Date: 2022-07-14T22:00:00+00:00
Description: Catie continues her mission to visit the other Star Faring Civilizations in the Galaxy hoping to recruit them to the Delphi League. Like the last mission at Aperanje, this one starts out on the wrong foot. Read along as Catie brings her brand of Diplomacy to the Thoreans.
Publisher: Delphi Publishing Inc.
Rights: Robert D Blanton

Delphi Diplomacy

Delphi in Space

Book Fifteen

Bob Blanton

Table of Contents
Chapter 1 What Do We Have Here?
Chapter 2 Aftermath
Chapter 3 Sivaria
Chapter 4 Board Meeting—July 14th
Chapter 5 The Sivarians
Chapter 6 Action
Chapter 7 After Action
Chapter 8 Board Update – July 29th
Chapter 9 Thorea
Chapter 10 Sivaria Prepares
Chapter 11 The Planning Begins
Chapter 12 Rebellion
Chapter 13 Preparing for War
Chapter 14 Taking One Glove Off
Chapter 15 Game Changer
Chapter 16 The War in Space
Chapter 17 The End Game
Chapter 18 Kansas
Afterword
Acknowledgments

Delphi Publishing

Copyright © 2022 Robert D. Blanton

Cover by Momir Borocki
momir.borocki@gmail.com

All rights reserved.  This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.  Printed in the United States of America First Printing, 2022.

This is a work of fiction.  Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

https://www.facebook.com/StarshipSakira/

Chapter 1

What Do We Have Here?

Catie was aboard the Aventurier in Liz’s day cabin, playing chess with her.  They had jumped into the Thorean system earlier that day and had just completed a second skip jump around the system's edge to gather more data about what might be waiting for them there.  The Thoreans were the second stop on their tour of the four known starfaring civilizations they wanted to convince to join the League.  Their stop at Aperanje hadn’t gone so well, so they were looking forward to a little more diplomatic sojourn this time.  The incident in the Aperanjen system, where a cruiser was waiting to ambush them, made them cautious about entering the Thorean system, hence the wait for the data from their scan.

“Check,” Catie said as she moved her rook across the board.

“Cer Liz, Aventurier and I have completed our first pass through the new image data; we have an interesting result,” ADI announced.  ADI was the MacKenzie Board’s Autonomous Digital Intelligence, and she liked to be in charge of everything.

Liz, happy to be presented an opportunity to escape the trap Catie had lured her into, said, “Put them up on the display.”

The images on the display showed the third gas giant of the star system.

“What’s the interesting part?” Catie asked.

“The gravimetric ping highlighted this satellite sitting in the second Lagrange point of the third gas giant,” ADI explained.

“Why is that important,” Liz asked.  “It is a balance point, after all.”

“Yes, but L2 is not that stable because of all the moons; for a satellite to be there would indicate it was either recently captured or put there recently and probably for temporary purposes.”

“And why would you put one there temporarily?” Liz asked.

“Because it has a perfect view of anything entering the star system from the direction of Aperanje,” Catie said.

“Exactly,” ADI said.

Liz immediately called for a strategy meeting with her top people.

◆ ◆ ◆

“Captain Frankham, what do you think?” Liz asked.

“Commodore, I agree with ADI’s initial assessment; it looks like an observation satellite placed to watch our entry into the system.  The fact that it’s not emitting an EM signature would suggest it’s using a quantum relay to communicate.”

“ADI, do you think they’ve seen us?” Catie asked.

“There is a low probability, but it’s possible,” ADI said.  “We jumped almost as soon as we arrived, and neither the Chesapeake nor we have been emitting any significant EM energy.  We’re absorbing any light that strikes us, so the satellite would have to be looking at where we appeared and noticed a small blank spot in the starfield.”

“Good,” Liz said.  “We’ll assume that, but keep in mind that they might have gotten lucky.  Now, if you were going to place forces to intercept us, where would you place them?” she asked as she looked around the room.

“Lieutenant Bastien, go ahead,” Liz said as she noticed Questa, her XO, biting back a response in deference to the higher-ranking officers in the meeting.

“I would expect that they would place the force in the same system, possibly orbiting one of the moons.”

“Or sitting on one of them,” Captain Frankham said.

“ADI?” Liz prompted.

“We have not picked up any trace of a starship in the vicinity, but if they were sitting on the surface of a moon, it’s unlikely that we would.”

“Okay, so how do we find them?” Liz asked.

“We need our own probe close to that system,” Catie suggested.  “A Fox?”

“It will take five days to get it into position,” ADI said.

“Then let’s send one now.”

“Don’t you think we should talk with your father first?” Liz asked.

“We can always recall it,” Catie said.  “ADI, set up a meeting with Daddy and Uncle Blake, but don’t wake anyone up.”  Blake was the admiral in charge of Delphi Forces.

“Yes, Cer Catie.”

Liz shook her head.  Catie was right, but Marc, Catie’s father and leader of MacKenzie Enterprises and de facto head of the Delphi League, wasn’t known for appreciating haste.

“In the meantime, ADI, please do a thorough analysis of their system broadcasts; we want to know as much about them as possible,” Liz instructed.

“Yes, Commodore,” ADI replied.

◆ ◆ ◆

“Hello, everyone,” Marc said as he, Blake, and Samantha, Marc’s wife, joined the call ADI had set up.

“Hi, Daddy,” Catie said.  “What do you think?”

“I agree that it looks like they’re too interested in when and where you arrive in the system.  So why aren’t you just moving on?”

“I think we need to know more about them.”

“Then just drop a probe.”

“But that would be too passive; I don’t think we would learn much.  ADI has already been analyzing their public communications.”

“And what has she learned?”

“ADI?”

“They don’t appear to have much broadcast television; I assume they rely on satellite TV and cable.  There are two channels that I have been able to decode.  It appears that they are under a very militaristic government at this time.  Based on the level of propaganda in the broadcasts, I predict that the regime is not popular.”

“Can you tell how long it has been in power?” Samantha asked.  Samantha was the head diplomat and legal counsel for the Delphi League.

“I would estimate not less than five years and possibly as long as fifty.”

“We can’t do better than that?”

“Unfortunately, their communication with Paraxea has been focused on sharing technology, which has been minimal over the last one hundred years.  They reached parity during the first fifty years of their relationship, after which the communication tapered off.  They rarely speak to each other now.”

“Paraxea and Thorea exchanged quantum relays and gravity drives over one hundred years ago.  They’d continued to communicate over the quantum relays but only ever had that one physical exchange of goods,” Catie explained for Questa’s and Captain Frankham’s benefit.

“So, we don’t know much about them or their level of technology.  We can guess that they’re on par with the Paraxeans, but they could have advanced at a faster or a slower pace,” Samantha said.

“ADI?”

“Cer Sam is correct.  The broadcasts I have intercepted don’t provide much insight into their technology.  Their entertainment videos are exaggerations, and their news is focused on the planet.”

“What about their colony?” Catie asked.

“There are mentions of it in the news, but it appears that they mainly import critical ores from them.  I cannot determine what they send to them.”

“So, what do you want to do?” Marc asked.

“I think we should find out what, if anything, they have out here waiting for us,” Catie said.  “We sent a Fox out to investigate.”

Samantha poked Marc before he could say anything.

“I think you should send a couple more to give you a broader view of the situation; otherwise, you might spend weeks looking,” Blake said.

Marc just nodded while he rubbed his ribs.

“Anything else?” Liz asked.

“I’m not sure.  I suspect you’re right, and they have a cruiser or two sitting on one of those moons.  Other than looking for them, I don’t see what other options you have.”

“We could let them see us,” Catie suggested.

“I don’t like that idea,” Blake said.  “We don’t know what they have.  I assume you’re using a Fox with gravity drives, so it’s mostly invisible.”

Catie nodded.

“Then be patient until you have more data.”

Catie started to say something before Marc interrupted her.  “Be patient.  You can assume they’re hiding something, so think about what you will do once you find them.  I’m sure you can find a way to occupy yourself for a week.  If not, I’m sure Ajda has a project or two going on.”

Catie rolled her eyes, “Okay, we’ll just hang out.  Talk to you later.”

◆ ◆ ◆

“Ajda, how are you doing?” Catie asked.  “Any good projects?”

“Catie, just the person I was thinking about,” Ajda replied.  “And I do have an interesting project that’s right up your alley.”

“What?”

“The upgrade of the Aperanjen fusion plant design using the Fazullan technology.”

Catie grimaced; that didn’t seem like a very interesting project.  “What?”

“We just got the data from Aperanje about their plant; now we need to figure out how to integrate the Fazullan technology.”

“Sounds easy.  We've already done the same thing on Earth, Onisiwo, and Helike.  Plus, the Paraxeans did it as well.”

“Correct, but then we had teams working on it.  Right now, we have one very difficult scientist working on understanding the Aperanjen system.  I’ll have ANDI contact you with the data; I’m sure you can help.  Bye.”

“Wait!” Catie yelled, but Ajda had already closed the call.

Catie’s Comm immediately showed a call request from ANDI.  ANDI was the DI on Delphi City and the only other DI that was sapient besides ADI, and he was just developing his sapience.

“Hello, ANDI,” Catie said.

“Catie, thank gawd that you’ve agreed to help,” ANDI said.

“Thank gawd?”

“The triplets told me to say that.  Pretty good, don’t you think?” ANDI said.

“If you’re trying to communicate desperation, it certainly does that.”

“Well, things are pretty desperate; Dr. Sato is controlling the access to the Aperanjen designs, and he’s trying to figure things out all on his own.”

“Why would he do that?”

“I have no idea.”

“He’s been involved before; what’s changed?”

“Before, everyone knew all the pieces.  He already knew all about Earth’s systems, and you had a team analyze the Onisiwoen and Heliken systems before he got involved.  He did most of the work after that, well, except for the actual engineering.”

“Okay, I get it.  Why haven’t you just sent the data out to the old team?”

“Because Dr. Sato has declared the information top secret and refuses to share it.”

Catie snorted.  “Well, at least we can fix that.  Give me the list of the team members, and I’ll authorize you to read them in.”

◆ ◆ ◆

As the Foxes closed on the gas giant, they finally got a view of the moon’s surface.

“Cer Liz, Cer Catie, we have the images you’ve been waiting on,” ADI announced.

“About time,” Catie said.  She’d been having a little bit of fun messing around with Dr. Sato and his over-possessive view of the fusion reactor project, but that only went so far, and she had finished designing her surprise for Thorea as well.

“What have you got?” Liz asked.

ADI put an image up on the display.  It showed three Thorean starships sitting on the moon.

“Cruiser size?” Catie asked.

“I believe so,” ADI said.  “They’re a little bit bigger than the Sakira, which Admiral Blake has defined as cruiser class.”

“Nothing smaller?” Liz asked.

“Not that we have been able to detect.”

“Can they launch fighters while sitting on the moon?” Catie asked.

“Maybe,” Liz said.  “It’ll be pretty low gravity, so it depends on the fighter design.”

“Okay, what next?” Catie asked.

“We convene a meeting with Captain Frankham, Questa, and Owens,” Liz said.

“Lieutenant Bastien and Commander Owens are on the bridge.  I’ve just told them to join you.  Captain Frankham is on the video link, waiting,” ADI informed them.

It only took ADI a few minutes to catch the other three up.  Commander Kay Owens was Liz’s wing commander and was ostensibly in charge of the three Foxes they had sent to get a view of the moon.

“Okay, everyone, we have to decide how to proceed,” Liz said.  She nodded to Catie.

Catie smiled at everyone.  “I think we need to get a good measure of their capabilities.  I think we should provoke them into maneuvering and using their weapons.”

“Like with the Aperanjens?” Commander Kay Owens asked.

“I think we have to be more careful than that,” Liz said.  “We pretty much knew the Aperanjen capabilities; we don’t know much about the Thoreans yet.”

“I agree,” Catie said.  “How about we get them to chase one of the Foxes?”

“Won’t they just launch one of their own space fighters?” Kay asked.

“Probably, but we wondered if they could do that while sitting on that moon.  It’ll be interesting to see if they can.”

“But what can we do to make them maneuver those cruisers?” Captain Frankham asked.

“I think our Fox will be able to outmaneuver whatever they send at it.  If that’s true, they might eventually decide to bring one or more of the cruisers into the fight.”

“And why do we need all this information?” Captain Frankham asked.

“Because we’ll probably want to quarantine them.  If we do, then we would be well served to know their capabilities,” Liz said.

“Will one Fox be enough?” Questa asked.

“At least at the start,” Kay said.  “We can always send one of the others into the engagement if we need to spice things up.”

“And if they do nothing?” Liz asked.

“Then we’ll call Thorea and ask what’s up,” Catie replied.

“Okay, how long until the Foxes are close enough that we want to alert the Thoreans that they’re there?” Liz asked.

“Two hours,” Kay said.

“Then let’s prepare to jump.  I don’t want to be on the vector between the Foxes and the gas giant,” Liz said.

“Just one minute,” Catie said.  “ADI, can you have Aventurier and Chesapeake play my video?”

“Yes, Cer Catie.”

“What video?” Liz asked.  She’d been wondering what Catie had had the crew chief working on, but Catie had refused to share.

“Just a little surprise for the Thoreans.”

“Is that all you’re going to say?  It could affect our operation,” Liz said.

“It won’t.  I promise.”

Liz frowned and shook her head.  After staring at Catie for a second, she said, “ADI, issue the order to jump as soon as you and Catie are done playing games.”

“Yes, Commodore.”

“Everyone, take a break.  We’ll reconvene in two hours.”

◆ ◆ ◆

During the two hours they waited, Liz tried to figure out what Catie and ADI had cooked up, but there just wasn’t enough data.  She was a bit mad and a bit tired, and the time would have been better spent taking a nap.  She closed the systems she was examining with a sigh and signaled the others that she was ready for them.  She immediately opened the video channel to Captain Frankham.

“Did you figure out what those two did?” Captain Frankham asked.

“No, did you?”

“I tried to get Chesapeake to tell me, but no dice.”

“I didn’t even try Aventurier; I know Catie and ADI too well to even try that.  But I couldn’t find anything in the system logs.”

“Neither could I.  Are you worried?”

“Not really; Catie’s too smart to do something that would cause us problems.  I would just like to know.”

At that moment, Catie and Questa entered her day cabin.  Liz waved to Captain Frankham to let him know they had company.

“Were you two together?” Liz asked.

“Yes, after our nap, we had a light snack in the mess hall,” Catie said.  “Where’s Kay?”

“Right here,” Kay said as she came in behind them.  “I should have thought about getting up early enough to have a snack.”

“Is everything ready?” Questa asked.

“ADI, what’s our status?” Liz asked, which automatically canceled the privacy mode she’d invoked when searching for her answer.

“The Foxes are in position.  Two of them are one million kilometers from the gas giant; the other is just entering orbit around it.  It’s still on the other side of the planet from the moon.”

“Have we gotten plenty of images of the cruisers?” Catie asked.

“The two Foxes have been imaging that area continuously for the last thirty minutes.  I’ll have your slide show ready when you need it.”

Liz nodded to Kay; since she was the wing commander, it was her prerogative to start the action.

“Aventurier, please send in our bait,” Kay ordered.

The one Fox accelerated in its orbit; it would be rounding the planet in line with the moon in just fifteen minutes.

“Fifteen minutes,” Kay said.

◆ ◆ ◆

“Captain, we have an unidentified object coming out of the planet's shadow,” the sensor operator on the Thorean cruiser announced.

“Admiral, we have activity,” the captain messaged the admiral leading the Thorean force.  “Put the image up on the main display,” he ordered the sensor operator.

“Have the Delphineans finally arrived?” the admiral asked as he made his way onto the bridge.  “They’re two days late.”

“It could be them, but the sensor reading is minimal; possibly they sent a probe in advance.”

“That’s not good.  Has it seen our satellite?”

“Not that we can tell.  Launch a missile,” the captain ordered.  “It should take their probe out before it has a view of us.”

◆ ◆ ◆

“They’ve launched a missile at our Fox,” Kay informed the group.

“Okay, I think we have our answer,” Catie said.  “ADI, please connect us with the Thorean minister.”  ADI had already informed the minister to be expecting their call.

“Princess Catherine, we have been awaiting your arrival.  Is there a problem that has delayed you?”

“Minister Terasulf, we’ve been trying to understand the meaning of our welcoming committee,” Catie replied.

“Welcoming committee?  We haven’t discussed such details; surely, we will have time while you approach the planet.”

“I’m referring to this committee,” Catie said as she put up the image of the three cruisers on the display.  ADI flipped through a set of images showing the cruisers sitting on the moon, each showing the cruisers from a different angle.

“Princess, I can assure you that they have nothing to do with your arrival.  They are simply on a survey mission of that planet's moons.”

“It is highly unusual to land a cruiser on a moon, and could you explain why they have launched a missile at the spaceplane we sent toward them so that we could communicate?”

“Our Fox has destroyed the missile,” ADI messaged Catie.

“One moment, minister,” Catie said.

◆ ◆ ◆

“Captain, the object is a fighter, and it has destroyed our missile.”

The captain looked at the admiral for instruction.  “Destroy that fighter!”

“Launch a squadron of fighters,” the captain ordered.  “They are to take out that fighter.  Get us off this moon, and move us away from the planet.”

Six space fighters launched from the bay of one of the cruisers.  Their thrusters lit up the sky as they accelerated away from the moon.

“They’ve launched a squadron of fighters,” Kay said.

“Okay, let’s see what we can learn about their weapons,” Liz replied.  “Catie, you still have the minister on hold?”

“I want to wait until there’s weapons fire.  I wonder if the minister has been able to contact whoever is in charge of those cruisers yet.”

The six fighters came streaking around the moon toward the planet, pairing off into a standard attack formation.  The Fox banked hard toward the planet, diving under two of the Thorean fighters.  The lead Thorean fighter twisted to engage, firing its lasers at the Fox.  The laser struck the Fox just in front of the engines, where the Fox’s shell absorbed the energy.  ADI had the Fox continue to twist randomly, making it hard for the Thoreans to maintain a lock on a specific location on its shell.

◆ ◆ ◆

“Admiral, we have Minister Terasulf on the quantum relay.”

“Put him on.  . . . Minister, we are quite busy right now.”

“So, I’ve been told.  Are you attacking a Delphinean spaceplane?”

“Yes, I believe it is a space fighter.  How do you know?”

“The princess has just called me to inform me of it.  She also showed me detailed images of your cruisers sitting on that moon.”

The admiral looked shocked at that.  “What do you want me to do?”

“You are supposed to capture their starship!  We need to learn about these jump gates!”

“I understand.”

“Then take care of that fighter and find them!  They cannot be that far away from you if they have such detailed images of your position and were able to tell you had fired a missile at their fighter.”

The admiral signaled the communication officer to cut the call with the minister.  “Politicians, they’re so very good at asking for the impossible and assuming it will be easy,” he thought.  “Now, where is that starship?!”

“Admiral, we have been scanning the space, looking for any sign.  We haven’t seen them.  Possibly they are blocked by the planet.”

“Then our satellite would have seen them!  Look harder!”

“Sir, one of our fighters has engaged the craft.  It hit it with a laser, but there was no noticeable damage.”

“Then tell them to get close enough to use their plasma cannon!”

◆ ◆ ◆

Gorzok and his wingmate Bosjed flew the lead pair of Thorean fighters as their squadron prepared to engage the Fox.

“It’s turning, but it should cross your 10,” Bosjed yelled.

Gorzok punched the throttle of his fighter, and it leaped forward as he tried to cut the Fox off.  He keyed his laser as he prepared to fire.

“Damn, I hate 6G turns,” he yelled as he fired his laser.

“You hit it!” Bosjed called out.

“Damage?”

“I don’t see any; I’m reporting to command.”

“They say to get closer so you can use your plasma cannon.”

“Right, I’m going as fast as this thing will fly, but that fighter is staying just out of range.”

“The rest of the squadron is coming; they should force it to turn back toward you!”

“Or make it dive into the atmosphere.”

The other four fighters from the squadron screamed toward the Fox; their vector would cut it off at the current speed.  Just as they approached laser range, the Fox dove toward the atmosphere.

“Here I go,” Gorzok yelled as he dove his fighter to follow the Fox.  “Make sure you shadow me!”

“I’m right on your six.  If it comes back up, I should be in position to nail it.”

“It’s not slowing down!” Gorzok yelled after he’d been inside the atmosphere for a few minutes.

“What’s your hull temperature?”

“80%”

“Keep on it.  It will have to slow or come out of the atmosphere soon.  Is it maintaining altitude?”

“Yes.  Hull temperature is 90%.”

“Hang in there!”

