Sisterhood of Suns: Pallas Athena

by Martin Schiller

  Kaly sat down next to her, but before she could say anything, Anna answered her unspoken question. “No,” the girl said tiredly. “I haven’t heard anything. Just space-noise.”

  Kaly looked at the small display screen but failed to decipher its readout. The hiss coming out over the RDT speakers told the whole story however, even to her untrained ears. There was nothing out there.

  “They heard us, Anna,” Kaly said. “I’m sure of it. They’ll come.”

  “Sure,” Anna spat. “And maybe if the little ones pray to the Goddess hard enough, cookies will rain down from the sky for all of us to eat!”

  One of the little ones started to wake up and Kaly resisted the urge to slap Anna. Instead, she clenched her fists, and contained her anger.

  “Go back to sleep, Lissa,” she whispered to the child. “Anna didn’t mean what she said.” The child regarded her with an expression filled with fear and doubt, but obediently lowered her head back to the jacket she had been using as a pillow. And as was the way of small children, she was fast asleep in seconds.

  Kaly was starting to whisper a stern reproach to Anna when a deep, rasping cough interrupted her. Her head snapped around towards the evil sound.

  It was Jenna, the last adult in their group, and one of their most severely wounded. Krissi, the closest thing that they had to a medic, was already bending over the critically injured woman and examining her. The 13-year-old’s expression was strained.

  Jenna's injuries were well beyond her capabilities and everyone in the shelter knew it. Krissi’s medical training consisted of what she had received in the Scouts, combined with one season spent volunteering in the colonies’ small medical clinic. Doing data entry.

  Watching Jenna over Krissi’s shoulder, Kaly didn’t like the pallor of the woman’s skin. She was looking worse, and Kaly knew instinctively that her death was near. As this grim realization took hold, Jenna’s body went into convulsions.

  “Kaly,” Krissi cried, “Something's wrong with her. Help me!”

  By the time Kaly was at her side, Jenna had stopped moving. She had also stopped breathing.

  “Kaly, what do we do?” Krissi squeaked.

  Kaly put her ear to the womin’s mouth and nose. She heard nothing. She felt for a pulse. Again nothing.

  “Breathe for her,” she ordered, quickly seeking the right spot on the sternum to place her hands. “I’ll start the compressions.”

  Krissi was frozen in place. “I can’t do this!”

  “Anna,” Kaly yelled, “Get over here!”

  Anna dropped her diagnostic set and rushed over. Giving Krissi a look of pure disgust, she got on her knees and gave Jenna two deep breaths through her mouth. Then Kaly started chest compressions.

  They worked on the woman for ten minutes before they finally realized that she was past saving.

  “It’s not going to work,” Anna finally declared in a flat, emotionless voice. “She’s dead.” Without further ado, she got up from the body and walked back to the diagnostic terminal to resume her vigil.

  No one said anything, not even Kaly. The only sound in the room was the hiss of space-noise coming from the RDT, and one of the little ones, crying softly.

  USSNS Pallas Athena, Battle Group Golden, Miranda System, Pantari Elant, United Sisterhood of Suns, 1042.10|30|02:50:26

  Commander Lilith ben Jeni sat cross-legged on the floor of her cabin, breathing in the delicate fragrance of the Kalian incense scenting the air around her. Her eyes were closed, and her mind was empty of everything but peace and silence.

  A chime sounded, softly, but insistently, and she reluctantly focused her attention on it and opened her eyes. The bridge wanted something.

  "Yes?" she asked, trying not to lend any impatience to her tone. One of the great pleasures that she allowed herself during a freeday was spending the first part of her morning in quiet meditation. The demands of duty generally prevented her from doing this during a normal working week.

  A hologram of her second in command, Lt. Commander Katrinn Bertasdaater, materialized. "I'm sorry to bother you, Lily, but you said to let you know if anything interesting happened."

  Banishing the last traces of her annoyance, Lilith addressed the image. “What do we have?”

