Authors: Hao Yang
“Yes!” I yell.
Others are rather
calm and quiet.
I kind of feel bad,
because right now it is not the time for cheering.
It will take some
time for us to get reply from Luna station.
Silence in the
bridge.
We are all waiting
patiently.
A window pops out in
the main screen. It reads, “New message.”
“Open it.” I say quickly.
The message reads,
“Judging by the current situation and your physical condition, we suggest you
step down from Commander. We recommend Roy to succeed your position. Please
hand over the access code to him. Flight control, Luna station. Message sent
17:03, central time, 09/16/2055.”
Staring at the
screen, I can feel everyone is looking at me. It is like they are poking me
with thousands of blades. Every second is now dragging like an hour.
I take a deep breath
and let it out slowly. If I am going to surrender the commandership, I need to
do one last thing before that.
“Start recording.” I
say quietly. I can barely hear myself.
A window pops out.
“Suggestion accepted.
I will hand over the commandership and access code right after the dinner.
Commander Jason Yang.”
I bat on Roy’s
shoulder and leave the bridge.
Now I am going to do
that one last thing.
In the kitchen, I
take out one quick-soup and seven meals from fridge. I set up the table with
meals and glasses of water. Then I ready the quick-soup and take a sip of the
soup. It tastes like shit, but this time I don’t feel so bad about it, because
it is exactly what I want. I pour the soup in each meal and glass. Those aliens
probably messed up all those meals here already, but I don’t want to take
chances.
Five minutes to the
dinner.
My headache is
hurting so bad that I can barely feel anything else around me. I sit down in my
usual place. Bertha is probably the last alien, so three of them came aboard
Achilles. Three is always the magic number. At least I hope so. If there is
more, the soup will paralyze them and I will take care of them one by one.
Worst case scenario, I overload the reactor and destroy Achilles.
Oh, I almost forget.
I still have a bomb in my hat. I won’t need it any more. I take off the hat,
not sure where to put it. Lily bought this hat for me before we left Earth. It
is an old-fashioned Yankee baseball hat. Very difficult to find these days. She
knows I have a thing for casual antique stuff.
“Lily, I will kill
them all. I will make them pay what they did. I am not afraid. If I die, I
die.”
I look at the hat and
put it back on.
Roy walks into the
kitchen and nods at me.
“Commander, you
prepare the dinner. How nice!” Roy says coldly.
I don’t like his
tone, but I guess that is what you get when you are going to hand over
commandership.
“That is my way of
saying thank you.”
Bud and Charle come
in and walk past Roy.
“Looks great,” says
Bud.
“Smell great too,”
says Charle.
They quickly settle
down on their seats, ready to get started.
“I am actually
thinking about that bottle of champagne. You think we can drink it today?” I
ask smiling at Charle.
Charle looks confused
and shies away.
Roy clears his throat
and says, “Commander, I understand your feeling. I think this is the best
decision for all of us.”
“Thank you. Let’s not
stand here. Get seated.”
When Roy is taking
his seat, Lisa, Lock and Jim walks in.
“Dinner is ready!” I
say happily.
“Thank you,
Commander,” says Jim.
“Thank you for
getting the communication back online.” I say, but my voice is a little stiff,
so it sounds like I am blaming him.
He still flashes me a
kind smile.
Lock and Lisa nod at
me and they are seated.
A short silence.
“Before we get
started, may I propose a toast?” I say while standing up and raising the glass
of water in front of me.
“I am honored to have
crews like you guys. I prepare this dinner to say thanks to every one of you. I
appreciate what you have done and you guys are my family. Like I said, I will
step down from Commander and surrender the access code after this dinner. Roy
will be in charge and I will support him in every way possible.”
I raise the glass to
the level of my eyes.
Bud and Lisa pick up
their glasses and stand up, but others still sit there.
This is a bad sign.
Why Roy, Lock, Jim
and Charles just sit there? Are they all aliens?
I stare at them, my
face muscles twitching. I have to know for sure.
“OK, let’s drink
first. I know this is not wine, but you know it is just symbolic.” I squeeze
out a smile.
“Put down the
glasses,” Roy shouts to Bud and Lisa who are about to take a sip.
Bud and Lisa first
look confused, and then their eyes widen. They slowly set the glasses on the
table, their face calm and cold.
Now I know Roy, Bud
and Lisa are aliens.
Who else?
Charle, Jim and Lock?
It can’t be.
It can’t be! Waves of
chill are running through my entire body.
I glower at Roy
realizing we both know what is going on.
“Guys, we don’t need
the disguise anymore.” Says Roy with a relax tone.
Others turn to Roy
for a second and then every one of them slowly change to the alien form Betha
had earlier. Bluish skin, red eyes, big face without nose. The one used to be
Roy has a black mark, the size of a coin, on his forehead that others don’t
have. It is a triangle with several lines in it. He must be the leader.
Looking at them, I
know this is the end. I take a deep breath and let it out slowly.
“I am sorry I have to
introduce myself under this circumstance. I am Commander Asuak. We live in a
planet far far away from your solar system. We can copy the appearance of any
life form without even touching them, but apparently we didn’t do a very good
job. How did you find out?” The thing used to be Roy says.
“My wife!” I say
coldly.
