Cassandra's Tears: Issue #6

Lt. Cal Mason’s funeral turned out to be a contained affair. The squadron stood proudly in formation but otherwise only a handful of officers and deck crew attended. Kerny, a pit crew mechanic, showed up. Cal helped Kerny’s family escape the Nul system about a year ago. Now the quiet giant stood there, wringing his hands as if that would keep back the tears that were threatening to burst through.

Admiral Showalter ran through the routine. His face was granite as always. Words were said. A three-volley salute. Launch the empty casket. And that was that. The group was dismissed and gently dispersed.

Penny, Showalter, and Kerny remained, as if taking a step away was a step towards accepting.

Cal Mason was constantly under guard. Despite the cuffs binding his hands and the link-chain to the wall, someone was always watching him. It’d been a couple days and three more jump-points. Cal was a model prisoner but he kept his eyes and ears open the whole time. The crew of the Constellation were being extra cautious about using names or discussing things around him. That was good; it meant they weren’t settled on the notion of killing him.

Despite their attempts at secrecy, here’s what he still managed to pick up:

The ship was called the Phoenix. An engineering monitor let that slip.

The big guy who’d spoken to the leader woman who may or may not be Cassandra was nicknamed Trunk. From his size and general mannerisms, he seemed like the strongarm of the bunch. There was some connection with Cassandra but Cal hadn’t figured out if it was romantic or a bond weathered by battle/thievery.

There was a gunner who liked to talk. Really liked to talk. His name was Nesser Yahro. He’d flat out told Cal that one. Had a problem with the drinking too, which explained why he didn’t remember the bulk of their discussions. He also seemed to be the back-up pilot when Cassandra was flying herself. Cal could always tell who was flying. Where she was a dancer on the controls, he was a wrecking ball.

The last crewman was the ship’s mechanic. He wanted nothing to do with Cal and did everything in his power to stay out of sight, which was annoying to Nesser as it was interfering with their ongoing Trigger game. Nesser called him Mahony.

It was shortly after early-meal on the third day when she approached Cal, speaking to him for the first time since he was taken.

“Comfortable?”

“Oh sure. Who doesn’t love being handcuffed?”

“Depends on the company.”

“True.” Cal said with a conceding nod. She grinned. Cal weighed his options. He could dish what he knows in the hopes of catching her off-guard and tipping her hand. On the flipside, if she doesn’t bite, she might make up her mind on the whole ‘kill him’ discussion…

No, he thought. Better bide his time see if he can get a line on what they’re up to or where they’re going. Consequently, a heavy pause hung in the air.

“Be sure to let us know if there’s anything we can do for you?” She said, taking a sip from her cup.

“How about letting me go?”

“I’ll get right on that.” She started walking away.

“Bye Cassandra.” Cal said, mostly out of curiosity. She slowed for a nanosecond, her mind caught the hesitation and she tried to move on. But Cal saw it. That answers that question, he thought.

It didn’t really because her name isn’t Cassandra. Sasha Tai moved up to the pilot’s chair, her mind churning as to how he heard that name. She slid behind the controls and flipped it off auto. Hydraulics pulsed into the controls as she took the helm.

In retrospect, she shouldn’t have stopped the Vanduul from killing the pilot, Mason. Having him onboard was putting everything at risk but she had seen what Vanduul do to UEE prisoners. She told herself she would sleep better putting a round through his brain herself than letting the Vanduul go to work on him.

She checked the Nav-plan. They’d been changed, again. Nesser was wasting too much time and burning too much fuel with his inefficient flight plans. Trunk came up as she recalibrated the approach.

“Mahony’s got the stuff stowed.” He said, checking on Cal before sliding into the seat beside her, “What’s going on up here?”

“Nesser’s gonna run this ship into the ground.” She whispered; making sure Nesser was out of earshot. Sasha paused for a second then leaned over to Trunk.

“Has anybody been talking to him?”

“I don’t think so. Why?”

