by M. D. Cooper
Diana’s hard expression cracked for a moment, and Tanis saw a very different woman.
“Because of me,” Diana whispered hoarsely. “Please, you should all go now. I’ll have Gerald contact you with a time when we can continue this conversation.”
Tanis rose and nodded graciously. “Thank you for your attention and understanding thus far.”
“Yes, thank you,” Sera said and offered her hand to Diana, who shook it absently.
Petra didn’t say anything, only stared at Diana until Tanis touched her on the shoulder.
Petra nodded, and the three women filed out of the room, the door closing behind them. A moment after, the sounds of shattering glass came from within.
SUSPICION
STELLAR DATE: 08.08.8948 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Intrepid Space Force Academy
REGION: The Palisades, Orbiting Troy, New Canaan System
“I saw Nance last night,” Saanvi said as she sat at the mess hall table across from Cary.
“Oh yeah?” Cary asked around a mouthful of eggs. “I saw her as well, this morning. She must have been coming back in from an early run.”
Saanvi frowned. “Really? At what time?”
Cary shrugged and wondered why Saanvi cared what time she saw Nance. “Uh…about 06:05. I was just headed out for a jog around the sweep when I saw her get off a maglev.”
“What makes you think she was going for a run?” Saanvi asked, her eyes narrowing.
“Uhh…she was dressed for one. I guess she might have been at the gym, too, but she was coming from off-ring, and there are nine gyms on this one.”
Saanvi’s frown deepened as she picked up her orange juice and took a sip. Cary waited for her sister to mull over whatever it was that was on her mind. Sometimes it took Saanvi a few minutes to assemble her thoughts.
“I saw her last night at 23:44,” Saanvi said finally. “Black leggings, pink and black halter top. Was that what she was wearing?”
“Uhh…yeah, I believe so,” Cary said, thinking back. “Yeah, that was it. Is there something wrong with wearing the same thing twice? Maybe she tossed it in the san overnight, and it was the first thing on the folded pile come morning. If wearing the same clothes to exercise twice in a row is a crime, I’m going to prison for sure.”
“A maglev down to another ring, a run worth having, maglev back, shower, she wouldn’t have hit sack till at least 0100. And that’s if she didn’t take a very long run.”
“Maybe she doesn’t need that much sleep,” Cary replied. “If she has the right mods, five hours is plenty.”
Saanvi nodded. “I suppose. Just seems weird, don’t you think? Nance has never mentioned an obsession with running before.”
Cary laughed and shook her head. “I’ve got enough on my mind to be tracking other people’s obsessions. Speaking of obsessions, I saw JP this morning. He asked how you were.”
“Stars, he’s been acting weird ever since he came aboard,” Saanvi muttered.
“Well, you know why, right?”
Saanvi met Cary’s eyes. “I may have been born a thousand years ago, but I’ve not lost my faculties yet. I can tell that he’s into me. Just wish he’d say something about it.”
“Well, you’re into him, too,” Cary replied. “Watching you two perform your awkward mating dance is going to give me greys. And my hair can’t even turn grey.”
“Mating dance?” Saanvi asked. “Jumping the gun a bit, aren’t you?”
Cary winked at her sister. “You and JP are made for each other. Everyone’s just feeling uncertain of themselves after the battle and all the changes since. JP didn’t think he’d join the academy, but after the attack, he felt like he had to.”
“He did it to be close to me,” Saanvi said, her eyebrows pinched with in annoyance. “Except now he won’t be close to me.”
“You’re hopeless. I’m going to have to go on a double date with you two, or something…”
“Who’s your date going to be?”
Cary shrugged. “I’ll bring Jill.”
Saanvi’s eyes widened. “I knew there was something between you and Jill!”
Cary almost spit out her juice. “No, Saanvi, Jill and I are friends. I’m not into anyone right now.”
“I believe that,” Saanvi replied. “You’ve been quiet this morning.”
“Really?” Saanvi asked. “I didn’t know she was an expert on that stuff.”
“I guess it makes sense,” Cary said. “She did spend nine years there. I bet we haven’t heard half of what went on during that trip.”
“You know, she and I spoke about getting together. Maybe we should do it next rest day,” Saanvi said. “I can reach out and confirm the date with her.”
Cary nodded before giving Saanvi a wink. “Yeah, and we can invite JP.”
Saanvi laughed. “Only if Jill comes, too.”
STEPPING OUT
STELLAR DATE: 08.09.8948 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: ISS IS
REGION: Edge of the Bosporus System, Scipio Empire
Two days prior…
Elena truly believed that Sergeant Xener was a nice sort of man, as far as men went. He was courteous, didn’t yell at Elena, and even let her spend time with her wristcuffs disconnected when they were in the park.
