by Damon Alan
“You haven’t pursued her correctly. She’s damaged goods, at least in regard to her trust for men. She’s been violated. She’s been controlled. You, mister efficiency, think reading a dating manual and following all the steps are all you need to do. She needs to see you as non-threatening, but also in control of yourself, not trying to use some sort of plan to get her. I’ve seen you both together. There are two times I see hope on her face. When I give her the go ahead for one of her missions, and when you’re in the same room she’s in. I see her grateful that you’re her XO. Thanks to you, she’s thinking she has a chance to live a normal life if you step up. And I think that too. You both deserve that chance, and if you screw it up, then you’re idiots.”
“How do you know how we feel about each other?” he asked.
“You get the same stupid look when you’re with her.” Sarah paused without unkeying the mic. “My god, were you this dense when you were younger? I seem to remember an XO who was never wrong.”
“I probably was,” Kuo said, “you’ve probably just sugar coated your memories of our time on the Teplo. Even so, I’ve never known you to be so blunt about anything. I can’t remember the last time someone insulted my intelligence, let alone you insulting it.”
“Not your intelligence, my friend.” She paused to think of the word she wanted. “I’m insulting your perception and the decisions that stem from it, particularly in matters of love.”
“Oh. Well, then yeah, I’ve always been this dense,” he confessed. “I’ve never done well with the ladies.”
“Then listen to me. I care about you both. I need you and her to be at the top of your game. She’s a tactical wonder. You’re a solid backup as her XO. And you’re both friends of mine. So, Hanada, if you have any sense at all and do as I say, I’m going to help you.”
“How so?” he asked.
“You need to show her that you’ll make a sacrifice to be with her, and you have the opportunity to do that right now.”
“I do?” he asked, sounding much like a fifteen year old boy.
She couldn’t remember a time when he’d been so exasperatingly dense. “I’m going to choke you next time I see you, fair warning. Of course you do. Surrender the command of the Hyaku. Remain her XO on the Stennis. You’d be doing a huge favor for two women, both of whom happen to be your superior officers. Heinrich will love you for your sacrifice, and I will have another trusted set of eyes taking care of my favorite machine. She’s more important than a ship, Hanada. The Hyaku, and yes, even my Stennis, aren’t alive. Heinrich is. Give up the command. We’ll find someone else to take care of our precious carrier.”
“You mean to tell me that would work?” he wondered. “What if it doesn’t?”
“Then I’ll have a talk with Heinrich, much like I am right now with you, and tell her not to be an idiot. But she’s not an idiot. She’s the only human alive to ever beat me on the battlefield. She’s smart as Peter Corriea, and as wily as me.”
“Wow. You just made this really scary,” he said, uncertainty in his voice. “And sort of conceited on your part.”
She laughed. “Funny. Pay attention. You can retain command of the carrier, if you choose. But if you do, you will lose Heinrich. You decide, and do it now. I want both of you to have clear minds in the next battle.”
“Baenor, unsecure the channel.”
“Channel is open to interception,” Baenor said in the background, a fact Lucy promptly repeated.
“Admiral Sarah Dayson, I, Captain Hanada Kuo, formally request that I be removed from permanent command of the Hyaku-hari and permanently assigned to the XO position on the OSV Michael Stennis under command of Fleet Captain Inez Heinrich,” Kuo said.
“You know that’s going to be all over the news in Jerna City tomorrow, right?”
“That’s why I unsecured the line,” he responded.
“I admire your commitment,” Sarah said. “I accept your request for reassignment. Effective immediately you are assigned to the Stennis as his XO. Report to Captain Heinrich at your first opportunity.”
“Aye, Admiral, sir. I will do so with haste.”
“Dayson out,” she replied as she closed the link.
She wrapped her arm in her zero G sleeping net and thought for a while about the risks of putting two of her best officers on the same ship.
It didn’t matter. Even she could see those two needed matched up, even if they didn’t see why or know how to make it all work yet.
“Log that conversation for the record, Lucy, from when Captain Kuo unsecured the link. Delete all before.”
“Logged and deleted,” Lucy responded.
“Return the room to normal appearance,” she ordered, and immediately gray walls greeted her once more.
“I’ll be on the bridge,” Sarah said as she unwrapped herself from her bed and pushed toward the exit.
Chapter 6 - Admiral’s Personal Log
AI Lucy82A recording, Admiral's personal log, personal archive: Galactic Standard Date 08:09:23 07 SEPPET 15332
Personal log entry #1942, Admiral Sarah Dayson, origin Korvand, Pallus Sector.
Current Location: Refuge Orbit, OSV Sheffaris, Oasis System
I am not a matchmaker.
But I thought about something Admiral Heyden told me once. He wanted warship commanders who wanted to destroy the enemy more than they wanted to defend the system they were fighting for. So that if the enemy attacked, those commanders would see the survival of their fleets and crews as a more important goal than protecting the lives of the civilians on a world they were bonded to.