“He called me Cassandra.”

“Weird.” Trunk chewed on that for a minute, “Well, then he doesn’t know what it is.”

“Still.”

“Don’t sweat it, sis. If he becomes a liability, we dump him out the airlock.”

Back on the Gemini, Penny was in her bunk. Showalter hadn’t really enforced her punishment for Cal’s stunt on Yar so she enforced it on herself. She scrubbed the flight deck, helped the pit crews, ran sims for rookie pilots, anything to stay busy. She worked herself to the point of collapse. That was the only way she could sleep.

Except for today. The second she hit the bed, she realized something. In all the madness, she had completely forgotten. She snatched the SysBook off her shelf and pulled up all the photos Cal had sent her of the settlement on Yar. Of the missing equipment. After two hours of study, she couldn’t figure out what the equipment was so she switched to the settlement itself.

Oddly all the info-links were locked behind dense security protocols. She kept prodding for a way around them, running some innocent keycrackers until one took-

The settlement on Yar was set up as a research lab back in 2880. Back then everybody was running high off the new Synthworld project. Corps were all trying to figure out ways to get their foot in the door of the lucrative government project.

She kept digging. Apparently, the settlement formed to work on a single project, a project called Cassandra.

Although most of it was a dense web of science-speak and formulas, the Cassandra Project was attempting to redesign a planet on a molecular level. A self-replicating nanovirus designed to break down an existing planet and rebuild it.

And the scientists on Yar got it to work.

That’s when her screen suddenly went black. . . . TO BE CONTINUED

Die Beerdigung von Lt. Cal Mason erwies sich als eine geschlossene Angelegenheit. Die Staffel stand stolz in Formation, aber ansonsten kamen nur eine Handvoll Offiziere und Deckmannschaft. Kerny, eine Mechanikerin der Boxenteams, tauchte auf. Cal half Kerny's Familie vor etwa einem Jahr, dem Nul-System zu entkommen. Nun stand der stille Riese da und rang mit den Händen, als ob das die Tränen, die durchzubrechen drohten, zurückhalten würde.

Admiral Showalter hat die Routine durchlaufen. Sein Gesicht war wie immer aus Granit. Es wurden Worte gesprochen. Ein Drei-Volleyball-Gruß. Starten Sie den leeren Sarg. Und das war's dann auch schon. Die Gruppe wurde entlassen und sanft verteilt.

Penny, Showalter und Kerny blieben, als ob ein Schritt zurückgehen ein Schritt in Richtung Akzeptanz wäre.

Cal Mason stand ständig unter Bewachung. Trotz der Handschellen, die seine Hände und die Verbindungskette an die Wand binden, beobachtete ihn immer jemand. Es waren ein paar Tage und drei weitere Sprungbretter vergangen. Cal war ein vorbildlicher Gefangener, aber er hielt seine Augen und Ohren die ganze Zeit offen. Die Besatzung der Konstellation war besonders vorsichtig, wenn es darum ging, Namen zu benutzen oder Dinge um ihn herum zu besprechen. Das war gut; das bedeutete, dass sie sich nicht auf die Idee einigten, ihn zu töten.

Trotz ihrer Versuche der Verschwiegenheit, hier ist das, was er immer noch aufheben konnte:

Das Schiff hieß Phoenix. Ein technischer Monitor ließ das verrutschen.

Der große Kerl, der mit der Anführerin gesprochen hatte, die Cassandra sein könnte oder auch nicht, wurde als Trunk bezeichnet. Von seiner Größe und seinen allgemeinen Manierismen schien er wie der starke Arm des Haufens. Es gab eine gewisse Verbindung zu Cassandra, aber Cal hatte nicht herausgefunden, ob es romantisch war oder eine Verbindung, die durch Kampf/Diebstahl verwittert war.

