CAPTAIN GRISHAM’S JOURNAL

Volume Twenty Three, Entry One

I begin this latest journal with anger in my heart. A fury that burns brighter than any star and a longing deeper than any singularity.

Mother Terra was wounded by the loss of her colonies at the end of that drawn out and disastrous war. She is crippled and infirm, her once strong institutions bleeding out on the operating table.

The broken fleet remains mobilized with no enemies to fight as a state of war lingers in the face of civil unrest and mutiny.

The old leaders have been thrown to the wolves and every backstabbing powermonger has crawled out out from the muck and the shadows to play at the great game. A game with human beings as pieces where lives are won and lost for the greater amusement of the players.

To my embarrassment I admit to being a pawn and am ashamed to say that my own father is a player.

So many aspects of my life became a twisted lie as his slimy machinations forced a noose around my neck.

As a popular war hero I was a prize to be owned, a useful tool in any power broker’s belt or a dangerous weapon to be eliminated. It was not safe to be around me. I was a black hole warping and destroying everything in my orbit.

When the woman I love was cut down by an assassin's bullet I thought I would die.

When learned I was engaged to marry the one responsible for her death I knew I’d go mad.

I fell into a void of boiling hatred that led to certain decisions.

The law would never come for the crafty bitch, not even with a mountain of evidence. Never in a million years. Not with her family.

She had it coming, all six slugs and every blossom of blood to bloom from her white dress was an expression of my love. Not only my love for sweet Margaret but for lady justice as well. And sweetest of all it was legal.

“I’m a navy man, I want the wedding on my ship.”

There wasn’t any argument. All of the snakes in their brains slithered into serpentine plots of social and public manipulation. A war hero’s wedding aboard his legendary warship. How the proletariat would eat it up. How the bourgeoisie would battle to attend.

“Only family and crew,” I said. “And I want to be married by a proper priest.”

That put to rest any possibility of superior officers crashing my party.

As we set sail I was fully in charge of the ship with all of the responsibilities, privileges and duties that came with it.

***

The starship’s ballroom was filled with the glittering white light of crystal chandeliers and the sweet simple sound of their tinkling singing in response to the hum of the engine.

Tuxedos and dress uniforms mingled as crew mixed with wedding guests. So many of them thought it was a joke when I shouted. “Arrest that woman!”

Just after she said “I do.”

But my men dutifully obeyed the order.

The wedding guests thought I was kidding when I ordered her bound and gagged. They started to worry around the time I read the charges.

“Countess Lizbeth Shelley, you stand accused of the murder of a member of The Terran Fleet. As per the war measures still in effect the murder of any fleet officer is considered an act of treason.” Only the chandeliers broke the blanket of silence that fell on the ballroom. For minutes the guests were shaken to the point of being speechless. I used the time to assemble the firing squad.

The Shelleys, my father all of them thought i’d been broken. Lizbeth wanted me as her trophy husband. She and her family had hunted this match since before the end of the war.

My exploits caught her eye and she was determined to have me as her own.

My father was equally determined to get his social climbing hooks into the powerful Shelley family.

Sweet, inconvenient Lt. Margaret Atley didn’t stand a chance. But she was brave. She wasn’t afraid of the enemy in battle and she wasn’t afraid of personal enemies at home.

Bribes and threats were as effective against her as a squirt gun against a battleship.

And God was she formidable, as kind as a kitten but as deadly as a tiger. It took a gang of ten armed killers to bring her down and only three survived.

I was shattered by her death and in stepped Lizbeth to put me back together. I almost fell for it too. I almost fell for her, she had me in her scented grasp and I was too weak to fight, or so she thought.

“I feel your pain, Tiberius.” Her words were sweet as honey, her touch soft as cotton. Her very presence was like an anesthetic sweeping into my emotional wounds. She numbed the deep pain in my heart and filled my body and mind with euphuria. I knew it wasn’t really love and like a heroin junkie didn’t care. I let her inject herself into my life, let her poison my mind.

But her poison couldn’t numb my anger. I may have been addicted to Lizbeth but Margaret is etched upon my heart in stone. She called out day and night for justice and I was determined to heed her.

“I’ll do anything to ease your pain, my love.” Lizbeth would coo in my ear. “Tell me what you need.” I never did have an answer for her. I kept my mouth sealed up like a vault, guarding my secret mission behind two foot thick steel resolve.

I held my hunt close to the vest, trusting only my co-conspirators. Friends and colleagues equally determined to track down Margaret’s killers. Men and women willing to risk it all for her because she wasn’t just a competent officer, she was the darling of the fleet. Margaret Atley was a genuinely warm and caring person in a war that was all too cold and impersonal. When her comrades died she didn’t just grieve for them she opened herself up to everyone they loved.