Gorzok was sweating as the temperature in his fighter continued to climb.  Alarms were going off all over his instrument panel as systems started to fail.  “Damn it; I’m out of here!”  He slowed his speed and vectored up out of the atmosphere.

Gorzok could see the Fox exiting far ahead of him as he exited the atmosphere.

“There it is; get it!”

“On it,” Bosjed said as he punched the throttle of his fighter to the maximum.  The Fox must have slowed because he was catching up with it.  He keyed his lasers.

“I’m almost in range!  . . .  Almost!  . . .  It’s turning!”  Bosjed pushed the stick hard over to follow the Fox.

“How can it do that?” he gasped.  “That must be a 15G turn, and it’s accelerating!”

“Btet is going to cut it off.  He should get a shot off.”

“Ooh, it took out his engines,” Bosjed yelled as the Fox scored a direct hit on the Thorean fighter’s engines.

“Admiral, the enemy fighter is outpacing our fighters.  They cannot keep up!” the captain yelled.

“I can see that!  It is heading our way; move toward the planet so we can pin it between us,” the admiral yelled.  “Charge weapons!”

“Sir, it will pass between the Myrosian and us!”

“Good, fire when ready.”

“Two laser hits!  But it doesn’t look damaged!”

“Use plasma cannons!”

“Yes, sir.  It’s circling back!”

“Range?”

“120%”

“Hold all fire until it is in range of the plasma cannons!”

“110%”

“Firing!”

A cheer went up on the Thorean bridge as the plasma cannon vaporized the Fox.

◆ ◆ ◆

“Oops,” Kay said.  “The range on those plasma cannons is twenty percent greater than ours.”

“I think we’ve learned what we can about their weapons,” Liz said.  “Catie?”

“ADI, timing?”

“The images should be reaching the cruisers in a few minutes.”

◆ ◆ ◆

“Admiral, we have images on our sensors; they appear to be coming from the fringe!”

“Quiet!” the admiral yelled to silence the cheers that were still ringing out.  “Put the images on the display!”

The bridge gasped as the images came up.  They showed four of the Paraxean battleships appearing in the system, each in a different quadrant.  The appearance of each battleship was preceded by a bright white flash.  The image of each battleship stayed on the screen for two minutes, then faded out.

“What was that?”

“Those four ships were not the scouts they said they were sending,” the captain said.  “Zoom in on one!”

The instrument officer rewound the image and zoomed in on one of the battleships.  As the magnification increased, they could make out the outlines of the flight bays and a few Foxes surrounding the battleships.

“If those are the same as that fighter we just destroyed, then that thing is huge!”

“Get me Minister Terasulf!” the admiral yelled.

“The minister is on the comm.”

“Have you found that starship yet?!”

“Minister, you need to see this,” the admiral said as calmly as he could.  Then he had the communication officer replay the videos.

“They’re invading us!  They lured our defenses away from the planet.  Admiral, we need you here to defend the planet.”

“On our way.”

The three cruisers broke away from the planet, thrusters firing hot.

◆ ◆ ◆

“They’re running home to Thorea,” Questa said.

“What about their fighters?” Catie asked.

“They’re leaving them behind.”

“Were they crewed or remote flown?”

“I would have sworn they were crewed.  They limited the G-forces as though they were.”

Chapter 2

Aftermath

“They’re leaving us!” Bosjed yelled.

“I’m not surprised; they always assume we’re expendable.”

“The other fighters just self-destructed!”

“Idiots, why not just sit back and fall asleep?  Then death is painless.  Besides, the Delphineans might decide to rescue us,” Gorzok said.

“Would you really want to be rescued by them?”

“Hey, they didn’t try to destroy us; it looks like they could have if they wanted to.  Besides, life : death, I think I’d like a chance to live longer.”

“But they might torture us.”

“What for?”

“For information.”

“We don’t know anything.  I’ll tell them everything I know.”

“If you do that, then they’ll surely torture you just to get you to shut up.”

“Well, I’m willing to risk it.”

“Okay, then cut power, and we’ll see what happens.”

◆ ◆ ◆

Catie and her team were observing the Thorean cruisers as they lit out for their home planet.

“Now what?” Questa asked.

“Eli, do you have any suggestions?” Liz asked Captain Frankham of the Chesapeake.

“You might want to recover those two fighters,” Captain Frankham said.  “But be careful.”

Catie looked at Liz and raised an eyebrow.

“Kay, can we bring those two in?” Liz asked.

“We could grab them, but are you sure you want to bring them in?”

“We can send some bots to inspect them once they’re close.”

“It will take two days to get them here; they might not have enough air to last that long.”

“You should send a Lynx to meet them.  We would want to inspect the fighters before they get close to our ships anyway,” Captain Frankham said.

“I agree with Captain Frankham,” ADI said.  “If you have the Aventurier cut a chord across the system after you launch the Lynx, it will be able to meet you on the other side while preserving the velocity it uses to match vectors with the two fighters.”

“Kay, send out a Lynx,” Liz ordered.

“Yes, ma’am.  ADI, can you manage flying the Foxes for the pickup?” Kay asked.

“Of course I can,” ADI huffed.

◆ ◆ ◆

Clunk!

“What was that?” Bosjed asked.

“I assume they sent something to grab us,” Gorzok answered.  “They sure got here fast.”

“Ugh,” Bosjed cried as the Fox attached to his fighter started to accelerate.  “I thought you said they wouldn’t torture us!”

“Hey, it’s only four or 5Gs.  The other one was doing over 10G a few times when we were chasing it.  This just means they’re in a hurry to get us, which is good since we’re running out of air.”

The Foxed rotated the fighters so that the pilots would be horizontal to the acceleration; then, they increased the acceleration to 6Gs.

“Arrr!  I’m going to tell them that you’re the talkative one and know all of our secrets,” Bosjed cried.

◆ ◆ ◆

Morgan had persuaded Catie and Lieutenant Jhaveri to allow her to lead the Marines that would take the Lynx out to get the two Thorean pilots.  She was bored; she knew Catie was bored as well, but there wasn’t much she could do about that.

Bam!  Bam!

“What is that?” Gorzok wondered as he crawled back to consciousness.

Bam!  Bam!

Gorzok opened his eyes.  Someone was banging on the canopy of his fighter.  He turned his head to see who.  Someone in a spacesuit.  Probably one of the Delphineans.  “What could they possibly want?”

Bam!  Bam!  The Delphinean motioned at him.

“Oh, they want me to open the canopy.”  Gorzok took a few moments to get his arms and hands working; then, he reached for the switch that would open the canopy.  As soon as the canopy opened, the instrument panel alarm for low oxygen quieted down.  “Great, air!” Gorzok thought with relief.  He cracked open his helmet to allow the air to enter.  His air supply from the fighter was almost depleted.

“Get out!” the Delphinean commanded.

As Gorzok struggled with his harness, the Delphinean backed away from the edge of the fighter.  They were floating in microgravity, so once Gorzok released his harness and pushed off, he floated out of the fighter.  He did a clumsy turn and pushed off the top of the boarding tube that the Delphineans had extended to his fighter from their ship.

Gorzok was embarrassed at how clumsy he was.  Two days in an oxygen-deprived sleep had robbed his body of coordination.  Finally, he managed to get himself situated in front of his fighter, standing at an approximation of attention.

“Strip!” the Delphinean ordered.

Gorzok shook his head.  “Did I hear the Delphinean right?”

“I said strip!”

Gorzok was pretty sure the Delphinean was a female.  Apparently, the Delphineans had an integrated service like Thorea used to have back in his father’s day.

Gorzok smiled.  He assumed that he heard correctly.  The Delphineans must have a translator.  “I’m not sure our species are compatible,” he said, hoping to recover some of his dignity.

“You do know that I just have to give the signal, and they will release your fighter, and this boarding tube will be open to space?”

Gorzok shrugged his shoulders.  “Apparently, this Delphinean doesn’t have a sense of humor.”  . . .  “You do know I’ve been in this suit for over two days?”

“I know.”  The Delphinean tossed him a towel.  She was pretty good in microgravity; the towel sailed right to his head.  Gorzok finished stripping and used the towel to clean himself up a bit.  The Delphinean threw him another towel that he wrapped around his waist, then gathering as much dignity as he could, Gorzok pushed off and floated toward the Delphinean ship.

When he reached the airlock, another Delphinean in a spacesuit motioned for him to follow.  The ship looked like a small airplane, with seats on both sides of the aisle.  There were three spacesuited Delphineans on each side of the aisle; they all brandished weapons.  Gorzok followed the one down the aisle to the back of the plane.

“There’s a shower in there; don’t worry, it works in microgravity.  Right is hot, left cold; Now, clean yourself up.  There’s a suit in there for you to put on when you’re finished.”  With that, the Delphinean shut him in the small room where there was indeed a shower.

“A shower; that will make the last two days worth it,” Gorzok thought.  It had been six months since he’d last had a shower.

Gorzok basked in the shower after a quick clean to get all the muck off himself.  He then took his time soaping down and rinsing off.  There was an airflow that kept everything moving toward the drain.  Clever, he thought.  He kept turning the temperature hotter and hotter, letting his tired muscles relax.  For a few minutes, he felt a slight sense of gravity as the Lynx moved to the other Thorean fighter.  Then the temperature started to drop.  Not gradually, but in sharp steps.

“They cannot be running out of hot water?”

Then the temperature became distinctly cold.  “Oh, my time must be up.”

Gorzok dried off and put on the spacesuit they had left for him.  It fit pretty well, considering they had no clue as to his size.  He left the shower and returned to the main cabin.  A Delphinean was waiting for him.  They motioned him to a seat and instructed him to strap himself in.  An armed guard was standing across the aisle from his seat, so he assumed they didn’t trust him.

It was about thirty minutes before he saw Bosjed working his way down the aisle with a towel wrapped around his waist.

“The shower is really worth it.”

“You are such a hedonistic pig.”

◆ ◆ ◆

Volmora was studying the reading.  He knew that these strange bumps in the gravimetric waves were due to the jump gates that the Earthlings had developed.  He’d been furiously trying to replicate them since he first detected their existence but to no avail.  “What was the secret?”  He’d tried multiple ways to reproduce them, he’d created signals that resembled them, but nothing close.  Recently, there had been a flurry of those signals, close together in time and space.  He assumed it was because the Delphi League was moving its assets out of Earth’s reach.  He needed to study them more.  “Maybe with two probes?”

◆ ◆ ◆

“Come on, what did you think of that shower?” Gorzok asked.  “It was amazing, right?”

“Can you shut up?  What do you think they’re going to do with us?”

The two Thoreans were in a cabin on the Aventurier.  After a thorough decontamination cycle, the Delphineans had deposited them here and left them.

“I’m sure they’re going to question us.  They’re probably listening to everything we say.”

“Good.  Hey you guys, he’s the one who knows all the secrets!  I’m just a pilot; nobody tells me anything!” Bosjed yelled.

“I thought we were friends!”

“We are; I just like myself a little more than I like you, and you’ve been a pain in the ass for the last two days.”

“Please take a seat at the desk,” a voice announced.

Gorzok and Bosjed moved to the desk, looking around to see where the camera and mic were.

“Please state your names,” the voice ordered.

“Lieutenant Gorzok.”

“Lieutenant JG Bosjed.”

“Explain the purpose of your mission.”

“We don’t know.  We were just told to report to the ship.”

“When was that?”

“Two months ago.  The ship flew out to that gas giant and waited.  We had no clue what was happening until the captain told our squadron to launch.”

“What were his orders?”

“He wanted us to destroy your probe.  It wasn’t until later that we realized that it was a space fighter.”

“Why did you leave the atmosphere when you were chasing our fighter?”

“Come on; you had to know that my fighter was getting too hot.  Four systems failed before I gave up the chase.”

“Describe the makeup of the force that you were with.”

“Nobody told us what we had with us,” Gorzok said.  “Obviously, there were the three cruisers, but I overheard some of the crew talking about some frigates that were close by.”

Catie nodded her head.  ADI had detected the frigates in the asteroid belt when they had also boosted toward the home planet.  They were a couple of AUs closer to the sun.  They had surmised that they were supposed to herd the Aventurier toward the cruisers, which would form a barrier to escape once the Aventurier had passed the gas giant.

“You seem to be freely sharing this intel with us; can you explain?”

“There are a few reasons.  First, I don’t know any operational information; two, I assume you probably have figured most of it out already; three, I assume you can extract whatever you want; and finally, I’m not a big fan of our government.”

“Why are you not a big fan of your government?” Catie asked.

“You’re an idiot,” Bosjed said.  “If word gets back to command, you’re a dead man.”

Gorzok shrugged his shoulders.  “That’s one of the reasons.  We used to have a great government until the Shrooms took over; now, everyone lives in fear.  We do make a reasonable living, but the Shrooms are really raking it in.”

Bosjed winced when Gorzok said ‘Shrooms.’

“’Shrooms?’  Who are they?”

“Oh, come on, you must have noticed that our heads aren’t the same shape as whomever you were talking to.  We used to make fun of them when we were kids.  Then suddenly, they were in charge, calling themselves a genetically superior version of the Thorean race.  If you’re not a Shroom, then you’re expendable.”

“We did notice that,” Catie said.

“Maybe they’re Shrooms,” Bosjed suggested, “they won’t let us see their faces.”

Catie messaged ADI to share her video with the prisoners.  “There.”

“She kind of looks like a Paraxean.”

“Except the ears.”

“Can you explain about the Shrooms?  I assume that’s a pejorative term for them.”

“It is, and it’s six weeks in jail if you’re caught calling them that,” Bosjed said.

Catie waited.

“They’re Thoreans, but they have a genetic defect; they call it an enhancement, that makes the shape of their head weird.  Their cheeks and jaws collapse in, making them look like mushrooms.  It’s really no big deal.”

“But you said you used to make fun of them.”

“We were kids; we made fun of everyone.  They used to call me a klutz because I had a growth spurt and was clumsy for a couple of years.  Anyway, a bunch of them formed a secret society about one hundred years ago.  They started to help each other succeed in business and politics.  The society kept growing; eventually, almost all the Shrooms belonged to it, and they had enough power that they were able to take over most of the major businesses and put themselves in the top political and military positions.  Then about twenty-five years ago, they had a coup and took over the government.  It’s been hell since then.”

Catie spent some more time gathering information about the history of Thorea before she moved back to questions about their military capability.

“Tell us about your starships?” Catie asked.

“We’re pilots; we don’t really know much.”

“We noticed that they use reaction mass to accelerate and maneuver.”

“Of course they do.  You can’t get anywhere if you just rely on the gravity drives.  Their power drops off by the cosine of the angle,” Gorzok said.

“Cer Catie.  That is not correct; the power drop is related to the cosine of ½ the angle,” ADI messaged.

“I know.  Maybe their power plant can’t handle the increased power requirement,” Catie messaged back.  She gave Liz a questioning look.  Liz just shrugged.  “What do they use for reaction mass?” she asked into the mic.

“We start out using nitrogen, but we’ll collect hydrogen from the solar winds to supplement it if we're out for a long time.”

“What kind of acceleration can your cruisers achieve?”

“I don’t know, but you should have been able to measure it; it looked like they were doing max acceleration when they bugged out.”

“Yeah, I almost felt sorry for the buggers that left us behind,” Bosjed said.

“And the range and power of your plasma cannon?”

“Again, I don’t know the specs, but that fighter you used to torment us must have taken a full-power shot at max range,” Gorzok said.  “I sure hope it was a drone.”

“Do you have ships bigger than the cruiser?”

“Not that I know of.  We have the cruisers and the frigates.”

“How many of each?”

“I’m not sure; I think we only have six cruisers, plus one at Sivaria.  A few more frigates, maybe twelve.”

“I assume Sivaria is your colony?”

“Yes, that’s where you should have invaded.  They only have one cruiser.  Of course, there’s not much there anyway.”

“Hey, they have all those platinum metals,” Bosjed said.  “That’s the only reason anyone lives there.”

Gorzok laughed.  “Like anyone is given a choice.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Well, at first, it was just a scientific outpost.  Then when we started to run out of platinum metals on Thorea, they sent a bunch of miners there.  That didn’t work out too well.  They started to demand more luxury goods to compensate for being at the back end of nowhere.”

“Don’t they have to run ships back and forth to get the ores anyway?” Catie asked.

“They did at first, but then they decided that was too expensive.  Now they just have Sivaria ball them up and push them toward Thorea.  It takes the ore about seven years to get here, but they stopped sending ships once they filled the pipeline.”

“Ah, that explains that asteroid that we noticed heading into your system,” Catie said.

“Probably.  If you want to get their attention, you should grab it,” Gorzok said.  “Anyway, after they stopped sending ships, they couldn’t talk people into emigrating.  Who wants to spend seven years going to some isolated outpost just to risk your life working in the mines?”

“Didn’t people want to colonize it, build cities, start farms and ranches?”

“It’s too expensive to trade with them, they would be isolated, and life on Thorea was too good.  Well, it was before the Shrooms took over.  But then they started to use Sivaria as a penal colony.  They send a load of prisoners out every year or so to make up for the losses in the mines.  Usually political prisoners, but they never seem to have a problem coming up with criminals.”

“Don’t people raise families there?”

“Sure, they send women as well as men,” Bosjed said.

“They have to; if they didn’t, you wouldn’t be able to get the men to work.  Death starts looking pretty attractive when you have to work in the mine all day and come home to nothing,” Gorzok said.

“Why don’t they rebel?” Catie asked.

“That cruiser they keep orbiting the planet.”

“Why wouldn’t it join in the rebellion?”

“Because a bunch of Shrooms command it, and they have the destruct codes.”

“How do they come up with Shrooms to crew the cruiser?”

“Even Shrooms get into trouble.  When they do, they get exiled to Sivaria.”

Emergency Meeting -- June 23rd

“Catie, what are you still doing at Thorea?” Marc asked once everyone was in the conference call.

“We had to wait to recover the two fighters,” Catie said.

“And?”

“We just finished interrogating them.”

“Catie, quit making us have to prompt you,” Samantha scolded.

“Sorry.  We mainly confirmed what we’d already figured out.  They are under a despotic regime that discriminates against most of its citizens.  It’s belligerent.  It took over the government about twenty-five years ago.”

“And their technology?”

“The engineers are working with the scientists on Avalon; they’re tearing those fighters apart to learn what we can.  We know their plasma cannons have about twenty percent greater range than ours.”

“Yeah, we noticed that,” Blake said.  “Luckily, it only cost us the one Fox.”

“That was too bad.  I thought it would get shot up some, but getting it totally vaporized sucked,” Catie said.

“Are you ready to move on?” Marc asked; he was really telling Catie what he wanted her to do.

“Kind of.”

“What do you mean, kind of?!”

“I think we should go check out their colony planet.”

“What?  Why would we do that?” Marc asked.

“Because we need to know more about them.  We know we want to quarantine them, but we need to understand more about their capabilities.”

“Liz, can’t you talk some sense into her?” Marc asked.

“Hey, you’re the one who put her in charge; besides, I agree with her.”

“So do I,” Blake said.  “We need to know as much as we can about this potential threat.”

“Okay,” Marc sighed.  “But be careful.  Listen to your captains.”

“Of course, Daddy.  Now, are you going to tell us how the colonists’ training is going?”

“At the next board meeting.”

◆ ◆ ◆

Liz’s Comm announced her at the door to Catie’s day cabin.

“Liz, just come in; you don’t have to knock,” Catie said.

Liz entered.  As soon as Catie saw the stern look on Liz’s face, she got worried.  “Is something wrong?” she asked.

“Yes and no,” Liz said.

“What, tell me?”

“I wanted to talk about your little light show.”

“Oh, pretty good, wasn’t it?”

“It was clever.  But keeping the details from Captain Frankham and me wasn’t.”

“Oh.”  Catie looked confused.

“You have to separate out your little surprises, so they don’t interfere with ship or fleet operations.  Keeping it from us was unprofessional,” Liz said.

Catie’s face fell.  It was obvious to Liz that she was reviewing all her little tricks and games in her head.

“I guess I’ve gotten sloppy,” Catie said.  “We’re all like one big family.  I guess I’m not doing a very good job of keeping my professional life and my personal life separated.”

“It’s a common problem for young people.  And the relaxed atmosphere at MacKenzies makes it easy to lose sight of the line.”

“I’m sorry.  I promise to do better.”

“Good,” Liz said as she left.

◆ ◆ ◆

“What was that?” Gorzok asked as he came out of the head.

“Someone came by to tell us that we’re heading to Sivaria,” Bosjed told him.  “They said we’d be jumping soon, and we’d experience microgravity during the jump.  I wonder what they mean by ‘jump.’”

“Did they tell us what we have to do?”

“No, just said we had to be ready for some time in microgravity.”

“When are we jumping?  And is that some kind of joke?  You know that you go through free fall on the way down after you jump up.”