  “We received some fresh intel on the Spacewitch, ma’am," Katrinn answered. "She's in a convoy out of Ananti 4, headed our way. But before she joined up with the other ships, Customs Police in Ananti notified the DNI about her. An informant told them that her captain loaded up with a large quantity of glass. According to DNI, she's carrying it in a pair of false holds."

  In addition to protecting the Sisterhood from external threats, it was the Navy’s job to help enforce martime laws—especially when it came to drug smuggling. And Szalian crystal was one of the biggest probelems that they faced.

  Glass was a highly addictive drug. Addicts known as 'cutters' slashed themselves with glass shards, releasing an enzyme into their blood stream. The infernal substance tricked the nerves into believing that what was pain, was actually pleasure.

  But what brought the cutters ecstasy the first few times, failed the next. More and more injury had to be inflicted in an ever-expanding, never-ending cycle of self-abuse. Only death from infection or trauma ever freed the glass addict from this slavery.

  In Lilith’s opinion, anyone who trafficked in glass deserved to be jettisoned into space, without trial, or the bother of a spacesuit.

  "Yes, that is some interesting news,” she agreed.

  "I took the liberty of arranging a little surprise for her,” Katrinn continued. There was a gleam of mischief in the Zommerlaandar’s violet irises. "I’ve ordered the Artemis and the Demeter into positions in and around the main shipping lane, and I have us on standby to help coordinate the stop.”

  A holo of the Miranda system appeared alongside her Second, showing the two Macha-Class cruisers in their group, parked inside the concealment of an asteroid belt. A smaller pair of symbols marked out the locations of two F-90A Valkyrie aerospace fighters. Her own ship, the Pallas Athena, was standing off at a good interval from the others, and moving on a heading to take up station behind a small planetoid.

  All in all, it was a good ambush, Lilith reflected. But after three years of serving with her Second Officer, she was not surprised. Katrinn was an able commander in her own right and Lilith had never been disappointed with her Second’s tactics.

  “Everything looks good Kat. And I completely concur,” she said.

  “Port Authority registered her leaving space-dock just behind the convoy,” Katrinn added. “So when we see them, we’ll see her.”

  “Excellent,” Lilith beamed, “How long before we can expect her?”

  “If our information is correct, and the convoy didn’t run into any trouble in Null, we should see them in about twelve minutes standard.”

  “Good,” Lilith replied, "I'll be up in three."

  "Thank you, ma'am. I’ll have your breakfast waiting.” Katrinn’s image winked out and the room went dark again.

  Lights, Lilith thought. A psiever, a tiny bioelectronic receiver implanted deep inside her brain at birth, interpreted the thought impulses, and translated them into a signal. Receivers in the room around her responded to that signal, and the lights came on.

  Her kaatze, Skipper, who had been using Lilith’s meditation exercise to occupy the entirety of her empty bed, looked up in irritation, and the same everyday miracle that had turned on the lights, broadcast his thoughts from his own psiever directly to her mind. Not that she really needed to hear his tart commentary.

  I was quite comfortable before all that commotion, the kaatze protested. And we don’t need any lights on.

  "I'm sure that you were,” Lilith retorted, "but unlike you, I have work to do. You should try it sometime. It might be a nice change from lying around and sleeping all day."

  The kaatze answered this with a profanity that only felines fully understood, but Lilith ignored it. Instead, she made
her way into the tiny private bathroom that adjoined her sleeping quarters. After a few minutes, she reemerged relieved, showered, and feeling reasonably human.

  At a thought, her closet opened and revealed her uniforms. Freeday or no, she was required to report for duty properly attired and she quickly selected one of her day uniforms. It was a simple ‘star-service black’ tunic with minimal decoration, matching trousers and knee length boots.

  She put this on, and then stopped for a moment in front of the closets full-length mirror to smooth out the uniforms creases and straighten its collar. Then she ran a brush through her short, military-length hair.

