Against the Tide - A New Elysium Story [Complete]

The Aphelion Incident

Major Clarke was shifting in his chair uneasily.

The Security Council had invited him to their session as a member, but he knew that he was not here because of his authority or expertise, but because he was a witness. There wasn't a lot of data to go on, other than his testimony. Surveillance footage, shipment records, scandroid camera feeds – everything had been tampered with. Under any other circumstances, his word on what had transpired on Essandrie Station would have carried more much more importance. But the fact that the story he had told his superiors seemed utterly impossible didn't help much to aid his credibility.

All things considered, perhaps he had to be glad that he was only a witness, and not a suspect.

The council probably thought that his story was a result of the prolonged hypoxia he had suffered. They thought the data would give them a hint as to what had truly happened. They thought that with enough data, even something as incomprehensible and impossible as these events could be made sense of.

But they were wrong.

The Security Council had been tasked with the investigation of what had come to be called the Aphelion Incident. It was a ridiculous name, for something just as ridiculous. It hadn't been an 'incident'. It had been a fucking heist. But nobody dared to call it that, because still, after being in session for over six hours, the council refused to believe that the ship had really been stolen.

Clarke wondered if they'd rather believe that it had decided to fly away all by itself.

He couldn't really blame them – it sounded utterly insane. It seemed impossible. Yet he had reported nothing but the truth. Everything, repeatedly. In spoken and written form. To his superiors, to their superiors, and their superior's superiors. After going through the whole ordeal for the thirtieth time, he was willing to fucking dance it before the council if they would just finally let him go.

Admiral Jenkins, who presided over the council, leaned forward now, lacing his fingers together and touching the index fingers to his lips as if in prayer. Perhaps he was praying that Clarke would be telling them something else when asked the thirty-first time.

"Major," the Admiral said, "You stand by what you wrote in your report, do you?"

"Yes, I still do," Clarke replied, not quite managing to hide the impatience in his voice.

The Admiral raised an eye brow.

"...Admiral," Clarke added quickly.

Admiral Jenkins heaved a heavy sigh and leaned back, scrutinizing Clarke for a moment.

"Please, tell us one more time, in your own words, what happened that day in the shipyard."

Clarke groaned and buried his face in his hands for a moment, but before he could obey the command, there was a knock on the door. One of the data specialists entered and brought a data tablet which he handed the Admiral. They exchanged hushed words, and whatever he saw on the screen caused the Admiral's brows to furrow.

"What is it?" General Bellevue, the woman sitting to his right, asked and ripped the tablet out of his hands impatiently. As she looked at it, her facial features froze completely.

"Data specialist Benson reporting in. Our data team has managed to restore a single still image from the scrambled security feeds from the bridge," the man explained to the rest of the council. "This is the image we retrieved, it's from just before the feed was cut for good..."

Jenkins took the tablet from Bellevue's hands and pushed it across the table to Clarke, fixing him with an intense glare.

"Commander, is this her?" he asked.