by M. D. Cooper
“Do you know how I’m sure that Angela is a part of me?” Tangel asked as she gave Sera a look of mock annoyance.
“How?”
“All of the exceptionally sarcastic remarks that I’m not making right now.”
Jen added.
Tangel laughed and glanced at Sera’s temple. “Well, Jen, that’s how we know that Tanis is in here, too.”
“Whoa, hey, where you two going in such a hurry?”
“Calamity awaits us, Jessica,” Tangel said without turning to look at the woman who was rushing to catch up with them. She never needed to lay eyes on Jessica to know she was near; the energy radiating off her always flooded her surroundings with a lavender glow.
“Is that what we’re calling a night out?” Jessica asked as she caught up, falling into place on Sera’s left, putting the president in the middle of the group. “Or is this a real calamity?”
Sera placed an arm around Jessica’s purple shoulder. “I like the way you think, Jess. We should make that our code word for getting away from it all. However, this time, it’s legitimate. The mighty leader has been summoned to deal with yet another crisis.”
Jessica looked at Sera, then peered around her to eye Tangel. “Which of you two is the mighty leader?”
“She is,” they both said at once, pointing at one another.
Tangel cocked an eyebrow and then burst out laughing, while Sera only scowled, wagging her finger at the field marshal. “We had that talk by the lake, don’t try to go back on it.”
Still chuckling, Tangel nodded. “Sorry, couldn’t resist. Either way, you’re still the boss on paper, President Sera, which is why you have to come along.”
“I seem to recall a fair number of treaties you’ve forged on your own,” she muttered.
“You recall them because they came to you to be ratified by the president.”
“And how are you doing these days, Jen?” Jessica asked, glancing at Sera’s head. “Getting into any trouble in there?”
“I’m not sure how I should take that,” Sera grumbled. “I’m a very well-adjusted person.”
Jessica winked at Tangel. “Awww…she thinks she’s well-adjusted? Isn’t she a cute kid?”
Sera rolled her eyes, then coughed and composed herself before giving a stately nod to a group of ensigns who had shuffled aside and were standing at attention as the three women passed.
Once they were on their own again, she shot Jessica a sharp look. “OK, I’m still the president, not some cute—”
“Noooow she pulls rank,” Tangel said, catching Jessica’s gaze and winking.
“—aaaaand,” Sera said loudly to drown out Tangel, “depending on your reckoning, I’m seventy-two now. So I think that I’ve finally graduated from being a kid.”
“Huh…” Tangel said as she remembered where she was at that age. “That’s how old I was when I finally got accepted to join the Intrepid’s mission.”
“Kinda got you beat, then.” Sera dug her elbow into Tangel’s ribs. “You ran security on a colony ship, I’m in charge of a hundred million star systems…give or take ten million.”
“Most of them are vacant. Plus, nepotism.”
“Oh! We’re going there are we?”
“Not to get on topic or anything,” Jessica interjected as they reached the maglev station at the aft end of the command corridor. “But where’s this big catastrophe? Something else going to pot here in poor ol’ Thebes?”
Tangel shook her head. “No, it’s a bit of a diplomatic snafu in Pacifica.”
“Pacifica…” Jessica tapped a finger against her chin as a train arrived. “I recall that name from status reports, but I guess I never committed it to memory.”
“One of the nations in Corona Australis,” Sera provided.
“Oh!” Jessica exclaimed as she followed Tangel and Sera onto the train. “You know this means I’m coming with you. I’m still put out that I never got to see Ascella.”
“I kinda figured you were coming,” Tangel said with a wry laugh. “Who knows, maybe they have good restaurants on Fiji—their capital world…thing—and we can still have a night out at some point.”
Sera wagged a finger at Jessica. “But don’t think you can just tag along and sightsee. If we have to sit in boring meetings, so do you.”
Jessica blew out a sharp breath. “I’m like the queen of boring meetings. You know how many I’ve sat through in the last year as we traipsed about in LoS space?”
“I bet it’s not as many as—” Sera began, when Tangel interrupted.
“Seriously, you two. Let’s not try to one-up each other on who has the most boring meetings under their belt. I’d rather face down a horde of core AIs than think of all the time I’ve spent slouched over conference table through the years.”
“Sure.”
“Good point.”
“Besides,” Tangel said with a wink. “I’d totally win.”
KALI
STELLAR DATE: 09.13.8949 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Bridge, ISS Castrorum, approaching Fiji
REGION: Kali System, Pacifican Alliance
The Castrorum leapt across space from Albany to the Kali System in a little more than the blink of an eye.
A moment prior, the forward display on the light corvette had shown the cleanup operation around Pyra—the ongoing legacy of the battle against the Nietzschean armada to free the Theban Alliance.
While the effort to clean up the detritus left in the wake of such large-scale destruction was impressive, it wasn’t a patch on the Kali System—if it could even be called that yet.
“Well, you don’t see that every day.” Tangel didn’t even try to hide the awe in her voice.
