Redshirts (27 page)

“We’ve got the same equipment here—” Hartnell said.

Dahl looked over to Kerensky for help. “Just do it, Hartnell,” Kerensky said. “Before you get us all killed.”

Hartnell frowned but took his sampler and jammed it into Hester’s arm, then took out the sample container and gave it to Dahl. “Here. Now someone please tell me what this is about.”

“Andy,” Hanson said. “To get to Xenobiology from here you’ll need to go through deck six.”

“Right,” Dahl said, and turned to Kerensky. “Come with me, please.”

“Who’s going to tell me what’s going on?” Hartnell said, and then Dahl and Kerensky were out the door, into the corridor.

“What’s with deck six?” Kerensky asked as they ran.

“It has a tendency to blow up when we’re attacked,” Dahl said. “Like right now.”

“You’re using me as a good-luck charm again, aren’t you?” Kerensky said.

“Not exactly,” Dahl said.

Deck six was exploding and on fire.

“The corridors are blocked!” Kerensky said, over the noise.

“Come on,” Dahl said, and slapped open an access door to the cargo tunnels. There was a gust as the heated air of deck six blew into the opened door. Kerensky went through and Dahl shut the access door as something erupted in the hall.

“This way,” Dahl said, and the two fished their way around the cargo carts to an access door on the other side of the deck and then back into the main corridors.

Lieutenant Collins did not look happy to see Dahl.

“What are you doing here?” she said. Dahl ignored her and went to the storage room, pulling out the Box.

“Hey, you can’t be using that around
Kerensky,
” Collins said, moving toward Dahl.

“If she tries to come near me, take her out,” Dahl said to Kerensky.

“Got it,” Kerensky said. Collins abruptly stopped.

“Take her tablet,” Dahl said. Kerensky did.

“How much time?” Dahl asked. He set the Box on an induction pad.

“Seven minutes,” Kerensky said.

“That’ll work,” Dahl said, slipped the sample into the Box and pressed the green button. He walked over to Kerensky, took Collins’ tablet, signed her off and signed into his own account.

“Now what?” Kerensky said.

“We wait,” Dahl said.

“For how long?” Kerensky said.

“As long as dramatically appropriate,” Dahl said.

Kerensky peered at the Box. “So this was the thing that kept me from turning into mush when I got the Merovian Plague?”

“That’s it,” Dahl said.

“Ridiculous,” Kerensky said.

Collins looked at Kerensky, gaping. “You
know
?” she said. “You’re not supposed to know.”

“At this point, I know a lot more than you,” Kerensky said.

The Box pinged and the tablet was flooded with data. Dahl barely glanced at it. “We’re good,” he said. “Back to sick bay.” They ran out of Xenobiology, back to the access corridors to return to deck six.

“Almost there,” Kerensky said, as they emerged out of the access corridors into the fires of deck six.

The ship rocked violently and the main corridor of deck six collapsed onto Dahl, crushing him and slicing a jagged shard of metal through his liver. Dahl stared at it for a moment and then looked at Kerensky.

“You
had
to say ‘almost there,’” he whispered, the words dribbling out between drips of blood.

“Oh, God, Dahl,” Kerensky said, and started trying to move debris off of him.

“Stop,” Dahl said. Kerensky ignored him.
“Stop,”
he said again, more forcefully. Kerensky stopped. Dahl pushed the tablet, still in his hands, to Kerensky. “No time. Take the results. Feed them into the sick bay computer. Don’t let Hartnell argue. When the sick bay computer has the data, the Narrative will take over. It will be done. But get there. Hurry.”

“Dahl—” Kerensky said.

“This is why I brought you with me,” Dahl said. “Because I knew whatever happened to me,
you’d
make it back. Now go. Save the day, Kerensky. Save the day.”

Kerensky nodded, took the tablet, and ran.

Dahl lay there, pinned through the liver, and in his final moments of consciousness tried to focus on the fact that Hester would live, the ship would be saved and his friends would make it through the rest of their lives without being savaged by the Narrative. And all it needed was one more dramatic death of an extra. His dramatic death.

It’s a fair trade,
he thought, trying to reconcile himself to how it all played out. A fair trade. Saved his friends. Saved Matthew Paulson. Saved the
Intrepid
. A fair trade.

But as everything went gray and slid into black, a final thought bubbled up from the bottom of what was left of him.

Screw this, I want to live,
it said.

But then everything went to black anyway.

*   *   *

“Stop being dramatic,” the voice said. “We know you’re awake.”

Dahl opened his eyes.

Hester was standing over him, along with Duvall and Hanson.

Dahl smiled at Hester. “It worked,” he said. “It’s you. It really worked.”

“Of course it worked,” Hester said. “Why wouldn’t it work?”

Dahl laughed weakly at this. He tried to get up but couldn’t.

“Stasis medical chair,” Duvall said. “You’re regrowing a liver and a lot of burned skin and healing a broken rib cage. You wouldn’t like what you’d be feeling if you moved.”

“How long have I been in this thing?” Dahl asked.

“Four days,” Hanson said. “You were a mess.”

“I thought I was dead,” Dahl said.

“You would have been dead if someone hadn’t rescued you,” Duvall said.

“Who rescued me?” Dahl asked.

Another face loomed into view.

“Jenkins,” Dahl said.

“You were right outside a cargo tunnel,” Jenkins said. “I figured, might as well.”

“Thank you,” Dahl said.

“No thanks necessary,” Jenkins said. “I did it purely out of self-interest. If you died, I would never know if you ever delivered that message for me.”

“I did,” Dahl said.

“How did it go over?” Jenkins asked.

“It went over well,” Dahl said. “I’m supposed to give you a kiss for her.”

“Well, maybe some other time,” Jenkins said.

