An array of pale purple and wispy exhaust plumes lit up in Liu’s sensor view. Five battlecruisers, three assault carriers and the flagship Vanguard formed the armored spearhead of the pacification force, each a fortress of metal drifting through the dark. Between them drifted two Harvest class logistics vessels, their behemoth hulls laden with spare reactor pellets and a selection of munitions.

  Ahead of them were the thin wisps of the Eos cloud, a giant wall that spanned a major fraction of the sky. The ships were titans swimming through the faint light of the outer solar system, most visible as dark silhouettes against the reflections from the nebula. Only their rear sections were actively lit by the blazing light of their reactors. As the formation loosened, the looming shapes receded into the distance, until only a tiny disc of pale light was visible. The task force was swallowed by the vast emptiness of space.

  System egress had been uneventful. In the Peacekeeper's CIC, Grayson and Liu stood as lone sentries. They were the only officers outside stasis. It was the first waking watch of the interstellar cruise, worthy of their first shared command. Their comrades had already settled into the neural oblivion of the deep freeze, with a few on standby watch. This would be the new normal for the next few decades. Sanchez’s voice, piped from the Vanguard, was a calm, authoritative stream in the shared command Neuronet.

  >Task Force Sigma, this is Vice Marshal Sanchez. System egress complete. Exiting local heliopause in t = 10.2 days. We are about to go interstellar. Acceleration and velocity match up to 0.08c. All task force, acknowledge.

  One by one, the cold, synthesized acknowledgments of the other task force AIs scrolled past Liu’s vision.

  >Acknowledged. DF-AC-1857D “Radiance”

  >Acknowledged. DF-BC-9521A “Dominion”

  …

  >Acknowledged. DF-BC-3372M “Peacekeeper”

  By now, Delta Draconis was a small, brilliant star instead of a luminous disc. The yellowish orange of its light was fading as the task force slipped past its heliopause, the invisible boundary between interplanetary and interstellar space. Liu shuddered. The Relativity would have been… lost around here, at the same relative position near Gamma Centauri.

  Nudge. Another fuel pullet was crushed to oblivion and burned with the brilliance of a miniature sun. The pulses of the drive steadily sped up before merging together into a continuous push, hurtling them into the black. The stars began to take on a slightly bluer tinge as the sky distorted forward around them.

  The CIC was empty save for the two men standing at their opposite perches, facing each other. The green light of the projection cast long shadows that seemed to swallow the empty perches. Liu was at the second in command perch, the auditor’s old perch, where she gave her monstrous commands and where she was finally stopped.

  Commander Grayson smiled like a child who had been given a gift.

  “It’s about god damn time,” Grayson muttered.

  Liu looked at him with apprehension. This small man being given command is a nightmare, he thought uneasily. His memory flashed back to that day over a century ago. The walk to the stasis chamber. Grayson’s hands hovering near the gun. His near certain doom, only overturned by the AI evaluator. And for what? Saving them all in an unorthodox way.

  Grayson turned his head to glance at Liu. His eyes were filled with a strange mix of worry and derision, almost as if he could sense Liu’s thoughts about him.

  “We don’t need to be in the CIC all the time. Get some rest, Liu,” Grayson ordered.

  Liu carefully unfastened his restraints and allowed himself to float off the perch before propelling himself towards the exit using the guardrails. Just as he was about to leave, Grayson added another command.

  “See me at the bunks in 1.0 hours.”

  Grayson turned his gaze back towards the central projection as Liu left the CIC in a cold sweat. Liu returned to his old workstation, now simply another cold corner of the ship. The lights still blinked in the quiet darkness like before. The padding had been meticulously cleaned by the janitorial synths, wiping away the dirt and sweat accumulated over years of use. He lay back, closed his eyes and sighed.

  >Speed up subjective time, he commanded. An hour of dread passed in an instant.

  The bunks were one of the few rooms for waking staff. It was a spartan testament to military efficiency with nothing but a cylindrical arrangement of padded recesses with g-force restraints and a thin curtain in front, just barely large enough for a man to stand with arms extended forward. The middle was an empty corridor with a carefully designed circumference, allowing two adult men to stand with hands held out. Yet despite the crowded conditions, each contained a locker, allowing each waking soldier to have at least a veneer of privacy.

  Outside was a water dispenser, trash receptacle and a bathroom. Liu Yang floated past the vending machine, past the now quiet CIC, past the locked cargo bay and algae vats, to the terminus of the corridor. This was an appropriate place for one of the few human designed places on this ship.

