We chased the strandship down into the gravity well of a big, wet planet. The Onager wasn’t designed to withstand such a thick atmosphere, but Teller overrode the subsystems dedicated to hull integrity with a command sequence she wasn’t even supposed to know. She wanted the strandship badly, badly enough to risk everything.
I didn’t want it badly enough to risk everything.
I had never disobeyed an order. I had never thought of mutiny. I had never shot a person.
I turned the Onager up in time and the strandship disappeared below.
The lights in the brig never go out.
Christopher Rowe’s stories have been published, reprinted, and translated around the world. He has been a finalist for the Hugo, Nebula, World Fantasy, Theodore Sturgeon and other awards. He lives in a house built in 1900 in Lexington, Kentucky, USA, with his wife, novelist Gwenda Bond.
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