by M. D. Cooper
The conversation drifted through topics ranging from food and religions in Sol, to music and the news of the new gravity research in Procyon, information that Bob had siphoned from signals between the stars.
“What do you think it means?” Katrina asked. “I read through some of the data streams as best I could, but it was all Greek to me.”
“Artificial gravity will be a breeze for starters,” Dmitry said. “No more shenanigans like the Intrepid, with its accelerator coils doing double-duty, or the spinning superconductors. Hell, ships won’t even need to be air tight anymore, the grav field can hold the atmosphere in.”
“Plus that whole universal point of reference thing,” Joe added. “Another point for Einstein.”
“Isn’t that supposedly the secret to FTL after all the warp drive experiments petered out?” Katrina asked.
“One and the same,” Joe nodded. “Wouldn’t it suck if we finally got to New Eden and FTL was invented?”
Tanis threw Joe a sidelong glare. “Don’t even joke about that.”
Myrrdan stood at one of the station’s broad windows, surveying the world the Victorians were building. It was impressive to say the least—to spark up a colony in such time, and have many of the trappings of an advanced civilization, was a testament to the sophistication and power of the Intrepid and her crew.
“Impressive, isn’t it,” a voice said from beside Myrrdan.
She turned and saw the Lieutenant Governor, Tanis Richards next to her.
“That’s putting it mildly, Ma’am. What we’ve built here has to be unprecedented, Myrrdan replied.”
Tanis gave a light chuckle. Her ability to switch between affability and deep seriousness had always irritated Myrrdan—or perhaps it was the fact that she had always beat her in every contest.
Ever since that day on Mars, Tanis Richards had come out on top—though not every one of their encounters had been adversarial. Tanis would be amazed to know Myrrdan had helped as much as hindered the Intrepid’s progress between the stars.
It was an invigorating game, one that would be passed down through the ages. A long struggle of power and control that took centuries to come to fruition.
“You’ve certainly helped,” Tanis said. “I really value your contribution; you’ve given a lot to help us get this far.”
“You’re too kind, I’m just doing my job.”
“That’s my line,” Tanis said with a smile. “How are things looking at the academy? Joe tells me you’re doing well there.”
“It’s a fun challenge. Also getting to go down to Victoria so often is nice—especially after so long being cooped up on a starship.”
“I know what you mean, I love my little patch of land in Old Sam more than I can say, but getting back out has been nice.”
Myrrdan couldn’t help shaking her head. Referring to the eleven years they had spent on in the Kap thus far as getting back out was a sign of someone who had spent too much time alone. If it hadn’t been for her daring defense of the Hyperion with the Andromeda, Myrrdan would have thought that Tanis had lost her edge.
And that would have ruined the game.
When the tales were told in the distant future, learning of Earnest Redding’s discovery of picotech would certainly go down as the defining moment for Myrrdan. But she knew her true purpose was this game with Tanis Richards.
Even though Tanis never knew her opponent, her moves and countermoves were deft, and so often made without any direct confrontation. Myrrdan would nearly have turned an asset, then Tanis would give a stirring speech and shift that person’s alliances. Other times, Myrrdan would lay in a plan to access sensitive data, but some new procedure or measure of the Lieutenant Governor’s would foil her approach.
The nuance was so great that Myrrdan doubted even Tanis could fully appreciate it—though at least she would understand better than Jessica.
The former TBI agent had never really been a suitable match for Myrrdan. So often she’d found herself stringing that plastic doll along, it had really been frustrating.
During her ruminating, she made a polite reply to Tanis and they exchanged a few other words before the lieutenant governor walked away.
It was impressive how the once-disgraced TSF counterinsurgency officer had become the de-facto ruler of this system. Sure, the Captain and Terrance Enfield were in charge on paper, but with them spending the vast majority of their time in stasis it had become apparent who was in charge.
Myrrdan almost wished she could see how that dynamic would play out when the Intrepid left the Kap. Except that it never would—at least not toward New Eden. Or under the command of its current leadership.
The speeches were not too lengthy and all the right people were given credit and thanked for their efforts. Tanis gave hers in under five minutes, though during practice it had taken seven. She wasn’t sure what she missed, but everyone said it was quite good.
Afterward, she and Joe made the rounds until late in the evening and caught the last shuttle back to the Intrepid. They rode the maglev to Old Sam in a thoughtful silence, arms around one another.
