Chapter 4

Yuri checked his EVA suit’s oxygen levels. 68%. He had plenty of time. He heard the Captain take a deep breath, and the recording played on.

You know, Collective Pilot, I’ve had a lot of time to think. It’s hard to imagine that it all really happened. Earth is gone, Mars is gone. We haven’t terraformed any other planets or moons, save for Luna - which is also gone. We’ve discovered no other traversable wormholes in the Sol system. This is the end.

Was it hard? Annihilating 10 billion Martians. If you ask that question, you have no concept of the rage I felt. I still feel it, albeit it mixed with dread. They took my home, my family, my entire life away from me. Do you know how insulting that is? There’s nothing worse than being treated like you don’t matter. Especially when, as they soon found out, I actually did matter. A lot.

I could pass the buck and say I was just following orders, but that’s not the truth. The truth is there were no orders about what to do if Earth is destroyed. There was a chain of command, and then there was none. I just did what came naturally.

I recognize that this may be hard for you to understand. I wanted to destroy them. I wanted everyone left to suffer, and to die. Because of me specifically. I know many people were innocent, many were probably against the war. But I wanted everyone, innocent or not, to know that I am no weak or powerless man. And that if you harm what I care about there are consequences you must face. Even if they only knew that for a short time, or no time at all. Can you blame me?

That set off something in Yuri he hadn’t felt in a long time. But he was allowed to feel it now, no one was watching. It was anger. He stood up to address the Captain.

“Blame you? You’re not even actually here right now.” He shouted inaudibly through the void at the thousand year old corpse in front of him. “You took away everything that mattered! Even yourself!”

“I don’t understand.” The Captain’s agent replied. It hadn’t heard from Yuri for a long time.

Yuri sighed and sat back down. “Please play the remainder of the recording.”

The Captain’s voice continued.

The thing I can’t stop thinking about was what the Martians thought of me in those final moments. I would’ve been just a nameless soldier to them. But I didn’t need a name. They knew me by my actions. I wonder if they hated me. Could I possibly justify myself to them?

And do I even care? Does it matter if the dead hate me? Of course they would. But they’re dead. And it was I who killed them. Which means I mattered to them until the end, and they no longer matter to me. Fuck em. There’s only one person who’s around to judge me, and that’s you.

Yuri wanted to say something. That he did judge Captain Washington, and judged him harshly. The Captain hadn't even thought of the Collective, a whole other population, and its needs. And now Yuri’s people would die, because the Captain needed his revenge. Did the Captain ever question himself, Yuri wondered, or just keep pretending that he had no choice?

As if to answer, the recording continued.

But that doesn’t mean I don’t feel the weight of it all.

You know it’s funny. In the heat of the moment, you know what to do. Then when it’s over, all the doubts jump out like thieves waiting for the night, ready to steal your satisfaction.

One of the most intrusive of thoughts is that destroying Mars solves nothing. Earth was gone, it no longer had need for deterrence or salvation. But to do otherwise would be to let evil go unanswered, would it not?

Yuri thought for a moment. Removed from the emotions of the conflict, he cared primarily about practical necessity. Who cares about whether evil is unanswered if there’s no one left to do evil? Is it worse to have a world where evil goes unanswered, or have nothing at all? The Captain's voice continued.

But then, what is evil? One of the thoughts that I most wish I could suppress is the thought that the whole concept of evil is just a fiction we created. Something to make us feel better when we do evil to others. Who can doubt that to the Martians dead by my hand, that I am the villain? Even I won’t deny that many were innocent, and I killed them anyway. But we promised to retaliate, and it was a promise kept. They didn’t care about our innocent, and if we cared about theirs, then we wouldn’t be able to strike back.

The Captain paused as Yuri considered the absurd logic of mutually assured destruction, trying to come up with a rebuttal. But the Captain came up with his own.

Or was it necessary? Evidently the threat of retaliation didn’t work on the Martians. And why not?

It’s obvious in hindsight. Did we really think the Martians would just accept their fate as essentially our slaves? Of course not. No society in human history has ever accepted that fate without a major fight. And even when they do accept it, they don’t accept it for long.

Maybe the truth is that we weren't hoping for peace at all. We’ve always pretended that we care about what’s right or wrong – or getting the most benefit at the lowest cost, what’s best for our tribe or humanity and all that nonsense. That’s not what we’ve ever cared about, is it? I can’t shake the thought that we just wanted to win and that’s all we ever cared about. To have the largest possible difference between our score and theirs.

That’s the one thought I can hardly dare admit having even now. That the whole thing, all human relations since the dawn of mankind, is all a giant farce. What if all our supposed higher ideals are merely in the service of instinctual drives to be superior? Just like baboons, what we really want at the end of the day is stand at the top of the hill and waive our dicks around for all to see.

