“What have you done?????!!!!!”
Gina leapt out of her chair. “You shot him! You shot him!”
Jack rose from his crouch next to Morrison’s body. “Yes,” was all he could muster. He stared at his former captain, the man lying at his feet, and then moved his gaze to the gun in his hand. The rest of the bridge crew was frozen into place, either terrified of what Jack would do next or simply waiting to see what would happen.
The astrophysicist, though, showed no such hesitation. “You didn’t have to kill him, Jack!” Gina began to shake uncontrollably, and tears of anger and sadness began to slide down her cheeks. “You didn’t have to… to do this!”
His face took on a haunted look, and Jack again eyeballed the gun and its handiwork on the ground before him. He took a deep breath, exhaling slowly, and suddenly threw the gun across the bridge and out the door. “Yes,” he had said, teeming with regret, “I did.”
Dr. Gray walked over to the body and began a cursory examination. Jack raised an eyebrow at her, and she said “Just checking to be sure.” Wilma checked for a pulse, tested for signs of breathing, and gave the wounds a cursory glance. Jack’s aim had been true. The first shot would have disrupted Morrison’s nervous system, the second causing massive internal bleeding and organ failure. Keys was efficient, she had to give him that. He’d wanted to kill the man, not make him suffer. And from her examination, her guess was that he had succeeded in both of those goals.
Sarah broke her silence. “Doctor? Your findings?”
“Official medical report: Albert Morrison died in the line of duty,” she said, parsing her words carefully. Gray then nodded gently at Jack.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” Gina screamed. “He murdered the captain!” she continued, pointing at Jack.
“No,” Richard said, his voice barely above a whisper, “he saved our lives.”
She shook her head violently. “Nonononono! We could have locked him in his quarters. Like we did with Kate. Or put him in the brig. This ship has a brig!”
“And then what?” Sarah asked.
Gina’s mouth opened to speak, but no words came out.
“Feed him when he’s doing nothing to help keep us alive? Give him the chance to continue trying to push his ideas of giving up on the rest of us until someone breaks?” Sarah paused. “Or do we maximize our own chances of survival? Save the food and water he would have used for ourselves. Keep the ship focused on the single overriding goal we all need to keep our eyes on right now: our survival.”
Sarah’s words hung heavy in the air between the two women, and movement on the bridge came to a standstill. Finally, Gina sat back down and placed her head in hands and began gently sobbing. “I know you’re right, Sarah. In my head, I know you’re right.” He head snapped up. “But murder is never right.”
Their conversation only hours earlier popped back into Sarah’s head. “That isn’t what you said a couple of hours ago,” she said.
Almond’s eyes went dry and her skin turned ashen. Embarrassed and ashamed, she remembered her earlier feelings and wondered for the first and not last time exactly what kind of person she was.
As Sarah’s words sunk in for Gina, she turned her attention to Jack. He was still standing in precisely the same position he’d assumed after Gray delivered her version of what happened for the official record. “Jack?”
Startled from his reverie, Jack’s head twitched and he began trying to pull himself together. “Jack?” she continued. “Where’s your head?” He began to absently rub his temples.
“My head?”
“You’ve done this, Jack,” she said, trying to be gentle. “You’ve done this. So we need to know: what now?”
He nodded. “I’ve done this. Yes.” Suddenly, his body began to spring back to life. He began stretching and twisting, moving his body around, trying to start the endorphins moving in his system. The crew watched him, beginning to wonder if his actions had caused Jack to dissociate from the situation.
They were all new to mutiny, murder, and armageddon, Richard thought. Who could blame him if he had?
Finally, Jack took a few steps away from the body and headed to the front of the bridge. When he was in the position he sought, where he could address them all at once, he began to speak.
“I’m sorry. I am. I’ve never killed anyone before. Never even killed so much as an animal, either. It isn’t who I am. Wasn’t, I guess.” He stopped and looked around, making sure his words were reaching them. “But what Sarah said was right. Even more, though, is my commitment to keeping us all safe and away from those camps. If the Omegans have our fellows in their camps, I can only assume one of two things: they’re already either developing a plan for insurgency or they’re wishing they were dead.”