  Chief, now Commander Grayson, was already leaning against the wall staring out into space. Liu was unsure of where he should go, before Grayson gave him a command.

  "Enter. Seal it."

  The door hissed shut as Liu passed through. The chamber was claustrophobic. The two men floated face to face. Silence filled the room, broken only by their light breathing. Liu floated backwards towards a recess, trying to escape Grayson’s gravity.

  “Chocolate bar?” Grayson said, holding out a chocolate bar casually.

  Liu shook his head. “It’s yours.” Grayson silently returned the chocolate bar to his pocket.

  Grayson’s eyes rose up to meet Liu’s after a small pause. "We have a situation," he stated, echoing Sanchez’s understatement from long ago.

  "Yes Commander," Liu replied, his voice carefully neutral.

  "We have been given a mandate for victory in a difficult mission. It needs not be said that our situation is precarious," Grayson declared, his unblinking gaze meeting Liu’s.

  "To ensure success, we must respect the chain of command. As you understand, in military matters, the commander is the final arbiter of truth on this ship," he continued.

  "I understand, Commander."

  Grayson chuckled a bit. He looked down for a fraction of a second before his intense eyes met Liu’s head on.

  “Lieutenant Colonel Liu, you have the title, but not the MIA uniform or her powers,” Grayson reminded him. “Your responsibility is not quite as expansive as hers, nor can it be.”

  Liu became slightly flustered at the overt disrespect, but was careful to hide it behind a mask of submission.

  “I understand, Commander. Did you call me here simply to put me in my place?”

  This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  Colonel Grayson’s bitter laugh was a short, sharp exhalation, devoid of humor. He pushed off the wall, closing the already minimal distance between them in the microgravity.

  "Of course not," he said, his voice dropping to a whisper that was more threatening than any shout. "I am here to get your opinion on a maintenance issue. As you know, we have quite a history with some frequently malfunctioning equipment." His eyes locked onto Liu's. "We all want to sleep well without worrying about more malfunctions."

  A cold trickle of fear traced Liu's spine. "The stasis chambers."

  Grayson gave a single, sharp nod. "Dual authorization. For all command staff. No one goes under without both our codes."

  Liu quickly simulated a million possibilities in his head. There was no choice. To refuse would be fatal. A tactical truce was the only option.

  "It's the only way to ensure operational continuity," Liu said formally. He was trying to make it about the mission and not outright vocalize their mutual desire to not be murdered in their sleep. "I concur."

  Chief entered the command on Neuronet with a single thought.

  >Lock stasis maintenance protocol. Authorization: Colonel Grayson Joseph, Lieutenant Colonel Liu Yang.

  >Lock confirmed.

  "Now," Grayson said, his voice dropping from formal to brutally practical. "We need to discuss wake cycles."

  A layer of immediate, existential fear lifted. In its place settled the grinding, daily dread of their new reality. The schedule was the next battlefield, each independent waking cycle being a chance to outmaneuver the other.

  "Separate cycles," Liu said immediately. "One of us is always awake. This optimizes command continuity." This way we can watch each other sleep, he thought.

  "I disagree," Grayson said with a smirk. "It splits command authority. We are going into a military campaign. There is no room for confusion."

  He leaned forward slightly and lowered his voice to a whisper. "Nice try, Liu. We share the cycle. We wake together. We sleep together."

  The proposal was a nightmare. It meant constant proximity. There would be no time to work without Grayson micromanaging his every move. But the logic was sound, and to refuse would flag him as an immediate threat. Damn it, Liu cursed to himself.

  Liu countered, searching for a middle ground that felt less like a shared coffin. "A 1 day overlap at the start and end of each cycle. For briefing and debriefing. The rest, we stagger to ensure continuity of command. What is 1 day compared to an entire watch?"

  Grayson frowned, his glacial blue eyes locking on Liu’s with a look of condescension. "Don’t test me. I was in the fleet before your parents were even born. These juvenile tricks might trick a more junior commander. They won’t trick me."

  So what, Liu spat out defiantly in the privacy of his mind. You were mostly in stasis for that time. Yet he knew that survival required some minor humiliation for ultimate victory. Liu looked at Commander Grayson in silence and pretended to lower his eyes in a show of outward deference.

  Grayson nodded in satisfaction. "I hope you understand that we must share the cycle. That is the price of the lock. Other waking teams have competent shift commanders. They are more than capable of handling typical situations. We will be woken when major command decisions are necessary."

