Murder on The Skeld

Chapter 10: Victory

So here we are. Two humans and an alien, standing frozen in the security room, guns in hand and unable to agree on who to shoot. I get it now. This is what the alien wanted. Maybe she wanted me dead instead but after we contradicted each other, that was out of the question. But she wanted Charlet to take the final decision. Because Charlet has a clear preference for who she wants to believe.

Her eyes focused on my trigger finger, impostor-Yuki is ready to dodge to survive. Maybe a bullet to the head won't even kill her. She isn't human. And I'll only get one shot. Charlet won't let me fire twice.

So I do what I have to.

Even with the impostor at the far end of my barrel, I lower my gun and bend down and put it on the floor.

"Good," Charlet says. "Now up against the wall."

I move to the wall. The alien does the same thing, though keeping her distance from me. In fact, she looks terrified of me.

"He did something to the computer," she says.

"Don't listen to her," I say. "Anything she says is a lie."

Charlet picks up the gun I left on the floor and puts it in her pocket. With one gun still pointed at us, she moves toward the computer. She dares peak at the screen once she's close enough.

"Look," I say. "We have all the time in the world to work this through. Once-"

"No we don't," Charlet says, turning away from the screen. "Someone's been messing with the reactor coolant flow. We've got about five minutes before the reactor blows."

"So let's stop it," I say, taking a half-step toward the exit.

Charlet snaps her aim at me. "No. I can't fix it on my own and I don't trust either of you to help me. You get one minute each to convince me you're human and the other one goes into the airlock."

"Really?" I say. "This again? I've already laid out all the evidence. Pich confirmed Yuki's pathing, and deflected suspicion toward her. She didn't vote to throw Pich out and I couldn't possibly have killed Benny. What more can I say to convince you?"

"You know who to trust," the impostor says. "Just listen to your heart."

"No!" I shout desperately. "Fuck the heart! Look at the evidence."

"Exactly! Who do you think shot Owen?" the impostor counters. "Who was holding the gun when you came in?"

"No," I say, pointing at the Yuki-looking figure. "She threw the gun toward me at the last second. She knew what it would look like to you. Think about it. If I had the gun all along, why hadn't I shot her already?"

"Well, that goes for the both of you," Charlet says. "If she had the gun, why are you still alive?"

"Because..." I start, but I come up empty.

"Please," the impostor says. "Just trust me. If I were the impostor, I could have killed you several times over. I defended you when nobody else would."

And now I get it. Now I finally get all of it. Charlet is the only one who could fix the lights. We would have been screwed if the aliens had killed her. But they didn't. When Charlet, Owen and Benny were stuck in the dark in electrical, the Yuki-impostor chose to kill Benny. Not Charlet. She could have framed Owen and lived on, either letting us live or killing us both once we felt safe. But she didn't.

I turn to Yuki, or the alien impersonating her, or whatever she is.

"Because you don't want her dead, do you?" I ask. "Whatever happened, the two of you had to survive. That's why you couldn't shoot me just now. You had to frame me."