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Admiral Oceanus Jennings stands between Captain Kristiansen and his bride,
Sable Keen. The audience is noticeably uncomfortable, if not outright
disgusted. Even Waldemar’s sycophants don’t like what’s happening in this
holographic grand cathedral. They won’t do or say anything about it, but
they’ll have their private thoughts, and maybe share a few whispers. As for
the happy couple, they couldn’t be happier. The Captain has become much
better at feigning emotions. It almost looks like he’s in love with this
girl. Oceanus hasn’t been made privy to all the secret meetings that Admiral
Keen has with her daughter, and the rest of the braintrust, so he just has
to hope that this is all part of some elaborate plan. There’s no way she
actually likes this guy. She’s so sweet and intelligent. Even if her mother
never told her anything about what he really is, surely she would just pick
up on it.
The Admiral obviously doesn’t want to be here, let alone be officiating, but
it’s his responsibility since this such a high-profile event involving a
crewmember. There’s only one other person here qualified to perform the
ceremony, and no one bothered to ask her. She’s not even here, which is
understandable, and really not a scandal. Or if it is, it’s cancelled out by
the reason she declined the invitation. Sable is an adult now. There’s
nothing illegal about this. But it makes people feel icky. Not only is there
a significant age difference, but he’s also in an immense position of power.
There are protesters, but they have not been allowed into the
auditorium. Oceanus passed a message onto them, begging them to stay quiet.
He can’t tell them that it’s because he fears for their lives, but there is
only so much he can do. He doesn’t outrank the Captain. He’s only an
advisor, and it’s time for him to begin today’s responsibility.
“Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today,” Oceanus begins. It’s an
uncommon turn of phrase on the ship. Waldemar evidently heard it in a movie
or two, and he has a fixation on tradition—not Extremusian traditions,
specifically ones that they don’t typically follow. He proceeds to drone on
and on about love and loyalty, following the script that Waldemar handed him
word for word, including the few typos. If asked about it later, he’ll just
say that he’s become so accustomed to speeches that the words travel right
from the screen to the microphone, bypassing his brain entirely. It’ll be
fine, they’re not that bad, and people have bigger things to worry about.
After the ceremony comes the reception. Oceanus thought he was done with his
part in this charade, but Waldemar surprises him with a call to toast. He
didn’t prepare anything, so he has to wing it. Other toasters dropped subtle
clues about the extent of their disapproval, but he was entirely
noncombative, because what would be the point? How does it help anyone,
getting yourself chucked into hock? Errr, rather, the brig. He mostly
sticks with love and loyalty, and drives home how lucky Sable is to find
someone so amazing, adding in some anecdotes about Waldemar’s work ethic and
tenacity. Fifty points to Oceanus, he didn’t throw up even once during the
entire ordeal. When it’s a feasible time to duck out quietly, he goes back
towards the bow, but instead of going to his quarters, he heads for the
office that he shares with Lataran. Waldemar has made a lot of changes to
Extremus, but Admiral Gardens remains untouched. Oh good, she’s here. “I
want in.”
Lataran is busying herself with nonsense work. Waldemar has his own
advisors, and has never asked to their help with anything. “You want in to
what?”
“Whatever you, Silveon, Audrey Husk, and even Sable are up to, I want to be
a part of it. I don’t want to sit on the sidelines anymore. I want you to
tell me the plan.”
She sighs, and returns to her tablet. “There is no plan.” This may not be
the right time to talk to her. Her daughter just married a monster, and she
couldn’t bring herself to watch it happen. It must have been so difficult
for her, being unable to stop it.
“Please. You can trust me,” he insists. “I know you know that. We may not
have always gotten along, but we can agree that we have to protect the ship
from him.”
She sighs again, more annoyed this time. “I’m not icing you out. There
really is no plan. We did have plans, but Sable ruined them when she married
him.”
“That wasn’t what you all wanted?”
“No,” she begins to explain. “That was Audrey’s job. She’s...older than she
looks, and knew what she was getting into. Sable doesn’t understand what’s
at stake. I don’t know why we agreed to let her be part of this at all, but
this wedding was a bridge too far. So I’m out. I’m old and dying, and she
has to make her own choices. I’ve already talked to her about it ad nauseum.
