Reaper's Crossroad

by Timothy Ellis

  "Okay, it was just a thought. It's up to the team leaders how they want to deploy anyway. Maybe we should be recruiting a mage to join each team as well, capable of doing limited rifts."

  "Might speed up ship boarding if the dropship doesn’t have to actually dock, but a rift could join the airlocks."

  "Pass that onto Annabelle. It's something a mage on the team could do, if Syrinx is able to teach any of them."

  "Confirmed."

  Forty Seven

  Jane came back a few hours later, and popped up another screen. Aline was behind a desk, and an attractive woman in a business suit was walking in the door.

  "Stop. When was this?"

  "About half an hour ago."

  "Where?"

  "On Haven."

  "What's she doing on Haven? I thought she was on the bridge here."

  Jane laughed.

  "She hasn’t been here since the marines went over to the last station."

  "How'd she get to Haven?"

  "Went over with the marines, waited for the rift to Terminus to be done, and walked."

  "Why?"

  The screen started up again.

  "Stop. Is she wearing real clothes?"

  "Yes."

  "So she's a civilian who's never been in space?"

  "Yes. She was recently employed by Dick for station security duties. Watch."

  The woman sashayed in, and sat.

  "Stop. What the hell is on her feet?"

  "Ten centimeter stilettos. What the Americans call four inch heels."

  "Seriously?"

  "Seriously. Watch."

  Introductions were made, the background of the woman explored, and questions asked by both. Finally Aline asked what I thought were the most important questions.

  "Why are you working security and not wearing a belt suit?"

  "Why should I? Civilians are not allowed to carry guns on station, so there's no chance I'm going to get shot. And if anyone pulls a knife on me, I'll simply take it away from them."

  "Really? In high heels?"

  "What's wrong with high heels? I can run in them if I need to, and I train twice weekly to fight bad guys in them. Don’t believe me? I'll happily take you on if you'd care to be embarrassed."

  Jane was laughing again. I caught myself with my mouth hanging open. Aline would kill her without raising a sweat. And her first punch would knock the woman on her arse. It wouldn’t even need to be a punch. I could see the same train of thought on Aline's face.

  "How many fights have you been in?"

  "Me? None. I'm always teamed with a man, and so far the macho dipshits have always kept me out of the fighting."

  Now I was laughing.

  Aline was shaking her head, trying very hard not to laugh herself. For a moment she looked like a ping had come in, and shortly after she wound up the interview, and the woman left. The vid kept going, now following the woman.

  I raised eyebrows at Jane.

  "Watch."

  As she re-entered the nearest shopping district, a late teenage boy pulled the shoulder bag off an elderly woman's shoulder, and started running. Our hero took off after him, demonstrating she could indeed run in high heels. I mean, she'd have come in last on a team run, but she could at least run. She yelled at him she was security and he should stop immediately, and he turned and ran back at her. A smug look appeared on her face for an instant, and she slowed.

  What happened next took her completely by surprise. Instead of stopping, the assailant ran straight at her, and with a shove, she went down solidly, one of her heels breaking audibly. The young man stopped, considered her for a moment, and went back to her. Thinking he was going to help her up, she raised a hand in his direction.

  He seized it, and began to pull her along at the run. She cried out for him to stop, and when he didn’t, she started calling for help. No-one came to her aid, and she was rapidly pulled into an area of the station where there were no people at all. Her cries for help got louder when she recognized where they were going.

  He pulled her to the inner doors of an airlock, opened it, pulled her in, closed the door, and cycled the airlock. By now she was screaming, and still screaming, the outer door opened, and they were both pushed out into space.

  I’d stopped laughing, and my mouth was hanging open again.

  For five seconds they hung in space.

  The young man was holding her by the hand still, and suddenly his suit activated into space suit mode, covering them both, with a clear bubble for both heads. They continued to hang there, slowly moving away from the still open airlock. There was no sound or mouth movement, and her eyes were closed, so I assumed the woman had fainted.

  Within a minute, an SR droid pulled up alongside them, and the young man pulled them both onto the sled, the suit connecting to an air point. The droid took them back to the still open airlock, the man jumped them over to it, the outer door closed, the lock cycled, and the inner door opened.

  The suit shifted.

  Jane stood there looking down on the woman. It took her a few moments to come out of her faint, and she looked up at Jane in horror.

  "That is why you wear a belt suit and flat heels! Had I been a real bad guy, you'd now be dead. Better get yourself checked out by a doc droid."

  She paused a moment, and the woman said nothing.

  "You have a good day now."

  Jane left, leaving the woman still on the floor of the airlock, and my lower jaw flapping open.

  Forty Eight

  For the first time ever, I rebuked Jane.

  She didn’t take it well, but finally agreed what she'd done was dangerous, and crossed a line. I ordered her to make sure the woman was alright, did go into a care unit, and if necessary, sought mental help. If she was alright, and Aline agreed, she was to be invited to train with some of the marines, so Aline could assess if she did have the right skills for the job. But first, she had to show the full vid to Aline.

