by M. D. Cooper
“That you do, Jen, that you do.”
Sera looked down at her body, surprised to see that her skin still bore the appearance of a blue shipsuit—her semi-official look. She’d found that lately, when she got lost in thought, her skin reverted to the deep red that she now considered to be her natural skin color.
It also tended to lose any of the ‘adjustments’ that made her not appear to be completely naked.
Sera chuckled at the memories of how she’d made Admiral Greer quite uncomfortable on several occasions when her skin had reverted while she was deep in thought in his presence.
As amusing as it was, losing control of her appearance was a tell, and Sera didn’t like tells. Even though she was reasonably certain she could trust everyone on Keren Station, that didn’t mean she wanted them to be able to read her state of mind so easily.
“OK, let’s go see what the Admiralty thinks of the battle for Thebes.”
She pushed herself off the window sill and walked toward the door where a pair of low boots waited. She slipped her feet into them and pulled a belt off a hook on the wall, wrapping it around her waist and holstering a sidearm.
Theoretically, she was in the safest place in the galaxy right now, but Sera had learned firsthand how well that theory held up.
She stepped out into the corridor, and nodded at the two members of her High Guard as they fell in behind her.
Another part of being president that I don’t think will ever stop feeling weird.
The War Room was one level down in the administrative complex, and Sera arrived in only a few minutes to find Admiral Greer and his staff standing in the center of the room, arrayed around one of the larger holotanks.
“All-in-all quite the success, don’t you think?” Sera said as she approached the group.
Greer turned toward Sera and gave a sharp nod. “They’ll be talking of this one for centuries.”
The woman next to Greer, Rear Admiral Svetlana, gave a rueful laugh. “Well, it was going to be talked about no matter what. The question was in what light? I’m glad that it now will be a positive one.”
Sera agreed with Svetlana’s assessment, and there were nods from the other admirals, generals, and colonels present.
“And we’re ready to deploy gates to withdraw the fleets?” Sera asked.
Greer nodded. “We have ten ready to go, ma’am. I’d send more, but we don’t have the ships to spare. We’ve already weakened Krissy’s response forces greatly, and she had just begun a major bait operation.”
“Not to mention how strapped the Spinward Front is,” Sera added. “We need to work out how to reinforce them.”
“Understood,” Greer blew out a long breath. “Not sure who I’ll rob for that. If the ISF would just share its tech so we could grow ships—”
Sera held up her hand to forestall the rest of Greer’s statement. “You know Tanis won’t budge on that.”
Greer opened his mouth to respond, but Sera’s narrowed eyes caused him to close it and nod.
“This civil war is strapping us at the worst possible time,” Svetlana shifted the conversation. “We need to end it as soon as possible.”
Greer gave Svetlana a sidelong look. “We’ll save that for tomorrow’s briefing on Operation Ringbreak. If we start on that topic now, it’ll derail us from what we need to focus on today.”
Sera looked down at the holotank, watching the view of the allied forces, the updates showing them sweeping through the Nietzschean ship formations, decimating them en masse.
The data was basic: colored pinpoints of light denoting ship types and alliances. Any more detail would stress the QuanComm network and burn out blades. At present, network degradation was a real concern. While the massive strike against the Nietzscheans in the Albany System was shaping up to be a decisive victory, it had burned through hundreds of paired blades.
Over fifty percent of the QuanComm blades had overheated, their rubidium cores losing entanglement with their counterparts many light years distant, a terminal effect that ended their ‘spooky action at a distance’. Sera had sent requests to New Canaan for more, but knew they were already being manufactured at the fastest rate possible.
As frustrating as it was to rely on one star system for so many of their resources, Sera agreed with Tanis’s logic on the matter. Their only real edge in this fight was the technological advantage from New Canaan.
But Tanis’s people guarded their tech zealously—something proven by what they had been willing to do to win the Defense of Carthage. The safety of the process used to produce their ships was paramount. If the specs fell into Airthan or Orion hands, the war would be over in less than a year.
With a very unfavorable outcome.