“The best way we can help them is to stay alive. I did this to help us stay alive.”
Heads nodded in agreement, some more than others. “Captain Morrison was a good and decent man.” Jack’s voice halted. “His death will stain my soul for the rest of my life. If I never point a weapon at another human being, it will still be too soon. The enemy…” He turned his body halfway towards the front of the ship. “The enemy is not us. It’s those bastards who’ve parked their ships in our home’s orbit.”
Jack turned back to face the group. “I want to point my gun at them. Every last damned one of them. And I want to pull the trigger until we never see them again, and we never have to live in fear of them again.”
“I assume then,” Sarah spoke up, “that you have some sort of idea, some sort of plan?”
Keys nodded his head a single time. “I do.”
Richard began to feel the blood moving in his body again. Finally, something sensible was about to happen. Yes, he thought, let’s just put this ugly business behind us. The idea put a little bounce into his spirit. “So what’s the plan, Jack? What do we need to do?”
The Man With the Plan held up his palm in a halting gesture. “Hold up. First things first. Jack walked over to Gina’s station and crouched down next to her so they could see eye to eye. “Gina, I need to know if we can all count on you.”
“Why? If I say no, you’ll shoot me?”
His face registered no surprise; Jack had assumed that might be her response. “No, Gina. I’m not going to shoot you. Like I said- I don’t ever want to point a weapon at another person again. But if you would rather not come along and would prefer to stay here on Pluto, or you’d rather stay here and just sit things out in your quarters, I’d understand.”
Gina felt a rush of skepticism. “If we’re leaving the system, making the run, why would I want to do either of those things?”
Jack didn’t answer. He moved across the bridge to address Richard. “Clover, how soon can you have the tachyon scoop ready for travel?”
Park’s response was quick. “Thirty minutes, max.”
“Excellent. Have at it.” Richard left the bridge, and Jack turned his attention to Sarah and Dr. Gray. “Supersonic, Doctor… what I need from you is a little trickier, maybe.”
Sarah was puzzled. “What do you have in mind, Jack?”
He cleared his throat. “What I have in mind requires a component we’re missing right now… F.A.”
“Oh, hell,” Wilma said, grimacing. “You realize she might not be feeling too charitable when she wakes up, right? Especially since I’m going to have to stimulate her awake.”
“Keenly, doctor,” Jack replied. “But” he said, jabbing a thumb at Sarah, “once she starts hitting consciousness, the first face she sees should be a friendly one. So you exit, Sarah takes over…”
“I catch her up on current events, et cetera et cetera. What if she isn’t happy to see me, either?” Sarah asked.
Jack shrugged. “You might want to take a gun.”
“Fabulous,” Sarah said, her attitude dripping with sarcasm. She took a moment to see if Jack had anything else to say to her, wondering why she thought this might be the time for an emotional declaration, but he made no effort to speak. Giving up, she beckoned to Gray. “Come on, doctor, we have to wake the Pluto Strangler.”
After they were gone, it was only Jack and Gina left on the bridge, and the young woman was visibly nervous.
“You’re shaking,” he commented.
“I honestly have no idea what you want from me, Jack. You’ve murdered a man, taken control of the ship, and everyone seems to be fine with it.” He gave her a blank look and shrugged. She continued. “This is completely insane.”
He coughed, stifling a laugh. “Hime, sanity has suddenly become very overrated. We may well be the last humans alive and free in the entire universe. We’re low on supplies. And you’re right- I killed our captain. Not long after another crew member attempted to choke another one to death.”
“In a universe gone insane, maybe the maddest of the mad are those that survive.”
She rolled her eyes. “That’s an impressive amount of crap, Jack. Fine. Count me in for now. What do you need from me?”
Jack began to smile in a way that made her shudder. “Honestly, nothing much different from what Morrison wanted. Your assignment is the helm, and I need you to pilot this old beast.”
“Ohhh-kay,” she said, beginning to worry. “Where exactly are we going?”
“Set your course,” Jack said with barely contained glee, “for Saturn.”
“WHAT?!”
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