Tridentine was a blueish star, with no fewer than thirteen major planets orbiting it. There was only one habitable world, Tridentine IV, one of the most highly terraformed planets in Terran Space.
Over a hundred years ago, this had been where David Ben-Nun had turned back the earliest stages of the Xon invasion. That battle had pioneered the doctrine that the Space Station was king, an idea that had served well until the Republic-Imperiata war. After Tridentine, basing starships off of planetary bodies had been viewed as foolhardy.
Over a hundred years ago, this had been where David Ben-Nun had turned back the earliest stages of the Xon invasion. That battle had pioneered the doctrine that the Space Station was king, an idea that had served well until the Republic-Imperiata war. After Tridentine, basing starships off of planetary bodies had been viewed as foolhardy.
The infrastructure had changed. As expensive as it was to move starships into and out of orbit, the expenses of keeping them there indefinitely were easily greater. The payoffs though, were magnificent. Starships grew to mile-long, massive monoliths of aluminum and titanium, capable of taking hits from small nuclear weapons and still limping home at the end of the day.
Such weapons had fallen out of favor in the past ten or twenty years, in favor of smaller, but more fragile ships.
The Fata Morgana defied all that.
She wasn’t massive, like an old DawnStar battlestation. She wasn’t maneuverable, like a modern carrier or destroyer. She honestly combined some of the worst elements of both. She had been fragile due to her heat sinks and her solar sail, and slow due to her commanders reluctance to use her modern drives or put her through foldspace. But the ability to move a large ship past hostile defenses was priceless.
The Fata Morgana was dying.
The ship had met with a D taskforce a few days after entering the system. The D had traced it when it had folded away from the disaster at Sol IV. As far as Isa knew, both the Warden and the Valkyrie were gone. A few Destroyers and other smaller ships had likely escaped, but odds were that that had been the end of the Fleet.
The United Terran Fleet had been calculated to fight and win the war of the future. It had had the full resources of Humanity behind it for the past thirty years. That fleet had lasted about a month and a half before being annihilated.
The Fata Morgana had been employed as a ship-of-the-line in a desperate battle just inside the Solar asteroid belt. It could have been won, too, if not for the criminal incompetence of Killian Hazzard and Riya Dare. Isa curled her lip. They had, after all, paid the ultimate price for that failure.
The Fata had escaped, but only just, folding in to Tridentine, risking detection, and ultimately being ambushed. Its lead radiation shielding kept it safe from energy weapons, but eventually Kinetic Kill Vehicles had taken their toll, destroying weapons hardpoints, launch tubes, and communications gear.
The solar sail had been retracted before the battle, but the solar panels and heat sinks couldn’t be protected in that way. That had, ultimately, been what had disabled the ship.
Taking out the heat sinks had overheated the ship’s electronics, forcing the shutdown of the nuclear reactor and the Ansible. The ship had been nuked repeatedly, and the bridge had been sealed. It doubled as a safe room, and they had been in it for the past three days.
“Director?” Agent Ketteth asked tentatively, a thick tablet held in his hands. Anything that hadn't been shielded in an inch or two of lead had been fried. “We’ve got a contact on the passive sensors. It appears to be an Ictarid-class gunboat, under the Fleet refit.”
“Fascinating. Did we get active comms back online?”
“No, ma’am. The distress beacon is usable, but then we run the risk of alerting D forces to both of our presences.”
“Thank you, Agent Ketteth.” Isa turned, facing her meager band of survivors. The Bridge Crew of the Fata Morgana had seen better days. Agent Jack Ketteth, the SENCOM Controller, Agent Owen Augustin, an AI Technician, and Agent Red, her Executive Officer, were the only other members of the crew she knew to have survived. A single Kynaki observer, Drogan Tesiri, had also survived, but wasn’t a member of the crew proper. The Fata had begun its tour with a crew of hundreds.
“Agent Red, what is your assessment?” Isa asked, picking her way over several bodies to where the XO sat.
“The Gunboat is still affected by speed-of-light delays. They won’t see our signal until long after they’re ready for foldspace, Director. But we’re not an effective cloakship anymore—the debris from our encounter with the D should be visible across the system.”
“So you recommend that we contact them?”
Red frowned. “Director, why is this even a question? Of course we should—the Fata is completely destroyed, and the Republic has ceased to exist as any sort of coherent entity. There’s no risk of classified technology leaking to anyone, or any of the typical concerns like that. We either die here or make contact with that gunboat.”
Isa nodded. “Agent Ketteth!” She barked. “Activate distress beacon. All agents, suit up. We’re leaving the Safe Room—prepare for battle.”
