Tanis Richards: Blackest Night - A Military Hard Science Fiction Space Opera Epic (Aeon 14: Origins of Destiny Book 3)

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Tanis Richards: Blackest Night - A Military Hard Science Fiction Space Opera Epic (Aeon 14: Origins of Destiny Book 3) Page 11

by M. D. Cooper


  “Oh, I’m not sure. I checked over the ship’s ready status, and since our requests for a new tank are rejected, that has flagged our ship as cleared for refueling. I can see it right here on the station boards.”

  “Uh…well that’s an error.”

  “Ho, whoa, whoa, Sergeant Hanja. I know that in real life, two wrongs don’t make a right, but if our tanks are no good, and we can’t get new ones. I see two negatives adding up to a positive.”

  “That makes no logical sense whatsoever,” Connie whispered.

  Marion winked and continued, “I’ve submitted the request for refueling. Looks like the NSAI’s approved it! Wow, that’s efficient. We’re going to get in queue for the…oh, look, it placed us at the G9A fueling station. That’s only a few hundred meters from where your offices are inside the station, isn’t it?”

  “What? How is this—”

  “You should come to the windows so we can wave to you while we’re topping off—”

  “Kirby Jones! You cannot refuel! Your tank will explode! The cap housings are fractured, it’ll—”

  “Are you acknowledging, on the official record, that you are denying us a refuel because our tank is damaged and needs to be replaced?” Marion prompted.

  “Uh…I suppose so.”

  “OK…we’re passing official acknowledgement from the Portmaster’s office on to procurement. Can you hold for just a second?”

  Marion muted the pickups and then began to whistle a tune. Surprisingly, the woman on the other end remained silent until the procurement board changed the state of the request to approved—which took only a minute.

  Marion enabled the pickups again and proclaimed, “Oh! Look at that, they just approved our new tank! Stars, you’re helpful, Sergeant Hanja. I’m certainly going to put in a recommendation for you after this.”

  “Um…thank you, Kirby Jones.” The woman sounded both relieved and confused. “I…uh…PMO, signing off.”

  “Stars,” Connie gave Marion a look of awe-filled adoration. “How the hell did you do that? And can I pay you under the table to handle all my procurement requests?”

  Lovell chimed in.

  “Thanks, Lovell. And you’re right. I just…I’m just a bit of a go-it-alone kinda gal.”

 

  “Jones first.” Marion raised her fist, and Connie reached out and clasped it.

  “Damn skippy. Jones first.”

  SEEKING TANIS

  STELLAR DATE: 03.02.4085 (Adjusted Years)

  LOCATION: Interplanetary pinnace, orbiting Titan

  REGION: Saturn, Jovian Combine, OuterSol

  Normally, Leona respected an officer who was good at their job. She believed that efficiency and effectiveness were some of the best traits anyone could possess.

  She recognized that not everyone could operate at her level, but she liked to know that the people around her were at least pulling their weight as best they could.

  She did not, however, appreciate a high level of efficiency in officers of foreign militaries.

  The fact that the Terran Space Force was able to simply traipse around the Sol System as though they owned the whole place, while the militaries of the Federation’s other member states faced restrictions, even in their own territories, bothered her enough as it was.

  The least they could do was suck at their jobs.

  Thinking of the TSF as a group of bungling idiots assuaged Leona’s simmering resentment of them, and then people like Tanis would appear and mess that up.

  Of course, Leona knew that applying a blanket judgement to all TSF personnel was dangerous in her line of work, and she endeavored not to let herself slip into a false sense of complacency. As such, the effort to manually track Tanis Richards aided greatly in staving off any such complacency in herself.

  Made all the more effective because she couldn’t find the woman’s trail at all.

 

  The AI’s tone did little to hide her own annoyance—which Leona hoped had more to do with her own inability to find the Mickie operative than disgust with Leona’s frustration.

  Initially, Leona thought it would be a fun exercise to pit her abilities against both her own AI’s and Tanis Richards’s, making a game out of who could find Tanis the fastest. But as the hours ticked on, and they were unable to locate and positively identify Tanis, both of their frustration levels had risen.

 

 

  Leona bit back a frustrated sigh.

 

  Leona shrugged and leant back in her chair, looking around her private quarters on the pinnace that Alden had secured for her. The cabin was nice. A bit too nice. She didn’t like to surround herself with much in the way of comfort. It made it too easy to forget what reality was for a woman like her.

  Leona said.

  Chelsea added.

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