The Surveillance of Sub-Captain Pines

YEAR: 52028

LOCATION: Purple Mountains, Hahao

SUPERVISORY COMPUTER SYSTEM: Guard Drone Eight

IN ATTENDANCE: Sub-Captain Ortner, Sergeant Dinn

Sub-Captain Ortner’s mission Log

     ORT: We are a day’s journey from Pines and the other deserters. I have ordered a halt. I have decided to wait and gather intelligence. We are outnumbered and Pines may fire on us. We have enough supplies to scout for a day before trying to make contact.

Drone Audio Transcript

     DINN: Why did he run away?

     ORT: Because…Larkina humiliated him, but it’s more than that. He is scared. We all are. I want to bring him home. And I want those troopers loyal to him to be back where they belong.

     DINN: Do you think she could have handled things differently?

     ORT: Larkina did what she believed to be the best course of action. We cannot afford to be over-run by the grey-skins; we have barely enough crops. This mission has cost us precious rations. And Pines took months of rations with him. I am certain he means to build his own camp. He’s bound to run out of food soon and then he’ll have to come back.

     DINN: Why don’t we just wait for them to starve the troopers won’t stand for that.

     ORT: Pines means to attack the grey-skins. He stole a death shower missile. We need to stop him before he does something stupid. If he harms their innocents, we may have to deal with a planet wide assault on our ship.

     DINN: I think he’s right to try and kill them.

     ORT: You do? You think we should be eradicating the aliens? That is mass murder Sergeant. Maybe you should go find Pines, he’ll be glad of another recruit.

     DINN: I didn’t say I wanted to leave the colony. I just think we are being too soft on these aliens. We need to show them that they can’t just rock up and kill us. They should fear us. We will be safer that way.

     ORT: Will we? Or will they strive to destroy us. Larkina wants to build peace, a peace she may never see. It is a noble dream. I don’t want a war. I will defend the colony but I don’t want war. We need to stop Pines before he uses that death shower.

     DINN: We are his assassins?

     ORT: My orders are to bring the troopers back and eliminate Pines before he does the unforgivable.

     DINN: I understand, but it seems counter-productive to kill one of our own.

     ORT: Killing Pines may save the colony. If there was another way, I would take it. But I know him, he won’t come quietly. He knows he’ll be locked up for insubordination. He would rather die. His Cryo-Dream analysis was made available to the captains. He has unresolved problems that were flagged by Hahaoya. Her analysis projected that he should be relieved of his command immediately to avoid fatalities.

     DINN: So that’s why Larkina demoted him.

     ORT: She takes Hahaoya’s advice, that’s part of the training we get as captains.

     DINN: I’d rather be dead than locked up on an unknown planet waiting for an alien attack. There are forces here we can’t control. Pine’s wants to take back control.

     ORT: It makes sense but it’s short sighted. It might feel like taking back control, but a year down the line we may have an army of aliens looking to destroy us in revenge.