Diaspora

System missed it.”

  “It ate my arm,” said McKay weakly. He was clearly delirious from the pain and shock.

  Spreck administered a tranquilizer, knocking him out, then sat looking at his subordinate with sadness in his eyes as the ship cleared the upper atmosphere. Gray engaged the quantum drive and they shot off toward their next stop.

  Later that night, Gray and Spreck talked over a meal.

  “We only gathered enough food to last us for a few more days – not nearly long enough to get us home,” said Gray. “The other planet that has vegetation is another two weeks from here. So far, the System reads no animal life forms - I had it run a level three scan this time, just to make sure.”

  “McKay will recover,” said Spreck. “Thankfully, the q’Chek stress response floods the body with coagulant, so he did not lose much blood. But it will be difficult to adapt to the loss of his arm. Engineers are thinkers, but they also use their hands to build and to repair. This will be hard for him.”

  “And we need to deal with Kark.”

  “Kark, though he has a history of great service and loyalty, is now a traitor to the q’Chek. The moment he broke rank and followed his own agenda, he lost all privileges. He should remain in the airlock room.”

  “I agree. We can’t risk him trying to sabotage us again.”

  Two weeks passed, and Gray brought the Magellan-A into low orbit of the planet he believed would supply the rest of the food they needed.

  “Something’s wrong,” he said. “Short range System scans show there’s nothing here – no vegetation of any kind. It’s almost as if the planet was deliberately sending out false scanner readings. Now that we’re in range to run a full scan, it’s empty.”

  “There is nothing? Are you sure?” asked McKay.

  “Nothing but dust. Wait a minute, I’m picking up a power surge -”

  A blast rocked the ship.

  “It’s a trap!” Gray yelled.

  Gray quickly set a course and engaged the quantum drive.

  “Anglers,” said Gray, disgusted.

  “Anglers?” asked Spreck.

  “Yeah – they were fishing for us, and we took the bait. Anglers are a group we encountered not too long after we started exploring space. They’re sort of like pirates. Or parasites. They lay in wait, and trick their prey into getting close enough to be apprehended. Then they kill, and steal, and go on their way.”

  “We have encountered groups such as that,” said Spreck. “The King’s Army easily destroyed them.”

  “Well, this is just one little life raft, not the King’s Army. For us, the only option is to run.”

  “So, what will we do about provisions?”

  Gray thought for a few moments. “The only thing I can think of is an option that I do not like. This vessel is equipped with sixteen life support pods. We can put ourselves in stasis.”

  “Stasis? And be revived when we reach Earth?” asked Spreck.

  “That’s right,” said Gray. “The pods can be programmed to revive us after a set period. But it’s a dangerous option. We’d be completely vulnerable. The System is programmed to defend the ship from attack, and steer clear of unexpected anomalies, but it is just an automated response – it lacks the strategic abilities of a live person. If conditions changed in any significant way, we’d have no way to deal with it ourselves.”

  “Facing the certainty of starvation, it appears that stasis is the safer of the two options,” said Spreck.

  “Can’t argue with that logic,” said Gray. “Once we’ve put enough distance between us and those Anglers, let’s go below decks and check out the pods.”

  The below deck area had not fared well in the Angler attack. Storage crates littered the floor, and the lighting flickered like a damaged neon sign.

  “This isn’t good,” said Gray. He inspected each of the stasis pods. “Three. That’s all that’s left. The other thirteen are damaged beyond repair.”

  “But there are four of us,” said Spreck. “That presents a serious dilemma.”

  “If three of us enter stasis now, the fourth would have to make the food last another eight weeks. I don’t think that can be done. There’s only enough, even if severely rationed, to last about ten more days. I’d been expecting to pick up a lot more food on that Angler planet.”

  “q’Chek can only survive four to five days without food. Forty-six days is impossible. If one of us is left out of stasis, we will surely die.”

  “Humans are more resilient, but more than six weeks would cause serious problems, and most likely kill me. Having this ship arrive at Earth with three q’Chek in stasis – one of whom is hostile – and me, the captain, dead, well it’s just not an option.”

  Spreck considered for a moment. “Given what is at stake – the alliance you and I have forged, and our plan to end this war, I must reluctantly agree with you. Kark must die.”