“I don’t think it was a joke.  They said the ship would make an announcement before we jump.”

“If we’re heading for Sivaria, then we’re going to be stuck in this cabin for years.”

“I know.  The cabin’s pretty nice.  Except for my roommate, it wouldn’t be too bad.”

“I was thinking the same thing.  It’s pretty comfortable, and that shower in there looks like it’s supposed to work during microgravity just like the one on that shuttle.”

“I’m guessing we’re going to have plenty of time to find out.  . . .  There goes some kind of announcement.  Better get ready.”

“Get ready; we’ve spent the last three weeks in microgravity.  What’s to get ready for?” Gorzok said as he felt the gravity slowly go to zero.  “Here it is.  I wonder how they were creating gravity.”

Bosjed watched Gorzok rotate himself in the air so that he was horizontal.  “I’m not sure.  Do you think they’re rotating the ship?”

“Maybe.  We didn’t get to see anything when they brought us here.  Maybe they have artificial gravity.”

“I don’t know.  That inverse square law is hard to beat, and it seems pretty consistent.”

“Oh well, we’ll have plenty of time to ponder it.  . . . What was that?” Gorzok asked as the ship made another announcement.

“I don’t know; maybe we’re making another jump.  I think I heard that word ‘jump’ again.”

“Do you think we can talk them into providing some kind of entertainment?” Gorzok asked.  Then he desperately tried to right himself as he felt gravity returning.

“We won’t need to ask if you keep that up,” Bosjed said, laughing as Gorzok hit the floor.

“It’s not funny.  Why would they create just ten minutes of microgravity?  It doesn’t make sense.”

“You can ask that young woman who questioned us if she ever talks to us again.  But since they’re watching us and would have seen that slick maneuver of yours, she might be laughing too hard when she looks at you to get an answer out.”

◆ ◆ ◆

“Welcome to Sivaria,” Liz said as the Aventurier exited the wormhole.

“Are we going to jump again?” Catie asked.  She was using her shipboots to hold onto the deck since she didn’t have a chair on the bridge.

“In a bit.  We’re going to do a jump to adjust our vector to slow down while cutting a chord.  Then we’ll jump and set our vector to in-system.”

Catie looked at Liz’s console display.  It showed Gorzok floating about one meter above the deck in the prisoner’s cabin.

“The Chesapeake has jumped in,” the sensor operator reported.

“Very well.  Tell them to make 1/2G and follow us.”

“You’re mean,” Catie messaged.

“Hey, they need to learn not to be stupid,” Liz replied.

The two of them watched as Gorzok bounced off the deck, trying hard to stifle their giggles.

“Navigation, prepare jump, set vector to 80 degrees,” Liz ordered after they’d been under acceleration for thirty minutes.

As the Aventurier announced the impending jump, the two women watched Gorzok scramble into his bunk.

Chapter 3

Sivaria

“Spakar, you’re late,” the woman said as a man walked into her house.

“The tram broke down; I had to walk most of the way.”

“Sorry I snapped.  But you know I have to be off to work soon.”

“I do.  I hurried as much as I could.”

“I understand.  Your dinner is in the oven.  Stay awake for at least an hour after you finish.”  She walked over to him and gave him a quick kiss.

“Yes, Loania, I’ll be a good boy,” Spakar said in jest.

“You’d better be,” Loania threatened with a smile.  “How much longer are they going to run the double shift at the mine?”

“Another two weeks.  Even with that, we won’t catch up.”

“Surely, they’ll understand.  A major cave-in and the loss of twenty miners; anyone would know that would put you behind.”

“Yes, they would, but that doesn’t mean they care.  We don’t want to give them any reason to try and pressure us.  We can only hope that being short a few tons won’t cause them too much concern.”

“Why can’t they let you make it up later?”

“Because they demand one lift per week.  Who knows what logic they’re using?  But with this double shift, we’ll only have the one light load, and we’ll be able to make it up over the next month.”

“They just sent the asteroid off; why can’t they let you make it up over the six months until the next one needs to go?”

“Because they like everything in neat little packages.  I suspect their brains hurt if things aren’t exactly the same.”

“Shrooms, thank the gods that they don’t bother to come down.”

“Exactly like we want it.  Now, be off; I’ll see you tonight before I have to head back to the mine.”

Loania gave Spakar a kiss, then grabbed her coat and headed out.

◆ ◆ ◆

Catie had some decisions to make.  It was two weeks after they’d made the jump to Sivaria.  The Aventurier was holding position at seven AUs and 30 degrees above the ecliptic with the planet in view.  The Chesapeake was in a similar position below the ecliptic.

“So, Princess, what do you think?” Liz asked as they convened for their strategy meeting.  Captain Frankham was on the video channel.  With their specs, he appeared as if he was just across the table from the two women.

“Let’s review what we know,” Catie said.

ADI immediately started the list.  “There is only one cruiser in the system.  They are pushing a platinum metal ball toward Thorea; I assume they’re using remote-controlled thrusters since it’s doing about 12G.  There is a small satellite at the edge of the system that appears to be managing the thrusters.  Given that Gorzok told us that it took seven years for the asteroid to reach Thorea, I assume they will release it at 45AUs and then decelerate the thrusters so they can reuse them.”

“Won’t they be pretty far out of the gravity well by the time they can turn them around?” Captain Frankham asked.

“No.  Once they release all that mass, they’ll be able to decelerate much faster than they are accelerating,” ADI explained.

“Oh, sorry, I should have realized that myself.”

“Not a problem, Captain Frankham,” ADI said.  “Now, I see that there is just one city on the planet.  Aventurier and I estimate the population at approximately twenty thousand.  It is surrounded by farms that should provide for its needs.  There are large strip mines nearby where they are extracting the ore.  I assume they have some underground mines as well.”

“How are they lifting the ores into orbit?” Liz asked.

“It appears they are using rockets to lift the ore into orbit from the planet.”

“Why wouldn’t they use gravity drives?” Catie asked.

“I’m not sure.  Maybe that is something we should ask our prisoners,” ADI suggested.

Catie looked at Liz and Eli, “Well?”

“Unless you have enough information and are ready to leave,” Captain Frankham said.

Catie sighed and nodded to Liz.

“Aventurier, have the prisoners escorted to an interview room,” Liz ordered

◆ ◆ ◆

“Prepare to be escorted to an interview room,” Aventurier announced.

“Oh, they want to talk to us again,” Gorzok said.

“Yeah, I wonder why.  Did you feed them a bunch of lies?” Bosjed asked.

“No, and be quiet; they’re listening to us.”

“Yes, and if they are, I want them to know that you’re the problem one.”

“You’re supposed to be covering my six.”

“I do as long as you’re not doing something stupid.  Maybe they’re going to space us.”

“Shut up and put on your boots,” Gorzok said.

Bosjed had barely gotten his boots on when there was a knock at the door.

“Come in,” Gorzok said.  “As if you need to ask,” he muttered.

“Are you ready?” Morgan asked once the door was open.  She’d volunteered to escort the prisoners.  She was hoping to be able to sit in on the interrogation.

“No spacesuit?”

“We’ve determined that you’re safe.  Now, follow me.”

Gorzok and Bosjed walked out of the room and turned to follow Morgan down the passageway.  There were four Marines acting as guards.

“Apparently not that safe,” Bosjed muttered.

It only took a minute and a short lift ride before they arrived at Catie’s day cabin.  Morgan’s Comm announced them, and the door immediately opened to allow them in.  The four Marines remained outside, but Morgan escorted the prisoners in and remained in the cabin, standing by the door.

“Please have a seat,” Catie said, motioning to two seats.

Gorzok ignored Catie’s motions and started to sit down on top of Captain Frankham.

“Not there!” Morgan barked.  She stepped forward and grabbed Gorzok by the collar of his shipsuit and guided him to one of the chairs that Catie had indicated.  Bosjed stood back until Gorzok was settled, then sat in the chair next to him.

Catie and Liz were chuckling at Gorzok’s confusion.

Catie tapped her specs.  “With these glasses, we can see images projected into the scene.  You were about to sit where his image is being projected for us.”  Catie motioned to the display behind her where the video of Captain Frankham was displayed.

“Sorry.”  Gorzok pointed to the speaker in the middle of the table, which seemed to be projecting Catie’s voice.  “Translator?”

“Correct.  We will hear a translation of your voices in our earpieces.  A translation of our voices will come from the speaker.”

Gorzok nodded his head and then leaned back in the chair.  “What do you wish to know?”

“We’ve been observing Sivaria for the last week, and we’d like your help understanding what we’ve observed,” Catie said.

Gorzok snorted, “Come on, you don’t expect me to believe that, do you?  Even with this constant acceleration, it would take you years to reach Sivaria.”

“No, it wouldn’t; we jumped here,” Catie said.

“‘Jump,’ starships don’t jump.  What does ‘jump’ mean, except that you stop accelerating?”

Catie smiled.  “Jump means that we transit through a wormhole.  We ‘jumped’ to Sivaria three weeks ago, on our first jump.”

“Then what was that second jump for?  Did you jump home to get resupplied?” Gorzok joked.

Catie held her hand up to keep Morgan from smacking Gorzok upside the head.

“The second jump was to put us above the ecliptic so we could better observe what was happening in your system.”

“No, no.  Wormholes are the stuff of science fiction.  They don’t really exist; much less how could anyone control them if they did exist,” Gorzok said

“They do exist,” Bosjed said.  “I read a paper about them at the academy.”

“That was just some mathematical principle,” Gorzok said.  “Get real.  Just tell us what you want to know; you don’t have to trick us.”

Catie shook her head.  “ADI, put the view of Sivaria up on the viewscreen.”

The image of Captain Frankham was replaced by one showing a planet.  The planet was a light blue, not the rich blue of Earth or Thorea.

“Nice picture, but that’s too easy to fake.”

“Right now, I don’t have time to try to prove to you where we are.  We’ve noticed that they are lifting the ore into orbit using traditional rockets.  Can you explain why they wouldn’t use gravity drives?” Catie asked.

“I don’t understand how you could tell that from ‘where we are,’ but sure, I’ll answer your question.  I suspect it’s because the Shrooms are afraid that if they used gravity drives to lift the material into space, us Norms would get control of them and use them against them.”

“Don’t they have better control of the planet than that?” Catie asked.

“Not that I’ve heard.  Now, this is based on rumors, but rumor has it that the Shrooms never go down to the planet.  They keep control of it by threatening to destroy their infrastructure with the plasma cannons from their cruiser.”

“Why would they do that?”

“Threaten them or not go down to the planet?”

“Not have a presence on the planet.”

“Rumor has it that it became unhealthy for Shrooms on the planet; besides, the planet isn’t that nice of an environment.  They compromised by staying on the space station and threatening everyone from a distance.  Cowards.”

“Thank you,” Catie said.  “We’ve also noticed that there only appears to be one city and that the population is limited.”

“Sure, back to that rumor about the surface being unhealthy for Shrooms; they don’t want them to get big enough to do anything the Shrooms might not like.  So, they limit the population.  They send a ship out here every few years.  They bring a few more 'prisoners,’” Gorzok used air quotes to emphasize prisoners.  “It also will rotate some of the Shrooms back home if they’ve done their time or if their family has gained enough influence to get them shipped home.”

“That sounds like there is some form of government on the planet, one independent of the government on Thorea.”

“That’s the rumor.”

“You wouldn’t know how to contact them, would you?”

“Just send a signal; I’m sure they’re listening,” Gorzok said.

“But how can we ensure it gets to the government?”

“Hey, if you were down there and someone said hello, wouldn’t you answer?”

“Not if I couldn’t be sure the signal wasn’t coming from that cruiser or a communication probe.”

Gorzok clenched his jaw.

“He knows how to do it,” ADI messaged.

“Come now, you’ve been open with us so far.”

“Well, I have heard a story,” Gorzok said.  “It says that if you send a message with a photo which is comprised of six images, five of them the same image rotated by 72 degrees each time it is repeated.  If the six images surround the image of a child with the caption, ‘Macarisa at her party,’ then someone could take the second, third, and fifth of those images and create a perfect error-free image that they could use as an encryption key.”

“Would that image need to be sent a particular way?”

“I wouldn’t think so.  Of course, it would be good if the cruiser didn’t intercept it, or better yet, not even know about it.”

“Should the encrypted message say anything particular?” Catie asked.

“Not that I know of.”

“Very well, we’ll give that a try.  We’ll let you know how it works.”

“Sure.  So, you’re telling the truth, we’re really at Sivaria?”

“Yes, we are.”

Gorzok shook his head as Morgan led him and Bosjed back to their stateroom.  “Do you believe her?”

“Why would she lie?” Bosjed said.  “It is hard to believe, but wouldn’t that be cool?”

“Only if we can kick the Shrooms out of power.”

◆ ◆ ◆

“Apparently, all that meant something to you,” Liz said.

“Yes, it’s a standard technique.  Once they have a perfect image, they use it to XOR with any message.  It’s impossible to break without a copy of the original image.”

“And how are we going to send the message without that cruiser getting it?  It’s in a geosync orbit directly above the city.”

“ADI?” Catie prompted.

“We can send a narrow-beam signal to the planet that will miss the cruiser and disperse in the atmosphere so that anyone listening on the planet will pick it up.  We’ve captured enough of their EM transmissions to select an appropriate channel to transmit on.”

“What if the cruiser has a listening station on the planet?”

“We’ll have to hope that the message is innocuous enough that they don’t realize it’s important,” Catie said.

“It should give us enough time to develop some variation that will make it more difficult to break,” ADI said.

“And exactly what do you intend to accomplish by communicating with the planet?” Liz asked.

“I’m not sure.  But obviously, talking to the Thorean government is a non-starter.  I’d like to understand what the Sivarian situation is.”

“Catie,” Liz said, shaking her head.

“What?” Catie asked, giving everyone an innocent smile.  “I’ll work on a message and call us back together when it’s ready.”

“Okay.  Are you at least going to review it at the board meeting tomorrow?” Liz asked as she got up to leave.

“Sure.”

“Captain Frankham,” Liz nodded to the captain.

“Good day, Commodore, Princess,” Captain Frankham said as he cut the feed.

“Commodore?” Captain Frankham messaged, “how much trouble are we going to be getting into?”

“We’ll have to wait and see,” Liz messaged back.

Chapter 4

Board Meeting—July 14th

Marc gave everyone a few minutes to finish up their conversations before he brought the meeting to order.

“Although I’m sure all of you want to know what Catie is planning to do in Sivaria, I want to stick to the agenda.  First up, Fred wants to update us on the car market and call a vote on how to move forward.  Fred?”

“Stay with me as I go through the numbers,” Fred said.  “I want them fresh in your mind when we call the vote.

“Currently, Fuerza Motores has a 40% market share of electric cars.  All-electric cars make up 70% of the worldwide car market, with diesel hybrids making up 24%.  Diesel hybrids also make up 90% of the big truck market.”

“What about pickups?” Kal asked.

“They fall under the car category, but if you pull them out separately, then 63% are diesel hybrids, and 25% are all-electric.  Ford just introduced a new F150 that’s a diesel hybrid.

“Tata Motors, who we first licensed the batteries to, has a 73% share of the truck market,” Fred continued.

“Our markets share has started to decline as we’ve licensed the batteries to other car and truck manufacturers.”

“So, what’s the vote about?” Blake asked.

Fred glared at Blake since it was obvious that Blake had not read the material he’d sent out before the meeting.  Then he realized that Blake probably had but was just trying to hurry him along.

“The vote is about how to move forward on batteries.  We can continue to expand the sale of them to other car manufacturers; currently, we’re controlling car production based on how many batteries we sell to the various manufacturers.

“Or, option two, we could release the technology for manufacturing the batteries,” Fred said.

“What about their sales on other planets?  Don’t we sell them on Onisiwo and Helike?” Blake asked.

“Yes, and releasing the technology would also affect those sales.”

“So why would we do this?  What are the benefits of the different choices?” Liz asked.

Fred glanced at Marc, making it obvious that Marc was the one who had pushed for this discussion.  That made sense since Fred was a bottom-line kind of guy.  Marc just smiled at him, letting Fred know that he was going to have to continue to lead the discussion.

“From a purely bottom-line perspective, continuing as we are produces the best return.”

“So . . .”

Fred held up his hand to forestall Blake’s comment.

“However, there is a lot of political pressure on MacKenzies and Delphi to, shall we say, share the wealth.”

Everyone turned to Marc.

“Remember, we started this to improve the world, not to get rich.  Granted, the more money we have, the easier it is to effect change, but we cannot maintain control over everything,” Marc said.

“Let’s let Fred finish,” Samantha said.

“The second option is the next best as far as the financial return goes, but it makes it highly likely that someone will figure out how to make the batteries.”

“But we have a patent, don’t we?” Catie asked.

“No.  We’ve kept the process as a company secret.  We could patent it, but then it opens us up to having to enforce that patent, which would be very unpopular.”

“What’s our advantage over the competition’s batteries?” Dr. Metra asked.

“Our batteries are 40% lighter, hold 70% more charge, and recharge three times faster,” ADI said.

“I didn’t remember us having that big of an advantage,” Blake said.

“We’ve made several improvements to the batteries over the last few years,” Nikola said.  She would know since she was the one leading the battery design team.

“Catie?” Marc said as he noticed her squirming to stay quiet.  “Go ahead.”

“Why don’t we release an earlier version of the battery design?  Then we let the competition try and catch up.  That will spur them to learn more and might lead to other uses or discoveries.  Then we’re the good guys but still have an advantage in the market.”

“That would work,” Nikola said.

“I like that idea,” Samantha said, giving Catie a big smile.  “It will keep Fred happier while helping to accomplish our overarching goals.”

“Okay, does anyone oppose that proposal?” Marc asked.  He looked at Fred, who was obviously struggling to keep his hand on the table.  “Then the motion carries.  Fred, do you need anything?”

“I’ll work with Nikola to release the design information,” Fred said.

“Thank you, Fred.  Now, Admiral Michaels?”

“Things with the new government are getting interesting.  As the head of the Delphi Federation here on Earth, I get a prime seat in most of the negotiations.  I’ve even been given a seat on the defense committee.”

“They must think you’re a soft touch,” Blake said.

“Blake!” Samantha scolded.

“Sorry, couldn’t resist the hanging curveball.”

Admiral Michaels frowned at Blake before continuing.  “First, related to the federation, we’re being encouraged to absorb more of the small nations that are still floating on their own which are, excuse the pun, mainly island nations.”

“What about countries already in the Federation?” Samantha asked.

“There’s pressure on Morocco and Algeria to leave the Federation and join the African League.”

“What about our new members, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and Kuwait?”

“Again, there’s pressure for them to join the Middle East Federation.  It looks like Syria and Kuwait will, but Jordan and Lebanon seem to be committed to us.”

“And?”

“There’s a lot of pressure on Israel to join us.”

“Oh, won’t that be interesting with Jordan and Lebanon?” Kal said.

“Yes, it will, but they seem to have come to terms, so if we can get them to settle in, it might be a good thing.  It would obscure Israel’s borders within the Federation, making them less of an open target.  And it might help resolve the West Bank issue.”

“I agree,” Samantha said.  “I think we should just let it play out.”

“I can do that,” the Admiral said.

“Okay,” Marc said.  “What’s next?”

“The government wants space capable Foxes and Oryxes.”

“They do, do they?” Marc asked.

“Yes.”

“I can understand the Foxes, but why the Oryxes?” Kal asked.

“Because they want their own space station.”

That got everyone’s attention as they all sat up and quit doing things in their HUDs.  “Why?”

“I think there are several reasons,” the Admiral said.  “One: they want to expand Earth’s space-based manufacturing, but they don’t want to be dependent on MacKenzies.”

“I’ll give them that,” Marc said, immediately motioning for the Admiral to continue.

“Two, they probably think they will be able to siphon off some technology from the station if they own it.”

“How would that work?  If they build it, surely, they’ll understand all the technology.”

“Ah, but they want MacKenzies to build it for them,” the Admiral said.

“Fred?” Marc prompted.

“Hey, I didn’t want to steal the Admiral’s thunder.  But it would be a very profitable venture.”

“It would?”

“Yes.  They approached me earlier in the year about it.  I did some rough math on what it would cost, then multiplied by four and sent them the quote.”

“What?!  You multiplied the cost by four!” Catie yelped.

“Well, I didn’t think we would be that interested in doing it.  But, surprise, surprise, they started to negotiate from there.”

“Why?”

“Well, they don’t understand how we extrude the station sections, so they naturally assumed it would be a lot more expensive.  Under the proposal, we would just provide the shell, with the internal supports as well as the reactors to power it and an AI to run it.”

Catie nodded her head.  “So that’s not too much.  The major money is in the cabins and internal systems.”