  It was almost completely jet-black, except for splashes of grey here and there, and despite the occasional urging of her friends and co-workers, Lilith had steadfastly refused to have it colored over. Instead, she had kept exactly it as it was, telling anyone who commented on it that she had earned every grey hair in her years of service. To her, they were a badge of honor--not a sign of age. Patting a few of the more rebellious strands into place, she headed out of her cabin, pausing only long enough to make the Lady's Sign in the direction of her personal shrine.

  As always, there was a sailor on duty in the common passage that ran through Officers Country. The woman saluted her, and Lilith returned the gesture reflexively as she strode by her and out into the main hallway to the Lifts. At this time of the ships ‘day’, the residence deck was comparatively empty, and she found herself alone in the central lift.

  Bridge, she thought. The elevator responded obediently, and rose smoothly until it reached the Command Level, and then opened up onto the bridge itself.

  Like any other Isis-class warship, the Athena’s primary bridge was a large cylindrical chamber. It located deep in the heart of the great vessel, and protected by the surrounding decks and thick layers of blast resistant armor.

  In the very center of this space, Lilith’s command chair floated in its own grav field, above a raised dais. Directly below it, and facing towards the ship’s bow, were two conventional workstations that were reserved for her senior officers when she was on the bridge. Beyond them, orderly rows of control stations radiated outwards in every direction, separated by departments.

  With a nod to Katrinn, who was speaking with an officer over in Fire Control, Lilith took a moment to allow her eyes to adjust to the dim light. Except for the illumination from the holojectors and control surfaces all around her, the bridge was as dark as a mining shaft on her motherworld of Ara. The only notable exceptions were the three gigantic situation screens that encircled the bridge.

  At the moment, the forward-most sitscreen was displaying a detailed diagram of the Miranda system and all local space traffic. It also showed the current positions of the battle group’s three ships and the fighters. Each one, Lilith saw, had gotten themselves into position and had gone over from standard running to full stealth mode.

  Seeing this, she smiled in anticipation. For the last standard month, Battle Group Golden’s tour of the Pantari Elant had been uneventful, and she was as eager as the rest of her command for anything that would break up the monotony. The Spacewitch was about to provide them with that very diversion.

  As she walked over to her chair, and took her place, her smile widened as the light breakfast that her Second had promised popped up from the chair arm. Toasting her Second with her tea, she took a deep appreciative sip and waited as Katrinn finished her conversation and came over to assume her own place at one of the Senior Officer’s workstations.

  “Any update on the convoy’s arrival?” Lilith asked.

  “The convoy escort signaled that they would be coming out of Null on schedule,” the Zommerlaandar replied. “If they hold true to that, we should see them in another two minutes.”

  Lilith nodded. “That should give me just enough time to enjoy my breakfast then. I’d hate to meet the good Captain without being properly nourished.”

  Katrinn laughed, and left her to it.

  Lilith managed get in a few bites of her sandwich before the Senior Ship’s Advocate, Lt. Commander Ellyn n’Dira appeared and took her place her place at the Third Officer’s station. The seat’s official owner, Lt. Commander Mearinn d’Rann, was off duty at the moment, and the two women shared the workspace together. It wasn’t a formal arrangement, but something that the pair had come to mutually agree upon over the years.

  “Have I missed anything?” N’Dira asked.

  “Not at all, Ellyn” Lilith replied, inclining her head towards the sitscreen “The fun is just about to begin. Relax. Enjoy the show.”

  “Good,” the other woman said exhaustedly. “I needed a break from those briefs anyway. Some of us might actually have free time on a freeday, but I don’t think any of them are Advocates.”

  “Or Commanders, it seems,” Lilith remarked dryly. N’Dira was in charge of the ship’s legal affairs and she knew that the woman was working on a dozen or more cases at the moment. But with a crew of 10,365 women including officers and techs, a workload like that was simply to be expected.

  Unfortunately, the Star Service also required that N’Dira drop everything that she was doing and run to the bridge to advise the Commander every time they were about to get involved in anything that might have legal repercussions. At least this time she hadn’t brought her work topside with her, Lilith reflected, returning her attention to the sitscreens.

