by M. D. Cooper
He saluted her, and Tanis returned the gesture, before leaving. Viska followed, after sketching her own salute.
“Not a lot of enthusiasm there,” Sera noted as she carefully stood. “Agh…stars, my back is stiff!”
“I know what you mean,” Tanis replied, ignoring the throbbing in her arm where the flowmetal was spliced into her flesh.
Over the next few minutes, everyone else gave a parting comment and left the room. In the end, only Tanis and Joe stood in the room.
“All these men, women, and AIs are counting on me to keep them alive,” Tanis said, her voice barely audible. “I’m not going to be able to do that; we’re going to lose a lot of people out there.”
“We are,” Joe said soberly. “More than either of us ever have before. But it doesn’t change what we must do. We are not the aggressors here. The Hegemony and Orion will regret this action.”
“I suspect that we all will,” Tanis replied.
* * * * *
Joe looked into his wife’s eyes and gave her a warm smile. “Come, let’s walk to the dock.”
“Walk? That’ll take hours, Joe. We have a ton of things to do.”
“Everyone has their orders, we can handle any crises on the way. Humor me, we may not see each other for awhile. I need to get my fill of you now.”
He wrapped an arm around her shoulder and led her out of the conference room as he spoke. She didn’t resist, and they strolled down the long corridor and past the maglev station, descending to the deck housing Prairie Park, where they wandered amongst the tall grass for some time.
Eventually, many hours later as Tanis had predicted, they stood within the vast expanse of the A1 Dock.
Joe took Tanis’s face I his hands and kissed her long and hard.
“Still such a tease.” Tanis smiled as she slid her lips onto his cheek, whispering in his ear, “You be careful out there. This fight is going to be hairy. I’m positive that the Hegemony fleet isn’t the only one out there waiting to pounce. No way would the OG let them come here alone.”
“Yeah, of that I have little doubt. You be careful, too. You’re the one flying around in the biggest target ever built,” Joe said, finally releasing Tanis. “I’ll see you soon, love.”
“Soon,” Tanis replied with a smile as Joe grabbed a groundcar to the shuttle that would take him to the Alexandria, flagship of his Fleet Group.
As he rode away, he turned to see Tanis standing alone in the vast space of the A1 Dock, this one small woman holding back their enemies time and time again by her sheer force of will.
“Stars be with you, Tanis,” he whispered. “I love you.”
AN OLD FRIEND
STELLAR DATE: 03.30.8948 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Sabrina, ISS I2
REGION: Near Roma, New Canaan System
Meet her.
Nance bolted upright in her bed, sleep instantly gone, sweat beading on her brow. The voice was in her head once more, prodding her again. After so long, she had begun to imagine that it had been a dream.
Could it be some sort of anxiety over Erin’s eventual removal? The AI had been in her head for nearly twenty years, but soon that relationship would come to an end. Perhaps her mind was playing tricks on her, making her re-imagine whatever she had dreamt up all those other times the voice had spoken to her—made her do things.
Leave me alone! she screamed in her mind. You’re not real, you’ve never been real, you’re just some part of my subconscious mind playing tricks on me.
Meet her.
Nance flung herself back into her bed and pulled her pillow over her head, screaming No! in her mind.
Meet her now.
Nance tried to remain still, but her body sat up, and her legs swung over the edge of the bed.
“No, I won’t, you can’t make me.” She hissed.
I can. Meet her.
Nance struggled to lay back down, but her body stood instead. She knew there was no fighting it. Before the voice compelled her to leave her cabin naked, she walked to her wardrobe—glad to still have the power to do so—and quickly dressed.
She quickly walked through Sabrina’s passageways and out onto the I2’s dock. Like previous times, the voice guided her, instructing her to turn left or right as needed. It took over thirty minutes to reach her destination: a small bar near one of the new fighter decks.
Nance sat at a table in the back and wondered who would come to meet her. The voice hadn’t sent her to meet an unknown person since her first encounter with it on Senzee station eighteen years ago. Her mind raced through a thousand possibilities, each less likely than the last, ultimately seizing on the fear that this would be her final hour of life.
A familiar figure walked into the bar, surveyed the occupants and began to thread the tables, working her way toward Nance. It took a moment to place her, but then Nance remembered. It was Terry, the biotech who had first given her nano to assist her the day they arrived on the Intrepid in the Bollam’s System.
“Terry?” Nance asked. “What are you doing here? You need to go. I’m meeting someone here.”
