by M. D. Cooper
“I resent that!” the SMI-4 turned to the AM-4 and wagged her finger at him. “I’ve not told anyone about the thing you shared with me. Should I spill it? Since apparently I can’t keep secrets.”
“Uhhhh…” Shoshin’s voice wavered. “So, Colonel Rika, should I say on the ship, or take up a position somewhere else on the station?”
Rika was as glad for a change of topic as Shoshin. “Stay aboard. I want to make sure our egress is clear, and if we have to get off station elsewhere, you can fly around for pickup.”
“OK.” The AM-4 nodded. “Don’t forget that this shuttle doesn’t have much in the way of shields.”
“Ferris won’t go far,” Rika said. “We only need to get from Capeton Command to the Undaunted.”
Shoshin nodded but didn’t respond otherwise. Rika didn’t need him to; she knew that with the hundreds of Nietzschean ships around, even a short flight could spell disaster.
The three SMI-4s finished their armor check and walked to the back of the shuttle, where Chief Lara, the Undaunted’s engineering head, waited.
Rika could see that the woman looked uncomfortable, though she didn’t think it was from the Nietzschean uniform she wore.
“Don’t worry, Chief,” Rika said in a soothing voice. “We have all our clearances, we’re just here to offload some cargo and then fuel up. You’ll only have to talk to a dockhand or two. That’s it.”
“And if things go sideways?” Lara asked.
“That’s what I’m here for,” Shoshin said from behind Rika.
Rika clasped a hand on Lara’s shoulder and nodded to the woman before activating her stealth systems and disappearing.
“OK,” Kelly said as she faded from view. “Let’s kick some Nietzschean ass.”
Keli snorted. “Uh…this is a stealth mission. Ideally, no asses will be kicked.”
“I’ll kick your ass, Keli.”
The SMIs waited until the engineer reached the bottom and struck up a conversation with a dockhand before they carefully exited the shuttle and quietly walked down the ramp.
Kelly snorted.
* * * * *
Leslie followed behind Jeremy and Annie, her stealth activated, watching with amusement how careful Jeremy was never to touch Annie, though his fingers seemed to periodically stray toward her hand, stopping a few centimeters away as the pair walked down the passageway.
He clearly had feelings for her, and she for him, but for some reason, neither were acting on them. Leslie was certain that the other night, Annie had worn the short dress that was ‘prone to ride up’ in order to tempt Jeremy.
It was a bit classless in Leslie’s opinion, but given Annie’s cover, she couldn’t blame the woman for resorting to raw sexuality to get the man’s attention.
Either that, or Annie really was that forgetful.
No…not the sort of thing that a spy like her would do.
Even as Leslie referred to Annie as a spy, she had to remind herself that the woman had no formal training as such. She really was just a drive technician who had joined with the resistance and was doing the best she could to slow down the Nietzschean war machine.
The pair of technicians met with a few other members of their crew at the maglev terminal, all praising Jeremy for his solution to the thrust balancing on the Pinnacle, sharing their excitement to finally see the ship do a live burn.
She could tell that he was proud of his work while also ashamed that he’d done it for the Nietzscheans. She understood the sentiment, having done some jobs as a mercenary that she wasn’t exactly happy about at the time, even if the ultimate outcome was good.
She saw Jeremy look away from his friend Par, his eyes searching the maglev car for Leslie’s location.
Leslie didn’t reply, worried that further conversation would have the opposite effect from what she desired. She was half tempted to tell Annie to hold his hand or something, but worried about unintended consequences there as well.
Stars, heed your own advice, Leslie. Worrying about Jeremy was putting her on edge as much as him. For all intents and purposes, most of his work was done. He’d already written the software updates and they’d passed muster in the simulations.
Once the real-life thrust test was complete, the updated NSAI software would be distributed across the newly constructed ships, where more real-world tests would take place. Following those would come the general roll-out.