“Oh, yes. She was
special. She interrupted the process and destroyed all sedatives. That was how
you woke up. She also burned herself. I guess she thought we had to use her
body to assimilate her. If things happened as I planned, we would wake you up
after we get the access code to the mainframe.” Asuak continues.
“Fuck you!” I shout.
“Be honest with you,
we have decided not to kill you, even though you killed one of my crews and
injured another one. Our civilization despise killing. We didn’t want to kill
your crew. Your crew tried to kill my crew in the first place, but I guess you
won’t believe me.” Asuak says sadly, his voice low and coarse.
“Damn right!”
“Tell me what you
want.” Asuak says with a serious face.
“You killed all my
crew. What do you think?” I say angrily.
Except Asuak, they
are all looking at me with frightened faces, their red eyes widened and their
mouths opened.
Asuak sighed and
says, “So now what?”
I am staring at
Asuak, but thinking about Lily’s death in the incinerator.
Lily, I will make
them pay what they did.
“Lily” I shout at the
top of my lung. Then I smile at Asuak.
One second.
Two second.
Three second.
I am waiting for the
big bang.
Dead silence.
Clock is ticking, but
nothing happens.
Now Asuak throws me a
disdainful smile and says, “Use voice to activate the procedure to overload the
reactor is a very smart idea. Actually, I just found it out before the dinner.
I didn’t know you would use the word Lily though. You really love her, don’t
you? Now listen, we lost our ship and we need the access code to the mainframe
to send out distress call to my species. After we are done, we will leave.”
“You will never get
it!” I shout.
Asuak turns to the
alien sits at his right and says, “You were right. At least we have the bug.”
“What bug?” I ask. Now
I remember the three levels of fucked up and I am at the third level where
everyone knows you are fucked up.
I look around in
panic while they are standing up from their seats.
A red button near the
door catches my eyes. It is the emergency button for fire suppression. I sprint
off my chair, dash to the button and hit it hard with my right hand.
“Swoosh.” White power
busts into the compartment like a descending snow storm, blinding everyone. I
hold my breath, keep my head low and stumble to the door. I have my hand on the
door open button. As soon as the fire suppression is off, I will be able to
open the door.
“Get him. Get him!”
It’s Asuak’s angry voice.
“Where is he?”
“Near the door! Near
the door!”
“Get the door. Now!”
Heavy footsteps are
getting closer and closer.
Swoosh stops and
white power is settling down. I press the button and get out right away. While
running flat out in the corridor, another idea pops up in my head. I quickly
make a left turn, heading for the mainframe compartment.
It isn’t far. I
clutch to the door handle and key in the code.
Asuak is coming
around the corner and heading right for me, followed by others.
“Beep.” Door slides
open.
I rush in, shut the
door and lock it from inside.
“Bam. Bam. Bam. Bam.”
It sounds like bullets hitting the door.
No time to waste.
I wipe off the sweat
on my face, fly to the second door, key in the code and get into the mainframe
compartment.
It is only as large
as a normal living room and filled with all kinds of panels, drives and
devices, many of which I can’t even name. In the center of the room, a big
screen and a keyboard rest on a table. I speed to the keyboard and type in the
username and password. The supercomputer named Zeus goes online at once.
“Commander Jason
Yang, Welcome. What can I do for you?”
“Seal mainframe
compartment.”
“Clank, clank,
clank.”
“Hiss.”
“The compartment is
sealed. Please be aware oxygen supply to the compartment is shut off.”
“That’s fine. Now depressurize
the entire ship.”
“Such order request
access to the mainframe. Please provide access code.”
“LILY12132030.”
“Code confirmed.
Access granted. Depressurizing the entire ship requires permission from flight
control at Luna station. Would you like to send such request?”
“Yes.”
“Hold on.”
Fuck! Back and forth
is about 50 minutes. They will think I am crazy.
Yea, whatever. I let
out a long sigh.
“Transmission can’t
be sent. Communication system failure.”
“What?”
I guess Jim didn’t
fix it. Of course, he didn’t.
Flight control
wouldn’t grant such request anyway.
“Initiate emergency
protocol 1132. Request override.” Protocol 1132 can only be activated when all
communication systems failed. If any of them still works, Zeus will not carry
out the protocol.
“All communication
systems failed. Initiate emergency protocol 1132.” This involves transferring
higher level commands to lower level.
“Full access
granted.”
“Depressurize the
entire ship!”
“Please be aware life
support system and artificial gravity system will fail in depressurization.
Would you like to continue?” Here I don’t really worry about temperature,
because all these equipment are heat generators. It will be cold here, but not
freezing cold. What worries me most is oxygen.
“Yes.”
“Opening vent one to
six. Depressurization will complete in two minutes.”
A window pops out
showing me the pressure in the ship.
“Hiss.” Air is being
sucked out.
“Come on. Come on.
Faster!” I shout pounding the table.
The pressure is
dropping quickly.
“Die, you mother fuckers!”
“Depressurization
complete. Pressure stable at 0.00000000000000001 Torr.”
Finally.
“Lily, I made it. I
got them.” I shout out loud.
You didn’t die in
vain. You led me here. You pointed out the direction for me. Now you can rest
in peace. I love you. I love you forever.