Celia Abrams hated the whole business. Obviously if they had the slightest lead on where other UTF starships might have survived, they couldn’t just ignore that, but the details they had been given were sparse. ‘Ansiblics, fold here, Combat, stand by, SENCOM, make sure we don’t fly into anything.’ That wasn’t a particularly inspiring plan, but she supposed it was something.
They could see the debris field from across the system. Someone had atomized several tons of heavy metals, and the signature of several antimatter explosions was also rather clear. Even more concerning was the fact that they could see no less than three drive trails, and their signatures were definitely not Terran.
“SENCOM to Bridge, we’ve got the third bogey at 34 degrees altitude, bearing two thirty-six, and a distance of four light-hours.”
“Understood, SENCOM.” Aetna replied. “Once again, we are—and more importantly, I am—aware of these.”
Celia bristled. “Yeah, well, deal with it. It’s standard practice.” Damn AI. More trouble than it’s worth.
“And inefficient, Deck Officer.”
She switched the comms circuit off, turning back to the display where they were tracking the D drive trails. Tactical tracking of starships was one of SENCOM’s duties, calculating when they would become visible to other ships—the speed of light delay was a killer—the amount of time it would take for hostile ships to fold to a given position, and their ability to fold to hostiles.
“Bridge to all hands, stand by for fold. Repeat, Bridge to all hands, stand by for fold.”
Celia glanced around her station. Everything was in order, not that that mattered. You didn’t feel a fold unless something went wrong, and if something went wrong, it was probably so horribly wrong that you wouldn’t be around to complain about it for much longer.
They executed the fold, which, according to the Sensors, put them on an escape trajectory from one of the smaller gas giants. They were less than an hour’s travel from the Fata, which put them within three light-hours of each D starship. That translated to about a forty-five minute lead on them—not enough time for Celia to feel comfortable.
“Alright, people, this is it.” Celia said, glancing around. “Keep an eye on each of those signals—if we so much as a sneeze from that debris field, I want to know it.”
“Ma’am, we’ve already got one. Standard distress beacon frequency—should I patch it through?” Maria Prussin asked.
Oh, well. “Excellent, do that.”
“This is TS Fata Morgana, of the United Terran Republic, to any starship. Mayday, mayday. We’ve suffered critical damage. Power systems are offline, propulsion systems are offline, Ansibilics is offline, weapons systems are offline. Request immediate assistance. This is TS Fata Morgana, of the United Terran Republic, to any starship...”
“Send that through to Bridge.” Celia ordered. “They’ll need to hear that.”
Prussin nodded.
Not that that AI doesn’t already know.
“Bridge to SENCOM Deck Officer.”
“Go for SENCOM DO.”
“We’re going to need Prussin and Freeman in five.”
Celia sighed. Proportionately speaking, her section had more members on the Away Team than anyone else. The Commander refused to change that too, citing a supposed ‘greater need for actual soldiers on the Away Team than for another two redundant SENCOM officers.’
“Prussin, Freeman. They’re calling for the Away Team. You’re free to go.”
All three of the Fata Morgana’s power sources were broken. The solar panels had destroyed in combat, the nuclear reactor had been jettisoned, and the batteries exhausted. That left the corridors in shadow.
Agent Augustin lead them through the ship, followed by Red and Isa, with Tesari and Ketteth taking up the back. They knew that the ship had been breached by D boarders, but weren’t sure that that meant that there were still hostiles aboard. That meant they were going to play it safe, heading down to the hangers to attempt to rendezvous with—.
A dark red light flickered before them, materializing into a human form. They stopped, shouldering weapons, bringing them to bear on the movement.
“Olympus?” Augustin asked, stepping forward cautiously.
The AI glanced around distractedly. “Yes. Why are you here?”
“Have you been monitoring comms? Hell, have you been active? Why are you suddenly online?” Isa demanded. “You’re an essential system. You can’t just go offline like that.”
“That wasn’t the agreement. We agreed that you’d—. We agreed to this. Get out.” The AI’s projection flickered rapidly, so Isa shot out the projectors.
“He’s breaking down.” Augustin said, glancing towards Isa. “He’s not stable in any sense of the term. What do we have him wired in to?”
“You’re the AI Tech. You know everything that he’s able to control.”
Augustin shook his head. “I know that’s not true.”
“If there’s anything you don’t know about, it’s because it’s far above your security clearance.”
Agent Red held up a hand, stepping forward. “The Anscomp is the only off-the-record connection that Olympus has, Agent Augustin. That shouldn’t do things like this, should it?”
