by M. D. Cooper
-Bizarre.-
Her daughter’s eyes widened.
“Did you just speak into my mind? That word didn’t come over the Link or through my auditory pickups…it was just there.”
“Sort of a case in point,” Tangel said with a soft laugh. “The rules about what’s possible seem to keep changing….” Her voice trailed off for a moment, and then she asked, “Did you know that I was one of the first L2 humans to have an AI embedded?”
Faleena shook her head. “No, they don’t seem to have that in the classes they teach about you.”
Tangel rolled her eyes. “Stars, my ego does not need that.”
“Why?” Faleena chuckled and reached up to stroke Tangel’s hair. “Do you think it will give you a big head, Moms?”
“No.” Tangel sighed and looked down at her hands, corporeal and otherwise. “More the opposite. I’ve made so many mistakes over the years. And I don’t seem to be getting any better at avoiding them. Not only that, the penalty for failure keeps getting higher. One of these days, I’m going to screw up, and there will be no one to save me.”
Faleena’s hand slid down from Tangel’s head to rest on her shoulder, pulling them close.
“Not so, Moms. There’ll always be one of us around to pull your butt out of the fire.”
Tangel laughed and glanced at Faleena, shaking her head as she spoke. “You’re not going to let me get all morose about this, are you?”
“Nope. Do you know why you’ve always done so well, Moms?”
“Done so well in what way?”
“In your leadership roles.”
“Oh…well, there are a lot of reasons, I suppose—”
“I think there’s just one. Well, one and a half.”
Tangel chuckled, kicking a leg out to set the swing rocking once more. “And what are those one-and-a-half things?”
“You find amazing people and you make them a part of your team—and then you use that team.”
“Some might argue that you’ve just listed three things.”
“Maybe…” Faleena tilted her head in consideration. “But really, it’s just ‘having a good team’. You finding the people and them doing their jobs is a part of that.”
“OK,” Tangel said with a laugh. “I’ll allow it.”
Faleena snorted, which sounded like a soft squeak combined with rustling leaves.
“Glad you approve, Moms.”
“So how does this translate to all of my storied successes?” Tangel asked, doing her best not to sound as defeated as she felt.
“Well, I was thinking about all of the scrapes you’ve been through. From things like drawing out the people trying to stop the Intrepid’s construction to defending Victoria, working with Sera’s crew on Sabrina. Even here at Aldebaran. You had backup—though you would have been better off, had you let Bob come along from the get-go.”
Tangel sighed. “Stars, you don’t have to tell me that. Bob’s said it at least a thousand times.”
“Well, you’ve said it once or twice, and the rest is just the echoing in my mind, I guess.”
“I know.” Tangel nodded. “So what does that mean? Am I wrong to send Sera on her own to Airtha?”
Faleena laughed and shook her head. “She’s hardly alone, Moms. You’ve sent her with one of the best collections of badasses in the galaxy.”
“Yeah, they’re a pretty hardcore crowd. But with Empress Diana pushing into the Hegemony, and Corsia hitting the Trisilieds, I need to keep my options open.”
“Oh? Are you getting more actively involved?” Tangel looked out onto the lake, able to see the small, coriolis force induced eddies in the surface.
“Was that a joke?” Faleena asked, quirking an eyebrow as she glanced at Tangel. “Does Bob joke?”
A chuckle escaped Tangel’s lips. “Bob jokes a lot, but just like his motives, he keeps his humor inscrutable as well.”
Faleena’s eyes narrowed, and she glanced out toward the lake like her mother, as though it held some sort of potential revelation for Bob’s motives.
“Come,” Tangel said as she rose. “Since most of my team is on the far side of the Orion Arm, I need to bolster the ISF’s presence.”
“Come where?”
“To the negotiations with the League of Sentients. I’ve told your sisters to meet us there. Oh, and I just had a conversation with your father; it seems that the three of you have graduated.”
Faleena laughed as she rose. “Saanvi’s going to be so pissed.”
“In the middle of exciting research, was she?” Tangel asked.
“Less that and more that graduation means she’ll probably be away from Project Starflight.”
Tangel shrugged as she walked across the porch. “Starflight will be going on for some time. She won’t miss much.”
“Sure,” Faleena said as she followed Tangel down the steps. “And I look forward to listening in when you explain that to her.”
“Listen in? What are you, Bob?”
AN UNEXPECTED PROMOTION
STELLAR DATE: 10.05.8949 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: ISS I2, near Lunic Station
REGION: Aldebaran, League of Sentients Space
“See?” Cary said as she stepped out of the UHAR scanner and gave Dr. Rosenberg a pointed look. “Nothing wrong with me. Right as rain.”
The doctor fixed Cary with a level stare and shook her head. “So much like your mother. Right down to the refusal of medical care.”
“I thought she was always in here getting patched up?”
