by M. D. Cooper
“So did a lot of people. Turns out they just ran off to the edges of space, and hung out, building a massive empire. Then they had a schism. Pretty much everything that is going on right now is an outflow of that event. Well, that’s my take, at least. There are a lot of hands at work behind the scenes.”
“Stars,” Sofia muttered. “That’s a lot to take in.”
“I hear you,” Leslie replied knowingly. “The information’s still settling in for me, as well. I only found out a month or so ago. Like I said, you saw how good our ship’s shields are; well, they’re just the tip of the spear. We have tens of thousands of ships like that. It only takes a few to conquer a star system, so guess how long Nietzschea is going to last?”
They’d reached Sofia’s door, and she palmed it open, peering inside. “I thought you said there was a drone?”
“There was. It came by and dropped off a nanocloud. Ship’s too big to manage ourselves, so we’ve outsourced.” Leslie winked, but she could see the confusion on Sofia’s face.
“Nanocloud?”
“Yeah, a cloud…of nano. Some of the tech we picked up from the ISF. It’s gone through the entire cabin now. The rifle in the closet and the two pistols under the pillow are all disabled.”
Sofia’s eyes narrowed. “What about the—”
“The projectile pistol in the nightstand? Yeah, found that too. Just curious if you’d bring it up.”
Wordlessly, the colonel turned and walked into her room. She shook her head before finally muttering, “You’ve got a pair of globes on you.”
Nietzscheans have such stupid sayings. Leslie rolled her eyes as she leant on the doorframe. “Tail, too.”
The colonel undressed and then walked to the san, leaving the door open so Leslie could see her enter the sonic cleanser before running a short water shower.
“Stars…finally feel human again,” Sofia muttered as she walked out of the san, not bothering to hide her nakedness as she moved to the small wardrobe. She selected a fresh uniform and donned it quickly, then cocked her hip and smiled at Leslie. “OK, let’s talk food.”
Leslie signaled the automatons in the galley to prepare some sandwiches, and when they arrived, there was a platter with a variety of offerings on one of the tables.
Sofia grabbed a BLT while Leslie picked up a ham sandwich.
“Can’t believe you’re saying no to bacon,” Sofia said with a wink. “Never seen a cat turn that down before.”
“Funny,” Leslie replied as she sat across from the Nietzschean colonel. “I’ve had way too much of it these past few days. I need a break.”
“Blasphemy.”
They ate in silence for a few minutes, until Sofia had finished her sandwich.
She grabbed a second one, but before biting into it, she asked, “So what’s your plan, and what part of it do you need me for?”
“We’re all done with pleasantries, then, are we?” Leslie asked.
“Seems like it.”
Leslie signaled an automaton to bring her a beer. “Well, our first goal is to not have Epsilon shoot us down before we dock. We’re a good light hour from the normal jump point, so we have some time before their ‘Welcome, now give us your credentials’ message, but not too long. We’d like to give them something that doesn’t get us blown to atoms.”
Sofia snorted, then finished chewing and swallowed. “Well, one option is to say you have Admiral Gideon hostage. Even if they don’t like him much, they won’t blow him out of the black. Looks bad to the troops.”
“Not universally loved?” Leslie asked.
“He’s not the best, not the worst. A better administrator than tactician.”
Leslie nodded. “Gathered that.”
“So you want me to get us into a berth—on vid, too, considering you let me get cleaned up.”
“Well, we can fake you if needs be, but if you do it in person, you’ll be able to give a better show,” Leslie allowed.
“What if I betray you?”
“I’ll kill you first.”
The Nietzschean barked a laugh. “Good to know where I stand. What if…what if I maybe wanted out?”
“Out of what?” Leslie asked.
“The Nietzschean military. You Marauders hiring?”
Leslie examined Sofia’s face, looking for a hint of a lie. She’d watched the woman’s skin temperature, blood pressure, pupil dilation, the direction of her gaze, set of her jaw.
She doesn’t seem to be lying. She needed to make sure. “I’m going to need a bit more than that, Colonel Sofia.”
“I’ll make it simple: Gideon’s an idiot, but I never expected him to starve us all to death just to win a pissing match. Even after the engineers dumped the fuel, and the ship was going to Epsilon no matter what, he wouldn’t give in. I really do think he would have tried to make it all the way—even if we all died. But died for what? Just not to be prisoners? Marauders aren’t known for killing prisoners, and we’d end up at Epsilon. Things were going to be a shit-show no matter what, but his path had us all dead or dying even if our side won. Stupid.”
“It did seem more like bravado than logic to me,” Leslie said with a nod.
“I’ve seen a lot of that in my time in the NMS,” Sofia replied. “And I know one thing for sure. If Gideon is alive when all this is said and done, he’ll put me in front of a firing squad for disobeying his orders and opening the bridge’s door. So I’m between a bit of a rock and a hard place, at the moment.”
