Zero - Option by Lindsay H.F. Brambles - HTML preview

Jhordel moved to the table and sat down. She was silent for a moment, rubbing her hands together, staring at them contemplatively, as though weighing a matter of great import--which, of course, she was. Finally she looked up and regarded them knowingly. “There is no other viable alternative,” she said.

Imbrahim studied the faces of the others and didn’t like what he saw. They wore a collective look of resignation; there was no hint of anger, nor sense of outrage present in any of them. It was a calm acceptance he couldn’t understand. Not while his own emotions were a maelstrom of discontent and disequilibrium. He wasn’t so willing to accept Jhordel’s assessment of the situation, even though he could actually see no clear alternative himself. “We’ll have achieved nothing,” he argued, turning to the others desperately.

“We’ll have bought time,” said Jhordel.

“But how much?” He shook his head. “We don’t have a clue as to what we’re up against here. There could be a whole armada of ships waiting on the Federation’s doorstep.”

“I think not,” said Jhordel. “Only the one ship has chased us. We’ve seen nothing to indicate there’s more than one. If there were, I’m sure we’d not be here discussing the matter.”

“A scout,” Wethers suggested.

Jhordel inclined her head in acknowledgement. “That would be my guess,” she admitted. “Which gives us reason to hope it’s far from any fleet it might belong to. Perhaps distant enough to make communications an impracticality, as it currently is for us.”

“What if you’re wrong?” Imbrahim asked bluntly.

“Ultimately, that makes little difference, Commander. If I’m right, we buy the Federation time. Perhaps a great deal of it. If I’m wrong, it really doesn’t matter, does it? One way or another, we’ll be sacrificed.”

“It’s a leap of logic to conclude that the ship that’s been following us is a forerunner for an invading fleet,” he charged. “It may simply be an exploration vessel.”

“So heavily armed?” Jhordel snorted dismissively. “I can’t accept that. And why such an aggressive stance? They not only attacked us, but have pursued us relentlessly. Hardly the sort of actions one would expect of a lowly exploration ship.”

Imbrahim couldn’t argue with that; indeed, everything they knew thus far pointed to a warship of some description. Moreover, it seemed safe to assume it was a scout; for had a fleet been close at hand, he suspected they’d have seen it by now. His words like ice in a colder room, fell from his lips. “The zero-option,” he whispered.

“Yes,” said Jhordel, and left it at that.

He recalled his days in the Academy. It was there he’d first heard of the zero-option. At that time he’d never considered it seriously; it had been something theoretical, taught to students in much the same way time travel was. Certainly he’d never imagined he’d ever be in the position of seeing it executed.

“Tell me, Captain,” he said carefully. “What if the zero-option fails?”

Jhordel’s face was expressionless as she said, “It won’t, Commander. It never has.” He had the feeling she was right, but he wasn’t sure he wanted her to be.

He wasn’t sure at all.

39.

“Identification, please.”

“Jhordel, Lhara Annyselia,” she said, with a precise intonation. “Captain, USF. Serial number 330-25671-01. Commanding FS Confederation, CFF-23.”

“Acknowledge. Scanning.” There was a flash of light in the com-link cube, then the AI said, “Recognize Jhordel, Lhara Annyselia. Captain, USF. Serial number 330-25671-01. Commanding FS Confederation, CFF-23.”

The hatch slid open before her. Beyond, shrouded in darkness, a small chamber. She licked dry lips and drew a breath, then pulled herself in. A soft blue light suffused the tiny space, cool and almost comforting, giving the bared flesh of her arms and face an eerie hue. Behind her the hatch snapped shut, sealing her off from the rest of the ship. She reached up and slipped a thumb under the chain that held a slender silver key about her neck. She turned about in the chamber and faced a dark panel of holokeys and a com-link that was set in the curved wall. In the center of this was a narrow slot, just large enough for the business end of the key. Jhordel hesitated, her fingers curled tight about the warm metal of the key, squeezing it until its sharp edges pressed painfully into her palm. Finally, without even a tremor of her hand, she lifted the key to the slot and rammed it home. It slid into place with a satisfying click; and then she grasped the protruding end and turned it clockwise. There was a loud beep and the panel came to life, the com-link cube forming before her eyes, the holokeys blooming like unfolding flower buds, splashing her face with their multi-colored light. The com-link beckoned; she stared into it.

“You have initiated the first steps in activating the auto-destruct mechanism of the FS Confederation, CFF-23,” the computer announced. “This is not a simulation. Repeat: This is not a simulation. Do you wish to proceed?”

