Titans
[50] CAL

TIMESTAMP: 15:45, March 22nd, 2122

LOCATION: The Hermes Starship/Base Planet PORHOM1, Quadrant 1, Aion Universe

Time slows down.

I’m watching Lilith, angry and determined, shoving aside the doors, headed for Atara – Atara, who has only just landed the ship, who is turning around in her chair, wide-eyed and terrified. I’m seeing Merc entering behind Lilith, wearing an expression that reads, Watch out.

Run.

And in the elongated seconds I realise the mistake I’ve made by unlocking the doors. Because Lilith didn’t want to come inside for a civil conversation. Far from it.

“Atara!”

Time speeds up again, sound returns to my ears. The alarms are blaring – who triggered them? Merc has been yelling – “Atara, run!”

Atara. Atara triggered the alarms, shocking Lilith with sound long enough to slip from her seat and move closer to the door. Now Merc puts himself between the two of them, hands raised as he tries to placate Lilith. She isn’t having any of it.

“You don’t understand!” she yells. “You’re all blind – both of you! This girl has been tricking us and you can’t see it because she doesn’t want you to!”

“Lilith, please, you’re not making any sense!”

“She tried to kill me! More than once! Why can’t you remember that?! You pulled my unconscious body from this very room!”

Merc looks at me, a sliver of doubt passing across his features. He seems to be asking, Do you remember any of this?

And I feel it too – the itch at the back of my mind, like a path I once had access to has been sealed and forgotten. But that can’t have anything to do with Atara. She’s a girl, not a weapon. She’s a friend.

“Listen, Lilith. We understand you’re angry, but we need to talk this out. You can’t–”

“I’m not a child, Cal! Don’t try to change my mind about this. Atara is a danger not just to us, but to the mission! I’ve seen it!”

Merc seems just about as angry as Lilith at this point. His arms, once raised to pacify her, are now crossed. He’s not on the defensive anymore – he’s on the attack. “And so what’s the plan, huh? Attack her? Lock her up? Kill her?”

Lilith replies but I don’t hear her – because for the first time I’m noticing that Atara is no longer in the room.

“Atara’s gone,” I say.

“What?” Merc shouts.

I stride over to the control panel and turn off the alarms. We’re greeted by heavy silence. “Atara’s gone,” I repeat.

“Christ,” Lilith says. “She could be anywhere! Don’t you understand? I’m not the bad guy here. We can’t let her out of our sight, you hear me? She’s dangerous.”

“We should search the ship,” Merc says. But when Lilith goes to exit the room, he steps in her path. “Not you. You’re staying here.”

“Like hell I am! She tried to flatten me under a ceiling panel not two hours ago. I want retribution. I want justice.”

“No,” I say, stepping up beside Merc. “You want blood. There’s a difference.”

“Cal,” Merc says, “replace her.”

I nod and leave them behind, moving quickly down the hall. Even with the hum of the engine vibrating in the walls, the ship is as quiet as a ghost town. Strangely enough it feels as though there’s less people on board than there was when we left Earth. It’s an illogical thought but it feels right, deep down. Like somewhere between point A and point B, we lost something, and now the ship is hollow – haunted.

I search every room I pass with little result. There’s countless hiding places on a ship of this magnitude and you can bet Atara has picked the most undiscoverable of the lot. It’s what I would do. When there’s no escape, you have to wait out the storm. And Lilith is one heck of a storm.

The more I search, the more I realise there’s little to no point in doing so. I’m about to turn around and head back when suddenly the power goes out. Instant blackness. Thick enough to choke on. I hear feet running down a hallway parallel to my position. The steps are too heavy-footed to be Atara’s.

Keeping my steps light, I follow after them. It could be Merc. It could also be Lilith. Who knows what sound her footfalls would make in this rage she’s gotten herself into. Soon I hear more noises echoing around the ship, until all directions feel equally populated. I end up rooted to the spot, unable to decide on a direction.

“Come on, Atara,” I say under my breath. “Where are you?”

Just then there’s a loud crash, almost an explosion of sound in the darkness. The noise comes to me from the rear of the ship. I don’t hesitate; I run.

