Arrival: Chapter 24

  “Front and center, every one of you!” Wiremu bellowed at the rest of the habitat modules.   He yelled loudly enough to be sure everyone could hear, and angrily enough to make sure that everyone immediately complied.  His military training was asserting itself in the extreme situation.  All of the other landed crew members groggily stumbled out of their new homes and gathered in front of the simulants; it was after all still pretty early in the morning.  “You too Huli.  Don’t be afraid; you’ve already served your purpose,” he said with a sneer.  

  Cautiously, Huli emerged with the others from his habitat module and joined the group which was already forming in front of Wiremu, In-Su, and Neil.  His initial indignance seemed to have faded away now.   He still sported a miserable scowl, but he seemed to have also taken on something of an air of sheepishness.   Perhaps now that his assertiveness had indeed served its purpose, he was fully aware that for better or worse he was now stuck down here with these simulants whom he had just so angered.

  The crew had formed a proper line facing the simulants and Wiremu walked up and down the line slowly, looking into each of their eyes in turn, one after another.   He walked the line using a big branch he’d found in the jungle and had been using as a walking stick, and although he hadn’t really had it in mind when he’d picked it up, he now appreciated its equal appropriateness as a beating stick.  He remembered an old expression he’d once heard, something about speaking softly but carrying a big stick.  Well, In-Su was the soft talker, and he’d failed.  He, was the big stick.  That was his job; that’s why he was here.  

  Wiremu still didn’t know the names of most of the men and women in front of him.  He recognized Huli of course, and Armina as well, but the rest were still unknown to him.  He was trying to size up their souls, trying to intuit where their loyalties would lie when it really came down to it.  Were they more angry or scared?  He figured if he could intuit that, it would tell him all he needed to know.   Fear was good; fear meant they were still on the mission’s side and still afraid of failure.  Fear meant there was still something they were afraid of losing.

  Anger meant the opposite, anger meant irrationality.  Wiremu knew anger all too well; it had long travelled with him like a shadow.  Between his military training and experience, as well as simply the passage of time, he’d learned how to harness and control it by now; rarely did it ever control him anymore.  But these people were young and untrained, anger could still control them, still make them want to burn everything to the ground rather than see their enemies prevail.  Scorched Earth angry, that’s what they’d called it back home.  He didn’t know what they’d call it here, but he could certainly see it in a few of their eyes.

  “This mission…” he said as he paced slowly in front of the line after his close inspection of those in it, “has now officially split.  As a result, I now need to know with absolute clarity who is on who’s side.  Given what’s happened, we can now expect Asari and Aset to launch some kind of assault on Halley’s colony site and in order to prepare for it, in order to do what we can to neutralize this threat to the mission and to limit the resulting damage, I need to know now who is on my side; I need to know who among you is still on the mission’s side.  

  “Now I will make myself absolutely clear.  None, I repeat none of you, will be punished in any way if you side with Asari and Aset, and refuse to help us.  I know very well that life on a deep space ship can socially be very complicated.   I know that you’ve all literally had a whole lifetime to develop complex social webs and personal bonds I can’t even imagine and frankly don’t really care about right now.

  “But I promise you this… this I promise you, and you’d better believe me.  If you side with us now, only to betray us later, I will execute you myself for treason.”  

  Neil and In-Su looked at each other very uncomfortably, and then turned back to look at Wiremu with grave concern.  Such a thing was inconceivably beyond the scope of any of the mission protocols, but they daren’t question him right now, certainly not so publicly in front of all of the humans.  He sounded cold as he made the pronouncement, and they could at least be certain that none of the human crew doubted his sincerity.  

  “So here it is people, and I’ll only ask once.  Who is not with us?  Who among you cannot commit to obeying our orders without question in service of bringing an end to this crisis with minimal loss of life and destruction of materiel?  Let’s have it.”  Five people timidly raised their hands, including Huli.  Wiremu was relieved that among them were the four whose eyes he’d found the most trouble in.

  “That includes,” In-Su added, stepping forward and putting a hand on Wiremu’s shoulder, “those of you who don’t want to take any side in what’s about to happen, who refuse to fight, or just don’t think you’re up for a fight.”  Seven more sheepish hands went up.

  “Fine.” Wiremu barked.  “Split yourself into two habs and find a way to mark them as neutral.”  The twelve who had raised their hands silently obeyed and made their way back to the habs.

  Neil and In-Su pulled Wiremu aside as the rest of the humans mulled about and talked among themselves about the situation.  Many of them had just been woken up and still hadn’t heard exactly what was going on.  “Wiremu,” Neil said, “were you serious?”

  “About what?”

  “About what?” Neil asked back incredulously.  “About threatening field executions?”

  Wiremu sighed heavily as he looked back at those who claimed to be with them.  “Let me put it this way… I really hope we don’t have to find out.”

  Neil and In-Su looked very apprehensive.  “Look guys, I’m sure it won’t come to that.  In any case, Neil I need you to pick a team of three and head over to the airstrip.  I need you to link up the industrial atmospheric separator drone and super-fill the shuttle’s cryogenic fuel tanks.  We need to be capable of orbital insertion as soon as possible.”