Leslie nodded in appreciation of the other woman’s situation. “A damn hard place.”
“Yup.”
“So what are you offering to do?”
Sofia appeared to think about the question for a moment. “Honestly? Whatever keeps me away from a tribunal and a firing squad.”
THE PROBLEM
STELLAR DATE: 10.21.8949 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: NMSS Spine of the Stars approaching Farthing Station
REGION: Epsilon, Old Genevia, Nietzschean Empire
“So here’s your problem,” Sofia explained to Rika and Leslie. “Bonnie, Ched, and Sandra are screwed. Even if Chief Emelia doesn’t turn them over the moment we dock, the NIS will work them over ‘til the whole story comes out. Technically they disobeyed a direct order from an admiral, so they’re screwed—and they know it.”
“I remember hearing that your military isn’t too keen on disobeying an admiral,” Rika commented.
“I don’t know of a military that is,” Sofia shot back, brow lowered and jaw set.
“Fair point.”
“Let’s get something straight,” she said evenly, her gaze darting between Rika and Leslie. “I don’t know about all this Transcend and Orion business, about the right side and the wrong side. I’ve dedicated my life to the NMF, and now that idiot Gideon has screwed it all up. You seem unwilling to kill him, but he’ll see the rest of us killed. You promised to save the engineers’ lives if they let you in, but if you let this ship dock, you’re killing them all.”
Rika drew in a deep breath. “I didn’t promise to watch over them for the rest of their lives. Theoretically, every risk they ever face from here on out will be because of my actions.”
“Let’s not get carried away, Colonel Rika,” Sofia said, her tone cold.
Leslie said privately.
Sofia eyed her for a moment, apparently deciding how far she wanted to push things.
“You’ll need to kill Gideon,” the Nietzschean finally said.
Rika wasn’t surprised to hear the words. It had been obvious what Sofia was leading up to.
“No,” she said, shaking her head. “I’ll not kill him for you.”
“He’s half-mad now, anyway,” Sofia said. “I won’t help you if he’s alive.”
A cruel grin split Rika’s lips. “I agree that he needs to die, but if you want him dead, you do it.”
“It’s not like that leaves your hands bloodless,” the woman shot back. “You’ll be giving me the weapon and the means.”
Rika chuckled. “I don’t have hands, but if I did, they’d be soaked in blood. I don’t need your absolution or forgiveness, I’m just not your errand girl. And I want something to hold over you, in case you get any bright ideas.”
“I knew you were a bitch, Rika,” the Nietzschean colonel hissed, though she had an appreciative look in her eyes.
“Right back at ya.”
* * * * *
Rika stood in the Spine of the Stars’s shuttle bay, with her arm folded across her chest, clasping the ammo feeder on her GNR. Admiral Gideon stood to the left of the shuttle—which was nearly ready to go—with Chief Emelia next to him.
Leslie had tried to reason with Emelia, telling her that if she didn’t agree to support the narrative Sofia had concocted, her life was forfeit, but the woman was as obstinate as the admiral.
“This is your last chance, Emelia,” Rika said, gesturing at the crew assembled in the bay. “Everyone else here recognizes that what happened came about due to Admiral Gideon being an idiot…or insane…or both. You can agree to the plan and join them.”
“Fuck you, bitch,” Emelia swore. “I won’t dishonor Nietzschea like the colonel here.” Her voice dripped with disdain as she glared at Sofia.
Sofia seemed entirely unperturbed. “If the vaunted admiral had listened to me back on Kansas, none of this would have ever happened. Stars, I even advised him not to take Rika, here, captive. Everything that has gone wrong happened because he underestimated his enemy, and was too pigheaded to recognize that fact.”
Next to Emelia, Admiral Gideon was all but vibrating with rage. The man had screamed the entire way down to the bay, and in the end, Ched had found a roll of tape and wrapped it around the man’s head.
Rika felt like they should have let him have his final words, but she figured he’d already said enough.
Leslie said, her eyes darting to the Nietzschean crew, who stood along the bay’s back wall.
Rika sucked in a deep breath, preparing herself for what was about to happen.
Rika nodded to Sofia. “Whenever you’re ready, Colonel. Put them in the head; we want to shatter the mods.”
“Not my first assassination,” the colonel responded before lifting the pistol Rika had given her, and firing a shot into Emelia’s head.
The bullet tore through the woman’s forehead and burst out the back, spraying blood across the shuttle’s hull.
Sofia didn’t even miss a beat before taking aim at the admiral’s wide-eyed face, and firing again.
A second later, the two Nietzscheans were on the deck, blood pooling around them.
“Haul them onto the shuttle,” Rika directed two of the engineers, while checking the nano she’d inserted into Gideon and Emelia’s bodies.
Niki replied.