Augustin shrugged. “Agent Red, I honestly can’t say. If he’s started trying to host himself there or something, it’s entirely possible that something important could break, like the Restraints or some higher level decision making capabilities. But he shouldn’t be able to harm us directly, no matter what happens, just due to the fact that he’ll have no way to affect the physical world in a way that would damage us.”
As the column started moving again, Isa turned to Red. “I don’t appreciate you challenging my authority like that.”
Red shrugged. “Then you’ll have to continue not appreciating it. In your capacity as the Director of Tactical, you’ve been ordered by First Citizen Julian Shishani to heed my advice and superior experience.”
“I am the First Citizen, Agent. I hadn’t expected you to participate in Admiral Hazzard and Dare’s treachery.”
“In your capacity as First Citizen, you’d be wise to give me the same ear that you would otherwise.”
“I can make my own command decisions, Red. I don’t need you.”
The Warbler’s approach to the Fata was harrowing. The battlespace was filled with small and medium-sized debris, hard to detect, but still more than lethal to the Warbler if they connected. The Fata, bizarrely, still had an intact landing bay. Kim wondered if that meant that there were D aboard, or if it was just the usual random result of battle.
Aetna had informed them about ten minutes ago that the D vessels had just Folded in to the same planet that they had emerged at. He gave them at most an hour before they made contact.
Ervin was briefing the Away Team on what to expect. Today it was Cassidy Freeman, Ten Silver, Maria Prussin, and once again Jae Ali—and all three of them had a strict mandate to watch Ali’s every move.
Aetna had control of the ship at the moment, taking over the arduous and risky task of matching the velocity and varying spin in all three axes of the wreckage of the Fata Morgana, guiding them in. Kim could have done a task like this, and had on multiple occasions, but that had always been an experience loaded with fear and tension. Watching Aetna work was... Beautiful. He matched the perfect simplicity of a textbook transfer, without any element of human error. It was astounding that they couldn’t have these AI on every ship. She knew that the Ecumenical Church had a stance against them, and that the Church had great influence within the Republic, but the Republic had no issue with discarding the teaching of the Church as it saw fit. No, there had to be something more...
“Commander, do you have anything to add?” She heard Ervin ask for what sounded from his voice like the second or third time.
She shook her head to clear it. “No, no.” Largely because I wasn’t listening, but let’s just not bring that up. “Stay safe, everyone. Seek out survivors. You have to be back on the ship in thirty minutes, tops, or we come under fire from three Species D cruisers. That’s bad, we can’t survive that, so don’t be late. We will leave you. On that happy note, Super Nos!”
“Super Nos!”
The Port Launch Bay was completely destroyed. Levelled. Wrecked. There were endless ways to describe it, and none were complementary.
“Damn.” Tesari hissed, taking in the multiple pieces of wreckage that littered the deck. Two of their Icterid gunboats lay on the deck, hulls cracked. A full flight of a dozen Regina-class starfighters had been neatly sliced open where they lay waiting on their racks. A single D ship lay on the deck, piercing the armored floor, surrounded by black dust.
Isa took it all, then swore. “Dammit! Damn this all!”
“Starboard might be different.” Red offered. “We should get moving—we’ll want to minimize the amount of time that Gunboat spends looking for us.”
Isa nodded, trying to hold back her anger—and tears. “We’ll pull this off. There’s no ticking clock here, is there?”
Red nodded. “Exactly. Just keep moving.”
Red eyed the First Citizen as they walked through the Elevator, or transfer corridor between the Hangar and the Launch Bays. It wasn’t an elevator, but the term was actually a relic from ancient terrestrial aircraft carriers. As in, the water kind.
“Agent Red, may I have a moment of your time?” Drogan Tesari asked, pulling close to Red.
“Of course.”
“Is this a typical attitude for the First Citizen while under stress?”
Red hesitated. Then Red decided not to lie. “Borderline. She’s always had a bit of a... Psychotic streak in her. Her behavior today is abnormal, but unexpected.”
Tesari frowned. “What are we going to do about that? She’s the First Citizen.”
Red laughed. “First Citizen of what, exactly? We’ve got bigger problems on our hands than her being a little unbalanced.”
SENCOM had been unable to make contact with any survivors aboard the Fata Morgana, but there was a breathable, contaminant and D-free atmosphere, so Maria got to play soldier for the day. The Warbler sat alone in the Hangar, empty fighter racks all around it. The bay was clearly built to hold ships of the Warbler’s class—there clear outlines for several Icterids painted on the floor, after all. Each bulkhead door was open, but there were no lights. The Warbler’s running lights provided some illumination, but that wouldn’t last long.
