The reactors began firing in rapid succession, almost as if for an evasive burn, but something was different. Each pulse created far less thrust while the temperature skyrocketed. Reactor neutron flux sensors were going off the charts in Liu’s vision. They were shielded from the destructive radiation behind hundreds of meters of lithium deuteride fuel, but the space outside the shield was filled with a deadly particle field.

  The Peacekeeper itself seemed to be a furious animal with a fever. All warning lights were not only flashing in the CIC but loudly raging in the corner of everyone’s vision.

  >Warning. Neutron flux exceeds lethal unshielded levels within: 0.01 million km.

  >Warning. Reactor plating at 70% maximum thermal limit.

  >Warning. Thermal flux exceeding radiator capacity.

  The radiators began to glow, first on Liu Yang’s sensor vision in infrared, then on optical cameras with a dull red hot before flaring to orange.

  >Silence alarms. The auditor’s mental voice had became shaky. The crew knew that at this point, even the ship itself was resisting her.

  An urgent hail from the Relativity appeared in everyone’s mind.

  >Peacekeeper, we detect high neutron emissions and overheating from your reactor. Is there a malfunction?

  The auditor refused to answer. Colonel Meng seemed to have lost her patience and went to audio.

  “Peacekeeper, acknowledge, now!”

  >There is no malfunction, the auditor replied in everyone’s mind.

  “We cannot keep operating near you in orbit if your neutron emissions continue to rise.”

  >I did not command you to continue your orbit. You are allowed to alter your trajectory.

  “What are you doing?!” Colonel Meng asked, exasperated.

  A calm voice rushed over their comm link.

  >Do not be alarmed. A special beryllium doped fuel for neutron enrichment has been added in a separate compartment.

  “What the hell do you mean?” Colonel Meng roared.

  Liu searched his uploads for what this meant before the full horror of the atrocity dawned on him. This fuel was not for propulsion. Beryllium was a neutron multiplier. It would take the reactor's already deadly neutron flux and transmute it into a torrent of softer, more absorbable neutron radiation. The fact that it produced far less thrust was irrelevant. The reactor was now a neutron beam, not a propulsion device.

  >A fever is the expected response to a pathology. Neutron sterilization is effective.

  The ship creaked and groaned as its material limits were being approached. It was one thing to operate the reactor at normal speeds with clean fuel; it was quite another to operate it at high repetition rates with a high neutron fuel mix. The radiators could not accept the massive heat output, and even the ultrapure reactor plating was nearing disintegration under the prodigious neutron flux. The Peacekeeper AI could no longer tolerate the strain.

  >Alarm override. Critical damage imminent.

  >Critical. Neutron flux exceeds lethal unshielded levels within: 0.1 million km

  >Critical. Reactor plating at 90% maximum thermal limit.

  >Critical. Electromagnet field loss imminent.

  >Critical. Fuel compartment temperature exceeding 600K.

  There was an uproar as they realized the atrocity that was being perpetuated. Soldiers in the CIC began attempting to tear off their wires even as the ship was shuddering around them.

  It was a struggle for the auditor to mentally hold them all down and control the raging Peacekeeper at the same time. This had ceased to be merely a matter of moral survival; it was now one of physical survival. If this purification continued, they’d fall apart.

  The door to the CIC barely slid open for a fraction of a second. It was unknown whether this was due to power outage in the intense conditions of the purification protocol or because the auditor lost her concentration. Okeke seized the initiative, jerking a fire extinguisher out of its holder and jamming the door open with it, preventing the door from locking. His Neuronet deficiency gave him the unique freedom to move at all under the auditor’s neural suppression.

  The auditor didn’t see Okeke until his figure appeared in the corner of her vision for a fleeting instant, but it was too late. The lock cycle had failed and the door was jammed open just wide enough to fit a person. Okeke pushed himself through the crack in the door, wrench in hand, on a ballistic course heading straight for the auditor. Before she could even form a coherent thought, he swung his arm back, wrench in hand, before swinging it forward in a wide arc.

  Slam. The world froze.