Fred gave Catie a glare.  “Hey, it’s still eighty billion dollars.”

Catie shrugged.  “Sure, why not.”

“Are there any reasons not to do it?” Marc asked.

“I assume we won’t include gravity drives,” Blake said.

“Correct,” Fred said.

“Then sure.  But we have to resolve the issues about space-capable fighters and such.”

Marc tapped on the table, “I don’t see any issues with the Oryxes.  And I’m even okay selling a Lynx or two as long as they’re unarmed.”

“And no gravity drives,” Blake added.

“Of course.  But I’m not so sure about Foxes” Marc said.

“Why not?” Catie asked.  “With the technology we’re harvesting from those Thorean fighters, we’ll be able to improve our plasma cannons.  So, you could sell them Foxes that match the specs of the ones everyone is used to, and we’d still have an advantage.  And since they won’t have gravity drives, then we would still be able to deploy Foxes that were significantly more maneuverable and had more firepower.”

“I could go with that,” Blake said.  “But what about our Foxes once we upgrade them?”

“Have the AI dial them back unless they’re in a real fight.”

“I’m okay with that,” Kal said.  “But we shouldn’t include the railguns and have the AI set up so it won’t calculate a target for a railgun if they add one, especially the ones in the Oryxes.”  Kal smiled at Marc, alluding to the time he used an Oryx with railguns to force the Russians to stop their invasion of Ukraine.

“Alright,” Marc said.

“And no shuttles since they require gravity drives to fly in atmosphere,” Catie said.

“Got it,” Fred said.  “So, Admiral, I assume you’ll be the hero and announce that you’ve convinced us to sell.”

“Yes, it should make me very popular for a while.”

“Anything else?” Marc asked.

“Not really, just the usual politics.  The new government does seem to be working; a few hiccups here and there.”

“Alright, moving on.  Blake, what is the status of our fleet?”

“We need to add at least four more frigates.  And given Catie’s and Liz’s experience at Thorea, I think we should add a few cruiser-class ships.  Ones the size of the Sakira; we don’t want to be outgunned, and the carriers are too slow.”

“I agree,” Marc said.  “What do you need?”

“A lot more platinum metals.  We used up our backstock when we completed the Chesapeake.”

“Don’t we have plenty in Vulcan?” Kal asked.

“You have to mine it first.”

“So, how long?”

“They tell me three months for enough to do the first ship.”

“Hey, I might know where we can get some sooner,” Catie said.

“Catie!” Samantha said.

“What?”

“Aren’t you making a lot of assumptions?”

“Maybe, but we won’t know until we ask.”

Marc shook his head, obviously not understanding what Samantha and Catie were talking about.  He could guess, and he knew that Samantha and Catie had been talking without him.

“Okay, let’s jump ahead to Catie’s situation and whatever she’s thinking she should be asking for and who we should be asking.”  Marc motioned for Catie to start.

“Well, as you know, we’re in the Sivarian system observing the Thorean colony planet.  It’s more of a mining outpost slash penal colony.  The Thoreans have a small space station above the planet and one of those cruisers stationed here.  We’ve been given information about how to contact the government on the planet.”

“Haven’t you just been in contact with the Thorean government?” Kal asked.

“Yes, but this is the government of Sivaria.  Apparently, the planet is self-governed; the Thoreans just use the threat of the space cruiser to force them to do the mining they want.”

“And how can you be sure this information this is accurate?” Marc asked.

“We can’t until we actually make contact.”

“And then?”

“We have to see what they say.”

“Catie, you obviously are assuming a scenario, so tell us!”

“Okay, I’m assuming that the Sivarians will ask us to persuade that cruiser to go home.  They’re a small colony, but they are large enough that we would give them independence if they were one of ours.  If we help them, then they’ll join the League.”

“Liz?”

“Hey, she’s the boss.”

“How does that solve our platinum metals issue?” Blake asked.

“Blake!” Marc scolded.

“Hey, let’s get all the information on the table.”

“It solves that problem because the Sivarians are sending asteroid blobs of the ores to Thorea by boosting them in the direction of the planet.  Right now, there are fourteen or fifteen of those blobs between here and Thorea.  We could redirect them with a jump gate.”

“That would be stealing!” Nikola said.

“No!  We’d pay the Sivarians for them.  Since the Thoreans are just using force to get them, I think we can all agree that they still belong to the Sivarian colony.”

“And how do you plan to take care of that cruiser?” Marc asked.

“We’re faster and more maneuverable.  I think we can convince them that they’re in a hopeless situation.”

“Without getting anyone killed?!”

“I think so.  Liz would be in charge of any action, and you know how careful she is.”

“Hey, we haven’t talked about any plans,” Liz said.

“I know, but we still have to take the first step.”

“Which is?” Marc asked.

“Contacting them,” Catie said, giving her father her DUH face.

“Catie, I think this is a bit beyond your remit,” Marc said.

“Does that mean you’re recalling me?”  Catie glared at her father.  “Either I’m leading this mission or not,” she thought.

“Catie!” Marc said.

Samantha put her hand on Marc's arm to calm him.  “I think we should at least contact them and learn more.  Then we can meet to discuss options.”

“Very well,” Marc sighed.  “But don’t make any promises!”

“Yes, sir,” Catie said, giving her father a hard glare.

Marc just closed the channel ending the meeting.  He turned to Samantha, “Sam, you don’t have to encourage her!”

“Marc, I know she’s your daughter, but she’s making the right decisions for the League, just not the ones you want your daughter to make.  So, when you pushed back so hard, you had to expect her to challenge you.”

“She’s just so young.”

“Hey, she's a young woman now.  You have to let go of the leash and treat her a bit more like you do Blake.”

Marc gulped as he realized the full implication of Samantha’s remark.  “Already?”

“She’ll be twenty in just a few months, and she’s always been beyond her years.”

Marc put his head in his hands, “What did I do to deserve this?”

“You raised a smart and capable daughter, and now she’s a woman.”

◆ ◆ ◆

“Catie, why are we promoting the use of diesel?” Liz asked once they’d signed off of the call.

“After that meeting, that’s what you want to ask?”

“Well, the rest of it I pretty much knew about.  Except for that part about you challenging your father.”

“I didn’t challenge him.”

“Oh, saying ‘Does that mean you’re recalling me’ wasn’t a challenge?”

“Well, just a bit.”

“Right.  Anyway, back to normal; what’s up with using diesel?”

“Because right now, a diesel hybrid is the best option for truckers, ranchers, and others that have to travel farther than an electric charge can carry them or that can’t afford to be caught with a low battery.  And farmers can’t carry enough batteries to run a tractor on the farm all day, so they use diesel hybrid tractors.  Most of them produce a significant portion of their own diesel with our algae.  And of course, the police and military are all using diesel hybrids too.”

“Why can’t they add more batteries?”

“Weight.  Sooner or later, it’s just too much.  Besides, over 30% of the diesel in use is from the algae diesel farms, so that’s eco-friendly.”

“So, we’re stuck with that pollution?”

“Somewhat, but the use keeps declining as more and more charge stations get put in.  Recharging is way cheaper than diesel, so the truckers plug in every chance they get.  Rest stops are putting in charge stations.  And truckers who work in the city use the battery swap sites, so they rarely switch to diesel.  Besides, it creates a transition period for the petroleum industry.”

“Why?”

“Hey, those jobs are important.  Already all the offshore drilling has stopped, and exploration and drilling have really slowed down.”

“I guess.”

“You know, everyone on the MacKenzie board is supposed to be up to date on this stuff?”

“Sure, sure.  I read up on it whenever something about it is on the agenda.  I just didn’t realize the battery discussion would touch on it.  Besides, I have more important things to worry about, like what will happen after you send your message to Sivaria.”

◆ ◆ ◆

That evening, ADI encrypted Catie’s message in the image she produced using some of the images they’d captured from the Thorean entertainment channels.

The message read: “I’m Princess Catherine of the Delphi League.  We have a starship just above your asteroid belt.  We had an unpleasant welcome at Thorea, but we hope for a more gracious one here.

“The Delphi League was formed to promote trade and mutual self-defense among its member planets.  We have technology that allows us to travel between star systems in weeks instead of decades.

“We are curious to understand your situation.

“The following is some information that will help ensure that our future communications will be even more secure.”

Blah, blah, blah.  Only ADI cared about the rest of the message

Chapter 5

The Sivarians

It was two days before ADI finally announced that the Sivarian Government was ready to talk.

“What took them so long?” Liz asked.

“Oh, ADI told me they were working on the encryption changes she wanted,” Catie explained as Liz joined her in her day cabin.

“Yes, it took some time for them to complete the changes I wanted,” ADI said.  “They don’t have very good computational systems.”

“Is that just them, or does that include the Thoreans as well?” Liz asked.

“A bit of both.  They are very limited in capacity, but it appears that the Thoreans haven’t made as much progress there as the Paraxeans have.  They’re barely beyond where Earth was when the Captain found the Sakira.”

“Good to know,” Liz said.  “Princess, are you ready?” she teased Catie.

Catie was wearing her princess uniform for the meeting, and since Liz was wearing her commodore uniform, they looked much the same except for that damn sash.

“Ready, ADI,” Catie said.

ADI opened the video channel.  Immediately, a Thorean’s image appeared.  He looked much like Gorzok, except he seemed to be much older.

“Greetings, I’m Princess Catherine of the Delphi League.  To whom am I speaking?”

“I am Councilor Teduth; I have with me one of our scientists, Cer Lurcit.  We are extremely skeptical of your claims.”

“Which claims are those?” Catie asked.

“You said you had received an unpleasant welcome at Thorea.  We heard about a pending visit from this ‘Delphi League,’ but we cannot imagine how it could be you since it supposedly occurred just a few weeks ago.”

Catie couldn’t help but laugh a bit.  “That was us.  Before I explain, can you explain how you know about the event?”

“We have friends in the Thorean government, and the Shrooms are not the only ones that have quantum relays.  They’re illegal for anyone but them to have, but there are still a few in private hands.”

“I’m glad to hear that.  As we explained to Minister Terasulf, the Delphi League has access to a wormhole technology that allows us to jump between star systems.”

It was evident that Councilor Teduth and Cer Lurcit were shocked by Catie’s assertion.

“That is incredible,” Cer Lurcit said.  “It would change everything.”

“Yes, it does,” Catie said.  “But apparently, the Thorean government thought they could capture us and steal the technology.”

“Those Shrooms!” Councilor Teduth said.  “Please remember that they are not representative of the Thorean people, but a power-grabbing minority.”

“We’ve been told that,” Catie said.

“Yes, that brings up our second question.  How do you know so much about us?  How did you know about the secret code and encryption method?”

“After the event in Thorea, we picked up a couple of pilots that were left behind.”

“Is it possible for us to speak with them?” Councilor Teduth asked.

“ADI,” Catie messaged.

“I’ll take care of it.”

“We’ll have them join us in a few moments.  Is there anything else you’d like to ask?”

“Of course, we have thousands of questions, but we are still trying to confirm that you are real.  We heard rumors of an invasion fleet coming to Thorea.”

“Oh, that was just a bit of misdirection,” Catie said.  “We were curious how your people would respond.”

“And?”

“Generally, it was predictable.”

ADI pinged Catie to let her know that the two Thorean pilots were ready.

“Here are the pilots I mentioned,” Catie said as ADI added their video to the feed.

“Cer Teduth,” Gorzok said as soon as he came on the call.

Councilor Teduth looked at Gorzok but didn’t seem to recognize him.

“It’s Chargalt Gorzok; you must remember me?”

“Chargalt’s little boy?”

“Yes, it must have been twenty years since I last saw you.”

“Yes, being exiled to Sivaria will do that.  How is your father?”

“He’s doing okay.  He has mixed feelings about being grounded.  He gets to spend more time with mother, but he really misses flying.  This is my wingmate Bosjed, by the way.”

“Good to see you, Bosjed.  Now, tell me about this Delphi League?”

“We don’t know much, but I can assure you that four weeks ago, we were in Thorea, so that should tell you something,” Gorzok said.

“It does if you’re telling the truth.”

“Yeah, I know.  They’ve treated us well, which is pretty good since one of our cruisers toasted one of their space fighters.  I’ve been assured that it was remotely piloted, so I guess they didn’t get too mad.  The cruisers just left the whole squadron behind when they rushed back to the planet.  The others took the easy way out, but Bosjed and I figured that whomever these Delphineans were, they might not be so bad.”

“Cer Catie, Cer Gorzok has made four very distinct gestures with his hands,” ADI messaged.

“Good.”

◆ ◆ ◆

“Catie, what are you thinking?” Liz asked.

“I’m thinking we need to borrow a frigate.”

“Borrow?”

“I’d rather not wait until the Chesapeake can make it back to the fringe.”

“And just what will this frigate do?”

“Send a couple of those asteroids back here,” Catie said.

“Please explain?”

“If the frigate drops a waypoint on this side, then they can jump to Thorea and open a wormhole for the asteroid, so it comes back here,” Catie explained.

“And why would you do that?”

“Two reasons, one: they belong to Sivaria, and we should help them reclaim them since Thorea isn’t paying for them.  And two: I want to poke the Thoreans; we might get them to move that cruiser, and we’d definitely get their attention.  Hopefully, you will be able to use that to disable or capture it.”

“Oh, finally, I get to make some decisions.”

“Hey, I’m just brainstorming,” Catie protested.

“Hmmph.  Let’s get Bastien and Frankham in here and talk this through.”

“Let’s meet in your cabin.  I’ll dump this sash and be right over.”

When Catie entered Liz’s day cabin, Lieutenant Bastien was sitting across from Liz and next to the virtual Captain Frankham.  They both politely acknowledged Catie as she sat down next to Liz.  Catie could tell they’d been discussing her plan by the skeptical look on both of their faces.

“What do you think?” Catie asked.

“We’re not sure we understand,” Captain Frankham said.  “Are you saying you expect a frigate to place itself in front of an asteroid hurtling at 12% the speed of light and open a wormhole?”

“Yes, but remember, they would be traveling at the same speed.  ADI tells me there’s a frigate that’s almost finished cutting its chord at Avalon, so it should be able to decelerate enough to match speed with the asteroid before it jumps to Thorea.”

“Oh, right, I keep forgetting how fast we’re going when we hit the fringe.  But still, what’s the purpose?  You just want to piss the Thoreans off?”

“Sort of.  Based on what we saw before we jumped here, they have a remotely piloted booster waiting that would be just starting its acceleration to match speed with the asteroid.  If we jump in a couple of days, it’ll be away from the fringe, too far to do anything but observe.  We could jump the asteroid here, making it look like the frigate just swallowed it up or destroyed it; I’m not sure which would be better.  Then the frigate could do a short jump out and grab the next asteroid coming in and send it here as well.  The Thoreans would immediately realize that they won’t be receiving any platinum metals for at least a year.”

“Then what?”

“Well, then we should be able to tempt that cruiser away from Sivaria.”

“And what do we do about their advantage in plasma cannon range?” Liz asked.

“We stay out of range.  We’re faster and more maneuverable, so we can just keep hitting them with lasers.”

“Do you expect that lasers will have that much impact?”

“We’ll have to see.  But based on their fighters, they don’t use superconductors in their hulls, so we should be able to cause them some problems.”

“Sure, but it will take more than just a few laser hits,” Liz said.

“Did you notice how they accelerated toward home?” Catie asked.

Liz’s eyes flicked upward as she tried to recall exactly what they had seen.  “You mean the fact that they used a bunch of reaction mass after they exited the planet’s gravity well.”

“Right.  And Gorzok said that the thrust from their gravity drives falls off by the cosine of the angle.”

“That can’t be right,” Captain Frankham said.

“It doesn’t sound right, but I reviewed it with Ajda, and we think it means that they only have one gravity drive, so they can only get thrust in the radial direction; to get anything else, they have to use reaction mass.  It’s not that big of a deal when you’re going in or out of the system since you would make adjustments to your vector while you were close to the star, so they would be minor.”

“But surely they would have the same capabilities as the Paraxeans since the Paraxeans got the technology from Thorea.”

“Not necessarily.  The Paraxeans made some amazing enhancements to the drives.  I know it’s unusual for them, but they did.  So, if the Thoreans never figured out that you have to phase the power to adjust the vector, they’d have focused on making more efficient or bigger drives and never figured out how to use them to set a random vector.”

“But why wouldn’t they?”

“The technology is difficult to master.  Their asteroid belts are pretty small and poor in metals, so they probably have never done anything but boost straight out and back.  They discovered Sivaria and have been mining its ores, so there was no need after that.”

“Okay, so the question is how much reaction mass they can carry and what can we do to make them use it up,” Liz said.

“I know this one; I had to study something like it when I joined Delphi Forces,” Questa said.  “First, you know that when they’re in the planet's gravity well, they’re going to have tremendous power.  It’s not until they reach about 2½ orders of magnitude of the planet radius from the planet that the star’s gravity well dominates.”

“Oh, right, that means they’re going to be really fast.  We know their gravity drive is oversized,” Liz said.

“Right.  So, you have to make sure that when you close on them, your vector is tangential to the planet’s gravity well and that the intercept point is toward the fringe of the well.  They’ll start out with great acceleration to catch you, but to maintain that as they exit the well, they’ll have to add reaction mass; kind of like when you pull up out of a dive, the chase plane has to use a lot of fuel to catch up with you if you surprise them.”

“ADI,” Liz prompted.  “How do our gravity drives match up with theirs if we’re inside the planet’s gravity well?”

“Although it appears that they have huge gravity drives, ours are much more efficient.  Inside the gravity well, you’ll be closely matched.  But remember, they can apply thrust to add to their acceleration.”

“And the effective range of our lasers is what, one million meters?”

“Yes, so you will need to be careful,” ADI said.

“That’s not a lot of margin, but I think we can manage it,” Captain Frankham said.

“Could we use a Fox?” Lieutenant Bastien asked.

“Our Foxes’ weapons weren’t powerful enough against that last cruiser.  But we will need to deploy a couple to provide overwatch.  We don’t want the Chesapeake to round that planet just to find out that they’ve moved,” Captain Frankham said.

“The Chesapeake?” Catie asked.

“Yes, I kind of like my job, and I assume that none of us will have one if we were to use the Aventurier for something like this.”

Liz stifled her laugh while Catie stifled her scream.  “It sucks being the princess, huh?” Liz messaged.

“I think you understand what we want to accomplish,” Catie said.  “One more thing, we’ll need to come up with a plan to capture the space station.  I’m sure the Sivarians can help.  Now, I’ll leave you to it.”  With that, Catie got up and left Liz’s cabin with as much dignity as she could muster.

◆ ◆ ◆

“Are you okay,” Morgan asked as Catie stormed into her cabin.

“Yes!  I just realized I’m going to miss out on all the fun.”

“That princess card bite you in the ass?”

“Yes!”

“Do you want to go work out?”

“Yes.”

Morgan messaged sickbay to have a medic stand by outside the gym.  She figured her knees might need some help after Catie worked out all her frustrations.

◆ ◆ ◆

While Liz and her team worked on the strategy, Captain Stavros jumped his frigate, the DSS Comte, into the Sivarian system.  “Report?” he ordered.

“All systems normal.  Ready to deploy waypoint.”

“Very well, deploy the waypoint.  Get me Commodore Farmer.”

“I have her on your Comm.”

“Commodore Farmer.  We are just deploying the waypoint,” Captain Stavros said.

“Good.  Contact me once you have assessed the situation in Thorea.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Sir, the waypoint is deployed.”

“Then take us to Thorea.”

When they jumped into Thorea, their main display was filled with the image of a retreating rocket ship.  Captain Stavros reviewed the data before contacting Liz again.

“Captain, what is the situation?” Liz asked as they connected.

“As expected, their booster is accelerating to match velocity with the asteroid.  The asteroid is twenty-three light-seconds out of the system.”

“Can you get a missile lock on that booster?”

Captain Stavros looked at his weapons officer.  After checking his instruments, he said, “We have a lock, sir.”

“I heard,” Liz said.  “Then take it out before you jump to the asteroid.”

“Yes, ma’am.  Stavros out.  You heard her, launch missiles,” Captain Stavros ordered.

“Missiles launched.”

“Navigation, plot jump to the asteroid.  Get us close, but not too close.”

“Yes, sir.  Jump is plotted.”  The navigator shook his head.  When would captains learn to quit asking for the impossible?

As the Comte exited the wormhole, the collision alarm went off.  The helm put the Comte into a hard acceleration to starboard.  Everyone on the bridge gripped their armrests as they were thrown to the side.  The display was filled with the growing image of the asteroid.

“I said not too close!”

“Sir, you know the wormhole wanders when we don’t have a waypoint to lock it into place.”

“Status,” Captain Stavros demanded, ignoring the educational tip from his navigator.