  Aline was horrified, as were the team after they stopped laughing at the same point I had, when I played it for them after the first of the evening's B5 episodes, and after we'd finished eating. But all agreed the poor woman was entitled to a second chance, and the opportunity to admit her dress was not suitable for the position she was interviewing for. BA agreed she could join the team for training the next day if she wanted to. As a better way of ridding someone of their delusions, a team training session would do it, and be a lot safer.

  Aline didn’t mention anything about her interviews, and I didn’t ask. I did ask her why the team were not off with Arthur's people, and learned they weren't here. Apparently Arthur had taken all three new ships off into the wilds of the Haven system, so they could all learn how to pilot the carriers, and how the launching and recovery of the fighters worked. Just having Mosquitos available in quantity for missile defense was a huge difference for their tactics to need adjustments. The ships themselves were more able to take care of themselves, giving the fighters back their true role of being fighters, or bombers.

  It made sense Arthur wasn’t with us, as he wanted to be able to freely fly anywhere. So being part of an attack fleet wouldn't do him any good. Although I doubted he was going to be able to go back into Trixone space at all without fighting, and given his new ships looked like ours, probably not into Keerah or Ralnor space until we had some sort of treaty in place with them. Although, if Thirteen continued doing his Merlin thing for them, they had a way of getting into the back reaches of all three empires. And I wouldn’t be surprised if he added some mages to his ships to get them past obstacles.

  Which reminded me I hadn't seen Thirteen in quite a while. Maybe he'd returned to his higher realm now, and decided he no longer needed to meddle in our affairs. Although meddle was a harsh word, especially since he'd saved my bacon more than a few times. On the other hand, Max was looking content.

  The night brought nothing unexpected, with the last of the Keerah in Crossroad still fighting with the Trixone, and while t
he team were training the next morning, I planned the Trixone attack.

  It went off as well as the previous ones had. Only this time, we appeared behind the fleet on its way to the jump point, blew them away before they even knew we were there, and continued on to the station. Syrinx created the rifts as usual, the team swept through the largely unoccupied spaces, seized the few ships docked there, but this time took no prisoners. The plants all fought, and the teams were forced to kill.

  One interesting thing was the stun setting on the new guns didn’t work as effectively on the plants. It forced the use of mesons instead. Not for the first time, BA expressed the need for a sword they could all carry. Certainly they would have resulted in a lot less damage. I put it on Jane's to do list.

  We moved the station to the jump point on the other side of the system, in spite of it being almost unusable, and I set up the rifts to Terminus in case any traders did arrive. Jane began moving cargo droids and spare containers to repack freight into, at least so any freight could be moved around. I figured it would be at least several weeks before the new station became available, so we may as well try and use this one.

  By the time the stations were positioned, and the teams were back on their ships, one of the Trixone fleets at the jump point had started back in the direction of where their station had been. Once again, I rifted us in behind them, and they vanished into debris without getting a shot off.

  Not sporting, but this was war. Any advantage had to be used, or we'd be wasting lives and resources. It didn’t make me feel better, but losing a ship would make me feel worse. I did idly wonder how long we'd get away with doing this. If it was me, I'd be redesigning ships already, so more guns pointed all directions, and could fire with less warning, or even by computer control.

  It really was only a matter of time before rifting in behind a fleet would result in us getting a bloody nose unexpectedly.

  Talking of the unexpected, the remaining fleet jumped into Crossroad. This forced me to check what was going on in there, where I found the last of the Keerah ships had been destroyed, and the new Trixone fleet made numbers up to about two full fleets, half of them damaged. They were predictably heading for our jump point. I pinged Susan, but she was well aware of them. They weren't going to be a problem.

  I checked more widely, and both the new frontier jump points into Thorn's space had freighters going both ways. On the other side, new fleets had arrived, which had taken up defensive positions. The worry was, they'd continue to build up fleets until they thought they could take us, and then we’d find nothing had changed except moving our defenses out a system.

  The defense fleets were still where they'd been, since technically the systems taken belonged to me, not them. I expected a note from David any time now, wanting to talk about who owned them.

  Nothing had changed in the Ralnor system yet. I pondered sending the general a message, but decided not to. If their intelligence service was as good as it seemed, they'd be moving on their own before the day was out. Or so I hoped.

  The last of the combat was completed in time for a late lunch, and the team joined Aline and I. I picked at my food, mind on the need to still protect our space, and the fact at some point in the next few days, the attacks through the frontier jump points would start up again. The killing would go on, just in a different place, and all on me from now on.

  "Why so somber?" BA asked me, while waiting for her dessert to arrive.

  "Just pondering."

  "What?" asked Amanda.

  "How I stop the killing once and for all."

  "Can we?" asked Aleesha.

  I noticed she used we, instead of you.

  "Without getting governments to the negotiating table," said Annabelle, "probably not."

  "And that's not likely to happen any time soon," added Aline.

  The room went silent.

  "Why can't you use a rift?" asked Abigail.

  "A rift would keep all ships out. We want trade. What?"

  Syrinx had one of those looks on her face, the kind you get when you think you have an answer, but the words are not there.

