by M. D. Cooper
‘Tiresome’ was too kind a word for it.
She was thankful that the colony at New Canaan had felt much more cooperative—though its establishment hadn’t been without its personality conflicts.
Tanis nodded.
Tanis hadn’t considered it from Sera’s angle. She knew that Sera felt scared of the responsibility; her attempts to pass it off to Finaeus—and Tanis—were only half joking at best.
They arrived at their suites, and by some miracle of porter magic, their luggage had beat them to the rooms—even though they had only been assigned a few minutes prior. Chimellia gave them a brief tour, noting where ‘the help’—aka, the soldiers—could sleep, and showing them the four rooms the women had to choose from.
“Will you stay with us here?” Sera asked Petra once Chimellia left.
“I think so. If Diana summons us, I wouldn’t want to keep her waiting.”
“Good call,” Tanis said.
“So,” Sera said as she stood at the window, staring out over the gardens below. “Would you like to elaborate on what exactly went on in there? Diana took this a lot more personally than I would have expected.”
Petra strode to the suite’s bar and grabbed a glass, which she filled with vodka before replying. “It started off innocently enough—I mean, as innocent as it could be for two women who were obviously using one another.”
“I know how you were using her, but how was she using you?” Tanis asked.
Petra shrugged. “She needed some personal time. My representation of a group so far from Scipio meant that I had fewer aspirations. There was a feeling of…freedom in our interactions. I asked for little and gave a lot. It was refreshing for her.”
“But it turned into something more for her?” Sera asked.
“As much as it could,” Petra replied. “She could never be seen publicly having a dalliance with me. I’m too far beneath her station. I think that was part of the enjoyment; we both knew nothing could ever come of it. But what she did get from me was an ear and a distinct lack of expectations.”
“Sounds like standard fare,” Tanis replied. “But she placed more trust in you than she should have?”
“Well,” Petra said with a shrug. “If I’d been who I said I was, then her level of trust was fine. Since I’m not….”
“She feels more betrayed than she would if you two had not become so emotionally invested in one another,” Sera finished for her. “Don’t try to deny it. I saw the hurt in your eyes when she summarily dismissed you.”
Petra downed her drink in one gulp and slammed her elbows onto the bar, burying her face in her hands. “I know, Sera, OK? I know. I fucked up. I got too close to the asset. I knew it then, too, I just…” She looked up at Sera, her eyes pleading. “I just needed a goddamn connection to someone, OK? This job, all the bullshit, I don’t even know who I am anymore. Diana grounded me as much as I grounded her.”
Sera leaned against the window where she stood and nodded. “I get that. I really do, Petra. But when that happens, you know it’s time for a new assignment—after a few years off, to get to know yourself again. It’s as much my fault as yours—I should have spotted the signs.”
“Yeah, well, what’s done is done,” Petra replied. “What are we going to do now?”
“With you, or with Diana?” Sera asked.
“I was going to say with Diana, but I guess we’re part and parcel of the same problem, aren’t we?”
“She’ll come around,” Tanis said. “We have what she wants. This was the first step of the negotiations; soon we begin feeling out concessions.”
“Then what’s on the table?” Petra asked, straightening and pouring herself another drink—just two fingers this time.
“No picotech. At all,” Tanis said. “That never leaves New Canaan.”
“What about your nanotech?” Petra asked.
“Some,” Tanis granted. “As much as we’ve given the Transcend—though that won’t be my initial offer. We’ll also give her stealth tech that should beat anything the Hegemony has—though I hate doing that. It feels like arming a future enemy.”
“Any time one forms an alliance like this, that’s the risk,” Sera told her as she walked to one of the chairs and fell into it.
Tanis looked back at Major Valerie and the three High Guard troops who were scanning the room for listening devices. “How we looking?” she asked.
“There were a few,” Valerie replied. “But nothing that our standard package hadn’t blocked the moment we came in. It’s the minor leagues here.”
“Don’t get lax,” Sera warned. “We know that Orion has BOGA agents in Scipio.”
“Ten, that I know of,” Petra added. “Though I’ve put four into positions that keep them from hearing anything. Of the other six, one does have palace access; though for them to have this room tapped already, they would have had to turn a large number of porters, or Chimellia.”
“Wouldn’t surprise me,” Flaherty said. “Woman’s cold.”
“Diana trusts her completely,” Petra replied.
“So?” Flaherty asked. “She trusted you, too.”
A small grimace fluttered across Petra’s lips. “Good point.”