Sergeant Arys did not share much of Xener’s kindness. It turned out that Arys’s brother had been a part of the team that had been in on the attack on the Galadrial—back before New Canaan had been invaded—and though he had survived, serious injuries took him some weeks to recover from.
Arys seemed to think that Elena was personally responsible for her brother’s pain and trauma—even though Elena’s focus had been on a successful infiltration, not on harming the ISF soldiers who were on her side.
Well, I also made sure to leave the back door open for Colonel Kent….
When Elena thought about it in that context, she was somewhat responsible for Arys’s brother’s injuries.
At least Xener balanced Arys out—though Elena was certain Arys chided him constantly for it over the Link. Xener had the look of a henpecked man whenever Arys was near.
Despite that, Elena was allowed some amount of freedom as she roamed the Prairie Park on the I2. She enjoyed the tall grass that seemed to stretch on forever—an illusion aided by the holoprojections on the distant bulkheads, and by the holographic sky overhead.
Not that the park was small. At over two square kilometers in size, it gave ample range for its population of deer, rabbits, gophers, snakes, and the pair of cougars that roamed its expanse.
Elena delighted in seeing the cougars when she got a chance. To her knowledge, the I2 carried the only natural-line cougars in existence—which is to say that they were not reconstituted from stored DNA. These fine mammals had been carried in their mother’s wombs, in a line stretching back to the origins of the species.
It occurred to Elena that such was the exception, not the norm. The Intrepid was a rarity in that it had carried the vast majority of its animal population as live creatures. Few colony ships had possessed the room to carry millions of living animals along with their colonists.
She slowed and sat on a bench near a rock outcropping that the male cougar sometimes sunned himself on. The animals couldn’t see the people—so long as they didn’t get too close—so it was possible to observe them in their natural habitat. Well, as natural as a park on a starship could be.
Xener wandered ahead a half-dozen meters and leaned against a boulder, while Arys
stopped in the middle of the path and stared at every shrub and blade of grass as though it may have possessed lethal intent.
To be honest, neither of the guards were really necessary. With the cuffs and the collar, Elena couldn’t go anywhere without the Intrepid’s systems being able to track her. She was certain that somewhere, that interminable Bob was watching as well.
Thinking of the Intrepid’s AI made Elena wonder what had become of Jutio, her old AI. He had spoken to her only once after her betrayal, infuriated that she had managed to fool him so fully.
She felt bad about that. Some of the things she’d had to do to him to ensure that he would never know her true purpose had been difficult, but she had believed in what she was doing.
I’m sorry, Jutio, she said in her mind—though there was no one there to communicate with anymore. It’s for the greater good. Tomlinson was vile, and his Transcend was corrupt. You have to have seen that.
She sat in the silence, the absence in her mind deafening.
Moments like these, she wondered if she had made the right choice. She had felt so certain she could convince Sera of her father’s evil—that they could lead a rebellion and re-form the Transcend as one single alliance with Praetor Kirkland at its head.
She had half succeeded—though her efforts hadn’t been required to show Sera that her father was worse than scum. But rather than rush to Elena’s side, Sera had fallen in with Tanis and…well, she had no idea what they were up to anymore.
Tanis was an enigma, as well. She seemed to like the idea of simple living, of having dirt under her nails and straw in her hair, but she was barely human anymore—though she looked it on the outside. She was more machine and enhanced biology than natural flesh and blood. And then there was the thing in her mind.
Elena did recognize the incongruity of her logic. She had loved having Jutio in her mind, and though Orion didn’t eschew having internal AI, they didn’t exactly smile upon it either.
But Tanis and Angela were anathema to their own Phobos Accords—which they purported to adhere to so strictly.
Elena sighed. What she really yearned for was access to the Link again. Being trapped in her own mind was so restrictive; she had only her thoughts, the odd exchange with a guard, and her irregular visits from Sera.
The I2’s detention center—prison, really—had been accommodating in that regard, providing her with printed books. It was the only way she could read with her Link disabled and access to technology restricted. It was an experience she found rather enjoyable, even if it was strange to read words that were fixed on the page and could not move.
To think that the pages of a printed book would contain just one set of information—and only that set, for their entire existence—was something that felt abnormal to Elena.
Though, it was what Orion sought, was it not? A simpler existence for humanity; a slow-down where equilibrium could be achieved.
