Nalani's Choice

Nalani’s Choice

  by Shawn B. Thompson

  Copyright 2013 Shawn B. Thompson

  In the next hour, I would die. Either burnt to a crisp during Vela’s nosedive into Earth’s atmosphere or blown to a thousand pieces when the Vela explodes in space. The first would make me a Ku’wahine warrior, the second an Earther hero. My now dead sister Haunani had chosen the warrior route. Captain Tim Jones would do everything he could to be the hero. I didn’t care for either choice.

  “The stevedoring tugs have left Earth orbit,” Captain Jones said as he bent over the Vela’s control terminal. “I’ve tried everything, but I can’t open our comm port. Beam control probably assumes we died in cryo and is trying to figure out why they can’t access Vela’s remote controls.”

  That was the first good news I’d heard since I thawed to this nightmare. “Great. Control will analyze our sling trajectory and know we’re aimed at San Francisco. The stevedores will board and help us.”

  I didn’t say the rest of what I was thinking. We’d be saved, and I’d covered myself in case we got out alive. The Captain would confirm that I wasn’t part of Haunani’s Ku’wahine cabal; I’d thought of the plan to blow the Sail and explode the Vela before it reached Earth.

  The Captain’s head turned toward me. His lip curled. “They can’t do a damn thing to help us. The only thing they’ll be able to do is record your little sister’s suicide message proclaiming Ku’wahine revenge for Kalama’s overthrow. It’ll make sure I go down in history as the idiot pilot who chose two Ku’wahine whores as his flight crew.”

  The Captain hadn’t told me about Haunani’s message. She’d been more cunning than I’d realized. Not only did she figure out how to revive from cryo a day before the Captain and I did, she’d managed to sabotage the Sail so that it would sling the 80,000-ton Vela out of Beam and crash into San Francisco. Before she committed suicide, she also disabled our communications port while somehow managing to broadcast her suicide message. Impressive, but stupid. She should have kept her message to herself. That arrogant act would give the Earthers enough warning to stop the Vela.

  “That should make you happy,” I said. “If the stevedores can’t board us, they’ll call in a squad of Interdictors. The dictors will have enough nuclear missiles to blow us to a million pieces. They’ll make sure not one tiny atom of the Vela reaches Earth. The UN will proclaim you a hero who died protecting Earth from the evil Ku’wahine.”

  The Captain pounded his fist against the terminal. “Come on, Nalani. We’ve only been out of cryo for five hours, but your head’s supposed to be thawed. We’ll be moving at half the speed of light. By the time they realize what’s happening and scramble the dictors, they won’t have time to target us, let alone hit us.”

  He fingered the laser pistol stuffed in his pressure suit’s belt. “Get your helmet on. I can’t think of any alternative to your idea. But I’m warning you. You even think about double-crossing me and I won’t hesitate to shoot you.”

  I clenched my fists. I’d served under him for ten voyages between Earth and Havayi. Even though we’d always maintained a strictly professional relationship (I prefer my men bronzed), he’d always been fair. I’d never given him any reason to doubt my Beaming oath. “Damn it, Captain. Thaw *your* head. Don’t you think I would have struck long ago if I was Ku’wahine?”

  “Why do you think I kept you around?” He jutted his square-jaw. “You’re gutless. When I had to replace Kimo, I agreed to hire your little sister because she looked as spineless as you.”

  I drew back my hand. He grabbed my wrist. “If I didn’t need your help, I’d break every bone in your hand.”

  His grip tightened. Pain shot up my arm. The Ku’wahine were right about one thing. All Earthers are scum. We discovered Havayi, constructed the lens, and shared the Beam. In return, they annexed us. I blinked back a tear. “You put on a good front, but you’re nothing but a typical Earther. You Earthers always bully us into doing what you want. Haunani’s way may be the only way we can regain sovereignty over our own planet.”

  The Captain released my wrist. “Does the right to dance naked in front of an idol of Lono justify the deaths of billions of people?”