Rika glanced at Sofia, who was staring at the bodies as they were being dragged onto the shuttle.
* * * * *
Thirty minutes later, they were assembled on the bridge—which still didn’t smell great, but Rika was able to filter it out. Sofia was in the command chair, with two of the ensigns at their stations on either side.
Rika and Leslie stood off to the side, watching as the colonel explained the events of the past few days—with the correct alterations, and no trigger words that they could detect.
The message to the Epsilon STC wasn’t real-time; they still had to wait several hours for a response and a berth, but an initial approach vector had been provided by an NSAI twenty AU from Epsilon.
When the message was complete, Rika stepped away from the edge of the bridge. “So you said this place has only been in operation for a few years?” she asked, watching the slow dance of mines, shipyards, and stations around the rogue planet.
“Yeah,” Sofia nodded as she gestured at the image of Epsilon on the display. “We only found it seven years ago. It was all but uninhabited, barring a few smugglers and pirates. Had been that way for over a century, too. From what I’ve heard, it was an exclusive resort about seven hundred years ago, but it was too expensive to maintain, so it was abandoned. Genevia used it as a black-ops base for a while, but then even they just up and left.
“Most of its life, the place has been home to smugglers and pirates—that is, ‘til Nietzschea showed up. Now it’s being put to good use—” Sofia stopped and glanced at Rika. “Though I guess you may not feel that way.”
“Amazing that the moons stayed in formation for so long,” Leslie said. “I would have expected the rosette to become unstable without active stationkeeping work.”
Sofia nodded. “I would too. Word is that there are AIs managing it all. They’ve been there since the place was made. Shackled, I’m told.”
They hadn’t revealed Niki’s existence to the Nietzscheans, so the utterance was just for Rika and Leslie, but it was loud enough that both women nearly winced.
Sofia was still talking about Epsilon, going over the mines, shipyards, and what she had heard about the construction projects there.
From what Rika could tell, Niki’s original estimate of ten thousand ships a year was close to what Epsilon could produce. The construction projects were still underway to bring all the shipyards up to speed, but when they were done, it would be a strong asset for the empire.
“So long as you don’t send a fleet to destroy it,” Sofia said, giving Rika a sidelong glance. “Is that your plan?”
She shrugged. “Maybe not right away, but this is war. We can’t just ignore a facility like this.”
The Nietzchean colonel nodded, but didn’t reply. The bridge fell into silence at that point, everyone waiting for Epsilon’s response and their docking instructions.
The hours ticked by, and just after the five and a half-hour mark, the response finally came in.
It was a video message, and Rika indicated for Sofia to play it for them all to see.
A man—an admiral, by the five stars on his lapel—appeared on the holodisplay. He was tall, strong-jawed, and possessed a singularly deep glower.
“Colonel Sofia,” he began, his voice deep and resonate. “I’m not please
d by this turn of events, nor that you fled directly here, but as I understand, none of that was your choice. It’s regrettable that Admiral Gideon took the route he did, but I suppose we can’t take him to task for that now. I’ve directed our perimeter patrols to begin looking for the shuttle you said the Genevian mercenaries took—we’ll find out if it managed to jump back to Blue Ridge or not.”
The admiral paused, and Rika noted that Sofia was clenching and unclenching her fists, breathing slowly.
“You’ll be docking at Farthing Station. I’ll not be there when you arrive, but you’ll be directed to debriefing, and I’ll be along once my other tasks are complete. I’m not happy about losing Blue Ridge, but hopefully the intelligence you’ll be able to provide will help stop this ghost of Genevia that has reared its head in Thebes.
“That is all. I look forward to speaking with you in-person.”
The holodisplay went blank, and Sofia let out a shuddering laugh. “Great. It’s Admiral Degan. We’re screwed.”
A GAME OF SNARK
STELLAR DATE: 10.22.8949 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Officer’s Mess, MSS Fury Lance, interstellar dark layer
REGION: Old Genevia, Nietzschean Empire
“This is the weirdest variant of Snark I’ve ever played,” Chase said as he scowled at his cards. “And the loser is what? The plug-sucker?”
“No.” Kelly laughed before downing half her beer. “That’s second-to-last place. Loser is the butt-plug.”
“This is the most disgusting version of Snark in existence,” Keli said with a grin. “I love it.”
Goob nodded vigorously. “I really feel like we need to take a vote as to which is really worse: the plug-sucker, or the butt-plug, because I think you have it backward.”
“Nice one!” Keli called out, and gave Goob a high-three.
Crunch tossed his cards onto the table and folded his arms. “Imma sit this one out. Any game that requires a vote like that to get started isn’t one I care to join in on.”
Kelly groaned and gave the sergeant a dismissive wave. “Stars, Crunch, it’s just a name; no one’s doing any of that shit—ha! See what I did there? Besides, none of us have the plumbing for it, anyway.”
