel food into his mouth. Aegis smiled in spite of herself at his response.
“Not that kind of lucky.” She said, taking another bite. “I mean that we grew up together. Most people take a good few years after they’re out of their homes to find love.”
“What about you? Aren’t you lucky, too?” Callow asked. In response, Aegis crossed the table and kissed him on the mouth, pulling him toward the bedroom. The whole time, she marveled at how he had managed to pick up on such a subtle hint. She could never flat out lie to him, because of the friendship they had, so she instead said exactly what she meant to say with subtleties that she knew Callow would never catch on to. The end of their trip, according to data logs she had illegally accessed, was only seven days away, and at the end of that time period, she intended to leave him for the first passable carbon based being she could find.
Larkhill sat in one of the twisting chairs on the balcony of the observation deck Veritas. He was waiting for the other Commanders to arrive. With the Mutiny had come a new hierarchy. At the top of the new order sat the five Commanders, each one in charge of a different and specific section of the ship. In order for executive decisions to be made, at least three of the five had to agree on the issue being discussed. The Lieutenant Commander was in charge of military actions and the police force present on the Cerberus, the Security commander was in control of all electrical monitoring and issues related to the physical wellbeing of the Cerberus’s citizens, the Mechanical Commander was the overseer who ensured that all components of the Kalasov were running properly, the Biological Commander had to keep the plants on the upper level producing oxygen, and the Trajectory Commander kept watch over the countdown that measured how much time was left until the predicted arrival to Eden.
Under each of these Commanders were five direct inferiors, of whom there were ten for each position: Lieutenants, Officers, Maintenance Managers, Researchers, and Watchers, respectively. Their purpose was to facilitate the jobs of their Commanders. Under each of these, respectively, were the many numbered Privates, Security Guards, Engineers, Scientists, and Couriers. All other unranked members of society on the Cerberus were considered civilians.
As Larkhill stared at the slowly approaching planet, he could not help but smile. He would go down in history, he though, as the man who piloted the Cerberus to its intended destination. As soon as the others arrived, he would ensure that he would be recorded in history’s books. The others, according to the books, would have mysteriously died in the days before their landing. He passed his finger over the switch that would electrocute everyone seated in the chairs, double checking that his own seat was not wired. Just in case any of them didn’t sit down, he made sure that his service pistol was loaded and that the safety was undone. The last time he had used it was in the Mutiny, but he considered himself a fairly decent shot, even though all those years had passed.
“Jayce!” Dimitra squealed excitedly, wrapping her arms around her friend. She left her paperback copy of “Black Hole Theory” on her cot, which Jayce carried her back to easily. She had left a grimy body-shaped mark on the front of his lab coat, and he was actively trying to wipe it off, but with no visible success.
“I invited Caleb and Mira over. Hope you don’t mind.” He said, grinning. She half felt like punching him in his white teeth and breaking the glasses that gave him a constant view of the Countdown. The other half of her wanted to hug him to death.
“Caleb!” She squeaked, jolting up on her cot. Caleb was a Lieutenant, a close friend, and the man Dimitra desperately wanted for her own. In her excitement, she’d forgotten that she was still covered in oil and grease. Her blond hair was black with grease, and her blue eyes were shining with excitement.
“Better go get ready.” Jayce said; his tone mostly offhand as he paid close attention to the countdown flashing across his eyes. Dimitra gave another squeak and darted for the bathroom. Jayce smiled at her enthusiasm, a quality he deeply admired about her. She always managed to switch off from work so easily, while he was constantly wire to his work, both physically and mentally. Most of the time she felt bad for him, since his job provided little excitement, but she envied him because he never had to deal with people in his job. She really envied him for not having to regularly deal with people like Engel. All of the members of the Trajectory Commander’s team here hand selected for their patience and unique brilliance, unlike the other Commander’s underlings, who were chosen more or less at random, and kept for their performance in the field.
He took a seat on the couch, paying close attention to his readout. Most of his associates took the readout off, placing it out of sight until the ship called them back to the Trajectory Lab in Command Deck III. Something was unusual about the readout tonight. It was detecting another ship about two days away, set on a direct collision course with the Cerberus. Unless the other ship had some way of adjusting its speed in the vacuum of space, their collision seemed unavoidable. This was the other reason he had invited Caleb and Mira, as well as a third guest named Pariah. Each of them was from different department, and Jayce needed a proper team, with information from each of the Command Groups, to come up with a solution to this problem. Dimitra had some idea of what he was doing, but he was until everyone was at their apartment that night to discuss the entire plan.
“Okay, I’m ready.” Dimitra called as she walked out of the bathroom, wearing freshly cleaned citizens’ clothes. Jayce heard the low rumbling of the washing machine as her Engineer’s outfit was being cleaned. Most citizens did not have access to a personal bathroom or cleaning facilities, but both Jayce and Dimitra were second-rank, which privileged them to luxuries beyond those of normal citizens. Jayce was a Watcher, and Dimitra was a Maintenance Manager, which placed them in the running for commodities such as a washing machine, a dishwasher, and the coffee machine that was busily bubbling away in their kitchen. A faint but urgent knock on the door gave them both a start. Jayce rushed to slide the door away, and as he did, Caleb almost collapsed into his arms. Caleb was still wearing his uniform, and his short sandy hair was peppered with tiny icicles. Dimitra ran to the entrance and helped Jayce carry Caleb to the couch. He was shivering, and his eyes were wide with fear and anxiety.
“Caleb! Are you okay?” Jayce asked, tossing aside some cushions with his free hand as they lowered him to the couch.
