After three hours of drifting aimlessly near the Menali tunnel point under the watchful eye of Nokota, Brooke had finally run enough diagnostic tests to be confident that the freighter could operate its power core without mishap.
During those hours, Nokota’s captain had been helpful and patient, offering all of the frigate’s services including the use of several engineer ratings to assist with Zanshin’s revival. Brooke tactfully declined the offers, citing limited room inside the engineering compartment.
Lochlain likewise demurred the offer for additional medical support. Besides the concussions, the worst injuries sustained were to Naslund’s back and arms. The second-degree burns would throb painfully for now and itch terribly as they healed but the young man would suffer no long-term consequences. Lochlain realized with belated horror that he had invited the inspection team to retrieve supplies from the medical bay which housed the completely wrapped auto-doc. The sealed appliance contrasted directly with his tale of “Danny’s” protracted demise. The gaffe had gone unnoticed, however, and Nokota remained at her station near the tunnel point even after Zanshin began to limp in-system.
Four hours later, Zanshin was halfway through her trip to Carinae’s semi-habitable superearth, named Vela. Lochlain had ordered all of his crew except Brooke and himself to sleep once they were underway. During that time, the couple made only minor repairs to Zanshin’s systems and merely focused on keeping the ship pointed toward the large planet. A partially refreshed crew now relieved the exhausted pair.
They were lethargically making their way toward their quarters when Brooke bypassed the stairwell on the main deck.
“The bed is this way, Mercer,” Lochlain joked while pointing down the stairs.
“I remember,” she answered dryly. “I wasn’t hit on the head that hard.” She continued down the main corridor. “It’s been over four days since we played and I want to see what’s happened.”
Lochlain groaned. “Can’t we check that game after we get some sleep?”
Brooke waved dismissively. “Go to bed, sweetheart. I’ll meet you there but I’m not going to get a wink until I see how many we saved.” She turned the corner to the entertainment lounge and disappeared from Lochlain’s sight.
“We saved ourselves. Isn’t that enough?” he asked the empty corridor.
A minute later, Lochlain hovered over Brooke’s shoulder and peered at the game screen. “Well, we made it into Andrestea at least.” The game had paused after the virtual ship successfully docked to an orbital inside the Republic star system. Several military ships ranging from small system defense ships to much larger frigates and destroyers cruised near the orbital. Even in the game, the Republic’s military was pervasive and oppressive.
Brooke’s finger guided the game to the freighter’s status screen. “Wow, Shinshin is down to seven percent life support. It’s basically ruined.” She swiped at the screen to move to her cargo containers. Her finger wavered. Brooke inhaled deeply and looked up to Lochlain. “You ready?” Without waiting for an answer, she swept the game cursor over the first standard cargo container and tapped the screen. The container opened and the dead littered the floor of the unit. The virtual bodies were nearly stacked over each other.
“That’s… visceral,” Lochlain commented distastefully.
“I, uh… maybe…” Brooke stammered quietly at the repulsive scene. “Damn.”
The horror story was retold inside the next standard container. Then told again and again. Seven times Brooke tapped open a container only to be greeted with a ghastly visage of death. She angrily swiped her hand over the screen to clear the final, grisly scene.
Lochlain eased a hand to her shoulder. “It’s just a game and we knew those people were doomed,” he soothed quietly. “At least they’ve come home with their families,” he added, attempting to bring some meaning to the appalling display they had witnessed.
Brooke cleared her throat as she moved to the PRESERV containers. She adjusted herself nervously in her chair before opening the first container. Her hopeful expression fell immediately. “No!” she wailed before slamming a fist onto the gaming table’s surface. “They had a chance!” she protested to the holographic screen. “This isn’t fair!” Identical sights played out in every PRESERV container.
“The people inside the ship made it, Mercer,” Lochlain said while gently rubbing her back.
“That’s less than twenty percent,” she whispered, heartbroken. “Almost thirty-five hundred people… gone.” She moved her hand to turn off the game but Chief Engineer Shi appeared.
The winsome hologram looked passively at the players. Perhaps there was a touch of sorrow in the corners of her mouth but Lochlain thought he might be projecting her wistful expression given the ugly outcome of the game.
“Greetings, Captain,” she started. She sounded… sad. “The Brevic inspection party has finished with Shinshin.” The holographic woman’s face glanced respectfully downward. “All refugees have been removed from the ship. All ship’s logs and evidence of our time in Harmleikur have been confiscated. The crew has signed nondisclosure agreements in penance for our intrusion into Republic space. What are your orders—”
The hologram flickered in fits and bursts before completely cutting out. The game crashed.
“What?” Brooke gasped as she leaned away from the gaming board. “Did it finally short out?” She tapped lightly on the console without effect before sighing her resignation. “I guess that’s that.”
