Page 15 of Command

“Let us Upload,” Kaia blurted out, avoiding her husband’s gaze. “Let us all Upload once we get back to known territory. Or at least those who don’t want to join you on your little cohabiting suicide mission.”

It was not a thought that had even crossed Alina’s mind. Upload had always been an entirely commercial endeavor, reserved for those who could afford an afterlife. The thought of them just letting anyone Upload was so far out of the norm as to not even be flagged as a possibility.

“Kaia, we don’t have the resources to Upload seven thousand people,” Orion muttered.

But we have a rig.

“We have a rig,” Kaia argued, reading Alina’s mind.

“The rig is rated for five thousand uses, and we’ve already used a thousand of them.”

“Then we can take four thousand. Make it a lottery. The rest will just need to…” She glanced back at the uhyre watching her through narrowed eyes. “The rest will take you up on your offer of a sliver of the planet. That cuts the population, just like you said.”

Threxin was silent, hopefully thinking. But somehow, when he finally straightened his shoulders and opened his mouth to speak, Alina knew what he was about to say.

“No.”

“Why the fucknot?” Kaia burst out. “There’s no two-waycommunication, if that’s what you’re worried about. We can’t snitch on you from Heaven.”

“Because I command it, female.” Threxin flicked his talons at Kaia. “You are lucky I keep you alive. Do not test it.”

After getting out of the command center, Alina was escorted straight to the library at gunpoint. The physical library, since with the network disabled she had no access to the virtual filesystem through her NS. She was almost getting used to not feeling anyone there when she instinctively reached out for the thread of comms flying through the ship. News bulletins, orders, people broadcasting into the ether—now that was all replaced by deafening silence.

When the uhyre marching behind her shoved her to walk faster with the butt of his gun between her shoulders, Alina stumbled forward. She winced but stayed quiet as the rough contact aggravated her bruises from the other day.

At the library, she scanned the ancient yellowed shelves while her escort leaned against the synthwood wall near the door, slinging his gun over his shoulder. Alina had no idea how subspace drives worked, but at least she had an idea of where to start looking for information. The older the better, she figured, so she extracted two thick binders of Old Earth design document copies. The originals were long lost—either that or in the Celestial Archive under armed guard. But these copies were so old that they may as well have been as fragile.

Yellow and brown pages with faded ink required delicate handling. Alina had considered scanning them and presenting a chip with the files, but she had a feeling the uhyre wouldn’t trust that. She needed something as original as it got. Old and untampered. Something Threxin could believe.

She also dug up a copy of an Old Earth textbook on deepspace navigator design, which she noticed contained a theory on jump drives. Alina skimmed the pages, but only closely enough to see that they had discussed range and caveats of jumping. She didn’t have the head for this science stuff. But Orion Halen had to know what he was talking about, so all she had to do was get Threxin the facts and those would do the job for her.

Satisfied, Alina took the stack of materials to the uhyre waiting for her: “I’m ready to deliver these to the commander.”

“I take,” the big male grunted, holding out a callused hand for the stack.

“No,” Alina shook her head. “These are… delicate. They’re important. I’d rather do it my?—”

She pursed her lips when the uhyre yanked the books and papers out of her hands, shoving them beneath a massive arm. She winced at the sight of page corners getting bent and crinkled. “I take.”

Knowing better than to argue, Alina walked briskly behind him as the uhyre escorted her back to her cabin.

CHAPTER 8

ALINA

Kaia had been calling her into the command center after breakfast triage to do absolutely nothing except sit in the observation pit. Orion and Kaia hung around the command center a lot, monitoring the “proceedings.” Alina could see the way Threxin bristled even as he tolerated their presence. It was never explicitly verbalized in front of her, but Alina got the sense that he had delegated management of humans on the ship to Orion, and she supposed that meant letting him maintain some level of access.

Kaia never asked Alina for anything during this observation time, so Alina spent it listening to Threxin and the red uhyre gurgle at each other. After a while, she thought she could even deduce some words. Kaia would dismiss her after an hour or two, at which point Alina would report to the rear dock for Ariel scrubbing under the icy glowing glares of the guards.

Today she had a day off at the dock, so the only thing she’d had to do was deliver Kaia her meals, see if she needed anything, and then coop up in her cabin. It hadn’t gone well. With nothing to do but distract herself with Old Earthsitcoms, Alina spent her time cleaning and rearranging her cabin.

She looked at the freshly dusted empty shelf over her bed. With a sigh, she began picking up the Old Earth-themed trinkets she’d piled atop the mattress, placing them one by one back onto the shelf in renewed configurations. She grabbed the colorful cube made up of many smaller squares—a pivoting puzzle where you had to make each side the same color. Instead of putting it away, she fidgeted.

Alina had already tried to go to the medbay for her weekly appointment with Dr. Pertin two days ago and was promptly told to fuck off and get back to her quarters. Of course, she realized too late, with their NS disabled he wouldn’t have been able to perform a neuroadjustment regardless.

The vile uhyre patrols had let her deliver breakfast and dinner to Kaia outside the command center, seemingly amused by the triviality of the assignment. They thought she was just a glorified food fetcher. They just didn’t understand the nuances of this kind of work and how important it was.

And of course they’d let her into the rear dock for scrub work—someonehad to do it. But all other movement was limited, with people forced to stay in their quarters unless strictly necessary. She’d had to grab her own meals at the same time as Kaia’s, since they weren’t about to let her into the canteen again for herself. Really though, who’dwantto spend any more time in the halls teeming with monster aliens than they absolutely had to?

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