by Terry Mixon
Worse for the Clans, ships without modulators couldn’t easily leave the Icebox system via the multi-flip point at all. The default branch of the multi-flip point was too constricted to allow any unmodulated transit.
That was something the Clans knew from experience. They’d fled the fall of the Old Empire through that very flip point over five hundred years ago and had been unable to get back through from the Icebox side.
That didn’t mean it was impossible. Her people had found the wreck of a Clan battlecruiser named Dauntless crashed on the main world in the Pandora system where they’d ended up. A long examination of the burned-out flip drive on the wreck found a jury-rigged frequency modulator that Carl believed had barely allowed the ship to make the flip, much like his initial work had allowed Audacious to get there, with pretty much the same catastrophic results to the flip drive.
Of course, the Clans might not make the attempt. For reasons that Carl couldn’t explain in words of fewer than six syllables, the size of the vessel transiting without a modulator determined where it would go, and it didn’t seem consistent from branch to branch.
From the Old Empire branch, coming from the Old Empire, everything ended up in the Icebox system by default. Coming from the Icebox side, probes went back to the Old Empire.
That was good, as she couldn’t in good conscience allow the Clans access to Pandora, though she could hardly stop a determined incursion with the few ships at her command.
The Pandora system held a mysterious alien race. Yet just to keep things confusing, they weren’t nearly as alien as they looked. Even with their blue skins, they had modified human DNA inside them. A modification that had altered them long before humans had developed space travel at all.
That was a mystery that she’d have loved to solve, but no easy answers presented themselves. Hell, none of her problems had easy answers.
They’d managed to take Persephone through the multi-flip point down a branch leading to a major Rebel Empire system called Archibald. The mission there had been harrowing but ultimately successful.
They’d penetrated a Rebel Empire shipyard and managed to insert Carl’s plans for a flip drive with a built-in modulator. Then they’d stolen a freighter once they’d had the drive delivered there.
Only, as usual, things weren’t that simple. The freighter happened to be a Q-ship—a warship disguised as a freighter—and it had put up a lot more fight than her little group had counted on. They’d triumphed in the end but had more prisoners than they could shake a stick at.
Which brought her to the mess she was currently dealing with.
The people manning that ship claimed to be part of the resistance movement inside the Rebel Empire. The cargo they’d put together had certainly made that a possibility, but it was a claim that she had no way to validate. Not without someone like Olivia West at her side, and her friend was far, far away. Way beyond contact unless Carl made an unexpected breakthrough with the FTL coms.
And, to top matters off, Kelsey’s mother had stowed away on the mission. She was certain that the woman was going to cause her terrible trouble, no matter how contrite the ex-empress of the Terran Empire was currently acting.
God, this was giving her a terrible headache and a burning desire to smash something.
A rap at her hatch gave her a welcome distraction to focus on. Major Angela Ellis, her executive officer—and soon to become the new commanding officer of Persephone—stood outside.
The woman had no idea that Kelsey had decided to pass command of the ship to her yet. She’d probably be both pleased and terrified at the idea of commanding the warship, but the computer running the Marine Raider strike ship only allowed Marine Raiders to command her.
And with the woman’s now-completed upgrade, the New Terran Empire had a whole two Marine Raiders to choose from.
“Hey,” Angela said cheerily. “I’m heading to the gym. You want to come down and beat me to a pulp?”
The days that Kelsey could still use her experience to toss the tall, powerful marine around the mat were numbered. Probably only a few more days, really. If that.
She might as well enjoy the current situation as long as she could. Once the marine officer got her proverbial and actual feet under her, she’d thrash Kelsey five times out of five.
Angela would become the new powerhouse in the Terran Empire. Right up until Kelsey’s husband, Russ Talbot, finished the Marine Raider upgrade in a few weeks.
That thought made her smile. Wouldn’t that make for some strenuous evenings in the bedroom?
Kelsey rose to her feet with a grateful smile. “I would love to. Let’s go.”
2
Olivia West arrived in the officers’ mess before the others. Commander Kaitlinn Cannon was already herding several shanghaied assistants around the kitchen, and the wonderful smell of something frying brought Olivia partly awake.
“Tell me you have coffee,” she begged the ship’s assistant tactical officer.
“I have coffee,” Kaitlinn confirmed. “It’s in the urn over there. It’s the good stuff, too. We wouldn’t want to disappoint our guest.” The final word held a note of disgust.
Fielding’s taste for the better things in life had become apparent at dinner last night. It had been the first meal they’d shared with the man, and he’d set a high bar for what he’d accept on his table.
Luckily for them, Kaitlinn had been a chef before she’d joined Fleet. A damned good one, it seemed. Her skills in the kitchen were good enough to pass muster, though Fielding bitched about just about every aspect of the meal.
Once Olivia had poured herself some coffee, added sweetener and creamer, and taken her first delicious sip, she stepped over and watched the other woman frying some bacon while simultaneously scrambling eggs.
“I never did ask, but how did you go from cooking delicious food to shooting at people?”