At which point, very nearly every ship in the Nietzschean fleet—at least those in the Genevia System—would have the vulnerability.
The only real risk they faced, aside from the Pinnacle suffering some sort of failure in its live thrust tests, was that Rika and Niki wouldn’t get the comm system updates into the datastore before the Niets distributed the updates system-wide.
But chances are that won’t happen for a few days. Plenty of time.
Then she considered the other risk: that Constantine might leave the Genevia System once the Pinnacle’s burns were successful.
There were a few scattered rumors that he’d come from Pruzia with some sort of new FTL system; no one in Genevia seemed to know about jump gates yet. However, so far as Leslie had been able to discern, there were no gates in the system for a return trip. But with the system awash in mining, manufacturing, and construction projects, hiding something even as large as a jump gate wouldn’t be impossible.
The maglev arrived at the docks, and the crew moved to the shuttle, Leslie taking care to avoid contact in the cramped space, though once she had to brush against Annie to avoid contact with Par. To her credit, the woman didn’t even flinch at the invisible collision.
Five minutes later, they were in space, covering the hundred kilometers between Capeton Orbital and the Pinnacle, which had cleared its moorings at the shipyard and was now in a high orbit around Capeton.
Leslie had looked over the Pinnacle’s specs, but she’d not laid eyes on the ship as yet. She moved to the front of the cabin, tucking herself into a corner, where she could peer into the cockpit and watch the approach.
It was clear that fitting through jump gates was the rationale behind the ship’s ability to tuck its additional hulls in close to the main body. However, that didn’t explain why the craft didn’t simply remain in that configuration.
She understood the advantage of rotating the ship under fire, but rotating individual components seemed like an unnecessary complexity. Jeremy and Annie’s team didn’t know the rationale behind that either, though they had dozens of ideas.
In the end, Leslie supposed that it didn’t matter. The ship was never going to see combat. It was a bit anticlimactic, b
ut destroying the enemy’s fleet before it could even fire a shot seemed like the perfect sort of victory to her.
Would be nice if it was always this easy.
* * * * *
Constantine took his place in the center of the viewing room near the top of the Capeton Shipyard’s command center. Assembled around him were the fleet commanders, who were also present to watch the Pinnacle’s engines preform their first full thrust.
He exchanged pleasantries with several of the admirals eager to see the new design proven and Pinnacle-class ships filling the empire’s fleets.
Constantine shared their sentiment, though it rankled him that the ship’s design was from Orion. Just another example of how Nietzschea was dancing to someone else’s tune.
He glanced across the room to where General Garza was speaking with Admiral Hammond, dismayed that the man had made an appearance for the test run. The Orion general had disappeared for much of the last four months, though Constantine was uncertain whether or not Garza had remained in the Genevia System.
He’d had agents keeping an eye out for the man, but none had found any sign of the Orion general until just a few days prior, when he had arrived at the Capeton Shipyards.
Though Constantine’s hatred for Garza ran deep, not knowing where he was had turned out to be far more annoying than having him close at hand.
He harbored a deep-seated fear that Garza would learn about the work Danella was doing for him. She’d not yet completed her masterpiece, but it was close. Every part of the body she was making for him had to be a perfect replica, from the placement of every single hair follicle, to the last synaptic connection.
Constantine would not accept an inferior vessel.
Dammit, here he comes.
Garza wore his usual smarmy smile as he approached, an expression that spoke volumes about how he considered the emperor to be his lesser.
For his part, the emperor consoled himself with thoughts of how he’d kill Garza once he had his new body that was free of the general’s kill with a snap of his fingers.
“So, Emperor Constantine, I assume you’re eager to see the Pinnacle perform as it should?”
“To feel eagerness would be to assume that I expect anything less than perfection,” Constantine replied, knowing that they were putting on a show for the surrounding fleet commanders that hung on every word. “Of course, if anything doesn’t work as expected, I’ll assume it’s just another failing of the designs you provided.”
