This is a new timeline. Olindse didn’t change her own past, but she changed
the future when she skipped over however long it was, and came here. Thatch
asks what’s going on, but she ignores his questions. She steps out of the
extraction room, and looks at the keypad, because it’s the closest thing
with accurate temporal data. “It’s February 26, 2299,” she says.
“Why?” Thatch asks.
“We were about to get caught. Future!Me showed up to save me. Now she’s
gone, and I’m here, and I’ve been missing for the last eight months.”
“Oh boy,” he says. “We’re going to have to come up with a good lie.”
“Not we, me. You have to go back home.”
“You’re asking me to go back to my death.”
“You’re gonna die anyway...in seven years, and three months. That happens
whether it’s in 2294, or 2306. It’s up to you whether you want to do it in
hock, or if you’re going to have one last nice conversation with Halan
Yenant before your nurse turns off your life support. Go back and do some
good, or stay here and ruin everything.”
He frowns. “Do he and I really have a nice conversation?”
“The best,” she says, not really knowing exactly what went down that day.
“The way he tells it, he wishes you two had had more like it.”
“Well...one is better than nothing, I guess.” He nods gracefully. “Do it.”
Olindse sends the only person on this vessel who understood what it was like
to be a Vice Admiral whose advice nobody cares about back to the past. Alone
again, she returns to her stateroom to take a shower. She’ll have to explain
her absence eventually, but there’s no reason she can’t be well-rested and
clean when that happens. When she wakes up from her nap, she forces herself
to get dressed, and go out to face the music. She thinks she’s come up with
a pretty decent lie. The only logical possibility is that Yitro secretly
showed up and recruited her for the mission, and for whatever reason,
deposited her back on the Extremus months later. Once the time shuttle
finally does return, and Yitro is actually back to dispute the lie, things
could get complicated, but she’ll burn that bridge when she comes to it.
It’s pretty late, so Captain Leithe probably retired to her own stateroom
for the night. Even so, Olindse takes a quick look on the bridge to make
sure, then she heads over to get this over with.
The Captain commands the computer to open her door. “Vice Admiral, hello.
What can I do for you?”
“I would like to explain.”
“Explain what?”
“My absence.”
“You were gone?”
“What?”
“Olindse, if you need a break to go to the simulator, or the park, that’s
fine, you don’t need to ask for permission, or apologize. I’ll find you if I
need you.”
“You didn’t notice that I was gone?”
“Well. I’m a little busy.”
“Yeah, but...”
“Seriously,” Kaiora says, “you served your time as captain. Sure, it wasn’t
a full shift, but you still deserve to be retired. You experienced the same
rigorous coursework the rest of us did, and you were in charge during some
of the most insane and stressful years this ship has seen. Just have fun and
relax. Don’t feel bad about it.”
Olindse can’t help but grimace. Wow. Just...wow. “Um. ‘Kay.”
Kaiora nods. “So, I’m gonna work on my Quantum Colony planet for a little
bit and then head to bed. You’re welcome to join, if you want...on the game,
not...the bed.”
“That’s all right, Captain,” Olindse replies. “I’ll see you later.”
“For sure.”
Olindse steps away from the door to prompt it to close, and begins to
hyperventilate. She teleports herself back to her stateroom so she can have
her panic attack in peace. Eight months. Eight whole fucking months. She was
gone for all that time, and no one noticed! How is that even possible? Do
they really think that little of her? Is she really that expendable? All
that bullshit Kaiora just tried to feed her about deserving to retire
because of her prior work was just a lie. If she really felt that way, she
would have realized that she hadn’t seen Olindse for the last eight goddamn
months!
Olindse paces the room, trying to let go of her anger, but it won’t leave
her alone. No, this will not do. Great, she doesn’t have to explain her
absence, but that also means she can’t confide in anyone about this. She has
to keep it to herself completely, and bottling up her emotions has never
served her well. Resolved to get past this, she activates her teleporter
again.
The journey to the Extremus planet will ultimately take 216 years. In that
time, the population could grow as much as thirteen times its original
complement. Until then, there are tens of thousands of unoccupied cabins
that won’t see a resident move in for a long time. Some may never be
inhabited, as the engineers obviously constructed more than they thought
they would need to accommodate the full breadth of the mission. While
spreading out is fine, there is a limit to where civilians are allowed to
live. When children move away from home, they can put some distance between
them and their parents to exercise some independence, but they can’t go all
the way to the stern. Many sections are closed off for use, and will remain
that way until such time that they are needed. One block of cabins is the
furthest from anybody, and is being used for rage rooms.
Virtual reality is generally considered to be indistinguishable from base
reality, but people still like being where physical laws are immutable, and
where most of their actions cannot be undone. It’s possible to design a
simulation where users can destroy objects without fear of consequences, and
then logoff, and go about their day. That program probably does exist
somewhere on the servers. People don’t really want that, though; not for
this. They want to know that the things they’re destroying are real, and
that there’s a chance that something they do in one of these rooms could
potentially lead to someone having to go to the infirmary. It’s dangerous,
and that’s what makes it so therapeutic. The bylaws did not originally
account for this section to exist, so for now, it’s not illegal. For the
most part, the government and crew turn a blind eye to it, but they could
change their minds later, especially as the administration changes hands.
Olindse walks up to the counter, and demands an arsenal of blunt
instruments, such as bats, golf clubs, and metal pipes.
“Okay, you’ll need some protective gear too,” the clerk says.
“No,” Olindse insists.
“I’m afraid it’s policy.”