“Well, this just got a lot more fun,” Tanis said aloud. “Sera, we need to assume that Elena is on Alexandria.”
“Whoa, hey, what?” Sera sputtered, and Tanis hid a smile as Sera’s entire body turned red for a moment.
Petra, on the other hand, did not withhold comment.
“What? You brought her along?”
“Yes, but that’s not what matters.” Sera slumped against the window, pressing a hand against her cheek. “If Elena is on Alexandria, we have to assume that she’ll try to sync up with a local Orion agent. Will she know who they are?”
Petra shrugged and threw her hands in the air. “Not that I know of, but she was turned ages ago. She may know the Orion spies I do, or she may know others that I’ve never uncovered.”
“Good point,” Sera acknowledged.
“They think she has the new Mark X FlowArmor,” Valerie added. “They found an empty canister in Prairie Park.”
“Dammit,” Sera shook her head. “This is my fault for being a big sap.”
“Saps all around today, it would seem,” Tanis said. “You’d think we were all human or something.”
Petra snorted a laugh. “I’m reaching out to my network. We’ll get ears to the ground.”
“Captain Sheeran is performing a bow-to-stern active sweep of the Aegeus; they’ll alert us to anything they find,” Major Valerie added.
“I’ll go meet with some people,” Flaherty said as he pushed himself off the wall and ambled toward the door.
“You have local contacts?” Petra asked, surprise unmasked on her
face. “Do you think they’re trustworthy?”
“Yes and yes,” Flaherty replied as he left the suite.
“Just as talkative as always,” Petra said with a slow shake of her head. “He’s not going to screw anything up is he?”
“He’s the last one of us that would ever mess up,” Sera assured her. “It’s like he’s built out of success.”
“Just to put it out there, we don’t tell Diana yet,” Tanis said. “We haven’t gotten to the whole civil war bit yet. Let’s get that past her before we compound it with double agents, and the rest of the BOGA versus The Hand business.”
“It’s such a stupid name,” Petra said.
“Blame Finaeus,” Sera said. “He’s on the I2, and I imagine if all this goes well, we’ll bring it insystem. You can chide him for his naming conventions in person.”
“The what?” Petra asked.
Tanis laughed. “I keep forgetting that we’ve done all this at breakneck speed. The I2 is the first of the Intrepid Class warships that we’ve built. Except, in its case, it actually is the Intrepid. Just upgraded.”
“You never told me you were building more of them,” Sera accused. “Or did you? I think I would have remembered that.”
Tanis glanced at Petra. “As you can see, we are all running on very little sleep.” She looked to Sera. “I don’t think I brought it up in person. It was in the outline of the fleet buildout that we’re going to do now that the Grey Wolf Star resources are hitting New Canaan. I want to have at least one hundred of them in three years.”
“One hundred…” Petra whispered. “Sorry, that really drives the scope home. A single ship that size is worth a fleet.”
“Plus it carries a fleet,” Tanis added.
“And fifty thousand fighter craft,” Sera supplied.
“Why do you need allies, again?” Petra asked with a chuckle.
“Because defenses are best performed by the people who live in a given place. If we come in and fight for them, they hate us and feel lorded over,” Tanis replied.
“I know, Tanis,” Petra replied. “It was rhetorical.”
“Oh.”
“It’s only midmorning,” Sera said. “Why don’t we order some food, carb up, and then figure out what our next move is?”
“We should go out tonight, too,” Petra said. “It would be unusual for the president to come here and hole up in her suites all night. No one passes up on an opportunity to see the world-city.
* * * * *
Later, after they had eaten, and Petra had retired to her room for a brief rest, Tanis approached Sera. She was sitting on one of the chairs, looking out the window.
“Sure is a lot going on,” Tanis said as she sat in the chair next to Sera. “Forming a new government, alliances, fleets…”
“You can say that again,” Sera replied with a nod. “I’ve been sitting here reviewing new candidates for building the administration. Right now, I’m looking over Chancellor Alma’s record—the one from Vela.”
“Right, I remember Greer mentioning her,” Tanis replied. “I don’t know how you’re managing, Sera, but you’re doing a great job. I see the messages you’ve been sending to Khardine over the QuanComms. It’s substantial.”
“Imagine if we didn’t have those? We’d have to relay to a jump gate and then send from there.”
“Earnest is a godsend,” Tanis agreed. “Though he also created half this mess. He invented the pico and the Intrepid’s ramscoop and half the other stuff that everyone is fighting over.”
“Good point. Though without that, we’d never have met, Tanis.”
