by M. D. Cooper
“A lot of tidal forces in this system,” Sera replied, turning to the AI who was managing scan, the holo of a young man sitting at the station he had no need of. “What do you make of it, Chief Reggie?”
“Hard to say,” Reggie replied, his voice emanating from his holoprojection. “Could be natural, but like Governor Andrews suggests; there are a lot of tidal forces in this system that could keep the planet molten and spinning inside—yet terrestrial worlds that small don’t often have a core differentiated enough to create strong magnetic fields when they rotate.”
“So you’re saying you’re not sure.” Sera winked at the AI, who raised an eyebrow and shrugged.
“We’re twenty AU away and using passive sensors. I’m not a miracle worker,” he countered. “But if I happened to stumble across a system like this, I’d find it curious—though not enough to immediately jump to planetary engineering as the reason for the magnetosphere. Granted, with this star’s position in the midst of five others undergoing stellar engineering, the opposite suspicions would form.”
“That’s enough for me,” Jason replied, then turned toward Sera. “The one thing going against it is the tectonic activity from a molten core. Would your father pick a planet that’s so…motile? Or would he go for something further out that was cold and solid?”
Sera rubbed her face. “Well, from what I can see, he started this venture befo—wait a second. If it took almost two hundred years for the light from this terraforming operation to reach Aleutia, then he started this before jump gates were made.”
“Or at least revealed,” Jason amended.
Sera pursed her lips and drew in a slow breath. “Either way, it all predates me. I wonder if Andrea or Justin knew about this.”
Jason’s visage grew grim. “When Krissy catches up to Justin, we’ll ask him.”
“Keeping up on current events?” Sera asked.
“I’m of the opinion that Justin sent Andrea to kill Tanis back in the Ascella System—and that he authorized her to turn you using mentally subversive tech. If there’s one thing I don’t hold with, it’s mental subversion. As far as I’m concerned, Justin is villainous scum.”
“I’ll add it to the list of things to ask Justin about—not that I expect to get much out of him—not without stooping to his level.”
Sera looked at Jason to see him nodding in agreement. She decided to ask him at some point what reason he had for his vehement dislike of mental coercion. Not that sane people liked it under any circumstances, but there was something in his eyes. A distant pain that spoke of personal experience.
“Helm, what’s the best speed you can make to that planet?” General Sheeran asked.
“Sir. Best speed will put us at two days’ travel for a close fly-by. But we’d light up the night, braking to orbit the planet. A better plan would be to brake around the star after passing by to see if we wanted to pay it a visit. Would take…just three days to fly by, then a day to brake around the star and settle into orbit over the planet.”
“Sir, ma’am?” Sheeran asked as he turned to Sera and Jason.
“Well,” Sera mused, tapping her chin. “We’re not sure anything is there, and ruling it out sooner than later would be ideal, so we could slingshot out to other targets.”
“It keeps our stealth intact, as well,” Jason added.
“Stealthed fly-by and star-brake it is,” Sheeran said, confirming the order before nodding to Helm, who pushed the vector onto the main holo, the display showing burn points, adjustments, and countdowns to the maneuvers.
Sera looked at the timeline. “Four days. I guess I can catch up on reading the never-ending list of reports that have jammed up my queues.”
Jason laughed. “Sounds like it should be riveting. I’ve some of the same to attend to.”
Sera thanked General Sheeran for letting them stand around on his bridge, and walked off, her guard stepping in behind her, followed by Jason.
Valerie said to Sera as they walked down the passageway.
Sera glanced at the major to see the woman’s face perfectly composed, eyes forward.
Sera retorted.
Sera rolled her eyes as they reached the lift.
“You know…” Jason began as he reached her side. “I have a rather large stateroom—for a warship, at least. We could set up in my quarters and have a meal while going over all the reports that are demanding our attention.”
He uttered the words as though he was suggesting they were organizing a scientific survey, but when Sera glanced at Jason, his eyes said something else entirely.
Sera ran a hand through her hair, weighing how much she wanted to take Jason up on his offer against the tsunami of scuttlebutt it would create.
Wait…since when do I care about that? This ‘president’ gig is really wringing the life out of me.
“Deal,” Sera replied. “Lead the way.”
An easy grin settled on Jason’s lips as they stepped onto the lift. “Don’t worry, Sera. I plan to.”
Sera nearly burst out laughing at the ‘oh’ face Jen placed in her mind.
* * * * *
“Stars, I needed that,” Sera whispered as she flopped onto her bunk half a day later—finally getting to the reports that she’d ostensibly gone to Jason’s quarters to work on.