Hallway after hallway. Through a world without substance, like a child has taken black paint to their canvas and spread it thickly across their artwork. Just before I get to the sources of the crashing, the emergency backup generator fires up and the metal interior is doused in a sickly, alien green glow. The timing is almost too convenient. It sets me instantly on edge

I round the corner and the damage is revealed. A section of wall panelling has collapsed across the corridor, exposing the ship’s skeleton: plumbing, metal beams, electrical wires. It leans precariously against the opposing wall in a duel with gravity. I duck cautiously underneath it and skid swiftly through to the other side in case it decides to topple the rest of the way to the ground. It quickly becomes evident that there’s no one here. But the wreckage has me transfixed. I’m trying to figure out how Lilith managed this impossible stunt, which no doubt took place in an altercation between her and Atara. Meanwhile a deeper part of me is plagued by an eerie sense of déjà vu – and a gnawing suspicion that there’s more going on here than meets the eye.

I tear myself away from the scene and keep moving.

“Atara!” I hear someone shout, muted by distance. The voice is menacing. Female. “Show yourself!”

I run around for a little longer, still searching, still thinking. I’m unable to stop my thoughts from returning to the scene I just witnessed. Nothing about it was logical. No person of normal human strength should be capable of such a stunt.

And then a piece of Lilith’s incoherent shouting is suddenly magnified in my ears: She’s not natural.

She’s dangerous.

Could I be going about this wrong?

I’m so busy thinking that I don’t see or hear Merc until I nearly run into him. “Merc,” I say, surprised. “What–”

“Lilith got free of me in Control,” he whispers, “but listen. Atara’s not on the ship.”

“How do you know?”

“The ramp is down,” he replies. Of course. The answer is so obvious that I can’t believe I didn’t think of it myself. “I’m going outside to replace her but you can’t let Lilith follow me.”

“I can’t hold her off, Merc. She’s military.”

“Then use that brain of yours to think up an alternative. If Lilith gets off this ship, it’s not going to be good news – for any of us.”

I think for a moment before the beginning of an idea comes to me. It’s by no means brilliant, but it’ll work. “Okay, I think I have something. But you’ll need this.”

Quickly I pull the Remote Starship Control – or RSC for short – out of my pocket and hand it to Merc.

Merc looks at it and nods. “Thanks. And good luck.”

“Same to you.”

I watch him disappear down the hall before I start back to Control, completely aware that there’s only two people on this ship now. And one of them is possibly armed and definitely dangerous. Doesn’t matter that I’m not the target; I still feel like prey.

When I reach the control room I head straight for the pilot’s chair. The engine, thankfully, is still hot and running. Meaning all I have to do is get it off the ground. No problem. Growing up it was mandatory for all of us to learn how to fly, and while I’m no Atara, I’m still adept at piloting.

I re-align the thrusters for vertical take-off, and launch. The altitude flicks over on the screen. Five metres. Ten. Twenty.

I input a series of commands for the ship to follow on auto-pilot and sit back in my chair as it does the rest of the work for me. Until Merc calls with news of Atara, and until I’ve got Lilith under control up here, we’re going to be in permanent geostationary orbit – because the best blockade between Lilith and Atara is a 10,000 kilometre fall to unforgiving rock.

Before leaving, I set up a security system to lock out Lilith in case she tries override the auto pilot. Then I close the door to Control and head down the hall in search of the storm.

I’ve been combing the ship for a good minute when I realise my mistake. The force of the realisation is strong that it stops me dead in my tracks. The ramp.

I didn’t close the ramp.

From there, it’s all running. It’s beating heart and alien glow and the thrumming of the ship as it rises, rises, rises. I had one job to do and I’ve messed up. What kind of intellectual prodigy forgets to close a door before take-off?

When I arrive at the ramp, the wind is blowing a gale through the hall, loud and strong. Lilith is already there, standing at the top of the ramp, hair flying in all directions. Her left shoulder is drenched in blood.

She sees me, says, “Cal–”

“Lilith, you need to stop right now!” I have to shout to be heard. The wind is ferocious.

“Atara isn’t who you think she is! She isn’t who she thinks she is!”

“I don’t understand what you’re saying!”

She looks back at the ramp and starts forward.

“What are you going to do?!”

Her hand goes to her hip. Beneath it, I glimpse something metal and dark. “What I have to.”

Lilith takes a final step. My brain goes into panic mode. I yell, “Stop!” And of course, it does nothing.

She jumps.