Chapter 36
THIRTY-SIX
JETT
Two hours later, the Control Room was crowded yet silent.
Every station was manned, watched over by Eddie on the Captain’s podium, with Cosma attached to his side as his bodyguard.
Jett stood beside them both, rifle slung over his shoulder, arms crossed, foot tapping against the floor.
Outside the room, armed and armored Security officers waited.
There wasn’t enough now to do aside from providing local protection.
Jett waited with them, uncomfortable with nothing to do and the City gone to hell.
People had trickled in, manning their posts with dark eyes and grim expressions.
The previous Control Room crew had all disappeared without a trace.
Jett marked them down as Affected in his brain.
The replacement crew were the best that had been selected to remain behind, all of them volunteering their lives, if necessary, to keep the ship running.
Now those two dozen people sat at their stations, running diagnostics, relaying messages to different parts of the ship.
Security teams headed for Engineering and Tech to ascertain their status; Eddie hadn’t been able to get ahold of anyone there.
The Districts were quiet, with a few Security teams patrolling the streets searching for any remaining survivors.
Jett hoped that they would all get out before the end came, whenever that was.
The list of missing was already so high, in the hundreds of thousands; a literal mountain of names that he would have to look through one day, searching for friends and comrades.
Jett shook his head. It wasn’t the time to think about that. The tension that had snapped earlier returned as a miasma, floating up from the City below. It had grown stronger, and he was just waiting for the right moment to speak. To act.
Though it would mean leaving Eddie behind.
“Sir? We’ve got cameras online everywhere except in District 3.”
Jett turned to the speaker, a Tech Officer he didn’t know on sight. “What’s wrong with D3?”
The man shook his head. “I don’t know, Lieutenant. I just can’t connect to the cameras.”
“Can you connect to anything else in D3?” Eddie asked from his spot, hands flying over his own panels. Jett watched them both as questions were thrown back and forth while they diagnosed the problem, checking for any possible reason why one single District would be offline.
Jett walked to the door and called over one of the Officers.
“Go out to the long window and tell me what you see in D3?” Jett said, only loud enough for Smith to hear him. The tall woman nodded and hurried off.
“Whatever is going on is only affecting the local network,” the Tech Officer said. “I can’t access anything in D3.” He looked to Eddie, avoiding Jett’s glare.
“It appears that we have a localized blackout,” Eddie responded.
The door opened, allowing Smith into the Control Room, drawing attention away from Eddie and the Tech Officer.
“Sir?” Her voice was soft at Jett’s shoulder. “The lights are out in D3.”
Jett nodded, cold fear gripping his most recent wound, igniting a painful burning that wracked his guts. “All of them?” His breath was heavier now, his heart beating painfully in his chest.
“Yes, sir.” Smith disappeared back through the door, all eyes watching her as she left.
It’s time. “I need to go down there to check it out.” He watched the screens at the front of the room, focusing on the panels showing the last of the lifeboats being loaded and launched.
He turned to Eddie, who looked down at him, eyes wider and more alarmed than usual. Jett couldn’t read him that well when he was in work mode. Whatever was going on in his brain was for Eddie alone to know.
He watched Eddie swallow hard. “I do not like it, but someone should check out D3.” The words sounded like they’d been ripped out of him against his will.
“And it should be me. I was on the Golden Lion where this mess started.” Jett smirked.
Around them, the quiet tapping and murmuring on the Bridge dropped to complete silence. No one moved. No one spoke. It was almost as if time had stopped in that second while they stared at one another.
That miasma of fear wafting up from City choked out everything else. It was just Jett and Eddie and this quiet battle they were fighting.
The Bridge Crew were waiting for some resolution, for one of them to back down. Their reputations for being stubborn were well-known. And the rapid changes in their relationship over the past three weeks had certainly made its way through Ship gossip.
Eddie broke eye contact, looked down at the panels of static under his shaking hands. Jett knew he’d won this round.