She remained silent for a moment. Too long for the AI’s satisfaction. “Do you wish to proceed?” it asked again; and she thought she detected an undercurrent of impatience in the way it spoke.

“Yes,” she replied sharply. “Proceed.”

“Completion of the correct sequence of procedures will result in the disruption of the continuity fields within the graviton collection coils of the Pearson FTL. Survival of this event, if within the envelope of collapse, is zero percent,” the AI warned. “Do you understand?”

“I understand,” said Jhordel.

The com-link cube seemed to shift and reform, revealing a new image, which Jhordel recognized from her Academy training, and from the only other occasion she’d done this, when she’d been master of the Grand Banks. She’d never thought she would ever see its like again; but this time would be the last time.

“Procedure number one,” the AI began. As the machine talked her through the steps necessary for activating the auto-destruct, she responded to each instruction in a flat, emotionless voice, reacting like an automaton. Red lights turned to yellow in a row of ten, which when complete flashed once and then turned green.

“Auto-destruct sequence executed,” the AI announced. “Final confirmation, please.”

“Allegro, seven, seven, six,” Jhordel said.

“Affirmative. Allegro, seven, seven, six. Auto-destruct confirmed. Countdown limit, or manual activation?”

“Manual.”

“Confirmed. Manual activation. From specific com-link?”

“Captain’s quarters.”

“Confirmed. Captain’s quarters. Programming complete.”

Jhordel closed her eyes and felt the sting of tears. “Thank you,” she whispered. “Good-bye.”

“Good-bye, Captain Jhordel. It as has been pleasure serving with you.”

40.

The ship seemed lifeless.

He encountered no one as he stalked the corridors of officer country. But behind each door he knew there were men and women making their peace with themselves, in whatever way they cared to. Some might even be believers, praying to whatever gods or spirits to which they might subscribe. He envied them that, for he could find no solace in prayer, or in communion with deities. That made for a feeling of loneliness, far deeper than any he’d yet experienced. He paused at the entrance to his quarters, debating with himself. He looked farther down the corridor, to where the door of the captain’s cabin stood apart from the rest. Jhordel would be in there, he was certain; because he’d already been over much of the ship and not seen her. Not on the bridge, nor in the engineering section—the two mostly likely places where she might have been found. He had tried the observation lounge, but it had been filled with others awaiting their fate—and somehow he’d the feeling that Jhordel would be spending these last few moments alone. He turned away from his cabin door and headed up country, to the captain’s quarters.

41.

There was no vocal invitation to enter; just the door quietly sliding aside, revealing a darkened room. Imbrahim stepped forward, the light of the corridor streaming in from behind like rays of brilliant sunlight, silhouetting him, and casting his shadow sharply against the floor. The door closed with a hiss of vented air and a dull click. He glanced back at it, then turned to face the captain’s inner sanctum, peering intently through the fog of darkness as his eyes slowly grew accustomed to the absence of light.

“Are you going to stand there all day, Mister Imbrahim?”

He looked towards the source of the voice and saw the outline of a woman seated behind a desk. She sat facing a viewport, staring out into more lightlessness, to where a myriad of suns shone in the fathomless depths, like chips of phosphor drifting deep in a nighttime sea.

“If I’m disturbing you—”

Her laughter cut him short. It was sharp, humorless mirth, which spoke of hopelessness and despair. “Your presence on this ship has always disturbed me, Mister Imbrahim,” she said. “I’ve wondered from the beginning why Admiralty sent you here.”

He could tell she was looking at him, though he couldn’t yet make out the features of her face. “I was sent to find out what happened to the Niagara,” he said; but even he didn’t believe that. Not now. Not any longer.

“Why?” she asked simply. “We’ve been assigned many missions before, and never an intelligence officer on any of them. Why now, Mister Imbrahim? Why on this particular mission?”

He shrugged, though he wasn’t sure she could see him do so. “This was different,” he said. “Ah, yes. I suppose it was.”

He could see she was holding a glass, holding it at arms length, studying it, staring at the stars through it. She’d been drinking, but he doubted she could be drunk. Not unless her biobots had been reprogrammed. Spacers were always doing that on shore leave. Pay a few credits to the right person and it could be done in a matter of seconds—if you were willing to take the risk of some stranger fiddling around with something that could as easily be programmed to kill you.

“Sit down, Mister Imbrahim.” Jhordel gestured with her outstretched arm, motioning him to the seat across from her.

