Guilt of the Innocents

A science fiction short story

Guilt of the Innocents

It was years ago. Earth years, mind you. I know, most colonies dropped the date system inherited from mother-world. This was the dark ages again, actually the dark matter age, as how it will be called later.

Let’s not get ahead of ourselves yet.

So you wanted me to testify. I told you not to listen to this old man’s blabbering, but here you go. Maybe you leave me alone after you hear the truth.

I don’t have much time left, anyway.

I was just a second grade maintenance engineer before the war broke out. Sent around the ship, fixing broken control panels. Replacing burnt out components. Occasionally purge memory banks, align and configure sensors, that sort of things. Repetitive, but paid well. And I enjoyed it.

A year into the war, I had plenty of experience fixing the weapon systems too. I tried not to think about what are those used for. And in some ways, we were on the just side. But I suppose both sides always thinks that. Nevertheless, felt like progress.

We were always near a friendly port. A day or two, not much more. Often we patrolled the same stars. It was just a small frigate, two dozen crew, a few officers.

It was our homestead. The Karskian systems, five small yellow stars, maybe a dozen habitable planets. We lived there for two hundred years. My grand-grand father came to start a new life here.

Until one day, was maybe three years into the war, they came. Earthers, with a fancy carrier battle group. We could not put up a fight, so captain ordered us to fall back. Joined a fleet centre, in the Perseus Arm, it was an old shipyard.

The war was there, on a low burner, not much happening for years. The silence was about to end. A few weeks, ships were coming from all over. Day by day, hundreds more orbited the shipyard and the planets nearby. I looked for a new ship to sell my services. Kinda outgrown the old frigate.

We did not had a central government. Not much organisation anyhow. So wouldn’t be a desertion, more like an employer change. My old captain was not happy seeing me leave, but knew he couldn’t talk me out of it. A newly reconstructed cruiser needed all the hands they could muster, so I joined.

It was like a queen among the stars. Originally built for a travel agency or a cruise-line operator, don’t know. Now it sported the most modern weapons the colonies could build. Drones, torpedoes, some capable of faster than light speed themselves. We had plenty of weapon slots to maintain daily, you know, if it does not turn, hard to fire on those damned fighters.

And you have to fend them off until you somehow find their mothership. Then the torpedoes, your drones or fighters can do the job. Though we never could take on a federal navy carrier. They were armed to the teeth.

Somehow we were still in the fight after years. Still don’t understand entirely, why the federation didn’t just wipe the floor with us. They could have done it, they had the army and the hardware. Maybe they lacked the will.

Days go by, then without warning, the cruiser next to us just jumps away. Then the next one, another, a few minutes and we are speeding too. The stars just moves. You never realise if the universe moves or you.

I could not recognise the planets we visited. At the beginning. After a dozen, I saw home once more. At least what I called home at the time, I swear I could see the ranch and the domes my forerunners built from orbit. Then the flashes started.

Blaring and glaring alarms, commands barked at us which deck to report to. A bulkhead didn’t close, so had to weld it shut myself. Was rewiring a burnt out weapon console when I got a new order. Report to the bridge, on the double.

So I ran, two of my friends and colleagues in my wake. We almost throw up our lungs after the five minutes sprint. We weren’t warriors after all. But we were fighters at heart.

The navigation console blow out and I had to rewire it. The captain was barking orders into the comms for engineering, the ship was sluggish without direct control. He shouted at me to hurry up, we have a closing in.

I looked up for a moment on the main screen. Wish I would not have done it. My pulse, almost blinded by the rush of blood. Another cruiser was just torn apart by the federal carrier from close quarters. We were engaged next.

As the fighters, drones, torpedoes and other projectiles tear down into our hull, they pushed us into the atmosphere. Gonna burn up at least above my birthplace. Not today.

Half of the panels I managed to reconnect. Captain shouts into my ear asking if I can use it. I looked around the bridge. Most men were laying in pools of blood. The one with the helmsman stripes breathing, but entire face burnt to crisp.

I reply, “I have to now!”. Fortunately some nights the frigate helmsman showed the controls to me. Directions on a three dimensional compass, bearing, strafing. Even to fire up the Alcubierre drives.

Captain says the bearings, I enter it but the ship does not move. Captain says steady, so I wait. The carrier turns its side toward us on the screen. Another cruiser comes behind of it. I see lights on the side of the carrier, like those old Earth movies where ships broadsiding each other.

Captain shouts “now!”, and I hit the Alcubierre drive for a second, then turn it off. We shifted, still a few torpedoes went right through us. We fire back, what we have left. Right into the back of the carrier. We are so close, I can see one of its drive rings blow out.

Then the another cruiser just rams into it. I can’t believe it, we actually can take out a federal navy carrier. What a victory would have been that day.

• “Why the conditional tense?” — a deep, monotonic voice interrogates from afar.

We drifted aside and the screen showed what we had done. The colony, the entire colony just a dark smoke with orange hints here and there. The place I called home, took all the hits aimed at us. And I was the one who KILLED THEM!

• “Why, you were following commands, and it was a war. Why are you responsible?”

The captain never said to use the drives. It was my idea, think I saw too many movies. Seemed cool move that might work. And I did not consider the consequences. [REDACTED] them… [REDACTED] the war, the ideals and all the [REDACTED]…

• “Pulse above hundred fifty, please, calm down…”

You wanted this “interview”, now you got it, hope you are all happy.

• “Almost, almost… what happened after? I mean the war efforts.”

Okey, okey, after. As I said, we had no central government. But we all were really self-sufficient. And we were fighting for our freedom. At least what we believed at the time.

A few weeks and a few more fast incursions into the Karskian sector and we freed from the federation all those systems. We patched up our cruisers and got adept repeating our so called success. Though not sure what happened in the other sectors.

Then… I could not return to just repair work. I transferred to another cruiser. Tried to forget or at least to figure out a way to live with my sins. So took helmsman, later tactical posts. I was at the helm during my last jump.

• “Last jump?”

Yes, I never travelled after. What I saw, I will never travel with the Alcubierre drives again. But nobody believed me.

• “You were the only survivor.”

Yes. Wish I weren’t.

• “Show me, what you saw.”

I… I can’t…

• “Just relax. Let your mind go to that day. Just flow with the memories.”

I don’t want to… I…

• “Bernard, it is okey, we have to know, what you saw.”

Are you sure… you will have to live with this for the rest of your days… should let it die with me…

• “Bernard, my order searched for what you saw. I searched thousands of years. We can contain it. Maybe, even neutralise it.”

Well, your life. Mine is gone anyway.

• “He is about to pass on. Pulse weakening.” — another voice joined in, higher octaves, mechanical.

Here it goes, the darkness inside the endless space.

• “Thank you, Bernard, you can rest now.”
• “Did you manage to extract?”
• “Yes. Death by natural cause. Record time of death. And include attachments. File it under need to know and top secret. Authorisation, Odessa Avanon.”
• “Authorisation granted. Interview archived. Distribution options available.”
• “Top echelon only. The elders will want to check it out, but they will be late.”
• “Package being sent. Time to deliver…”
• “Does not matter. It is here. I will buy you time. The minimum I can do.”

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The fictional story of a luxury star-liner in a style of an accident report by fictional organization GTSB