They had seen no D so far. That was slightly reassuring, but not much. The Fata Morgana’s interior was strangely pristine, untouched even though its exterior had been through hell. Sure, the ship’s geiger counter showed the radiation levels to be off the charts, and sure there was abundant evidence of a large-scale equipment meltdown, and there were bodies littering the floor, after all, but overall, the ship was in remarkably good condition.
Maria opened a private comm channel to Cassidy Freeman, keeping the open-access channel on in a listen-only mode. “Cassie... Can we talk for a minute?”
“Yeah.” Freeman sounded slightly... Perplexed? Resigned? “You’re going to ask about our conversation on Kynak, aren’t you?”
Maria almost nodded, but through the suits, it would have been a meaningless gesture. “Please. You said a lot of things there, and I’ve been quiet about them, but I need some answers. Who are you, for starters? Who am I for another?”
“For me, there’s not much to tell, really. My father worked for Mil-Ind, back before it was nationalized. Back then, before we could justly and ethically experiment on prisoners, they justly and ethically experimented on the children of employees. Great plan, right? Well, my father was a cyberneticist, and wanted to mess around with a system he had created that would let one mess with Neuronic Link transmissions.”
“Those are the mind-to-mind transmitters that Special Forces use, right?”
“Yeah. And mind-to-computer, and weapons interface, and... Anyway, the point is that being able to listen in on, intercept, or spoof Link transmissions has massive tactical potential—and that’s tactical with either a large or a small T. So he’s so fantastically just and ethical that they want to go ahead with the experiment, but the Ecumenical Church tries to block it. The Republic needed some favor from the Church at the time, so the First Citizen decides to deny a waiver to the normal Cybernetic Enhancement regulations. My father, being the totally sane individual that he was, decided to test this implant on me. And... Other things, too.”
“What other things?”
“Basically I can act as a limited human Ansible Sink, mess with heat, gravity, push things away, pull them to me, stuff like that. Nothing too interesting.”
Maria frowned. “Imagine what a soldier could do with this though... The potential is practically endless!”
“Which is why my father never told them that it had worked. He, well... Died a few years ago. Hard time for me.”
“I’m sorry.”
“No apologies needed—you had nothing to do with it.” Cassidy replied curtly. “Anyway, this ties back to you largely because I can see through Morton therapy, and you spent several years training to be a Tactical Agent. You were a relatively decent person, but kind of an insubordinate person, which you thought was way more okay than it was, which got you shortlisted to be thrown under some bus or other. They put you through several rounds of Morton therapy, transfer you to the fleet, you win up here. Not more to it than—.” Cassidy cut short as a massive slamming sound reached them, followed moments later by a reverberation in the floor, and a deep red figure rounded the corner.
Isa strode into the Starboard Launch Bay to the beautiful sight of a gunboat on the deck, each of its three landing legs against the floor like a primeval hunter, ready to strike. The ship was intact, with obvious signs of life. It had wear and tear, but she couldn’t make out any damage.
It seemed to her to be a literal godsend.
She tried to hail the ship, but it didn’t respond. Comms had been finicky since the attack though, so it was probably a technical issue. As she approached, a person wearing a suit of Tactical armor dropped down to the Launch Bay’s deck. His armor transponder read as ‘Jackson Kast’, a name she recognized as the commander of the TS Hoatzin. Something about the ship though... It wasn’t right. It was grey. Tactical gunboats were black. Its hull was smooth and curved. Tactical boats had a more angular appearance.
“That’s not the Hoatzin, is it?” Ketteth asked, as their small group stopped short.
“Halt and identify yourself!” Isa commanded, raising her weapon to bear on the figure. “In the name of the Republic!”
Red grabbed the rifle out of her hands. “Shut up.” Red whispered. “Agent Kast, stand and identify yourself!”
The figure stopped, then removed its helmet. “I’m Ervin Norton, the Executive Officer for the UTFS Warbler. Commander Jackson Kast of the TS Hoatzin is dead—his ship was lost in action. The armor’s salvage. With that in mind, may I ask... Who are you?”
That’s right—if he’s not an Agent, he probably doesn’t have a neuronic, so most of the HUD elements won’t function. Isa removed her helmet, stepping forward, gesturing for her Agents to let her through. “I am Isabella Shishani, First Citizen of the Republic, daughter of Julian Shishani, Founder of said Republic. You will take me to your Commander.”
