Tranquility Lost

Chapter 3: The Journey

The gloved hand of a Wrecker officer yanked a canvas bag off, revealing a bewildered-looking man with close-cropped gray hair. The other bags were pulled off in unison, and an assortment of men and women blinked with the kind of astonishment that I had so recently felt. They didn't exactly have the look of resistance leaders, either. They appeared to be fairly normal, middle-aged, and subdued in the presence of armed soldiers.

The one on the end, though...

"Is that a facial tattoo?" I muttered.

"Of course. She's janitor caste," Corporal Narae explained in a soft voice beside me. She caught my blank stare. "What? You didn't have janitors before—"

"We had a peace treaty!" a wild-eyed man shouted, flecks of spittle landing on the boot of a nearby commando. It was enough to draw our attention.

"And I have broken it," Colonel Anderson declared, with evident satisfaction. "You can't have been surprised. Regulations decrees that the reverse thruster must now be fired." His steely gaze moved from one captive to another. "That is why I have brought you all here, Mutineers. Not to face the justice that Regulations demands of you, but as a final attempt at negotiations."

"If you kill us," the woman with the facial tattoo began, "we'll just be replaced."

"I am very much aware of that," Colonel Anderson replied. "Hush then, and listen to our words. I hope to end this discussion with a modicum of violence."

Mutineers they might have been, but as I stared at them I felt a wave of sympathy, mingled with the nausea that hadn't quite left me. They looked almost as startled as I had—and yet there was a firmness to them, a resolve that spoke of hard years.

"To think we brokered a truce with you," a man in leather overalls over a navy blue jumpsuit groused. "Let your dogs wander through our decks speaking their—"

A black-clad security trooper leaned over and smacked the man back with a baton, almost casual in his brutality. Blood dripped unhindered from the dissident's broken nose. He scrambled back, still handcuffed, face woozy like a punch-drunk boxer. Yet from the way he sneered at the assembly I figured he was not a man to give in easy.

"Repair Tech Mace Weber. Kindly shut your trap until I'm finished."

Weber worked his mouth awhile before giving the barest of nods.

"As is written in Regulations, after a century of flight Tranquility shall reverse and fire thrusters," Colonel Anderson said, his words almost reverent. "Slowing the vessel's momentum as it approaches our new home. Tranquility's onboard AI will make the final adjustments upon planetary approach 150 years henceforth."

"The Journey," a man said, wobbling on his feet, his gaunt face already bloodied and bruised. A long silence fell. "Is a farce," he snapped. As if answering to a starter pistol, the nearest security personnel pushed forward, batons raised. Beside me, Corporal Narae strained forward, fist clenched around her own baton.

"That's enough!" Colonel Anderson roared as a couple quick impacts rocked the man back and forth. The command could just as easily have been in response to his words as to the security troopers, but they pulled back all the same, leaving the wavering man with a few fresh bruises. "I will not have our sacred purpose questioned in such a manner," he snapped, stepping forward. "Sub-Section Chief Ackerman, I presume?"

Ackerman sneered back. "You expect us to believe we're moving from one patch of mud to another? Inside a vast emptiness? These are lies that a child could see through. Lies and deceit which keep you scum at the top of the decks."

I blinked. It hadn't even occurred to me that there would be doubt about our ship's purpose. But then I'd signed up willingly. They'd been straight with me, as well—I'd live out my days as a maintenance tech on Tranquility while future generations would be the ones "lucky enough" to land on a new planet. Yet after Mutinies, decades of isolation, different cultures forming...