by M. D. Cooper
“Would you like a tour of the bridge?” Corsia asked the colonel. “Something to while away the time?”
The man’s eyes actually widened in surprise before he schooled his expression. “Certainly, lead the way.”
Corsia led the colonel through the ship, Marines from his delegation coming along, shadowed—of course—by a pair of ISF Marines. He seemed only moderately interested in the vessel until she made the offhand remark that it had been built in the Sol System.
“Sol, you say?” his voice was sharp and filled with disbelief.
“Yes,” Corsia nodded. “We’re a part of the Intrepid colony mission. Left Sol in 4124. Hit Kapteyn’s Streamer and dumped back out into normal space just a few decades ago. Much of the Andromeda’s crew was born in Sol.”
“Intrepid…” the colonel murmured. “It doesn’t ring any bells.”
“Well, it was long ago. Either way, our arrival in the Inner Stars has stirred the pot, and we’ve joined an alliance that is attempting to stabilize the region.”
“The Inner Stars?” Hickson asked. “I’ve not heard that term before.”
“It’s the stars on the Orion Arm. Everything about two thousand light years up and down the arm from Sol. Coreward of the Inner Stars is the Transcend, and rimward is Orion. Each of those regions stretch into the neighboring galactic arms.”
“I didn’t know people had spread so far,” Hickson replied, this time his tone not giving away whether or not he was impressed. “We don’t really pay too much attention to what happens beyond the cluster.”
“I can’t say I blame you,” Corsia replied. “We were hoping for a similar existence, but that wasn’t to be.”
“Because of these jump gates?” Hickson asked.
“Yes, exactly so. We were paid a visit somewhat like this, not long ago. But it was from about two hundred thousand ships.”
For the first time Hickson’s veneer cracked. “Two hundred thousand?”
Corsia let a note of pride slip into her voice. “Give or take a bit, yes. Trisilieds, Hegemony, and Orion all ganged up on us.”
“And you’re still alive to tell the tale…”
“Well, we won.”
Hickson shook his head. “I’d like to hear more about that.”
“Perhaps,” Corsia replied. “There are details of that battle we don’t widely share. Not yet, at least. There’s a war spreading across the Orion Arm. Nowhere is safe, and we need to keep our tactics for our allies.”
Hickson stopped and turned to Corsia in the middle of a long corridor that led to the central lift bank. “You’ll forgive my skepticism, but if you can do all this, what is it that you want with the IPE? What do we have to offer?”
“Well,” Corsia began. “It’s not for us. It’s for our allies. You may not know this, given how many light years deep in the cluster you are, but Genevia has fallen to Nietzschea. Their empire is expanding at a rapid rate, and has reached the edges of the cluster. Septhia, Thebes, and a scattered few other nations are all that stand between the Niets and the IPE. Make no mistake, the Niets also want the resources within the cluster. They don’t yet possess jump gates themselves, but their allies do. It’s only a matter of time before they make a play for control of the IPE.”
Corsia could see a war of emotions on Hickson’s face. They weren’t overt, but they were there. The man had every reason to be annoyed with her for coming into the system without authorization, but she knew he couldn’t discount her words, either.
Everything he thought he knew about the galaxy outside the Praesepe Cluster was now utterly outdated, and they had to contend with the reality that their pocket of isolation was no longer unreachable.
“Come,” Corsia said. “Let me show you the bridge, and then we can swing by the galley and see if there are any strawberries.”
“Strawberries?” Hickson’s eyebrows rose, as though that was the final straw on the incredulous donkey’s back.
“Yeah, strawberries.”
* * * * *
Hickson had vacillated between his fully prickly persona, and one that was borderline tolerable during the two hours Corsia entertained him.
He was less impressed with the strawberries than most people were, but went on for five minutes about how amazing the coffee was.
Both were new tastes to Corsia, but she vastly preferred strawberries to coffee. In fact, she couldn’t imagine why any organic would subject themselves to the bitter brew.
Even so, Hickson loved it.
As best as Corsia could determine, coffee plants didn’t grow well in the environs that the Trensch System had to offer. He hinted that an import business selling beans that could produce coffee such as the galley aboard the Andromeda had to offer would do quite well.
Corsia was walking Hickson back toward the bay, when suddenly the colonel stiffened and gave her a sidelong look. She pretended not to notice it, and kept walking as though nothing was wrong.
A minute later, they walked into the bay to see four more IPE Marines at the base of the shuttle, making six of them, compared to the pair of ISF Marines who were tailing Corsia.
“Is something amiss?” Corsia asked, turning to Hickson, a look of innocent concern on her face.
Corsia didn’t respond to Sephira, as the IPE inspection team returned, accompanied by Jim and the Marines from both groups. The team’s leader nodded silently to Colonel Hickson as they boarded their shuttle, but no other apparent communication was made.
