Deep Space Dead (17 page)

“So we finish off our remaining food supplies then feast like savages upon the flesh of our fallen comrades,” said Arianna. “And then what?”

“My own feelings on the future are well known,” said Col Gayze arrogantly. “Every day that goes by we risk being ripped apart by a baying mob. Sooner or later we will discuss this matter; in a few days we will be forced to think the unthinkable. Why don’t we just prepare for it now? You are repelled by what I say, yes, but you do not throw me out of the meeting. You do not spit on me or order me to leave, set up a nasty little accident for me. It is because you know I’m right, all of you.”

“It will not come to that,” said Jak firmly. “There is still hope. Now we know what the revenants are capable of we can try to distract them until we’ve flown the rover up to a place they can’t reach us with their missiles.”

“We have two rovers left,” said Col Gayze, his tone matter of fact. “Lose them and we are doomed. I tell you we are too many. Our numbers need thinning out.”

“Do you not think the other colonists might be contemplating the exact same thing?” Said Jung Pepp, nodding in agreement at the Councillor’s words. “They can do the maths as well as anyone. Right now they’re most likely fermenting a revolution to seize the ship for themselves.”

“That is as maybe,” said Magnuj Bol sternly. “But until all other options are exhausted I will not contemplate this line of argument. Let that be an end to the matter.”

“You don’t say anything,” snapped Arianna resentfully to Jak when they were alone in their quarters a little later. “Your silence says it all.”

“Now that’s not fair Arianna,” replied Jak emphatically. “I’ve got people dying on my left, right and centre and one day it’s going to be my turn to go down there and risk getting ripped apart by those things.”

“Everything is breaking down,” muttered Arianna. “This is unthinkable what we’re contemplating here.” The words of Col Gayze now came back to her. Just how far was she prepared to go in order to protect her daughter? Arianne realised she had not protested much herself when the idea of consuming human flesh had been put forward. But there must be something that could be done before that. If only they could think of something.

Chairman Bol announced the news of reduced rations in a dull monotone that was filled with despair. There was simply no sugar coating the scale of the disaster that now faced them. In the mid-evening Sol received reports that a large contingent of colonists were gathering in the stadium for an impromptu protest meeting where they were to be addressed by a young man named Hari Shorr, a farmer who had survived the massacre of Grumium but lost his wife and young child in the process. Sol sighed and summoned his men to come and join him in order to police the meeting. Chairman Bol had agreed to attend in order to address the miscreants themselves and put across the Council’s side of the story. Sol was worried they might try and lynch the chairman. He had spent the entire afternoon running back and forth across the ship and the brig was packed with screaming prisoners, some of them extremely drunk and all violently fearful. The policemen was just grateful he’d not had cause to use his pistol. At least not yet.

It was more than a large contingent of colonists. Almost the entire ship, it seemed, was packed into the stadium with hundreds more spilling out into the arboretum. The colonists stared resentfully at Chairman Bol when he arrived and parted sullenly to let him through. The Chairman was flanked by the remaining rangers whilst Sol and his police officers flanked the walls, fingers anxiously touching the tips of their pistols.

Hari Shorr was a tall, thin faced man of thirty with wide red eyes and a haunted look. It was clear the last few days, and the loss of his family, had destroyed him and now hatred flowed in his veins. He shot Bol a glare of contempt as he came to take his place on the podium to speak. Sensing the unrest in the air Bol stood up to make an address but was quickly ushered back to his seat by a furious Hari Shorr. “We all know what you have to say, Chairman,” he spat contemptuously. “Well now you hear us. You know why we are here. These new rations are barely enough to feed a single person let alone those colonists who still have their families.”

“They will keep you alive,” said Bol, his voice never wavering. “This is just a temporary measure until the crops are ready in the arboretum.”

“We all know those crops will take months,” retorted the colonist. “Are we to starve in the meantime?”

