by M. D. Cooper
“That must have been an amazing time to be alive.” Kelly’s voice grew wistful. “Back when nothing was explored, empty stars all around. You could go anywhere.”
“You can do that now, too,” Rika said. “Solitude is just a jump away.”
“Until someone follows after,” Kelly countered. “Back then, few people were willing to spend half their life traveling to a distant star. The barrier for entry to get on a colony mission was high.”
“Some days, it’s hard to believe how old you are, Niki,” Rika said. “Like…why are you still with me?”
“Well, I wouldn’t go that far. Lots of people try to assault my fortress.”
“I’d love to assault your fortress!” Keli called up from the back.”
“Shit,” Rika twisted in her seat. “Is she drunk?”
“Keli!” Kelly hollered over her shoulder “Scrub your blood clean. We’re boots-down in five minutes.”
“I don’t wear boots!”
“I swear, mech, if you make me come back there…” Kelly warned.
“What do you think I’m doing? I’m ready to assault fortresses!”
* * * * *
Kelly had been close in her boots-down time. Nearly seven minutes had passed before they landed, but the delay was due to air traffic congestion, and not any fault of her estimation skills.
“Queen’s Guard’s work is never done,” Kelly said as she rose from her seat and put on her helmet. “You sober yet, Keli?”
“Close enough,” came the response.
Rika snorted, running through a quick postflight shutdown while her escort exited the shuttle, likely menacing any functionaries that were waiting.
she corrected.
Niki said.
“I guess it’s just me, then,” Rika muttered.
She reached the side door and stopped on the threshold, enjoying the warm sunlight as she surveyed the landing area. At the bottom of the ramp, Kelly and Keli stood still as statues, gun-arms held upright while their other hand lay on their thigh, ready to grab a sidearm should the situation warrant it.
Even though they appeared to be staring straight ahead, the women’s helmets provided a three-sixty view of the landing area, feeding it directly into the mechs’ brains.
Rika had undergone the same modifications and could also process a surround view, but it was rare she utilized it anymore outside of combat sims.
This is the life you want, Rika, she reminded herself.
Mostly.
Truth be told, sparring with leaders and politicians was its own sort of thrill, but enjoying one challenge didn’t mean she no longer wished for the other.
Beyond Keli and Kelly stood Secretary Tria. Next to her was the opinionated man who had cornered Rika the night before. A trio of guards stood behind them, lightly armed and armored and looking none-too-pleased to see battle-ready mechs.
After a few seconds at the top of the ramp, Rika strode down to the plascrete pad, placing a hand on Keli’s shoulder as she walked past, signaling to the government party that her guards were more than just faceless soldiers to her.
“Secretary Tria.” Rika smiled in greeting as she slowed her stride and offered her hand.
The secretary of state stood awkwardly for a moment before stepping forward to meet partway—the exact thing Rika was forcing her to do.
So many government functionaries liked to make others approach them as a subtle way of showing they had power in the situation.
Newsflash, Tria, you don’t.
Their hands met, and the secretary’s lips split into a broad smile. “I’m so glad to have you here today, Ambassador. We’re fully prepared to impress you with the smoothness of our operation, and show how well we handle visitors from disparate stars.”
“I’m looking forward to that.” Rika glanced around. “Is the president not joining us today?”
“She was held up, Ambassador, but she’ll be along soon. If you’ll follow me….”
‘Soon’ turned out to be over three hours later, when lunch was being served in the top-floor executive lounge of the Interstellar Trade Commission Building.
Rika had been dragged through a slew of conference rooms, meeting directors and undersecretaries of a dozen bureaucracies and sub-initiatives—otherwise known as the exceptionally boring segment of her job. Despite the fact that she’d explicitly told the president that she needed to see the inner workings, the tack they were taking was the same one dozens of other systems used.
As though showing off their polished offices and puffed-up plas-pushers would impress me.
“Ambassador Rika,” President Estee said loudly as she strode into the lounge, swiping a glass of champagne off a servitor’s tray as she approached. “I’m sorry I was delayed. I trust Secretary Tria has been taking good care of you?”