“So,” Corsia said, deciding to press ahead. “I assume all is well? Should we hold our vector while we wait to see if we should remain in a high orbit around Genesis?”
Hickson turned to Corsia. “Depends on how much of an idiot you think I am.”
“I’m sorry?” Corsia asked.
“My inspection team has confirmed that your ship has very advanced stealth systems.”
Corsia nodded. “We do at that, yes.”
“So this whole jump gate nonsense was just a distraction.”
Corsia finally understood the human urge to roll one’s eyes. “Are you suggesting that we flew at least three light years—probably more, depending on where you think we came from—under stealth, to sneak deep into the Trensch System, only to announce ourselves twenty-five AU from Genesis? What possible reason could we have to do that?”
“I don’t know,” Hickson shook his head, regarding Corsia as though she were the very embodiment of evil. “Maybe it was to force us into some sort trade deal, while worried about an incursion from Nietzschea. You’ll stay on your current course until I speak with President Arthur.”
Corsia decided enough was enough, and connected to the central QuanComm hub at Khardine. [This is General Corsia. Plan B, on my coordinates.]
[LZ hot?] the response came back a moment later.
[Not yet. ETA?]
[Three mikes.]
[Perfect.]
“Very well, Colonel. You’d best be on your way, then,” Corsia replied to Hickson. “You have important messages to send. I’ll wait until your president is ready to meet, or to send someone whose common sense isn’t utterly suppressed by irrational paranoia. Although, I expect I’ll hear from you before then…say, in four minutes or so.”
Hickson’s mouth worked silently for a moment, then he turned on his heel and strode up the ramp, trailed by his Marines.
A minute later, the shuttle was lifting off and passing out of the bay.
Corsia tracked its trajectory back to the colonel’s ship, eagerly waiting for the arrival of the destroyers—and for the colonel’
s reaction.
Hickson’s shuttle was only halfway to his ship when Corsia got the message from Khardine.
[Jumping.]
A second later, two destroyers appeared, flanking the Andromeda. The one on the port side entered the system only a kilometer from Hickson’s shuttle—which suddenly slewed to the side.
Sure enough, Comm reached out to Corsia seconds later, and connected her with Hickson.
Hickson’s words carried a note of defeat, but he still managed to sound like a haughty asshole.
DOPPELGANGER
STELLAR DATE: 09.06.8949 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Interstellar Pinnace
REGION: Airtha, Huygens System, Transcend Interstellar Alliance
Sera flew the pinnace toward the EMG, smiling in satisfaction at the machine’s sleek, hundred-kilometer length.
It was the first of the new defensive weapons to be made, a device capable of firing a focused electromagnetic wave that would disable any ship in its path, even ones possessing stasis shields.
Sera’s engineers had yet to test an EMG against one of the ISF’s stasis shielded ships, but Airtha was confident that the variable waveform would be able to penetrate the stasis field.
Sera wasn’t so sure, but her mother pointed out that—despite the commonly held belief—the ISF’s ‘impenetrable’ shields did not envelope the entire ship. There were openings for cooling, engine wash, sensors and weapons.
Initially Sera had countered that the ISF ships only opened those holes periodically, but when Airtha explained that EMG produced a field effect larger than all but the I2, she understood her mother’s plan.
The physical size of the EMG waveform meant that the ISF ships would risk a disabling shot from an EMG every time they fired their weapons, or even took sensor readings.
To say nothing of using main engines and maneuvering thrusters.
Yes, Sera thought, a smile on her lips as she flew along the length of the EMG. Let my doppelganger come. Let her fling herself against our defenses, thinking her ships are invulnerable. We’ll overwhelm her with both our numbers and our superior weapons. Her rebellion will fall, and then we’ll move on to Orion, finally finishing what my father should have done millennia ago.
Sera broke off from her close pass over the EMG, watching as it approached the jump gate.
Though Sera’s mother was undoubtably the most brilliant mind in the galaxy, Airtha was not one to implicitly trust even her own analysis. She wanted incontrovertible proof that the EMG could penetrate stasis shields.
Which was why this weapon was on its way—with a five thousand ship escort—to a system on the edge of the Vela Cluster. A system that had chosen the wrong side in the civil war raging across the Transcend.
Valkris.
The latest reports showed that the Transcend only had a token force defending Valkris. A mere dozen warships on top of the system’s local military of five hundred or so ships—most of which were light interceptors.
Khardine’s forces had been gaining ground across the Transcend, especially in the Vela Cluster, but that would end now. Once Valkris was under Airtha’s control, they’d sweep across the rest of the cluster and crush Khardine’s greatest stronghold.
That would send her doppelganger running.
As Sera thought of the other version of herself, a small twinge of worry flitted through her mind. Airtha insisted that she was the real Sera. That the one who had fled to New Canaan was in fact a copy made by the separatists Greer and Krissy. A poor shadow of the real Sera, and the separatists’ puppet.