He sat, stiffly, feeling uncomfortable, and regretting that he’d come here. But there was no turning back. He wasn’t sure he would have if he could have. As conscious as he was of his own biting loneliness, he was even more aware of hers. Once more he was struck by the realization that the loneliest person on this ship was the captain. Perhaps ironically, he was the only one to whom she could turn in a time like this. He was the outsider, the one who didn’t belong. The one to whom she owed nothing. There was a bottle on the desk. Jhordel reached for it, barely shifting from her seat, and poured something into a glass. She set the bottle down and pushed the glass across to him. Imbrahim stared at the offering, making no movement to pick it up. He lifted his gaze to hers, met her eyes, which were cast in shadow, and saw the black heart of her soul—saw the tempest of her emotions, raging within her: anger battling guilt and self-pity. But the face was granite. Hard. Impenetrable. It was a reflection of the discipline that had held her captive for so much of her life, and even now, in these final hours, would not easily release her from its hold.

“Drink,” she said. It sounded more like an order than an invitation.

Reluctantly he picked up the glass, sipped tentatively, grimacing at the sharp taste of the whiskey. It had been some time since he’d had real booze; there had never seemed much point when it was impossible to get drunk. And he’d never been the sort to pay some hack in a back alley shop for the privilege. But he thought if he could have found such a person now he’d have gladly paid more than ten times the asking price just to get a little buzz on. Just to numb himself to all this… All this what? This insanity?

He could almost laugh, thinking about those little buggers inside him, at this very moment doing their damnedest to keep him alive. Legions of the microscopic biobots floating around in his body, providing maintenance, repairing internal damage incurred by radiation, phase-shifts, combat maneuvers and whatever else space could through at you. An army defending their turf and at the same time robbing him of the simple pleasure of getting falling-down drunk. He could drink bottles and bottles of Jhordel’s damn whiskey and the worst that would happen is that he’d have to take leak. And that almost made him laugh aloud as he pictured himself stuck in a washroom pissing away when the end came. There was almost something crudely poetic about that.

“From Earth,” said Jhordel, nodding to the bottle. “I’ve been saving it for a special occasion.” She giggled, the sort of girlish outburst he’d have never expected from her; and for a moment he thought he caught of glimpse of what she’d been before Obsidian. Before that darkness that had made her what she was today.

“I was rather hoping it would have been for an occasion a little less sobering than this,” she was saying; and he pulled himself from his moment of reverie and forced a grin and said, “There’s still hope, Captain.”

She pushed her chair back a bit, revealing for the first time a tactical display. A touch of a finger brightened it, its multicolored glow washing across her face and splashing onto the cellite desk. It made the deep amber liquid in the bottle glimmer with an eerie radiance.

“There’s no hope,” she said quietly. Firmly. She stared at the display.

Imbrahim followed her gaze, studying the tactical and quickly spotting the reason for her pessimism. On the edge of scanner range a telltale blip blinked on and off, indicating the presence of another ship. The data scrolling next to it informed him it was approaching them, and that at current estimates it would reach them in less than five hours.

“Our friends,” he said, feeling the bottom fall out of his world, hope dashed beyond hope of resurrection.

“Impressive, isn’t it?”

“With that kind of technology we could have ended the war against the Unity years ago,” he observed, forcing himself to speak, hearing the wooden nature of his voice. He felt frightened and angry and a myriad other things. One part of him wanted to curl up and cry. Another wanted to rage against the injustice of it all, wanted to pound something to a pulp. Something. Anything.

And then, impossibly, there was this crazy notion that somehow, someway, they were going to be saved. The captain would think of some extraordinary escape. Or a fleet of Federation cruisers would suddenly drop shift around them and hammer the bastard that had been chasing them.

They wouldn’t die. They couldn’t die.

But he knew that was just desperation. It was just the mind refusing to believe the inevitable. It was the man clinging to a cliff, his fingers losing their grip, and him still certain that someone was going to suddenly appear and haul him to safety. It was the prisoner in front of the firing squad, certain there’d be a reprieve even as men lined up before him with guns aimed at his heart.

But that stuff just happened in holodramas. It wasn’t real. Real life was cruel and impersonal and didn’t give a damn whether you lived or died. After all, in the total scheme of things a human being was less significant than a grain of sand on a beach a million million light- years long. And thinking this, considering this with a phlegmatic regard, he felt all the anger and the despair and the sense of desperation drain out of him.

