by M. D. Cooper
“So those aren’t something in use already? Mini gates, not long shuttles.”
“Nope,” Finaeus replied. “Hard to make them that small, and they’re less useful—well, normally. But running one inside of a station…”
“What would happen?” Krissy asked.
Finaeus made a raspy ‘boom’ sound and spread his hands wide.
“Motherfuckers,” Sera swore. “Well, if anyone is worried that they’re on the wrong side, there’s a nice piece of evidence, they’re the bad guys.”
“Glad we thwarted that,” Tanis added dryly. “I’d hate to be…” she mimicked Finaeus’s sound and hand motions.
Sera gave Tanis a pointed look. “They met with some success; they set back our efforts to establish a government here. Maybe you’ll have your way, Tanis.”
“Not trying to have my way,” Tanis replied. “Though now I wonder if Vela is a bad choice. If we can’t defend Keren against infiltration, Vela will be a lot harder.”
“What are you talking about?” Greer asked.
“I think—” Tanis began to say, at the same time Sera said, “Tanis believes—”
“You first,” Tanis said with a smile.
“Thanks. Tanis believes that Khardine is too remote to make a proper capital. It won’t give the right impression to the populace.”
Greer cocked his head as he considered it, while Krissy shook hers.
“You’re right. A location in Vela will be a nightmare to secure. I imagine you’re thinking the regional capital.”
Tanis shrugged. “Just needs to be somewhere visible. Keep in mind that Airtha is going to strut Evil Sera around all over, making sure her claim to the presidency is well backed. Adrienne will assist in that—if he did indeed get caught up in her web, as evidence suggests. We need our President Sera to be highly visible as well.”
“Politically speaking, she has a good point,” Finaeus said. “I’m about the furthest thing there is from a political animal, but I watched Jeff for centuries. He was always front and center, making sure that most of what people heard from him, they actually saw him say, not a mouthpiece flunky speaking on his behalf.”
Greer massaged one hand with the other as he leaned back in his chair. “Vela does need to be secured against advances from Airtha, anyway. We know that she has taken control of several systems near Vela—in our scales of astrogation, the Huygens System is not that far from her holdings. If she isn’t thinking about taking Vela already, she probably will be soon.”
“This is something I wanted to discuss with you two,” Tanis said looking at Greer, then at Krissy. “With my title of Field Marshal, Sera has put me over all of the Transcend’s military operations. That being said, even if I had years to study the situation, I could not learn everything that is going on in the force. I need a strong team to help support me, and the two of you have proven yourselves both honorable and loyal.”
“Thank you for saying that, Tanis,” Greer said readily. “I’ll admit, at first it rankled somewhat to have you chosen as marshal. But your tactics and stratagem at New Canaan were very impressive; your unorthodox approach was key in winning the fight. I think unorthodox stratagem is just what we need—no offense, Krissy.”
Tanis looked to Krissy, who was frowning deeply. “So what’s your plan, Tanis?”
“Until Airtha produced her Sera doppelganger, it had been my intention to focus our efforts on securing the Inner Stars against Orion proxy nations before we dealt with our civil war.” Tanis paused and took a sip of her coffee before continuing. “However, I don’t think we have that luxury anymore.”
“I suspect you are correct,” Krissy replied. “We must strike at Airtha soon.”
“The problem,” Sera replied with a short sigh, “is how? Airtha is no simple AI. In fact, she’s not an AI at all.”
“She’s not?” Krissy asked.
“Oh, this is good,” Greer said with a grim smile.
Sera shot him a quelling look, and he mumbled, “Sorry, I sometimes forget who she is to you.”
Tanis wondered about that response. Usually Greer is circumspect; maybe he is just enjoying having one up on Krissy.
“Airtha is my father’s former wife, Jelina,” Sera said tonelessly. “She went on a mission to map the galactic core, and encountered the ascended AI that left Sol at the end of the sentience wars.”
Krissy’s eyes widened. “She what? The what?”
“It’s true,” Finaeus confirmed. “When she came back, she had been loaded into an AI’s neural frame. We never did learn why. She was also the only one to make it back. Jeff hid that and pretended she was a new AI—something she wasn’t too happy about. He never treated her like a person after that.”
“Ignoring the whole ‘ascended AI at the galactic core’ thing, she’s now taking over as retribution?” Krissy asked.
“Something like that,” Sera replied. “We really have no idea what her endgame is. I’m pretty sure she wants Tanis’s tech. She tried to get me to kill my father, too.”
Krissy whistled. “Somehow, not all of that made it into the official briefing.”
“Yeah,” Tanis replied. “We’re not quite ready to confirm to everyone that Core Devils are real things.”
Krissy’s eyes narrowed. “You think that Airtha plans to attack them, don’t you?”
