“Yeah. ” He sounds distracted. After a moment he adds, “Why? Are you guys okay?”
I glance at Chris, who shakes his head slightly. We shouldn’t tell Elder about the attack now, not when he can’t do anything about it. Past Chris, I can see the trees of the forest and beyond that, a trail of smoke. Not from our smoke screen—something much larger is burning at the colony.
“Got it,” Chris says, tapping on the touch screen as a video feed loads.
“Did it load?” Elder asks.
“Yeah,” I say.
“You guys watch that; I’m going to go back and help with the packing. Everyone from Godspeed is coming down with me, and we’re bringing supplies for everyone. ”
I look at the smoke again. There might not be anyone to give supplies to.
The intercom cuts out, and Chris moves aside, letting me have the chair in front of the touch screen. He stands behind me. He picks his rifle back up, casting a nervous look outside the window.
A man’s face fills the screen. “That must be the Plague Eldest,” I say aloud. I glance behind me at Chris. “He’s the last captain of Godspeed, the one who decided not to land the ship when they arrived at the planet. ”
“I’m afraid,” the man says, “that this is the end. ”
I lean forward, listening as hard as I can.
“My name is Albert Davis, and I am the captain of Godspeed. This is what happened. ”
The camera immediately shifts images. This footage was filmed in the Bridge. The image wobbles a bit as the camera is stabilized on the control panel. It sweeps the Bridge, showing everyone standing inside. This is before monoethnicity. The crew gathered on the Bridge are of several different races—and religions too, judging by the Hebrew star one of them wears as a pendant around her neck. My fingers go up to my own cross pendant, a small smile on my lips. It makes me happy to know that once, Godspeed wasn’t as messed up as it became.
Everyone is chatting, but it’s too soft to understand individual words. They seem excited or, perhaps, nervous. The camera swivels back into place, facing the planet.
Godspeed is in orbit now, hanging over the blue-green-white of Centauri-Earth.
“There it is!” a woman’s voice says from behind the camera. A moment later, I see it too—a sleek silver shuttle, zooming over the horizon toward Godspeed.
The camera cuts to black, and I gasp in recognition as a new image fills the screen: the hatch where Harley died.
The camera is pressed against the porthole window, and the hatch is open, showing blackness.
“A little history,” Captain Albert Davis says from behind the camera. His voice sounds bitter. “Twenty years before we were due to land, we sent a probe to Centauri-Earth. The plan was that we’d get an idea of the environment, adjust our studies so we’d be ready for the planet when we landed. Instead, Sol-Earth discovered that there were some valuable resources on the planet. And they figured out a way to make transportation there even faster. They landed first. They built a colony. ”
Something metallic lowers over the hatch. Not the door, but something cylindrical that locks onto the side of Godspeed. It’s the bridge between the ship and shuttle that was shown earlier.
Captain Davis laughs bitterly. “And now they have to figure out what to do with us. ”
A tall, slender woman with jet-black hair and cheekbones sharp enough to cut glass steps out of the shuttle bridge and into the hatch, adjusting her tight pinstripe skirt. Captain Davis opens the hatch door after checking the pressure, and the woman steps out, smiling. Behind her, several men carrying thermal crates emerge from the shuttle. Captain Davis frowns at the crates.
“I would prefer our conversations be off the record,” the woman says. Her voice is kind, but even I can tell this is an order, not a request.
r /> After a moment of blackness, the camera switches back on. It’s higher up now and stable—mounted somewhere, and, from the way the others ignore it, I suspect that the woman from the shuttle doesn’t know it’s there. Captain Davis has set up a meeting with her in the navigation room on the Keeper Level of the ship. Above them, light bulbs map the stars. A table is in the middle of the room, and Captain Davis sits opposite the woman.
“The original colony proved . . . difficult,” the woman says.
“In what way?” Captain Davis leans forward. He is clearly someone used to having authority, but I can tell that the woman intimidates him. I notice a flash of silver on her lapel—a small double-winged eagle pin. She’s the representative from the FRX.
“The solar glass this planet can produce has provided us with nearly unlimited pollution-less energy. It’s revolutionized the way Earth produces and consumes energy; it’s the answer to the prayer we’ve been saying since fossil fuels ran out. ”
Captain Davis nods solemnly. The woman has yet to answer his question.
“The problem,” she says, sighing dramatically, “is that the original colony limits the type of production it’s sending to us. We need more. ”
“More solar glass for energy,” Captain Davis says, “or more for weapons?”