by M. D. Cooper
“Tanis…seriously…please,” Sera’s eyes were wide and pleading, her voice choked with emotion. “I can’t take that right now. I’m barely holding it together as it is.”
Tanis felt sorrow flow over her. Sera had gone through unimaginable perfidy and here she was giving her ultimatums.
“Shit, Sera, I’m sorry. I guess I’m overreacting here.”
“Yeah, maybe just a bit.”
Tanis saw the look of betrayal in Sera’s eyes and wished she could take back her words, but Tanis did believe in achieving transparency. Everything that was happening now had stemmed from secrets kept too long—kept more out of habit and protocol than anything else.
“OK, fine, we can table all that stuff for now. I have your back. We’ll take care of the Hegemony fleet, and then work out whatever it takes to align on how to proceed.”
Sera’s eyes narrowed at Tanis’s quick retraction, but she too appeared willing to let it drop. “Will we send envoys to Kirkland to attempt peace?”
It occurred to Tanis that Sera should have given that as an order, not stated it as a question. She let it slide. Her friend needed her support now, even if she had been too stupid to realize it at first.
“I don’t know,” Tanis replied. “If what Colonel Kent told me is true, they’re not terribly excited about picotech. I’m actually starting to wonder how technologically stratified their society is. We’ll try, of course, but I’m not holding my breath.”
Sera stretched her hands out as far as she could while seated in the medchair. Tanis reached across the table and took them in hers, a tear forming in the corner of her eye as she looked into Sera’s pain-stricken face.
“OK, Tanis,” Sera whispered. “As long as you’re with me, I know we can do this.”
RETURNING HOME
STELLAR DATE: 03.27.8948 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: TSS Galadrial
REGION: Roma-Normandy L1 Point, New Canaan System
Tanis had every intention of interrogating Elena after she left the officer’s lounge, but as she stood in the passageway outside of the room in which her Marines had secured the double agent, she found that she wasn’t in the right frame of mind.
“Colonel,” she called to Usef. “Take Elena and the other Orion prisoners to the I2’s brig. I’ll deal with them when we get back there.
“Yes, General,” Usef said and snapped off a crisp salute. “I’ll have a transport come up from Normandy to take them over. Are you ready to go, as well?”
“Soon,” Tanis replied. “I’ll take one of the pinnaces. Sera needs a bit more time, and wants to pay her final respects to Helen. I’ll wait for her to finish and then bring her over to the I2.”
“Then I’ll wait, too,” Usef responded. “I’m not letting you out of my sight.”
“Think it’ll help?” Tanis asked as a smile pulled at her lips. “Last two times I was almost killed, you were present.”
Usef sputtered, “I—”
Tanis winked. “Easy, Colonel, I’m just ribbing you. Grant an old lady her foibles.”
Usef’s grimace turned into a laugh. “Old? My gran is twice your age, and if I called her old she’d bend me over her knee.”
Tanis chuckled at the thought of a woman capable of giving Usef a swat on his rear. “Your gran must be one tough lady.”
Usef smiled. “Almost as tough as you, General.”
Tanis scowled at Usef. Try as she might, she could never get the Marines to call her Admiral.
* * * * *
Tanis, Usef, and a fireteam of Marines waited aboard one of the Pinnaces—this time docked in one of the Galadrial’s bays, rather than breaching an auxiliary airlock—for Sera to arrive.
When the newly minted president finally did, it was in the company of Admiral Greer and six TSF soldiers. Tanis felt the Marines around her stiffen as the men and women who they had fought against just hours earlier approached the ship.
It wasn’t going to be easy to unite their forces, but Tanis hoped that most of the humans and AIs on both sides recognized that their best chance at a future worth having was one where they worked together.
Sera drove her medchair up the pinnace’s ramp without waiting for her soldiers, the look on her face speaking volumes as to how she felt about their reticence.
“Going to have to get used to one another,” Greer said, putting words to everyone’s thoughts as he followed Sera up. “Even if we avoid an Orion-wide war, we’re going to be at this for a while.”
“Glad you recognize that, Admiral,” Tanis said as the TSF soldiers climbed the ramp and stood awkwardly near the entrance. Tanis and Sera were at ease with one another, but neither group of soldiers was prepared to accommodate the other.
“OK,” Tanis said at last. “Usef, you stay with me, Greer with Sera, the rest of you all, spread out down the bay.”
The TSF soldiers looked to Greer, who nodded curtly, before finding seats along the starboard side of the bay while the ISF Marines settled along the port bulkhead.