“Eaaahh,” Jessica shrugged. “You’ve seen one star forming, you’ve seen them all.”
Sera cast her a look of judgement. “You can’t tell me you’re not impressed by this.”
The purple woman laughed softly as she gave the view a look of utter longing. “I’m kidding, it’s awe-inspiring. I can’t wait to bathe in its light while you two sit in meetings.”
Tangel ignored Jessica’s jibe as she stepped forward, taking in the view of the birthing star and the clouds of dust and gas that surrounded it.
The proto-star forming at the heart of the Kali System was only a few thousand years old, one of several new stars being born in Corona Australis. The molecular cloud lay below the galactic disk, and as its leading edge collided with the dense interstellar medium of the disk, shockwaves rippled through its light years of gas and molecules. When the shockwaves passed through denser regions, the gravitational perturbances caused pockets of matter to reach that magical tipping point where a cloud of particles began to suddenly collapse and become a star.
Well, Tangel mused. ‘Suddenly’ in galactic timeframes.
At present, the new star’s stellar disk was a dense cloud, thick with dust and gas. Two dozen small worldlets were forming as shockwaves from the birthing star spurred on miniature versions of its own origins.
Closer to the star, the cloud was hot, shining as brightly as a star in its own right. Further out, the gas was much cooler, until at the fringes of the cloud—some sixty AU away—it was frigid, the haze glowing blue from concentrations of methane and nitrogen.
Except Lieutenant Brennen, who stood at the back of the Castrorum’s bridge, the three women stood alone as they regarded the rotating maelstrom of creation. The view provided from the ship’s optics was from the bottom of the circumstellar cloud, their destination laying ahead, also below the cloud.
Fiji was a small terrestrial world that had been drawn into the Kali System in millennia past by changes in gravity wrought by the proto-star, as its mass increased and the density of the surrounding molecular cloud decr
eased.
“That’s a lot of industry,” Sera commented, pointing at several facilities clearly visible in the cloud. “They’re pulling more out of that stellar disk than the reports led me to believe.”
Jessica let out a low whistle. “Yeah, I can see eleven scoops from here. Never saw any operations that large in Stillwater. Granted, that nebula was practically bursting with everything you’d ever want. No need to capitalize on a stellar cloud like this to get raw resources.
Tangel glanced at Jessica, taking a moment to consider what a strike at Orion forces in the Stillwater Nebula would involve.
“I see the wheels turning behind your eyes, Tangel.” Jessica shook her head, eyes hooded. “The star formation we encountered in our travels was deep in the nebula. You’d have to jump between each of them, and then it would take years to get the last gateships out. Too deep in the slow zone.”
“Yeah,” Tangel sighed. “Too big, too. We could search Stillwater for centuries and not even cover half of it.”
“Going to be a fun problem for the future—chasing down the last remnants of Orion…plus win the war,” Sera muttered. “Of course, we have to deal with this problem first.”
“You know, you never shared exactly what the calamity is that’s brought us here.” Jessica cocked an eyebrow as she regarded Tangel and Sera. “Other than the threat of boring meetings.”
“Well, we want Pacifica to fully sign on to the Alliance,” Tangel said as she turned to look at the world of Fiji as it grew closer.
The planet was a sight to behold. It orbited the birthing star around the primary’s poles. It had recently passed through the disk, trailing streamers of dust and gas in its wake. Continuing to gaze idly at the sight, she continued.
“Thus far, they’ve been trading us resources for tech. We’re taking the raw resources and shipping them to shipyards via jump gate. Problem is, now the Pacificans want their own gates.”
Jessica whistled. “I can see why that’s hairy. Though, there are corporations in Orion that have their own gates, so it doesn’t seem that odd to me.”
“Don’t forget the thousand now-independent systems in the Transcend that also have gates,” Sera added bitterly. “Though at least ours are black box tech. I sure hope the ones Orion has doled out are as well.”
“We’ll deal with that mess when the time comes,” Tangel said. “Eventually, I would like to see gates done away with entirely.”
“Entirely?” Sera asked, her mouth hanging open for a moment after she uttered the word.
Jessica shook her head in disbelief. “Seems like a bell that will be hard to un-ring.”
“Sure,” Tangel nodded, her eyes still fixed on the forward display and the small world half an AU distant. “But so will maintaining peace in a galaxy where any star system can jump a fleet deep into an enemy system. Easier to go after gates than a billion warships rampaging across known space.”
“So no gates for Pacifica, then?” Jessica asked.
Tangel glanced at Sera and shared a long look with the president of the Transcend before shrugging.
“You know what?” Jessica said, breaking the silence. “Not even sure why I’m asking. I’m just here to bask in the light, and then find a good place for drinks and dancing with the two of you when your meetings are done.”
Sera snorted and broke Tangel’s gaze to look at Jessica. “Stop trying to get out of it. If I’m sitting in meetings, then so are you. Besides, this should matter to you. If we can get them fully onboard, we have yet another major ally against the Hegemony. And fighting the Heegs is your schtick.”