“The thought had crossed my mind,” Tanis said with a shrug. “There are a number of possible motives for her. One of them is that she just wants to be Queen of Everything.”
“So, back to why we can’t just hit Airtha with everything we’ve got?” Krissy asked.
Greer ran a hand through his short hair. “Yeah, that was not fun. How likely do you think it is that she could re-establish that control?”
“How do you prepare for an unknown?” Krissy asked.
“We’ll need to infiltrate the Huygens System at some point,” Tanis said. “And when we go in, it’ll be for the kill-shot. Which means Bob and the I2.”
“Either way,” Greer continued. “Ensuring that Vela is secure would be wise. With New Canaan anchoring the Cradle Cluster, and Khardine securing the edge of the Transcend, keeping Vela out of Airtha’s hands would bracket her. We could control many of the trade routes and limit her resources.”
“Not that there aren’t myriad resources for her to tap into within arm’s reach,” Krissy said.
“We need to think about how to choke her off from those as well,” Sera said. “Though we need to do it in such a fashion that we’re not attacking our own people.”
“Easier said than done,” Krissy replied. “This is civil war, after all. We’re going to be shooting at our own people through the whole thing—stars, we just did.”
Somber nods were shared around the table, and Tanis looked at each person in turn. “Then this is what we’ll do. I am creating two overarching commands in the TSF. The first will be the Inner Stars and Orion Front Command. That will be under you, Krissy. Your HQ, for now, is here at Khardine. Greer, I’m putting you over the Transcend Command. You’re on Airtha.”
“Good,” Greer said with a crisp nod. “I look forward to putting her in her place.”
Tanis gave him a sharp look. “I want to be very clear. This is not a civil war, it is a war against Airtha. She is not the Transcend. She is an evil AI who has created a clone of Sera and is using her as a puppet. We are to make that clear to our people at every opportunity.”
“Understood,” Greer replied. “As soon as our refit is complete, I’ll take my fleet to Vela. We’ll secu
re the sector command there, purge the hell out of the Grey Division, and work out who is on our side.”
“Good,” Tanis replied, then drew a deep breath. “Now let’s get down to brass tacks. We have a government to establish, and a lot of the people we had on Keren aren’t with us anymore to help with that.”
Finaeus stood. “And this is where I go find a nice place to bivouac.”
“Nice try, Uncle,” Sera said at the same time as Krissy said, “Sit, Dad.”
Finaeus spread his arms. “You see how the women in my life treat me? They were nicer to me in the Perseus Arm.”
“Kinda doubt that, Dad,” Krissy said with a smirk.
ECUMENOPOLIS
STELLAR DATE: 08.11.8948 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Kapalicarsi Station
REGION: Bosporus System, Scipio Empire
Petra stood at the window of the gantry access corridor overlooking external Docking Pad 1498-12A. She drew a deep breath and did her best to calm her nerves and the jittering feeling in her chest, caused by both the ship’s delay, and its passengers.
The ship’s name was the Aegeus; an auspicious designation for a vessel docking at a station named Kapalicarsi in the Bosporus System.
The Aegeus was twelve hundred meters in length, and was clearly a warship. It lowered gracefully toward the docking pad, then paused a scant dozen meters above the surface. Lights activated on the underside of its hull, illuminating the hard mounts for the pad control team.
The docking armatures slowly rose out of the pad and grappled the load-bearing points. A minute later, the ship was secured to Kapalicarsi Station.
Petra breathed a long sigh of relief. The entire time the ship had been inbound, she had worried that her efforts to have it granted special diplomatic clearance would be revoked.
Petra wasn’t so sure. Even though she was one of Diana’s closest confidants, that didn’t stop the empress from toying with her from time to time. The woman liked to present small—and sometimes not so small—inconveniences, intended to remind everyone around her who was the empress, and who was not.
It was also not often that a warship from a distant stellar nation was allowed to come this deep into the Bosporus; let alone touch Kapalicarsi. There was always a chance that some administrator could find a reason to delay their approach on some technicality.
On top of the worry that the Scipians would deny the Aegeus its berth, Petra had worried that Sera would balk at the requirements imposed by the Kapalicarsi Port Control Dockmaster.
He had required that the Aegeus’s reactors be cold, and its antimatter stores inspected and locked down before the ship had passed within a light minute of the station.
Petra had been prepared for a flat refusal from Sera. The conditions put her and her ship at no small amount of risk. Of course, she expected that the Aegeus would have a CriEn module for power. The Scipians would not know it, but the vessel would have no issue powering its shields and weapons, even without the reactors.
What had surprised Petra the most—and she hadn’t realized it until the vessel came within visual range—was that the Aegeus was not a Transcend ship.
