by M. D. Cooper
The display on his window caught his attention, and Joe watched as the ring’s negative energy emitters came to life. They began to focus energy onto a single point, tearing a hole in the very fabric of the universe, before directing that energy at the I2. When that focal point touched the mirror at the front of the I2, the ship seemed to waver for a moment, and then was gone.
Be safe, Tanis and Angela. Give ‘em hell.
EARTH
STELLAR DATE: 04.27.8948 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Hegemony Capitol Buildings, Raleigh
REGION: High Terra, Sol System, Hegemony of Worlds
A month prior…
Today, not even the view of Earth could calm her.
Uriel, President of the Hegemony of Worlds, felt impotent, powerless, and uncertain of her next move. A few short years ago, she had believed herself to be at the pinnacle: leader of the most powerful human empire in existence.
But she now knew that was not the case.
Not only had other federations and alliances within the Inner Stars grown in strength, but she now also knew that their rapid increase was fueled by outside forces—the Transcend Interstellar Alliance and the Orion Freedom Alliance; such innocuous names for the two most powerful political entities in the galaxy.
When General Garza had come to her a decade ago and offered Orion’s help, Uriel had seen it as a way to break out of the cage that the Hegemony was trapped in. For though they were strong, the Hegemony of Worlds sat at the center of the human sphere, and though she did grow the Hegemony, every system she brought into the federation had already been inhabited for millennia.
It made growing the Hegemony’s power grueling work.
Uriel’s job was one of careful negotiation; trading pawns with a thousand opponents in the hopes of achieving a smattering of checkmates.
When Garza came along, his trade had seemed more than worth the price he had asked. Unlimited resources and advanced technology were up for grabs, and all she had to do was build fleets and use them to expand her power base.
And attack New Canaan.
Twenty thousand ships, gone….
It felt like Bollam’s World all over again—though at least there, the Hegemony had managed to take control of the system. Gaining Bollam’s World had been a thin silver lining around an otherwise terrible disaster.
From what she had learned the previous day, there was no silver lining around the defeat at New Canaan.
Twenty thousand ships.
She had spent no small amount of political capital on that venture—first on the construction of the ships, and second, on keeping the construction and dispatch of the fleet a secret.
But the Legates who supported her had expected a technological windfall in reward for their silence. Instead, they had ten million deaths on their hands.
They were going to demand her head.
Uriel looked out over the city of Raleigh, stretching for hundreds of kilometers in every direction across the orbital ring’s surface. It was the jewel of the Hegemony, the oldest human city in existence.
Her gaze fell upon the capitol complex, where the Legates were in session—both those who supported her, and those who did not. Very soon, Legate Borous would take the floor and reveal her failures to all.
Uriel took a deep breath and sent the order.
She waited, tapping her forefinger on her thigh. A minute later, the capitol complex exploded.
The flash of light was so bright that the windows in her office darkened; fifteen seconds later, the shockwave hit, gently vibrating her tall tower.
Uriel did not look away as the fireball reached toward the sky, stretching into an oblong shape from the ring’s coriolis effect. The Hegemony would reel, and Uriel would point to Scipio and their allies. She would propose new shipyards and fleets, and she would launch her attacks, pushing back the Hegemony’s borders.
But first, she would supplicate herself before the Transcend and seek its president’s forgiveness.
Before she killed that adversary as well.
KHARDINE
STELLAR DATE: 08.06.8948 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: ISS I2
REGION: Khardine System, Transcend Interstellar Alliance
After the successful jump to the Khardine System, Tanis and Sera retreated to the bridge officer’s lounge for a light lunch. Something to sate them before spending the afternoon reviewing personnel assignments.
“I’ve been thinking about it, Sera,” Tanis said around a mouthful of her cobb salad. “Khardine is a fantastic forward base of operations for the military, but a poor choice for a capital.”
“What makes you say that?” Sera asked from across the table. “It’s centrally located on the arms of the Transcend, it’s almost entirely inaccessible, it’s close to the major Inner Stars empires….”
Tanis cocked her head as she examined her friend, the President of the Transcend Interstellar Alliance—or at least a part of it.
Sera had spent much of her life in The Hand, one of the Transcend’s clandestine agencies. The few years she hadn’t been in the Hand, she had been focused on hunting down stolen technology in the Inner Stars.
Without a doubt, Sera was an excellent strategic and tactical thinker. What she wasn’t considering was that she was facing a battle for the hearts and minds of her people, as much as for territory and resources.
“And what of perception?” Tanis asked. “Your people will look upon Khardine as a hideaway.”
Sera pursed her lips as she considered Tanis’s words, while Tanis summoned a holoprojection over the table to view the stellar cluster in which Khardine lay. On the I2’s charts, it was known as NGC 3532, or the Wishing Well Cluster. In the Transcend, it was called Oratus, due to its resemblance to a person standing with one arm outstretched—at least when viewed from the coreward side.
