Excelsior by Jasper T. Scott

either. Even if it’s not rigged to blow, he could just plant another one later.”
     
    “We don’t have time to inspect the comm unit’s code and find out if it’s rigged.”
     
    “Maybe, maybe not, but I have a better idea. What would you say the odds are that bomb was designed to destroy the Lincoln?”
     
    “Slim to none, assuming the bomber knows something about size of the payload he’s working with.”
     
    “So if it goes off, what kind of damage are we looking at?”
     
    “We’ll lose most of our food stores to space, and those decks will be torn wide open, but that’s about it.”
     
    “Then the bomber isn’t looking to get himself killed. He probably just wants to turn this ship around and go home.”
     
    Stone blinked. “So…”
     
    “So, let’s get the crew together. We never did organize a proper funeral service for the pilots we lost.”
     
    Stone’s eyebrows drew together in confusion. “Sir, I don’t think this is the time to be discussing—”
     
    Alexander held up a hand. “Let me stop you there, Lieutenant. I have plan to catch our deviant crewman, but if it’s going to work, we need everyone to be present. The funeral is a good excuse that won’t tip anyone off.”
     
    “What are your orders, sir?” Ramos asked.
     
    Alexander turned back to the feed. “Take that food crate to the amidships cargo-loading airlock and wait for me there.”
     
    “Too heavy for me to move it alone, sir.”
     
    “Get your squad mates to help,” Alexander said.
     
    “Roger, Captain.”
     
    Lieutenant Stone muted the channel. “This plan of yours better not get more of our people killed.”
     
    “Danger is the spice of life, Lieutenant.”
     
    “Variety.”
     
    “I’m sorry?”
     
    “Variety is the spice of life, sir.”
     
    “Well, I’ve never been very good with English idioms.”
     
     

 
     
    Chapter 7
     
     
    It was standing room only in the cargo bay at the amidships airlock—everyone except for Lieutenant Davorian was there. Since he had reported the bad engine code Alexander had decided that he was probably above reproach, so Davorian was back on the bridge as the Officer of the Deck until Hayes and McAdams returned from the funeral.
     
    Alexander stared dead ahead, through the thick tempered glass at the top of the inner airlock door. The symbolic casket sitting inside the airlock was actually the food crate they’d found rigged with a bomb. Alexander hoped the bomber would notice and start to get nervous, but so far he hadn’t seen any adverse reactions from the crew.
     
    Alexander stood beside the ship’s chaplain as he read a passage from the Bible.
     
    “Death has been swallowed up in victory. Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?”
     
    The chaplain went on reading, but Alexander tuned him out. Being an agnostic, he found it ironic that even the chaplain had accepted gener treatments in exchange for his years of service with the navy. Alexander was pretty sure that constituted some kind of hypocrisy—preaching about immortality in the life to come, yet accepting it now in this one.
     
    Hedging your bets? Alexander wondered.
     
    Since the advent of medical immortality, the religions of the world had been relegated to promising life eternal to those who had yet to become immortal, and to those who were afraid they might still die of unnatural causes. If the current service was any indication, Alexander supposed that made some degree of sense. The chances of dying from unnatural causes over the course of an infinite lifespan were a hundred percent. Death was still a certainty, but not from old age. Alexander supposed that was why the northern states kept degenerates out. In a society where everyone was scared to death of dying, violent crime was a very serious concern.
     
    Alexander scanned his crew, looking for someone who seemed particularly edgy. Time was ticking. With everyone here and suitably distracted, it was