Jessica shrugged. “I only go where the Goddess Tanith sends me. If she tells me to smite the Heegs, I smite the Heegs, if she says I must bring ruin to the Roman Empire, then that is where I’ll do.”
“Stars, I wish you wouldn’t call me that,” Tangel muttered. “Though half of me thinks it’s hilarious, which is annoying as well.”
Sera frowned at Jessica. “We’re smiting the Romans? I thought we almost had them signed on as well.”
“She’s making a Tanis joke,” Tangel said. “Tanis’s namesake is Tanith, the goddess of the ancient Earth city of Carthage. The Romans were their historic enemies. Eventually, the Carthaginians lost in something called the Punic wars. From what I recall, there were elephants and mountains and all sorts of fun stuff.”
Sera snorted. “The pubic wars?”
“Stars, Sera.” Jessica laughed. “Don’t they teach you any ancient history in the Transcend?”
Tangel held back a smile as Sera’s face turned red, literally. “Jessica, I think as far as Sera’s concerned, you and I were born in ancient history.”
“Touché,” Jessica replied.
Tangel was about to add something more, when the ship’s scan suite picked up an eddy in the stellar disk that stood out from the natural flow of the clouds. She flipped the view on the main display to the location in question, just a few light minutes stellar north of the Castrorum.
Sera, Jen, and Jessica had also been alerted to the anomaly, and peered at it intently.
“Could be a ship,” Jessica said. “One moving fast.”
Despite her words, Tangel could tell that Jessica wasn’t convinced that the disturbance was just a speeding starship.
“That’s a wide bow shock for just one ship,” Sera said as she highlighted possible trajectories for whatever the racing object was.
From what they could see, it was moving in Fiji’s general direction, but the cone of uncertainty was wide enough that it was hard to tell if the object was on a direct course for the planet.
Tangel glanced back at Lieutenant Brennen, who had stood silently at the back of the otherwise empty bridge during their banter. “Alert your squad. I’ve got a feeling that things are about to get interesting.”
“Yes, ma’am,” the Marine replied. “Do you think we’ll be boarding or repelling?”
Tangel glanced at the overhead. “Well, we have stasis shields, so provided that thing isn’t one of Airtha’s DMGs, we should be safe enough. Plan for boarding.”
“Understood, Admiral.”
“DMGs or a bunch of Orion ships firing atom beams up our ass,” Sera muttered.
“Doubtful,” Tangel said. “If there were Oggie ships here, they’d be closing with us, not Fiji.”
“Whatever its goals are, that thing is really cruising,” Jessica said as she updated the data on the disturbance. “Accelerating, too, though the clouds make it hard to tell for sure.”
“If it’s not Orion, it’ll be Sarento,” Tangel said softly. “They’re frenemies of Pacifica, though the Pacificans have been trading with them as well as us.”
“Wait.” Jessica turned to face Tangel. “That name, I do know. Aren’t they an Orion puppet nation on the far side of Corona Australis? A bit north, toward the galactic disk?”
“That’s the one.” Tangel nodded, her gaze still fixed on the disturbance. “We’ve been soaking up as much of Pacifica’s production as we can in an attempt to starve them out. But keeping customers on both sides of the conflict has been Pacifica’s game so far. That’s what the diplomatic team called us in to deal with. A large order for volatiles just came in from Sarento, and elements in the Pacifican government are pushing to fill it.”
Jessica snorted in annoyance. “I hate people like that.”
“Just another opportunity,” Tangel said as the cone of uncertainty for the mystery object’s trajectory narrowed further.
On the display, two dozen markers near Fiji changed from green to red and began moving toward the object.
“A lackluster response. That’s not enough ships no matter what is coming,” Sera commented. “I think these people need us more than we imagined.”
Tangel pulled the helm control away from the NSAI autopilot and changed cou
rse to intercept the approaching object before it reached Fiji.
Once the heading was set, she reached out to the locals.
Sera glanced at Tangel and shook her head. “Given this system’s nature, these people must deal with a lot of stray rocks…heck, they plunge that world of theirs through the cloud twice a year. But that guy…he sounded shaken up.”
“More than a little,” Jessica said in agreement.
While she waited for a response from Fiji, Tangel considered reaching out to the diplomatic team on the Pacifican capital world, but decided to leave them be.
Take too long to go through all the formalities.
Instead, she hopped across a local relay, circumventing the standard authorizations for foreign vessels, and began to plumb the depths of the Kali System’s navigational archives.
“Huh…look at that,” she muttered while pulling the data up and putting it on the main display. “Fortuna was one of the early settlements in this system. For a few thousand years, it orbited within a clear region, but then a shockwave condensed a nearby layer. The clear band it occupied closed up, and its orbit became unstable. It was abandoned over a hundred years ago.”
“And the locals just lose track of it and then it spins out on a collision course with Fiji? Seems unlikely.” Jessica said with a snort, then directed a resigned look at Tangel. “I guess it looks like starlight bathing is going to have to wait a bit.”
Tangel was about to reply, when a response finally came back from Fiji.