Redshirts

worst of the blast. Upon realizing that, the whole of Dahl’s back seared into painful life.
    Dahl pushed Abernathy away from him and crawled over to Finn, on the floor, his face and front burned. He had been closest to the blast. As Dahl made it to his friend, he saw that the one eye Finn had remaining had looked over to him. Finn’s hand twitched and Dahl grabbed it, causing Finn to spasm in pain. Dahl tried to break contact but Finn grabbed on. His lips moved.
    Dahl moved to his friend’s face to hear what he had to say.
    “This is just ridiculous,” is what Finn whispered.
    “I’m sorry,” Dahl said.
    “Not your fault,” Finn eventually said.
    “I’m still sorry,” Dahl said.
    Finn gripped Dahl’s hand tighter. “Find a way to stop this,” he said.
    “I will,” Dahl said.
    “Okay,” Finn breathed, and died.
    Abernathy came over to pull Dahl away from Finn. Despite the pain, Dahl took a swing at Abernathy. He missed and lost consciousness before his fist had swung all the way around.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN
    “Tell me how to stop this,” Dahl said to Jenkins.
    Jenkins, who of course knew Dahl was coming to his secret lair, looked him over. “You look healed,” he said. “Good. Sorry about your friend Finn.”
    “Did you know what was going to happen to him?” Dahl asked.
    “No,” Jenkins said. “It not like whoever is writing this crap sends me the scripts in advance. And this one was particularly badly written. Jer Weston walking around for years with a biological bomb in his head, waiting for an encounter with Captain Abernathy, who he blamed for the death of his own father on an away team twenty years ago, and taking advantage of an unrelated diplomatic incident to do so? That’s just hackwork.”
    “So tell me how to stop it,” Dahl said.
    “You can’t stop it,” Jenkins said. “There’s no stopping it. There’s only hiding from it.”
    “Hiding isn’t an option,” Dahl said.
    “Sure it is,” Jenkins said, and opened his arms as if to say, See?
    “ This is not an option for anyone else but you,” Dahl said. “We can’t all sneak around in the bowels of a spaceship.”
    “There are other ways to hide,” Jenkins said. “Ask your former boss Collins.”
    “She’s only safe as long as you’re around,” Dahl said. “And not using the toilet.”
    “Find a way off this ship, then,” Jenkins said. “You and your friends.”
    “That won’t help either,” Dahl said. “Jer Weston killed eighteen members of the Nantes crew with his armed cargo carts. They weren’t safe against what happens here on the Intrepid, were they? An entire planet suffered a plague so that we could create a last-minute vaccine for Kerensky. They weren’t safe, either. Even you’re not safe, Jenkins.”
    “I’m pretty safe,” Jenkins said.
    “You’re pretty safe because your wife was the one who died, and all you were was part of her backstory,” Dahl said. “But what happens to you when one of the writers on whatever television show this is thinks about you?”
    “They’re not going to,” Jenkins said.
    “Are you sure?” Dahl said. “On the Nantes, Jer Weston was using your trick of hiding in the cargo tunnels. That’s where we found him. That’s where we caught him. Whatever hack thought up that last episode now has it in his brain that the cargo tunnels can be used as hiding spaces. How long until he starts thinking about you?”
    Jenkins didn’t say anything to this, although Dahl couldn’t tell if it was because he was considering the idea of being in a writer’s crosshairs or because he mentioned Jenkins’ wife.
    “None of us are safe from this thing,” Dahl said. “You lost your wife to it. I just lost a friend. You say I and all my friends are going to end up dying for dramatic purposes. I say whatever happens to us is going to happen to you, too. All your hiding doesn’t change that, Jenkins. It’s just delaying it. And meanwhile, you live your life like a rat in the walls.”
    Jenkins looked around. “I wouldn’t say a rat,” he said.
    “Are you happy living this way?” Dahl asked.
    “I haven’t been happy since my wife died,” Jenkins said. “It was her death that got me on to all of this anyway. Looking at the statistics of deaths on this ship, seeing how events on this ship played themselves out. Figuring that the most logical explanation was that we were part of a television show. Realizing my wife died simply to be a dramatic moment before a