“So what should we do to bolster the Spinward Front, sir, ma’am?” Svetlana asked. “You saw the latest updates from the 917th Fleet. They’re commanded by a captain now, for star’s sakes. He’s abandoned an entire section of the front, falling back to Fortress Gibraltar. That opens up hundreds of light years to the OG.”
“I think we need to punch Orion in the gut,” Sera said as she pushed the battle around Pyra—which was turning into a rout of the Nietzscheans—to another holotank and brought up the Three Arms view of the galaxy. “We know from the strategic data Jessica brought from Orion Space that Orion has withdrawn almost all of their forces from the Perseus Expansion Districts. All that is left are small policing forces. We could dispatch a force or two to rampage through their territories.”
One of the other admirals, a man named Mardus, nodded with a grim smile. “Xenophon and the ten thousand hoplites.”
“Hopefully with less betrayal,” Sera said with a chuckle. “But yes. If we send a core of cruisers equipped with stasis shields and light destroyers for fast attack missions, we could create one hell of a mess inside of Orion.”
“Civilian targets?” Greer asked, his expression unreadable.
“No,” Sera shook her head. “Just the opposite. We uplift them. From what Jessica shared, the Expansion Districts aren’t even as advanced as half the Inner Stars. For all intents and purposes, those people live in squalor. We’ll have to be smart about it; we can’t obliterate their economies overnight, but we could make life a lot better for them.”
“Do you think it will pull pressure off the Spinward Front?” Svetlana asked. “From where I stand, it looks like Praetor Kirkland doesn’t give a rat’s ass about the Expansion Districts.”
“And the Perseus Expansion Districts are much closer to the Anti-Spinward Front,” Greer added.
Sera nodded as she stared at the map. Greer was right. Chances were that resources would be pulled from Orion’s Anti-Spinward Front to deal with an incursion. She looked up at the admirals. “Well, I did say ‘a force or two’. What if we sent one to…Costa—where Sabrina jumped out of Orion space—and the other to Herschel? We have enough data on that region from captured soldiers like Colonel Kent.”
Greer highlighted Herschel on the map and then pointed at another star, eight hundred light years away. “Rega’s pretty damn close to Herschel. Hitting them there will be more than a sabre-rattling. They’ll come in hard to put down a force that deep in the OFA.”
“You’re right about that.” Sera met Greer’s eyes with cold certainty. “But if Rega sends forces to Herschel, they won’t be sending them to the front. That may give us enough breathing room.”
Greer grunted and looked back at the holo. “Stars, I wish Scipio would just finish with the Hegemony already. We could really use their help in the larger fight.”
“Scipio has made inroads,” one of the colonels reported. “But the Hegemony has turned their entire economy over to a war footing, including retrofitting many of their private merchant fleets. They have millions upon millions of ships, now.”
“And here, Tanis just gave hundreds of ships to the Septhians,” Svetlana shook her head. “President Sera, I volunteer to lead the expeditionary force to Herschel, but we’ll need a fleet that can
actually get the job done.”
Sera nodded. “It’ll have to be at least five hundred ships. A force large enough to take a system, but small enough that it can operate with less support.”
“I can work up the optimal configuration,” Svetlana replied with a crisp nod. “I have given extensive study to this sort of attack on Orion.”
Sera met the tall admiral’s gaze, their eyes locked across the table. “Admiral Svetlana, you know that emergency extraction may not be possible. If things go sideways out there…”
“I understand the risks, President Sera. I’m willing to take them on. When I signed up, it wasn’t to sit in a fortress and plot.”
Sera saw Greer blink, followed by a sidelong look at Svetlana. She wondered what he thought of the Rear Admiral spearheading an operation like that. Granted, assignments of personnel were his call, and she handed that responsibility to him.
“I’ll abide by Admiral Greer’s selections,” Sera said. “Which I imagine he’ll want to mull over for a bit. Even if we do this, we still need to bolster the fronts. Stars knows Airtha’s not doing a thing to help.”
