Insomnia

Unable to sleep again, Miria padded around the escort cruiser Karan barefoot. She wasn’t due on shift for another four hours, so she wandered with no fixed destination in mind. Stopping at one of the viewports, she touched the control to turn the window clear. The even, dull grey of super-c travel filled the view; changeless in all directions and so flat in color that the distance of the warp bubble wall could be just outside the window or hundreds of kilometers away.

She knew the distance to the bubble, of course. From this section of the ship, it was just over sixteen meters to the warp bubble; from her duty seat on the bridge, it was exactly four meters. Miria watched the even grey, hoping to see the occasional spark of random hydrogen atoms being split apart against the field. What she didn’t expect to see, however, was a body floating away from the ship to be disintegrated into sub-atomic particles in a chain-reaction of bright flashes.

Miria slammed the emergency alarm by the window but nothing happened. The door further ahead that led to the airlock beeped and opened. She darkened the window and ducked into the doorway to the mess. She waited until she heard booted footsteps walking away from her to peek. The person walking away was medium height and build, wearing a sterile-room uniform complete with gloves and hood.

She knew she could get their ident to show up on her comm if she got close enough but feared what might happen if she did. Instead, she slipped into the mess and called the commander, voice only, on the comm. “Colonel Shriber, it’s Captain Blake. I’m sorry to wake you.”

“What’s the emergency, Captain?”

“I just saw someone go out the airlock,” she said, “vaporized on the bubble wall.”

“Where are the alarms?”

“I tried the alarm, but it wasn’t responding.” Miria moved deeper into the mess, fearing someone in the corridor might hear her. “And when someone in a sterile-room uniform came out of the airlock passage I hid. I ducked into the mess and called you.”

“Sit tight, Blake,” the Colonel said. “I’m sending someone over.”

Miria spent the next three hours with Major Bankole, chief of security. She explained the whole story and followed along as the Major checked the door logs and swept for any evidence in the airlock itself.

"I'm sorry, Blake, but I'm not finding anything."

"Sir, can we at least look at the corridor security logs?"

"Sure," he said. "Let's go to my office."

He pulled up the corridor holo logs and they watched an empty corridor.

"That's not right," Miria said, "I was there, watching for–"

“This has been tampered. Six minutes are missing.” The Major scrolled the holo backward and forward slowly, the timestamp jumping back and forth. "Captain, what were you doing in the corridor?”

“I couldn’t sleep,” she said, “so I was taking a walk. Watching the super-c bubble sometimes help me clear my mind.”

“And do you do this often?” he asked.

“A few times a week, lately. The long runs mess with my sleep.”

He fixed her with a stern gaze. "Captain, you are not to discuss this with anyone other myself and the Colonel, understand?"

"Yes, sir." She looked at the frozen holo of the empty corridor. "Who would be able to erase the holo logs?"

“A few people.” He sighed. "First thing, though, is to figure out who, if anyone, is missing. Meanwhile, you should get ready for duty. You're due on the bridge in forty minutes."

She gave a crisp salute. "Yes, sir!"

Miria reported to the bridge, replacing the third-shift navigator. She went through her start of shift checklist. She checked the crew and visitor manifest and the 1,938 crew, and sixteen civilians were accounted for by their ident. There was a Member of Parliament aboard, with support and security staff, and a handful of reporters. Total deck weight, though, was 70.76 kilograms below the stated deck weight when they entered the gate out of the Sol system.

In normal circumstances, deck weight, or more formally, non-fuel mass, didn’t change. In fact, the only thing that could change deck weight was throwing something, or someone… off the ship. She checked the third watch logs for any notifications of the change in deck weight. The logs mentioned an outage in all internal sensors that lasted six minutes, but the deck weight was not among the items checked when the sensors came back online.

Miria finished her start of shift checklist, noting the changed deck weight as it impacted fuel consumption and was ready to settle into her shift when the Colonel arrived on the bridge.

“Captain Blake, my office, please.”

“Yes, sir.” Miria turned to her right and addressed the junior navigation officer. “Lieutenant Mendoza, run a re-calculation of fuel consumption based on the new deck weight, and give me an update of shield stats.”

“Yes, sir,” the young Lieutenant said.

Miria entered the ready room off the bridge. She shut the door and snapped to attention. “Sir!” While the Colonel had a larger office off the main corridor, it was mostly used for briefings and any time more than four people needed to meet.

“At ease, have a seat. Bankole told me you’ve not been sleeping?” Shriber motioned to the spot next to her on the sofa.

Miria sat. “No, sir. At least not very well.” Miria sighed. “These long jumps mess with my sleep.”