Though she tried to push the doubt away—she had no reason to doubt Airtha—a sliver of worry persisted, a worry that her mother was keeping something from her, manipulating her.
“No,” Sera whispered, turning her focus to the jump gate that she’d be taking to the Vela Cluster. “I have no gaps in my memory, no points where I’d be falsified. I’m the real Sera.”
She repeated the mantra to herself several times while watching the EMG jump through its gate, marveling at the sight of a hundred-kilometer weapon disappearing in an instant.
Even though she knew the Khardine Sera was a clone, it didn’t diminish the regrets Sera felt over the events that had taken place. Foremost was the death of Elena, and the fact that Tanis had been duped by the clone.
The journey from Silstrand to Bollam’s World with Tanis was a fond memory, as was the time she’d spent on the Intrepid. It was another thing that the separatists had stolen from her.
An alert lit up, informing Sera that it was her turn to jump, and she triggered the pinnace’s bow mirror. The ship eased forward, and then leapt across the thousand light years to Vela in a matter of seconds.
When normal space snapped into place around her, Sera confirmed that she was at her designated overwatch position, five AU stellar north of where the engagement would take place.
That was the only way she had been able to convince Airtha to let her view the battle—promising to be so far from it that there was no chance of her being at risk.
Once the coordinates were confirmed, Sera activated the drones inside the pinnace’s small cargo hold, and set them to work, hauling the ring components out of the bay and assembling a thirty-meter jump gate. Just large enough for the pinnace to slip through, if an emergency demanded it. A destroyer from the battlegroup would collect it later.
While the gate was being put together, Sera rose from her chair in the cockpit and walked back to the pinnace’s small galley. The attack fleet had jumped in half an AU from their target, the world of Maitreya. Their location meant they’d engage the separatist fleets in roughly an hour, and Sera would see the outcome of the battle fifty minutes later.
Well, maybe not the outcome of the battle, but certainly of the EMG’s initial salvo.
That’s all Sera needed to do: verify that the EMG worked, and then return to Airtha. Not that she planned to leave early. She’d see the battle through, then join her fleets when they took the capital world.
Her mother would be annoyed, but either Sera was the president, or she wasn’t. This was her call to make.
She poured herself a cup of coffee, wondering why her mother had allowed her to travel to Valkris without an escort, without anyone else on the ship at all. Granted, she was safe enough this far above the stellar plane. Unless Valkris had drastically changed its patrols—which was possible, but not too likely.
She hoped.
Stop fretting, Sera scolded herself, grabbing a sandwich from the chiller before returning to the bridge. She settled into her seat and took another sip of the coffee while reviewing the myriad reports she’d brought along.
I bet my doppelganger doesn’t have to deal with all this nonsense.
PARLAY
STELLAR DATE: 09.06.8949 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: IPSS Deepening Night
REGION: Trensch System, Inner Praesepe Empire
Corsia stepped out of her pinnace, surveying the Deepening Night’s docking bay, taking in the dozen shuttles and fighters in the IPE warship’s bay, along with the entire platoon of Marines.
Commander Eve—who had insisted she come along—stood at the base of the ramp with a squad of ISF Marines, and nodded for Corsia to proceed.
She glanced at Terrance and Kendrik. “Well, boys, let’s do this.”
A man and a woman in long robes stood at the base of the ramp, studiously ignoring Commander Eve—who returned the favor—as they watched Corsia descend.
When she was within arm’s reach, the woman gave a perfunctory smile. “Admiral Corsia. I am Minister Rama and this is Secretary Larson.” Larson nodded as Rama introduced him.
Corsia inclined her head to each in turn. “Thank you for hosting us.” She turned to Terrance. “This is Terrance Redding, one of our top diplomats, and I suspect you know Mister Kendrik.”
The IPE representatives’ eyes grew wide, and Corsia’s momentary satisfaction was shared with a sense of surprise that they hadn’t already recognized their president’s brother.
“It’s been a long time, Minister Rama—though back then, you were the former minister’s assistant, if I recall,” Kendrik said with a genuine smile. “Secretary Larson, I don’t believe we’ve met.”
“I’ve never had the pleasure,” Larson said, his voice smooth and cultured.
Handshakes were exchanged, then Rama gestured to the dock’s inner doors. “The president awaits us. Please, come.”
Commander Eve signaled to the squad Marines, who fell in behind the group, causing Rama to stop short.
“I’m sorry, your guards won’t be able to accompany you.”
Corsia had been expecting that. “Our welcome to your system has been less than warm. I hope you’ll understand that we’re a little uncomfortable. Would you allow four of our Marines to accompany us if they disarm?”
Rama seemed surprised at Corsia’s offer. “Well…um, I suppose that will be acceptable. They’ll need to remain in the corridor outside the meeting room.
“Of course,” Corsia nodded, and Eve directed four of the Marines to pass their weapons to their squadmates.