She was a friend to their parents and spouses and a guardian angel to their children. She’d carefully woven a quilt of connections between people ideally poised in military, business and government. Where others might use such a network for self advancement she used it to swaddle and protect the families of her beloved comrades.

Yet her kindness was never a liability. When it came to the enemy she was ruthless and efficient. She was that rare individual whose purity could inspire unconditional loyalty from both subordinates and superiors. So, it was understandable that those of us wanting to avenge her were legion.

We banded together and stalked the stinking underworld of Terra. A lot of bruises and broken bones and no few of them ours led us to the man we were looking for.

Fluorescent lights buzzed and flickered overhead as the vegetative workers plugged into the net failed to notice us pull one of their own violently free of his emersion.

Glaring warning lights flashed their objections as we pulled each wire free from the console.

They it isn’t safe to just yank someone out and I could see why. He flopped around on the floor like a fish for a good five minutes and wet himself before he was done. Finally, once he’d finished spewing slime from his mouth and was dry heaving with trembling force I took it upon myself to haul him up and throw him against the wall. My friend put a shotgun to his head so he’d have no misconceptions about our intentions.

“P… please don’t.” He stammered. “I’m nobody, just a mortgage broker!”

“Don’t lie to me asshole.” I slapped him hard enough to sting my hand. “You’re a murder broker!” I added my own gun to his crotch. “You arranged the death of the woman I love.”

He tried to act weak, like a rodent. Reeking of fear, begging for his life in the most shameless kind of way. Protesting his innocence even as we beat him bloody.

It was all an act. The man was made of granite. He refused to reveal his client, it went beyond professional courtesy to an almost militaristic devotion.

He broke of course, eventually everyone does. The survival instinct kicks in and a person becomes just like an animal willing to say or do anything to end the pain.

When I was satisfied that his ramblings were the truth I rewarded his honesty with a bullet to the head. Better than he deserved, frankly but I tend to have a soft heart.

Lisbeth, that manipulative bitch had a solid grip on her people’s minds. The kind of handhold that was slowly squeezing around my own brain as she wove me into her web of sweet poison. But the broker’s words freed me of her grasping claws and cleared my mind of her odious fog.

I finally had an answer to her question.

“I need you to die.”

***

Perhaps it was the shocked look in her eyes. Lizbeth, so used to being in control was now powerless. Standing at the head of Shelley Terraformers Inc she was like a god.

Her people would take noxious hellholes unsuitable for human life and render them just habitable enough for masses of desperate gullible fools to trap themselves in contracts that led directly to a life of suffering and an early grave.

Refugees, the young, the poor, people who wouldn't be missed. The corporation had the system rigged coming and going. The colonists pay Shelly Inc for passage, the mining cartels pay for habitable worlds and a supply of miners to work them. For Lizbeth every life she ruined had a number value and the war provided both the labor and the demand to make Shelley Inc the most powerful Terran corporation.

But power was no stranger to Lizbeth. Her family had always possessed it just as they always had money. An old aristocratic family, the Shelleys were some of the original spearheads of space colonization back in the early days if jump and dump wormhole engines.

They thrust into the void when others were afraid and came away with seven stars upon their blade. For more than a thousand years the seven duchies (four after the war) had been the personal playground of the Shelley family.

With worlds at her command and billions living and dying at her whim is it any wonder that she would have her rival killed? Is it any surprise that she believed she could control me?

Not surprising at all that she never suspected she could be brought to justice.

Her eyes became a fountain of tears, spewing forth their salty liquid in protest to the encroachment of reality. I don’t believe she ever once shed a genuine tear for Margaret.

“In accordance with wartime law still in effect as the ranking fleet officer aboard ship I hereby sumerilly sentence this traitor to death by firing squad. To be carried out immediately.” My voice was strong, unwavering and completely without mercy.

“You can’t be serious!” Her brother shouted, breaking the shocked silence of the hall. “I know the regs, you need fucking evidence!”

I’m sure my smile was ugly, I felt ugly. I felt like I was covered in hot stinking slime. It burned every inch of me from my skin to my soul, my guts were filled with it and I liked the feeling. I loved how the oozing hatred stole away doubt and made everything as clear as springwater.

“I’ve got sworn confessions from the assassins themselves and their broker. Sadly they all managed to take their own lives shortly after signing but before they did they named their employer and gave us a paper trail leading right back to her doorstep. Of course it was a sloppy arrangement all around but Lizbeth can be forgiven for thinking nobody sane would pursue a case against her. ” I said very matter of factly. Her brother wasn’t prepared to hear any of it. He sputtered, stammered and tripped incoherently on his own words.

“That doesn’t… p...p.. Prove anything.” He said finally.

“It doesn’t need to.” I replied, snatching up a rifle from one of my men and taking my place in the firing squad. “This ain’t a trial it’s a summary execution. Now, I think that’ll be quite enough jawing we have a job to do here.”