“What are you two talking about?” Duvall asked.

“I’ll tell you later,” Dahl said, and then looked back to Jenkins. “So you’re out of your hiding place, then.”

“Yes,” he said. “It was time.”

“Good,” Dahl said.

“And the great news is we’re all heroes,” Hester said. “The ‘message’ was extracted out of my body and broadcast by the
Intrepid,
ending the religious war on Forshan. How lucky is that.”

“Amazing,” Dahl said.

“Of course, none of it even begins to make sense if you think about it,” Hester said.

“It never has,” Dahl said.

Later in the day, after his friends had left, Dahl had another visitor.

“Science Officer Q’eeng,” Dahl said.

“Ensign,” Q’eeng said. “You are healing?”

“So I’ve been told,” Dahl said.

“Lieutenant Kerensky tells me it was you who cracked the code, so the rightward schism leader’s last will and testament could be broadcast,” Q’eeng said.

“I suppose it was,” Dahl said, “although I can’t honestly take all the credit.”

“Nevertheless, for your bravery and your sacrifice I have written you up for a commendation,” Q’eeng said. “If it’s approved, which it will be, then you will also be advanced in rank. So let me be the first to say, Congratulations, Lieutenant.”

“Thank you, sir,” Dahl said.

“There’s one other thing,” Q’eeng said. “Just a few minutes ago I received a highly classified message from the Universal Union High Command. I was informed that I was to read it to you, and only to you, out loud.”

“All right, sir,” Dahl said. “I’m ready.”

Q’eeng pulled out his phone, pressed the screen and read the words there. “Andy, I don’t know if these words will reach you. Nick wrote this scene and we filmed it, but obviously it won’t be shown on TV. I don’t know if just filming it will be enough, and I guess there is no way for you to tell us if it worked. But if it does work, I want you to know two things. One, I’m sorry for everything you just got put through—Nick felt we had to really push the action in this one or the audience would start to question what was going on. Maybe that’s not a great argument to you now, considering where you are. But it made sense at the time.

“Two, no words I can say will ever thank you, Jasper and all of you for what you have done for my family and for me. You gave me my son back, and by giving him back you have given us everything. We will stick to our end of the agreement. Everything we said we would do we will. I don’t know what else to say, except this: Thank you for letting us live happily ever after. We will do the same for you. In love and gratitude, Charles Paulson.”

“Thank you,” Dahl said to Q’eeng, after a moment.

“You are welcome,” Q’eeng said, putting away his phone. “A most curious message.”

“I suppose you could say it’s in code, sir,” Dahl said.

“Are you allowed to tell your superior officer what it’s about?” Q’eeng asked.

“It’s a message from God,” Dahl said. “Or someone close enough to Him for our purposes.”

Q’eeng looked at Dahl appraisingly. “I sometimes get the feeling there are things happening on the
Intrepid
that I’m not meant to know about,” he said. “I suspect this is one of them.”

“Sir, and with all due respect,” Dahl said, “you don’t know how right you are.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

“So what now?” Duvall asked. The four of them were in the mess, picking at their midday meal.

“What do you mean?” Hester asked.

“I mean, what now?” Duvall said. She pointed to Hester. “You’re transplanted into a new body”—her point changed to Dahl—“he’s back from the dead, we’ve all come back from an alternate reality to keep ourselves from being killed for dramatic purposes. We’ve won. What now?”

“I don’t think it works like that,” Hanson said. “I don’t think we’ve won anything, other than being in control of our own lives.”

“Right,” Hester said. “After everything, what it all means is that if one day we slip in the bathroom and crack our head on the toilet, our last thoughts can be a satisfied, ‘Well, I and only I did this to myself.’”

“When you put it that way, it hardly seems worth it,” Duvall said.

“I don’t mind cracking my head on the toilet,” Hester said. “As long as I do it at age one hundred and twenty.”

“On your one hundred and twentieth birthday, I’ll come over with floor wax,” Duvall promised.

“I can’t wait,” Hester said.

“Andy? You okay?” Hanson asked.

“I’m fine,” Dahl said, and smiled. “Sorry. Was just thinking. About being fictional, and all that.”

“We’re over that now,” Hester said. “That was the point of all of this.”

“You’re right,” Dahl said. “I know.”

Duvall looked at her phone. “Crap, I’m going to be late,” she said. “I’m breaking in a new crew member.”

“Oh, the burdens of a promotion,” Hester said.

“It’s hard, it really is,” Duvall said, and got up.

“I’ll walk with you,” Hester said. “You can tell me more of your woes.”

“Excellent,” Duvall said. The two of them left.

Hanson looked back at Dahl. “Still thinking about being fictional?” he said, after a minute.

“Sort of,” Dahl said. “What I’ve been really thinking about is you, Jimmy.”

“Me,” Hanson said.

“Yeah,” Dahl said. “Because while I was recuperating from our last adventure, something struck me about you. You don’t really fit.”

“That’s interesting,” Hanson said. “Tell me why.”

“Think about it,” Dahl said. “Think of the five of us who met that first day, the day we joined the crew of the
Intrepid
. Each of us turned out to be critical in some way. Hester, who didn’t seem to have a purpose, turned out to be the key to everything. Duvall had medical training and got close to Kerensky, which helped us when we needed it and made him part of our crew when we needed him. Finn gave us tools and information we needed and his loss galvanized us to take action. Jenkins gave us context for our situation and the means to do something about it.”

“What about you?” Hanson asked. “Where do you fit in?”

“Well, that’s the one I had a hard time with,” Dahl said. “I wondered what I brought to the party. I thought maybe I was just the man with the plan—the guy who came up with the basic ideas everyone else went along with. Logistics. But then I started thinking about Kerensky, and what he is to the show.”