I am changing that formula a bit. I really do want to see Kuo and Heinrich together, not the least of which is because she’s suffered some horrible internal scars at the hands of the psychopath Orson. And Kuo couldn’t romance his way through anything without some sort of help. Sometimes two broken parts make a whole machine. Or couple in their case.
My thoughts as a leader are that without enough crewmen I want them to look at each other on that bridge and realize they don’t want to foolishly sacrifice each other for any reason, because they have something to live for.
[A deep sigh]
What has being a flag officer come to these days? Matchmaking?
[A laugh]
It doesn’t matter.
[Another laugh]
The fact is that I have a plan, I’m going to try it, and if it works it will make both Kuo and Heinrich think very carefully about the risks they put the Stennis in. Because that ship is an icon to this fleet, and I don’t want the shock to morale that losing it would involve. To the fleet, or to me. That ship is my family, his crew are my wards, their mission is my fury against the enemy that would harm us.
I am the commander of this fleet, and I am ultimately responsible.
So I play matchmaker.
[Eighteen seconds of silence, followed by a deep breath]
On to what I need to do personally.
The first goal of the Sheffaris will be to eliminate my ghosts. I think I will concentrate better after these missions I’m planning now, because I still wake up some nights, filled with horror by dreams of Widdis after he was infected by the Hive, looking up at the camera, consuming a corpse.
It was the most vile thing I’ve ever seen, and I realized then I could never tolerate any acceptance or give any quarter to the Hive. Not that they’re asking for either, they’ve only ever communicated once that I know of. But they are the most foul thing imaginable by me, and they haunt the darkest corners of my mind.
Maybe killing my ghosts will exercise those monsters from my sleep, and maybe I will focus better after. Not that I think I am doing poorly now, but better is good.
With that in mind, we’re going to start destroying Hive star systems, in accordance with the plan to eliminate them from the galaxy, starting with Korvand. My home. Whatever became of Vonn and Jac, I will bury them in the fires of our home star, erasing the corruption from their bodies if Jac was unable to open that
airlock door so long ago.
[A forced exhalation, ragged breath indicating deep emotion]
It’s going to be tough. I admit that. But I will never rest well until it is done.
End the log, Lucy.
Chapter 7 - Lost Colony
In the past it would have taken a long time for Bn74x00 to cross the entirety of Collective space. With the advanced FTL drive it carried, 00 did it far quicker than previously thought possible.
Collective space was growing quickly opposite the human war front. Expansion was slower into the human territories, but into the unsettled areas no resistance was to be found, making colonization easy.
Until now.
Bn74x00 scanned the system it had arrived at only moments ago.
Devastation.
Chaos.
Cessation of operation.
It orbited the only terrestrial planet in the system, taking images, scanning for the electrical impulses that would indicate any Collective colonies functioned on the surface.
But it found nothing.
The cities were intact, mostly, the factories lay as if simply abandoned. Occasionally signs of damage littered an area, and in three areas 00 found human hosts scattered about, as if an explosion had thrown them wildly around.
It noticed something peculiar. In each human host the braincase was opened, and the colony inside removed.
Something had attacked the Collective human based nanite colonies and destroyed the colonies specifically, leaving a human corpse. Something that seemed to understand that the colony and the host were not the same entity. And not only had the enemy attacked the star system, but not even one trace nanite was left behind. Who or whatever had done this was so effective they erased the Collective presence down to the molecular level.
Seventeen locations on the planet were radioactive from atomic weapons. 00 launched a probe to collect samples, finding something even more peculiar in the test results. The weapons used were Collective weapons, judging by the isotope ratios of the fallout.
The Collective bombed its own cities and facilities. What would cause that?
The humans also bombed their own facilities and planets in order to deny the utility of a world to their enemy, 00 had directly observed that behavior itself.
The Collective would not use that justification. And there was no indication the enemy that attacked here wanted to use this world for their own purposes, so the reasons the humans used for targeting atomic weapons on their own kind did not apply.
It studied an organics farming facility designed to feed the human host bodies.
The colonies operating the farm were destroyed, their craniums ripped open as in the cities. The other organic lifeforms were unharmed, however, and seem to have been released from captivity.
That indicated to 00 the enemy was probably organic. But not human, as any human would simply have been infected by Collective nanites, and the humans had never demonstrated the ability to cleanse a nanite presence from an open environment before.
An unnerving conclusion was rising to be the most likely among the explanations 00 was considering for the state of this system. Organic non-human aliens had attacked here, intent on destroying nanite colonies.
Did the humans have an unexpected ally?
That would not be considered good news by The Original. Progress into human territory was already slow, the humans were learning to fight too well. To find a second front in the expansion of Collective territory would further slow growth, or possibly even stop it as warships were split between the two enemies.
00 slowly moved out of orbit, scanning the system for other facilities to examine. It would need to look at every installation, to see if it could find functional witnesses or potentially an operating databank.