Her stomach growled, and Sera reached out to order a meal from the galley. It turned out that Jason’s version of a ‘light meal’ while they worked consisted exclusively of beer.
For someone who presented an air of the elder statesman when on the bridge of a ship, he could really pound the brews back.
But when it came to the main event, he was far more easygoing, then deliberate, then…well…mind-blowing.
I guess you learn a few tricks over a thousand years.
Sera let out a long breath and closed her eyes, reliving the experience while she waited for the food to arrive.
“ ‘See’?” Sera asked.
“You really wouldn’t do that, would you?” Sera asked, a pang of fear running through her. “Leave for Andromeda?”
Jen’s laugh filtered through Sera’s mind like wind rustling tall, dry grass on a high steppe.
Sera grunted softly; she hadn’t ever considered that possibility before. But now, flying through the LMC, the idea of extra-galactic adventures had become much more realistic.
“What do you feel when you look up at the Milky Way?” Sera asked her AI companion.
“Your emotional analogue. Do you get a sense of wonderment? A shift in perspective?”
“Huh? AIs?”
“So what do you see when you look up at our galaxy, oh one of many varied AIs?” Sera asked, a smirk on her lips.
“Sounds like wonderment to me,” Sera said, a smile on her lips.
“You probably have more precision to your ad-hoc math than I do, but it’s not that different than where my mind goes. I find myself thinking about the people, too. The conflicts we have…somehow it doesn’t look so important from out here. There’s so much galaxy. Why do we have to fight over our tiny corner?”
“Small mercies,” Sera replied. “My father was a lot of things, but at least he was no war-monger. Then again, if he’d gone after Orion in the past, things may not have gotten to this point.”
“You mean flexible and adaptable?” Sera shot back.
A smile formed on Sera’s lips, and she closed her eyes. “Thanks, Jen.”
“For being you, for just being a friend.”
A laugh burst from Sera’s lips, and she shook her head before rolling onto her side. “Nice one. Now stop rattling around inside my head. I’m going to fall asleep basking in this glow, and forget the mountain of work waiting for me.”
“Tell them to set it on the table,” Sera mumbled softly.
Jen didn’t reply, but the feeling of warm contentment she fed into Sera’s mind was all the response the president needed.
For the first time in years, Sera fell asleep not thinking of that day: the day her lover killed her father, and she learned of her mother’s searing betrayal.
INSPECTION
STELLAR DATE: 09.02.8949 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Bay 1, ISS Andromeda
REGION: Trensch System, Inner Praesepe Empire
Corsia had strongly considered delegating the job of meeting the IPE’s inspection team. Jim, Terrance, or even Commander Eve from the Marine company could handle the task.
Such are the trials of being the captain, Corsia thought. You can’t delegate this sort of nonsense. Could be worse, though. I could be in Tanis’s shoes.
As Corsia was wishing she were anywhere else, the doors across the docking bay began to slide open, an ES field activating to hold the ship’s atmosphere in.
Most of the new ISF ships used grav fields on their bay entrances, but the Andromeda had used electro-static shields for over a century, and she saw no reason to change them—especially when the ES fields were far more efficient.
Pulling a feed from the ship’s sensors, Corsia watched the IPE shuttle close the final hundred meters. The thirty-meter ship was an ugly, squat thing, almost as wide as it was long.
Lucky for them, the Andromeda had a large central bay occupying the belly of the ship. Considering that they’d once squeezed Sabrina’s two hundred meters into the bay, the IPE shuttle wasn’t even a snug fit.
“That’s a well-armed shuttle,” Jim said as he approached. “Though it looks like their firing systems aren’t charged up.”
“I figured as much, Sephira,” Jim said, a scowl lowering his brow. “Still, doesn’t really bode well.”
“We’ll see how it plays out.” Corsia looked down at her shipsuit, feeling strangely self-conscious. The sensation was entirely unfamiliar to her, and she wondered if people with bodies felt this way from time to time, or if it was just because hers was new.
“You look fine,” Jim said, a smile gracing his lips. “I gotta say, though. You’re totally keeping that body—if I have any input in the matter.”
The shuttle settled onto the cradle, and the ramp rose to meet the craft’s exit. A half-minute passed with no activity, and then the door slid open to reveal two armed and armored Marines, who strode down the ramp, their visors hiding the direction of their gaze.
Following them, a dark-haired man stepped out of the shuttle, clothed in a light grey uniform, with a yellow IPE crest over his heart, along with several ribbons and a crescent moon medal.
