Illuminae (The Illuminae Files #1)(17)
McNulty, J, Sgt: ANSWER ME FUCKER
McNulty, J, Sgt: i guess they didn’t shoot u
Mason, E, LT 2nd: nope, not me
McNulty, J, Sgt: good news for ms hottie and my young namesake
Mason, E, LT 2nd: Bad news for Prophet and Dreadnought
McNulty, J, Sgt: ?
Mason, E, LT 2nd: they f*cking shot them, Jimmy
McNulty, J, Sgt: …
McNulty, J, Sgt: u f*cking kidding me
Mason, E, LT 2nd: DO I SOUND LIKE I’M FUCKING JOKING?
McNulty, J, Sgt: … JESUS
Mason, E, LT 2nd: lined them up against the bulkhead and X-ed them out. CO from Delta group too. And some Lt from Flight Control. Just straight-up shot them
Mason, E, LT 2nd: Only reason me and Carlin got off was because we were obeying direct orders from Prophet. They had it all on the comms logs. Whole show was bullshit.
McNulty, J, Sgt: FUCK
Mason, E, LT 2nd: They revoked my flight status. Decked until further notice.
McNulty, J, Sgt: wut the f*ck is Torrence thinking? We shorthanded as it is and they’re X-ing out our best jockeys? Wut they charge them with?
Mason, E, LT 2nd: On paper? “Disobeying a direct order in time of war.” Unofficially, I heard it was a gag job. Command is telling the civis on Hypatia it was the f*cking Lincoln that blew up Copernicus. Prophet and Dreadnought wanted to tell it straight. Wouldn’t keep quiet about it.
McNulty, J, Sgt: civis would shit bricks if they knew it was Alexander on the trigger
Mason, E, LT 2nd: You said it
McNulty, J, Sgt: but X-ing out our own guys? i didn’t sign up for that shit, chum
Mason, E, LT 2nd: Watch the chat, they could be monitoring
McNulty, J, Sgt: Dorian said the whole commtech crew is working full time on AIDAN, they got no juice to monitor local chatter, fool
Mason, E, LT 2nd: does Dorian know what they did with the civi’s we escorted over from Copernicus?
McNulty, J, Sgt: They all locked in bay 4. Nobody getting in or out
Mason, E, LT 2nd: no confirmation about Phobos?
McNulty, J, Sgt: shit chum, they’ve had constant outbreaks on Copernicus since we evac’ed Kerenza. Wut are the chances none of those folks are carriers?
Mason, E, LT 2nd: so we could have let the virus on board Alexander?
McNulty, J, Sgt: *shrugs*
Mason, E, LT 2nd:shit
McNulty, J, Sgt: wuts the prob? It’s a bug. 3 days and you’re good as new
Mason, E, LT 2nd: During the Copernicus SNAFU, AIDAN called it a “Class Alpha Zero Pathogen.” And command ain’t treating it like the common f*cking cold.
McNulty, J, Sgt: jesus
Mason, E, LT 2nd: you didn’t hear that from me btw
Mason, E, LT 2nd: The worst thing about this shit is we never even heard direct from Torrence during that whole mess. It was AIDAN that gave us the red alert. AIDAN that ordered us to fire on the shuttles. Prophet was just supposed to X-out a bunch of civi’s because the computer says so?
McNulty, J, Sgt: Order must have come from Torrence. The Ai can’t make calls like that
Mason, E, LT 2nd: Then why the f*ck didn’t Torrence transmit the order? He must’ve known Prophet wasn’t going to waste 9 shuttles of civi without meat authorization
Mason, E, LT 2nd: we couldn’t just f*cking kill them
McNulty, J, Sgt: chum, I know
McNulty, J, Sgt: I would’ve done the same thing in your boots
Mason, E, LT 2nd: The brass has got pants full of bricks over this AI, jimmy. I dunno wut’s up, but it smells brown
McNulty, J, Sgt: Dorian said they pulled the plug on it
Mason, E, LT 2nd: … on AIDAN?
McNulty, J, Sgt: ya. is why the engines are off
Mason, E, LT 2nd: Then what’s flying the ship?
McNulty, J, Sgt: momentum, afaik
Mason, E, LT 2nd: …
Mason, E, LT 2nd: f*ck me
McNulty, J, Sgt: I got some rocket fuel from a squaddie. He got a line to the spanner monkeys. Come over and have a drink chum
Mason, E, LT 2nd: neg
McNulty, J, Sgt: come onnnnnn best cure for those sorrows is to drown em, boy
Mason, E, LT 2nd: no drowning these ones, chum
Mason, E, LT 2nd: these badboys can swim
Subject: Nightmare time
Date: 07/23/75
Today’s group counseling session was taken up by a lady called Martha, who worked GeoSpec Analysis on Kerenza. I think. I guess it doesn’t matter where she worked.
Martha had three daughters named Julie, Lela and Katya.
Julie was six. She died during the evacuation of her school.
Lela was two. She died when their car crashed on the way to the evac shuttles. Martha’s husband Tony had Lela on his lap. He died too.
Katya was eight. Martha doesn’t know how she died, or if she died, just that she never made it off planet.
She’s been so quiet through all our sessions. Like me, she never really spoke. You couldn’t tell what was going on in her head. She’d sit there, hands folded in her lap, listening. But she’s been slowly coming unfastened, the last month or two. Strands of hair hanging loose from her normally perfect bun. Buttons done up wrong. Shirt untucked. Little things you see everywhere, but never before on Martha.
Today, she just imploded. She was sitting right beside me.
I don’t even know what set it off, but one minute I was counting ceiling tiles, and the next she was talking. One of the guys in the group, Thanh, was in the middle of some story, but he went quiet when she started. He knew it meant something that she’d chosen that moment to speak.