“It’s fifty thousand meters off our 11 o’clock, and our relative velocity is two thousand KMS.”

Everyone relaxed as they realized they were traveling faster than the asteroid and away from it.  Also, they had plenty of room, although a few would be asking for permission to leave the bridge so they could change their shipsuits.

Now that they could see things in perspective, they looked like they were drifting in space next to each other even though they were traveling at thirteen percent the speed of light.

“How long to match course and speed?” Captain Stavros asked.

“Thirty minutes, sir.”

“Then do it.  Gently, please,” he stressed.

Everyone kept their eyes glued to the display as the helm maneuvered the Comte in front of the asteroid.

“In position, sir,” the navigator reported thirty minutes later.

“Open wormhole.”

“Wormhole established,” the science officer reported as the Comte established a wormhole between itself and the waypoint they had left in the Sivarian system.

“Expand it.”

The science officer adjusted the instruments until the wormhole grew from the ten-centimeter size they had used to establish the link to the largest size that the Comte could create, eighty meters.

“Ready.”

“Ease us forward.”

The entire crew tensed as they watched the asteroid fill the viewscreen.  Everyone knew that the asteroid would enter the wormhole, disappearing before it would impact the ship, but knowing and convincing your hindbrain of that fact were two different things.  Every sense in their body said they were going to crash.  It took them three minutes to pass the asteroid through the wormhole — an excruciatingly tense three minutes.

“Our waypoint reports that the asteroid has exited the wormhole,” the science officer reported.

“Very well.  Have you located the second asteroid?” Captain Stavros asked.

“Yes, sir, it is .72 light-years from our location.”

“Navigator plot a jump.  Give us plenty of room; we’ll do a micro-jump to get within the 50,000-meter target distance.  Everyone relax.  We’ve done it once; this time should be even easier.”

It took them the rest of the day to close on the second asteroid and move it to Sivaria, about the same amount of time it took for the Thoreans to gather the images to explain why their booster rocket had gone off-line.  It would only be a few more minutes before they would be able to see their asteroid disappear into the Comte.

“Commodore Farmer, we’ve moved your asteroids.  Do you have anything else for us?”

“No, Captain.  I’ve decided we’ll keep the waypoint, for now, so you're free to make your way back to Avalon.”

“Do you have a preference for which system we jump to before jumping home?”

“I’m sure you don’t want to do a bunch of micro jumps to get here, so do one back to Thorea.  I would recommend that once you get there, you do an immediate jump above the ecliptic.  Then you can jump here if you want since that wouldn’t require you to wait to charge your capacitors.”

“Thank you, ma’am.”  Captain Stavros had been thinking the same thing.  It would be a lot less stressful for his crew to get home quickly and spend as little time in Thorea as possible.

◆ ◆ ◆

“Catie, you should be getting another call from Thorea any minute now,” Liz messaged Catie.

“Good, I think I’m going to enjoy this one.”

It was only moments before ADI announced that the Thorean Minister was on the Comm.

“Minister Terasulf, I thought you made it clear that you didn’t wish to be associated with us,” Catie said as his image appeared in the video call.

“We don’t, but we just saw one of your ships destroy the booster rocket we had at the fringe and swallow up our asteroid.”

“Your asteroid?  We thought we were doing you a favor.  That asteroid was heading directly for your planet.  We’re not too happy with your government right now, but we wouldn’t want such a disaster to happen.  As for your rocket booster, I can’t imagine what would have happened to it.”

“That asteroid was from our colony planet, Sivaria.  It was made up of the platinum metal ores they are mining for us.”

“Oops.  We thought they were lobbing them at you as part of their attempt to free themselves from your tyranny.  We do apologize, but I’m afraid we’ve redirected all of them.”

“You *#@#$.”  ADI beeped out the translation of the rest of the minister’s tirade before Catie cut off the call.

“He was not a happy man,” Catie said.

Liz finally burst out laughing.  “You really played him.  Now, what do you think he’s telling the captain of that cruiser?”

◆ ◆ ◆

“Catie,” Morgan said as she entered Catie’s day cabin.

“Hey, Morgan, how are you feeling?”

“Still a bit sore.”

“Sorry.  Now, what can I do for you?”

Morgan made a point of rolling the shoulder that Catie had dislocated during their sparring.  “You know that I’m slated to teach at the Marine’s open space combat center?”

“Yes.”

“And part of that training is boarding action against an enemy starship or space station?”

“I know that; why don’t you just skip to the request?”

“I’d like to lead the team that is going to take that space station.”

Catie frowned.  She’d love to be leading that team or just be on it, but Daddy would have a cow.  “And you need to ask me what?”

“Since I’m your lead bodyguard, I’m excluded from dangerous missions like that.”

Catie shook her head.  “I’ll let Lieutenant Jhaveri know that you’re free to go get yourself killed.”

“Thanks.  You know you can watch the action from on your HUD.”

“I plan to.”

Chapter 6

Action

“XO, a ship has entered orbit,” the sensor operator said.

“What?  How come you didn’t report them before now?”

“Sir, they just showed up on the satellite’s sensors.  They came in from below the south pole.  Even now, they’re barely registering on the sensors.”

“Communications officer, inform the captain.”

“Yes, sir.”

A few minutes later, the captain’s image came up on the monitor.  “What is the meaning of this?  How can a starship be entering orbit, and we’re just noticing it now?  Where did it come from?”

“Captain, I cannot explain it.  We are moving one of our satellites to get a better image.”

“Sir, the closest satellite was just destroyed.”

“Captain?”

“I’ll be right over.  See if you can move another satellite into position.”

Captain T’dekro slammed the monitor as he got up from his desk in his office. “What is going on?  Who managed to enter Sivarian space without alerting us or being detected by us?”  He was furious because it made him look incompetent, and it would force him to go back to the Endevorix, where he would have to endure low gravity or excess acceleration.  He preferred to spend his time on the space station where it was comfortable and his mistress was readily available.

He finished dressing and hurried to the shuttle bay.  He would need to contact Thorea soon, and it was best if he did that from his command deck.

◆ ◆ ◆

Captain T’dekro strode onto the bridge.  There was just enough gravity that he could walk or attempt to.  The ship was kept in a decaying orbit, with its gravity drive countering the pull of Sivaria so that they at least had 0.1G.

“Status?” he demanded.

“We have a squadron of fighters on standby,” the XO informed him.

Captain T’dekro glared at his XO, “How dare he put fighters on standby without informing me first.”

“Sir, they’ve just destroyed another satellite.  We do not have any way to see them; they are on the opposite side of the planet,” the sensor operator informed them.

“Launch the fighters!”

“Sir, what orders do you wish to give the pilots?” the XO asked.

“They are to destroy that ship,” the captain said.  He glared at the XO again.  “How dare he presume to remind me of my duty.”

After they launched the fighters, it was an hour before the squadron reported in.

“This is Dectar,” the squadron leader announced.  “We are in attack formation and prepared to meet the enemy.  We expect to make contact in fifty minutes.”

The six fighters continued to accelerate around the planet.  Dectar had decided to maintain the orbital height even though it would take longer before contact.  He didn’t want to be below the enemy ship when they rounded the planet.

◆ ◆ ◆

“Captain, the enemy ship has launched a squadron of fighters,” the sensor operator informed Captain Frankham aboard the Chesapeake.

“Have they detected our Foxes?”

“Not that we can tell.  Both pairs report that there have been no active sensors directed at them.”

“Good.  Time to contact?”

“Captain, I estimate that the fighters will be in sensor range in thirty minutes and within missile range in forty minutes,” the Chesapeake announced.

“Very well.  Let’s stay with plan Bravo for now.”

“Aye, sir,” the weapons officer acknowledged.  Sweat broke out on her neck; plan Bravo required her to destroy any missiles with the plasma cannons.  Although Chesapeake would be responsible for the actual aiming and firing, it was still her head on the chopping block if something should go wrong.  And having to wait until the missiles cleared the enemy fighters enough that the plasma beam would not damage the fighter was a complexity she’d never trained for.

◆ ◆ ◆

“Enemy ship in sight,” Dectar reported.

“We see it on our display,” the XO answered.  The display showed the enemy frigate in what appeared to be a geosync orbit above Sivaria.  “That looks like the ship in the latest dispatch from Thorea.”

Captain T’dekro clenched his jaw.  He hadn’t read the dispatch.  He didn’t want to ask the XO for details since it would make him look a fool, but how could he operate without the necessary information?  “Are you sure?” he asked as he hunted for the dispatch on his private monitor.

“Yes, sir.  It has the same shape.  They said its cross-section was an ellipsoid fifty meters by seventy.  They couldn’t determine its length.”

“But how could it get here so suddenly?”

“They made claims about a wormhole that allows them to jump between systems; of course, it could be a different ship from the same people.  They called themselves the Delphi League.”

“Maybe it’s a different one; let’s see if we can destroy it.  Get me Minister Terasulf on video.”

“Right away, sir.”

◆ ◆ ◆

“Enemy fighters are closing,” the Chesapeake announced.

The display showed the six fighters had broken into three pairs, each lead fighter with a wingmate at their 5 o’clock to provide cover.

“Let’s start moving away from them,” Captain Frankham ordered.  “Accelerate at 4G until we match 95% of their velocity.”

Chesapeake blared his Klaxon to alert any crew who thought they could get up from their acceleration couch or station while the ship was at general quarters.  The ship then accelerated away from the incoming fighters.

◆ ◆ ◆

“They’re running away,” Dectar reported.

“Careful; they’re probably just taking away your velocity advantage,” the XO cautioned.

“Missile range in two minutes,” Dectar said.

“Fire when in range,” Captain T’dekro ordered.

“Lead fighters, fire on my mark!”

“Fire!”

◆ ◆ ◆

Six missiles streaked toward the Chesapeake.

The weapons officer took a cleansing breath as she stared into her HUD.  The missiles were accelerating fast toward the Chesapeake.  She and Chesapeake had agreed on ten seconds to allow them to get far enough away from the fighters.  She released the safety on the plasma cannon, giving Chesapeake control.  She could still override the rules if necessary, but this was something that the ship’s AI was much better at than any crewmember.

Three plasma cannons belched out from the Chesapeake, destroying three of the incoming missiles and just singeing the nose of each fighter.  Milliseconds later, there was another burst from the three plasma cannons.

“Missiles destroyed.”

“Very good.  Let’s see what they do now.”

◆ ◆ ◆

“Bank down!” Dectar yelled as he pushed on the stick, sending his fighter into a steep decline toward the planet and below the enemy starship.  His heart was pounding, and he was pretty sure he’d just messed himself.  “What was that?” he asked over a private channel with his wingmate.

“Their plasma cannon destroyed the missiles.  It just singed your nose a bit,” his wingmate said.

“So, we were at their extreme range?”

“No, it took out three missiles simultaneously before taking out the last three; we’re ten kilometers ahead of the other teams.”

“What?!”

“Looks like they wanted to send us a message without destroying us.”

“Endevorix, the enemy destroyed our missiles!” Dectar reported over the command channel.

“Then get closer and fire again,” Captain T’dekro yelled.

“Captain, they destroyed the missiles after ten seconds.  It’s obvious that their plasma cannons have greater range than they used.”

“I don’t care; maneuver around them!”

Dectar gritted his teeth, “What about a light-speed weapon did the captain not understand?  Maybe if they were at the extreme range of a laser, they could outsmart the targeting system or at least survive the hit, but plasma cannon range didn’t leave anytime between pulling the trigger and goodbye.”

“Well, mate, what do you think?”

“I always fancied doing some mining, but it’s your call.”

“Squadron, you heard the captain’s order.  Each of you has to make your own call.  As for me, I’ll try my luck on the surface.”

With that, Dectar and his wingmate dropped their missiles and changed their vector so they would pass well beneath the enemy starship and then down toward the planet.

◆ ◆ ◆

“Captain, they’ve all dropped their missiles and are heading toward the planet.”

“Good.  Give them cover if necessary.  Let’s see what our friends do now.”

◆ ◆ ◆

“Captain, we’ve lost contact with the squadron,” the communication officer reported.

“What, they couldn’t all have been destroyed!” Captain T’dekro yelled.

“Should we launch another squadron?” the XO asked.

“No, take us into a lower orbit and accelerate.  We’ll take care of that ship ourselves.”

“Yes, sir.”  The XO nodded to the helm.  “2G acceleration.”

“Make it four,” the captain yelled.

“Our reaction mass?” the XO reminded the captain.

“I do not need some Half-Golden trumped-up commander telling me how to do my job.”

“Yes, sir, 4G acceleration.”

“Sir, Minister Terasulf is on the comm.”

Captain T’dekro grimaced; this was not what he needed now.  “Put him on.  . . . Minister.”

“Captain, what is happening?”

“One of those Delphi League frigates is here.  It has destroyed our satellites and one of our squadrons.  We’re now in hot pursuit.”

“Damn those Delphineans, what do they want?  They’ve already caused us enough trouble.  Captain, if you ever want to make it home, you had better capture or destroy that ship.”

“Yes, sir.  That is the plan.”

◆ ◆ ◆

“Captain, the enemy is going into a lower orbit and accelerating toward us.”

“How fast?” Captain Frankham asked.

“It looks like 4G.”

“Then let’s match them.  Keep us 40% of planetary rotation ahead of them and take our orbit up another 500 kilometers.  And switch our vector to 20 degrees across the equator; we would like to avoid that space station.”

“Why change the orbit?” the XO asked.

“I want to take a hard vector across the planet’s orbit; let’s see how much reaction mass they will use up as we cut across the gravity well.”

◆ ◆ ◆

Meanwhile, Morgan and her team had been coasting toward the space station for over an hour.  They had all been relieved when the cruiser raced off to the other side of the planet, as boarding a space station was dangerous enough without a cruiser floating next to it with all of its sensors and lasers just waiting to take you out.

“We’re five minutes out,” Morgan reported.

“Everything is still clear; you’re good to go,” the Fox pilot on overwatch reported.

“Flip and match speed,” Morgan ordered.

Morgan and the eight marines on her team flipped so their feet were pointed at the station and engaged their thrusters to slow them down.  Each of them shot a blob onto the station when they closed to within ten meters of its hub.  The blob was sticky enough to hold onto the hub’s surface as the magnet dug in, then the magnet slowly compressed the blob until it was in contact with the metal station.  The line was stretchy.  Since the hub surface was moving at 20 meters per second, they needed to spread the force needed to sync their speed and velocity over a few seconds.  Once the line was taut, they reeled themselves toward the station.

“Everyone down?” Morgan asked as she viewed the status in her hub.

“Grainger left it until too late,” Corporal Rahal, the team’s scout, reported.

“Idiot,” Morgan muttered as she saw the blimp representing Corporal Grainger moving away from the station.  He wouldn’t have enough left in his thrusters to reverse course and rejoin them.  “Grainger, wait for pickup.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Grainger replied.  He stretched out and relaxed since it would be a few hours before the team completed the takeover of the station; only then would it be safe to send the Lynx to pick him up.  Besides, he’d need to be rested when Sergeant Blair got to him.

“Rahal, go find our door; we’ll cover you,” Morgan ordered.

Rahal untethered himself from the station and glided over its surface using suction cups to pull himself along.  Of course, with the station rotation, it looked like he was walking on his hands.  They’d been told that there was an access door on the fourth spoke that they would be able to enter through.  A red flag would be hanging from the airlock.

Like in every action he’d been involved in, things never went easy.  The airlock was only fifty meters from where the team landed, but in the opposite direction from the one he’d chosen to scout in, so he’d covered almost six hundred meters, almost circling the hub, before he found it.

“Went the wrong way, huh,” Morgan messaged.

“You got it, Sarge.”

Morgan hustled the team to the spoke as Rahal went through the preliminaries of opening the airlock.  “Well, if this is a trap, it’s been nice knowing you, Sergeant.”

“Same to you,” Morgan said as Rahal and two marines entered the airlock and started its cycle.

Rahal had Private Estimé wedge herself above the door while he and Private Tāng took up a low position on either side of it.  He watched the pressure climb in his HUD, sending a signal to the others when it reached normal.

“Why the hell is the airlock opening,” someone said as they poked their head inside to look.  Private Estimé used the butt of her rifle to knock him out.  Then she released the magnets in her boots and dropped to the floor.

“It looks clear,” she reported.

“Tāng, tie him up.  Estimé, let’s check out the passageway.”

After determining that the passageway was clear, Rahal had to decide what to do with the civilian.  They couldn’t leave the guy in the airlock since it would be exhausting all of its air when Morgan and the rest of the team opened it from the outside, so Corporal Rahal looked for someplace to stash him.  “There’s supposed to be a cleaning closet close by.”

“Found it,” Estimé reported.

They bundled the guy into the closet while Morgan and the rest of the team cycled through the airlock.

“Everything looks clear,” Rahal reported to Morgan.

“Cameras?”

“There aren’t many, but we might have been caught on one; let’s hope they’re not paying too much attention.  We put a tap on the control panel.  ADI, were you able to disable the cameras?”

“Yes, but not until after you attacked that poor civilian,” ADI said.

Morgan chuckled at ADI's little joke.  “Let’s go.  Levick, you’re the prisoner.”

“What?  I thought . . . oh, Grainger.”

Morgan snapped a pair of handcuffs on Levick’s hands, and then the rest of them formed up like a squad escorting a prisoner.  They were all wearing spacesuits that had been modified to look like those the Thoreans wore.

“Engineering is supposed to be this way.”

The team moved out, shouldering their weapons.  Morgan carried a nasty-looking shock stick out that would convince any prisoner to behave.

A couple of Thoreans walked by, chatting with each other.  They hardly noticed Morgan and her squad, barely bothering to get out of their way.  When they reached the main passage, which would take them most of the way to the engineering bay, the number of Thoreans increased.

“Easy does it, guys.  If anyone looks too hard at us, take them out.  And try not to kill anyone,” Morgan said.

Surprisingly, the Thoreans just ignored them as they continued on their way.  As they approached the final turn, a mother and her child walked by.  The child was staring at Morgan and her team while his mother kept pulling him along.  Morgan was relieved when they turned down a side passage.  That child was paying too much attention to them for her taste.

◆ ◆ ◆

“Mommy, those are aliens,” the little boy said.

“Charlexo, be quiet.”

“No, really, they’re aliens; they must be Voraxians.”

“This is not a TV show.”

“But they’re not Thoreans.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Some of them are women.  And the spacesuits aren’t quite right.  And they’re too tall.”

“What?  How could you tell some of them were women?”

“The codpieces.  They’re not the same.  Women don’t have as much junk to protect.”

“What?” the mother said as she tried to recall what she’d seen.

“Some of them had smaller codpieces,” the kid repeated.

The mother shook her head but pulled out her phone.  “Security, please.”

“Security, how may we help you?”

“I was just in the main passage on deck 4 in the hub around column 98.  There are a group of people wearing spacesuits.  They look like they’re escorting a prisoner.  My son says that they don’t look right and that some of them are women.”

“I’m sure it’s nothing, ma’am.  But we’ll look into it.  . . . Jonex, what’s happening up on deck 4 in the hub?”

“Nothing.  Wait, the cameras are down.”

“This woman says there are some guys down there escorting a prisoner.”

“That doesn’t make sense; column 98 is just past the elevator they would need to take to get to the brig.  And nobody notified us about a prisoner.  Let me call it in.”

◆ ◆ ◆

“Cer Morgan, the main doors have been sealed.  Someone must have raised the alarm,” ADI said.  Since she’d been tied into the station systems at the airlock, she had been getting more and more access.  She’d been able to cut the rest of the camera feeds, but she still didn’t have much access.

“Damn, probably that kid.  What should we do?” Morgan asked.

“I have control of the local doors.  There is a room up on your right.  I’ll open the door so you can hide inside.”

Morgan didn’t want to get involved in a shootout.  If they could hide, maybe they would be able to find another way to engineering.  “Guys in here,” she ordered as the door slid open.

The team ducked into the room.

“Spacemen!” young voices yelled.

“No, aliens!”

“Yay!”

“What are you doing!” demanded an older woman.  Much to Morgan’s chagrin, the room was full of children.

“Give me a break!’” Morgan thought.  “Ma’am, we’re conducting an exercise.  We’ll be just a moment.”

“I’m calling the authorities.  I’ve never . . .”

Morgan shot her with a stunner.  The woman dropped to the floor with a gasp, and the children started to cheer.

“Yay!  She’s a horrible substitute.  Tell us about your mission?”

“Yes, are you here to take the space station away from the Shrooms?”

“Come on, tell us; we can help!”

“Gawd, I’ll never live this down,” Morgan thought.  Catie, watching on the Aventurier, was howling with laughter.  But she was considerate enough not to interrupt Morgan’s train of thought.

