Eckhart Mercer stands in front of the white door, waiting to walk through it,
and leave the executive infirmary. The AI system is pretty sophisticated. It
will open automatically, but also knows when someone is not quite ready for
it, and it will remain closed until such time that the user’s body language
suggests that they’re ready, or if they open it themselves. He takes one
last look in the mirror on the wall to his right, just to make sure nothing
gives it away. He knows nothing on his face does. If anyone is going to
recognize him as an impostor, it won’t be because of the flawless plastic
surgery. It will be because he’s unfit to lead as captain, and everyone will
be able to see right through his impersonation. He looks like Captain
Yenant, but he still doesn’t feel like him, and he doesn’t know if he’s
going to be able to pull this off. Yenant has left big shoes to fill, and
even though he’s not dead yet—just in a coma—it’s looking like he’ll never
recover. He’s been under for a week, and they just can’t wait any longer.
The Captain is afforded the time off, but that time has passed, and people
will start to get suspicious. Mercer takes a deep breath, and finally leaves
the room.
It started out rough, but over the last year, Mercer has grown used to
pretending to be the Captain. No one seems to suspect a thing. Nothing has
gone wrong, however, which is probably what’s been making it easier. He
hasn’t had to make any dire decisions, or prove himself in any significant
capacity. The attempted assassin has yet to reveal themselves, but Mercer is
keeping an eye out. He synthesizes his food himself, and has it analyzed by
a closed AI for every single meal. He hasn’t been having meals or drinks
with anyone, which is a little out of the ordinary for Yenant, but it’s just
too much of a risk. It’s not practical or safe for him to test for poison
while people are around. The idea is to catch whoever is trying to kill the
Captain, not let them succeed in killing the Lieutenant.
At the moment, he’s in the engineering room that’s designated to monitor the
Frontrunners. “I hear there’s an issue with one of them,” he says.
Earlier this year, August Voll was promoted to full Second Temporal
Engineer, leaving the second apprentice as the one and only primary
apprentice. Vesper Yordanov’s current responsibility is to exclusively
monitor the frontrunner ships that are flying ahead of Extremus to protect
it from micrometeoroid strikes, and make any adjustments necessary. There
were never meant to be so many people on the temporal engineering team, as
the original mission parameters didn’t consider that it would become so
vital to the safety of the crew and passengers. Department leadership is
presently deciding whether even more people need to be trained in the
discipline. It’s the most difficult one on the entire ship, and it’s pretty
important that anyone selected to even make an attempt at taking that
educational track be born with genius-level intellect.
It’s not one of those fields of study that anyone with enough time and
patience can explore. Even the other engineers are mostly not capable of
switching over, as it requires a much deeper understanding of physics.
Perhaps if the general population of the stellar neighborhood were made
aware that temporal manipulation was real, educational resources could be
devised to increase their numbers. As of now, the only way to learn is
directly from someone else, and decent teachers are rarer still. Valencia
Raddle was chosen for the position in the first place because of her
aptitude as a teacher. It’s unclear whether August or Vesper will be able to
successfully fill her shoes in that manner. “Not a problem,” he explains. “I
just need authorization to swap the apex.”
“What do you mean by swap?” Mercer asks.
Vesper appears to believe as if the captain of this vessel should already
understand what’s happening here. As the lieutenant, however, Mercer’s
duties often take him in so many directions that it’s difficult to keep up
with everything. Captains are also chosen quite carefully; for their
predisposition for leadership, but also their ability to retain massive
amounts of information. A lieutenant is decidedly not next in line for the
chair. Mercer’s real job is to coordinate between departments, including the
executive crew. As an executive herself, Valencia enjoys a direct connection
to him, and therefore requires no such liaison. Mercer is now showing the
tip of his cards, and Vesper isn’t sure what to think of it. “Is this a
test, sir?”
“Everything is a test,” Mercer answers, hoping to remain as stoic about it
as possible. He is the captain, after all, and if this were a real test,
Halan would act like this.