“It gives one pause for thought, doesn’t?” said Jhordel. She shook her head ruefully and glanced at him, sober-faced, the granite of her features shifting slightly to reveal a hint emotion. Mostly it was regret. “We’re fighting amongst ourselves,” she went on. “Perhaps even on the verge of destroying what we so long struggled to build. And now, here, on our doorstep, is a force that may test us all. We may soon face a threat of such magnitude that it’ll make the conflict between the Unity and the Federation seem like a petty parochial skirmish.” She sipped at her drink, then held the glass pressed against her cheek as she stared out the viewport. Imbrahim waited for her to continue, knowing that in time she would. He held his own drink in his lap, hands curled about the heavy glass tumbler, savoring the calm that now suffused him, mildly amused by how removed he felt. That blip on the edge of the tactical screen was a death sentence; yet when he looked at it now he felt nothing no panic. There was no sense of rage anymore, no feeling of injustice. Even when he thought of dying, he couldn’t stir himself to anything more than mild curiosity. It was as though a part of him had known all along that it would come to this and had resolved that it would accept it. And after all, what else could he do?

“I’m almost glad,” Jhordel said.

He blinked and looked up, abruptly aware his thoughts had drifted. “Glad of what?” he heard himself ask.

“That it’s ending,” she said, the words one long sigh. “It seems as though I’ve spent too much of my life running.” She closed her eyes and leaned her head into the embrace of the chair. “There’s almost something liberating about knowing it’ll all be over soon. No more war for you and me, Mister Imbrahim. No more wondering what it’s all about. No more wishing, sometimes, that you could just have a normal life.”

He knew what she meant—understood it as though they were his own thoughts that she had expressed. But he was surprised to hear such things from her; she was not the sort he could ever have imagined as being content to live a ‘normal’ life.

“Do you have family, Mister Imbrahim?” she asked, lolling her head to one side to look at him.

“My parents, and a brother I’ve not seen in years.” He felt a fist close about his heart as he said this. He hadn’t even thought of them until now. Would they ever really know what had happened to him? Perhaps no more so than if he’d died on any of his other missions.

“At least there’ll be someone to miss you,” Jhordel said.

“At least there’ll be someone to mourn.”

“For a while,” he said. “But then life will go on, as it has for the many who have already lost loved ones in this war. In time, things’ll be the same.”

She smiled sadly and said, “It’s never the same, Mister Imbrahim. When you lose something…” She stopped, seemed lost a moment, then went on: “If you lose someone dear to you, it’s as though some part of you has been ripped out. It leaves a hole in your soul, which sometimes can fester and grow, until it consumes you.”

He stared at her, and thought she wasn’t talking about the loss of her parents, but about what had happened to her on Obsidian. He wanted to ask her about it; but now seemed even less appropriate than in the past. And what would be gained by knowing? That he should satisfy his curiosity moments before he died? It didn’t seem worth the price of making her relive something that had been so powerful a moment in her life that it had changed her and made her into what she was today.

“I remember in the Academy they told us we’d get used to death,” he said, not quite sure why he was saying it. “They said we’d have to, or we’d go insane.”

“Then this ship must be full of the truly mad, Commander, for I doubt there’s a one of us who has ever become used to death.”

“Perhaps accepting of it.”

“You’d never dare venture into space if you weren’t that.”

They sat silent for a long time afterwards. Imbrahim watched the blip on the tactical screen, but over the course of several minutes it scarcely seemed to move. Deceptive, he knew, because in that brief period of time the ship it represented had traveled tens of thousands of kilometers closer to the Confederation. He wondered why it hadn’t skip jumped. It could have been on them in seconds if it had. But he had the impression the enemy was moving cautiously, approaching at a conservative pace—perhaps anticipating a far more aggressive response from the Confederation than their first encounter with one another.

“They’re not fools,” said Jhordel, voicing what Imbrahim had had on his mind.

“They may think it’s a trap,” he said. “We might not draw them in close enough.”

She nodded. “My thoughts exactly.” She sat up straighter in her chair and turned it about, bringing herself within reach of the com-link. She reached out a hand and activated it, then asked the AI to summon her exec.

“Skipper?” Wethers face appeared in the cube, looking as attentive as ever.

“One last job for you, Mister Wethers.”

“Sir?”

“I want as much loose material as possible gathered together.”

The first officer frowned, puzzled by the request.

