While there was no rioting or discord as we descended down each deck of the Salvation, it was clear that there was no order anymore.

There were barely any crews at their stations, petty low-level looting crime, even the agricultural decks were almost bare of people, leaving the internal goings on of Salvation at a grinding halt.

Heck the only thing that seemed to be open was the dive bar on main. My bet being that it was one of the most heavily guarded areas on Salvation due to it being frequented by Miltech.

“What do you think about Harper meant about everyone, including us being kept it the dark,” I asked.

“I’ve got no idea Carter, but I wouldn’t believe anything that comes out of their mouths.”

Ro was a Miltech gal alright, and there was nothing you could do or say that would make her doubt her superiors or Miltech. Admittedly it was one of her only faults in my eyes.

“When are you going to spill on what happened during our jump?” She asked.

“Our jump?”

I knew exactly what she meant but I wanted to try buy myself a few seconds of consideration

“The jump. Remember? You said you were still stuck on the outside when Salvation jumped through the anomaly,” she prodded. She could straight through my strategy.

As we still had a long journey to the bottom deck of Salvation I began to tell her the story of the circle, snowglobe-like shapes that seemed to hold entire systems and galaxies, and how everything stretched around us before I succumbed to the forces and blacked out.

She had hung onto every word of the story with no judgement or interruptions. She believed me but was still rather perplexed about one thing.

“But how were you still outside the ship? Our O2 alerts were critical when we made it into Salvation and that was before the jump.”

“I’m not sure,” I said softly, trailing off in deep thought.

It had me stumped too. My sensors weren’t going crazy until after the jump, and I still had just enough time to make it through the airlock.

A contemplative silence sat in the elevator, and we were reaching the lower decks before I recalled another strange occurrence while I was outside Salvation.

“There’s one other thing.”

She curiously raised her eyebrows in anticipation of what else I could possibly add.

“I heard you on voice-link. Well it sounded like you at first, I was sure it was you calling out, but then it was the SecMajor. Trying to help me to a hatch door.”

Her expression turned into a confused frown.

“It wasn’t me. It would have been Henderson the whole time. Maybe your oxygen was more depleted than you thought by that stage.”

“Hmm. Yeah maybe,” I muttered as the elevator door opened.

We had reached the bottom deck. Salvations Atrium, and were only a short walk, a flight of stairs, and a brief elevator ride away from the Mortifera.

If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

—-

The Mortifera was swamped with crew, the large open bay from the main docking entrance to Salvation was the busiest I had ever seen it.

They were all restocking supplies and undertaking some major preparation, even all doors to the small fighter craft bays were open with specialists and technicians coming and going.

Scanning around I noticed that there were numerous soldiers from our new support vessel that were dressed in a slightly different type of Miltech attire, a more futuristic version of ours on Salvation.

There were just over a hundred additional soldiers

As we entered the bridge I couldn’t believe my eyes. Standing there, leaning against the centred ops table of Mortifera was SecMajor Henderson, Harper, and the guy I had shot in the leg not even a couple of hours ago.

“Relax you two,” said Henderson.

Harper still had the menacing grin on his face. Meanwhile the guy who I had shot was in a chair, hand over his dressed wound and occasionally drawing in sharp breaths through his teeth.

“I wish you didn’t fucking shoot me in the leg Carter you dick.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t have talked shit,” I snapped back.

Henderson smacked her hand on the table to take quick care of the squabble.

“Carter. Apologise so he stops complaining would you.”

I offered a halfhearted apology which he accepted similarly, like two children being forced to make up by a teacher. The worst.

“Took one for the team eh Peter’s?” Jeremy joked as he walked onto the bridge.

“Took one for the team? Sorry but what the fuck is this?” I lashed out.

Henderson dropped her hand in a ‘you got the floor’ motion to Jeremy. He spent the next several minutes repeating the same story to

“You mean to tell me that you orchestrated a whole mutiny on Salvation.”

She nodded with a smile of satisfaction. The chess master at play. She had planned this with Jeremy before we had even left for Nuvora on the Mortifera.

Harper, a high ranking Miltech officer had approached Jeremy not long after our battle with the Dominus.

He wasn’t sure when or how but the Dominus had been in contact with several Miltech officers in addition to Kai before we even approached them for the first time.

It was after being approached by Harper that Jeremy was also confided in by Peter’s, who like Harper had been propositioned to sabotage Salvation and defect to the Dominus.

From that point in time, Harper had the approval, backing, and support of both the Major and SecMajor of Salvation to incite a mutiny and disruption across the ship.

They used the aftermath of the battle around Biterra and our visit to Nuvora to their advantage, increasing the frustration of passengers, crew and Miltech ten fold. All the while, sending messages out to the Dominus about a wounded and imploding Salvation that was ripe for the taking.

It was a plan that would gain an upper hand on the Dominus while also flushing out Miltech and Salvation crew members that had been compromised.

We had approximately a week until the Dominus would try to ambush the Salvation, Harpers intel was that the Dominus fleet would be hiding in orbit around one of the outer planets of the Biterra system.

Harper was to remain in contact with them and continue playing the part of the defector right up until they attacked, meanwhile as far as the rest of Miltech and Salvation were concerned, we were prepping for a large-scale training exercise.

”By the way. Thank you for the heads up about the nearest hatch door when I was hanging off the edge of Salvation,” I said to Henderson on my way out.

She raised an eyebrow. Prompting me that I needed to elaborate.

“You — that was you right? Even called me an idiot for asking if it was you at the time,” I added.

“Definitely something I’d say to you, but I don’t recall helping you Carter.”

Unable to tell what was a lie or truth with the SecMajor anymore, I left scratching my head in confusion.

—

A week had passed and Harper had kept exceptionally well at playing his role of lead mutineer.

Everyday we’d start restoring order to the decks of Salvation, and each day it seemed like there were new flare ups of disruption, undoing everything we had done the day prior.

When we had got the crews back to work, they would come in and make them strike again. When we tried to apprehend unruly passengers, they were there to free them. It wore me down so much that I started to actually look forward to another fight with the Dominus fleet, even though death was always likely…that’s how over it I was and it was coming up rather quickly.

As we contained another strike an announcement was made across the ship. It was to inform passengers and crew that the ‘training operation’ had begun as we were approaching the outer planet B-004 of the Biterra system.

As part of the Miltech training all passengers including crew were ordered to their quarters with Miltech to lockdown at their stations or to make their way to the Mortifera. This was to give the appearance of a crippled ship and to stop any missed leaks to the Dominus while also having less eyes on the takedown of the defectors.

Soon the brig was to be full of new prisoners, the Salvation to seem like easy prey for the Dominus, and me to have another crack at piloting a fighter.