Becoming Chosen

Is there such a thing as ‘human nature’ and if so, is it what we think? Any casual glance at our species’ history will show violence at every turn. Is that inherent in us? Or was it the fault of a lack of knowledge and resources? Over the last three hundred years we have greatly reduced the amount of deadly violence we commit against each other. But there is still some. My Committee has worked as hard as we can to build social structures that will mitigate against violence between the travelers, but is it enough? There are many things that can doom our mission, but tit-for-tat violence, or even war between the two cultures is one of the surest.

Marta Jager, Excerpt from file named “Musings”, Sealed Archive

The first two days had not been that bad. Anna had decided that Ronan

was the one who needed the most education, so Miri had plenty of time to read the entries in the Book of Elders.

Maybe it was the way things had ended in the meeting, but Miri could see a lot more of the ‘old people know best’ attitude in the entries. It amused and annoyed her by turns.

She had gone to sleep the night of the second day expecting news sometime in the morning. The morning came and went. As did the afternoon and the night. She mentioned it to Anna, but the forester woman just told her she needed to be patient. Any number of things could have delayed the meeting. After all, the Elders were old.

By the time five days had gone by, even Anna’s stoic temperament had begun to fray. On the morning of the sixth day she’d extracted a promise from both Miri and Ronan that they would stay with the camp, then left.

The forester came back with a disturbing tale. The Elders had indeed gone to meet with the new Captain, but none of them had returned from the Town. When some of the Chosen had asked after their Elders, they were all told the Elders had decided to spend some time in with the Town people.

If that were not bad enough, new people had been appearing in the Town. They were dressed oddly, and they all carried short, thick clubs in their belt. These new comers were asking if anyone had seen the two fugitives. From the description of their clothes, they were definitely Tech. The Town people had always worn clothes that looked similar to the Chosen’s homespun, if more finely made.

When she heard this news, Miri had wanted to rush to the Town and demand her Gran be returned. But Anna and Ronan had convinced her that they should keep waiting. The Tech didn’t know where they were. And so far they had not tried to come into the habmo’s. Moving too soon would only play into Nesbit’s hands.

She had finally agreed with them, but it was hard. The waiting weighed down on her more and more with every passing hour. She knew Ronan was concerned. He kept trying to interest her in things he was learning, but Miri just answered in single words, or grunts. It felt like dying.

On the tenth day since the Elders had met with them, Kyle came, with a stranger. It was a woman, dressed like the Town people. Miri was shocked to realize she was the same women who’d helped her in the dress shop. It seemed like a thousand years ago.

She had the same round-eyed nervousness Ronan had shown when he first came to the habmo. The woman combined with the look on Kyle’s face foretold bad news.

Anna was incensed. “Kyle Santiago! What in the names of the Gods of Earth do you think ye’re about bringin’ one o’ the Town folk here?”

“She comes with news, Anna. Terrible news.”

Miri couldn’t stand it anymore. “What news? Do you know where my Gran and the others are?”

The woman looked at Miri, and seemed to sag. “I am sorry. They are all dead.”

Miri reeled as if the words were rocks slamming into her. She could hear a high ringing sound, and for moment the forest seemed to fade around her. If Ronan hadn’t grabbed her elbow and led her to a log, she would have fallen over.

She could hear th Ronan and Anna asking question after question, talking over each other. Kyle stuck two fingers in his mouth and gave a piercingly loud whistle. It shocked everyone into silence.

“You won’t find out anythin’ like that,” he lectured the three of them. “Just let Gail tell it, then ask the questions. One at a time, yes?” Everyone nodded.

The woman, Gail, ran her hands through her short hair and took a deep breath. “I saw the Elders come to the Town. They went to one of the meeting halls. There had been a bunch of the new security crew in the Town, and they all went in as well.”

Miri bit her tongue, until it hurt to keep from screaming at the woman that they knew the Elders went to the Town. It would only make it take longer to get the horrid news.

“I don’t know how long it was, but the next thing I noticed there were two of the security standing outside the hall. No one came out, even when we all left for the night.” Gail paused again, and this time Miri noticed a tear running down her cheek.

“It was odd, but the next day the guards weren’t there, so I didn’t give it any more thought. Then, yesterday one of my friends from the Med facility came rushing into my shop. Herbie was frantic, asking me to hide him. I, I didn’t know what to do, so I led him to a changing room. It was there that he told me.