Did the annihilation of life in the Sol system amount to any more than just swinging our dicks at each other? Sure, maybe the Martians pulled theirs out first, but I didn’t hesitate to pull mine out either. And when I did, my cock was mighty and powerful, and it left no survivors. I can’t help but be proud of that.

And so humanity dies, not with a bang or a whimper, but with a lone, horrific cock, swinging around in the middle of empty space. So you could come by a thousand years later and marvel at it. Are you not impressed?

Yuri couldn’t help but smirk. Captain Washington had dictated the outcome, he had won. All because he had the last and best dick in the solar system, and used it effectively. Yuri was impressed, though horrified.

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That reminds me. You know what I dream about? You, the Pilot. A representative, or perhaps invader, of the Collective Union. I do think of my family from time to time, but I don’t dream of them. I only dream of you, every night it’s the same. You come here and find me. Except I’m still alive, here by myself with nothing to do. We just talk. Like you’re an old friend coming back from a long trip. And oh do I have a crazy story to tell you about what we’ve been up to over here...

And sometimes we have a conversation. I tell you everything I just told you. That I pulled the trigger. That I didn’t hesitate.

And I wait for you to give me some kind of reaction. That you’re appalled. That you’re proud of me. That you have no feelings whatsoever. But instead you just drop your head and start crying uncontrollably. Like a small child.

But Yuri wasn’t crying. He was just sad. Crying required being overwhelmed by helpless desperation, and Yuri had gotten used to that a long time ago. He wondered what he would say in the dream. What if he was in Captain Washington’s shoes? If someone destroyed Peace he would be angry at them too. But there was no sense in eliminating what’s left of humanity. But what would Commander Yurchenko think? What would anyone think of a man who showed disloyalty to his homeland, even if it no longer existed? Somewhere deep down Yuri felt that he would pull the trigger too. But he didn’t want to believe it.

And sitting there, seeing you cry, I just feel like an asshole. Because that’s really the last reaction I wanted. I’d rather you hate me than just be sad. Because if you hated me, then at least you recognize that I put my interests, or the vengeance of dead Terrans over yours. But if you’re just sad, it means I kind of fucked up, didn’t I?

Because what are you mourning? Everything. You’re mourning everything there ever was. The greatest works of literature, the sum total discoveries of human civilization, all resulting in a black hole in the end. Erased completely, as if it never even happened. The only remnant of the Terran victory over Mars, the deadliest human conflict of all time by far, is this recording. And eventually as our orbit decays over thousands of years, this ship will fall into the black hole as well.

You’re the only person that matters to me, Collective Pilot. Because everyone else and all evidence they existed is gone. If there’s no evidence that someone existed, did they even exist in the first place? But you, I know you’re out there, a thousand years into the future. You’re more real to me now than anyone I’ve seen with my own eyes.

That's why I need to ask your forgiveness. It’s the most important thing to me, as there’s no one else to provide it. Just try to understand – I had to destroy Mars, to let the Martians continue to exist just for the benefit of humanity would itself have been inhuman.

But you will form your own judgment. Just give my perspective a chance, that’s all I ask.

At this point, Yuri felt like he was no longer in a position to judge Captain Washington. He felt an affinity to, even a love for him. After Yuri’s mother and father died, he felt like he lost all who cared about him. It felt good to be at the center of someone’s universe again. To Yuri, the Commander was like a father, or a brother. Maybe even a son. All wrapped into one.

I sometimes allow myself to even feel hope. That your Collective scientists who shocked the world before will do it again. Somehow, with the help of this depleted and dead ship perhaps, you’ll find a way to make life return to Sol. Realistically there’s no hope of that whatsoever. The best bets would be either Venus or Europa, which would certainly need to be terraformed somehow, which you presumably have neither the time nor capability to do. And this ship lacks the hydrogen to get to either, and I’m guessing Peace is in a similar boat.

But I force myself to think that way anyway. It’s like a marathon. I only have to keep up the positive thoughts until I’m dead.

And that, by the way, is not far off, I can even say I’ve basically made it. My breathing is getting faster, the oxygen is depleting fast. And now my lips are turning blue.

One last thing, Collective Pilot – I’ve instructed my agent to give you superuser permissions at the end of this recording. We’ve got just enough hydrogen to pilot this thing straight into Al Khabir's black hole if you want to do that, but that’s about all we got. So do with this ship what you want, it’s yours now.

And that’s my final gift to you. This is goodbye. Captain Washington, signing off for the final time. So long, Collective Pilot.

Yuri looked at the corpse in front of him. “Is there any more?” He asked the agent.

“That’s all.” The agent replied. “Captain Smirnoff, I have now granted you superuser permissions. I trust that you have received the usual lecture from your spacecraft administrator. With great power comes great responsibility.”

Yuri stood quietly for a moment. He felt Captain Washington’s absence. He was alone again.