  It wasn't the slow, controlled dilation of subjective time. This was a shattering halt. The entire room heard a wet, sickening crunch of bone and metal that had no place in the sterile silence of the CIC. The force of the impact sent Okeke spinning for a split second until he grabbed onto the ledge to the auditor’s side. Then another dull thud. Then another.

  Auditor-72-A9-M5, the spectral hand of the state, did not cry out. Her body simply went limp, a marionette with its strings cut, bobbing gently against the now blood stained neck padding of her perch.

  Okeke floated over her, his chest heaving, a heavy maintenance wrench clutched in his hand. His face was a mask of pure, unmediated terror and rage. The Neuronet pressure, the suffocating weight that had been crushing their minds, vanished into the void. The silence it left behind was a physical shock more unnerving than any alarm.

  Every eye in the CIC was locked on the floating body bobbing gently in the restraints. Blood beaded into perfect spheres that drifted lazily toward the air recyclers. Okeke’s breathing slowed and he let go of the wrench. It floated harmlessly for a few seconds before he realized what he’d done and secured it back on his belt. Tears beaded into small globules emanating from his eyes.

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  Sanchez’s mouth opened wordlessly. He was about to yell ‘Shoot him,’ instinctively, but he swallowed the command before it even reached his lips. Sanchez saw the faces of his crew. He didn't see shock hardening into discipline, but rather a terrifying, unanimous understanding. Captain Okeke had saved them from death and done the unthinkable. Captain Okeke was objectively the savior of the Peacekeeper.

  He saw the flicker of hope in their eyes as they looked at Okeke with a mix of awe and terror. Nobody would obey his order. And if Sanchez was to draw a weapon himself, it would be the first shot in triggering a mutiny that would result in his own swift demise.

  Liu Yang’s mind, freed from the Auditor’s grip, raced through the tactical problem with a cold, dispassionate clarity that terrified him. The situation had transcended morality and was now a baser problem of survival. There was no time to hesitate.

  >Cut the reactor now! Commander Sanchez ordered, almost as if his survival instincts suddenly took over. They could almost feel him roaring over the Neuronet. Grayson immediately complied.

  >Emergency reactor shutdown, Grayson commanded the Peacekeeper’s AI.

  >Emergency reactor shutdown initiated.

  >Neutron flux: negligible.

  >Critical: Reactor plating at 88% maximum thermal limit. Cooling in progress.

  Everyone breathed a sigh of relief. The concern was no longer one of imminent death.

  Suddenly, an urgent Neuronet hail came in from the Relativity, interrupting everyone’s thoughts.

  >Peacekeeper, sensors show reactor deactivation and thermal damage to plating and reactors. Are you all right?

  “Do not reply. I will handle them,” Sanchez authoritatively commanded. Everyone in the CIC understood what that meant. Total silence dominated. Liu Yang looked from Sanchez’s resigned face to Okeke’s terrified one, to the blood droplets still drifting near the ceiling.

  “She’s not dead,” someone whispered. They could hear her shallow gasps of breath, guided purely by instinct. Her bio-signs were critical, but her implant was still active, desperately trying to re-establish a Neuronet link.

  Sanchez’s eyes met Liu’s. No words were exchanged over the Neuronet. None were needed. In that shared glance, a pact was sealed in hell.

  “Medical team,” Sanchez said, his voice a low murmur. “Secure the Auditor. Get her to stasis.”

  The command was a deliberately shaped lie, and everyone knew it. The two officers who moved to obey hesitated just as they placed their hands on the auditor’s still warm body.

  “Sir, this is-”

  “Necessary. Proceed to secure the auditor for further treatment,” Sanchez said quietly.

  Everyone knew that they weren’t securing her for treatment. That was a transparent lie. It would be impossible to allow her to live. They were securing the crime scene. As they gently, reverently, guided her body toward the door and into the corridor, Sanchez gave Liu a barely perceptible nod.

  Liu’s hands flew across the projected keyboard. There was no time to think, only to act. A command link was established from the CIC to the stasis chambers.

  >Team, do we have the auditor secured?

  A small choir of voices replied simultaneously, almost overwhelming Liu’s fragile mind.

  >Yes. Still unconscious. Severely wounded.

  >Internal sensors. Stasis chambers, Liu commanded.