“He’d been doing inventory, when he noticed that some of the empty cold storage units were drawing power. When he checked, he found the bodies. He said he went to his supervisor, and instead of being shocked, she told him to keep his mouth shut, and that it was orders from the Captain.”

Gail’s voice took on a breathy quality as she quietly sobbed out the story. “You don’t know Herbie, but he’s never been a fan of Nesbit. Even before he became Captain.” She looked over to Ronan. “Herbie never believed the story that you and the Chosen girl killed Captain Collins. And he wasn’t shy about saying so. He must have said something rash to his boss. He told me she’d called security on him.”

Despite her pain, Miri was beginning to feel sorry for Gail. She reached out and put a hand on the poor woman’s shoulder. It seemed to give her some strength, because Gail wiped her eyes and pulled herself together.

“I told Herbie to stay put, we’d find a way to get him into the Habmo’s or find someone who would intercede with the Captain for him. I was just leaving the shop when the security goons arrived. They just pushed me aside and ransacked the shop. It didn’t take them long to find Herbie and pull him out.

“The sergeant asked me if I knew he was in there, and I said no. I was so scared. I thought they were going to take me as well! They told me to keep my mouth shut and then left, dragging Herbie out. I don’t even know if he was alive!

“After that I ran to the first elevator I came to, and came here. That’s where I met Kyle. He brought me to you.” Having finally told the whole story, Gail’s resolve broke and she began weeping in earnest. Kyle swept her into a hug.

Miri stood. Ronan looked at her, but she just turned away and walked deeper into the woods. She heard Anna tell him to give her some time. She’d never been so grateful to anyone in her whole life.

As she walked through the woods, everything seemed unreal, like a dream she couldn’t wake up from. Eventually she found a small brook, one of the feeders to the habmo’s river and sat on a big rock. It was only then that she let herself cry. She cried for a long, long time.

Eventually the tears wound down. But the pain was still there. It was horrible. Everyone who had ever been important or kind to her was dead. Mum and Da, Gran, even kindly Captain Collins, all gone, never to return.

Nearly lost in her sea of sadness, there was a spark of anger. It was all so unfair. What had she ever done to deserve this? What had the people she lost done to deserve this? Nothing.

Nothing. That was the problem, wasn’t it? When her parents died, there was nothing to do but live with Uncle Fergus and Gran. When the Captain was killed there was nothing to do but run. Now Gran was gone, killed by the same people that killed the Captain. And there was nothing that could be done.

No.

By the Gods of Earth, no!

The spark of anger grew, hot and bright, pushing the darkness of grief away. No, there had to be something that could be done.

“Miri?” Ronan said somewhere behind her. “Can I sit with you?”

Even in the raging storm of emotion Miri was lost in, there was space to appreciate Ronan. Who else would find her and not ask if she was alright? Ronan knew she wasn’t, couldn’t be, so he didn’t even ask. She imagined how strange she must look, wet red cheeks, eyes blazing with anger, and a half smile quirking one side of her mouth

She nodded and tried to get her face into some kind of order that wouldn’t send her last friend running from the crazy girl. It must have worked, because Ronan sat and looked at her, instead of fleeing.

“I’m so sorry Miri. I hardly knew your Gran, but she seemed like a good woman.”

“She was. She was the best of what it means to be Chosen. And now she’s gone.”

“Yes, and now we need to be gone too. You, me and Gail are going to need to hide somewhere further away from the elevators. It’s only a matter of time before Nesbit sends his bullies into the habmo’s to find us.”

Miri looked down at the little brook. “Runnin’ again. I’ve been runni’ a lot the last few weeks. I ran from the Chosen. I ran to the Surface, and now we will run in the habmo.” Her words stopped as if cut off from outside herself. Anger, grief, maybe even love for Ronan were crystalizing something in her. She could feel it churning in her mind. An idea was forming. Then it was there.

“No. No more runnin’. I’m tired of runnin’. It hasn’t helped. It just got other people into trouble. So, no. We won’t run.”

Ronan looked at her for a long moment, and she thought he might really think she was crazy. But her faith in him was redoubled when he spoke. “Right, then. What do we do instead?”

“We do what Captain Collins wanted. We’re goin’ to tell the Chosen the truth of our lives. And then we’ll see how well Nesbit likes ten thousand angry farmers aimed right at him.”

