I even tried a few things I’d read in science fiction, like trying to build a bubble or brick wall in my mind, or a wall between us, a symbolic way to stop the thoughts. That was a total bust, so much for truth in science fiction. I’d figure it out though, eventually.
“That we do…” I replied with a small smile as we got undressed and into the hot tub, and before things got too interesting, I gave Al a few more orders regarding the six platforms in this galaxy.
It was time for a trap of my own, if all I ever did was give warnings every time they tried to destroy me without regard to collateral damage, the president and her counterparts in Japan, China, and Russia would just keep trying until they’d finally succeeded. It was doubtful they would, I had too much of an edge, but on the other hand they’d only need to win once, while fighting defensively meant that I’d have to win every time.
I also sent out a few messages to Earth, private ones. I feared if this went on much longer it could only lead to one place, and I wanted to give out a heads up to a few people that would be ruined if the seemingly inevitable did happen.
Luck and opportunity were always variables after all…
We were in the kitchen that evening drinking a coffee with dinner, I was trying to stay away from wine. A few hours had turned into all day, when the stealth ship had stopped at the edge of the solar system and just sat there. For a few hours now. Maybe they waited to see if we saw them, before firing a missile. If that was the case, it wouldn’t work. I wanted to catch them red handed, so we could make the Earth back off. Who knew, maybe they’d even impeach the bitch? They were violating many Earth laws to do this… black op, not the least of which was the treaty of worlds.
I took a deep breath to calm down.
The truth was, interrupted honeymoon or not, we were alone on the house ship, which I loved.
Bill seemed equally content here as well. We had the hot tub, a bedroom, and each other without interruptions, save the ship we were stalking. Overall, it wasn’t a bad way to spend a day. Athiren would be better of course, they had nature, trees, and all that good stuff, but it would keep.
When we’d let Kristi know, she’d just been amused and had let it go. I knew she could have handled it from her end, the large ship could have just moved out and chased the stealth ship away, but I felt a responsibility. They were trying to kill me, mostly, and were willing to kill scientists from over thirty worlds if they could get away with it.
I liked most humans, but the leadership of Earth was really starting to piss me off. Even Germany, France, and England should have stepped up to stop this, exposed it somehow, but they were obviously being cowed by the other four superpowers, or being bribed to keep their mouths shut.
Besides having fun with my husband all day, I’d also learned the trick of blocking my husband’s thoughts out. Instead of distancing my mind from his thoughts like the emotions, I had to instead distance myself from him in my thoughts. So there were apparently three variables, not two. How well I knew them, how close I was to them, and how much I reached out and connected myself to them, even subconsciously.
With Kristi it had been almost instinctual to reach out to her, same with Bill. It was hard to purposefully do it. I had no doubt it would get easier eventually, and not feel like I was pushing people away when I really wasn’t, just giving them privacy.
Bill said he didn’t mind though, so I wasn’t bothering to do it at the moment. After all, a honeymoon was supposed to be intimate and all about being close. Plus, it was really fun for both of us, when I read his unguarded thoughts about me…
When it finally happened it all went fast. I didn’t even see the missile launch in the hologram, but simultaneously Al sent out a subspace wave to destroy it, and brought the six platforms, that were already surrounding the stealth ship back into normal space, with their shields at five percent. They were only about a hundred miles away from the ship in all six directions.
I imagined that would look quite intimidating to the people in that ship.
I opened a channel to the ship, I still had the military frequencies after all, I just didn’t have the encryption keys. So it was an open communication, anyone with that frequency could understand it. I was also well aware Sergei and Earth would hear this.
“You have fired a missile at Minerva that would have done nothing to the station, but would have devastated the world beneath if we hadn’t stopped it. That action is not only against the treaty, but is a war crime. You will immediately lower your shielding and stealth, and surrender. If not, you will be destroyed.”
I wasn’t screwing around this time. When it came to war crimes, and unlawful orders, I could hold them just as accountable as the people that cut the orders. It was somewhat of a surprise when several seconds later, they dropped shields and got back on the line.
“What are your terms?”
I replied, “The six of you will abandon ship, in ship suits, and we will pick you up for transport and processing. Your ship will be destroyed once we’ve cleared the area.”
“Uh, Understood, standby,” he was clearly startled by the fact we could not only see his ship, but also his crew complement.
They appeared to follow my orders, mostly. They shut down the stealth, and the FTL drive, but when they disembarked they were carrying several concealed weapons between their uniforms and ship suits. Got to love the subspace sensors, all those pieces of metal, and some even of polymer materials, were easily identified. One of the platforms reached out with its gravity emitters, and grabbed them.
The platform dropped its subspace shield, and disarmed the six soldiers quite thoroughly as it pulled them out of the box of six platforms before it turned its shields on again. Then it pulsed the shield, and all of those weapons, and the stealth ship itself, were destroyed, as the platform handed the soldiers off to our ships gravity emitters, and we pulled them into the landing bay.