  An internal sensor feed immediately appeared in his vision. The auditor floated in front of the stasis chamber like Liu did so long ago, hanging limp in zero-g and held up like a rag doll by the medical team. They had bandaged her wounds en route, but it was not for her. The chamber needed to be kept clean for the next user, after all.

  >Disable Neuronet scan, chamber 52. Liu typed.

  >Error, not supported during waking protocol. Special authorization required.

  Grayson looked at Liu before transferring his gaze towards Sanchez. Liu remembered the day that he was forced into the stasis chamber at gunpoint like it was yesterday, yet decades had passed in the real world since then. This time, there would be no last minute savior for the one trapped inside.

  >Emergency maintenance procedure, chamber 52. Disable Neuronet scan in chamber, 10 minutes. Authorization: Executive Officer, Lieutenant Colonel Grayson Joseph.

  The Neuronet scanner silently deactivated itself, oblivious to the crime about to be committed. As far as the ship knew, this was an emergency maintenance cycle after near catastrophic damage to the ship. In reality, the stasis chamber had become a temporary information black hole. They were inexorably passing the point of no return.

  >Lower her in. Sanchez commanded. The medical team dutifully pushed on her shoulder. Her limp, barely breathing body glided in silently. The stasis chamber’s door closed after her with a final click.

  Sanchez looked down with a cowardly slump in his shoulders. He did not dare issue the final command via Neuronet, as if the ghost of the auditor would hear it. Instead, he quietly muttered the fateful order.

  “Grayson. Purge the chamber. For maintenance purposes.”

  >Initiate nitrogen maintenance purge, chamber 52. 5 minutes, Grayson input with a single thought. The Peacekeeper’s AI was quick to oblige his request.

  The soft hiss of air being vented and replaced by nitrogen became deafening. A status icon on Liu's display changed from oxygen breathable mix to Nitrogen Purging (5:00). He watched the timer count down, a digital metronome towards death. There was no visible change in the auditor’s state from the outside, other than her shallow breathing slowly dying down before coming to a final stop. He wanted to fast forward through this, but he watched in morbid fascination as the auditor’s life quietly drew to an end.

  >End nitrogen maintenance purge, chamber 52. Open audio channel to stasis bay.

  “Check for vital signs,” Grayson muttered over the audio link.

  “None detectable, sir,” one of the medical team responded with resignation.

  A creeping sensation of doom settled over Liu Yang as he realized what had just happened. They had murdered an officer of the state. The Ministry of Internal Affairs was, at some level, the true representative of the state, more than even the military. There would be nowhere to go. They had merely postponed their demise. He played the scenario repeatedly in his mind. There were just so many ways this could end - all with termination at the hands of the MIA. A bullet to the head. A small shove out the airlock. A quick nitrogen purge in stasis.

  There was no choice but to take this course of action to save themselves from immediate death, yet that didn’t matter. The body of an Internal Affairs officer was on their ship. There would be no excuses or a trial, only a brief military tribunal followed by summary judgment. Mutineers were a pathology and would be removed immediately. But only if the Directorate knew. They were now a tumor, and the first thing a cancer cell must do is hide its surface mutations to look like a healthy cell.

  A small spark of hope lit in Liu’s heart. If they could hide, they could survive. The coverup must be flawless. The information must be sanitized. He looked around. Nobody met his gaze. But the conclusion was both obvious and unavoidable.

  Sanchez finally spoke in an eerily soft voice. It was the voice of a man who has accepted his own damnation.

  “We have a situation,” he said in the galaxy’s most profound understatement. The crew looked at him with apprehension as he juggled their collective fates.

  The silence in the CIC was now a physical thing, thick with the shared knowledge of what they had just done.

  “The Relativity knows that we had an internal affairs auditor on board and now… do not. They are a variable. An unpredictable one.”

  Sanchez didn’t need to say any more. The logic was inescapable. It was the same monstrous, irrefutable doctrine the Auditor had applied to the Schumer colony. The Relativity was a potential source of entropy, and entropy must be minimized. Liu Yang had thought the Auditor’s Neuronet pressure was a cage, and stopping her meant they were free.

  He was wrong. They had passed the event horizon.