  Gray and Spreck returned from below deck, both miserable that this choice had to be made. Spreck informed McKay of the situation. McKay took the news hard, but understood. Then Spreck stepped into the airlock room to give Kark the news.

  “I need to restrain you,” said Spreck, grabbing the cords Kark had been bound with previously.

  “Why?” asked Kark angrily. He resented being locked in the airlock room, a prisoner of the human and his former compatriots.

  “We need to talk,” said Spreck, binding Kark’s wrists and ankles, then tying him through his arms, behind his back, to a rail on the bulkhead. “And you’re not going to like what I have to say.”

  “You’re going to turn me over to the humans when we get to Earth, aren’t you?” said Kark. “Let them put me on trial in one of their primitive military courts.”

  “No. I am not going to do that,” said Spreck.

  Kark noted the extreme sadness in Spreck’s voice and countenance. Suddenly, his own face changed from one of defiance and anger to dread, as he began to imagine the worst.

  “There is not enough food to last us much longer,” said Spreck. “There are no more life-sustaining planets between here and the solar system from which to gather food. The only chance for survival is the stasis pods below decks. The three stasis pods.”

  Spreck let the implication set in. Kark looked thoughtful for a moment, then it dawned on him.

  “You’re going to let me die, and let the human murderer live? You must be insane!”

  “The human can make it so that this war will end. Together, he and I can save many lives. Unfortunately, you just want to continue the fighting.”

  Kark was at a loss for words. His mouth opened and shut several times as he struggled to grasp the situation and tried to figure out what he could say to change Spreck’s mind. In a matter of only a few moments, his mind raced through the classic stages of grief – from denial and anger, to bargaining and a tentative form of acceptance.

  “I see this is how it is,” he said coldly.

  “You also must know,” said Spreck, “we cannot go into stasis and just leave you up here by yourself to starve. Before the food runs out, you might figure out a way to break the codes, and escape from this room, take over the ship – even kill us. We cannot,” he gulped, “we cannot risk that.”

  “So you’re just going to kill me?”

  “Yes.”

  Kark lurched forward, fighting against his bindings like a chained dog, his eyes suddenly wild and ferocious.

  “You’re the traitor! A traitor to our King, a traitor to the King’s Army, and a traitor to the q’Chek. And yet, I’m the one getting executed! Ha!” he cried, looping back to the anger phase of his grief. “You make me sick!”

  “You were a good officer,” said Spreck.

  “And you have proven yourself to be a failure of a commander. I cannot believe I ever called you Master.”

  “I’m sorry, Mfpluest,” Spreck said, calling Kark by his near-silent native q’Chek name.

  Th
en he stepped toward Kark, grabbed him by the chin and placed his other hand behind his head, then jerked it abruptly clockwise in one quick, fluid motion.

  Kark fell limp in Spreck’s hands. Spreck sunk to his knees cradling Kark in his arms, and wept.

  After several minutes, Spreck emerged from the airlock room, his face stoic. “It is done.”

  Although Kark had threatened Gray just a couple of weeks back, Gray hated that it had to be this way. And he could see that killing Kark had taken a toll on his new friend. He wasn’t sure what to say.

  “Do you, um, are there any special ceremonies or rituals that the q’Chek perform for their – for their dead?”

  Spreck walked slowly to the First Officer’s chair and sat down, staring blankly at the stars rushing by on the screen.

  “The appropriate military burial for a King’s Army soldier who died after dishonoring his rank is to simply be ejected into space,” he said, as if quoting from a manual. After a silence, he continued. “Of course, we could perform the g’Huj p’Loria first. After all, these were most unusual circumstances, since his death was in order to save ours.”

  “Yes,” said McKay. “We should do that. It would only be right.”

  “What is it?” asked Gray.

  “Just a simple ceremony,” said Spreck. “We say some words remembering the deceased, sing, and say a blessing. Then we bind him in cloth, place a memorial marker on his body, and evacuate the airlock.”

  “Would you like me to go below decks while you do that – to give you privacy?” asked Gray, trying to be sensitive to their culture.

  “No. You should participate. It