The box of six platforms with subspace shields would quarantine that area until the dark energy dissipated back into the universe.
We got up and headed down to meet them, as the bay pressurized. We weren’t worried about six against two, this ship only answered to us, and the soldiers were being held against the wall with artificial gravity.
When we got down there I asked, “Who gave you the orders to attack us?”
He replied, “Captain Jason Keller, USFS, serial number,” and he gave me his social.
I rolled my eyes, “Really? You almost destroy a treaty world, and you’re going to hide behind an Earth war treaty that holds no legality here?”
He cleared his throat, “Earth doesn’t recognize the validity of that claim, and you are a traitor with too many of our state secrets to allow…”
He cut off when I held up my hand.
“Is that what they told you? Of course they did, assholes. Well, forget what Earth thinks for a moment, or even Minerva. What do you think the other forty-eight worlds of the old and new treaty, who do see my world as valid, will do when they find out what happened here? What you almost did? Even the three unaligned worlds recognize Minerva as a sovereign planet.”
The blood drained from his face.
“Yes, I can see why you used a stealth ship for this operation, and unfortunately we have records of everything that happened. The truth is you’re here to salve the embarrassment of four heads of state that resented me for saving the Earth, while they stupidly believed everything the Knomen Arbitrator told them. As soon as the heat was off, they immediately started to try and get me in hand. When I left, instead of letting them control me, or fighting back, they started to try and kill me.
“And may I just add, you not only tried to kill a sovereign world, but one that is host to scientists to over thirty worlds. I tried to ignore it, I tried to get over it, I tried to not play their game. It’s why I left, I didn’t want to be penned in, and I didn’t want to fight back either, so I changed the game. It isn’t about state secrets either, it should be painfully obviou
s by now I haven’t sold Earth out and don’t intend to. This is about egos. Theirs.
“Well they just keep on trying to force me to play, so I’m finally going to play the game they’ve been wanting me to play, and here is my countermove. Al, send all the data on the attack starting with the stealth warship’s approach, and what would have happened if they’d succeeded, along with our apprehension of these six criminals to all countries on Earth. Presidents, congress, warlords, commons, all of them, and the press.
“Maybe she’ll get impeached for war crimes, but I kind of doubt it, no question Sergei will get hung out to dry.”
I turned around and Bill was staring at me in surprise, and I smiled shyly when I realized he was turned on. I suppose this was out of character for me a bit, I usually suppressed anger, as it was rarely a useful emotion. But sometimes enough was enough, and passive wasn’t going to win the game. I loved Earth, and most of the humans on it, but I wasn’t willing to roll over and die for a handful of spoiled jerks that have never been held accountable for their actions before now.
As we were leaving I turned my head around, “Oh right, you six will take the fall as patsies too. Isn’t it nice to know that your career is over, and you’ll most likely do a life sentence at Leavenworth, because the president had her knickers in a twist?”
I left them with that thought as we headed back to the kitchen. We stopped back at the station quickly, and delivered the six men to one of the small shuttle airlocks. They’d be transported via artificial gravity to the brig, and Kristi and Nadia would take it from there.
It was time to get to that honeymoon, except, there was absolutely no wood on this ship to knock on…
Chapter Sixteen
In the house ship it didn’t take us longer than a few seconds to arrive at Athiren. I had Al put the ship inside subspace after we’d launched the shuttle and headed for the surface. It seemed like a good plan to prevent temptation of others trying to get a close look at it, or more. We landed the sports shuttle in the small landing field behind the hotel.
It was all they really had, all the transport on Athiren was public, and underground, to keep the view pristine and undisturbed not only by high rise buildings, but for things like shuttles and air cars as well. Though I’m fairly sure they had some to move product from the farms on the other continent, they weren’t in evidence.
Bill whistled low as we got out and took a look around, “Purple huh? Like the eyes. It’s beautiful. Sky looks like a rare sunset on Earth, just… all the time.”
I grinned, “Yeah, it’s pretty peaceful here too. I’ll give you the nickel tour, or at least what I know of the place, but later.”
Bill nodded and took my hand as we went inside, and checked in.
Our room was on the third floor, two below the transport level, and I froze for a moment in the lobby as a family went by and I heard the babble of their inner voices in my head until they were about twenty-five feet away.
Of course, my own species would be easier to read I thought disgustedly. Enter variable number four, species, nothing was ever simple. The distancing thing worked, but I had to concentrate to make it happen. It wasn’t quite automatic yet. I still hoped it would go away, but failing that I hoped it didn’t get any stronger.
But neither was it as debilitating as I’d feared it would be. Even if I didn’t distance myself and silence it, I could mostly ignore it, just like I’d be able to ignore a verbal conversation of a large group passing by, or the din in a restaurant. One less thing to worry about, I most likely wouldn’t go insane, any more than I was already that is.
We got on the elevator and headed down to our room. There was a bottle of champagne, an arrangement of my favorite Knomen fresh fruits from last time I was here, and chocolate. I’d no doubt Kristi had arranged this, only she’d know which Knomen fruit I liked.