They clasped hands, and Rika nodded. “We’ve met a lot of the folks at the top, yes. I’m looking forward to the next part of the tour, where we get to see the folks who make the wheels turn. I’d especially like to speak with your inspectors and customs teams, as well as individuals they are holding, so I can look at how you handle extradition.”
“I’m not sure I understand,” Estee frowned, glancing at Tria, who stood on her left. “Are you saying you don’t want to tour our capitol complex? I assure you, this is where the laws are made and the processes created as well as overseen.”
Tria nodded. “Yes, Ambassador, many of the people you’ve met today are in direct control of those areas of our customs and immigration programs.”
“That they are,” Rika replied. “However, in my experience, the individuals selected via the political process to oversee these sorts of agencies are not well-connected to the day-to-day. You have to understand that if interstellar issues occur through membership in the Trans-Galactic Gate Network, the AoS will likely have to spend resources mediating the disagreement. Those issues tend to arise at the ground level, so to speak, so that is what I’d like to see.”
Estee’s implacable expression cracked for an instant, her voice strained for the first few syllables as she responded, “I can assure you that everyone here knows very well what the situation ‘on the ground’ is with their agencies and departments.”
Rika pursed her lips, glancing around at the dignitaries all hovering nearby, each one trying to overhear the conversation, while not appearing as though they were eavesdropping. “Ah, there, Director Csaze, do you have a moment?”
The man perked up, giving Rika a wide-eyed look before glancing at President Estee, who nodded.
“How can I be of assistance, Ambassador?” he asked while rushing over.
Rika nearly snorted a laugh.
Csaze’s brow lowered, and he gave the secretary of state a sidelong look. “Well, I can’t say for sure, the system
-wide numbers vary a lot.”
“Give me a rough estimate.”
He tapped a finger against his lip, clearly buying time to check the number over the Link. “Looks like…two-point-four million.”
“Are you sure about that?” Rika asked.
A look of concern took root on Tria’s face while Estee gave a slight scowl of annoyance.
“I—Of course I am, Ambassador.”
“Well, you’re off by a little over seven million. The correct number is nine million seven hundred and ten thousand four hundred and thirty-six.”
“I’m sorry?”
“For starters, you omitted the nearly three million refugees who are living in temporary internment camps on Warsaw and two other locations I assume are moons around one of your gas giants—ah, yes, that’s it.” Rika nodded.
“There are also three million and change in various detention centers around the system,” she continued. “They’ve all been processed for return to their systems of origin, but without funds to leave Farsis, they’re stuck here. Indefinitely, it would seem.” She raised a brow. “And there are a number of other segments, including the seventy thousand two hundred and nineteen people currently in temporary holding at ports while their credentials are checked against their home systems’.”
“Um…well, yes, I wasn’t counting all of those,” the man said. “Many are not actively being ‘held’ by our immigration operations.”
“Are they allowed to freely move about the system?” Rika asked, glancing at Estee, who’d grown more than a little red.
The director scoffed. “No, of course not, they’re not legal visitors. We can’t have them wandering about.”
“Right.” She nodded in agreement. “So they’re being held.” She turned back to Estee. “You can imagine my concern with those numbers, seeing as how Farsis isn’t a particularly large travel hub. I think work will need to be done to streamline those systems when a gate is brought to Lupus—even if it doesn’t end up being placed in this system.”
“I have to ask,” Estee said after taking a moment to school her expression. “How did you come about gathering such detailed figures?”
Rika shared the AI’s sentiment, but adopted her most beatific smile. “You agreed last night that we would be allowed to do penetration tests on your networks. So we ran some.”
“Y-You did?” Tria stammered. “When?”
“During the tour,” Rika replied. “You of course remember that I’m paired with an AI, Niki.”
“I do now,” Tria said in a barely audible voice while the president nodded.
“Yes, but we thought that times and criteria would be selected for these tests,” Estee said archly.