Es gab einen Schützen, der gerne sprach. Ich habe wirklich gerne geredet. Sein Name war Nesser Yahro. Er hatte Cal das schon gesagt. Hatte auch ein Problem mit dem Trinken, was erklärte, warum er sich nicht an den Großteil ihrer Diskussionen erinnerte. Er schien auch der Ersatz-Pilot zu sein, als Cassandra selbst flog. Cal konnte immer erkennen, wer fliegt. Wo sie als Tänzerin an der Steuerung arbeitete, war er eine Abrissbirne.

Der letzte Besatzungsmitglied war der Mechaniker des Schiffes. Er wollte nichts mit Cal zu tun haben und tat alles in seiner Macht Stehende, um außer Sichtweite zu bleiben, was für Nesser ärgerlich war, da es ihr laufendes Trigger-Spiel beeinträchtigte. Nesser nannte ihn Mahony.

Es war kurz nach der frühen Mahlzeit am dritten Tag, als sie sich an Cal wandte und zum ersten Mal seit seiner Einnahme mit ihm sprach.

" Bequem?"

"Oh sicher. Wer mag es nicht, in Handschellen gefesselt zu sein?"

"Kommt auf die Firma an."

" Stimmt." sagte Cal mit einem zugestandenen Nicken. Sie grinste. Cal wog seine Optionen ab. Er konnte alles, was er wusste, auftischen, in der Hoffnung, sie zu erwischen und ihre Hand zu kippen. Auf der anderen Seite, wenn sie nicht beißt, könnte sie sich in der gesamten "Töte ihn"-Diskussion entscheiden.....

Nein, dachte er. Besser warten Sie ab, ob er eine Zeile darüber bekommt, was sie vorhaben oder wohin sie wollen. Folglich lag eine schwere Pause in der Luft.

"Seien Sie sicher, dass Sie uns wissen lassen, ob wir etwas für Sie tun können?" sagte sie und nahm einen Schluck aus ihrem Becher.

"Wie wäre es, wenn du mich gehen lässt?"

"Ich kümmere mich gleich darum." Sie fing an, wegzugehen.

"Tschüss Cassandra." sagte Cal, meistens aus Neugierde. Sie verlangsamte sich für eine Nanosekunde, ihr Verstand fing das Zögern auf und sie versuchte, weiterzumachen. Aber Cal hat es gesehen. Das beantwortet diese Frage, dachte er.

Es war nicht wirklich so, weil ihr Name nicht Cassandra ist. Sasha Tai ging auf den Stuhl des Piloten zu, ihr Verstand wirbelte darüber, wie er diesen Namen hörte. Sie rutschte hinter die Bedienelemente und schaltete es automatisch aus. Die Hydraulik pulsierte in die Steuerung, als sie das Steuer übernahm.

Im Nachhinein hätte sie die Vanduul nicht davon abhalten sollen, den Piloten Mason zu töten. Ihn an Bord zu haben, stellte alles in Gefahr, aber sie hatte gesehen, was Vanduul mit UEE-Häftlingen macht. Sie sagte sich selbst, dass sie besser schlafen würde, wenn sie selbst eine Runde durch sein Gehirn schlagen würde, als die Vanduul an ihm arbeiten zu lassen.

Sie hat den Nav-Plan überprüft. Sie wurden wieder verändert. Nesser verschwendet mit seinen ineffizienten Flugplänen zu viel Zeit und verbrennt zu viel Treibstoff. Der Kofferraum kam hoch, als sie die Annäherung neu kalibrierte.

"Mahony hat das Zeug verstaut." Er sagte und überprüfte Cal, bevor er auf den Sitz neben ihr schlüpfte: "Was ist hier oben los?"

"Nesser wird dieses Schiff unter die Erde bringen." Sie flüsterte; sie stellte sicher, dass Nesser nicht in Hörweite war. Sasha hielt eine Sekunde inne und lehnte sich dann zum Kofferraum hinüber.

"Hat jemand mit ihm gesprochen?"

"Ich glaube nicht. Warum?"

"Er nannte mich Kassandra."