“ADI?” Morgan prompted.

“If you can get the woman's password, I might be able to get into the right systems to run interference for you,” ADI said.

Morgan took her helmet off, hoping it would make her less threatening to the children.

“I told you they were aliens!”

“Password,” Morgan said as she looked around the teacher’s desk.

“We don’t know it,” one of the kids said.  “But I know my dad’s password, and he works in security.”

Morgan shook her head.  This couldn’t be real.  “Are you serious?”

“Yes.  He’d help you.  He hates the Shrooms, too.”

“What's his login info?”

“Marzaxan and his password is,” the kid reeled off a fifteen-character alphanumeric.

Morgan glared at the kid.  “Why does the kid have his father’s login data?”

“Hey, my mom won’t let me watch R-rated movies.  And I’m real clever,” the kid said in defense of himself.

“I’m in,” ADI said.  “I’ve canceled the security alert, but I’m not sure you should go back outside yet.”

“How do we get to engineering?” Morgan asked ADI.  Her comm dutifully translated the question for the children.

“Oh, engineering is just five doors down on the other passageway,” one of the kids said.  “You should cut your way through the walls.”

Morgan shook her head but went over to the wall to check it out.

“Don’t do that.  You just have to go down the trash chute over there,” another kid said.  “We’re right above the main trash collector, and that’s in engineering.”

Morgan turned to the kid.  “What?”

“We’re right over the trash collector.  If you go down the chute, you can stop before the end, and then you’re in level 1 of engineering.  I know; my dad works in maintenance.”

“ADI?”

“Who’s ADI?”

Morgan waved her hand at the kid to shush her.

“She is correct, engineering has two office decks, but the main deck is below you.  The trash chute should get you right there.  It’ll be a tight fit.”

Morgan signaled to Estimé to check it out.

“I think we’ll fit if we remove our helmets,” Estimé reported.

“ADI, any chance we can classify this video?” Morgan asked ADI.

“I could, but Cer Catie has been making a private recording the whole time.”

Morgan grimaced, then nodded to the team, telling them to remove their helmets.

“They’re all aliens!” one of the kids shouted.

“Are you working with the people on the planet?”

“Yes, but don’t tell anyone,” Morgan said.

“We won’t.  We can keep a secret.”

"They can definitely find out secrets,” Morgan thought.  "Keeping them, not so much.’"

“Okay, Estimé, you go first; you’re the smallest.”

Estimé gave all the children a big smile and a wave as she climbed into the chute.

“Tāng, you’re next.”

◆ ◆ ◆

“We should be within view of the space station at any moment,” the XO informed Captain Frankham.

Captain Frankham nodded at his XO.  “Put up the orbital plan,” he ordered.  A diagram of the system came up on the display, showing the current orbital positions of the two ships.

“I want everyone on the same page,” Captain Frankham said.  “Especially our navigator and helm.  As you know, we’re currently orbiting the planet about 170 degrees ahead of the enemy ship.  We’re both holding orbits with velocity well above escape velocity, using our gravity drives to hold us in.  I expect that at any time, they will know we’re mirroring their orbit, at which time the enemy will cut across their orbital path to try to cut us off.  At that time, we’ll also cut a vector across our orbital path and enter into a tighter high-speed orbit.  We’ll have to see how long the enemy will play circle the planet.”

“Sir, don’t they have stronger gravity drives?” the navigator asked.

“Yes, but their drives only work radially to the gravity well, so they’ll have to use reaction mass to accelerate within the orbit or when cutting across it.  Our goal is to get them to use up all their reaction mass, which will greatly diminish their maneuverability.”

On seeing nods all around, Captain Frankham continued.  “At some point, they may get too close to us for comfort; if so, we’ll cut across the orbit again and leave the planet behind.  We’ll then start the same game using the sun as the center point.”

“Won’t they still have a gravity drive advantage?”

“Not as much; once we’re about one million kilometers from the planet, about four times the distance between Earth and her moon, the sun's gravity will become dominant.  Their advantage will diminish as we move further away from the planet since our drives are much more efficient.”

“Do you really think they’ll keep chasing us?” the XO asked.

“I’m not sure.  They don’t have a lot of good options.  They can go back and take up station above the city and let us fly by and take potshots at them.  They might be able to get that booster rocket involved, but it’s a long way out toward the fringe right now.  And any help is a long way off.”

“Overwatch 2 says that they’re cutting across their orbit now!” the communication officer announced.

“So it begins.”

◆ ◆ ◆

“Captain, the space station reports that they can now see the enemy ship.  Its orbit is 500 kilometers above us and 170 degrees ahead,” the communications officer reported to Captain T’dekro.

“Cut across, max acceleration!” Captain T’dekro ordered.

The XO bit back his warning about reaction mass since he knew the captain would ignore it.

“We’re gaining on them,” the sensor operator gasped; he was finding it hard to talk under the heavy acceleration.  “I have them on my display.”

Everyone on the bridge was pressed hard into their acceleration couches as the Endevorix was using 8G to hold orbit and accelerate around the planet.

“How long before they’re in range of our cannons?” the captain asked.

The XO tried to hide his disgust at such a moronic question.  “Sir, we are thousands of kilometers out of range.  They will surely react once they see us gaining on them.”

The captain glared at him but said nothing.  He turned back to his display, showing the Chesapeake, which was now adjusting its orbit.

“Captain, they’re changing their orbit; they’re cutting across the system.”

“Then tighten our orbit and follow them!”

The Endevorix used its gravity drives to realign its vector into a tight orbit.

“Faster!  Why have they rotated their ship?  They cannot be aligning their drives.”

“Sir, it appears that they are aligning the ship so that the g-forces are all along one of its major axes, the one perpendicular to their length.  I assume it’s for crew comfort.”

“Idiots!  How is that possible to change the orientation of the gravity thrust?”

“I would hypothesize that they do not need to align their gravity drives with the gravimetric waves.”

“That cannot be true.  We need to go faster!”

“Sir, we are at our maximum safe acceleration.”

“I don’t care; increase it!”

“Sir, they are cutting across their orbit again.”

“Keep accelerating; we’re catching them!”

The XO shook his head as he looked at their reaction mass reserves.  Fortunately, the captain’s eyes were fixed on the display of the enemy ship.  Besides, the XO doubted he could turn his head with their g-vector at such an awkward angle.

“I think they’re breaking orbit,” the sensor operator said.  “I’ve asked for confirmation from the station, but I’m getting no reply.”

“Forget the station; catch them!”

The XO gritted his teeth.  “Sir, they’re playing the same game over and over, forcing us to use reaction mass as they maintain tight orbits around the planet or cut across them.”

“They have the same problem as we do.  I can see their engines throwing off reaction mass!”

“Sir, those don’t look like rocket engines to me.”

“Then what are they?”

“They look like plasma cannons at low energy.”

“That doesn’t make sense!”

“It does if they think you’re a fool and will keep chasing them,” the XO thought.

◆ ◆ ◆

“How long do you think they’ll chase us?” the XO asked Captain Frankham.

“I don’t know.  How much reaction mass can they have?”

“Who knows, but the more they use, the faster they can go.”

“I don’t think the ship’s mass limits them; it’ll be how many g-forces the crew can stand.”

“Or how much we can stand.”

“True, but at this point, we’re out of the planet’s gravity well, so it’s the star that dominates things.  It’s our gravity drives vs. their thrust engines, since it only takes, what, a tenth of a G to hold us in orbit around the sun?”

“That’s correct, sir,” the navigator said.

“What’s their acceleration right now?” Captain Frankham asked.

“I calculate it to be 10Gs,” Chesapeake announced.

“Speed?”

“We’re at 1.2 million meters per second.”

“So, ten hours to orbit the sun?”

“Yes,” Chesapeake answered.

“Navigator, tilt our obit so we won’t intersect with the planet again.”

“Aye, sir.”

◆ ◆ ◆

“Sir, our reaction mass is critically low,” the XO reported.

“Use the fuel for the fighters!”

“We already have.”

“What about missile fuel?”

“It’s solid fuel.  It would take hours to extract it, and there really isn’t very much of it.”

◆ ◆ ◆

“Captain, they’ve cut acceleration.”

“How far have we tilted the orbit?” Captain Frankham asked.

“Fifteen degrees.”

“Good, that means they will have to use reaction mass to realign to the planet’s orbit.”

“Correct.”

“All right, let’s see how flexible their weapons are.  Set course to match their orbit, but behind them by twice their plasma cannon range.”

◆ ◆ ◆

Estimé dropped down the chute, followed closely by Tāng.  Estimé laughed as Tāng missed the ledge and landed in the garbage.  At least it was primarily dry stuff.

“Thanks,” Tāng said.

“Hey, you heard the kid.”

They shouldered their weapons and checked the situation out.  They were in an isolated room where the trash would typically be loaded onto a conveyor belt for sorting.  Fortunately, that wasn’t happening now.

Estimé checked the door; it wasn’t locked.  She could tell that they were at the end of the engineering section, next to the air filters.  There was plenty of room for the squad to form up.

“Tell the sergeant we’re good to go.”

On getting the signal from Tāng, Morgan looked around at the kids.  They were pretty excited; could she trust them to stay put?  ‘What to do about the teacher?’

“Rahal, put her through the chute,” Morgan ordered.

Rahal gave Morgan a skeptical look.  “Hey, we can’t have her wake up.  Everyone would expect the kids to untie her, follow her orders,” Morgan explained.

“We won’t!”

“I know, but we don’t want you to get in trouble,” Morgan said.  “Now, ADI is going to lock the door; if something happens and you want to get out, just tell her to please open the door.  But we think it’s best if you’re locked in until we’re finished.”

“Okay.  Can we play a game?”

“Sure,” Morgan said, trying to hide her eye roll.

It only took another two minutes to get everyone down the chute.  They left the teacher tied up next to the garbage bin and formed up next to the air filters.

“Put your helmets back on.  Be careful; I’d like to avoid killing any innocent people.  We’ll move out in two.  Rahal, take your team around the left side; I’ll take the rest straight ahead.  As soon as we’re at the main room, ADI will cut all their Comms and announce that we’re taking the station over.  The announcement will just be here in engineering.”

“I’ve got it under control,” ADI said.

“Move out.”

Twenty seconds later, the loudspeakers blared.  “Everyone, step back from your workstations and put your hands in the air.  We’re taking over the station.”

Applause rang out as everyone pushed back from their stations.

“Please put your hands in the air!”

Slowly all the hands went up.  Morgan surveyed the room.  Everyone seemed to be complying.  “Sorry, but we’re going to have to restrain you.  We hope it won’t be too long.”

She looked up at the balcony.  It was lined with people standing at the edge, looking down on them.  They were all slowly raising their hands.  She looked farther up at the second balcony; there were only five people along it.  Four with their hands up, but the man in the center was leaning on the rail.  He was a Shroom, or Golden One, whatever.

“I see that the rumors of an alien invasion are true,” he said.  His voice was jovial, and he looked pleased.

“Sir, please raise your hands!” Morgan ordered.

He slowly lifted his hands off of the rail and started clapping.  “You should find the air quite clean if you wish to remove those helmets.  They must be uncomfortable.  Now, what can I do for you?  I assume you’d like control of all the functions here in engineering.”

“Yes, but please raise your hands.”

He waved Morgan toward the stairs.  “Do you want me to come down there and log on for you, or would you prefer to come to my office?  I’ve got fresh water if you’re thirsty.”

“Just your login information.”

He paused for a second.  “Of course, you have your own person.  I guess it doesn’t matter; I assume you’ll change the password right away.”  With that, he rattled off his login name and fifteen-character password.

“I’m in,” ADI said.

“Unless your IT person can hack the main security system, which I doubt, you’ll still need to get to the station manager.  He has some controls that I don’t have.”

“We appreciate your help,” Morgan said, wondering what was up with this guy.

“Just because I’m a Golden One doesn’t mean I like the current regime.  The only thing that gene gives you is a deformed jawline; it certainly doesn’t increase your intelligence.  You’ll realize that as soon as you meet the station manager.  I hope you’re dealing with Captain T’dekro and the Endevorix.  He’s as big an idiot as the manager, but he does have big weapons.”

“We’re handling it.”

“Excellent; now, how else may I help you?”

“I think we have it covered,” Morgan said.  “Rahal, pick someone to stay here and cover everyone.  Okay, folks, you can put your hands down.”

That was met with another round of applause.

“I’m sure your IT specialist has the directions to the manager’s office, but may I suggest that you wear hazmat suits.  They won’t be quite as intimidating as a darkened helmet on your spacesuits, and it’s pretty common for us to have minor incidents that have to be taken care of.  I’ll be in my office if you need anything else.”

With that, the man turned around and walked back into his office.  Morgan looked at Rahal, “Is that guy for real?”

“Hey, he might be a Shroom, but he’s always been good to us,” one of the workers called out.

“Good, now hazmat suits?” Morgan asked.

The worker led them to a closet full of them.

◆ ◆ ◆

“Catie, how’s it going,” Liz asked as she joined Catie in her day cabin.

“Captain Frankham has the Thorean cruiser about out of reaction mass.  He’s standing off at max laser range and is cutting off all the ship's external components.”

“Sounds like he’s getting there.  What about Morgan?”

“They just took over engineering.  What a riot; they went into a classroom of children.  I’ll send you the video.”

“Sounds like fun.  What about the mission?”

“ADI’s trying to break into the rest of the systems, but she’s having trouble.”

“Hey, you try to break into a system with triple firewalls,” ADI said.  “We need the password for the core system.  Morgan will have to find the station manager and see if she can get it out of him.”

“We’re on our way,” Morgan said.

“So, they’re mostly in control,” Liz said.

“Yes.  Other than that classroom of kids,” Catie said.  She could hear Morgan snort over her Comm.

“Is it exciting enough for you?” Liz asked.

“Not really.  I wish I could be there,” Catie said as she crossed her arms and huffed.

“You know, getting a reputation for liking danger isn’t a good thing.”

“Why?”

“Nobody wants to serve with someone who goes looking for problems.”

“I don’t go looking for them.  I just like to be involved in solving them when they find me.”

Chapter 7

After Action

Morgan took four marines with her.  Estimé, Tāng, and two other women.  They were the shortest people she had.  Leaving their helmets and long weapons behind, they moved out from the top deck, following ADI’s directions in their HUDs.  The guy was right; people hardly noticed them in their hazmat suits.

They made it to the station manager’s office without incident, but as soon as they walked into the outer office, he ran into the inner office and slammed the door.  The admin holding down the reception desk looked up at them and said, “Since we didn’t report an incident, we both assume that you’re the aliens that have been reported to be taking over the station.”

“Damn rumor mill,” Morgan thought.  She removed the hood of the hazmat suit and smiled at the woman.  “I’m afraid so.  Estimé, see what you can do about getting in there.”

“Oh, you shouldn’t bother with him; he’s totally useless.  He’s probably trying to call Captain T’dekro, but since you’ve cut off our external communication, he’s probably just crying.”

“Well, we need to gain access to his computer,” Morgan said, eying the computer on the admin’s desk.

She snorted.  “His computer is pretty useless.  After he nearly shut down the entire station, we closed his access to anything important.”

Morgan gave her a look, asking for more.

“It was just six weeks after he got here.  He started wandering around in all the control systems; what an idiot.  Anyway, the IT guy and I created a sandbox that lets him look at stuff, but he can’t change anything.  I suppose you want access to the station self-destruct and other things you couldn’t get down in engineering.”

“Yes.”

“Here are the access codes.”  She typed on her screen, listing the three access codes they were after.

“I’ve got them,” ADI told Morgan.  “We now have complete control of the station.”

The admin waited on Morgan; she could tell she was communicating with someone.

“Is there anything else I can help you with?”

“I’m not sure.  We’re ready to make an announcement to the station that we’ve taken control.  Any suggestions?”

“Just mention the Sivarian government; you are coordinating with them, aren’t you?  At least that’s what I heard.”

“Yes, we are.”

“Then you’ll be very popular around here — one other thing.  Captain T’dekro’s quarters are just down the way.  I’m sure your IT person can tell you where.  He’s a real piece of work and not very bright, so who knows what he might have lying around.”

“Thank you.  We’ll check that out.  Do you need any protection?” Morgan asked, motioning toward the manager’s door.

“Nah, he’ll cower in there for a few hours.  I’ll probably have gone home by the time he comes out.  You’ve got control over all his systems, so he’s harmless.”

“Thanks,” Morgan said as they headed toward the captain’s quarters.  “ADI, let’s hold off on the announcement until we’ve had a chance to check things out there.”

◆ ◆ ◆

When they arrived at the captain’s quarters, ADI was able to open the door for them.  They entered to find a very opulent living area.  Expensive-looking paintings adorned the walls.  The furniture was handcrafted and would have been expensive to lift to the space station or bring from Thorea.  They spent some time searching the drawers of the various cabinets; finding nothing, they moved to the sleeping quarters.  There they found another large room.  The bed was a large four-poster with luxurious spreads.  The room had a huge walk-in closet that contained the captain’s uniforms and other clothing.

“What’s behind this door?” Estimé asked.

“The head?” Morgan suggested.

“No, that’s over there,” Estimé said, motioning to the other side of the room.

“Then open it up, and let’s see.”

“It’s locked.”

“ADI?”

“I have no control of it,” ADI said.

“There must be a keypad or something around here that opens it,” Morgan said.

Estimé started banging on the wall, looking for a panel.  “Here it is.  It looks like a handprint panel.”

“Well, pull it off; we should be able to short the circuit behind it.”

Tāng handed Estimé his knife, which she used to pry the panel off.  A few seconds later, the door slid open.

“About time!”

Morgan was shocked to find another bedroom with just a bed, a small dresser, and a single desk.  A young woman was sitting at the desk; the display screen in front of her was blank.  She was wearing a negligée.

“Hello,” Morgan said.

“Hello.  I assume you’re the aliens that have taken over the station.  Have you managed to kill Captain T’dekro?”

“He’s still on his ship as far as I know.  We’re trying to gain control of it.  What are you doing?”

“I was trying to watch a movie, but you’ve blocked his accounts, so I’m just sitting here waiting for you to release me.”

“You mean you were a prisoner?”

“Prisoner, slave, whatever.  I’ve been trapped in here for six months.”

“Six months?” Estimé gasped.

“Yes, the captain likes to keep his toys to himself.”

“Why did you allow yourself to be trapped?” Tāng asked.

All five women stared daggers at Tāng.  “I didn’t allow myself.  I was kidnapped from school and brought here by his security guards.”

“How old are you?” Morgan asked.

“Fourteen.”

Morgan and her team gasped.

“And your parents?”

“What were they going to do?  The captain controls everything, even the life and death of everyone on the station.”

“How did you know about us?” Morgan asked.

“Before you shut down my system, I was getting updates from friends.  You really should have searched all those kids for phones; they’ve been tweeting about you ever since you knocked their substitute out.”

“What can we do for you?” Morgan asked.

“I could use some real clothes.”

“I have contacted her parents,” ADI messaged.  “Her mother is on the way with a change of clothes.”

“We’ll take care of that.  Is it okay if we search this room?”

“Go ahead; you won’t find anything.  I’ve searched it multiple times looking for a weapon to kill that bastard.”

“What about the console?” Morgan asked, pointing to the monitor.

“Oh, are you looking for his passwords?”

“Yes.”

“I know them all.”

“You do?”

“Sure, he’s an idiot.  He says them to himself when he types them in.  Here, I’ll write them out for you.  I think this one controls the core systems on his ship.”

“Got it,” ADI said.

A few moments later, a woman burst into the cabin, her arms loaded with clothing.  “Mara, I’ve been so worried.”

“Mother,” the girl said as she stood up and hugged the woman.  Mara was smiling with joy, but her eyes had a hardness that never faded.

◆ ◆ ◆

The Chesapeake was holding station just above the Endevorix.  Neither ship had moved for quite some time.  The Chesapeake was still taking potshots at the Endevorix while the Thoreans tried to reorient the ship without reaction mass.

Onboard the Endevorix, Captain T’dekro was sitting in his command chair with his hand on the self-destruct switch, frantically trying to figure out what to do.

“If our lasers won’t work, fire plasma cannons at them.  They must be within range?”

“Sir, you’ve used up most of our hydrogen as reaction mass; there’s nothing to feed the plasma cannons unless we use the fuel for the reactor.  If we do that, we won’t have any power.”

“Then let’s try to ram them!  At least get close enough that our lasers are effective.”

“Sir, why don’t we surrender?”

“Never!”  The captain’s hand twitched, causing everyone to gasp as they feared he would accidentally let go of the dead man switch.

Suddenly, the self-destruct switch went dim; the light that indicated it was active went out.

“What?” the captain yelled as he brought his display up and started to type one-handed.