Dr. Rosenberg shrugged. “Well, when a limb gets chopped off or something, yeah. But it took her realizing that you were experiencing your own sort of ascension for her to come in and let me get baseline scans of her physiology for comparison.”
“Oh,” Cary said, not certain how to reply.
She still wasn’t entirely comfortable with her mother’s changes, though it was more related to losing Tanis and Angela than the ascension part of things.
Except when it came to the idea that she was semi-sorta-kinda ascending as well. Then she got all freaked out again.
“Come to think of it,” the doctor mused, “there was one time she lost a hand and didn’t bother getting a new one. She just made one from flowmetal. Took weeks for her to get around to coming in for an organic one.”
“Sort of started a trend, did it?” Cary asked.
“Yeah.” The doctor fixed her with a penetrating stare. “One I hope you don’t pick up on. Unless you get to the point where you can start making new limbs like she does. Though….”
Cary waited a moment for Dr. Rosenberg to finish her thought. When it became apparent that she wasn’t going to, the younger woman cleared her throat and asked, “ ‘Though’, what?”
“Well,” the doctor shrugged as she turned to the scanner and called up the reset parameters on the control panel. “Just not sure if you need me much, when you can grow new arms on your own.”
A rueful laugh escaped Cary’s lips. “That’s Moms’s province. I don’t have a clue how to do that.”
“I bet it’s because of the circumstances. She did it for raw survival. You’ve not had that particular need. But I imagine you pulled out some new tricks when you killed Myrrdan—which makes you my personal hero, by the way.”
The statement caught Cary by surprise.
While she’d been praised as a bit of a hero for hers and Saanvi’s actions in the Defense of Carthage—which had been eclipsed by being punished after stealing a starship—no one had ever said that she was their personal hero before.
“Umm…th-thanks,” she stammered. “I’m curious why…other than the obvious.”
“I lost a few good friends to that bastard’s machinations.
I think the fact that you, a mere twenty-year-old woman, took him down after centuries of plotting is the most fitting end he could have. Well, the most fitting I can discuss in polite company.”
Dr. Rosenberg’s statement was delivered with much more vehemence than Cary was accustomed to hearing from the woman.
She ducked her head before responding.
“Well, it was my pleasure. Makes me sick to think he was still out there, still getting his fingers dirty. They’ve cleared everyone out at the LMC, and we’re hoping that none of his…remnant-like things have infected anyone else.”
“Is there a limit to how many times he could do that?” the doctor asked, eyes holding a measure of concern.
“I think so…” Cary replied after a moment. “If he could split himself infinitely, I imagine he would have already done it. Either there are some people who were not good candidates, or he needed to recover from making them, or some combination of those two. From what Earnest has been able to determine, remnants are actually just that: a bit of the ascended being left behind.”
“Hey, Cary.” Saanvi poked her head into the room. “Sorry to interrupt.”
Cary shot her sister a worried look. The UHAR scanner room was shielded from the outside, keeping out all EM, including Link access. Worry that something horrible had happened settled into her stomach, made worse by the dark look on Saanvi’s face.
“We were just chatting, what’s up?” she asked.
“Moms wants us to attend the meetings with the LoS representatives. And she wants to tell us something. Faleena is already with her.”
Cary glanced at Dr. Rosenberg, who nodded and gestured for her to leave. “I’ll do a bit more review of your scans, but you don’t need to stay. Off with you, now.”
“Thanks, doc,” she said with a nod and then followed Saanvi out into the hall. “Any clue what Moms wants to tell us?” Cary glanced at her sister’s eyes to see if Saanvi was hiding anything.
Brilliant she might be, but a good liar she was not.
“Not a clue,” Saanvi replied, giving no tells whatsoever.
“What about Faleena?” Cary asked, as the two women walked along through the I2’s general hospital toward the maglev. “Have you hit her up?”
Saanvi nodded. “She knows. I can tell.”
“Told you to just wait,” Saanvi said.
“Yeah, but you didn’t tell me that Faleena already shut you down.”
“I don’t have to tell you everything.”
Cary eyed her sister. “Since when?”
Then a realization hit her, and she cursed under her breath.
“If Faleena’s with Moms, and you’re here, where’s Amy?”
“Relax,” Saanvi replied and wrapped an arm around her sister’s shoulder. “Terry’s taking care of her.”
“Sahn…we know seven Terrys. It’s a really common name in New Canaan.”
Saanvi burst out laughing. “Stars, you’re right. It’s almost as common as ‘Peter’. Terry Chang. She’s back on the I2 again.”
“Home sweet home. She always said she missed the Intrepid.” Cary shook her head. “You know…I still remember standing with Moms and Dad when we dumped out of the dark layer and crossed over New Canaan’s heliopause.”
“Why would you dump out at the heliopause?” Saanvi asked. “You can fly another forty AU toward the star in the DL at New Canaan.”
Cary knocked her hip against her sister’s. “Seriously, Sahn. Symbolism. Moms is all mushy like that, haven’t you realized that by now?”