The man paused for a moment, mouth opening slightly. “Yes, First Citizen! Super Nos!”
Isa nodded, and smiled as the man led her aboard the gunboat. She wasn’t particularly familiar with the Warbler, and had no idea who commanded it. But that didn’t make it a wonderful sight.
Kim watched Ervin make contact with the group of Agents, heart racing.
She knew Isabella Shishani.
She didn’t want to share a universe with Isabella Shishani.
Those concerns fell away, however, as the massive Hangar external doors slammed shut, and light flooded the bay.
Such weapons had fallen out of favor in the past ten or twenty years, in favor of smaller, but more fragile ships.
The Fata Morgana defied all that.
She wasn’t massive, like an old DawnStar battlestation. She wasn’t maneuverable, like a modern carrier or destroyer. She honestly combined some of the worst elements of both. She had been fragile due to her heat sinks and her solar sail, and slow due to her commanders reluctance to use her modern drives or put her through foldspace. But the ability to move a large ship past hostile defenses was priceless.
The Fata Morgana was dying.
The ship had met with a D taskforce a few days after entering the system. The D had traced it when it had folded away from the disaster at Sol IV. As far as Isa knew, both the Warden and the Valkyrie were gone. A few Destroyers and other smaller ships had likely escaped, but odds were that that had been the end of the Fleet.
The United Terran Fleet had been calculated to fight and win the war of the future. It had had the full resources of Humanity behind it for the past thirty years. That fleet had lasted about a month and a half before being annihilated.
The Fata Morgana had been employed as a ship-of-the-line in a desperate battle just inside the Solar asteroid belt. It could have been won, too, if not for the criminal incompetence of Killian Hazzard and Riya Dare. Isa curled her lip. They had, after all, paid the ultimate price for that failure.
The Fata had escaped, but only just, folding in to Tridentine, risking detection, and ultimately being ambushed. Its lead radiation shielding kept it safe from energy weapons, but eventually Kinetic Kill Vehicles had taken their toll, destroying weapons hardpoints, launch tubes, and communications gear.
The solar sail had been retracted before the battle, but the solar panels and heat sinks couldn’t be protected in that way. That had, ultimately, been what had disabled the ship.
Taking out the heat sinks had overheated the ship’s electronics, forcing the shutdown of the nuclear reactor and the Ansible. The ship had been nuked repeatedly, and the bridge had been sealed. It doubled as a safe room, and they had been in it for the past three days.
“Director?” Agent Ketteth asked tentatively, a thick tablet held in his hands. Anything that hadn't been shielded in an inch or two of lead had been fried. “We’ve got a contact on the passive sensors. It appears to be an Ictarid-class gunboat, under the Fleet refit.”
“Fascinating. Did we get active comms back online?”
“No, ma’am. The distress beacon is usable, but then we run the risk of alerting D forces to both of our presences.”
“Thank you, Agent Ketteth.” Isa turned, facing her meager band of survivors. The Bridge Crew of the Fata Morgana had seen better days. Agent Jack Ketteth, the SENCOM Controller, Agent Owen Augustin, an AI Technician, and Agent Red, her Executive Officer, were the only other members of the crew she knew to have survived. A single Kynaki observer, Drogan Tesiri, had also survived, but wasn’t a member of the crew proper. The Fata had begun its tour with a crew of hundreds.
“Agent Red, what is your assessment?” Isa asked, picking her way over several bodies to where the XO sat.
“The Gunboat is still affected by speed-of-light delays. They won’t see our signal until long after they’re ready for foldspace, Director. But we’re not an effective cloakship anymore—the debris from our encounter with the D should be visible across the system.”
“So you recommend that we contact them?”
Red frowned. “Director, why is this even a question? Of course we should—the Fata is completely destroyed, and the Republic has ceased to exist as any sort of coherent entity. There’s no risk of classified technology leaking to anyone, or any of the typical concerns like that. We either die here or make contact with that gunboat.”
Isa nodded. “Agent Ketteth!” She barked. “Activate distress beacon. All agents, suit up. We’re leaving the Safe Room—prepare for battle.”
Celia Abrams hated the whole business. Obviously if they had the slightest lead on where other UTF starships might have survived, they couldn’t just ignore that, but the details they had been given were sparse. ‘Ansiblics, fold here, Combat, stand by, SENCOM, make sure we don’t fly into anything.’ That wasn’t a particularly inspiring plan, but she supposed it was something.
They could see the debris field from across the system. Someone had atomized several tons of heavy metals, and the signature of several antimatter explosions was also rather clear. Even more concerning was the fact that they could see no less than three drive trails, and their signatures were definitely not Terran.