“I know,” Terry replied. “I’m the someone.”
Nance sat back in her chair. “You? You did this to me? Do you know what has happened to me since then? I’ve seen things…I’ve done things…”
“I saved you from yourself,” Terry said. “I made you better—something more. You were pathetic before. I made you strong.”
Nance was taken aback by the calm manner in which Terry spoke. As though her words were fact, indisputable. If Nance hadn’t been continually tortured by what happened so long ago, she may have believed the woman across from her. But she knew that Terry’s words were poison.
“What are you…who are you?” Nance asked, even though she knew. The meeting she had so long ago on Senzee station was no longer a dim recollection, a half-forgotten dream—it was a clear memory, as if it had happened five minutes prior.
“Surely you know,” Terry replied. “You must have met it. The creature. What does it want?”
Nance felt a nanocloud leave her body and knew that it was shrouding the table. Anyone nearby would hear and see something very different than what was about to transpire.
Her hand shot out, catching Terry’s in an iron grip.
“It wants to purge you. Your usefulness has come to an end. Myrrdan is nothing but a liability.”
A smile crept across Terry’s face. “I suspected it would want me dead. But their mistake is eternally compounding. I’m no one’s servant—and you have no idea what you’re mixed—”
The smile faded, replaced by a confused expression on Terry’s face.
“Who… Nance?” she asked.
Nance clasped both of the women’s hands in her own. “You’re confused, it’s understandable. This will take a minute to explain.”
A NEW MISSION
STELLAR DATE: 03.30.8948 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: ISS I2
REGION: Near Roma, New Canaan System
“They may have turned this bird into a warship, but it still has the best beer around,” Cargo said loudly in the crowded bar. He raised his glass for a toast. “To Cheeky. May she find her place in the stars.”
“Her place in the stars,” the others intoned and drank from their glasses.
“I can still hardly believe it,” Misha said. “I mean, I only knew her for a few years, but she was like family.”
“We’re all family,” Cargo replied, his voice deep and solemn. “We lost one of our own, we’ll never be the same.”
“C’mon,” Jessica said with a smile. “We did it! We got out of Orion space and to New Canaan. We should be happy. Cheeky would want us to be happy.”
Jessica took another sip of her beer as her crewmates talked about what the coming battle would entail—it would be the largest battle any of them had ever seen. Fleets to rival those at the outset of the FTL Wars, and more powerful weapons all around.
She had to admit to that it felt strange to finally be on the Intrepid, to be home. She had spent nearly two decades on Sabrina—an eyeblink compared to her time aboard the Intrepid, but still significant. And the men, women, and AI around her had become like a family.
Iris smiled in response, not just an image in her mind, but Jessica could feel it.
“Penny for your thoughts?” Trevor asked as he wrapped an arm around her.
A deep feeling of happiness and contentment came over Jessica as she relaxed into his arm. Things changed, that was the way of life, but they had made it. They had beat the odds, bested every obstacle. Now they were safe. Tanis would figure out how to win, just as she always did, and she would get that cabin with a porch down on Carthage.
And now she had someone to share it with again.
“Oh, did I mention that their settlement office already reached out to me?” Misha asked before Jessica could respond to Trevor. “I guess having friends in high places is damn handy. I have my pick of any unclaimed land on any of the terrestrial worlds—and I mean my pick of a shit-ton of land. I also got a few million credits, though I really don’t understand how the economy works here—I mean, there is zero scarcity of anything…how does money have value?”
“It’s what we were trying to achieve back on Victoria,” Jessica replied, “though we had a lot of push-back from the Victorians. They had a serious…mistrust of us that forced the colony to build a credit-based economy which focused on goods and labor.”
“Unlimited?” Cargo’s voice held no small amount of disbelief. “I don’t see how that’s possible. Otherwise I’d go buy myself a brand new I2 tomorrow.”
“You’d need to exhibit the same level of productivity that it would take to build the I2,” Jessica said. “There are also finite resources, or at least an upper limit to how fast they can be extracted and refined. That and energy constraints put an upper limit on what can be made, and therefore set the ceiling for what the productivist economy can support.”
Iris added.
“Well, I don’t want a starship,” Misha said as he leaned back in his chair and interlaced is fingers behind his head. “Give me ten thousand hectares and I’ll raise the finest horses this side of the core. I can’t wait to see what pure Sol-stock looks like.”
“Big enough for me to ride?” Trevor asked.