“If you’d ever been a chef, you’d realize how short a step it is from cooking to wanting to kill people,” the brunette said with a wide grin, her hands seeming to move on autopilot as she worked. “Seriously though, it was mainly to piss off my mother. She demanded that I work in my father’s restaurant, and I basically picked about the opposite sort of thing I could think of as soon as I could.”
“What did your father think of your career change?”
The woman laughed. “He fronted me my living expenses while I got my feet back under me and encouraged me to make a clean break so I could have my own life. Without telling my mother he’d done so, of course. He’s not an idiot, my father.”
Kaitlinn scooped the eggs into a container, slid it under a warmer, and started putting sausage on the grill to cook. “He’d have loved for me to stay at the restaurant, but he knew that I’d never get out from under Mother’s thumb.
“And let me add that being deployed to the far side of the Empire was a blessing. She couldn’t come and try to guilt me into coming back to the restaurant. Basically, blowing things up was just a bonus.”
Olivia laughed. “Well, we’re lucky to have you here with us. I doubt Fielding would be at all happy with my cooking.”
The other woman’s expression darkened. “That man is a conceited ass that thinks he deserves everything served to him on a silver platter. Literally. His kind annoys the hell out of me. Are you sure I can’t just poison him?”
“Sadly, no,” Olivia said dryly. “We need him alive.”
“Pity,” Kaitlinn said as she flipped the sausage. “I’m pretty sure I could time the effects just right, so that he plopped face down onto his empty plate. Wasting food is a sin,” she added virtuously.
Olivia laughed. “You terrify me. I’m never going to get onto your bad side.”
Movement in the corner of her vision made her turn her head and she saw Austin Darrah entering the mess, talking with Princess Kelsey.
Austin was a fellow member of the higher orders of the Rebel Empire, so she knew a lot about his background and upbringing, even though she�
�d always been a member of the resistance. His ability to work with advanced hardware was an intriguing twist, though.
Princess Kelsey Bandar, on the other hand, was a cypher. She looked exactly like her counterpart from this universe—one of Olivia’s closest friends—but she was different in so many unexpected ways, and not all of them easy to predict.
Kelsey Two—as she’d started mentally referring to the woman—and Austin seemed to be getting along pretty well, chatting without any of the hostility or the obvious distrust the woman showed her Jared Mertz. In her universe, it seemed he was a villain. At least it was hard to come to any other conclusion based on the actions the man seemed to have taken.
Considering how different this Kelsey was, that wasn’t completely unbelievable.
Once the others had gotten coffee, Olivia joined them at one of the tables. It was utilitarian, and so were the settings, something Fielding bitterly complained about, but she’d made certain to remind the man how this had been a robotic destroyer before they’d appropriated it, and he was lucky to have chairs. Needless to say, that hadn’t gone over so well.
Too damned bad.
“Good morning,” Olivia said. “I hope you both slept well.”
“Surprisingly, yes,” Austin said cheerfully as he flopped down in his seat in a somewhat disorganized manner. “It’s amazing how relaxing having the bomb in your head removed can be. Who knew?”
The Rebel Empire had put explosives into their chosen crews’ heads, all of whom had come from the higher orders. She and her associates hadn’t known that when Jared had retaken the ship. The enemy leader had awoken, discovered their fate, and killed her entire crew, except for Austin, who’d been out of range at the time.
The young man hadn’t been pleased when he’d found out that Doctor Stone had removed it, simply because he’d been certain that would set it off. It would have if they hadn’t cleaned up the programing in his implants first.
Thankfully, Olivia hadn’t been in a compartment where any of the original prisoners had died. The blasts had been more than sufficient to obliterate the prisoners’ heads and rip their torsos open. Gory and horrifying, she’d been told. She was deeply glad she hadn’t had to assist in the cleanup.
“Excellent,” Olivia said, turning her attention to Kelsey Two. “And how did you sleep?”
“Fine,” the short blonde woman said, her expression plainly revealing that as a lie. “I don’t suppose I could get some food before Fielding gets here, could I? I’m starving and don’t want to clue him in that I have to eat more than everyone else. It’s both dangerous and humiliating.”
Kaitlinn had obviously already been executing that plan, because she set a plate heaped high with scrambled eggs, sausage, bacon, and toast in front of the princess from another universe.
“Here you go, Highness. I’ll have some orange juice for you in a bit. Wave at me if you want seconds and I’ll fix you right up.”
“You are a saint,” Kelsey said gratefully, digging into her meal even as the cook headed back for the juice.
“Why do you need to eat so much?” Austin asked even as Kaitlinn delivered the juice. “Forgive me for saying so, but someone of your… ah, small stature, should need less food, not more. And why is she calling you ‘highness’?”
Kelsey looked at Olivia but didn’t stop eating.
“Those are some of the secret things Jared said he’d fill you in on in due time,” Olivia said. “Since you’ve become aware of them, I’ll make a down payment on that promise by asking Kelsey to briefly explain, without going into too much of the background.”
The other woman wouldn’t want to talk about how she’d been brutalized by a mad computer when it had forcefully implanted Marine Raider hardware in her. Without anesthesia. Even the idea of something like that made Olivia shiver with horror. It would’ve driven her mad.