“SENCOM to Bridge, we’ve got the third bogey at 34 degrees altitude, bearing two thirty-six, and a distance of four light-hours.”
“Understood, SENCOM.” Aetna replied. “Once again, we are—and more importantly, I am—aware of these.”
Celia bristled. “Yeah, well, deal with it. It’s standard practice.” Damn AI. More trouble than it’s worth.
“And inefficient, Deck Officer.”
She switched the comms circuit off, turning back to the display where they were tracking the D drive trails. Tactical tracking of starships was one of SENCOM’s duties, calculating when they would become visible to other ships—the speed of light delay was a killer—the amount of time it would take for hostile ships to fold to a given position, and their ability to fold to hostiles.
“Bridge to all hands, stand by for fold. Repeat, Bridge to all hands, stand by for fold.”
Celia glanced around her station. Everything was in order, not that that mattered. You didn’t feel a fold unless something went wrong, and if something went wrong, it was probably so horribly wrong that you wouldn’t be around to complain about it for much longer.
They executed the fold, which, according to the Sensors, put them on an escape trajectory from one of the smaller gas giants. They were less than an hour’s travel from the Fata, which put them within three light-hours of each D starship. That translated to about a forty-five minute lead on them—not enough time for Celia to feel comfortable.
“Alright, people, this is it.” Celia said, glancing around. “Keep an eye on each of those signals—if we so much as a sneeze from that debris field, I want to know it.”
“Ma’am, we’ve already got one. Standard distress beacon frequency—should I patch it through?” Maria Prussin asked.
Oh, well. “Excellent, do that.”
“This is TS Fata Morgana, of the United Terran Republic, to any starship. Mayday, mayday. We’ve suffered critical damage. Power systems are offline, propulsion systems are offline, Ansibilics is offline, weapons systems are offline. Request immediate assistance. This is TS Fata Morgana, of the United Terran Republic, to any starship...”
“Send that through to Bridge.” Celia ordered. “They’ll need to hear that.”
Prussin nodded.
Not that that AI doesn’t already know.
“Bridge to SENCOM Deck Officer.”
“Go for SENCOM DO.”
“We’re going to need Prussin and Freeman in five.”
Celia sighed. Proportionately speaking, her section had more members on the Away Team than anyone else. The Commander refused to change that too, citing a supposed ‘greater need for actual soldiers on the Away Team than for another two redundant SENCOM officers.’
“Prussin, Freeman. They’re calling for the Away Team. You’re free to go.”
All three of the Fata Morgana’s power sources were broken. The solar panels had destroyed in combat, the nuclear reactor had been jettisoned, and the batteries exhausted. That left the corridors in shadow.
Agent Augustin lead them through the ship, followed by Red and Isa, with Tesari and Ketteth taking up the back. They knew that the ship had been breached by D boarders, but weren’t sure that that meant that there were still hostiles aboard. That meant they were going to play it safe, heading down to the hangers to attempt to rendezvous with—.
A dark red light flickered before them, materializing into a human form. They stopped, shouldering weapons, bringing them to bear on the movement.
“Olympus?” Augustin asked, stepping forward cautiously.
The AI glanced around distractedly. “Yes. Why are you here?”
“Have you been monitoring comms? Hell, have you been active? Why are you suddenly online?” Isa demanded. “You’re an essential system. You can’t just go offline like that.”
“That wasn’t the agreement. We agreed that you’d—. We agreed to this. Get out.” The AI’s projection flickered rapidly, so Isa shot out the projectors.
“He’s breaking down.” Augustin said, glancing towards Isa. “He’s not stable in any sense of the term. What do we have him wired in to?”
“You’re the AI Tech. You know everything that he’s able to control.”
Augustin shook his head. “I know that’s not true.”
“If there’s anything you don’t know about, it’s because it’s far above your security clearance.”
Agent Red held up a hand, stepping forward. “The Anscomp is the only off-the-record connection that Olympus has, Agent Augustin. That shouldn’t do things like this, should it?”
Augustin shrugged. “Agent Red, I honestly can’t say. If he’s started trying to host himself there or something, it’s entirely possible that something important could break, like the Restraints or some higher level decision making capabilities. But he shouldn’t be able to harm us directly, no matter what happens, just due to the fact that he’ll have no way to affect the physical world in a way that would damage us.”
As the column started moving again, Isa turned to Red. “I don’t appreciate you challenging my authority like that.”