“Well…maybe. If they have the right breeds.”
Jessica glanced at Nance, surprised that she wasn’t joining in the conversation. The bio-turned-engineer was usually very interested in the more advanced tech that they came across on their journey. The idea of unlimited energy and resource production was usually a topic that she would dive into with more than a little fervor.
Jessica reached around Misha and touched Nance on the shoulder.
Jessica replied.
Jessica nodded. She and loss were old friends—healing took time.
Nance replied.
“Hey there, sorry to interrupt,” a voice said from behind them, and Jessica turned to see Tanis standing behind their table.
“Tanis,” Jessica said as she rose to her feet. “Have a seat, we were just discussing how the economy works here.”
“Stars…don’t even ask me. Luckily the GSS was good at filtering out slackers. If anything, we have too many go-getters on our hands,” Tanis said as she took a seat.
“Looking forward to joining in,” Misha said with a big shit-eating grin on his face and Jessica shook her head. He always did try to kiss ass.
Tanis nodded, taking no notice of his eager attitude.
“Bob and I have been reviewing the data you pulled from the Orion Guard facility and believe that we can execute a strike against them that will set their efforts back—considerably.”
“Sounds interesting,” Cargo said, his tone guarded.
“Stop, before you go any further, I’m not leaving New Canaan,” Jessica said. “I love you like a sister, Tanis, but no.”
“Don’t worry,” Tanis said while flashing a winning smile—something that never looked right on her. “You won’t have to go anywhere.”
TRISILIEDS
STELLAR DATE: 04.01.8948 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: ISS I2
REGION: Near Roma, New Canaan System
“Multiple signatures, six hundred twenty thousand klicks off our bow!” the chief scan officer cried out into the relative silence of the I2’s bridge.
Tanis leapt up from her seat and strode toward the holotank, rotating the view to show the region of space Scan had indicated.
Captain Espensen was at her side an instant later, hand to her chin as she examined the readings.
Tanis had considered building a separate CIC on the I2, but there was something about being on the vessel’s bridge that she loved too much to command the fleet from anywhere else. However, this was the first time they would be in battle with a fleet this large; if it proved distracting for the bridge crew, she would move.
“They don’t look like the Hegemony ships out past the HP,” Captain Espensen said.
It took Tanis a moment to realize that the captain was referring to the heliopause. Ever since she first met the young Rachel Espensen at Joe’s academy back above Victoria, she had known Rachel to invent her own little words, abbreviations, and phrases. She had become a bit of an ISF legend for how much of her vernacular had made it into the official tactics and doctrine.
Tanis examined the scan profile of the ships. Data was still accumulating, but she had to agree. These ships looked very different. None were as big as Hegemony Dreadnaughts, and their lines were sleeker, almost hydrodynamic.
“I think you’re right,” Tanis murmured. “Looks like someone else has come to the party.”
“You’re not going to hail them?” Captain Espensen asked quietly.
“The insystem beacons all say to leave immediately or be fired upon. That’s enough,” Tanis replie
d.
Captain Espensen gave a short laugh. “Remind me never to piss you off.”
The Fleet Coordination Officer sent the message, and a countdown appeared above the holotank—it would update with a more accurate time to impact when the rail platforms replied with their precise firing solutions.
While she was speaking with the FCO, she was also discussing the new ships with Captain Espensen.
“They look similar to ships from the Pleiades,” Tanis said. “Perhaps the Trisilieds.”
“You may be right,” Espensen nodded. “They’re a bit different from what’s in the Transcend databases, but so are the Hegemony ships out there. Stands to reason, though—intel says Trisilieds are squarely under the Guard’s thumb.”
“And a monarchy, no less,” Tanis said with a frown. “How in the stars do those still exist?”
She caught Rachel grinning at her out of the corner of her eye.
“How do you think they’re pulling off this jump?” Captain Espensen asked aloud, her voice now serious. “It’s some precision work to bring all these ships in this close to Roma.”
“I imagine the Hegemony ships have captured Isyra’s jump gates out there. Probably sent the coordinates back to these guys, wherever they were staging,” Tanis replied.
“Then we’re going to get a lot more company real soon,” Captain Espensen said, and Tanis imagined the captain was referring to the Hegemony ships using Isyra’s gates to jump insystem.
“We read over two thousand of enemy vessels, more coming every minute,” Admiral Sanderson said as his holopresence appeared beside the tank. “Some retirement, by the way.”