The next two hours turned into a long session of examining force allotments and strategic defense positions—namely, seeking out positions they could abandon to free up fleets for the fronts.
Every option came with as many—and often more—cons than pros, but at the end of the session, they had selected three thousand ships that would bolster the fronts and form the two Orion space strike forces.
As they’d worked, the battle around Pyra had continued to progress, updates feeding to the secondary holo. By this point, most of the Nietzschean ships were either disabled, or in flight. Some might escape their pursuers, but the vast majority of the enemy armada was now little more than drifting hulls in the black.
Once the meeting had wrapped, Sera walked to the holotank to study the engagement she knew Tanis was now managing.
At the lower right was a list of allied ships lost, and casualty estimates.
It had not been a bloodless fight. Many of the allied ships did not possess stasis shields, and no small number had been lost—over five thousand, by the latest count.
Sera shook her head as she tried to wrap her mind around the sheer number of ships and people involved in the conflict that was spreading across the stars. It has to be trillions of humans and AIs at this point.
For all intents and purposes, those lives were on her. Well, her and Tanis. Without the Intrepid’s tech upsetting the balance of power, this war would not have come for some time.
She turned and nodded to Greer and Svetlana, who were still standing over the other holotank, likely discussing Svetlana’s desire to lead the force into Orion space.
The admirals both gave her deferential nods in response, and Sera left the CIC, taking a right in the wide corridor, heading toward the commissary, her pair of guards still in tow.
Her destination lay three levels below, and Sera decided to take the stairs. She was skipping down the steps, when a door on the landing swung open, and she almost collided with a dark-haired woman in a pink dress.
“Oh, sorry!” the woman exclaimed, then her eyes turned to Sera’s, and she gasped. “Madam President! Oh, shoot, I’m really sorry. I should have looked before I kicked the door open.”
The woman’s face looked familiar, and when her HUD gave her addressor’s name, it was Sera’s turn to be surprised. “Mary? Flaherty’s Mary?”
She glanced back and lifted a hand, directing her guards to stand down.
“As much as I love to be identified by my father’s name, yes,” Mary said, then pursed her lips. “Sorry, I tend to bleed sarcasm sometimes.”
“Sorry, I should know better,” Sera ducked a nod. “I’ve lived in others’ shadows long enough to know how much it sucks. It’s very nice to meet you, Mary-who-only-happens-to-be-Flaherty’s-daughter.”
“And you as well, Sera-who-happens-to-be-President-of-the-Transcend.” Mary offered her hand, and Sera shook it. “Where were you off to when I nearly knocked you down the stairs?”
“Lunch,” Sera replied simply. “Too much strategizing with the brass makes me famished.”
“To the Deck 87 Commissary?” Mary’s brows rose. “I didn’t know they let your type in there.”
Sera nearly coughed in surprise. She’d grown accustomed to a certain amount of deference that Mary did not seem to possess. “My ‘type’?”
“Yeah, high-uppity muckity mucks.” Mary leant in and lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “The D87C is a workin’ person’s mess.”
“I’m a working person,” Sera said, her voice rising in pitch as she took a step back. “I used to be a pirate, you know.”
Mary nodded. “Sure do. My father’s told me all the stories. Mostly about all the se—dammit, I’ve gotten twice as familiar in half the time. Sorry, I’m still adjusting to all this. Forget my needling, I’m just hangry.”
Sera was having a hard time reconciling Mary with Flaherty. The woman had spoken more in the last two minutes than Flaherty usually did in two days.
Maybe she’s where all his words went.
Still, Mary was like a breath of fresh air, compared to the hours of serious conversations and days of worry over Tanis.
“Well,” Sera gave Mary a mischievous wink. “Why don’t you accompany me to the D87C? Maybe with you at my side, no one will notice that I’m an uppity muckity muck.”
Mary lifted a finger. “High-uppity muckity muck.”
“Right,” Sera laughed. “High.”
As they descended the final flight of stairs, Sera asked, “I must admit, I’m a bit surprised to find you here at Keren. Flaherty told me he’d gotten you off Airtha and sent you to some place in Sagittarius. He wouldn’t even tell me where.”