His grip was stronger than I imagined, strong enough to leave a bruise on my arm.

“I can’t let you do it.” He said, his fist tight and shaking. I do believe he would have hit me.

“There’s plenty of room next to your sister if you’d like to join her. I assume that since you know the regs you know what happens when you strike a captain on his own ship during wartime.” He released his grip, the shaking in his hands extending to the rest of his body. I will give him credit for meeting my eyes defiantly, I won't even blame him for crying.

“Son, please think of who she is. Think of the things her family can do!” My father said, pleading more for himself and his plans than for the life of Lizbeth Shelley.

“What they can do is absolutely nothing.” I replied coldly.

“Ready.” We raised our weapons.

“Aim!” Her eyes were begging now.

“FIRE!”

Each red blossom was a declaration of my love. Each gunshot a balled dedicated to Margaret.

Lizbeth was dragged away by the cold hands of death as a despairing wail erupted through the ballroom. To the very last moment none of them believed I would really do it but in the end I saw that Lizbeth came to understand that nothing would stop me. Nothing would stop justice.

***

Now I look at the ugly little ship moored outside the docking station and I begin to have some doubts. The Survey Corps is a far cry from the navy.

“You should be thanking your stars I got you this commision so quickly.” Commodore Sabrina Grisham, my older sister says in a chiding voice. “We barely caught the bomb in your car, if you stayed in civilization even one more week I don’t know if we could protect you.”

She continues. “Of all the enemies to make you had to pick the Shelley family. I suppose it could be worse the corporation doesn’t seem to be holding a grudge. If anything the new CEO is grateful for the opportunity you opened up.” She shakes her head. “No loyalty in business, I guess. With the exception of those fanatics your late wife of five minutes cultivated. Good move executing her legally after the vows were exchanged, by the way. You managed to snag a lot of the family’s holdings but of course they’re suing. Not that I expect them to win but the assets will be frozen till it’s all settled.” She hands me a stack of several documents, I’m astonished that they’re all paper. She smirks at the look on my face.

“The Survey Corps might not be as glamorous as the navy but considering how many colonies we lost over to the other side I’d say that right now it’s a lot more important. Smart operators try regularly to get at our information. We find paper documents discourage hackers.”

As I page through the manifest I find the files on the crew are not encouraging. Most of them are sketchy as hell, people with criminal records as long as my leg.

“I can’t say this manifest inspires much confidence.” I grumble.

“What kind of people do you expect to volunteer for a five year mission in deep space?” My sister asks sarcastically. “It’s gonna be a rough cut crew no matter who you get. Though I would encourage you to watch your back, some of these people are actually dangerous.”

The more I learn about my new life the less I like the look of it. Five years in deep space is bad enough but to spend that time surrounded by disgraced officers and convicted felons seems like a nightmare.

“The good news,” she continues while deliberately ignoring the despairing expression painted on my face. “Is that five years may just be enough for the heat to die down. Those frozen assets really hurt the Shelley family, one additional reason they’re so impatient to see you dead. They already lost three of their most profitable colonies to the rebels and they had to sell most of their stocks in the corporation to recover. They are a falling dynasty. In a few years our family may actually be more powerful. When that happens I expect the hit on you to vanish like smoke on the wind. You still might even be able to enter politics like you’ve always wanted. ”

Looking back at the survey ship I’m overcome by a sense of sorrow.

“You know, I really wish there was some other way. Right now I have the kind of influence with the public that could cause some real changes who's to say if they’ll remember me in five years?” My sister doesn’t answer, she doesn’t need to. I know the answer already.

My exile will only increase their devotion and upon my return I can sweep into power with ease. Assuming the fools and cheats don’t gut our home in my absence and leave Terra as nothing more than a rotted shell.

The colonist rebels and their alien allies want humanity to forget it’s home. It seems sometimes that I’m the only one who sees the long view. If the Terran Commonwealth doesn’t regain some glory, if mother Earth doesn’t shine as a beacon through space to all her children then they will be lost in the dark. In a few generations the colonies who broke away will be fully beholden to their mysterious allies, whose strength nobody can even guess at. When that happens the only thing standing between them and the total subjugation of the human race will be Terra and if she remains weak then all is lost.

I silently shake my head. All of that is a long way off and complete speculation. For all I know the aliens are nothing more than they claim to be. But economically speaking the problem is the same if not as dramatic.

Besides which I was never more at home than when I lived on planet Earth. There is nothing like breathing the air, basking in the deep culture and eating the native food of your homeworld. The thought of leaving it for five years with no hope of even visiting is just painful.

To add to that a total ban on every civilized world is icing on the bitter cake.

Do colonists feel this kind of ache when they leave? I don’t know but I know that I’ll miss my home like i’ve never missed anyone or anything even Margaret.

“Five years, not one minute more.”