“Yes, it should be you.” Eddie’s voice was firm, the softness reduced, almost nonexistent. The tension broke and the rest of the Officers went back to work, bringing sound back into the silence.
Eddie stood back up, any momentary weakness or hesitation gone. “We need to make a plan, Lieutenant. Follow me to my office.” He stepped off the platform and waited for Jett by the door.
Jett preceded Eddie into the room and waited as Eddie slumped into the chair. He locked the door and rubbed one hand across his eyes. “I don’t want you down there,” he finally said. “But I know you’ll go anyway, even if I order you to stay.”
Jett shrugged. “There’s no one else.”
Eddie glared at him between his fingers. “There are plenty of others, you just can’t let go of control. I would have to tie you up to keep you here.”
Jett closed his eyes for a moment. “We can’t let our relationship get in the way now, husband.
There is a lot at stake.” The desire to cross the room and wrap his arms around Eddie, to comfort him, was high.
It might be his last chance, as there was no telling what Jett would find down in D3, or if he would survive to see Eddie again. But he had to do his best.
“I watched you die six weeks ago, Jett. I cannot order you to...” Eddie buried his face in one hand, quiet sobs escaping as he did. “I cannot handle that again.”
“You aren’t asking me, Ed. I’m making the choice to go down there, on the off-chance that I can stop this from infecting another ship.
” He circled the desk and placed a hand on one of Eddie’s broad shoulders.
It shuddered under his touch. “I’m not gonna die,” he whispered.
“You’ll know if something happens, Farm Boy. ”
But he knew what Eddie was feeling.
Jett had lost almost everything that had ever mattered to him: Gin, his squad, his place in the CDF.
Then he’d joined the Neo-Tokyo and rebuilt his life with Eddie at the core, and losing Eddie had been infinitely worse than every other loss combined.
He couldn’t handle that again, just as Eddie couldn’t handle seeing him die again.
No matter what he would face down on the streets of Neo-Tokyo, Jett would make it through the other side.
He was older and more stubborn than his younger self, and now he had so much more to live for.
If ever there were two people meant to be together until the very end, it was him and Eddie.
Jett brushed his other hand across Eddie’s cheek, tilted his head up to meet Jett’s eyes.
“I am not going to die on you, Eddie Stone.” He felt the conviction in his words.
“We will make it through this, get off this fucking ship, and get to Charon. And when we get there, I’m never letting you out of my sight again.
We’re in this together, for better or worse. ”
Eddie held his gaze, unblinking. He seemed to be searching for something in Jett’s eyes, but Jett couldn’t tell if he found it or not. A long moment passed then Eddie blinked and it dissipated. Jett let his hand drop and he leaned back against the desk.
“We need a plan for when I get to D3. I don’t want to lose contact with the Bridge.” With you, Jett thought.
Eddie nodded, seemed to come back to himself. “I have an idea for that. I can patch your comms into the central computer, that might help us keep in contact.”
Jett cocked an eyebrow at Eddie. “You know I don’t understand this tech stuff, right?”
Eddie smiled. Some of the fear in his expression had drained away.
“I know, love. Your tab connects to the network for whichever section of the ship you are physically in. But the central network is accessible from the whole ship if you are given access. It should prevent us from losing contact, but I do not know why we cannot access D3.” His fingers drummed on the armrest. “Do you have any patrols down there?”
Jett shook his head. “If there are people in D3, I haven’t heard from them. I’m going to take seven other people with me, in case there are survivors that need to be escorted out.”
Eddie nodded. “Everyone that can get off the Neo-Tokyo are now gone.” He pulled out his tab. “We managed to get almost 60% of the residents off the ship. That leaves just over 350,000 souls on board that we cannot save.” He sounded so numb now, after watching the number tick up over the days.
Jett swallowed hard. The names of all the people he’d lost started their litany in the back of his head. He pushed that voice down, begged it to be silent. “Good.” His voice sounded normal. “Once I leave, you need to send the evac notice to the rest of the crew.”
“I will.” Eddie sighed. “Then I will activate the self-destruct.”