Red shrugged. “Then you’ll have to continue not appreciating it. In your capacity as the Director of Tactical, you’ve been ordered by First Citizen Julian Shishani to heed my advice and superior experience.”
“I am the First Citizen, Agent. I hadn’t expected you to participate in Admiral Hazzard and Dare’s treachery.”
“In your capacity as First Citizen, you’d be wise to give me the same ear that you would otherwise.”
“I can make my own command decisions, Red. I don’t need you.”
The Warbler’s approach to the Fata was harrowing. The battlespace was filled with small and medium-sized debris, hard to detect, but still more than lethal to the Warbler if they connected. The Fata, bizarrely, still had an intact landing bay. Kim wondered if that meant that there were D aboard, or if it was just the usual random result of battle.
Aetna had informed them about ten minutes ago that the D vessels had just Folded in to the same planet that they had emerged at. He gave them at most an hour before they made contact.
Ervin was briefing the Away Team on what to expect. Today it was Cassidy Freeman, Ten Silver, Maria Prussin, and once again Jae Ali—and all three of them had a strict mandate to watch Ali’s every move.
Aetna had control of the ship at the moment, taking over the arduous and risky task of matching the velocity and varying spin in all three axes of the wreckage of the Fata Morgana, guiding them in. Kim could have done a task like this, and had on multiple occasions, but that had always been an experience loaded with fear and tension. Watching Aetna work was... Beautiful. He matched the perfect simplicity of a textbook transfer, without any element of human error. It was astounding that they couldn’t have these AI on every ship. She knew that the Ecumenical Church had a stance against them, and that the Church had great influence within the Republic, but the Republic had no issue with discarding the teaching of the Church as it saw fit. No, there had to be something more...
“Commander, do you have anything to add?” She heard Ervin ask for what sounded from his voice like the second or third time.
She shook her head to clear it. “No, no.” Largely because I wasn’t listening, but let’s just not bring that up. “Stay safe, everyone. Seek out survivors. You have to be back on the ship in thirty minutes, tops, or we come under fire from three Species D cruisers. That’s bad, we can’t survive that, so don’t be late. We will leave you. On that happy note, Super Nos!”
“Super Nos!”
The Port Launch Bay was completely destroyed. Levelled. Wrecked. There were endless ways to describe it, and none were complementary.
“Damn.” Tesari hissed, taking in the multiple pieces of wreckage that littered the deck. Two of their Icterid gunboats lay on the deck, hulls cracked. A full flight of a dozen Regina-class starfighters had been neatly sliced open where they lay waiting on their racks. A single D ship lay on the deck, piercing the armored floor, surrounded by black dust.
Isa took it all, then swore. “Dammit! Damn this all!”
“Starboard might be different.” Red offered. “We should get moving—we’ll want to minimize the amount of time that Gunboat spends looking for us.”
Isa nodded, trying to hold back her anger—and tears. “We’ll pull this off. There’s no ticking clock here, is there?”
Red nodded. “Exactly. Just keep moving.”
Red eyed the First Citizen as they walked through the Elevator, or transfer corridor between the Hangar and the Launch Bays. It wasn’t an elevator, but the term was actually a relic from ancient terrestrial aircraft carriers. As in, the water kind.
“Agent Red, may I have a moment of your time?” Drogan Tesari asked, pulling close to Red.
“Of course.”
“Is this a typical attitude for the First Citizen while under stress?”
Red hesitated. Then Red decided not to lie. “Borderline. She’s always had a bit of a... Psychotic streak in her. Her behavior today is abnormal, but unexpected.”
Tesari frowned. “What are we going to do about that? She’s the First Citizen.”
Red laughed. “First Citizen of what, exactly? We’ve got bigger problems on our hands than her being a little unbalanced.”
SENCOM had been unable to make contact with any survivors aboard the Fata Morgana, but there was a breathable, contaminant and D-free atmosphere, so Maria got to play soldier for the day. The Warbler sat alone in the Hangar, empty fighter racks all around it. The bay was clearly built to hold ships of the Warbler’s class—there clear outlines for several Icterids painted on the floor, after all. Each bulkhead door was open, but there were no lights. The Warbler’s running lights provided some illumination, but that wouldn’t last long.
They had seen no D so far. That was slightly reassuring, but not much. The Fata Morgana’s interior was strangely pristine, untouched even though its exterior had been through hell. Sure, the ship’s geiger counter showed the radiation levels to be off the charts, and sure there was abundant evidence of a large-scale equipment meltdown, and there were bodies littering the floor, after all, but overall, the ship was in remarkably good condition.