  Liu held his gaze, the memory of the cold stasis chamber and the hovering hand near the holster flashing in his mind. This was the better option. It was just infinitely more miserable.

  "I accept," Liu spat out bitterly. "We share the cycle."

  A Neuronet notification appeared from the Peacekeeper AI. Their fates were now sealed together, at least until they arrived at the destination.

  >Command wake cycle synchronized. Colonel Grayson Joseph, Lieutenant Colonel Liu Yang.

  "Good," Grayson said, the word utterly devoid of feeling. His tactical glasses were slipping a bit on his sweaty nose before he pushed them back up. "We have a sector to pacify, Auditor. I suggest you use our first shared waking shift to familiarize yourself with the threat assessment."

  Both men stood motionless for a moment. They had just ensured they would not die in their sleep. Now, they had to navigate the infinitely more dangerous task of staying alive while awake, trapped in the same room, hurtling towards an enemy that might be the least of their concerns.

  Liu seethed as he pushed himself out from the bunk area along the ancient handrails. Then he realized something from his own experience in the AI curated nightmare. Sufficient residual neural activity existed for communication. He could communicate with others, the same way he had been called on that fateful day so long ago to help remove the biohazard crate.

  He was not alone with Grayson. He had allies. They were simply asleep. They just needed to be reminded of the truth.

  The stasis chambers were the same familiar row of hatches. Everything felt like it happened yesterday, but lifetimes on the outside had already passed. His first promotion was an afterthought in the archives. The Auditor was dust by now. An immense torrent of memory streamed through his mind before he shut it off to preserve his sanity. He looked in the corner of his tac glasses at the dancing green.

  >Life support: 145/150 deep stasis, 3 ready alert, 2 active. Trajectory: locked.

  Liu looked backwards, as if he was checking for the presence of ghosts stalking him in the ancient corridors. Yet there was no sound except for the almost inaudible hum of electricity and his own quiet breath.

  >Ready alert roster?

  >Captain Okeke Tomas. Captain Lin Yiran. Major Schaefer Donald.

  Liu took a deep breath. There is nothing wrong with this, he thought to himself. This is simply telling Okeke the truth. Getting him to understand himself better. Helping him recover.

  >Neuronet message. Captain Okeke Tomas. Authorization: Lieutenant Colonel Liu Yang.

  A painful wait. But the Neuronet alert was finally acknowledged.

  >Lieutenant Colonel? I am not due for another 5 months, sir.

  Liu grinned. His message got through.

  >At ease, captain. I told you before, I’m still Liu. How are you holding up?

  >I’m fine, Okeke replied briefly.

  >How is your standby rest? Liu inquired.

  Silence. Liu spoke up again, choosing his words with the care of a neurosurgeon.

  >The AI dredges up many memories. Mine are frequently difficult ones.

  Okeke laughed over Neuronet, something he hadn’t done for years at this point.

  Liu had an opening. There was no alternative. Okeke had to be carefully primed to understand the truth as Liu saw it.

  >That’s the Okeke I know. Don’t dwell on the past. There will always be difficult choices.

  His neural laughter faded away into quietness.

  >Just remember, you only stopped her. You didn’t do anything wrong.

  More silence.

  >You think that? Okeke finally replied.

  >Okeke, you know what he did. What he made you do. You only did what you had to to save us in the moment. The rest was all him.

  Liu made sure that no key words would trigger a message review. As a new political officer, he knew exactly what those would be. He also said them with utmost conviction. Not a single word was a falsehood.

  Okeke fell silent on Neuronet again. It was not the silence of tranquility, but more of an eerie calm before an inevitable storm. Liu knew that a seed had already been planted in his head.

  >I can’t say too much more at the moment. Just enjoy the rest of your break. I will communicate with you privately when we’re both on standby. A real officer is responsible for the well being of his crew at all times.

  There was another brief pause before Okeke’s reply arrived at Liu Yang’s cerebral cortex.

  >Understood. See you soon, Liu.

  The Neuronet link between them was quietly severed. I told Okeke nothing but the truth, Liu argued to his own conscience. It is my duty as both officer and friend to offer Okeke a way to channel his emotions.

  Liu looked at his reflection in the glass viewport of the stasis chambers. Inside was a life carefully balanced at the edge of death by technology. Jagged shadows illuminated his face in the dim green light, twisting it into a complex, sinister shape. He looked away and propelled himself down the corridor.