“Okay, I can explain. The temporal fields on the Frontrunners are just as
unreliable as the teleporter field around Extremus proper. It’s not much,
but it’s bad enough that some material does make it through the field,
without being expelled to the future at all. This causes damage to the hull.
We could probably leave them out there, and be fine, but you asked us to
rotate them, and effect repairs on the one that’s out of service, replacing
it entirely, if necessary.”
“Good. So it’s time to do that, right?”
Vesper is still a bit suspicious. “Right.”
“Then you have my authority.” Mercer pats him on the shoulder, and stands
straighter, preparing to leave.
“Sir, I need your teleportation codes. A vacuum jump is considered too high
risk to entrust to anyone but you...after the recall device fiasco of Year
Three?”
“Of course. I’m quite tired, however. Could we do this tomorrow instead?
“Absolutely, sir, we’re not in any immediate danger.”
“Good.” Mercer takes a breath once he’s on the other side of the door.
Things are falling apart. He has been lucky up until now, but that is all
about to change. He needs to figure out how to get those codes, and so far,
all attempts at reviving the Captain have failed. Dr. Holmes has been
attempting some kind of neural interface to at least communicate with Halan,
but those have failed as well. There’s only one person on this ship with any
hope of bypassing the authorization, and his loyalty has been in question
since he first stepped foot on this vessel. Mercer proceeds to Omega’s new
laboratory, and prepares to explain himself to the man.
Omega takes one look at Captain Yenant’s face, and smirks. “You’ve finally
run into a wall, haven’t you?”
“I’m sorry?” Mercer legitimately doesn’t know what he’s talking about. It’s
probably a reference to a conversation he had with the real captain over a
year ago.
“If I had been able to reveal the truth with anyone else, I might have bet
on your failure sooner than this. I must admit I’m impressed you lasted as
long as you did.” He pantomimes tipping a hat to him.
“I’m afraid that I do not understand your meaning. You see, I’m not—”
“Captain Yenant,” they say at the same time.
“You knew?” Mercer questions. “Oh right, genius. I should have guessed you
would figure it out.”
Omega squints, confused. “What are you talking about? Did. Holmes not tell
you?”
“Tell me what, that she outright told you who I really was?”
“My Dear Temporary Captain, she had to tell me. How exactly do you believe
you look exactly like him?”
“Surgery,” Mercer answers.
“That’s invasive, dangerous, and though technically reversible, any
additional surgery would have placed you in even more danger. The human body
is not designed to be...jacked around that much.” He laughs, “no, it’s a
hologram.” Omega takes out his handheld device, taps on it a bit, and
evidently turns off the illusion.
Mercer instantly looks like himself again. He paws at his own cheeks as he’s
looking at his reflection in the fridge glass, trying to gauge whether this
is, in fact, the illusion. There’s really no way to tell, not with
technology this good. “How could I have not known?”
“Honestly, I can’t answer that; I thought you did. We probably could have
gone the surgical route, but neither Holmes nor I believed it would have to
go on this long.”
“So my assistant, who’s masquerading as me?”
“If I had to hazard a guess, I suppose now I assume he also doesn’t know
he’s a hologram.”
“What’s the power source?” Mercer pads clothes, and the back of his head.
“The ship itself,” Omega replies. “Wireless energy, produced by the fusion
reactor. You have a new access chip in your neck, which generates the image.
I’m very sorry you didn’t know about this. I feel like it would have made it
easier, if you could return to your real form when necessary.”
Mercer sighs again, realizing that this epiphany changes nothing. He still
doesn’t have those codes.
Omega detects that there remains a lingering issue. “Knowing this doesn’t
help you with whatever problem you’re facing right now, does it?”
“The real Captain has codes, which I need in order to swap out one of the
Frontrunners.”
Omega balks at this. “Why would that be necessary, what’s wrong with it?”
“Yordanov says it’s time for regular maintenance, because of all the
meteoroid escapes.
As Omega is pulling something up at his workstation, he says, “it’s a highly
redundant system; that’s what the Frontrunners were created for. If one of
them doesn’t get the meteoroid, the others should compensate.” He pulls up a
set of data that Mercer cannot understand. “There. I’m reporting no damage
since they were dispatched, on any of the Frontrunners, or Extremus.”