  I lowered my eyes and massaged my wrist. Me, Nalani Kanahele, the person who chose Beaming so I could spend half my life in cryo and avoid interminable discussions about restoring sovereignty, would have decide.

  The Captain and I stepped out of the pressure hatch into the ship’s outer bubble. I gazed out my helmet’s oval faceplate at the quarter-mile wide circle of the laser beam striking the Sail; a beam projected from the six-hundred mile wide lens hovering near Havayi that could propel the Vela across space for thirty-five light years.

  Haunani could never have completed her sabotage if I hadn’t taught her everything I knew about the Vela and the Beam. I shouldn’t have been so open with her. Even though she was my sister, we weren’t close. I’d been on two voyages with the Captain before she was born. But she was ohana, family, and after our parents died, I’d felt obligated to take care of her.

  She’d never been off our ancestral island and I thought Beaming on a cargo ship would provide her new opportunities. When I asked the Captain to hire her as my assistant, I had no idea she’d joined Ku’wahine, nor the opportunity I’d unwittingly provided her and the Ku’wahine. Damn her. I preferred life more than I hated Earther annexation.

  “We don’t have time to gawk,” the Captain’s voice snarled my earcom. “Move out.”

  To my surprise, he turned and started across the bubble to the spar ahead of me. He must have assumed that he’d intimidated me into following his orders or else he was trying to show me that he trusted me. He hadn’t succeeded in either. As far as I was concerned, the only thing he did was permit me to walk across the bubble without a pistol pointed at my back.

  I hadn’t walked in a suit for several voyages and had forgotten the difficulty of maneuvering with velcro-soled boots. Lift one foot, step forward, plant firmly, lift the other foot, and repeat the routine. The Captain was quickly out of sight and I was alone with my thoughts.

  They brought no comfort. I couldn’t think of a way out of this mess, and the same questions kept confronting me. If I had to die, shouldn’t I finish what Haunani had started and help my people? The Ku’wahine were extremists, but all Havayians wanted sovereignty. If it would further sovereignty, wasn’t I as a Havayian obligated to make sure the Captain doesn’t blow the Sail?

  It took ten tiring minutes of lift, step, plant to cross the quarter-mile to the door at the base of the spar, and those questions haunted me every step. The Captain waited at the door. He didn’t appear to be breathing hard. My shoulders and chest rose and fell with each breath, and I hadn’t even started the difficult part: climbing the spar ladder. If I was to make it to the Sail, I’d need to focus solely on the climb. The answers to my questions would have to wait.

  The Captain punched a code on the panel next to the door. The door swung open. He punched another code and turned on the floodlights that lined the spar. We stepped inside, and without pausing, the Captain grabbed the first ring of the ladder. “Meet you at the rest platform.”

  He’d climbed several rings before I grabbed the first ring. The walk across the bubble had required stamina; the climb required the stamina of a bull, the agility of a monkey, and the precision of a dancer. Grab one ring, pull level with the ring, then push up and reach for the next ring with the other arm. One miss and I’d float away. I closed my eyes. A vision popped into my mind’s eye. The g-force of entry pinned me against the spar wall, my face contorted, as the Vela, engulfed in white-hot flames, streaked through Earth’s outer at
mosphere. The stench of my burning flesh gagged me.

  My eyes sprang open. Why hadn’t I realized how much Haunani hated me? The little bitch killed herself because she couldn’t face such a horrifying death, but she doomed me to it. She could have easily pulled the plug on my cryo box and made my death painless. If she hated me that much, why should I help her? Havayians want sovereignty, but wanton murder isn’t the Kanaka’aloha way.

  Fueled by my anger at Haunani, I climbed faster and faster. Within five minutes, vice like cramps in my neck and shoulders replaced my anger. I stopped to rest. I held a ring and floated on my back. The Captain bounced from ring to ring without hesitating. I took a deep breath and forced leaden arm over leaden arm, one painful ring after another. When I reached the rest platform, the Captain sat on its grated floor, his shoulders heaving up and down. I