I guess they were more like fights. But either way, whatever we were trying
to do together, that’s over now. She’s made it clear that she’ll be pivoting
him away from us, so she can have him all to herself. There’s nothing left
to do but accept it. Whatever Extremus becomes, that will be what it is.”
“So we just fade into the background?”
“While we’re alive? Yes.” She shakes her tablet slightly. “I’m writing a
book. It outlines the truth—my truth, and will be published
posthumously. I’m still deciding who will be responsible for that. It could
place those who survive me in danger, including my daughter. But I can’t sit
with these thoughts in my head anymore. I have to get them out. If you’re
struggling with the same hopelessness, you might look for your own outlet.”
“I prefer to fix things while I’m still alive,” he says.
She presses a button on her desk, causing the walls to start to extend and
wrap around her work area. She never used privacy mode when Tinaya was
working alongside her. Now she activates it all the time. “Good luck with
that,” she says just before it seals her up completely.
Oceanus moves on to Silveon. He basically asks him the same thing, and
Silveon basically responds the same way that Lataran did. “My mission had an
expiration date. I didn’t know it when I started, but I’ve lost my way in.
She has taken over everything. We did not factor in the possibility that
someone new in this timeline would usurp control over the situation. It was
always a possibility, of course. That’s what happens when you change
history. I suppose this might have even been inevitable, thanks to my
actions. One thing that Waldemar was not in the old timeline was
welcoming. He didn’t have close advisors, or personal relationships. He only
had loyal subjects. I gave him this. I taught him how to connect with
others. I showed him how to marry a girl. I don’t know if I should regret it
or not, because the plan was to make him more human. Unfortunately, this is
what that looks like.”
He goes to Audrey now, who he expects to find distraught in her new
quarters. They are a far cry from the luxury of the Captain’s Stateroom. She
doesn’t seem to care, about her living arrangements, nor Waldemar’s new wife
and life. “Sable has powers.”
“What?”
“She has time powers.”
“Which ones?” Oceanus presses.
“I don’t know, but she was a kid when we brought her into the fold. We
shouldn’t have done that. She somehow made us. When we switched bodies—”
“You switched bodies?” he interrupts.
“Yes, I forget who knows what. She doesn’t know how to paint.”
“Oh, right. She did that portrait. It looks good.”
“It shouldn’t,” Audrey counters. “I had only started when she forced her way
back into her mind. When I say we switched bodies, that isn’t entirely
truthful. I took over hers, but we placed her in a constructed dream, made
to look exactly as the Extremus was when she went under. We took sensor data
from all over, and fed it into the program. It extrapolated what would
happen if Sable were really still there. She somehow broke through the
illusion, and took back over. I don’t know how she did that, and I don’t
know how that painting got finished.”
“It sounds like you’re done with the mission, like Lataran. That’s how she
put it.”
“That’s how we put it to each other,” Audrey tells him sadly.
“Do you understand Sable’s motives? Did you get anything from the
experience? If she learned to paint, did you learn to...use whatever gifts
she has?”
“Well, I felt her power, before she proved she had it. And at the same time,
I...”
“Go on. You can trust me. I want to help.”
“I felt something else,” Audrey finally says. “I don’t know how to
articulate it. It was...ambition? Or maybe yearning? I don’t know, but she
wants something. She is singularly focused on it. Honestly, it reminded me
of Waldemar, sometimes when I’ve looked into his eyes. I’ve never seen it in
her eyes, though. She’s either good at hiding it, or I’m crazy. But
it scared the shit out of me. I wouldn’t recommend consciousness
transference tech unless you really know the person you’re switching with.”
Oceanus nods, taking in all the information, and trying to fill in the gaps.
It’s not much to go on. Even if no one else is trying to fight it, he can’t
stop. He’ll go it alone if he has to. He cares too much about Extremus, and
the mission. He cares about it at the expense of himself. “You can’t really
know anyone, can you? Except for yourself.”
“Maybe,” she answers. “Maybe not even then.”
“You did once; trusted yourself. You went back in time, to your younger
body.”
“I was desperate.”
“I am too,” he states plainly.