  At exactly the two minute mark, the number two sitscreen display showed the unmistakable signs of ships coming out of Null. An area on the screen had been marked out with a graphic, while a real-time image appeared in a window alongside it, showing an empty stretch of space beginning to ripple and distort. Within seconds, the disturbance increased in magnitude. Then, there was a soft burst of light at its center, followed by a line of freighters coming out of the area like beads on a string.

  As each ship came back into normal space, the Athena’s sensors read their transponder code and identified them on the sitscreen. And then, just as the Nullgate was about to collapse, a final ship popped out, straggling well behind the rest of the pack. She read off as the CSS Harmony, out of Cerridwen, but Lilith and the Athena’s computers knew from her engine signature that she was really the Spacewitch.

  “That’s the first count, eh, Councilor?” she said to the Advocate. Falsifying transponder codes wasn’t a Class-A offense, especially since the captain could always claim a malfunction, but every little bit counted in the end. N’Dira nodded absently in agreement as she called up a holo at her own station and began entering the data into a fresh case file.

  “Commander? The Valkyries are asking for permission to make the stop,” Katrinn advised.

  “So be it,” Lilith replied. “Also inform Captain taur Minna to have the Artemis come into play.”

  Katrinn relayed the order, and the Artemis came out of stealth as the Valkyries closed the distance with the Spacewitch. Their transmissions played out on the bridge as they hailed the freighter.

  “Freighter Harmony, this is the Sisterhood Navy. You are ordered to power down and heave-to for inspection,” the flight leader said. “Have your manifests and licenses ready for download.”

  The Spacewitch did not obey the order. Instead, the little freighter turned around and started heading away from the Miranda system towards open space, at top speed. On the surface, this seemed to be an utterly futile maneuver. Like most merchanters, she lacked the ability to transit into Null, and even if she had possessed that capability, the Indwellers, the amorphous life forms that inhabited Nullspace, would have made short work of her without a heavily armed escort ship tagging along to defend her.

  Lilith was an old hand at dealing with smugglers though, and knew exactly what the Captain of the ship was really about. The Spacewitch was making for the border of the system in the hopes of crossing its legal boundary, and jettisoning her cargo in open space. If the Spacewitch managed to do this, then the charges against her might be reduced. Especially if her Captain were able to co
nvince a Judge Advocate that she’d taken the drugs aboard without being aware of them, and had tried to dispose of them like a good citizen. But all things being equal, this was highly unlikely.

  “I repeat—power down your engines and heave-to,” the Valkyrie flight leader demanded. But the Spacewitch kept right on going.

  “That’s our second count--and a felony I believe,” Lilith observed. Failure to power-down and submit to a lawful inspection was a serious offense.

  Katrinn looked up to Lilith. “The Valkyries are asking for permission to fire a warning shot. May I grant it, ma’am?”

  Lilith looked over at N’Dira.

  “Yes,” the Advocate nodded, “but only that. I was specifically advised by the Advocate General’s office that we need to keep the Spacewitch as intact as possible. We don’t want any damage to the ship if it can be avoided.”

  Her response puzzled Lilith. Normally the AG’s office didn’t get involved in the process of enforcing the law—they generally left the tactical end of things to Commanders in the field. Unless something very important was involved.

  “Very well,” Lilith finally said. “Kat—please inform the flight leader that she may fire a warning shot.”

  Katrinn nodded and passed the order along.

  “Freighter Harmony, this is your last warning,” the Valkyrie pilot said, “Heave-to or be fired upon!”

  The merchanter ignored this order, and one of the fighters launched an Elf anti-ship missile. It detonated near enough to the vessel to show its Captain that they were serious, but without causing any damage.

  Realizing that they would not reach the border of the system in time, the Spacewitch’s Captain made the only move left to her. The Athena’s sensors registered the merchanter’s cargo bay opening up, and then the discharge of a number of small objects.

  A sensor scan came back with the results of the analysis a moment later. They were cargo containers. Just as Lilith had predicted, the Spacewitch had dumped her glass. Not that this had done the merchanter any good: once they were recovered, their contents would be inspected and confirmed.