“A few years ago,” Kelsey said between bites, “I was presented with the nonnegotiable opportunity to test out a few upgrades in implantable hardware. Part of that was artificial muscles. One aspect of having them means my body runs through calories like a top athlete in training. I’m always hungry and eat whenever I get the chance.”
“Nonnegotiable?” Austin asked, frowning. “Like how they put a bomb in my head? I’m so sorry.”
The young man’s obviously genuine sorrow seemed to make Kelsey feel a little better, and the short woman smiled a little. “It’s been hard, but things are looking up. Thank you for your concern.”
“How much stronger are you?”
“Let’s just leave it at several times stronger than I was.”
Austin frowned. “The stress something like that would put on your joints would be incredible. There would have to be some additional structural additions to make it work. Reinforcement to the tendons and hardening of the bones, at the very least.”
“Let’s not get lost in the weeds,” Olivia said firmly. “Don’t let your tech geekiness overpower you.”
He cocked his head to the side. “Geekiness? I’m not familiar with the word, though I think I get the meaning. Sorry. I get carried away when it comes to tech I’m not familiar with.”
“If Olivia says I can, I’ll tell you more and even let you take a peek at some diagrams,” Kelsey assured him, continuing to shovel food into her mouth.
Olivia noted that the woman hadn’t said that Jared could make the decision. That distrust was still hiding in there. Olivia was lucky in a way that she was like Austin, in that Kelsey had no history with her in her own universe.
“Why did she call you ‘highness’?” Austin asked, stealing a slice of bacon and earning a set of narrowed eyes as Kelsey edged her plate a little farther away from him.
“That’s a lot more complicated, and Kaitlinn shouldn’t have called her that,” Olivia said before Kelsey could respond. “There are political entities the Empire is unaware of, and Kelsey is a noble in one. A princess, as you might have guessed.”
The crown princess of the New Terran Empire, in truth. Just like in this universe, though serving a much different emperor. Over there, her twin brother Ethan sat upon the Imperial Throne. Here, he’d tried to kill their father and failed.
Kelsey One had used circumstances to allow her brother to blunder to his death. It had traumatized her for months and probably still haunted her dreams. One didn’t just walk away from something like that unchanged.
Olivia had worried deeply about her friend, but a trip to the Imperial Retreat seemed to have turned the tide for her. She’d still been angry and depressed, but the almost homicidal rage that had been building in her had dissipated. Apparently, a few weeks of reflection in solitude had turned the trick for her.
“Oh,” Austin said in a nonplussed tone. “I’ll forget that for now, as mentioning it to Uncle Oscar would be a terrible blunder.”
The young man smiled a bit sadly. “I know none of you really trusts me, but I do know he’s playing some game and probably doesn’t have my best interests at heart, no matter what he says. I’m not going to help him unless it helps us all. I really have thrown my lot in with you.”
Olivia still wasn’t completely convinced, but Austin could have betrayed them with a single word, and yet he hadn’t. He didn’t seem the sort to have deep plots of his own cooking merrily away, so she was thawing to him.
She opened her mouth to say something to that effect when her implants pinged with an incoming message.
“Hurry up, Kelsey,” she said somewhat sourly a moment later. “It seems our unwanted guest is on his way, half an hour early to boot.”
Almost as soon as she’d finished speaking, she received a connection request from Fielding through her implants. She accepted the call, treating it just like a standard com connection, even though the conversation was entirely in her head.
“Keaton,” she said, using her assumed name. Jaleesa Keaton had been the leader of the Rebel Empire crew on this ship before they’d recaptured it.
Olivia made certai
n to put just the right shade of irritation into her mental voice. No member of the higher orders would be pleased to be called before breakfast.
Since she’d lived her life at the highest levels of Rebel Empire society on Harrison’s World, serving as the coordinator of the entire planet most recently, she was more than familiar with how her compatriots behaved.
And, if she was being exceptionally truthful, herself under the right stimuli.
She was trying to get better about how she treated others and about how she took things for granted. Having Sean as her husband was occasionally jarring when he told her she was being snooty, but it was growth she was determined to make happen.
“Ah, so good to hear your voice, Lady Keaton,” Fielding said in a false tone of geniality. “I and my guards are on our way to the dining room. If you and your people will come meet me, I think it’s time to go over what we’ll be doing.”
“I’ll make certain that my people are informed. Some may be delayed, as we weren’t scheduled to meet for another half an hour.” Olivia emphasized that last bit enough to make sure the man knew she was less than pleased.
“My apologies,” he said with more than a hint of smug satisfaction. “I was up early and felt we needed to get ourselves in order as soon as possible. After all, you only have six days before the next extension is required for the cargo.”
He was referring to the bombs protecting the Omega Plague. They would go off unless he delayed them a second time.
“I still don’t understand why you don’t just extend them,” she complained. “You’re here with us. It’s not as if you’re going to allow them to just go off.”
He chuckled. “I see you’re operating under a misapprehension. I don’t have the codes to extend them any further. In six days and a few hours, they’ll go off and destroy this ship.”
Olivia sat bolt upright. “You told us that the System Lord had agreed to a plan that involved you coming along so we didn’t have to meet the other ship for a code to extend them.”