“Yeah.” Caleb muttered, still shaking, even though the look in his eyes had faded and looked much calmer.
“What happened to you?” Dimitra asked worriedly, brushing some of the ice out of his hair.
“Larkhill.” Caleb answered gravely, giving another shudder. He sat up on the couch, clutching the cushions with white-knuckled hands, as though they were the only things keeping him from drifting out of the ship. Taking a deep breath, he continued, hesitantly. “He figured out the plan, Jayce. He took me aside at the end of my shift. He caught me and followed me to my dorm, then cut the climate control. I had to wait for him to go to cut my way out with my fuse gun. He thought I was acting alone, though, so I’m pretty sure you guys are safe.”
“What plan? What’re you two up to?” Dimitra asked, seating herself along the back of the couch.
“I’ll explain later. After Mira and Pariah get here.” Jayce said curtly, turning back to Caleb. “That makes two complications that we have to sort out. We have to discuss both of them once the others get here.”
“Wait! Who’s Pariah?” Dimitra asked, sliding off the back of the couch and following Jayce as he made his way into the kitchen.
“A friend.” Jayce said, sliding the door shut. Dimitra stared at the door that had shut just inches from her nose for a few moments, then silently went back to looking after Caleb.
The last of the Commanders to arrive was Maria Aegis. Larkhill’s emergency meeting had taken her by surprise, and she burst into the room still wearing civilian jeans as she struggled to fit her arm into her officer’s jacket. Turning away from the others momentarily, she tried with little success to button the jacket up and hide the civilian shirt underneath. Out of breath, she leaned against the wall beside her chair.
“So very generous of you to grace us all with your presence, Commander Aegis.” Said Lionel Redrigord, the Biological Commander. He was wiry man with an outlandishly large, bushy black beard that stuck out in every direction and spilled over his civilian shirt. Aegis realized with some embarrassment that she was the only one who had bothered to come in uniform. Redrigord liked the amount of control that he had on the Cerberus and enjoyed bullying his staff, a group of brilliant and dedicated scientists who Aegis felt did not deserve having to put up with him. She could barely be around him for more that a few minutes before she found herself reaching for her service pistol. Despite the fact that it was chiefly ornamental in purpose, Aegis found herself spending at least one hour of each day at the virtual firing range across the way from her dormitory room.
“I’m sure that many of you are wondering why you were called here on such short notice.” Larkhill said, stepping out of his chair.
“Is this about Eden?” Asked Trajectory Commander Evelyn Desole, a squat redhead woman in her forties. She produced a datapad with the latest readouts from Chiron, the computer whose purpose was to calculate the time it would take to reach Eden. “We’ll be arriving in approximately seven days, unless there is some drastic change in our course. Hell, Larkhill, we can all see the planet from the viewing bay.” She said, double-checking the readout. It was the last saved recordings, which she had taken shortly before leaving the lab. Commander Desole had always found it tedious to carry around the live feed monitors, so she had no way of knowing about the other ship.
“As I’m sure all of you are aware… ‘We’ is an exceptionally generous term.” Larkhill said, standing up and walking over to his desk, slowly and deliberately. As he did so, Michael Jamerey, the Mechanical Commander, drew his fuse gun and severed the extra cord that he had spotted attached to his chair. Something was definitely off. He could feel it in the air. Looking over at Aegis, who was still winded, he could tell that she sensed it, too.
“Isn’t it though?” Jamerey remarked under his breath, gritting his teeth as he noticed cords like the one attached to his chair attached to each of the other Commander’s chairs, running discreetly along the floor and to Larkhill’s desk. As Larkhill reached into his desk drawer, Aegis came to a full realization of what was happening and stepped away from her chair quickly. She managed to get her gun out of its holster and take aim at Larkhill as he flipped the switch and drew his weapon. In an instant, Desole and Redrigord were shocked to death, and Jamerey fell to the floor after some convulsing, feigning death.
“I thought one of you would survive.” Larkhill said, keeping his gun level with Aegis’s chest as he maneuvered around the desk. “I just wasn’t expecting you to be armed, though. That I’ll admit freely.” He took a step toward her.
“One more step, and I shoot.” Aegis growled, following each movement with the barrel of her gun. Jamerey tried to stand up, and the two other Commanders quickly aimed their weapons at him.
“That was also unexpected.” Larkhill commented, as Jamerey tried to get to his feet. There was a moment of incredible tension, and then Maria Aegis turned the situation to her advantage.
“That doesn’t change anything.” She said, still aiming at the frightened Jamerey. Then, quite to the surprise of everyone in the room, Aegis fired two shots into his chest and rounded her gun back on Larkhill. “Now, drop your gun.” She said coldly, stepping toward him. “If you try anything, I will shoot you.”
“Now, Maria… I’m sure that we can talk about this.” Larkhill said in a patronizing voice. He tried to discreetly raise his gun high enough that he could quickly shoot at her, and before he knew what had happened, he was lying backwards on his desk, bleeding profusely from the two bullet holes in his chest. In his last moments, Larkhill was smiling, because in the clarity that is only bestowed by impending and inescapable death, he realized that Aegis would give him a place in Eden’s history books after all. He would be known forever as the greatest traitor of the pioneer voyage to the New World, and as his life ebbed away, he was overjoyed by the notion of people cursing his name. Larkhill died, content that he would be remembered. And, fortunately for his ambitions, the greatest group of traitors, who were assembling a scant two floors below, would go unsung in the recorded history of Eden.