" Seltsam." Der Kofferraum kaute eine Minute lang daran: "Nun, dann weiß er nicht, was es ist."

" Immer noch."

"Keine Sorge, Schwesterchen. Wenn er zu einer Belastung wird, werfen wir ihn aus der Luftschleuse."

Zurück auf dem Zwilling, war Penny in ihrer Koje. Showalter hatte ihre Strafe für Cals Stunt auf Yar nicht wirklich durchgesetzt, also hat sie es sich selbst auferlegt. Sie schrubbte das Flugdeck, half den Boxenteams, führte Sims für Anfängerpiloten durch, alles, um beschäftigt zu bleiben. Sie arbeitete sich selbst bis zum Zusammenbruch. Das war der einzige Weg, wie sie schlafen konnte.

Außer für heute. Als sie das Bett betrat, wurde ihr etwas klar. In all dem Wahnsinn hatte sie es völlig vergessen. Sie schnappte sich das SysBook aus dem Regal und holte alle Fotos hoch, die Cal ihr von der Siedlung auf Yar geschickt hatte. Von der fehlenden Ausrüstung. Nach zwei Stunden Studium konnte sie nicht herausfinden, was die Ausrüstung war, also wechselte sie in die Siedlung selbst.

Seltsamerweise wurden alle Info-Links hinter dichten Sicherheitsprotokollen gesperrt. Sie stieß immer wieder auf einen Weg um sie herum und ließ ein paar unschuldige Keycracker laufen, bis einer von ihnen nahm -

Die Siedlung auf Yar wurde bereits 2880 als Forschungslabor eingerichtet. Damals liefen alle hoch hinaus auf das neue Synthworld-Projekt. Alle Korps versuchten herauszufinden, wie sie ihren Fuß in die Tür des lukrativen Regierungsprojekts setzen können.

Sie grub weiter. Anscheinend bildete sich die Siedlung, um an einem einzigen Projekt zu arbeiten, einem Projekt namens Cassandra.

Obwohl das meiste davon ein dichtes Netz aus Wissenschaftssprache und Formeln war, versuchte das Kassandra-Projekt, einen Planeten auf molekularer Ebene neu zu gestalten. Ein sich selbst replizierendes Nanovirus, das einen bestehenden Planeten zerstören und wieder aufbauen soll.

Und die Wissenschaftler auf Yar brachten es zum Laufen.

Dann wurde ihr Bildschirm plötzlich schwarz.


. . . WIRD FORTGESETZT

Lt. Cal Mason’s funeral turned out to be a contained affair. The squadron stood proudly in formation but otherwise only a handful of officers and deck crew attended. Kerny, a pit crew mechanic, showed up. Cal helped Kerny’s family escape the Nul system about a year ago. Now the quiet giant stood there, wringing his hands as if that would keep back the tears that were threatening to burst through.

Admiral Showalter ran through the routine. His face was granite as always. Words were said. A three-volley salute. Launch the empty casket. And that was that. The group was dismissed and gently dispersed.

Penny, Showalter, and Kerny remained, as if taking a step away was a step towards accepting.

Cal Mason was constantly under guard. Despite the cuffs binding his hands and the link-chain to the wall, someone was always watching him. It’d been a couple days and three more jump-points. Cal was a model prisoner but he kept his eyes and ears open the whole time. The crew of the Constellation were being extra cautious about using names or discussing things around him. That was good; it meant they weren’t settled on the notion of killing him.

Despite their attempts at secrecy, here’s what he still managed to pick up:

The ship was called the Phoenix. An engineering monitor let that slip.

The big guy who’d spoken to the leader woman who may or may not be Cassandra was nicknamed Trunk. From his size and general mannerisms, he seemed like the strongarm of the bunch. There was some connection with Cassandra but Cal hadn’t figured out if it was romantic or a bond weathered by battle/thievery.