As far as open star clusters went, it was small—only containing two hundred and ninety three stars, many of them being large, old red giants.
After Betelgeuse died in a brilliant supernova a few thousand years ago—the effects of which were still washing across the Inner Stars—no human colonization efforts had moved in the direction of the cluster. No one wanted to be close to another stellar death like that one.
No expansion, that is, except for the Transcend’s.
“So here’s Khardine…” Tanis pointed at the small red dwarf nestled deep within Oratus. Rimward of it, a dozen red and blue giant stars lay between Khardine and the bulk of humanity. Tanis drew a line along a corridor that led through the stars, stopping several times to change course as it wove around the giant stars in the cluster. “And the dark layer FTL corridor is here.”
“Yes,” Sera said as she sipped her coffee. “Like I said, very defensible. The only way in is through that corridor—which we can protect with ease—or by jump gate. And you’ve already ordered Admiral Krissy to set up jump interdictors.”
“I agree; it is a fantastic fortress in space—something that is exceedingly rare. Even if an enemy wants to come at us sub-light, they’ll have to spend decades doing it. With the interstellar medium suffused with plasma and hydrogen, it will be hard to hide while they do it, too.”
Sera’s lips twisted as she looked at the holoprojection. “I sense a ‘but’.”
“It’s the perception of the thing,” Tanis said. “It looks like you’re hiding. The capital should be in some center of commerce, like out in the Vela Cluster. We have already received word from the regional governors there that they will support you over Airtha; pick a system in that cluster. We’ll go to it after Scipio and ensure it is well protected. We can select one of our most trusted admirals to oversee its defense.”
Sera laughed. “Trusted admirals? I don’t know that we have too many of those.”
“There’s always Krissy,” Tanis replied. “From what we know—both from your sources, and from Sabrina—she stood up to the Grey Division at the Grey Wolf Star. That was a gutsy
move, one that got her stuck there for a decade afterward.”
Sera leaned back in her chair, cradling her coffee cup in her hands. Tanis let her mull the idea over, as she skewered the egg from her salad and popped it into her mouth.
She savored the fresh taste of the egg. One thing was certain: humans could travel amongst the stars for thousands of years, build and do just about anything, but they rarely did it without chickens.
Plus cats and dogs and mice, and a whole host of other animals—but chickens were near the top of the list. Which was good news for Tanis’s cobb salad.
“Think she’d take it?” Sera asked. “The position, that is.”
Tanis shrugged. “Finaeus may know better; she’s his daughter.”
“From her communications, I get the distinct impression that Krissy wants to be stationed at Khardine,” Sera mused. “Of course, so does Greer.”
“He’s mentioned his interest to me,” Tanis said with a slow nod. “He certainly has significant ‘running a base in the middle of nowhere’ experience.”
“So does Krissy,” Sera countered. “Both of them have Inner Stars experience, as well. Maybe we should send them into a cage match; two shall enter, but only one shall emerge!”
Tanis snorted. “Your administration should be very interesting.”
“What was I thinking, Tanis?” Sera paused and looked around the nearly empty room. “Finaeus should take the position. He has all the connections; he’s liked, respected. I’m the bad egg in the family.”
“You should probably stop asking him to take the reins.” Tanis gave a soft chuckle and gestured across the lounge at Finaeus, who was eating his small feast alone. “He won’t even sit with us anymore.”
Sera looked over her shoulder at her uncle and sighed. “I suppose I should ease up.”
Sera replied.
Tanis looked down at her salad and Sera’s sandwich, then over to Finaeus’s four plates and two drinks.
When they’d settled, which mostly involved rearranging Finaeus’s plates to make room for theirs, he looked at Tanis, then Sera.
“So, what’s this about Khardine? I like it. Didn’t build the place myself, but it’s well done: unassuming red dwarf star, one terraformed world—they managed to spin it up, too—and a couple of jovians to sweep up the bits and pieces and keep everything in order. Tritium-rich, too; good for antimatter generation. There’s even a neutron star nearby. I’m itching to try to build one of those neutron beams our friends at Star City used.”
“Ease up; we know you like the place, but you don’t want to be in charge of anything, so it doesn’t matter if you like it.”
“Tanis Richards,” Finaeus said, holding a hand over his chest. “You cut me to the quick. I just don’t want to be in charge of people. They get in the way of building stuff—like my latest scheme, a portable jump gate.”
“We already have portable jump gates,” Sera reminded him.
“You misunderstand,” Finaeus replied. “A portable jump gate for the I2.”
Tanis let out a low whistle. “You just barely managed to make a stationary one, and it’s only been a day since its first use; you’re already improving on it?”
“You spent hundreds of years with Earnest Redding. Did he not operate in the same fashion?”