“We need to make sure our friends out there come close enough to the ship to be within the envelope of collapse,” Jhordel explained. She looked grim-faced for a moment. “When you’ve got that stuff together I want it put in the main hangerbay. Have the bodies removed from their containers and placed with the loose debris. When that’s done, blow the doors and open the bay to space. I want our friends out there to think we’re dead. They’ll be scanning us before long. Let’s give them something to make them believe it’s perfectly safe for them to come in for a closer look.”

Enlightenment dawned on Wethers’ face. “I think I understand, sir,” he said, almost smiling. Almost, but not quite.

The face of the exec faded from the cube, but not from Imbrahim’s memory. That hesitant look of acceptance was burned into his mind; he thought there was something almost horrific about it. They were obedient to the end, he thought; and then realized he was no less so. He was sitting here drinking, whiling away the last hours of his life with a woman he scarcely knew. He told himself there were dozens of things he should be doing, but when he dwelt on the matter he could think of none. None that were important. None that mattered...now. If Jhordel had chosen to send off a hyperspace capsule to the Federation, he might have sent a message. But the captain had deemed a capsule too risky, fearing their pursuer might be able to track it down and home in on the Federation all that much faster. So they would all vanish in a few hours. Gone. Forever. Without a trace of them left behind.

Imbrahim found himself wondering if even souls could exist in the core of a singularity.

42.

“It’s an old trick,” said Imbrahim as he watched the drifting debris beyond the viewport of Jhordel’s cabin.

“To us,” said the captain. “But maybe our friend’s out there never saw the same movies.”

“They’ll know the truth once they do a deep scan.”

“By the time they can do that, they’ll be within the envelope of collapse.” She looked grimly determined as she peered intently at the tactical display. “All we need is for our bait to work, and then we’ll have hooked our fish.”

“And when they are hooked?”

Jhordel lifted her hand, and for the first time Imbrahim saw the deadman switch that connected her to the com-link. The moment she released it, the destruct mechanism would be triggered. For some reason it didn’t surprise him that she would choose to do it manually; it was her ship and her crew, and he thought he understood her well enough, now, to see that she was not the sort to leave such a final act to a machine. Besides, it gave her an out—a means of retreating from commitment. All she had to do was hold onto that switch and instruct the AI to halt the auto- destruct. For just a moment Imbrahim felt a spark of hope flicker within him. Perhaps, he thought—but it went no further than that. He looked again at Jhordel, at the hand that held the switch. There was something unnerving about being so close to the mechanism that would bring about their destruction. Like sitting on a live grenade.

“Why manually?” he heard himself ask in a faint, faraway voice. “You could have had the AI use a proximity trigger.”

“It was my choice,” she said, confirming his earlier suspicions. “I’m the one who got us here. I’m the one responsible. I’m the one who’ll end it.”

“You make it sound as though you’re at fault.”

“I am, Commander.” She regarded him forthrightly. “As captain of this ship I assume all blame.”

“And what of fate?”

She laughed. “Fate is for the faithful, Mister Imbrahim; and I’m not one of them.”

43.

He wished he could have seen the enemy, could have seen their ship, seen their faces, so that he would have known them. Would have known what they were, and perhaps in so knowing would have better understood them. But they were just a blip on the screen, fast approaching, soon to merge with the solitary red marker that was the Confederation. They were faceless. Unknown. They might even have been machines, though his instincts told him otherwise. He could only imagine, and the imagining was limited by the narrow breadth of his experiences. In the long run it didn’t matter. In that remote corner of space all pasts were forgotten, all lives erased. It was a place of endings, and perhaps a place of beginnings.

Imbrahim watched the tactical screen with a pounding heart and a mouth as dry as dust. Only in these last few seconds, as the two markers indicating the ships joined as one did he realize he was truly afraid to die. But by then it was too late. Jhordel turned from the tactical display and faced him, the hand with the deadman switch held before her. She smiled, and whispered something he did not hear. Her secret, he thought.

Her truth.

Obsidian.

And then the world ended.

If you enjoyed Zero-Option and are curious about Lhara Jhordel’s secret, go to www.freewebs.com/lindsaybrambles to find out about In Darkness Bound. In the novel you’ll discover all about Obsidian, Lhara Jhordel’s past, and much, much more. In Darkness Bound is published by PublishAmerica ( ISBN: 1-4241-6560-1 ).

If you wish to write to me the old-fashioned way or send a donation (to help keep the series going), you can mail to:

Lindsay H.F. Brambles,

63 Stonepointe Avenue,

Nepean, Ontario,

Canada

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