“Cers, the self-destruct is disabled.  I have control of the ship.  I am ADI of the Delphi League.  Would someone please take care of the captain?”

The XO didn’t need to be asked a second time; he grabbed the captain by his collar and threw him to the floor.  “Stand down from battle stations,” he ordered.  He nodded to the security officer on the bridge, who was more than happy to drag the captain off the bridge and throw him into the brig.

“ADI, what do you need us to do?”

“It would be best if you made your way back to your space station.  We are also in control of it.”

“Very well.  Helm, set a course.”

◆ ◆ ◆

“Ha, we have them!” Catie said.  “It’s funny how easy it is to win a war when the opposition’s soldiers don’t like their own government.”

“That’s true.  How do you want to proceed?”  Liz asked.

“You’re in charge right now,” Catie said.  “What do you want to do?”

“I’ve just sent a shuttle full of marines to help Morgan finish securing the station.  Things should be under control by the time we get there, so I suggest we all gather there, make sure we have it fully in our control, then Princess Catherine can start talking with the Sivarian government.”

Catie stuck her tongue out at Liz but nodded in agreement.  “Why don’t you let the planet know we have captured the ship and station?  They might tell us about some other things we need to take care of.  Like what happened to all those fighters that disappeared.”

◆ ◆ ◆

“Sergeant Blair, congratulations on a successful mission,” Catie said as she met Morgan in the flight bay of the space station.  “Did you have fun?” she messaged privately.

“Thank you, Princess.  We’re happy to report that we didn’t lose anyone,” Morgan said.  “It was a hoot,” she messaged.

“Did you learn anything useful about managing children?  Maybe something you and Tracey could use?”

Morgan glared at Catie.  “Right this way, Princess.  We have set you up in the captain’s quarters.  It’s very close to the station manager’s office.”

“Did he ever come out of his office?”

“We finally smoked him out.  He’s restricted to his quarters now.”

“Okay, let’s start at the manager’s office.”

It only took a few minutes to make it to the lift that would take them to the ring and the manager’s office.  Liz and Catie occupied themselves during the walk by quizzing Morgan on the various ways the children had been of help.  They were both sure they’d pay for it during their next sparring session, but one had to take the opportunities that life presented.

When they arrived at the office, the admin that Morgan had dealt with before was sitting at her desk.

“Welcome.  I assume you’re here to take over.”

“I don’t think that will be necessary,” Catie said.  “I’m Princess Catherine, this is Commodore Farmer, our military leader, and you’ve met Sergeant Blair.”

“I have had that pleasure.  I’m happy to be of service.  I’m Cer V'zan, the admin here.  I’ve cleaned the office for you since I couldn’t do anything else.”

“That’s good; I’m sure it’ll be just the way you like it,” Catie said.

“Of course . . .” Cer V'zan looked confused and gave Catie a quizzical look.

“I’ve managed a station like this before.  I’m not really interested in doing it again.  I’ve been told that you’ve actually been the de facto manager for quite some time.  I think we should make it official.”

Cer V'zan looked surprised but recovered quickly.  “Thank you.”

“Cer V'zan, I’ve restored your access to the station systems,” ADI announced via the station’s intercom.

“That’s ADI, our technology wizard.  She’ll be available to help you while we’re here.  We’d like to establish the new normal around here.  As much of the old routine as possible without any of the excess privilege given to the Thorean upper class.”

“You mean the Shrooms?”

“Yes.”

“What are you going to do with the captain, the station manager, and the chief engineer?”

“We’ve placed the captain under arrest.  We’re not aware of any crimes committed by the station manager.  The chief engineer seems to be doing a good job, so we left him in place.  If you know of crimes committed by them or anyone else, let Sergeant Blair or ADI know, and we’ll proceed from there.  How was justice administered before?” Catie asked.

Cer V'zan gave a short snort.  “The captain administered justice.  Station security would handle minor things, usually just stopping bar fights and such.  We don’t have very much crime here, at least nothing the captain thought of as crime.”

“We plan to change that, so people know where they stand, no arbitrary justice.  We’ll be talking to the government on Sivaria to review their laws, and we expect to have them extended here.”

“What about the Shrooms?”

“They should be treated just like any other citizen.  Now, if I could, I’d like to use your office to contact the planet.  Perhaps you could join us.”

“I’d love to.”

They walked into the office.  The desk was huge and had a big display on it.  There was a small table in the corner with four chairs.  Catie grabbed one, motioning to Morgan to move the other two.  She placed hers in the center of the desk on the visiting side; there was plenty of overhang to accommodate her.  Catie turned the display around so that all three women could see it and sat down.  Morgan placed a chair on either side of Catie.  Liz quickly sat on Catie’s right, indicating that Cer V'zan should take the other chair.

“ADI, are we ready?” Catie asked aloud.

“Yes.”

Catie gave Liz a quick look and, after getting a nod, signaled ADI to start the call.

Councilor Teduth’s image appeared on the display.

“Princess Catherine, I hear that you’ve been successful.”

“We think so,” Catie said.  “You remember Commodore Farmer; I also have with me the station manager, Cer V'zan.”

“I had assumed you would remove the station manager,” Councilor Teduth said.

“We did; I’ve appointed Cer V’zan, who used to be his assistant, and did all the real work, to take over in his place.”

“I see.”  It was evident that he wasn’t particularly happy with Catie’s move.

“As we move forward, I need some more assurance that you are the correct representative of the Sivarian government that we should be working with,” Catie said.

“I can assure you that I’m the head of our planetary council.”

“But you call yourself a councilor?”

“We avoid any titles that connotate significant influence.  You never know who’s listening.  I can give you access to our files, they’re public, so I don’t see why you shouldn’t review them.”

“Thank you.  We’ll assume that they will show us what we expect to see.  Now, to the business of this call.  Cer V’zan tells me that there is no written judicial code for the station.  We wondered if you had one that they could use.”

“We do; however, it is pretty sparse.  We are only twenty thousand people, so it’s not that difficult to maintain order.”

“Surely there was one on Thorea before the current regime.”

“There was, but even our friends on Thorea do not have access to a copy.  The Shrooms have made it difficult to compare their rule with any previous rule.”

“I see.  We will send you the judicial code we use for our colonies and one for the Paraxean colonies.  We’ll also give Cer V’zan a copy of the code we use on our space stations; we’ll send you a copy of that as well.  I need you to work with the members of your planetary council to come up with something you can set up for ratification by your people.”

“We can do that.  What will you do with the criminals on the station until then?”

“We’ll use the judicial code that we use on our space stations until you come up with a new one.”

“Why don’t you send all the Shrooms down here?” Councilor Teduth asked.

“Why would we do that?”

“Because they’re all criminals.”

“I understand that they were transported from Thorea for various reasons, similar to why many of the people on Sivaria were transported.  At this time, I’m only aware of one whom we would classify as a criminal, and we’ll deal with him here.”

“But all of the Shrooms are criminals.  They’ve been stealing from the Thorean people for generations.”

“Councilor, let me make something very clear.  As discussed earlier, joining the Delphi League will make this a viable colony.  We’ll help in any way we can.  The only significant condition we have is that you treat all sapient residents equally.  That includes the people you call Shrooms.  Just as you are angry about being disadvantaged because of your lack of the so-called Golden Gene and think it unjust, they should not be disadvantaged because they have it.  Do you think that’s possible, or should we just turn things back over to the former government up here and leave?”

“Please don’t do that.  . . .  I’ll meet with my fellow councilors and review the material.  We’ll get back to you as soon as we can.  Is there anything else we should do now?”

“I want to apprise you of the situation as it stands now.  As you know, we’ve captured the station and the starship.  We have also recovered the two asteroids which were closest to Thorea.  They’re back here close to Sivaria right now.  Unfortunately, they’re still traveling out of the system very fast.”

“You recovered the asteroids?” Councilor Teduth asked, clearly shocked at the idea.

“Yes, we explained about our jump gates; we were able to use them to retrieve the asteroids.  In our opinion, they belong to Sivaria.  If you should decide otherwise, we can return them to Thorea.

“Also, we are a diplomatic mission, so we have ambassadors representing the League members.  I’m sure that you and your fellow councilors will soon be getting calls from the various ambassadors to discuss what they can do to open up trade with you.”

Chapter 8

Board Update – July 29th

Marc quickly brought the meeting to order.  “Catie, please update us on the Thorean and Sivarian situation.”

“As you know, Captain Frankham was able to get the Thorean cruiser to use up all of its reaction mass.  Then once we got control of the station, we got the captain’s codes and were able to take control of the station and the ship.  We’ve opened discussions with the government on Sivaria.  Apparently, they don’t have much of a written justice code or a constitution.”

“Catie,” Fred interrupted, “have you seen what’s happened to the price of platinum metals?”

“Yes.  The ambassadors on the mission have been talking to the Sivarians about trade.  The fact that there are over seven years of mining bundled up in asteroids between here and Thorea has leaked.”

“Is there something we can do about that?” Samantha asked.  “The price drop is hurting Artemis and Vulcan and will cause problems for Providence since mining will be one of their main startup activities.”

“Well, none of the asteroids are accessible right now.  They’re all heading out-system at pretty high speeds.”

“So that means we can control when they’re made available,” Blake said.

Marc nodded, “Obviously, but we don’t want to appear too heavy-handed.”

Everyone at the table let out a chuckle at that.

“Well, it takes a big effort to move the asteroids since we have to jump out to them in order to jump them back to Sivaria, then we have to put gravity drives on them to slow them down,” Catie explained.

“That would be a big investment to do all of them at once.  We can use that to explain taking time to make them available,” Fred said.  “In fact, since Blake wants to add more frigates and some cruisers to the fleet, couldn’t we just buy them for that purpose?  That was what Catie was suggesting earlier.  It would allow us to accelerate the deployment and avoid dumping them on the open market.”

“I like that,” Blake said.  “And we could use them for the conversion of the jump gates as well as build the new ones we’ll need for Sivaria.”

“Yes, yes,” Fred said.  “If we tell the Sivarians that we’ll buy the asteroids at market price as we bring them to Vulcan as needed, the market should recover.  It’ll have a bit of a sag since Avalon will be buying from Sivaria instead of the market, but there’s a lot of demand, and we’ve been relying on Vulcan, so our efforts won’t impact the market too much.  In fact, we’ll probably save money since the market is down.”

“I don’t like that,” Samantha said.  “We don’t want the Sivarians to think we’re taking advantage of them.”

“Then pay them the average price over the last three months.  Also, what are we going to charge them for bringing the asteroid back?” Fred said.

“We can negotiate that,” Catie said.  “They’re familiar with what it takes to accelerate them to speed.  And the use of the jump gates is something they will understand.”

“Good, then take care of it,” Marc said.  “We’ll adjust the rate of consumption as we get a better handle on what else we need to build the ships Blake is asking for.  And I’d like to really push to get all the jump gates and all of our current ships changed to the new seven drive configuration.”

“What about all of the waypoints?” Liz asked.

“They’re isolated, so they can wait.  I think the jump gates should be the priority.”

Catie shook her head, “Why?  They’re uncrewed, so why are they a problem?”

“They just feel vulnerable to me,” Marc said.  “I’d hate for someone to grab one to examine.”

“But we could destroy it.  They all have a quantum relay.”

“Still.  Let’s make it a priority to change.  Plus, we want it to be clear there are seven probes for each gate.”

Catie started to roll her eyes but stopped when Samantha messaged, “Grow up.”

“Okay, I can work with that,” Catie said.  “Plus, remember, we’ll need to start refitting the Solar Explorers, as their jump drives are reaching the end of life.”

“Okay.  Now, any thought on Thorea’s reaction?” Marc asked.

“I don’t know.  They’re five to seven years away from here; what can they do?”

“Would they threaten their own people?” Dr. Metra asked.

“They might,” Catie said.  “But they’re pretty unpopular; wouldn’t that put them at risk?”

“It might, but they must be mentally unstable to enact such a harsh regime.  We need to keep an eye on it,” replied Dr. Metra.

“We will,” Marc said.  “I really just want to quarantine them and move on.  But we need to see what happens.  Catie, you’ve got your orders.”

“Aye, Aye,” Catie said, teasing her father a bit.

◆ ◆ ◆

Catie was waiting in the flight bay of the station.  She’d asked for a meeting with the Chair of the planetary council to discuss details about trade and joining the League.  The League had met and unanimously agreed to accept Sivaria into the League once they came up with an acceptable constitution.  ADI had set up this meeting as the Sivarians wanted to meet on the space station.  Apparently, there had been a change in the council, so a Councilor Ankva and her staff were coming to the meeting.

The shuttle they’d sent to fetch the council's representative had just landed in the bay.  Catie was waiting for the bay to repressurize.

“They really need an iris,” Catie thought, as she grew frustrated waiting for the pressure to equalize.

“Maybe you can sell them an iris,” Liz said as the airlock light turned green to indicate that the bay was pressurized.

“I was just thinking that.”  Catie and Liz entered the flight bay, followed by Morgan and a couple of Marines.  Four marines were already in the bay wearing spacesuits.  Catie thought she recognized Fiona as one of them, and her HUD confirmed it.

“Councilor Ankva, welcome.  I’ve been informed that there have been some changes in the planetary council,” Catie said.

“Thank you, Princess.  And yes, we’ve had a few changes.  Councilor Teduth has stepped down as Chair.  His term was almost over, and he felt he’d started out on a bad foot with you and suggested that we move forward with a new Chair.  The council elected me to take over.”

“Did he resign from the council?”

“No, he is still on the council.  He is very committed to the success of these discussions.”

“I’m glad to hear that.  Please follow us; we have a conference room waiting.  Do you need anything before we start?”

“No.  Your shuttle was quite comfortable.  Actually, it was pretty amazing.”

“I’m glad you liked it.  Now, just this way,” Catie said as she led them to the conference room.

Once everyone was seated and the steward had provided drinks to all, Catie started the meeting.

“I’m sure Councilor Teduth brought you up to speed on the Delphi League, but let me go over a few key points.  Feel free to ask questions.

“First, the Delphi League is very young, so we’re still learning how to best do things.

“Second, what enables the existence of the Delphi League is the jump gates.  We’re able to open a wormhole between star systems and travel through them.  Moving from one star system to another in a matter of hours.  Another point you need to be aware of is that the gate technology is privately owned by my family.  We started the League and give League members use of the gates at a small fee which supports the expansion of the gate network as well as the maintenance of the gates.”

Councilor Ankva raised her hand to interrupt.  “I’m surprised about the private ownership of the gates.  Doesn’t that make your family de facto dictators of the League?”

“It does give us a lot of influence.  We maintain control so we can ensure that the gates are only used for the benefit of the League.  If we were to give up control and allow others to deploy gates and use them indiscriminately, we fear it would lead to criminal activity and even interstellar wars.  As the League matures, we expect that we will continue to cede more control over the gates to the League Council.”

“I see.  Please go on.”

“The League also maintains a space navy for the protection of all the members.  Each planet can choose how much they are involved.  Many like to have a presence in their system, close to the planet.  The main force of the navy can be in any system in a matter of hours, but the wormholes can only be opened on the fringes of a stellar gravity well, so it takes time to bring any ships further into the system.  We expect issues to become apparent at the fringe, but we’re all still learning.”

Catie paused for a moment to see if Councilor Ankva had any questions.

“The primary purpose of the League is to enable interstellar trade.  We tax your exports to fund the League,” Catie continued.

“Now, what makes Sivaria unique is that your government is young and not well established.  We’ve reviewed the new constitution you’ve written and the basic justice code and feel that it adequately addresses any concerns, so we will extend League membership to you.  Let us know if you wish to accept.”

“Thank you.  I’ll work with the council to reach a decision,” Councilor Ankva said, obviously relieved.

“Another thing we try to do is minimize the impact of new members on the economies of League planets and minimize the impact of opening up trade to the economy of the new planet.”

“I think you’ll find we don’t have much of an economy to be impacted.”

Catie smiled.  “Yes, we’ve noticed.  Normally, we would be talking about what goods we would restrict from being shipped to your planet.  In this case, that won’t be a problem, so you’ll fall into the same category we use for new colonies.  They focus on importing what they need and developing their manufacturing base to grow their economy.  Over the years, they naturally change from importing just about everything to only importing things they cannot manufacture on their own.  They will limit trade on some products to allow their local manufacturing to grow.”  Catie paused to allow Ankva to speak.

“That sounds good.  We would like to have something here besides mining.  We would also like to grow our population, although that will be slow going unless the situation with Thorea changes.”

“We understand.  Now, to the issue.  I’m sure you’ve been inundated with requests to buy platinum metals.”

“Yes, we have.  The fact that you tell us that you can recover the asteroids that are in transit gives us a big opportunity to raise money to improve our infrastructure.”

“Yes, it will.  But putting that much platinum metal ore on the market will disrupt the economies of several League members.”

Councilor Ankva’s face fell, “We didn’t realize.”

Catie held up her hand.  “It’s not that bad.  First, as you know, it is not a trivial thing to slow the asteroid down so that you can bring it into orbit around a planet, and second, there is the issue of actually getting a jump gate out to the asteroids that are between Sivaria and Thorea.”

“I see,” Councilor Ankva said, still looking disappointed.

“We think we have a solution.  As I said, my family owns the jump gates and is responsible for much of the effort to expand our fleet and deploy new jump gates.  All of that takes significant quantities of platinum metals.”

Councilor Ankva nodded her head, still not looking happy.

Catie gave her a reassuring smile.  “Those efforts are slowed by the fact that we do not want to drive the price of platinum metal up by disproportionately using up the ore supply.  What we would like to propose is this, for the next year or so, we will purchase your asteroids and move them to the system where we’re building new jump gates and new ships.  We’ll take responsibility for slowing the asteroid down and jumping it to our system.  In exchange, we’ll pay you the three-month average of the price for the ores, minus a fee for getting the asteroid.”

Councilor Ankva pursed her lips as she thought about that.  “And how much would this fee be?”

“You and I have to decide that.  You should have a reasonable understanding of the cost of decelerating the asteroid.  The cost of moving the jump gate is of the same order.  I think it would be good if your people came up with a projection and made a proposal.”

Councilor Ankva nodded her head, then pursed her lips again.  “But we don’t really understand the value of your money yet.  We’re very primitive here.”

Catie was nodding her head.  She had expected this problem, or Samantha had.  “I have a proposal for that.  I suggest that we pay you for one asteroid at the three-month average, and we’ll cover the cost of moving it.  That will provide you with enough money to start planning how to modernize your city and economy.  We’ll then allow you to work with the various planets on what goods you wish to buy.  We’ll give you the data on how the last four new colonies were set up so that you will have a basic guide.  That will also give you a reference for the prices they’ve paid for the imports.  Once you’ve done enough of that, we’ll begin the negotiations for the rest of the asteroids.”

“Is there a time limit on this?”

Catie sighed.  “Not really; we have about one year before we have to jump the asteroid that is closest to Thorea; although, I would like to be done before then.  Our mission includes visiting two other civilizations, but we could send someone else to finish it or have someone else come here to work with you.”

“That sounds good.  Now, can we discuss the situation with our space station and our cruiser?” Councilor Ankva asked.

“Yes, we can.  They are what we call the spoils of war; our scientists wish to examine the cruiser.  We want to examine its weapons, propulsion, and powerplant.  So, we’re sending it to our shipyard.”

Councilor Ankva gasped.  “It’s ours; we assumed that you would turn it over to us.”

“We will,” Catie said.  “In fact, when we return it to you, it will be a much better ship.  We will upgrade its propulsion system so that it is more maneuverable.  We’ll have to see whether its power plant needs anything.  But rest assured that it will be returned to you.”

“How long?”

“Three to six months.  Once the engineers and scientists have made a first pass assessment, we’ll discuss the timing with you.”

Councilor Ankva nodded her head.  “And our space station?”

“We’re studying it also.  But it’s less interesting to us.  We notice that there are quite a few things that could be improved.  But depending on what your people wish to do with it, it may or may not be worth it.”

“What do you mean?  We expect that we will need to continue mining and bringing our ores into orbit.  The space station is vital for those operations.”

“Possibly.  Do your people understand how the ore deposits you’re mining came about?”

“It has been speculated that they’re from an asteroid that crashed into the planet.”

“That is what our analysis suggests as well,” Catie said.  “We’ve done a survey of your planet.  The survey can only detect ores close to the surface, but based on it, we believe that a large asteroid crashed into your planet.  Fortunately, the heat and stress of entry into the atmosphere caused it to break up.  The fragments were scattered along its path.  You have been mining those, and it looks like you’ve exhausted the largest deposits.”

“We have.  We keep having to move the mining operations further from the community every few years.”