The screen flickered in response and the weathered face of an old man appeared. The image looked like a recording, not an animation, and the Asian man’s expression was as tortured as it was haunted.
“What the hell is this?” Lochlain asked. Gooseflesh ran down his arms as he recognized where the man was standing. The perspective matched the camera view in Zanshin’s own hangar, located just above the bay’s containment field controls. Lochlain could see the hazy, red barrier over the man’s left shoulder. He thought of Shi’s tag on his helmet, Zanshin’s newer drives and life support. He wondered about the replacement shuttle.
“My dearest Jiaying,” the elderly man began. He appeared to be seventy going on two hundred. Black circles darker than space wore under swollen eyes. His skin was impossibly drawn, stretched tightly over the skeletal frame of his face. The man’s lips were chapped and cracked. “I miss you terribly but even as I have finally returned home, I find I cannot abandon this ship. What right do I have to embrace my only daughter when I allowed so many like her to perish?”
Exhausted eyes dropped. “Shinshin is in orbit at Shui Wei and I have disbanded her crew. Though they are stained with the same shame, at least they will not have to live aboard her. I am a broken man, Jiaying, as broken as my ship. I can only pray that after witnessing the events that have been so callously concealed that you will understand what I have done… what I am about to do.” His tortured voice cracked as he begged, “Please do not think poorly of me, beloved. You have been spared the worst of the horror.”
His dark eyes glistened as they returned to the camera. “Song was right,” he confessed while nodding to himself. “As she predicted, the Brevics stormed aboard and erased all traces of the disaster that they created. But she anticipated their actions and prepared copies of the data Doctor Tsai gave us, hiding it in the one place the Republic would never think to look. Song embedded the data into the rewritten code of the game you are playing now. She tells me that the program is not only persistent but also insistent and that once you come aboard, the game will attract your attention. I know better than to doubt her abilities.” A tragic smile ghosted the corner of his lips.
“Upon completion of this message, all files pertaining to the joint Brevic-Tengying project known as Blossoming Flower will become fully accessible. This material will provide undeniable evidence of our corporation’s collusion with the Brevic Republic in their attempt to manipulate planetary magnetospheres. Doctor Tsai insisted the effort was an endeavor to double the number of habitable planets currently available to our respective governments but as you now have seen, the project failed with catastrophic results. Rather than admit their complicity in the loss of life, both governments choose to hide it.” Dark eyes shimmered as they stared into the camera. “They killed these people and erased their lives, Jiaying. Expunged women and children along with everything else that might lead back to what transpired. The fate of this evidence is yours to decide, for I am not a worthy judge.”
The man rattled a miserable sigh. “If I were a stronger man, I would expose Tengying for the monster it has become but I am too afraid of the consequences. Not for myself, but for you, my cherished. I harbor no illusion of the depths Tengying would plunge to retrieve this information if they learned of its existence. The danger would be unimaginable. Perhaps it is better to let the curse of Shinshin end with me. My last act as captain has been to retitle her to a name befitting to what she has borne witness. I can only hope that the trapped souls aboard her will find peace with you, their new captain. I will always watch over you. Peace and love, my daughter.”
The man moved an ancient hand toward the panel to end the message when a figure climbed up the ladder through the deck cutout behind him. Brooke gulped before she blurted, “That’s the chief engineer in the game!” She pointed at the screen and insisted, “That’s Chief Engineer Shi!”
The stunning woman’s face was a mirror to her hologram. Her mournful expression carried easily through the small game screen.
“Song,” the defeated man said in a voice thick with shame, “I disbanded the crew. What are you doing on board?”
Song regarded the containment field with despondent, almond eyes. The woman’s rich voice that Lochlain and Brooke had heard so often in the game now choked out the words, “I’m not letting you do this alone.”
The man’s posture collapsed as the woman approached him and lovingly placed a hand to the back of his head. It sagged to her shoulder and the woman’s fingers ran tenderly through grey hair before reaching for the control panel. The recording faded and disappeared.
Lochlain and Brooke sat in silence at the blank screen. After several moments, she inhaled sharply and scrambled to pull out her datapad. “Oh my, I just realized something.” Her fingers ran over the screen. “When we first came aboard, I looked up the meaning of Zanshin. I took the most common answer, a Japanese interpretation. I didn’t question it because of Mr. Oshiro’s last name. It made sense. But the owner was Chinese.”
Lochlain watched Brooke’s brow crease as a look of pain played over her face. Her shoulders sagged, crestfallen and she pushed the datapad toward him. He looked down and read the Chinese interpretation of Zanshin’s native symbols and a single word caught his eye: Brokenhearted.