25. A Drifting Ensign in the Ocean [Modern Warship in a Cultivation World]

The cafeteria had been transformed. The usual scattered tables and muted chatter were gone, replaced by a rigid, funereal silence and the entire crew of the Event Horizon, standing in ranked rows. The air was thick with a tension that had nothing to do with the alien atmosphere outside and everything to do with the human emotions unfolding within.

At the front of the room, a single table had been set up. Seated behind it was Captain Imogen Doors, her face carved from stone, flanked by Chief Navigation Officer William on her right and Chief Defense Officer Lee on her left. This was the tribunal. Before them, standing at a painful, rigid attention, was Lieutenant Sam. His flight suit was clean, but he looked hollowed out, his eyes fixed on a point on the far wall, seeing nothing.

There was no defense attorney, no complex legal arguments. Here, at the front of a new world, justice was swift, stark, and absolute.

“Lieutenant Sam L. Crowe,” Imogen’s voice cut through the silence, clear and cold, devoid of any personal history. “You have been charged with willful dereliction of duty, direct disobedience of a lawful order from a superior officer, and conduct unbecoming an officer of the United Nations Navy. These actions directly resulted in the destruction of critical military assets, the compromise of this vessel’s security, and the death of Ensign Eli Carter.”

A collective, almost imperceptible shudder ran through the assembled crew at the formal pronouncement of the last charge. Jessica, standing with Pax near the back, flinched as if struck.

“How do you plead?” Imogen asked, her gaze unwavering.

Lieutenant Sam’s throat worked for a moment before he found his voice, a ragged whisper that was amplified in the dead quiet. “Guilty, Captain. On all charges.”

There was no surprise, only a grim finality. He was not here to fight the judgment; he was here to receive it.

Imogen gave a single, sharp nod. “The tribunal has reached its verdict. Lieutenant Sam L. Crowe, you are hereby stripped of your commission and rank. You are no longer an officer in the United Nations Navy.”

She paused, letting the weight of the demotion, the erasure of his identity, settle on him and every watching soul.

“You are reduced to the rank of Seaman Apprentice. Furthermore, for a period of thirty days, you are to be confined to the brig, to reflect upon the consequences of your actions.”

Sam’s shoulders, held so rigidly straight, slumped by a fraction of an inch. It was the only sign that the words had penetrated the numb shell of his grief.

“However,” Imogen continued, her voice gaining a new, harder edge, “your sentence is suspended until after we have honored the man who paid the ultimate price for your decision. Your confinement will begin following the funeral service for Ensign Carter.”

She rose from her chair, and the entire crew snapped to attention. Her eyes swept over them, a sea of anxious, grieving faces.

“The crew will assemble on the flight deck in one hour,” she announced, her voice echoing in the cavernous room. “We will give our shipmate back to the sea. Dismissed.”

The ranks broke, not with the usual low hum of conversation, but with a heavy, shuffling quiet. As Sam was led away by the Master-at-Arms, the crew filed out, their thoughts no longer on the punished, but on the departed.

________

The entire ship’s company stood in silent, rigid ranks on the flight deck, a canvas of somber faces under the bruised, twilight sky of an alien world. The three moons, pale ghosts in the daylight, were a silent, mocking audience to the human ritual below. In the center of the formation, resting on a platform rigged to tilt over the side, lay the shrouded form of Ensign Eli Carter, the UNSC flag draped over him, its blue and white a stark, familiar contrast to the oppressive, foreign sea.

At the head of the formation, Captain Imogen Doors stood, her posture a testament to unwavering command, but her eyes, for those close enough to see, held a deep, private storm. Beside her, Officer Nolan cleared his throat, the sound carrying in the absolute silence broken only by the wind and the waves against the hull.

“We are gathered here,” Nolan’s voice, usually so smooth and diplomatic, was rough with genuine emotion, “in a place beyond all maps, under heavens not our own, to commit our shipmate, our friend, Ensign Eli Carter, to the deep.”

He spoke of Carter’s enthusiasm on this mission, his first ever, his willingness to help Jessica, a simple poem Carter had written. He spoke of the cruel absurdity of his death, so far from the home he spoke of so fondly.

Then, he stepped closer to the shrouded body, placing a hand on the flag. The crew braced. This was the moment.

“We commit his body to these unknown waters,” Nolan said, his voice rising slightly, straining against the wind as if to be heard by the universe itself. “We do not know your name, or your nature. We do not know what gods or spirits reign here. But we ask you… we beg you… show him mercy.”

He paused, his gaze sweeping the horizon, a plea directed at the very fabric of this strange reality.

“He was a son of Earth, a sailor of distant seas. If your tides flow in ways we cannot comprehend… if there is a current in your depths that knows the way home… then we ask you to care for him. Carry him through your strange tides. Guide him back to the shores he loved, to the oceans of his birth.”

His voice dropped, becoming a low, resonant vow. “And we, the crew of the Event Horizon, we commit his soul to the care of the God we know, praying for eternal rest, and for the peace that this world has denied him.”

He nodded to the honor guard: O’Malley, Jenkins, and four others, their faces tight with the effort of holding back tears. They lifted the platform.

“We therefore commit his body to the deep,” Nolan’s voice rang out, final and clear.

The end of the platform was raised. The UNSC flag was pulled taut, then released, snapping in the wind as Carter’s body slid from beneath it and vanished into the churning, dark water with a soft, final splash.

The bell tolled eight times. The Bosun's Call whistled its lonely, piercing salute. The seven-rifle volley cracked across the water, a sharp, violent sound of finality that made everyone flinch.

And then, as the last echo of the gunshots faded, a single bugler raised his instrument, and the mournful, haunting notes of “Taps” flowed out over the alien sea, a melody of Earth, of home, of goodbye, offered as a prayer to an uncaring sky.