There was a gunner who liked to talk. Really liked to talk. His name was Nesser Yahro. He’d flat out told Cal that one. Had a problem with the drinking too, which explained why he didn’t remember the bulk of their discussions. He also seemed to be the back-up pilot when Cassandra was flying herself. Cal could always tell who was flying. Where she was a dancer on the controls, he was a wrecking ball.

The last crewman was the ship’s mechanic. He wanted nothing to do with Cal and did everything in his power to stay out of sight, which was annoying to Nesser as it was interfering with their ongoing Trigger game. Nesser called him Mahony.

It was shortly after early-meal on the third day when she approached Cal, speaking to him for the first time since he was taken.

“Comfortable?”

“Oh sure. Who doesn’t love being handcuffed?”

“Depends on the company.”

“True.” Cal said with a conceding nod. She grinned. Cal weighed his options. He could dish what he knows in the hopes of catching her off-guard and tipping her hand. On the flipside, if she doesn’t bite, she might make up her mind on the whole ‘kill him’ discussion…

No, he thought. Better bide his time see if he can get a line on what they’re up to or where they’re going. Consequently, a heavy pause hung in the air.

“Be sure to let us know if there’s anything we can do for you?” She said, taking a sip from her cup.

“How about letting me go?”

“I’ll get right on that.” She started walking away.

“Bye Cassandra.” Cal said, mostly out of curiosity. She slowed for a nanosecond, her mind caught the hesitation and she tried to move on. But Cal saw it. That answers that question, he thought.

It didn’t really because her name isn’t Cassandra. Sasha Tai moved up to the pilot’s chair, her mind churning as to how he heard that name. She slid behind the controls and flipped it off auto. Hydraulics pulsed into the controls as she took the helm.

In retrospect, she shouldn’t have stopped the Vanduul from killing the pilot, Mason. Having him onboard was putting everything at risk but she had seen what Vanduul do to UEE prisoners. She told herself she would sleep better putting a round through his brain herself than letting the Vanduul go to work on him.

She checked the Nav-plan. They’d been changed, again. Nesser was wasting too much time and burning too much fuel with his inefficient flight plans. Trunk came up as she recalibrated the approach.

“Mahony’s got the stuff stowed.” He said, checking on Cal before sliding into the seat beside her, “What’s going on up here?”

“Nesser’s gonna run this ship into the ground.” She whispered; making sure Nesser was out of earshot. Sasha paused for a second then leaned over to Trunk.

“Has anybody been talking to him?”

“I don’t think so. Why?”

“He called me Cassandra.”

“Weird.” Trunk chewed on that for a minute, “Well, then he doesn’t know what it is.”

“Still.”

“Don’t sweat it, sis. If he becomes a liability, we dump him out the airlock.”

Back on the Gemini, Penny was in her bunk. Showalter hadn’t really enforced her punishment for Cal’s stunt on Yar so she enforced it on herself. She scrubbed the flight deck, helped the pit crews, ran sims for rookie pilots, anything to stay busy. She worked herself to the point of collapse. That was the only way she could sleep.

Except for today. The second she hit the bed, she realized something. In all the madness, she had completely forgotten. She snatched the SysBook off her shelf and pulled up all the photos Cal had sent her of the settlement on Yar. Of the missing equipment. After two hours of study, she couldn’t figure out what the equipment was so she switched to the settlement itself.

Oddly all the info-links were locked behind dense security protocols. She kept prodding for a way around them, running some innocent keycrackers until one took-

The settlement on Yar was set up as a research lab back in 2880. Back then everybody was running high off the new Synthworld project. Corps were all trying to figure out ways to get their foot in the door of the lucrative government project.

She kept digging. Apparently, the settlement formed to work on a single project, a project called Cassandra.

Although most of it was a dense web of science-speak and formulas, the Cassandra Project was attempting to redesign a planet on a molecular level. A self-replicating nanovirus designed to break down an existing planet and rebuild it.

And the scientists on Yar got it to work.

That’s when her screen suddenly went black. . . . TO BE CONTINUED