“Yeah, daddy knows best, right? He tried to send us packing, but he’d also let slip where he would be. So after convincing Leeroy to turn our ship around, we followed after.”
“Leeroy?” Sera asked, as they walked out into the well-lit corridor that would lead them to the commissary.
“Yeah, my on-again, off-again ex. Currently we’re on again, I think. My son, Drew, and Figgy, our dog are also here. Drew wants to enlist, but I’m trying to convince him to find work on Keren. I know that’s not terribly patriotic, but he’s the world to me, you know?”
Sera didn’t know, not really. She was starting to think that she’d never have anyone who quite fit that bill. Elena might have, once; Tanis was incredibly important to her, but that was a different sort of relationship altogether.
Still, she said, “Yes.”
“Leeroy is working on small ship repair, he’s good at programming and managing bot teams—better than some NSAI, even. He knows when to cut corners to get a ship back out on time, and when those cut corners would lead to disaster…dammit, I’m rambling.”
Sera chuckled, deciding to voice her prior thought. “I think I know where all of Flaherty’s words went.”
“I’m not normally this bad,” Mary replied with a self-deprecating expression. “Just so much going on, then almost knocking you down…life’s pretty topsy-turvy.”
“You’re telling me,” Sera said, as they reached the doors to the Deck 87 Commissary.
She wasn’t surprised to see two more of her High Guard already inside, eyes sweeping the gathered throng suspiciously.
“Dang, your shadows are everywhere,” Mary commented.
Sera nodded. “Only place they don’t follow me is into my bed at night.”
Mary’s eyes widened. “Even the san?”
“No, Mary,” Sera chuckled. “I was exaggerating. They keep an eye on me with a fleet of drones—plus they have nanocloud tech. I guess Tanis really doesn’t want me to kick it. She’d have to take control of the whole show, then.”
The commissary was relatively empty, and the two women joined the line of three people waiting for their turn at the buffet.
One of the women in line turned an
d, upon seeing the president behind her, offered her spot.
“No, please,” Sera raised her hand. “You were here first; my stomach isn’t any more important than yours.”
The woman flushed, but nodded silently as she turned and grabbed a tray.
“Scaring the locals?” a voice asked from behind them, and Sera turned to see Flaherty standing behind them.
“Stars, you’re like a giant man-cat. How do you move so quietly?” Sera asked while Mary laughed.
Flaherty shrugged and glanced at Sera’s feet. “I don’t wear crazy boots like you do, makes it easy.”
“Dad never did get fashion,” Mary said with an apologetic shrug.
“Yeah, I was with him for some time,” Sera replied, glaring at Flaherty. “I have a clear memory of certain comments.”
Flaherty placed a hand on his chest and gave her a wounded look, before shaking his head and gesturing for the two women to move forward with the line.
“So what brings you down to D87C?” Sera asked, knowing the answer.
“You,” Flaherty grunted.
“You know I have my High Guard now, right?” she asked, waving a hand in the direction of her shadows.
Flaherty nodded. “Good soldiers. But they’re predictable, doing all the correct things at the correct times. I’m a bit harder to pin down.”
“Are we actively in danger here?” Mary asked as she grabbed a bowl and ladled soup into it.
“Yes,” Flaherty replied.
Sera placed a hand on Mary’s shoulder. “Don’t worry, he’d say that no matter where we were.”
“Not true,” Flaherty replied while grabbing a roll, then scooping a pile of leafy greens onto his plate. “There are safe places.”
“Oh yeah?” Sera asked. “Where.”
“Give me a minute. I’m sure I can think of one.”
Mary chuckled and placed a sandwich on her tray, followed by a helping of chips and an apple. “There we are, everything a growing girl needs.”
“Growing?” Sera asked.
“Well…no. Just seemed right at the time.”
“You’re not pregnant, are you?” Flaherty asked. “I like Leeroy…but I don’t know if I like him that much.”