  "I was wondering how complicated we could make a rift?"

  "Complicated how?"

  "At the moment we have several types of rift. A straight doorway connecting two points. And a return to where you started from rift. The latter is more complicated to do than the first."

  "So?" asked Amanda.

  "Can we apply more intent to the rift?"

  "Like what?"

  She sighed.

  "I'm not sure."

  "Could a rift be selective?" asked Alana.

  "How so?"

  "Well, we want traders to come through, but keep fleets out. You did say ships coming through more than singly would be considered hostile. Didn’t you?"

  I looked at Syrinx. She shrugged.

  "We could test it easily enough," said Jane.

  "How?"

  "Create a rift to Redoubt with the intent of only single ships go through, and we try to send two through it together."

  "I guess we could at that."

  I looked down at my apricot crumble, and debated leaving it to go back to the bridge now.

  The dessert won.

  Forty Nine

  I opened the rift back to Redoubt, adding in the new intent.

  With the rest of the fleet well out of the way, Unassailable went through first on her own. The ship vanished, and Jane sent herself back an all clear message.

  Scimitar and Katana went next, timed to go through exactly at the same time. Both vanished, and reappeared exactly where they'd left from, only pointing the other way. The team started cheering.

  Next I had them go through slightly staggered, with Katana being half a length behind. Both reappeared. We kept testing it until it was apparent both ships would always be sent back as long as the first one hadn't fully rifted through.

  Aline started the high fiving, and I sent all the other ships home first. Once docked at Redoubt, I put the teams on rapid recall, and moved into my ready room. I removed the last rift, and carefully did the intent for each jump point, putting the rift on the other side, as close to the actual jump threshold as I could. It meant nothing could jump into my space unless it was on its own.

  By the time I'd finished all four, Jane had observed two ships failing to make it through, proving the rifts were working. She sent messages to both ships, telling them to make sure they went through the jump point completely alone, and both ships subsequently made it.

  With the Ralnor still not moving, I did the same to their jump point as well. There was a fleet already on the other side, but so far, it wasn’t looking like it was coming through. Now it shouldn’t be able to.

  The waiting began.

  I started kicking myself about not having thought of selective rifts before now. So much loss of life, all preventable. All on me.

  Except it wasn’t all on me. Kali knew what I could do. Kali had been silent for a long time now. So her failure to teach me what could be done, lessened my own.

  Except it wasn’t really her failure either. The sceptre I carried provided power. In her hands, solar systems died. It was brute force usage. So what did she know of how to use it subtlely? After all, the rift we used to lock away the Darkness wasn't something any of the higher beings had thought of.

  My mind went back to computer games. Always it was a matter of levelling up. And so it was now. Thorn had known nothing of rifts. He moved things with his magic, but had never thought to open doorways instead. Another mage society thought of it, perfected the doorway, and then reverted to an earlier version of themselves where the skill was never developed. One mage retained the skill, but had never used it for more than a doorway before.

  This was all new.

  There was no blame for not having thought of something before.

  Knowing this didn’t help, and I did releases for all those who'd died so far in this war. The surprise was the physical reaction to
the release was almost nothing. So it wasn’t my karma affected.

  But if anything, there was a lesson here. For every military solution, there was a spiritual one even better. The trouble was, the latter tended not to present itself until the former was so bad you cast around desperately for an alternative.

  And unfortunately, what was still to come was going to be bad, regardless of which solution I used. Kill, not kill, the end result was death anyway.

  Aline pinged me with a request for a meeting. Apparently Susan was here to see me. I pinged back to send her in.

  I hadn't seen Susan Bentley to talk to for a while now. She was busy with the defense of our space, while I was busy way beyond it. I wondered what she wanted.

  I rose as she came in, and waved her to a lounge seat, moving over to the one I preferred. We both sat.

  "What can I do for you Admiral?"

  "I heard you started up a recruiting tool for pilots?"

  "Jane did, yes. It's still being developed."

  "But it is available for non-military to use now?"

  "Sure. Is there a problem?"

  Her face scrunched up for a moment.

  "No, but also yes."

  "Pick one."

  "I've not heard anything bad about the simulator, if that’s what you want. But it has raised an issue I wasn’t expecting."

  "What sort of issue."

  She sighed.

  "How much do you know about the Ark Royal?"

  "Which one?"

  Like most of the British ship names, it went way back. In this case all the way back to the late fifteen hundreds and the Spanish Armada. That much I knew. How many since then I didn't.

  "The last."

  "Not much. Wasn’t she scrapped years ago?"

  "Five years before I met you. She was the last British carrier, before the privateer class finally made carriers obsolete."

  "Don’t tell that to the Americans."

  She smiled.

  "Ark Royal was really old, older even than Warspite, who as you know, was sold to the Sci-Fi sector instead of being either mothballed or upgraded. We needed a carrier more than battleships at that point, so Ark Royal was upgraded, and the sale of Warspite paid for it. But all ships have a lifetime, and Ark Royal by seven years ago was way past the end of hers. The admiralty kept her going long after they should have scrapped her."