Tanis’s thoughts were interrupted by a message from Ouri.
Tanis looked over at Joe who was drifting to sleep.
OLD TIMES
STELLAR DATE: 3270377 / 11.21.4241 (Adjusted Gregorian)
LOCATION: ISS Excelsior
REGION: Near Tara, Victorian Space Federation
“OK, at first I thought you were nuts for signing us up for this,” Joe said as he luxuriated in the hot tub’s warm water. “I should have known you would have an angle.”
“Troy and I have a little deal going. It involves choice assignments and ensuring that our little alterations become permanent fixtures.”
“Did you opt for the long route?” Tanis asked.
“Pass the cheese?” Joe asked.
Tanis handed him the plate and Joe selected a few slices.
“Sometimes our lives seem ridiculous,” Joe chuckled.
“Hey, we have to bathe and eat. Might as well enjoy it,” Tanis replied, as she took a long drink from her glass of wine.
“I’m not complaining. I like ridiculous.”
Tanis let out a long sigh and slid lower in the water. “The chance to take this trip came at the right time. I really needed to get away. The last few weeks of getting that elevator working were less than fun. If I have to sort out another disagreement between crew, colony, and the Victorians I may blow a gasket.”
Joe chuckled. “It’s a miracle you haven’t blown one already. You’re mellowing in your old age.”
“Must be you rubbing off on me,” Tanis smiled and raised her glass. “I guess, given that we’re not falling into a star, or at risk of drifting forever in space, I view all challenges as simple.”
“It certainly is a different order of problem,” Joe nodded in agreement. “Though sometimes angry stars are easier to deal with than people.,
Tanis raised her glass and took a drink. “You can say that again.”
They relaxed in sile
nce for several minutes, feeling the ship go through a burn and correction cycle as they flew past the Kap’s larger super-earth, Albion. Its large moon, Tara, appearing from behind the world on the holo above the hot tub, wispy clouds streaked across its surface.
Tara was simply referred to as Beta so much that Tanis wondered if eventually the name might simply switch from use.
The moon was almost three times as massive as Mars and would make an excellent second world for the Victorians—whether they thought they needed it or not.
“Ever find it funny that there are so many terrestrial worlds here?” Joe asked.
Tanis shrugged. “The Kap is weird from start to finish. From another galaxy, almost as old as the universe itself, has all these worlds that it scooped up over the aeons. Nothing here surprises me anymore.”
“I should imagine that nothing in general surprises you anymore,” Joe replied with a smile.
“You have been known to, from time to time.”
Joe laughed while drinking, producing a snort and a fit of coughing. When he finally stopped, tears streaked his face and he grinned at her. “Look what you did.”
Tanis chuckled in response, “that’s on you. You’d think after all this time you’d know what goes down which pipe.”
“Other than a coughing fit, I don’t know what surprises I have for you anymore. I expect you know me better than the back of your hand. I know you better than mine,” Joe continued his previous line of thought.
Tanis looked down at her hand. “Ever wonder what it would be liked to be a Victorian? To actually know that the hand on your arm is the one your body grew?”
“Well, in my case, it is my own hand.”
“Not really, you have the high-g mods…your every cell is altered to support your piloting. Me? Well…only Angela can tell where my real body is anymore, let alone where she ends and I begin.”
“You’re more machine than woman…twisted and evil.” Joe quoted with a grin. “Why so melancholy? People have been modified for millennia now. I know they’re not throwbacks, per se, but the Victorians aren’t really something to strive for. Look at them, their lives are measured in decades, not centuries. Before we came along they died from long-eradicated illnesses. Died horribly in many cases. Hell, they had to euthanize their elderly to keep their population stable. That’s no way to live.”
Tanis nodded slowly as she turned her hand over, her perfect bones moving gracefully under perfect tendons, muscles, and flawless skin.
“I know all that, but sometimes I still wonder. Would I be me if I wasn’t what I am? Would I be someone else?”
“Probably,” Joe said. “We’re a product of our environment. But seriously, what’s gotten into you? Give you a day off and you can’t get out of your own head. Come over here.”
Joe reached out a hand and pulled Tanis to him. His lips met hers and they relived that first adventure they’d had in that very same hot tub on the heavy lifter, Excelsior.