She shakes her head. “Don’t even think about it. You don’t have enough
information. Silveon and I spent years curating historical variables, and we
still missed things. Time travel is never the answer. The teach that
in school. I wish I had listened.”
“Give me the key,” he asks, calmly and dispassionately, but not hostilely.
“You know what? What does it matter? We might as well give it a second shot.
I’m not gonna remember doing this, so here are the directions to the tech
room.” She flings the data to his device. “Here are the codes.” She flings
those too. “When you get to the past, would you do me a favor?”
“Anything, as long as it doesn’t interfere with my primary objective.”
She chuckles. “Don’t tell me or Silveon what you are, or anyone, really. If
you have to tell us anything, just say you got intel from the Bridger
Section, or something.”
“I promise, he lies. He walks out without saying goodbye, because she won’t
remember it anyway. He walks down to the deepest bowels of the ship, and
unlocks the room where the secret insurgent tech is apparently stored. He
doesn’t know how to work the equipment, but it’s sufficiently
self-explanatory. After making sure he has all the settings right, he climbs
in the chair, and sends his mind back to his younger body.
Its over a year in the past, in 2394; the day of the portrait. It all
started to fall apart here. Oceanus has to immediately break his promise to
Audrey. The first thing he does is go to the Captain’s Stateroom to tell her
to not go through the plan to force Sable into a virtual environment.
Whatever she does in the real world, it’s better than pissing her off, and
pushing her away from the group. He doesn’t even think he needs to know what
exactly she’s after. Anything has to be better than letting Waldemar
Kristiansen run around unchecked, unbalanced. They have to put up a united
front, and that means being honest with each other.
Since he was never a part of any of that, he has no idea if it turns out all
right. Like Audrey said, he only knows so many facts about the situation. He
just has to hope that she listened to him. Telling her that he spoke with
the Bridgers was never going to be enough. To be absolutely sure she
believed him, he had to reveal that he knows about the secret room, and the
secret portrait plan. He couldn’t be cryptic or vague. Now, whether she,
Silveon, and Lataran actually listen to his advice is another story.
He returns to his stateroom to mourn the loss of his past self. It’s only
hitting him now that he essentially murdered someone. He overwrote someone
else’s consciousness. The fact that it was technically him, and not someone
else, doesn’t really help. It was still a death, and one that he caused.
That version of Oceanus is gone, and he will live with that guilt for a long
time. The doorbell rings. He opens it without checking the feed. “Captain,
this is unexpected. How did the portrait go?”
“Swimmingly,” Waldemar replies as he’s letting himself in without an
invitation.
“How’s your wife?”
“Funny you should ask, because I was about to ask the same thing.”
“Sir?” Oceanus questions.
“I hear you stopped by for a visit.”
“Oh, yes. Briefly. We hadn’t spoken in a while. I just wanted to see how she
was. I thought we might grab some tea, but she wasn’t up for it.”
Waldemar nods. “My secret service agents say that it wasn’t all that brief,
that you were acting unusual, and that Audrey was rather upset when you
left.”
“I’m sorry if she was, but I saw her in high spirits. I assure you, I didn’t
hurt her.”
“Why would you even put such a thought into the universe? I didn’t suggest
that.”
“I can see that you think something happened which didn’t. Your agents
interpreted something that wasn’t there. Please don’t make this a thing.”
“It may be a thing, it might not. I can’t risk it. I can’t risk a scandal. I
don’t care about her, but I care about my reputation. You’re endangering
that. So you got to go.”
“You can’t kill me. I’m an admiral.”
Walder sports a feigned frown. “Aww, it’s cute that you think that matters.
Admirals have never mattered. I never intend to become one. I will be
the captain forever. And you’ll be dead. If you don’t fight it, it won’t
hurt. You’re old. That’s all they’ll see. I’ll scrub all contradictory
records.”
“They will see what you really are. Before you can start getting anything
real done, beyond renaming the hock and Chief Medical Officer, they’ll see
you.”
“That’s what they all think. Just before I end their life, everyone thinks
they know me. But Admiral Jennings, I’m here to tell you...I’m not
about to start making real changes. I’ve already begun.” He kills
him.
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