As he stalked through the stone halls of the Tech levels, Nesbit considered the nature of leadership. He had always thought things would be perfect once he was Captain.

All the respect he had always known he deserved would be his. Everyone would stand when he entered a room, his word would be law among the Tech. Reality was not so neat. It was almost as if the universe was conspiring to make a mockery of his plans. Nothing simply ran smoothly any more. His plan had seemed to be working at first. All the department heads had endorsed his ascension, and then buckled down to make the first turn in the history of the ship.

He’d been able to move on all the non-con crewmen, breaking them in rank and finishing any dissent before it had a chance to grow. But he hadn’t been able to put his hands on Ronan Candemir.

At first even that seemed like a gift of fate. Nesbit had wanted to form a security service, but for all the planning he had not been able to come up with a compelling reason to create it. Candemir and that Farmer bitch being loose in the ship was the perfect excuse. Of course, he’d appointed Ferro to run it, complete with a promotion to Lieutenant.

But even as the time for the turn approached, the searchers couldn’t find them. It had been sooner than he wanted, but Nesbit had even pulled Ami Sunderland in to see if she knew where he was hiding.

Another damned non-con! The girl flatly refused to answer any questions. She just glared at her interrogators. Even when they had beat her nearly senseless, she said not one word.

He was sure that they would have caught the two criminals, if the turn had not taken up all his attention. As dangerous as they might be to him personally, as Captain, Nesbit had to assure the safety of the ship first and foremost.

When it was done, Nesbit had ordered a compartment by compartment search, as well as a thorough search of all the ventilation ducts. It was as if they had just vanished. The only other option was that they had gone out on the Surface. It made Nesbit shudder to think of walking out in the Great Void, let alone while the jets were firing. He would have ordered crews to search there, but there was no log of any airlock opening or closing for ten hours before and after the turn. Candemir might have been foolish enough to try it, but even he couldn’t do that without leaving a trace.

In fact, it would have solved several problems if they could have found the bodies. Neither of them would have been around to cast doubt on his story. And they would have looked even more guilty, trying something so obviously insane. It had a nice symmetry. Too bad.

Since the turn was completed, things had not improved. He was getting reports of crew questioning the official story. Though none was ready to accuse their new Captain, yet. More troubling was the level of questioning and push back he was getting from the Senior Officers.

He was quite sure that Captain Collins had never been pushed and argued with in the way Nesbit had to deal with. If he didn’t need them all through the start of deceleration, Ferro might have had more work.

Thinking of the hulking officer reminded him of the other problem. He had sent Ferro in his place when the old folks from the Habmo’s wanted to talk. As if the Captain had time for their ignorant yammering!

He still didn’t have a complete picture of how it happened, but one of them had caused Ferro to lose his temper and slap one of the men. Between the weakness of aged bones and his Security Chiefs strength, the result was a dead Elder. At that point Ferro had decided that dead Elders told no tales and had the rest killed.

It was another cause for whispering against him, especially in those weak-willed crew who worked the Town. Nesbit was quickly becoming convinced that extended interaction with the technologically stunted farmers was bad for discipline.

He arrived at his destination. The new detention block. Really just repurposed storage rooms, but they all locked and were on one side hall. Perfect to isolate trouble makers.

Nesbit ignored the salute of the guards at the hatch to the hall way. He swept by and up to the desk set in the middle of the hall. The duty officer there hurriedly rose to his feet and came to attention. This salute Nesbit returned.

“I understand that Sunderland has asked to speak to me.”

“Yes, sir, Captain. We tried to get her to tell us, but all she would say was it had to be said to you, sir. You know how stubborn she is,” the guard finished sheepishly. Nesbit resisted the urge to roll his eyes. Did no one know how to do their jobs?

“Take me to her,” Nesbit ordered. The guard led him to the last room along the hall. Sunderland was their first prisoner, so she’d been put as far away from the rest of the crew as possible.

When the door opened, Nesbit walked into the cell. It stank. They didn’t have plumbing for these rooms, but traitors didn’t deserve those kinds of amenities anyway. A bucket was good enough, and if it made their time here less pleasant, well, that was just fine with him.

Ami Sunderland was sitting on the floor, leaning against the far wall. Her uniform was filthy and ripped, one arm missing altogether. Even though her hair was close cropped, it was dirty and matted.

Her face showed bruises, old and new. One of the newer ones was swollen enough it narrowed her left eye. Though it did nothing at all to lessen the intensity of the glare spearing him.