“So...he lied? For what purpose?”
“The codes,” Omega suggests. “I don’t know what these codes are, but they
would likely give him access to more than what he asked for. It’s not
surprising Halan has locked everyone out of the teleporters that could
potentially send someone to space, but they might do all sorts of things.
Or...he’s just trying to send you to space. That was the plan all along,
wasn’t it? That’s what Old Man was meant to do. Maybe they’re trying it
again.”
“How would Vesper lock onto him?” Mercer questions. “Would he use his DNA,
or would he just transport the man who looks like Yenant, and is standing
right next to him.”
“The latter would be easier, and if he doesn’t suspect you’re an impostor,
he would have no reason to do it any other way.”
Mercer begins to pace just a little. “Still, there has to be some way to
shield The Captain...keep anyone from locking onto his location, just in
case.”
“It’s already been done. Otherwise, anyone with the ability to request the
ship locate him would uncover the ruse.”
“Yes, of course, that makes sense. So this should work.”
“So, what would work, teleporting you to outer space? I suppose it would.”
“If you have the ability to make anyone look like anyone else with a
hologram, why couldn’t you do the same with, say, a robot, or even a broom?”
“What is a broom?”
“You know what I mean. It doesn’t have to be me in that room. He just has to
think that it’s the Captain, and once he makes his move, we’ll know he’s in
on it. He may be the ringleader, for all we know.” Only now does he see the
flaw in his plan. “Oh no, but we don’t have those codes.”
“I can get you the codes,” Omega says with a shrug. I know how Yenant
thinks.
“Can I trust you with this?” Mercer asks.
“You can trust me with anything. I long ago accepted how similar to my
progenitor I really am.”
When the Ansutahan refugees were first brought to Salmonverse, they were
elevated technologically, so they could enjoy the same amenities the galaxy
had to offer at the time. They weren’t simply given such technology,
however, at least not all of it. Some of it they were expected to learn
themselves. The owners of Gatewood gave them the tools they would need to
develop sufficient artificial intelligence, but it’s not perfect. Spawning a
new lifeform has proven to be rather difficult. They have enough for the
ship’s AI to make the necessary life-saving calculations for them, and for
its constituent robots to effect repairs. They still don’t have lifelike
androids, however; ones that are capable of passing even the most forgiving
of Turing tests. The truth is they haven’t been trying very hard for this,
because Extremusians won’t want to share their future home with another
race. This is all irrelevant right now, though. Omega can make a bot look
like Captain Halan Yenant, and Mercer can pilot it like a drone, and they
should be able to maintain the lie for long enough to fool Vesper. They have
to catch him in the act, or none of their interrogation tactics is going to
do any good.
The next day, the bot strides into the Frontrunner monitoring room, claiming
to be ready to provide the teleportation codes.
“Great. We’ve had a few more strikes since yesterday. We really should do it
now.” Vesper hovers his hands over the keyboard.
“I feel more comfortable doing it myself,” Mercer says through the bot’s
vocalizer.
“Very well.” Vesper seems unconcerned by this. He even walks around to the
other side of the workstation so he can’t see the code.
The bot enters the override codes that Omega gave him.
Vesper smirks. “Perfect. Now we’re done with you.” He taps on a tablet, and
spirits the bot away, just as they predicted he would.
Mercer steps into the room, holding a gun. “Who exactly is we?”
Vesper attempts to escape through the backdoor, but security jumps in before
he can leave. He tries to teleport himself out, but teleportation has been
disabled shipwide.
“We? We! We are the true Extremusians, and we will not let you invade our
planet! Not again!” He removes what suspiciously looks like a detonator from
his pocket, and readies himself to press the button on top. “I die in
service to The Oaksent, and you cannot take that from me!”
Before he can detonate, Omega transports him to the cold vacuum of space.
“What is the Oaksent?” Mercer asks no one in particular.
A sickly but awake Captain Yenant shows up in his hoverchair. “That’s the
name of the fourth person who was missing after Airlock
Karen activated the recall device.
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