Its design elements were similar to the ISF vessels involved in the Battle of Bollam’s World. There were also marked similarities to Terran Space Force vessels of the early fifth millennia.
Few would recognize those similarities—she hoped—but Petra had been serving The Hand in the Inner Stars for many decades. Searching for ancient Terran vessels was an important part of the job.
Petra saw two Scipian heavy cruisers settle into station-keeping positions above the Aegeus. Petra knew that their weapons would be live, and trained on the ship.
Not exactly the nicest way to welcome a foreign diplomatic vessel, but Petra recognized that she was lucky the Aegeus had made it this far without being boarded.
To her left, the docking gantry extended toward the ship, mating with its airlock and using a grav shield to ensure the connection was airtight.
A squad of Scipian soldiers stood behind her, blocking the entrance to the rest of the Kapalicarsi Station, and Petra glanced back at them, wishing that her long tenure as an ambassador in the empress’s court would have secured her more trust than this. She would simply have to deal with each challenge as it presented itself.
She walked to the gantry entrance and stood waiting for the president and her retinue to disembark from their ship.
The ship’s AI passed the list of Sera’s attendants over, and Petra was glad to see that Tanis Richards’s name was not on the list. The woman was far too problematic to bring before the empress. Not to mention highly recognizable. However, there was a woman named Jenny Sirana listed as an attaché to President Tomlinson that was an unknown to Petra.
Petra wished that Sera had opted for a pseudonym as well, but it was probable that only Orion Guard agents would know who Sera Tomlinson was. Using her real name should be OK.
Should.
“Petra!” a voice called out to her right, and she turned to see Meuls Berger pushing his way past the Scipian soldiers at the observation deck’s entrance.
Alastar commented privately.
Petra snorted.
“Deputy Minister Berger,” Petra greeted as the man reached her side. “You’re just in time.”
“Excellent, excellent,” Berger replied. “There was a security issue on Moirai's Thread, and I got held up.”
Petra wondered what sort of security issue the space elevator would have, but decided not to inquire.
Ahead, the airlock on the Aegeus opened, and four soldiers stepped out. Their dress uniforms were those of the Miriam League—the puppet alliance from which Petra was the ambassador.
They marched smartly down the gantry, and Petra could tell they were professionals. Their gazes took in everything around them, and each soldier’s sidearm was holstered uniquely per the wearer’s preference.
They stepped off the ramp and took up positions on either side of its entrance, appearing to not even notice Petra, Berger, or the Scipian soldiers at the end of the corridor.
Petra turned her attention back to the far end of the gantry and saw Sera step out of the airlock.
Here we go….
* * * * *
Tanis stepped through the airlock with Sera at her side and Flaherty one step behind them, his calm presence reassuring. Valerie brought up the rear, catching up to Flaherty a moment later.
She twitched her lips, trying to get used to the new shape she had molded her face into. Not since the subterfuge on Sabrina with Kade had she used this trick.
Tanis pursed her lips.
Angela replied with a wave of calm.
The four High Guard soldiers in Miriam League uniforms stood at the end of the gantry with Hand Agent Petra, and a man that Tanis assumed must be a Scipian representative waiting for them.
She glanced at Sera, who walked calmly down the gantry, looking as though she were walking into her own home. Tanis stayed in lock step with her, and they stopped two meters from Petra and the man at her side.
“Madam President,” Petra said with a nod to Sera. “May I introduce you to Deputy Minister of External Affairs, Meuls Berger.”
“Petra, Deputy Minister Berger, thank you for taking the time to greet us here today,” Sera said graciously.
“On behalf of the Scipian Empire, the pleasure is all mine,” Berger replied. “Even though your method of transportation is…unconventional.”
Sera glanced back at the Aegeus, visible through the windows of the gantry. “Yes, well, the Orion Arm is not as safe as it once was. While we felt no fear once we reached Scipio’s borders, there are less secure regions of space beyond. Though nothing untoward befell us, it is better to be safe than dead.”
Tanis noticed Berger’s eyes raking up and down Sera’s body as she spoke, and held back a sigh.
Despite Tanis’s attempts to convince Sera to wear clothing of some sort, the president had declined, citing Tanis’s own encouragement to be herself.
Tanis knew that had not been the only rationale. Finaeus had succeeded in merging the Mark X FlowArmor into Sera’s skin, and she was ecstatic with the result, insisting that nothing so primitive as clothing would ever touch her body again.
Sera had, at least, used her skin’s malleable features to give it the appearance of a light blue skinsuit, with intricate, moving patterns and enough texture to appear as an outfit, not her actual flesh.
Berger pulled his eyes up to Sera’s and gave a soft chuckle. “That’s a blunt way to put it, but I take your point. Things have become quite destabilized beyond our borders. I assume strengthening your ties with Scipio—distant as they are—is the purpose of your visit?”