The girl didn’t stand or speak when he entered. No matter, two could play that game. Nesbit walked over to the single chair, pulled it out into the center of the room and sat. Rather than wait and let this little bitch feel like she won a staring contest, he spoke.

“You requested this meeting, crewwoman.”

“I did,” Sunderland said, her voice rough. “Though I didn’t expect you to come so quickly. Must be a slow day on the bridge.”

He didn’t raise to the bait. He’d been disciplining non-con crew since before Ami Sunderland had even been born, he knew how to handle them. She had something to tell him, but her pride meant she couldn’t just say it. Briefly he considered getting up and leaving. Was it worth the wait to finish breaking her willfulness? No, not if it meant he had a way to put his hands on Candemir and Blaylock.

“Enough games, Sunderland. Are you ready to tell me where the killers are hiding?”

The girl just laughed through cut and bruised lips. “Unbelievable. You still don’t get that I don’t know where they are.”

Anger shot through Nesbit. Of all the offences he dealt with, disrespect was the one he hated the most. But he hadn’t risen to the pinnacle of power in the ship by letting his emotions show.

“I find that very hard to believe. You and Candemir are known to be close. He would have come to you first.” Now it was time to push. “Of course, he was also becoming very close to the Blaylock girl. If he’s chosen her over you, why have any loyalty to him?”

For a moment Damon thought he’d hit the right nerve. Sunderland’s pupils dilated, and her nostrils flared. She looked away for the first time since Damon had been in the cell.

“Again, for the slow learners. I. Don’t. Know. Where. They. Are.”

Nesbit didn’t believe it for a second. Finally, after more than two weeks she was about to crack! All he had to do was keep her talking.

“Then what did you want to tell me, Ami?” He asked, letting his voice soften a little.

The girl looked back, fire in her eyes, a sneer on her damaged lips. “Simple really. You are going to lose. Miri? Ronan? Either one of them is easily twice as smart as you are. If you haven’t caught them by now, you never will. And when it comes out that you were the one that had Captain Collins killed, you’ll be shoved out the nearest airlock.”

Nesbit’s anger ratcheted up another notch. “Maybe I should have you put out the airlock. As an example, for those thinking of disloyalty.”

“Oh, sure, that will cement your position with the crew. Giving one of the juniors to the Breath Sucker. Brilliant idea. Did I say twice as smart? Make that four times. Each.”

The anger overwhelmed Nesbit’s control. Who was this sneering child to talk to him like that? And how did she know about his trouble with the crew? Had one of the guards been saying something?

Before he was consciously aware of it, Nesbit was standing. He could hear the metal chair scraping against the floor as the force of his rising pushed it back. Two swift steps were all it took to be standing over the traitor.

He pulled his arm back, ready to pound on the bruised child until she learned respect. It was only at the last moment that he restrained himself. He lowered his arm. It was a mistake.

Ami hadn’t flinched, she hadn’t moved at all. She just looked up at him, hate blazing in her eyes to match the hate in his. He lowered his arm.

“Coward,” she spat. “Can’t even bring yourself to do the dirty work. Just like an officer.”

Now Nesbit was ready to show her she was wrong, but the damned girl had put him in a trap. If he struck her now, she’d made him lose control. If he didn’t he was confirming what she’d just said. For a second he stood frozen, then turned and stalked out of the room. He was followed by Sunderland’s derisive laughter.

The door slid shut, cutting off the actual sound, but Nesbit could still hear it in his head. He turned to the guard, who was still on his feet, waiting.

“From now on, no food for her. Just water. We’ll see if hunger will make her more cooperative.”

He could see a hint of doubt in the guard’s eyes, but the man was smart enough to keep it to himself.

“Yes sir, Captain!” the guard all but shouted as he saluted.

Returning the salute, Nesbit left without a further word. It took a few moments of fast walking before the new Captain could restrain his fury. Finally, as he entered an elevator car his thoughts slowed to a level where he could function.

This trip had not been a complete waste of time. It solidified an idea he’d been toying with. If the crew wasn’t going to obey him out of loyalty, fine. They would just have to be taught to obey out of fear. And that went double for the dirty, ignorant farmers in the habmo’s

There was no one to see the smile that crept onto Nesbit’s face. To him it felt powerful. To anyone else it would have said the wearer was losing his grip on sanity.