“But of course the Council wants us to starve,” snapped a woman in the front row. “You know there isn’t enough food. Well I’ll bet you’re not on half rations, Chairman. I’ll bet you and the rest of the Council are eating well enough.”

“Not at all,” replied Bol calmly. “We are all suffering the same as you. There is no more food. We in the Council could not be greedy even if we wanted to.”

“Of course there is more!” Retorted Hari Shorr. “You elite of the Council would not let yourselves starve. Why I’ll bet you have a pretty full stock hidden away back there.”

“Let us see for ourselves!” Cried another colonist from the crowd. “Let us see inside the storerooms for ourselves!”

A cheer of agreement went up. Bol looked up at Sol. The police officer stepped forwards to address the crowd. His nerves were frayed and he had had enough. “We know full well what would happen if we let you into the storerooms,” he began gruffly. “You would overpower us and loot it without a second thought, carry away the stock and stuff your faces for the rest of the evening. Only tomorrow would you start to starve.”

The stadium erupted into jeers and catcalls. Hari Shorr barged to the front of the stage and began to harangue Sol in no uncertain terms. “You dare doubt our integrity after all we have been to?” He cried, attempting to whip the crowd up into a frenzy. “You who just stood and watched when my family –
Our families –
were torn apart by the dead eyed brutes?”

“My officers and I risked our lives against those creatures,” declared Sol through gritted teeth. “We guarded the gates. We fought them back when they tried to enter the starship. We stayed on and fired so that the people might safely get though.”

“And a fat lot of good you did with it all,” replied Hari Shorr. “We all know you closed the doors when there were still people outside who could have been saved. We all know you doomed thousands of people to their deaths so you could save your precious hides.”

“That’s not the truth,” said Sol, although looking around the angry faces of the colonists he could see his words were in vain.

“If you won’t distribute the food fairly we must come and take it,” snapped Hari Shorr. “We grew it, you merely talked about and consumed it. Those supplies are ours by right!”

Sol ducked down as something whizzed through the air, missing his head by an inch. More missiles now followed; shoes, plates, dinner knives, anything the colonists could get their hands on. Sol fired the pistol in the air. The colonists stopped their advance for but a moment. It was enough time for Sol to stagger back out of the stadium, virtually dragging Chairman Bol out with him. Hari Shorr and a few others dived in after him and grappled to the ground. Sol managed to reach for his rifle, spun around and fired blindly. The head of one colonist disintegrated with the impact of his shot, sending an explosion of blood throughout the immediate vicinity. Hari Shorr and his fellows stepped back in horror and this allowed Sol and the Chairman all the time they needed to leap to their feet and flee out of the stadium and into the arboretum. Many other colonists were fleeing as well, unwilling to get caught up in the violence. Sol and the Chairman were grateful to get lost in the crowds and made their way slowly back to the administrative chambers where the rest of the Council, including Arianna and Ambra, were waiting for them. Jak quickly sealed them off from the rest of the starship, effectively trapping them inside. “Close the doors to the arboretum,” ordered Chairman Bol firmly. “Seal them off completely.”
“But the main body of protesters are already in the corridors,” protested Jak. “Should we not…”
“Seal off the arboretum,” ordered Bol with rare vehemence. “Do it now and without further questioning.”

Jak did as he was asked. The majority of those now trapped inside the arboretum were the tail end of the protesters.

“They’re still angry by the looks of things,” said Barra Herr with concern as he looked into the holoscreens. “They’re ripping that stadium apart. Might be worth giving them some time to cool down before opening the doors.”

“Open the doors and we’ll have a riot on our hands for sure,” said Col Gayze. “We’ve got them where we want them and they can’t cause any trouble. Best leave them to simmer for a while until they come to accept their rations.”

“Are all the rangers and police officers out of there?” Asked the Chairman quietly.

“They are,” replied Sol. “Each man reported in and dealing with the trouble being caused by Shorr and the main vanguard.”