“And you’ve been wandering the ship in bare feet?”

“I, uh,” she stammered, “y—yes, sir.”

“Miria, until you walk out of this room, we’re dispensing with the formality. Call me Liza and tell me what’s going on.”

“Si—Liza, I’m sure you already heard the report I gave to Bankole. Our deck weight is down almost seventy-one kilos.”

Shriber leaned forward. “That’s… we’ll come back to that, but that’s not what I meant. Tell me what’s going on with you.”

“What do you mean?”

“You’re not sleeping, you’re wandering the ship barefoot in pajamas, and you panicked when you thought you witnessed a crime.” The worry line between her eyes became pronounced. “That’s not like you. You’re not one to run and hide and call for help. Why didn’t you follow?”

“I—I’m not sure,” Miria said. “I didn’t feel safe… not like I usually do.”

“You grew up on a ship,” Shriber said, “most of us didn’t. We grew up on planets, a few on stations, but you’re the most comfortable person on a ship I’ve ever met. If I wanted to, I could cite you for violating safety policy by not wearing mag boots when around the ship, but you’re the last person I’d worry about getting hurt if we lost grav.”

“Thank you.”

“When we had the fire in the grav generator last year, you were the first one there. You didn’t hesitate to turn off your mag boots to grab an extinguisher and get there faster. I don’t think I’d ever seen anyone use an extinguisher as a propulsion device while putting out a fire with it at the same time.” She pointed to Miria’s chest. “Your actions earned you that commendation and, if I remember correctly, one hell of a concussion and a fractured wrist.”

“What’s your point? That I’m reckless?”

“No,” she said, putting a hand on Miria’s shoulder, “that you don’t run from trouble. You run to it. That’s how I knew something was wrong when you called me, scared.”

“I…,” Miria began.

“Listen, you’re one of the best officers I have. You don’t know this, and you didn’t hear it from me, but we’re having a rescue training drill sometime between 23:00 and 04:00. I need you all there. Our guest,” the word dripped with disdain, “will be watching.”

“Yes, si— Liza.”

“So,” Shriber said, “I want you to report to the medic; get something to help you sleep. You need it. Take the rest of the shift off and I’ll see you later.”

“What about the deck weight? And the other…?”

“Bankole is investigating. With the shift in deck weight, it certainly looks like someone tossed something out the airlock while in super-c. That’s an offense right there. But the Major tells me all persons are accounted for.”

“Yeah, I looked at that first thing, too. 1,938 crew and sixteen civilians.”

Shriber’s eyes narrowed. “You mean seventeen civilians, right?”

“No, there’s only 16 civilians on the manifest.”

“Shit. You go get some sleep. Don’t talk about this with anyone but me. That includes Bankole.” The Colonel’s tone left no doubt that she was giving a direct order.

“Yes, sir.”

“Dismissed.”

#

Miria sat on her bunk and looked at the pills from the medic. Two small, yellow pills that would put her to sleep. Breathing a heavy sigh, she swallowed the pills and lay down, still in her full uniform. As sleep overtook her, a thought rattled around in her brain; seventy-plus kilos of high energy particles on the bubble wall.

The alarms jolted her to consciousness. Her last thought before sleep slammed back into mind: Seventy-plus kilos of high energy particles…. Miria bolted for the bridge. The alarm changed, four short chirps — they would be dropping out of super-c.

She ran to the navigation station and took the unoccupied assist position and took control of navigation from there. “Captain, what are you…?”

“No time, Lieutenant Koln.” Miria was curt. “Prep for extra de-bubble shielding. Seventy-one kilograms.”

“Kilos? Don’t you mean milligrams?”

“No! Kilos!” Miria got ready to divert the energy currently used to hold the ship to the warp bubble to the shielding which would push the high-energy particles away. “We lost a comm tower,” she lied, “and I don’t want any of that blowing back on us.”

“Yes, sir! Seventy-one kilos input, calculations complete.”

Colonel Shriber called out to the bridge, “Dropping to sub-c in thirty seconds.”

“Thirty seconds, aye!” the bridge crew shouted.

The Colonel watched the time on her terminal and called, “Drop!”

Miria shut down the warp bubble containment and dragged the shield power sliders up full, while Lieutenant Koln watched. The steady grey nothing of super-c was replaced with a flash of blinding white and then the darkness of space. The shield held and Miria let out a breath she didn’t know she’d been holding.

She looked at Koln. “If you don’t mind, I’d like my seat back, please.”

“Of course, sir.” They switched chairs and Miria pulled control back to the main navigation console.

“Navigation, report.”

“Current location, sector Fox Alpha 349, bearing to Bul system gate locked in.”

“Comms, report.”