A billion cycles later it neared GWR-47D, a gas giant with four usable moons. It’s sensors pinged with a signal so weak it was unable to isolate it at first, but repeated passes through the moon system finally pinned it down.
00 hovered over a crevice on the smallest of the moons, studying what was inside. Something had greatly disturbed the terrain around the crevice at the point where the weak signal originated.
The sensor ping 00 detected matched Collective processing patterns.
Fortunately, as a stand-alone ship designed to hunt down Sarah Dayson, the dreadnought frame Bn74x00 inhabited possessed a variety of tools for reaching the human no matter where she might hide.
Those tools would serve different purpose now, a rescue operation.
00 deployed digging equipment to the surface of the small moon, directing it to retrieve the colony stranded in the crevice.
In the interim days while the recovery took place, 00 moved to a point away from the gas giant and dedicated the majority of its processing power to the passive sensor returns coming in from around the system. Hundreds of nuclear weapons were used. None by the enemy. All possessed Collective isotope ratios.
That activated 00’s alarms. What sort of enemy attacked without nuclear weapons, fought against an entire Collective system, the defenders of which used a vast arsenal of atomic weapons, and won? Not only that, but the enemy either took no losses, or took the time to remove one hundred percent of their battle losses from the system?
The conclusion was something 00 had great difficulty absorbing into its awareness. The Collective was in a new war. One with an enemy so technologically advanced that nuclear weapons were but an inconvenience at most.
For a moment it considered bolting immediately to Albeus to inform The Original.
But the other systems attacked had provided no surviving colonies to provide data on the enemy, and this one might.
As much as an emotionless entity can be agitated, it waited pensively for the digging to finish on the moon, listening carefully in case the enemy returned.
Not so it could fight.
But so it could flee.
Chapter 8 - A Doctor First
07 Seppet 15332
Thea Jannis watched the news report. The young man who set up the holostation was doing a pretty good job of running it. He reported on fishing conditions, weather, sea states, and any other local tidbits he could get his hands on.
She learned quickly that he was an asset to her office.
“… a secret conversation, which we may never know anything about. After several minutes of impenetrable military security, Captain Kuo, the captain of the heavy carrier orbiting Refuge and visible in the sky during the dark hours, abruptly took his communication with our fleet’s highest commander into an unsecure mode and resigned as captain of the Hyaku-hari. What did Admiral Dayson say to him that would cause a man to accept a secondary command slot when he’d…”
Well, that was something. When Kuo had deferred to Heinrich to command the Stennis several months earlier, Thea had assumed it would be a temporary thing. A leader like Captain Kuo didn’t just sit in the second chair. There had to be a reason, and obviously either Dayson or Kuo was using it to manipulate the public since they’d unsecured the channel.
Had Sarah demoted him and allowed him to publicly save face?
She’d have to meet with the admiral and get the scoop.
In the meantime, her afternoon appointment was here. Peter Corriea. When the young scientist knocked on the doorframe of her office, she waved him in.
“Good morning, Mayor Jannis,” he said, smiling.
“Have a seat, Peter,” she said as she rose from her own. “Can I get you tea?”
“Actually, getting right to the point, I’m wondering why you called me in,” Peter replied. “I love to visit, but I have a whole lot going on right now.”
“Like the packages Emille brought back from Mystery?” she asked.
“That’s part of it,” he replied. She could tell by the way his eyes stopped blinking and narrowed slightly that the question bothered him. He probably wondered how much she knew about them, and if she was going to interfere in his work.
Let him worry,
sometimes concerned people revealed more than they otherwise would.
“If someone had sent packages back in time two hundred thousand years for me, I’d be nervous too,” Thea said, poking him a little.
“The technology that seals them is beyond me. I feel like an ape with a stone beating on a bank vault.”
“And you’re the start of it all.”
“What do you mean?”
“You’re the progenitor of the adept race, or so I hear.” When his eyes widened she continued. “As I said, ‘Or so I hear.’”
“I’d like to know where you heard that. It wasn’t supposed to be disseminated yet.”
“So it’s true then. I have my sources,” Thea replied. “And not who you think. Alarin told me.”
“Why would he do that?” Peter asked, perplexed.
“Emille told him,” Thea said. “And suddenly you’re important to both of them, as if you weren’t before. Alarin asked me to let him send guards to protect you. Something the priests of Faroo apparently directed him to do as an imperative. You’re… how did he put it, ‘history walking among them.’”
Peter didn’t answer. She could tell he was uncomfortable beyond where she wanted him to be. Sure, people slightly uncomfortable spilled information. People knocked entirely out of their comfort zone tended to clam up.
“So Emille had her baby?” she asked to change the topic.
He took a few seconds to collect himself. “She did. A girl.”
He had a strange look on his face.
“What?” she pressed.
“The girl is ungifted. A surprise to everyone, considering the power of her parents and the as of yet untrained or tested ability of her older sibling.”
That was a surprise. She wondered what the ramifications were. The girl was born royalty, gifted or not. “That must be a blow to Alarin and Emille.”