Maria opened a private comm channel to Cassidy Freeman, keeping the open-access channel on in a listen-only mode. “Cassie... Can we talk for a minute?”
“Yeah.” Freeman sounded slightly... Perplexed? Resigned? “You’re going to ask about our conversation on Kynak, aren’t you?”
Maria almost nodded, but through the suits, it would have been a meaningless gesture. “Please. You said a lot of things there, and I’ve been quiet about them, but I need some answers. Who are you, for starters? Who am I for another?”
“For me, there’s not much to tell, really. My father worked for Mil-Ind, back before it was nationalized. Back then, before we could justly and ethically experiment on prisoners, they justly and ethically experimented on the children of employees. Great plan, right? Well, my father was a cyberneticist, and wanted to mess around with a system he had created that would let one mess with Neuronic Link transmissions.”
“Those are the mind-to-mind transmitters that Special Forces use, right?”
“Yeah. And mind-to-computer, and weapons interface, and... Anyway, the point is that being able to listen in on, intercept, or spoof Link transmissions has massive tactical potential—and that’s tactical with either a large or a small T. So he’s so fantastically just and ethical that they want to go ahead with the experiment, but the Ecumenical Church tries to block it. The Republic needed some favor from the Church at the time, so the First Citizen decides to deny a waiver to the normal Cybernetic Enhancement regulations. My father, being the totally sane individual that he was, decided to test this implant on me. And... Other things, too.”
“What other things?”
“Basically I can act as a limited human Ansible Sink, mess with heat, gravity, push things away, pull them to me, stuff like that. Nothing too interesting.”
Maria frowned. “Imagine what a soldier could do with this though... The potential is practically endless!”
“Which is why my father never told them that it had worked. He, well... Died a few years ago. Hard time for me.”
“I’m sorry.”
“No apologies needed—you had nothing to do with it.” Cassidy replied curtly. “Anyway, this ties back to you largely because I can see through Morton therapy, and you spent several years training to be a Tactical Agent. You were a relatively decent person, but kind of an insubordinate person, which you thought was way more okay than it was, which got you shortlisted to be thrown under some bus or other. They put you through several rounds of Morton therapy, transfer you to the fleet, you win up here. Not more to it than—.” Cassidy cut short as a massive slamming sound reached them, followed moments later by a reverberation in the floor, and a deep red figure rounded the corner.
Isa strode into the Starboard Launch Bay to the beautiful sight of a gunboat on the deck, each of its three landing legs against the floor like a primeval hunter, ready to strike. The ship was intact, with obvious signs of life. It had wear and tear, but she couldn’t make out any damage.
It seemed to her to be a literal godsend.
She tried to hail the ship, but it didn’t respond. Comms had been finicky since the attack though, so it was probably a technical issue. As she approached, a person wearing a suit of Tactical armor dropped down to the Launch Bay’s deck. His armor transponder read as ‘Jackson Kast’, a name she recognized as the commander of the TS Hoatzin. Something about the ship though... It wasn’t right. It was grey. Tactical gunboats were black. Its hull was smooth and curved. Tactical boats had a more angular appearance.
“That’s not the Hoatzin, is it?” Ketteth asked, as their small group stopped short.
“Halt and identify yourself!” Isa commanded, raising her weapon to bear on the figure. “In the name of the Republic!”
Red grabbed the rifle out of her hands. “Shut up.” Red whispered. “Agent Kast, stand and identify yourself!”
The figure stopped, then removed its helmet. “I’m Ervin Norton, the Executive Officer for the UTFS Warbler. Commander Jackson Kast of the TS Hoatzin is dead—his ship was lost in action. The armor’s salvage. With that in mind, may I ask... Who are you?”
That’s right—if he’s not an Agent, he probably doesn’t have a neuronic, so most of the HUD elements won’t function. Isa removed her helmet, stepping forward, gesturing for her Agents to let her through. “I am Isabella Shishani, First Citizen of the Republic, daughter of Julian Shishani, Founder of said Republic. You will take me to your Commander.”
The man paused for a moment, mouth opening slightly. “Yes, First Citizen! Super Nos!”
Isa nodded, and smiled as the man led her aboard the gunboat. She wasn’t particularly familiar with the Warbler, and had no idea who commanded it. But that didn’t make it a wonderful sight.
Kim watched Ervin make contact with the group of Agents, heart racing.
She knew Isabella Shishani.
She didn’t want to share a universe with Isabella Shishani.
Those concerns fell away, however, as the massive Hangar external doors slammed shut, and light flooded the bay.