In her voracious consumption of literature, she’d found a swatch of ancient books she’d never heard of by a man named Stephen King. Some were just weird, but many were amazing. She’d read one called ‘The Stand’ three times thus far during her incarceration, reveling in the flavor of ancient Earth that it provided.
As she sat on the bench, lost in her thoughts, Elena finally saw Arys turn away, distracted by a doe and fawn walking by. She glanced at Xener, who was also watching the animals with a small smile on his face.
She slowly reached a hand behind the seat of the bench, feeling for the packet that her mysterious benefactor had told her would be present.
Elena had almost missed the message telling her to check the bench. It had been embedded in the forewords of the last three books she’d read; an obscure code, but one she’d studied in The Hand’s academy.
The possibility that the coded message was a setup had occurred to her, but Elena had determined there was nothing to lose; the New Canaan colony did not have a death penalty. The worst they’d do is order continued incarceration and maybe stasis for a few hundred years.
Her hand slipped over something sharp, and Elena resisted the urge to suck in a breath when her finger was cut. With her limited internal nano—courtesy of the control exerted by the cuffs and collar—she couldn’t tell if the cut was the delivery mechanism, or just an accident.
Then she felt a change inside her, and a message came to her mind.
Elena nodded slowly.
Elena nodded again then looked up at the sky, wondering how her liberator was going to deal with the tracking mechanisms in the cuffs and collar. Not to mention the fact that Bob could probably see everything on the ship at once.
She took slow, steady breaths, counting down the seconds.
Then the doe and fawn charged Arys.
Elena would have loved nothing more than to watch, but she knew that time was of the essence. She leapt over the bench and found the rock with the stick protruding from it. Elena dashed over and pulled the lever, and the rock slid aside.
Even if I get caught, this is a hell of a lot more fun than my usual daily activities.
She nearly gasped as she passed herself coming out of the opening, but then smiled with delight. A clone wouldn’t stand up to close scrutiny, but it would be enough to fool Dumb and Dumber out there for a while.
Once inside, with the door carefully latched shut, she raced down a short flight of steps and into a storage room.
Elena looked where the voice indicated, and spotted a canister of the same stealth armor she had worn during the assault on the Galadrial. She grabbed the canister and pressed it to her chest, shivering as the armor flowed across her skin. When it reached the cuffs and collar, they flashed red and then disconnected, falling to the floor.
“Handy,” Elena said aloud as the armor flowed over her head, covering her in its thin layer of protection and stealth.
Elena nodded again, uncertain if the speaker could see her.
Elena almost responded with incredulity. There were easily tens of thousands of systems, planets, stations, and cities named Alexandria, but she only knew of one with a ‘Kapalicarsi’ above it.
They were in Scipio, her old stomping grounds.
Elena nodded again and followed the route toward the docks that was highlighted over her vision.
This is going to be fun.
RETROSPECTIVE
STELLAR DATE: 08.11.8948 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Imperial Palace Guest Suites
REGION: Alexandria, Bosporus System, Scipio Empire
Outside Diana’s private audience rooms, a woman waited for Tanis, Sera, and Petra with an impassive gaze on her face.
“The Empress has informed me that you are to be guests of the palace. She wishes you to stay nearby so that she may have further conversations with you at her leisure.”
“Thank you, Chimellia,” Petra said. “Please lead the way.”
Chimellia nodded and turned to lead them down the corridor. They passed a pair of Scipian Palace Guards stationed at a security arch before Tanis caught sight of Flaherty and the High Guard waiting for them.
“I am,” Sera replied. “Looking forward to relaxing for a bit.”
“You’ll need to prepare for the party tomorrow,” Chimellia said over her shoulder. “The empress has just sent word that you’re to attend.”
“The party?” Petra asked. “The Celebration of the Seven Suns?”
“Petra, don’t pretend you don’t know what it is. You’ve pestered me for months to get on the invite list,” Chimellia replied.
“And you told me that it was full,” Petra answered with a small pout.
Sera said to Tanis in private.
Tanis replied.
Chimellia shrugged. “Well, it just got un-full. Though the empress does not seem happy…”
“Was it the shattering glass that gave it away?” Petra asked dryly.
Chimellia snorted. “If I had a credit for every time she broke something…it still wouldn’t come close to paying for everything she breaks in just one outburst.”
Sera raised an eyebrow.
Tanis replied.
Sera’s mental avatar wore a glower as it regarded Petra.
Tanis considered Chimellia’s words about Diana’s outbursts and wondered how much of Diana’s performance was real and how much was feigned. Dealing with these sorts of personalities reminded her of her time as Victoria’s Lieutenant Governor, and of times prior in the Terran Space Force, where she often had to manage her superiors to get the results she needed.