He could see Garza’s jaw tighten, but a moment later, the general was all smiles again. “Of course. It’s entirely understandable that our engineers weren’t able to account for the paucity of the region. It’s a difficult thing to deal with, but I’m encouraged that your people were able to overcome it.”
“It’s a good thing you have such able allies,” Constantine replied. “Before long, we’ll have fleets of Pinnacle-class ships. And with the ability to conquer and maintain control of distant systems via jump gates, we’ll soon have everything from the Hegemony to the Orion Nebula under Nietzschea.”
The general’s eyes narrowed for a moment, and Constantine wondered if the man would counter anything he’d said.
The promise of jump gates was one that much of the alliance with Orion was built on. Dozens of ears all around them were eager to hear that promise reaffirmed. If Garza were to renege or equivocate, the Nietzschean military would lose much of their enthusiasm for Orion’s aid.
Constantine would accept either outcome. If Garza were discredited, that would suit him, but the emperor would prefer to have jump gates. He was certain that once his own engineers could examine them, the empire could replicate the technology and unshackle themselves from Orion.
Garza’s response took long enough that several of the fleet commanders began to eye one another.
Finally, he gave Constantine a broad smile and nodded in agreement. “That will be fantastic. I too am eager to see Nietzschea expand her borders.”
His words appeased the onlookers, and then Admiral Hammond approached, gesturing to the window. “They’re about to begin.”
* * * * *
Rika stopped next to a small fountain in the middle of the concourse she was following, and waited for a group of Nietzschean soldiers to pass by. She could see on her HUD that Kelly and Keli were still further back, but making steady progress.
A drone flew by, and Rika ducked to avoid it hitting her in the head, and almost beaned a woman running past with the barrel of her GNR.
Rika frowned at that.
Rika filtered through the network traffic and accessed the lists of craft in Capeton nearspace. Because the shipyards were so active, accessibility of space traffic data was paramount, so it was openly available on the public networks; however, many of the ship designations were coded.
She began to flip through them, matching numbered idents with data the resistance had gathered.
The AI gave a nervous laugh.
Niki groaned loudly in Rika’s mind.
She found an alcove and slipped into it, sending a signal for Kelly and Keli to join her. Once they were in close proximity, she established a comm channel and briefed them on the discovery.
Both Kelly and Keli protested, but when Rika reminded them of the firepower surrounding them and the fact that the Undaunted was the only Marauder ship in half an AU, they acquiesced.
THE CALL
STELLAR DATE: 05.07.8950 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: NMS Pinnacle, Capeton
REGION: Genevia System, Old Genevia, Nietzschean Empire
Leslie climbed atop a row of cabinets mounted to the aft bulkhead in the Pinnacle’s primary engineering control center and stretched out, watching the activity below.
Jeremy was standing next to the Pinnacle’s chief of engineering, reviewing the status of the drive systems in preparation for the ship’s burn. She couldn’t tell if the chief engineer, a woman named Murel, was happy that her problems were solved, or upset that it was Jeremy who’d solved them.
Maybe a bit of both, she supposed.
She imagined that no matter how much Murel wanted to be the one to have come up with the solution to the drive system’s thrust balancing issues, with the collective fleet admiralty breathing down one’s neck, any solution would start to look good after a while.
“OK, people,” Murel called out. “This is it. The bridge has helm control. They’re executing our first burn to take us into a higher orbit.”
Leslie knew that every newton of thrust had been planned out in advance, the helm control on the bridge was simply executing preprogramed burns that engineering had established. No one wanted to take any risks, all too aware that Constantine himself was likely watching a feed of the events from somewhere nearby.
For a moment, she wondered where the man was. It was easy to tell he was still in the system; the Nietzscheans were constantly referring to him on the feeds. Most of the time, he’d been down on Belgium in an estate called Casa Mons, though on a few occasions, he’d toured various stations and shipyards.