“How many people are at that protest?” Asked Magnuj Bol.

“Four thousand,” replied Barra Herr.

“Four thousand inside the stadium, yes?”

“That is so,” replied the communications man.

“Turn on the cameras and put it all on the big screens,” ordered the Chairman. “Interrupt everybody’s feed with a view of what is taking place in the stadium. Then, to everybody’s surprise, Magnuj Bol went into his private office adjoining the meeting room and closed the door behind him. “Apologies,” he said through the intercom a moment later. “There is something I need to do.”

“What is he playing at?” Demanded Arianna.

“I don’t know,” replied Jak with concern.

Suddenly the starship’s holoscreens flickered into life as one. The chairman’s face appared before them. “I want all of you to know that I do this completely of my own volition and without the prior knowledge of the Council,” began Magnuj Bol. “We have thus-far survived through a mix of sheer luck and unity. Indeed it is my belief that unity is what will get us through this crisis. Now, however, there is unrest amongst us here on the ship. I do not blame those causing the unrest and I recognise the hardships we have all experienced this past week. We came here, to Hearthstone, hoping to find a new Utopia. Instead we have found only hell. Unspeakable creatures attack us from without and from within we now fight amongst ourselves. Such a situation, although not unique in the annuls of human history, has nonetheless not taken place for many thousands of years. As the head of the Council, and as your leader, it is not up to me to take the difficult decisions needed in order to maximise the chances of survival of what is left of us.”

From the control panel at the back of the room there came a series of long beeps. “What is it?” Demanded Jak.

“Bol has locked the computer mainframe,” replied Barra Herr with concern. “Why he has sealed off the entire corridor of the arboretum leading to the fifth exit.”

“What on earth is he playing at?” Demanded Sol. “Why surely he can’t be…”
“Look!” Exclaimed Arianna, pointing to one of the holoscreens. “The doors to the arboretum are being opened.”

“And they’re not the only doors being opened!” Cried Barra Herr, his voice rising to a high pitched crescendo. “Look! Bol is opening the fifth exit as well. The creatures! They are inside the ship!”

Inside the arboretum the remaining colonists realised at once what was about to happen to them. Anguished screams filled the air. They climbed over one another in a bid to get away and the spontaneous stampede crushed hundreds in a matter of seconds. The colonists rushed up to the closed off doors, prising at their hinges and desperately hammering, desperately begging for mercy. But Chairman Bol was prepared to offer them none and the revenants even less. Gyrating bodies, some of them cleaved clean in half, were tossed up into the air. With a single movement the revenants tore off faces and limbs. Massive hands reached down and squeezed the colonists heads to a pulp as though they were made of fresh grapes. Soon the screams gave way to baying, unhuman howls. The revenants settled down. There was nobody left alive to attack. Multiple hungry jaws moved in unison, the sound of the terrible feast carried through the speakers of the ship, the terrible sight broadcast for all the remaining survivors to see.

“Do you think this will solve anything?” Said Jak desperately through the intercom, addressing Chairman Bol. The rest of the Council were white faced and stunned. Col Gayze had thrown up on the floor.

“No,” replied Magnuj Bol. “As a matter of fact I believe I have started a war. But when that war is won, by whichever side, there will be even less of you and it will be very much a case of survival of the fittest. There is now enough food, on starvation rations, for another fortnight. Let this be my final gift to you. I wish you all well.” Magnuj Bol picked up a pistol and raised it to his head. There came a loud crack as he fired the gun followed by a splash of blood as the Chairman’s brains splattered on to the camera, drenching everybody’s screens in a hideous scarlet hue. Arianna collapsed to the floor. Col Gayze, the man who had previous advocated an even larger genocide, fell to his knees and vomited all over the carpet once more. Sol and Jak just looked on stunned. At that moment the doors to the office swung open. The lockdown was switched off. Sol hurried into the room and crouched down over the Chairman’s body. He already knew the man was beyond help.