  “Understood,” Neil gravely responded.  As uncomfortable as he may be, this was indeed exactly the kind of situation Wiremu was here for, exactly the kind of situation for which mission protocols stipulated that Wiremu was in clear command.  Neil went over to the crowd of humans, selected Armina Shostak and two others, and together they headed down the road towards to the landing strip.

  “As for the rest of you,” Wiremu said in address to the rest of their loyal crew as he and In-Su approached them again, “I’m afraid at the moment there’s nothing left to do but wait.”  He looked up into the clear blue of the morning sky as his thoughts elevated to their mother ship in orbit.  “They won’t be coming here anyways…” he said in a lower voice which has as much just to himself as for anyone else to hear.

  “Waiting,” one of the people in the crowd who hadn’t introduced himself yet said with a heavy hearted sigh, “is something we’re all too familiar with Wiremu.”

  “Right,” the simulant acknowledged in a low voice, and almost apologetically.   “In-Su, come with me please.”  He led the other simulant back to their personal habitat module, held the door open for him, and then entered behind him.   “Time to call Sadhika,” he said, and In-Su nodded.

  In-Su was somewhat shell-shocked by the whole situation.  As familiar as Wiremu was with conflict and aggression, it was equally as alien to In-Su.  He was an academic through and through, and he’d never even seen a fight in person let alone been in one.  The nastiest conflict he’d ever personally been in was a heated formal debate about who the best nineteenth century Russian novelists was.  He felt so far in over his head at this point that he didn’t even feel like he could see light at the surface anymore.  What’s worse, he’d taken his failure to get through to Asari very personally.  It was exactly the kind of thing he was here for, and he knew full well that if he’d succeeded, nothing which now came after would have ever occurred or been necessary.

  Wiremu thought up a comm request to Sadhika, and within a few moments her face appeared on a screen in the wall of the hab.  Wiremu took a moment to be grateful that Asari hadn’t locked out their access to the satellites and comm system.  Being on the ship he certainly had the power, and Wiremu certainly would have in his situation.  He stole a moment to wonder if he had chosen not to or if it was just an oversight due to his lack of tactical training, or if his anger was clouding his judgement.   He figured the latter to be much more likely.

  “What’s up?” Sadhika asked from the screen.

  “Asari knows,” In-Su informed her in a soft voice.

  “Asari’s pissed!” Wiremu clarified with an odd and slightly frustrated look up at In-Su who was standing behind him.  “Huli overheard Neil and In-Su discussing the situation,” Wiremu elaborated, “and he learned from them that Nekheny was dead and that Halley pulled the trigger.  He immediately locked himself in a hab and told Asari, who then contacted us in a fit of rage”

  “I see.” Sadhika responded.  “I saw his comm request to all four of us but I thought it best to let one of you answer it since you were all together.”

  “Maybe you should have answered it…” Wiremu suggested.  “I certainly didn’t help.  I threatened him…”

  “Oh Wii…” the simulant woman responded while gently shaking her head.

  “I… I tried to reason with him afterwards, but… but I failed to get through to him,” In-Su said sadly, still very disappointed with himself.

  “In-Su… this isn’t even about us,” Sadhika reassured him.  It’s not your fault you couldn’t get through to him…  I’m sure if anybody could have gotten through to him it would have been you.  No, I’m afraid we’re caught in the middle of something here that’s been brewing for well over a century.”

  “Yeah,” In-Su agreed, but then he added: “in a pot we put on the stove…”

  Nobody said anything in response to his sentiment.  They all knew it was true and none of them had anything particularly helpful to add.  Eventually Wiremu broke the silence and continued his report to Sadhika.

  “Anyways, I sent Neil to go link up the shuttle to the atmospheric separator drone so it’s ready for orbital insertion as soon as possible.  I’m convinced that Asari and Aset are going to launch some kind of assault on your position with the landers.  I intend to go up to the ship as soon as possible to stop him… any way I can.  I doubt we’ll make it up there before he launches though, so… you need to be ready.”

  “What makes you so sure that that’s what he’ll do?” Sadhika asked.

  Wiremu shrugged despondently.   “It’s what I’d do…”  Again the other two didn’t have anything helpful to add.

  “So… what do I do?” Sadhika asked.  She was after all the one in the line of fire now.

  Wiremu let out a heavy sigh and rubbed his eyes.  “Well, you could fight…” Wiremu answered, to which In-Su audibly cringed.   “You’ve got a weapon, and you’re certainly capable of helping Halley and his people defend their position when Asari’s forces come, but if you stay with them they’ll be gunning for you as much as anyone else over there.

  “Or… you could run away.  You could disappear into the jungle and take your chances there while you wait it out.   I’m not going to order you either way Sadhika, you know as well as I do that we shouldn’t be helping either side.  If you stay you certainly might be able to be some kind of neutralizing force at some critical moment, but… in all reality you’re far more likely to just get yourself killed if you stick around.  On the other hand we know all too well that the jungle itself is far from being a safe haven either, but… at least there you won’t have to get involved or take a side, so…. it’s up to you.  You’re the one who’s out there after all…”