“Wormhole stable— we have interstellar; comm tower deploying, twenty seconds to local.”

The bridge sat silent, many just now noticing the interlopers standing just inside the entrance. A Member of Parliament and a handful of reporters. The parliamentary police detail was stationed outside the door of the bridge. As actual members of the Federation Defense Force, they probably had more right to be there than the civilians, but it wasn’t something anyone, including the Colonel, was likely to mention.

“Sir, distress beacon, 14,323 kilometers, heading left 64.2957, up 18.3001.”

Miria plotted a course to the indicated beacon and readied it on her console. “Course ready, sir.”

“Let’s go pick it up,” Shriber said.

Miria thumbed the command in, “Course laid in.” She switched the ship to auto. “Engaged.”

“Comms, identify beacon source.”

“Emergency escape pod, two-person, steering thrusters only.”

The Colonel entered a command on her terminal, starting a new alarm deep in the ship. “Engineering and security: prepare for pickup. Two-person pod, load through cargo lock Delta.”

The response came back a few seconds later. “Cargo lock Delta clear, ready for pickup of two-person pod. Security in place, tow-line throwers locked and loaded.”

With nothing to do but wait, Shriber spoke with the politician on her bridge. Miria decided she’d take advantage of the interstellar comms and loaded in the latest news. Just the headline stories and the latest football scores.

The civilian entourage left to watch the retrieval process and Shriber breathed a sigh of relief. “First watch, except Captain Blake, go back to bed. Captain Blake, my office.”

Miria followed her into the ready room and closed the door behind herself. Before she could speak, the Colonel did. “What was that about a comm tower?”

“Sorry, sir. I had to think of something to explain more than seventy kilos of material in the bubble.”

“Yeah, good thinking. But why the hell was Koln questioning you in the first place? You going to write him up?”

“I’ll talk with him,” she said. “In this case, though, I understand the push-back. If my superior was just rousted from sleep and told me to expect anything more than a few milligrams of material I’d be concerned it was a mistake, too.”

“Still, not the right way to raise his concern. Speaking of, how did the shields fare?”

“We did fine. Captured about a thousand times as much as a normal de-bubble, reflected the rest. If we’d stripped the bubble in a gate, the gate would have been destroyed.” 

The Colonel pointed to the sofa as she crossed the room. “Join me for a coffee, Miria?”

“Yes, thank you s— Liza.”

“While we’re en route to the pod I took the liberty of updating my comm with the latest news.”

Miria laughed. “You, me, and probably half the ship.”

Shriber returned with two cups of coffee and sat. “You said sixteen civilians. I signed seventeen on. I keep an off-line copy of every manifest I sign.”

“So, we know who’s missing?”

“We do. A reporter.”

Miria checked her comm. The headlines were about the disappearance of a reporter who was logged at the gate for the Karan but never boarded and disappeared. The same reporter who had exposed a bribery scandal that had unseated two MPs and was said to be investigating another scandal. She showed the story to the Colonel.

“Motive and opportunity,” Shriber said, “but without evidence it isn’t enough.”

“Do you think we can find any?”

“I don’t know, but you and I are going to meet with the Criminal Investigation Department when we get to the Bul system. Until then, Miria, all that happened is we lost part of comm tower six.”

“I understand.”

“Which reminds me–” Shriber tapped her comm. “Comm tower six is now marked as down due to breakage.”

Miria finished her coffee and took the empty cups to the sideboard. “So, what do we do in the meantime?”

“We’ve got a pod coming in, and you’ll need to recalculate fuel usage for the new deck weight, then we need to finish our trip and get rid of the civvies. I would send you back to bed, but it seems Koln could use some direct guidance.”

“And Major Bankole?”

“As soon as the civilians are gone, he’ll be locked up, pending CID investigation,” she said. “It wouldn’t look good to do that while he’s leading his friend from parliament around on a tour.” 

“Do you really think it was him?” Miria asked. “He said there were a few people that could alter the logs.”

“The logs weren’t altered; they just weren’t recorded. He is the only person on this ship that can disable all the internal sensors, override the alarms, and alter the manifest.”

“Should I be concerned?”

“I’ve been talking with him every chance I get,” Shriber said, “and I’ve got him convinced that we are sure that you were hallucinating due to lack of sleep. He also doesn’t know that I keep an off-line copy of the manifest.”

“What happens if CID can’t find anything?”

“At the very least, disabling the logs and sensors is a felony. Dishonorable discharge and six months.”

“I was going to ask how you can prove that but it’s probably better I don’t know.”

“You’re right,” Shriber said, “now, let’s get back to work and pick up the training pod so we can get home.”