A smile stretched across Tanis’s face to hear Sera say that. She was right. Everyone in Tanis’s life that meant so much to her had come into it after she joined the Intrepid’s mission. Her time before, back in Sol…it seemed almost like a dream.
She didn’t want to imagine a life without Joe, her daughters, Jessica, Sera, Bob, and a thousand other dear friends. In fact, Angela was the only person she knew now from her old life. And even then, they would have been separated after another decade or so.
In a way, I owe Earnest Redding everything. What a strange thought.
“Meeting you was one of the most serendipitous events in my life,” Tanis said in response to Sera’s statement. “And I’ve had a lot of those.”
“That you have,” Sera said with a soft chuckle.
Tanis took a deep breath. She had come to Sera to tell her something that she knew her friend would not want to hear, but she had to start the conversation at some point; now was as good a time as any.
“Sera, while you’re vetting all these candidates, you should consider vetting a new AI.”
There, it was out. Tanis braced for the storm.
“Seriously, Tanis? You pick now to bring that up?” Sera asked.
“We don’t really have a lot of ‘good times’,” Tanis replied. “There’s always shit going on.”
“It’s too soon. I’ve not healed yet from Helen’s removal. Physically or mentally.”
“I doubt the former, but I believe the latter. Still, I think you need to get another AI—one that can help you. Both in getting past what Helen did to you, and in running things.”
Sera placed her hands over her face and then ran them through her hair. “Thank you for your advice, Tanis. I need to think on this. Is that enough for now?”
“Of course,” Tanis replied, reaching out and taking Sera’s hand. “I’m always here for you, Sera. I have your back. No matter what, we’re going to get through this.”
“Or die trying?” Sera asked with a wan smile as she met Tanis’s eyes.
“Core, no,” Tanis replied, a grin on her lips. “That’s for our enemies to do.”
ALTERNATIVES
STELLAR DATE: 08.11.8948 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Imperial Palace Guest Suites
REGION: Alexandria, Bosporus System, Scipio Empire
Phillip reviewed the missive with dismay. Not only had Petra disregarded the warnings from the Directorate on Airtha, she had taken the pretender to meet with the empress. And if that wasn’t bad enough, she had somehow let a double agent loose in the city.
The information as to how Elena had escaped custody was not in the packet, but both the Directorate, and the pretender’s government on Khardine had flagged the former agent as having gone rogue and working for Orion.
That Elena had changed sides did not surprise Phillip overmuch. The woman had several unexplained absences in her past; she always had excuses, but they had never seemed to add up for him.
He considered his options. Of the local agents, he had only reached out to two that he was certain would not side with Petra. The rest were too close to her—trapped in her thrall, to his mind.
That was how Petra worked—she was a master manipulator. Her every word was constructed to endear you to her and make you desire to do her bidding.
But Phillip had long-since seen through her façade.
The woman was weak, a petty shell of a thing that lived off the servitude of others. That she had retained her position on Alexandria as head of regional operations was only due to her fucking the empress.
Granted, she had drawn a large store of intel from the woman, and had more than a little success influencing the direction of Scipio—but she had utterly failed to stop the empress’s drive into Silstrand, and Tanis Richards’s nanotech had yet to be secured from S&H Defensive Armaments.
And now Diana’s knowledge of that nanotech threatened to destroy the fragile peace that had been growing amongst the fringe nations between Scipio and Silstrand.
A peace that Phillip had spent decades working on.
Of course, Peter Rhoads and his fleet of purists weren’t helping. That landed at Petra’s feet, as well. The operation to assassinate Peter Rhoads had been stalled for years. I
f I had been running that op, the spindly old man would have been dead before he even launched his crusade.
Petra’s packet had not revealed the identity of her current guests, but back channels were abuzz with the warship that had docked on Kapalicarsi—a ship with a very distinct design. Not only that, but Phillip had managed to get eyes on Petra’s guests while they were moving through the palace.
It had been none other than the pretender herself.
This was a golden opportunity, and not one that Phillip was going to waste. If he could capture or kill either of those two, he would win great favor with Airtha and the Directorate. That Petra’s tenure—and probably life—would then be at its end was just the icing on the cake.
INVESTIGATION
STELLAR DATE: 08.11.8948 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Intrepid Space Force Academy
REGION: The Palisades, Orbiting Troy, New Canaan System
Following their dinner with Nance, Cary and Saanvi decided to forgo the maglev and walk through the station hub on their way back to Ring Three.
Neither spoke for the first few minutes. Then Cary blurted out,
Cary shook her head.