“I have a feeling I’ll be taking more orders from you in the future,” Greer said quietly. “Suppose now is a good a time as any to get used to it.”
“Keep that to yourself for the moment, please,” Sera said. “I’d rather our people found out from us at the right time, rather than as scuttlebutt.”
“President Tomlinson, I know how to keep my mouth shut,” Greer replied.
“Ugh, that’s going to take some getting used to. Just call me Sera when we’re in private. Please.”
“Very well, Sera.”
“Why do I still hear a silent ‘President’ in there?” Sera asked Greer, who only shrugged in response, his face expressionless.
No one spoke for several minutes as the pinnace took off. Once they were in space, Tanis tapped into the ship’s sensor suite and projected a holodisplay of the fleets.
Sera shook her head in disbelief. “I still can’t believe you have that many ships. How did you do it?”
“We grew them,” Tanis replied. “With picotech, we can bond atoms and create molecules directly, no need for refineries and the like. It’s not quite atomic transmutation, but its damn close.”
“Surely you couldn’t grow all the components, though,” Greer said. “Hulls, yes, but if you could grow the whole ship you wouldn’t have so many that are only half-complete.”
“It’s true,” Tanis nodded. “Shields, weapons, reactor internals, superconductor batteries, those still take more work to produce, but even so, many of their components can be grown. At least eighty percent of every ship out there came from our picotech.”
“And you just hollowed out the moon as you went?” Sera asked.
“Moons,” Tanis replied. “Six of them.”
“Six…” Sera said as her eyes unfocussed. “Then…you have a lot more ships still under construction, don’t you?”
Tanis nodded. “We do. We rushed out any ship that would appear complete, and then focused on the stealth systems. We just needed a little show of force.”
Greer snorted. “Little! Well, in case you weren’t certain, it worked.”
“Let’s hope it works again,” Sera added. “Maybe once those Hegemony ships see the size of your fleet they’ll turn tail.”
“Maybe,” Tanis allowed. “It’ll be a few more hours before they see our ships uncloak here at Roma, and then another sixteen before we see their response. Unfortunately, they’ll also see your ships break through our stasis shields with their atom beams and destroy several of our cruisers.”
Greer shook his head. “This day will be remembered with heavy hearts for some time. That we each lost lives to one another…. Airtha will pay for this before the end. But even so, the Hegemony will not have any significant number of ships with atom beams. They cannot bring that level of fire to bear, not like our ships could.”
“No?” Sera asked. “What if Orion shared zero-point tech with them?”
“That’s putting it mildly,” Greer replied.
Tanis didn’t want to consider that possibility, but it was real, and she couldn’t completely ignore it.
“Looks like we’ll have your crews back on their ships sooner than I anticipated,” Tanis said, changing the subject. “Your AIs seem particularly eager to make up for this little altercation.”
“I’m glad to hear it,” Sera nodded. “We all have some sins to atone for, even if we never knew we were committing them.”
“I find that hard to believe,” Sera replied. “He saw none of this coming?”
Tanis let out a long breath. “Having an AI that can see the future is hard enough to deal with without wondering what he can and cannot see. He won’t share it all, even with me, and I honestly don’t want to know what he predicts. I think it would just paralyze me with indecision. I’d be too worried about which choice would lead to the desired future. So far, I seem to muddle along without screwing things up too much.”
“More or less,” Sera smiled. “You’ve come a long way since being the Butcher of Toro.”
“Seriously? You bring that up now?”
UNVEILED
STELLAR DATE: 03.27.8948 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: ISS I2
REGION: Near Roma, New Canaan System
Bob informed Tanis as the pinnace began its final approach to the I2.
Tanis could only think of one being that Bob would be hunting.
Tanis didn’t like it when Bob couldn’t predict the actions of a person or AI—unless it was her.
Tanis chuckled.
Bob’s deep laugh filled her mind.
Tanis shook her head.
* * * * *
Amanda stepped off the pinnace into a near-empty shuttle bay. A lone woman approached, her face showing no small amount of worry.
“Welcome aboard the Hellespont, Avatar Amanda,” Lieutenant Zlata said in greeting, though her eyes fixed on the dozen Marines who filed down the ramp ahead of Amanda. “Expecting some trouble, I see.”
Amanda allowed a token smile for the woman. “Bob is concerned, which means I’m feeling extra cautious.”
Lieutenant Zlata glanced at the Marines, who had deployed as though the Hellespont was hostile territory—which it very well may be.