Two birds adorned his lapels, and Corsia noted that each leg held a separate clutch of arrows, a particular colonel’s insignia many of the militaries around Praesepe seemed to use.
Her own collar bore a single star, and the man’s gaze darted to it, before his eyes lifted to meet hers.
Corsia strode forward and extended her hand. “Welcome to the Andromeda. I am Captain Corsia.”
“Captain?” the man asked, eyes darting to her Admiral’s star once more.
“It is our custom in the ISF that when you are the captain of a storied vessel, that title supersedes your rank, Colonel…” she left the address open-ended for him to complete.
“Hickson,” the man replied. “I am here to oversee the inspection of your vessel.”
As he spoke, a group of technicians began to walk down the ramp behind him, and the colonel stepped aside to let them pass. “We will need to sweep your entire ship before you’ll be allowed to dock at Minoa Station.”
Corsia pursed her lips and shook her head slowly before replying. “We will give you a walk-through of non-classified areas, and you may perform any checks that will not harm our vessel or require any physical connections or interaction with the Andromeda’s systems.”
As she spoke, the colonel’s eyes grew wide, and his jaw tensed. “You must have misunderstood President Arthur’s directive. We will perform a full inspection of your ship.”
Corsia drew herself up, the five centimeters she had on the man allowing her to stare down on him in a very satisfying fashion.
“I understand that we are within the borders of the IPE, and you have reason to fear us—the idea of ships entering your core system with no warning must be very unsettling. However, we are not at liberty to allow you full access to this ship, but we want to make every good-faith effort we can to accommodate you. Is there no way we can reach a compromise?”
“Captain Corsia.” The colonel loaded the words with so much disdain, it sounded as though his tongue had withered just from uttering them. “If you were at the edge of the Trensch System, we would simply refuse you entry. But since you are this deep within the gravity well, we will consider any non-compliance as an act of aggression.”
“How many ships do you have?” Corsia asked plainly. “Five hundred? A thousand? A week ago, we jumped forty thousand ships into the Albany System to bring about the greatest defeat the Nietzscheans have seen since the early days of their war with the Genevians.”
The colonel’s eyes grew wide for a moment, then narrowed. “Talk is cheap. Right now you have just one ship. How will you summon more?”
Corsia could feel her body responding to the man’s words with an increase in heart rate, muscle tension, and a host of other physiological changes. A part of her found it fascinating, and wondered how humans managed to deal with the chemical changes in their bodies while under stress.
The rest of her wanted to punch Colonel Hickson in the face.
That urge nearly won.
She considered placing a call on the QuanComm network for another ship to jump in, but decided against it for the time being. If the IPE was being this testy about one ship, the presence of more vessels would surely escalate things.
Granted, it wouldn’t be hard to simply take what we want from this system.
>
Corsia tamped down on that thought. That was not the way Tanis wanted to operate, and it ran contrary to Corsia’s own beliefs as well. Though the idea was tempting.
She was trying to think of something to say that would diffuse the situation, when Jim spoke up.
“Colonel Hickson. You’ve witnessed our abilities, and we can see how zealously you defend your people—something we understand, and greatly admire. Our purpose in travelling to the Trensch System is to create a trade agreement that we think will greatly benefit your people. Perhaps I can escort your teams—” Jim nodded to the technicians who were standing uncomfortably to the side of the ramp, “around the non-classified areas on the ship, and they can assess whether or not we are an extreme threat, and then you can make a decision with that information in hand.”
“I suppose that’s a start,” Colonel Hickson grunted.
“Would it also be an option for us to remain in a high orbit around Genesis instead of docking at a station?” Corsia asked, glad for Jim’s interjection. “We could bring a pinnace to Minoa Station. No need to worry about a foreign warship docking.”
“I suppose that could work.” Though his words were noncommittal, Hickson’s tone hinted at genuine surprise. “You’d have to remain outside Genesis’s van allen belts. Trensch is not an agreeable star to be so close to for long periods of time.”
“If we assess that risk to be too much, we can reevaluate the full inspection,” Corsia replied.
“We’ll proceed as you suggest, then,” the colonel said, nodding to his inspection team. “But the president may decide it is not satisfactory.”
Corsia nodded. “I guess we’ll hope for the best.”
Jim gestured to the technicians, ten in all, who followed him out of the bay. Two more IPE Marines came down the ramp and followed after.
Corsia was tempted to deny the soldiers access to her ship without surrendering their weapons, but decided it wasn’t worth the hassle. Sephira was already dropping a nanocloud onto their armor and weapons to disable them, should the need arise.