Saanvi barked a laugh. “If by that, you mean everyone but Moms is into symbolism and sentimentality, then yes, I’ve totally realized that.”
The next maglev train pulled into the station, and when the doors opened, their father stood inside, beckoning for them to enter.
“Fancy meeting you here,” he said while opening up his arms to embrace the two women.
Cary and Saanvi both stepped onto the train and returned the hug, though Saanvi peered up at their father with a clouded expression.
“You always told us we can’t be familiar like this while in uniform.”
Joe took a step back, a mischievous look in his face as he looked the pair of women up and down. “Huh…uniforms…didn’t notice. Well, I suppose if you are in uniform, then you can pin these on.”
He held out his hand, and they both looked down to see lieutenant’s bars resting on his palm.
“Whaaaaa?” Cary breathed out the word. “Second lieutenant? How?”
“Bravery above and beyond the call of duty. The both of you, on several occasions. It wasn’t your mother or I who pushed for it. It was Admiral Sanderson, Governor Andrews, and Admiral Symatra.”
“Symatra?!” Cary and Saanvi shouted in unison, glancing at one another in shock.
“I kinda thought she hated us,” Cary said, remembering the angry missive the AI had sent to the girls after the Defense of Carthage.
Joe fixed her with a level stare. “She was more upset about the position you put her in. You know that. She knew that she’d sent Tanis Richards’ daughters on a suicide run. That would have been the end for her if you’d died. This shouldn’t be news to you.”
Cary nodded. “It’s not. I get it. That’s why I’m so surprised she was pushing for this.”
Joe winked at her. “Well. She was angling to make you a ship captain and see you under her own command. I think she meant to further your education.”
She paled at the thought. “Please tell me that’s not what’s about to happen.”
Joe shook his head. “No. It’s been a strategic decision by Command that you and your mother should remain in close proximity to one another.”
“ ‘By Command’?” Saanvi snorted. “Really, Dad?”
“OK, fine. I pushed for it. You’re stationed here on the I2—both of you.”
Cary saw Saanvi purse her lips, but her sister nodded and didn’t contest the assignment.
She knew Saanvi would rather be back in New Canaan, following Earnest around on his many projects, but they both knew that New Canaan needed as many people on the front lines as possible.
For a colony with a population that was still well under ten million souls, that meant that less than half were keeping the home fires lit.
Cary ignored her sister—other than sending a cool glance her way—before addressing her father.
“Thank you. We’ll both do our best to honor the faith placed in us.”
Joe snorted. “OK, Cary. No need to lay it on that thick.”
“We’re stationed here, but what command are we under?” Saanvi asked as she pinned on her new rank insignia.
“You’re in the First Fleet, of course, under Captain Rachel. Cary, you’re going to be on her bridge crew, and Saanvi, you’re going to be working in forward engineering.”
Saanvi’s eyes narrowed. “What sort of work in forward engineering?”
Joe winked. “That’ll be for Major Irene to discuss with you
, but I think you’ll find it an agreeable assignment.”
“And me?” Cary asked.
“Pilot, I do believe,” Joe said as the maglev pulled into the command deck station.
“Piiiiilot?” Cary asked. “I get to be a pilot on the I2?”
Joe nodded. “Well, so long as you keep Rachel happy. I hear she’s a real taskmaster.”
“Rachel?” Both women asked at once.
Joe chuckled. “You have no idea. I trained her well.”
They walked past the offices that lined the command deck’s main corridor and moved into the ship’s bridge foyer, where Priscilla was ensconced on her plinth, doing her part to keep the massive ship up and running.
A part of Cary wondered what it would be like to be one of Bob’s avatars. Like the queen ant in a hive of humans and AIs.
Well, a proxy of the real queen, but the Avatars have a lot of autonomy.
Not that it was a possibility. Her mother had placed a law on the books that no persons under fifty could be considered for the position of avatar. At twenty, both sisters had a ways to go.
“No,” Joe replied, shaking his head in response. “We’ll be ready by then. I assume Captain Rachel is escorting them?”
A minute later, the trio walked into the conference room to find Tangel sitting alone at the table.
Her head was bowed and her hair—freed from its typical ponytail—fell around her face. But when she looked up, her blue eyes were bright, and a smile was on her lips.
“Well now, how are my two new second lieutenants?”
“Three!” Faleena said as she entered the room carrying two coffee carafes, which she set on the sideboard.
“Sorry, Faleena,” Tangel replied with a laugh. “And thanks for grabbing the coffee. With so many ships coming online, and especially with the Carthage and the Starblade deploying before they were complete, we’ve sacrificed half of our bots to other vessels.”
“I’ll keep that in mind next time I come to rescue you,” Joe deadpanned as he poured himself a cup of coffee. “Note to self: don’t bring massive ships into battle if their convenience bots aren’t ready.”