His whole life, Yuri was a mere cog in the Collective machine. They had the nerve to send him on a highly dangerous mission without so much as a thank you, just orders from the leaders who kept him and the rest of Collective society in the dark.

But now he knew something they didn’t know, a secret between himself and the Captain. The Captain didn’t give his message to the Collective, he gave his message to Yuri. He left enough fuel to send the ship to the black hole, to disappear forever. There was an understanding between them, transmitted across time. Yuri liked having the power for a change, the ability to control someone else’s destiny instead of having others control his.

If he were just following orders, Yuri would hand the whole ship over to his superiors and let the eggheads futilely try to do something with it. But Yuri wanted to take care of the Captain, to give him and his ship a fitting and honorable burial in the black hole. After all, there was no point in keeping the ship around. Peace was almost entirely out of fuel, and there was no chance to make it to a solid body if it passed through the wormhole, let alone try to terraform it. If he disposed of the ship, Yuri could just go back and say he saw nothing. There would be no explaining what he saw, no describing what the Captain told him, maybe not even a return trip. They would hardly question him, as there were no questions to be asked. Commander Yurchenko was way too busy even to bother checking the ship’s log.

Everything would be tied up in a nice little bow. The remnants of humanity were going to fade away into the cold void, wondering forever what happened in the Sol System. And only Yuri would know, but he wouldn’t tell, and no one would think to ask. The demise of the planets would be a secret between himself and Captain Washington, the last person Yuri knew who truly cared about him.

It was the perfect closure to the absurdity of human existence. The only thing Yuri had left to do was make it happen.

“I have a command.” Yuri told the agent.

“Entering terminal mode.”

“Superuser do...set target, Earth.”

“Target set. Reorienting.”

Yuri was knocked off balance and the ship turned. In front of him, the tiny black hole that used to be Earth stood in the middle of the window, the faintest of accretion disks around its center. A yellow target circle was displayed over the window, much larger than appropriate for the black hole’s size. Given that the computer probably still expected Earth to be in the way of any path to the black hole, he figured his best bet would be to set the course manually.

“Calculate new orbit, name Final Orbit, apoapsis current location, periapsis center Earth.”

“Final Orbit calculated. Expected period: 60 minutes.”

Yuri took a deep breath. He would not hesitate. He'd do what was necessary.

“Superuser do, execute Final Orbit.”

Yuri was expecting to feel the jolt of acceleration, but felt nothing. He wondered if Valkyrie’s graviton technology allowed it to avoid g-forces. But at last the agent spoke up.

“I have calculated that this course will cause uncontrolled reentry and destruction of the ship. To proceed, please specify ‘force’. Are you trying to scuttle? Please see scuttle help.”

Yuri sighed. “Superuser do...execute Final Orbit, f-”

He hesitated. An upswell of emotion hit his throat. At first, he didn’t even understand it. He put his head down and started to sob. Then he sat back down, and bawled his eyes out, like a small child, for a good 5 minutes.

Yuri was used to desperation, he wasn’t used to hope.

The idea had occurred to him, almost too late. He used to love to read Ancient American sci fi books as a child. And one of them – he forgot which, set way back in the 21st century, envisioned that Jupiter would be ignited in a fusion reaction, turning it into a sun, warming its moons just as the sun warmed the planets.

Valkyrie might be able to do that. Maybe the graviton beam could trigger a sustained fusion reaction. Of course that was the small problem. The big problem was getting it in range. Yuri had no idea how to make that happen with the combined resources of Valkyrie and Peace, and he was too exhausted to think about it.

Yuri realized he had to pull himself together. This wasn’t some space opera like the ones he used to read, where a satisfying ending was all that mattered. This was real life and there were very real lives at stake. He had responsibilities that were higher than himself, and if there was even the tiniest chance Valkyrie could save humanity for a little while, it would be the height of irresponsibility not to pursue it. Even if that was a bit unsatisfying to Yuri, or even to Captain Washington.

“Terminal reset.” Yuri said at last.

“Terminal is reset, history has been deleted.” The agent replied.

“I’m leaving now, I’ll likely be coming back. In the meantime, allow any visitors to enter.”

“So long Yuri!” the Agent replied, in Captain Washington’s friendly voice. “I’ll be awaiting your return, and don’t worry – I won’t be going anywhere.”

Yuri knew it was just an automated response, but it felt genuine. He walked up to Captain Washington and patted him on the back. A cloud of dust emanated from his suit and quickly dissipated.

“I forgive you.” Yuri said, almost expecting to see the Captain’s mouth turn upwards into a smile. Instead his face remained permanently frozen in its calm, dead expression.

He turned around and walked through the empty halls, until he traversed the airlock back into Unity 105. As he undocked, he noticed the feeling of dread had abated, but wasn't gone. If he had just destroyed the ship, there would be nothing to dread. But now, there was something left to lose.

There would be no closure. Not today.

THE END