“Where is Captain Ylonda?” Amanda asked. “I would have expected her to meet us.”
Prudent, Amanda admitted to herself.
“We’re secure here,” one of the Marines, a Staff Sergeant named Macy, announced as she approached. “Tokens match archival records. I just need to check you over, ma’am.”
Her last words were addressed to Lieutenant Zlata, who stiffened before glancing at Amanda.
“Not optional,” Amanda said in a tone that brooked no argument.
“Very well,” Lieutenant Zlata said with a nod.
Amanda was glad that the woman gave no more trouble, if for no other reason than the fact that a first lieutenant who gave a staff sergeant trouble was going to have a difficult future in the corps.
Staff Sergeant Macy performed her analysis of Lieutenant Zlata, and nodded with satisfaction. “All clear, ma’am, sorry for the trouble.”
“No trouble at all, Staff Sergeant,” Zlata smiled. “If you’ll follow me, I can lead you to the secondary maintenance bay where Elena’s shuttle is. We put it in there after Tanis scooped her up, and from the logs, no one has even been in that bay since.”
“Isn’t that unusual?” Amanda asked. “It’s been over a month since Elena came to New Canaan.”
Amanda only paid cursory attention to Lieutenant Zlata’s response as Staff Sergeant Macy touched her arm and sent a direct Link message.
The message was a quick info-burst, and then Macy moved on, directing her squad to secure the corridor. Amanda considered the implications while Zlata gave a series of plausible rationales as to why no one had been in the maintenance bay.
“Well, we could simply open the exterior bays and get another ship—or even our pinnace—to fire a dollop of plasma into the bay. That would take care of anything inside,” Amanda suggested.
“I don’t think that would be wise,” Zlata countered as they moved into the passageway, the squad of marines broken up into a pair of fireteams in the lead and another behind.
“Oh?” Amanda asked. “Seems like it would solve our problem without any risk to life and limb.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure,” Zlata replied. “A lot of volatiles are stored in there. It could seriously damage the ship.”
Ylonda replied.
Amanda brushed up against Staff Sergeant Macy and sent a brief message.
Amanda had never received military training, but she had observed dozens of battles and watched the training of hundreds of thousands of soldiers during her time on the Intrepid. Given that knowledge, she could see that the intersection of passageways ahead was a prime location for an ambush.
The cross corridor met the one they were walking down—and a ladder shaft ran up to the level above—the perfect place to pin down and defeat an enemy force.
Macy didn’t need any advice from her. The Marines were well aware of the risk the intersection posed. She was certain they had sent out nanoprobes to scout the halls ahead.
She watched their simple, yet nuanced hand signals as they advanced, a new code they had settled on during the ride to the Hellespont.
They were nothing if not prudent. Given a situation where the enemy may know all of their codes, signals, and encryption, a fresh set was the only option.
Fortunately, the Marines often devised new variations on their hand signals, so this would not seem out of the ordinary to any observer.
Still, it confused her when one of the Marines walk
ed out into the intersection alone, with far less caution than she would have expected.
Concussive pulses, and two high-velocity kinetic rounds slammed into the Marine, and should have taken him down, but the armored soldier brought return fire to bear while standing in the middle of the intersection, and Amanda heard more than one scream as his shots found their marks.
The Marine only lasted a second more, and then fell to the ground as an electron beam lanced out from the side passage and burned a hole clear through the figure’s armor and out the other side.
Amanda winced as lightning arced from the point of impact, ionizing the atmosphere around them. She shut down the thick strands of hair that were her high-gain antennas, while wondering how Macy could have sent that soldier out alone to his or her death.
However, what she saw in the next second answered her questions. While the sacrificial soldier had walked out into the corridor, the lead fireteam took up positions that allowed them to bring suppressive fire to bear on the attackers.
She also saw—from the exposed insides—that the fallen Marine was not human, but rather a robot, likely controlled by one of the fireteam leaders.
“Get down!” Macy yelled at Amanda, who realized that she had been standing in the middle of the corridor like an idiot watching everything unfold around her.
As she turned to find cover, Amanda glanced at Lieutenant Zlata and saw a blank expression on the woman’s face as she reached for her sidearm.
Not if I have anything to do with it, Amanda thought and lunged at the lieutenant, knocking her to the ground.
Zlata fired two shots from her pistol, concussive rounds that ricocheted off Amanda’s hard exterior shell. Earnest had told her that it was nearly impregnable, but she had never put it to the test. Now she was glad to see he wasn’t exaggerating.