I look from Fassbender to Hugh who both share an awkward glance.
“He would have missed it if it weren’t for me,” Hugh says.
Fassbender scratches his neck. His skin glistens with sweat. Tossing the plastic juice container on the ground near the captain’s boots, he says, “All right, brace yourself.”
“Trust me. We’re braced,” I reply.
He clears his throat. “I believe Discovery Base on Avalon has been destroyed. Must have happened a few years ago,” he says. “There is no trace of survivors, but no evidence of death either.”
Roy grabs a metal bar above his head, using it to sit up straight. “Bullshit...”
“Excuse me?” Halloway asks.
My face feels hot. He’s wrong. It can’t be true. “We receive monthly audio recordings from Discovery Base,” I argue. “They are making progress with the samples. They’re waiting for us to land.”
There was one playback from a few weeks ago. They were making headway in the lab. Something about a new scientific breakthrough. The team sounded ecstatic.
“I know. I can’t explain it either,” Fassbender says, threading his fingers through his gelled hair.
Hugh scoots past him. “If the academy’s top astronauts knew what this mission was really about, no one would have signed up,” he says.
My heart races. “What’s the mission, Hugh?”
“The mission is we die,” Roy interrupts.
“I want none of that talk on my ship,” Halloway warns.
Roy bites. “Jesus Christ, Fassbender. How long have you been sitting on these doubts?”
Hugh chuckles, but he looks terrified. “If it weren’t for me rolling by at the right time, he’d have never brought it up,” he says.
Halloway stands and leans over Roy’s cot. “Fassben
der is lying. End of story.”
I glance over at Fassbender. He looks as freaked out as the rest of us.
“It doesn’t matter. We’ll breach the planet’s atmosphere shortly. We’ll find out soon enough,” I say.
Halloway is frozen, but I can see his eyes twitch.
On a mission like this, I expected some minor disruptions. But this news changes expectations.
If what Fassbender is telling us is true, we’re landing on foreign terrain with no added supplies. Within a few days, we’ll run out of the necessities.
We’ll all die.
I’m a medical officer. I don’t know how to hunt.
This is like Robinson Crusoe times a thousand.
Fassbender glances at each of us. “Now’s not the time for mutiny. That’s not what I’m advocating, Captain. Trust me, I don’t find pleasure in showing you my findings.”
Roy grabs Fassbender’s shirt, forcing him against the wall. “How long have you known about this?”
Fassbender chokes. “One day,” he squeaks, palms out. “I needed to know if what we found was the truth.”
The crew is silent except for me. “Show us what you found,” I say. “Roy, set him down.”