GAMMA
STELLAR DATE: 3270384 / 11.28.4241 (Adjusted Gregorian)
LOCATION: IIS Excelsior
REGION: Orbiting Perseus, ISF Controlled Space
Tanis and Joe watched as Troy guided the Excelsior around Perseus in a slow elliptical orbit. On the record the trip would be filed as a survey mission tacked onto the end of the delivery run to Tara.
If there was one thing Tanis had to keep secret during their time in the Kap, it was the gamma site. Not just from Myrrdan, but from Victorians and Edeners alike. They couldn’t risk another reaction like Mike or Hilda’s.
If anyone were to investigate, they would see that the Excelsior did some deep scans of the world and identified a titanium deposit close to the surface. The touchdown would be to confirm those details.
Tanis already knew that there were several titanium deposits on the world and they would soon set up full-scale mining operations on each of them.
Hiding a secret base on the edge of a virtually empty solar system worked better in the long run if there was a reason to go there.
“She’s an ugly rock, isn’t she?” Joe commented as Troy fired thrusters to degrade the orbit further.
“The uglier the better,” Tanis replied. “The Victorians don’t have the equipment to mine in a gravity well like this, and the world has nothing else to its credit. Makes it all ours.”
“A dangerous place for our dangerous games.”
Joe gave Tanis a quizzical look. “Was that you or Angela?”
“Me.” Tanis gave the offhand reply as she looked over the log entries Troy was creating.
Joe furrowed his brow. “Just checking.”
Tanis felt a moment of uncertainty.
“I’m going to use the next loop to brake and then reduce our groundspeed to around a thousand kilometers per hour. We’ll drop fast and hard, but it’ll mask our true destination.” Troy said audibly.
“Think that’s necessary?” Tanis asked.
“Your call, it’s your big secret base out here.”
“Good point.”
Joe and Angela reviewed Troy’s calculations and agreed with his math while Tanis watched the grey, pockmarked orb grow closer.
She gritted her teeth during the hard deceleration burn and found herself grimacing during the drop that followed.
The Excelsior had dropped to only a few thousand meters above the surface of Perseus and had slowed to just over five hundred kilometers per hour. Tanis saw the base’s beacon on the holo display and watched as Troy homed in on it and brought the ship to a stop over a rocky gully.
A moment later, he reduced lift and the ship lowered through the holographic façade and into a hanger below.
She nodded to Joe and they stood.
“Thanks for the ride, Troy,” Joe said. “Keep the tub warm for us.”
Tanis stopped in the ship’s galley and opened a hidden panel behind a refrigeration unit. Inside lay a small case, a little worse for wear than the first time she saw it, but still the same one she picked up that fateful day on Mars.
She pulled the case out and turned to Joe.
“Time to deliver this bad boy.”
He nodded and they walked out of the ship and down the ramp.
A squad of Marines was waiting for them and performed a quick biometric scan while an auth system validated their security tokens.
Tanis wasn’t surprised, the security here was, after all, her setup.
“All set ma’am, sir,” The squad leader said once the checks were complete. “They’re waiting for you down in the labs.”
He led his squad into the ship to do a sweep as a young major ran into the hanger.
“Ma’am, Sorry I’m late,” he said between gasps. “Had a small emergency in the commissary.”
“Oh, yeah?” Tanis raised an eyebrow.
The major flushed. “Well, more of a misunderstanding. Out here people get particular about the menu.”
“Mystery meat Thursday not a hit?” Joe asked.
“Something like
that.”
“Well, Major Carson, lead the way,” Tanis said.
Carson took them through several straight, utilitarian corridors and then into a wide foyer with a lift at the far end.
“Going down?” he asked with a wink.
They filed into a waiting carriage and Carson pushed the only button on the board.
“As you requested, everything below is separated from the rest of the base. Separate power, water, waste treatment, everything. This lift is the only connection and it is purely mechanical, pneumatic of all things, I’m told.”
Tanis nodded in appreciation. She already knew all this, but appreciated hearing it had been done correctly from another source.
The level of security and absolute communications blackout was not to keep the Victorians from learning of the lab and its work, but to keep people on the Intrepid from discovering what was underway here. More specifically, one person on the Intrepid.
Joe looked as though he was going to respond and then smiled and shook his head.
The elevator slowed and the door opened to reveal the pacing form of Earnest. He was muttering about a possible fix to the pneumatics on the elevator to speed it and reduce the time he had to wait for important deliveries.
“Really, Earnest?” Tanis said with a laugh. “It takes us days to get here and you’re worried about speeding up the last five minutes?”