“Even so, this is not the best way to build a friendship.” Estee’s brow was furrowed, the convivial tone she’d started the conversation with entirely gone. “I don’t know how I feel about you breaching our networks and extracting privileged data.”
“President Estee,” Rika said, drawing herself up, her head fifty centimeters above the other woman’s. “You knew I wanted to see the inner workings of these departments and agencies. I want to assess how the work is actually done, not how people who have themselves never witnessed the work say it is done.” She glanced at Director Csaze. “I think you can go now.”
He didn’t even look at the president or secretary of state before nodding and rushing off.
“I’ve been at this task for seven years,” Rika continued. “And I could spend the next seven hundred jumping from system to system and still not complete the task ahead of me. So please understand me when I say that I don’t really have time to ‘enjoy’ catered luncheons when there is real work to be done.”
As she spoke, her voice had risen until it filled the entire room, ending all other conversations. Tria looked mortified, while Estee’s face was just shy of beet red, her breathing labored.
For a moment, she thought the president might call it all off, but after an agonizing twenty-seven seconds, she nodded. “Very well, let’s pay a visit to that facility.”
* * * * *
“Alright,” Kelly said as the three women walked off the shuttle after a twelve-hour day of touring various facilities. “The look on the guards’ faces in that holding center on Kuris Station…. I feel like that’s one of the top ten ‘What the fuck are these bitches doing here?’ looks we’ve gotten yet.”
Rika couldn’t help a laugh, while Keli shook her head.
“Might even be top five,” Kelly continued. “Two of the ones in the back climbed on the tables to get a better look at us. Pretty sure one of them had a tongue long enough to reach his knees.”
“Ever notice how we get one of two reactions when we pop into places like that?” Keli asked. “Either they immediately snap to attention, laser-focused on three heavily armed—well, two of us at least—mechanized women in their midst….”
“Or they just gawk?” Rika asked. “Yeah. The more they gawk, the more shit we’re going to uncover, you know that, right? A lack of discipline in one area shows a lack elsewhere.”
“But the next two.” Kelly whistled. “You could practically smell the grift the moment you walked in there. To be honest, I think the leadership here at Farsis is too disconnected from their own institutions to make it a good candidate system.”
Rika nodded, pursing her lips. “Yeah, I have to agree. Let’s just hope it’s not indicative of how things are across Lupus. They’re so isolated that attitudes like this might be more common than we’d like.”
“Piper!” Kelly gasped. “You haven’t spoken all day. I was starting to wonder if you were still with us.”
“I don’t know…somewhere nice and warm?” Kelly chuckled and cocked an eyebrow. “Maybe with a nice beach?”
“Heck yeah!” Keli thrust a fist in the air. “Now you’re talking.”
Rika turned to stare down the SMI-4. “Did you dip into the champagne on the trip back up?”
“Maaaybe.” She pointed past the ambassador. “Oh look, Chase’s shuttle is on approach. Kelly, let’s get cleaned up for supper.”
“What do you mean, ‘cleaned up’,” Kelly grunted as Keli grabbed her arm and pulled her out of the bay. “I am clean.”
“So what have you been up to, Piper,” Rika asked the ship’s AI as she watched Chase’s shuttle creep toward the bay. “You were rather quiet this morning.”
“Concerning?” Rika asked. “How so?
“How many ships are we talking?” Rika asked.
“Which is?”
Rika pursed her lips, wishing someone would just drop the number. Luckily, she didn’t have to wait much longer.
“Well, that complicates things,” Rika muttered. “We’re at a standstill…it’s going to take a bit to boost to outsystem velocities.”
Rika nodded silently, not believing that for a second.
“Or maybe they think we have gates on the Overwatch and they can seize it,” Rika suggested.
“Maybe they figure there aren’t a lot of us aboard,” Rika considered.
She scoffed. “Like we need more.”
Rika heaved a sigh. “You know…sometimes I wish these backwater systems understood how outmatched they are. Then they wouldn’t mess with us.” She shook her head. “Think we should call for reinforcements?”