“Do you know who I am?”
“Of course, Vice Admiral.”
“Then you know that I can have this place shut down by this time tomorrow.
So go over there, grab me some instruments, and stay the hell out of my
business.”
He hesitates to answer, but not too long. “As you wish, Vice Admiral.” He
hands her the duffel bag.
“Thanks,” she says as she’s taking it from him. “Oh, and I was never here.”
“Of course, sir.”
Olindse walks down to her assigned room, and walks in. It’s full of
absolutely ancient technology—some from Earth, and some from Ansutah before
the evacuation. Computers, clocks, old media, objects so old that Olindse
doesn’t even know what they were used for. There’s a piece of drywall
leaning against the real wall, along with an uninstalled glass window.
Bottles, cans, pots, and pans. Clothes to rip, and paper to shred. She looks
the room over to see what catches her fancy. All of it. Every last object
here is about to meet its end. When she’s done, nothing will be even
moderately recognizable. She just has to decide where to start. “This’ll
do.”
The door opens, and the lights come on. Olindse wakes up abruptly, covered
in cuts, and feeling sick. She must have raged herself to sleep.
Captain Kaiora Leithe walks in and offers a hand. “What are you doing here,
Admiral?”
“I don’t have to answer that,” Olindse contends.
“Can you at least let me help you up?”
Olindse squints at the hand. She reaches up as if to accept it, but slaps it
away instead. “Go to the devil.”
“Are you drunk?”
“I think I found a bottle of something with alcohol in it last night. I
don’t know why it’s illegal, I feel so good right now.” She throws up on her
own chest.
Kaiora picks a bottle up from the floor. “Damn, Olindse, this liquor stuff
is 277 years old. It was poisonous when they made it, and it’s even more
poisonous now. It’s probably from the history museum.” She tries to take
control of Olindse’s teleporter.
“What are you doing?” Olindse complains, fighting back.
“You need to go to the infirmary. I don’t know what’s gotten you so upset,
but you’re gonna die if you don’t receive proper medical treatment.”
Olindse makes one last pull away from the Captain. “And who will care?”
“I will.”
“I was dead for eight months and you didn’t even notice.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Exactly.”
Kaiora looks away, and accesses her brain’s memory archives. “I probably
haven’t seen you in eight months. Were you gone that whole time?”
Olindse shoves a finger in Kaiora’s face. “Bingpot!”
“Oh my God. What happened to you? Were you taken?”
“I think we’ve established that you don’t give a flailing fuck.”
“We’ll talk when you’re sober.” Kaiora remembers, as Captain, she has the
ability to transport anyone she wants to anywhere she wants, without their
permission, and using her own teleporter. She sends them both to Dr. Holmes.
Since alcohol is illegal and rare, alcohol poisoning is not something that
happens on the ship very often. It does happen occasionally, and the medical
team believes they encounter nearly every single time someone tries to
drink, because the moron doesn’t usually have any experience, so the
consequences are not something they can sleep off on their own. Admiral
Thatch was perhaps the only exception. Earth once made a serious effort to
develop a hangover cure to relieve drinkers from some of the harmful side
effects of intoxication, but this was around the time that a state of
abstinence was sweeping the world due to its rejection by younger
generations. Legislatures quietly made the medical treatment itself illegal,
so as to not encourage anyone to regress. A different administration may
have handled things differently, but research halted, and the world moved
towards the recreational drug-free condition it’s in today. The research was
picked up again several decades later, and the dream was ultimately
realized. By then, there weren’t many people around to need it, but it did
come up sometimes when alcohol was forced upon a victim as a weapon, or a
form of torture. Dr. Holmes keeps a stash of the stuff on hand.
She injects Olindse with the treatment, causing her to begin to fall asleep
within seconds.
“How long will this take?” Kaiora questions.
“A few hours.” Dr. Holmes pulls Olindse to her side, and places a body
pillow against her back. “If she were simply drunk, it would be quicker, but
she’s on the verge of death, drinking something that old. You could not have
brought her in too soon.”
“Call me when she’s awake,” Kaiora orders. “I’m going to retrace her steps.”
Privacy is important on Extremus, but so is security. The ship logs the
movements of everyone on board. It erases most people’s histories after a
month, but VIPs are kept indefinitely for safety reasons. They’re harder to
access, though, even for the Captain. She’ll have to file a formal request
with current Head of Security, Ramiel Krupin.
“Are you sure about this, sir?” Ramiel asks. “I mean, an Admiral. That’s...”
“She disappeared for eight months, I need to know where she was.”
“Can’t you just ask her?”
“She’s sick. She’s...lost credibility.”
“All due respect, sir, that sounds like a contrivance. I’m going to need you
to spell it out for me.” He hands her a tablet. “And I’m going to need you
to do it in writing.”
“This is a matter of ship security. I need that information.”
“You need to have a good reason, or you’re not getting it.”
Captain is the highest rank on the ship, even against admirals, even against
the civilian government. If anyone is in a position to declare this to
suddenly become a dictatorship, it would be Kaiora Leithe. No one else comes
close to having the power to pull that off, not even First Chair. She
wouldn’t do it obviously, and neither will any future captain, or they would
never be selected in the first place. That’s why Halan Yenant’s decision to
alter course was such a terrible crime, because he abused his power to do
it. Still, even with all this clout, there are precisely two ranks on this
ship with the power to overrule anything a captain says. One of them is the
Chief Medical Officer, and the other is Head of Security. “Fine. I’ll
investigate this myself.” She storms out.
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