Breaking Ranks

Braun: Engineering Chaos

Deck 3

Port Engineering Section of the Tranquility

I am to wear peasant clothes today. This is not a typical occurrence and in fact I had to look up the word "peasant" on my data pad. The definition is "poor farmer" but it may as well just say passenger. The useless mouths of a bygone Earth were turned to menial labor not long after the Journey began; the privileged sons and daughters of a boiling planet's billionaire aristocracy now occupying the lowest rungs of human society. Or at least as much of human society wealthy or useful enough to be crammed into a generation ship like the Tranquility.

And I am to join them for a time.

Still, what did I expect? I joined Engineering Chief Ackerman's intelligence section to do my part in helping him take back the ship. It's not so unreasonable that I would have to infiltrate the passengers down below, so far belowdecks beneath the prostitutes and the junkies and the thieves that you have to take an elevator.

I'm not looking forward to the smell. And these clothes are so coarse. I suppose they make them themselves out of whatever crude material they have. It's strange, they're just below us after all, but I could go months without thinking about the passengers. The Agricultural Section is just where the food comes from and the shit goes. I suppose I'll see trees but that's nothing to get excited about. I've seen the vids; I know what they look like.

"The sdkasd," says Vikalia as I shrug the garment on. My ex. In a small section like Engineering you tend to see the same faces. I'd rather not see hers and it's clear the feeling is mutual. "Blah blah blah," she says, and gives me that annoyed look that is so familiar. "Are you listening?"

"These clothes are so itchy," I said, scratching under one arm. Just when I think I've got that itch handled another appears. "Why do I have to be a passenger?"

"Not up for the job?" Vikalia folds her arms and looks at me in triumph. "I told Chief Ackerman you might not be. But he said he had a good feeling about you."

I try not to show how much that means to me. Ackerman was always there when it counted, back when he was just a Sub-Section Chief of no particular importance. I willed myself to stop itching, or at least stop scratching.

"Oh, it's no problem. I'm ready."

"Well, you'd better be. Here's your gear. Report to the elevator in ten minutes. We have guards out to make sure no one spots you. Your contact is a merchant on our payroll."

I nodded, grabbing the backpack she had handed me. Even this is nothing like the mass produced backpacks of the Fabrication Section. It's a ragged mess of cloth held together by rotting twine and fading dreams. I'll blend in, at least. Vikalia and I had more than our share of problems together but she earned her place as Ackerman's second-in-command by merit alone. No doubt she knows exactly what these passengers look like.

In the backpack is a radio.

That's a death sentence right there, though I'm breaking Regulations just by an unsanctioned visit to the Agricultural Section. Ever since the First Mutiny they've been walled off from human society. Over generations they degraded into barbaric filth, ignorant of the Journey, ignorant of anything but the Regulations they must follow to keep the Tranquility fed.

So it's a death sentence upon a death sentence, but I know the Seraphim for the cruel bloody-minded bastards they are. Anything that threatens the Mission Commander's rule will be punished with brutality. It's crucifixion if I'm caught, or perhaps I'll be frogmarched to an airlock like the mutineers of old. You'd have to be some kind of cold-hearted monster to join up with the Seraphim.

I look up to see Vikalia staring at me as I strap my backpack on. She'd fit in well enough, if she'd been born up near the Bridge instead of down here in the Engineering Section.

"Merchant. Got it. So what are we selling?"

She smiled, the first smile I had seen on her for months, and my stomach dropped at the sight of it. "You're selling human waste for their crops. Try and hold your nose as best you can for the next week."