The rest of the day was relatively quiet, and for the most part Bill and I just enjoyed each other’s company and stayed in the room. I could show him around tomorrow, or even the next day. There was no hurry, we had six days left.
We also looked into the children thing while we ate. Neither of us was in a hurry on that front, but we accessed the local data net to find out if they even had things like adoption or fertility clinics where sperm was banked. There were in fact rare cases of adoption, but for the most part on Athiren family or family friends took over raising an orphaned child in the rare case of both parents dying.
There was no real orphanages or state run facilities, it was just rare that such a thing happened.
There was also no sperm bank, or at least, not the kind where a woman could go and get herself knocked up. There was a facility that held some though, for those that were in the military or had other high risk jobs, where their spouse could later have a child if their husband or wife was lost.
It kind of made sense, population control was rather strict to maintain the just over four million population of the colony. They weren’t going to be overly concerned on making it too easy for a woman to become a single mother.
Bill sighed, “Well that was kind of a bust.”
I squeezed his hand, “Well, if we ever want kids we’ll have to adopt a human one. It was good enough for my parents, and it’d be good enough for me.”
He replied, “It might be a while before we’re welcome there again. Especially after the political bomb you just dropped.”
I shrugged helplessly and smiled. If ever.
“We’ll know in a few years, once a new president is in office, in both countries.”
He sighed in mock sadness, “Well, we can always keep trying, you never know what might happen.”
I laughed, and we got right on that…
Until about noon on the following day, we lived in our own little world and enjoyed our honeymoon. That’s when my little counter-move had unforeseen consequences and there was a knock at the door. I opened it, and smiled as I saw Senna and Nora. They both worked here, Athiren was where most of the wheeling and dealing for trade took place between the twenty-six worlds in the new treaty.
Two things were off about their visit though. One, I hadn’t expected them to drop by on my honeymoon, and neither of them wore a smile. Their minds were also blessedly silent.
“Come in?”
They nodded and joined us in the kitchen, “Something to drink? We just got done eating but if either of you want something?”
Nora shook her head, “This isn’t a social call unfortunately. The news on Earth is going mad, and quite a few of the treaty holders are nervous about what they’re saying. Your old government as usual, is… what do you call it? Stonewalling. Unfortunately, Earth news is most often hype and garbage, so a number of representatives are here and want to talk to you to get the real story, and the proof you have.”
I sighed, and looked over at Bill who shrugged helplessly.
“When?”
Senna smiled faintly, “Now?”
I nodded, “Just a second then,” and Bill and I went to get changed into something a little more professional. I doubted the shorts and tees would go over well. As we got dressed, I seriously considered tacking on a couple of more days to our honeymoon, since between yesterday and today life seemed determined to interrupt. Make up days.
We joined Nora and Senna, headed to level one, and got on one of the cars which took us toward the government district.
“I wondered what really happened,” Nora didn’t say out loud.
I sighed, so much for quiet. As the ride went on more of her thoughts became apparent, as well as Senna’s. As if my soul was learning to tune into theirs. With a little concentration I pulled back from them and silence returned. I almost laughed though, as several cars raced by, and it sounded like stuttering as they went by. Apparently, other Knomen were no effort at all that way.
There had to be a better way to deal, what if I was in a room full of fifty Knomen, would I have to take the time to distance myself from all of them? I pictured an amor
phous crowd, just a whole stadium full of Knomen, humans, Tressian, and all the other races I knew by sight, and then pushed the stadium away to the farthest part of my mind until it was just a small dot in my mind’s eye.
The stuttering stopped, and I smiled. I wouldn’t do that all the time, but it seemed to shut everyone out, which was a relief.
“So when did you two get back?”
Nora snickered, “Yesterday morning, when you were playing with Earth’s stealth vessel. After we got caught up with Nadia that is. It was good to see her again.”
I nodded, “I was lucky to snag her. Attacking me wasn’t the only stupid thing Earth has done.”
Senna sighed as we pulled over and got out at the government building.
“Have you heard the Drenil disappeared? At least from the planet we know about.”
I nodded slowly, I’d wondered how long it would take others to notice, and of course they didn’t know the ships and other colonies were gone from this galaxy, much less that they’d disappeared from everywhere in a ten million light year radius of the Milky way. Probably beyond that as well.
“Yes. I’m aware of it. No idea where they went.”
We got off the elevator and walked down an extremely long hallway that meandered through several one story buildings with covered walkways while outside. We entered a large building using the main hall, which lead across its front, and we turned to the left inside a rather large room that had numerous offices and smaller conference rooms on the outside of it
The large central room was one very large board room table that could probably seat fifty, along with rows of chairs on the outside. I could also see several holographic emitters around the table and across the room. Technically I probably should have someone here to represent our interests in trade, Joe would be that person, but he spent a lot of time going to different worlds instead of just meeting one representative from each.
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