Tanis laughed. “Good point. He usually had to stop himself from improving his creations, if only so he could roll out an initial version that he would then tinker with. Although going the final distance usually bored him, and he’d already be onto something else. His labs are filled with thousands of near-complete inventions.”
Finaeus rubbed his hands together. “You have no idea, my dear. I’m like a kid in a candy store in there. No, I’m like a kid who can’t get fat or die of diabetes in all the candy stories in the universe at once. I’m quantum-candy-store kid.”
“About the jump gate,” Sera prompted with a wink.
“Yeah, right, well…. I ultimately want to work out a way to take the jump gate with us as we use it, but for now I’m working out a way to be able to build a new gate within days, deploy it, use it, and have it self-destruct—if we so desire.”
“That sounds useful…really useful,” Tanis mused.
When it came to jump gates, the I2’s size made for a distinct disadvantage. As of this moment, there was only one gate in the galaxy that the I2 could fit through, and it was at New Canaan—a system that was currently over two thousand light years away, or four years via dark layer FTL, give or take a bit.
Components were already being sent to Khardine to build a second gate, which was more than necessary to avoid the two-year FTL journey to Scipio—but once they arrived at Scipio, the I2 would be facing a long journey back to the Transcend.
Granted, the I2 currently housed a dozen smaller gates that could send other ships back to the Transcend—or anywhere else—so no one other than the ship itself—and Bob—would be stuck in the Inner Stars.
Tanis had considered not taking the I2 to Scipio at all—the Aegeus would be a far less imposing ship to fly into the Scipian capital system—but Tanis was uncomfortable with the idea of leaving the I2 behind.
Tanis laughed within her mind.
Tanis smiled at Angela, as they stood forehead to forehead in the shared space of their mind.
Outside her mind, in the much smaller reality adjacent to Tanis’s physical body, Finaeus was explaining how he could couple the component pieces for an I2-sized jump gate together, and how he could probably build one in a month with the facilities on the ship—so long as they had an ample supply of pre-tempered reflectors.
Sera nodded appreciatively. “That certainly opens up options. Makes me feel a lot better about us jumping into the Inner Stars.”
“I’m with you on that,” Tanis replied. “Anyway, what we wanted to talk about is that Khardine is great—for a centralized location servicing the military. What it doesn’t do is make the people of the Transcend feel good about their new president. She needs to be visible.”
Finaeus lifted a forkful of meatloaf to his mouth and chewed thoughtfully before answering. “I suppose that makes sense. You two should have thought of it before we all flew out here.”
“We had to come here anyway,” Tanis replied. “Krissy and her fleet are waiting for us; we need to organize this as the Inner Stars Front’s central command, and then Sera has to come to Scipio. Petra—her agent there—has made it very clear that the Scipian empress won’t deal with any flunkies—which would be me.”
Finaeus raised an eyebrow. “If only all leaders could have flunkies like you. So where do you suggest for the capital of the Transcend?”
“I was thinking somewhere in Vela,” Tanis replied. “It’s i
n the Orion Arm, and is resource rich. The cluster is still defensible, and it’s far enough away from Airtha that we can clearly establish it as a base of power.”
Finaeus nodded, and then spoke around a mouthful of carrots. “Vela is good. The data I have says that Alma is still the chancellor there. She would also function well as a Secretary of State, what with Adrienne heading off to Airtha and joining her…and your doppelganger.”
Sera shuddered. “Gah, don’t remind me. She changed me…Other me wears clothes and stuff. What do you think she is, anyway? A clone of some sort? I don’t have any mental imprints on file; Airtha couldn’t really make me.”
“Sera,” Tanis said, reaching out and grasping Sera’s hand.
“Helen was in your head for decades. Yes, Airtha could very well have recreated you in your entirety. For all intents and purposes, the other you is also you.”
Sera ran a hand through her hair. “I really, really hate that. Like…more than I can even express. It feels like the ultimate violation. Can you imagine? A parent saying ‘you didn’t really work out, so I’m just going to make a copy of you and tweak it to my liking’.”
“I’m pretty sure that happens all the time,” Tanis replied.
“Well, it sucks. Sucks balls,” Sera said.
Finaeus laughed. “At least we’ll be able to tell you two apart. Calm, serene Sera is obviously Evil Sera. Half-naked, angry, cursing Sera is the Good Sera.”
“Could be worse,” Tanis chuckled. “She used to be all naked.”
Angela added.
Sera smiled. “At least Angela gets me.”
“Be naked if you want,” Tanis said with a shrug. “So long as your fancy flow skin covers your bits, I don’t care.”
“I’ve never let my bits show; I’m not lewd or anything.”
Finaeus snorted. “You can be a bit lewd, Sera.”
“You know what? That’s what I’ll be, then. Naked and lewd. That’s me.” Sera stood up and pulled her jacket off, then her boots, followed by her pants.