“We’ve noticed.  Now, your planet is naturally rich in ores, but you’re close to exhausting the ores in this area.  And I’m sure you’ve noticed that your settlement is not in the nicest location on the planet.  You’re very far north on the continent you’ve settled on.”

“True, but we have to be close to the mines.”

“But they’re being played out.”

Councilor Ankva gave Catie an exasperated look, asking her to get to the point.

“The point is, with the benefit you’ll get from the asteroids we’ll help you recover, you might wish to consider moving part or all of your settlement.  Also, as your population grows and you advance your standard of living, you will start to consume more of the platinum metals.  You might want to switch your focus to using the ores you mine on the planet for local consumption and mine your asteroid belt for the ores you export.”

“This is too much for me to deal with,” Councilor Ankva said.  “I didn’t think things would be so complicated.”

“I’m not surprised.  That is one of the reasons that I want to continue to manage the station.  Until you have actually decided how you want to move your colony forward, I think you would be best served focusing on the planet.  I’d also like to delay the time when you have to take responsibility for the former members of your ruling class.”

Councilor Ankva smiled at that.  “That’s probably a good idea.  I’m happy to be able to ignore them for a while.  But figuring all this out could take months.”

“It might.  We’ll provide you with a roadmap we use for our new colonies.  We’ve only just started our second and are in the middle of planning the third, but we have spent a lot of time analyzing what works.  We’ll also provide you with a survey of your planet.  It might help you decide if you want to move the settlement.”

“Thank you.”

“One more thing.  Did the fighter pilots that landed their fighters on the surface make it to your settlement?”

“What fighter pilots?”

“When we first encountered the Endevorix, they sent a squadron of fighters to attack us.  After the first engagement, the pilots realized they were outclassed and decided to land on the planet instead of continuing the attack.  We’ve noticed their jets at various locations.”

“We haven’t seen any pilots.”

“Then, would you send people out to look for them?  We’ll have our jets do a more detailed survey around where the fighters landed to see if we can help find them.”

“What about the fighter jets?”

“They’re not capable of atmospheric flight.  The pilots managed to execute a controlled crash landing, but the jets won’t be doing any more flying.  At some point, we’ll help you recover the jets; I’m sure you’ll be able to salvage the electronics and other resources.”

“Thank you.  I think I have quite a bit of homework to do.  I would like to stay up here on the station for a few days before returning.  That way, I can give the council a full report.”

“It’s not a problem.  Cer V'zan, the new station manager, will make the arrangements for you.  And you should spend some time with her learning about the station and its capabilities.”

◆ ◆ ◆

“So now what?” Liz asked once Councilor Ankva and her people left the room.

“I guess we need to give her a few days to get her head around all this.  Hopefully, after that, we can move an asteroid to Avalon and get an order for the Dutchman to deliver here.”

“What about the captain?”

“Ugh, I guess we can’t just shove him out an airlock?” Catie joked.

“No.”

“Then we need to set up a trial.”

◆ ◆ ◆

Catie was waiting in her new office.  They’d converted the space next to the station manager’s office for her.

“Captain T’dekro,” Catie greeted the captain as the Marine escorted him into her office and pushed him into the chair in front of Catie’s desk.  “We’re here to discuss your trial on the charges of kidnapping, rape, and false imprisonment.  Would you like a lawyer present?”

“What right do you have to try me?!”

“We’re operating under the authority of the Sivarian Planetary Government and the authority of this space station, as well as the Delphi League, of which Sivaria is now a member.”

“I don’t recognize any of those authorities.”

“Well, nonetheless, we are going to try you.  Do you want a lawyer?”

“I don’t need one.”

“Very well.  I want to explain the situation to you.  Let’s get started.”  At that moment, the display on Catie’s desk lit up and displayed the number 15 in bright red letters.

“What’s that?” T’dekro asked.

“Oh, that’s a new feature that I’m trying out.  My assistant, ADI, is exceptional at predicting the outcome of trials.  She is currently predicting that you will receive fifteen years of hard labor when you’re convicted.”

“What if I’m not convicted?”

“If she thinks you’ll be acquitted, the number would be a green zero.  It becomes larger as she views the probability of you being acquitted going up.  Red, of course, means she thinks you’ll be convicted.”

“Well, then it should be green because I’m innocent.”

“So, you deny abducting Mara, a fourteen-year-old girl, on March 15 of this year?”

“I didn’t abduct her!”

“Then what do you call removing her from her class and taking her to your cabin?”

“I was giving her a job?”

The display changed from 15 to 17.

“What?  Why did it change?”

“ADI believes that if you say that at trial, you will be given seventeen years instead of fifteen.”

“She’s just a Norm; they’re useless.  I was giving her something useful to do.”

The number changed to 20.

“So, you think being locked in your cabin and subject to rape by you was useful?” Catie asked.

“You can’t prove I raped her!”

The display segmented itself and brought up a video of the captain throwing Mara onto the bed.  It then showed him tearing off her clothes.

“How did you get that?!”

“You seemed to like making recordings of the events in your cabin.  We discovered them in the station files.  They were well hidden, but ADI is exceptional at finding such things.”

The captain deflated.  “So now what?”

“You have a choice.  We would like to avoid a trial.  We don’t want to put Mara or the station residents through the stress, and we’d like to avoid creating more animosity against the Golden Class so that Sivaria can move on.”

“What does that mean for me?”

“I’m offering you a deal.  Plead guilty and accept a sentence of ten years of labor.  The offer expires in ten minutes.”

“What kind of labor?”

“Working in the recycle center, maybe in the mines later.  It wouldn’t be anything we don’t have other people doing for pay.  You’ll be confined to a cell and would have to work eight hours per day.”

A timer started on the display, counting down from eight minutes, as the captain had already used up two minutes.  When it reached 1:30, the captain accepted the deal.

◆ ◆ ◆

Minister Hapzel asked for a meeting with Catie.  She was a bit surprised, but not as much as she had been when he’d requested a change in cabins.  He’d moved into Ambassador Graznev’s cabin, which was among the cabins of the rest of the Paraxean Delegation.

“Minister Hapzel, what can I do for you?” Catie asked once he was seated.

“Princess, I wanted to apologize for the problems I have caused.  Although I still favor open trade, after some discussions with the President and others on Paraxea that I trust, I’ve realized that the extreme position I was encouraged to take was just a way to allow certain elites on Paraxea to make money and political inroads.”

Catie just nodded her head.

“I also wanted to let you know that I’m going to try and take a more balanced approach in the future; I’ll work with my colleagues and analyze the situation better.”

“I’m glad to hear that.  I’m sure the rest of the Paraxean delegation will be as well.”

“Um . . . I hope so.  I’m sure you’ve noticed that I’ve changed cabins.  I’m hoping to repair some bridges . . .”  Hapzel stuttered as he caught the glint in Catie’s eyes.  “Well, probably a better analogy would be ‘build some bridges’ since I never made much of an attempt to get to know my fellow delegates.”

“Let me know if there is anything I can do to help.”

“I will.  I also wanted to apologize for the poor way I’ve treated you.  I haven’t shown proper respect for you or your position.  I plan to remedy that.”

“Good.”  Catie smiled at Hapzel.

Hapzel stood up, “I guess I should go see if I can drive a few pylons.”

“Good luck.”

Catie waited until Morgan let Hapzel out and closed the door.

“ADI, what do you think?”

“I think he was being genuine.”

“Morgan?”

“He seemed like he was trying.”

“I thought so too.  We’ll see.  He’s been reasonable in the meetings and did recommend that we allow Sivaria to join the League. However, that would have been aligned with his open trade position.  We’ll have to see how he acts when the Sivarians start to limit some of the imports to give their manufacturing a chance to grow.”

Chapter 9

Thorea

Misata made her way down the street.  Even though it was summer, she wore a light jumper over her clothes.  Below the jumper, she had stuffed padding, so she looked fat.  It hid her breasts, making her look plain.  She had learned her lesson; being attractive brought the wrong kind of attention from some Shrooms.  She’d been lucky that one time when she was attacked, he had eventually let her go.  She had told her employer, Lady Terazula, about the attack.  The man was sent to some remote location, and she had been told he would be put on the next colony transport.  Thankfully, she never saw him again.  Once she was old enough to talk about it, apparently, a little late, she had learned how common it was for girls to be attacked.  Sometimes the Shrooms would just come to a girl’s home and demand that her parents give her to them.  If they were police or a powerful government official, there was little the parents could do.

Lady Terazula’s maid, Tala, met Misata at the door.

“Lady Terazula is out at a breakfast meeting,” Tala said.  “The children are in the kitchen.”

Tala helped Misata remove her bulky camouflage, telling her, “I wish this weren’t necessary.”

“So do I,” Misata said.

“Maybe you should move here; then you’d be safe.”

“The children will be too old for a governess soon.  Then I would have to move out.  Besides, I want to stay with my parents.”

Misata walked to the kitchen; as soon as she entered, the two children leaped from the table and rushed to her.

“Misata, Misata!” they yelled as they jumped on her to get their hugs in.

“Children, use your inside voice,” Misata scolded.

“But we missed you.”

“You did?  It’s only been two days.”

“Yeah, a whole two days!”

“Did you do your homework?”

The exuberance of the two children evaporated to be replaced by frowns.

“Homework?”

“Gotcha, you didn’t have any homework,” Misata said.

“You’re mean.”

“I was just teasing you.  You should have remembered you didn’t have any homework.”

The children giggled as Misata led them back to the table so they could finish their breakfast.

“Can we play outside today?”

“Yes, I have a few games I think will be fun.”

“Great!”

“Slow down, don’t eat so fast or you’ll get a tummy ache.”

Reluctantly the children slowed the shoveling of food into their mouths.  After a couple of minutes, they gulped down the last of their milk and looked at Misata expectantly.

“Okay, let’s go outside.”

The first game they played was ‘catch me if you can;’ of course, Misata was the designated catcher.  She chased the two children all around the yard.  Since the purpose of the game was to tire them out, Misata was careful to make sure they did most of the running.  She would corner them in sections of the yard, but once she got close, they would break in different directions leaving her to decide which one she should break toward.  She always hesitated just enough so that they could escape.

Once they were sufficiently tired, she started them on the games she had planned for them.  Each game was designed to build on a basic concept, odd-even, geometric shapes, counting or addition, and some geography.  This was one of the main reasons Lady Terazula was so fond of Misata, her ability to help with the children’s education without having them rebel against it.  Although Misata strongly suspected that it was mainly because she had taught the children how to be quiet.  She had done this by challenging them to think up a story.  At first, it was just to add to a story that Misata had told, but eventually, they were able to come up with pretty complete stories on their own.  Misata had explained that the most essential part of coming up with a story was to create it in your head while being quiet.  Now when their mother told them to be quiet, the children just sat down and thought up a story that they would tell Misata when she next came.

◆ ◆ ◆

Misata got off early on Tuesdays and Thursdays since she worked on Saturday mornings.  It worked out perfectly since Tuesday and Thursday were when she attended the knitting circle.

One of the best parts of the knitting circle was the first thirty minutes when everyone was just arriving.  During that time, you could chat with your friends, catch up, complain, and console.  It was a time when you knew nobody would judge you, and best of all, it was a time when you knew that nobody with a golden gene would be there to cause trouble.

Once a Shroom had shown up with her maid.  She was excited to join the circle; the poor maid was horrified, but what could she do?  The leader of the circle dealt with the problem quickly.

“Quiet, everyone.  We are honored by the presence of a Golden One.  Mistress,” she said to the Shroom, “please teach us the best stitches for knitting.”

“Oh, I don’t know how to knit.  I came here to learn,” the Shroom had said.

“But Mistress, we cannot possibly have anything to teach a Golden One.”

Not longer after that, the Shroom had remembered another engagement that she needed to attend.  The group gave a collective sigh of relief after she left.  Of course, the Half-Goldens were not so easy to detect.  But they were also the least likely to want to attend anything hosted by a Norm.  And the younger ones were easy to ferret out because they would still be in school.  A female Norm had to leave school at sixteen to get a job.  Half-Golden women were expected to be more educated so they could take jobs that the Shrooms didn’t want Norms to hold but thought were beneath a man.

Misata spent the first ten minutes walking around, catching up with the other women in the group.  Then she found her seat and spent the next twenty minutes catching up with the close-knit group she regularly hung out with at the circles.

“Okay, ladies.  Let’s begin.  Today, we’re going to learn the Diamond Honeycomb Stitch.  I know that some of you already know it, so please help your neighbors.”

With that, they spent the next thirty minutes learning the stitch.

“Okay, now please keep up your knitting while I start our lesson for today.  . . .  Today we’re going to talk about gravity.  It’s what keeps your feet on the ground.  It is a constant force that pulls everything toward the center of Thorea.  Here are the equations . . .”

Their leader flipped the whiteboard that showed the diamond honeycomb stitch to the other side, where she had drawn up the real lesson plan for today.  The knitting circles were how the Norm women were countering the restrictions on their education.  They’d started up almost immediately after the government had decreed that Norm women leave school at sixteen to find jobs.  The women who were pushed out of jobs that were too important for a Norm woman, or any woman to hold, started the circles to prepare everyone for when the population finally got tired of being controlled by the Shrooms.  Misata’s mother had never had to attend a knitting circle; she had a Ph.D. in biology.  Of course, she was now relegated to being an admin for a college professor.  But she had learned about them, and as soon as Misata was sixteen, she’d found a group led by a former colleague for Misata to attend.

◆ ◆ ◆

Jarkaro was new to the city; he’d just been moved here by his company.  He was a whiz at finance, rising to the top position a Norm could hold.  He hoped his new boss would appreciate him.  The first week at work was trying, having to make new friends; at least, he hoped they would be friends.  It was tough having to get used to his new boss with all of his idiosyncratic demands must less the demands and quirks associated with his boss’s boss.

“TGIF,” he thought.  He was looking forward to the break.  He’d asked around about which bars would be a good place to meet people.  Several had recommended Porkame’s, and since it was close to his new apartment, he thought he would try it.

When he walked through the door, he immediately recognized his mistake.  The place was full of Shrooms.  “Bastards, they set me up.”  Jarkaro immediately turned to leave, only to find his way blocked by an especially big Shroom.

“Hey, don’t you want a drink?  You must be new in town,” the big Shroom said.

“I am new in town.  I didn’t realize this was a Golden bar.  I should go.”

“Hey!  I offered to buy you a drink.”

“Sure, sure, I’d love to have a drink.”

The Shroom led Jarkaro to the bar where surprise, surprise, he bought him a drink.  It was a nice drink, which Jarkaro finished quickly; he really wanted to get out of the bar.

“Now that you’ve had your drink, get out of our bar!” the Shroom hissed.

“Sorry, I told you I was new in town and didn’t know,” Jarkaro said as he turned to leave.

“Not that way; the front door is reserved for Golden People!”

Jarkaro looked around.  The guy was pointing toward the side of the bar.  There Jarkaro saw a hallway leading toward the back of the bar.  He moved that way, nervous since three Shrooms were following him, but they kept their distance.

At the end of the hallway, a door seemed to lead to the alleyway behind the bar.  The Shrooms were well back in the hallway, so giving a sigh of relief, Jarkaro opened the door and stepped outside.  He immediately saw the problem.  Four Shrooms were waiting there for him.  He turned to try and get back into the bar, but the three from the bar were now at the doorway, blocking his way.

“Hey, caveman, what makes you think you can walk into our bar?!” one of the Shrooms in the alley yelled.

“I didn’t know it was a Golden bar,” Jarkaro said.  “Please, just let me go.  I promise I won’t come back.”

“You’ve got that right.  You won’t be coming back or going anywhere.”

With that, the Shroom kicked Jarkaro in the groin.  Jarkaro bent over in pain, only to be met by a kick to his jaw.  He fell and balled up as the Shrooms took turns kicking him.

“Oh, please let someone find me so they can tell my mother,” Jarkaro thought as he covered his head and tried to protect his face.

“What’s the matter, caveman?  You can’t take a little punishment?  Your fat jaw not big enough to protect you?”

Jarkaro buried his face in the dirt.  He was surprised that it didn’t smell like urine.  “Maybe the pee from Golden Ones didn’t smell.”

“Hey!  What’s going on?!” a police officer yelled as he ran up.

“We’re just showing this caveman that he needs to know his place.”

The police officer looked down at Jarkaro.  “Well, it looks like you’ve accomplished that.  Let me get rid of him; you don’t want this to come back to bite you.  For some reason, killing Norms is still against the law.”

“Sure, he’s all yours.”

The police officer bent down and grabbed Jarkaro’s arm and leg and tossed him over his shoulder.  “You boys stay safe!”

Jarkaro had to struggle not to gasp when he was thrown over the man’s shoulder.  He was hoping that the officer was there to help him; if not, then nothing mattered.

The police officer lugged Jarkaro down to the end of the alley where his car was waiting.  “You alive?” he asked.

“Barely,” Jarkaro gasped.

“Sorry it took me so long.  The owner of the bar called me.  He knew what was up right away.  He’s Half-Golden like me, but a nice guy.  Unfortunately, I was across the freeway, so it took me a bit to get here.  Let’s get you to the hospital.”

The police officer laid Jarkaro down in the back seat, then got in and started driving.

“Now, you need to say that a bunch of guys jumped you and tried to rob you,” he said.

“I know.  I’m stupid, but not that stupid.”

“Tell them you were looking for MacGaussen’s; that’s the bar you should have gone to and took a wrong turn down an alley.  I’ll take care of the rest.”

“Thanks,” Jarkaro said.  “Why are you helping me?”

“It’s my job.  Besides, when I get worked over on the job, I bleed and bruise just like you.  One gene can’t separate us that much.”

Jarkaro nodded his head as he faded out.

◆ ◆ ◆

“Abuth, what the hell is this?” demanded Dr. Osalit.

“It’s the proposal I told you about,” Dr. Abuth replied.

“Well, I don’t have time to waste on things like this.  It would take our entire budget just to test this stupid theory of yours.”

“I thought we could get the military to pay.  It would benefit them.”

“Yeah, right.  And  I don’t have time to go begging for money, especially when it’s going to be wasted.  Now just do the jobs I give you, got it?!”

“Yes, sir.”

Dr. Abuth watched Dr. Osalit walk away.  “Could they have found a bigger idiot to run the research department?  No, I don’t think so.”

Dr. Abuth moved the proposal to a private folder and closed it.  He’d been working on this theory about using plasma beams to deposit the material for the gravity drives for four years.  Actually longer, but he didn’t know what it was when he started.  His old boss and mentor, Dr. Woedo, had gotten him started on it by asking some off-the-wall questions about results from other tests.  It had spurred Dr. Abuth into investigating the anomalies, but he quickly realized that he would have to invent some new math to make any real progress.  It was a slow process, but Dr. Woedo had encouraged him.  Then the new regime came to power.  They couldn’t have a Norm as the head of the research department, so they’d brought Osalit in.  Then Osalit had decided he couldn’t have a Norm or even a Half-Golden involved in such critical research.  Who knew where Dr. Woedo was now?

Dr. Abuth opened the file for the research that Osalit wanted him to do.  He did a quick read-through.  It was interesting, but he had a hard time seeing Osalit coming up with it.  In fact, it looked strangely familiar.  Dr. Abuth went back and reviewed some of the equations and theorems proposed.  He shook his head as he read.  “No way that idiot Osalit came up with this.”  Then he spotted it.  “No wonder it looks familiar; those adjectives are straight out of Dr. Woedo’s obscure thesaurus.  This has to be his work.  That jerk Osalit didn’t even bother to rewrite the theorem.  He probably couldn’t even understand it.”

Dr. Abuth wondered where Dr. Woedo was.  “Is he working in a basement somewhere, hidden from all his former colleagues?  Is he under house arrest so Dr. Osalit can steal his work?”

Chapter 10

Sivaria Prepares

“Councilor Ankva, have you decided how you wish to proceed?” Catie asked.

“Princess, thank you for seeing me again.  We have a start,” Ankva said.  “There is so much to learn.  We have decided to accept your offer to join the League.  We would also like to begin by accepting your offer on the first asteroid.”

Catie smiled; she had expected this much, at least.  “Have you come up with the list of imports you wish to purchase?”

“We’ve had an architect studying the plans for Orion that you gave us.  He worked as a city planner on Thorea before falling out of favor.  He has some questions.”

Catie looked at Ankva expectantly.

“Would it be possible for him to join us?”

“I assume he’s here on the station.”

“Yes, he is just down the hall.  I’ll let him know to come here.”  Councilor Ankva used her phone to ping the architect.  When he arrived, Catie was a bit surprised that he was a Shroom, no Golden One; damn, they needed a better name for them.

Morgan had him into Catie’s office and introduced him.  “Princess, this is Cer Garcer, Cer Garcer, Princess Catherine.”

“Princess,” Garcer said as he gave Catie a slight bow and then took a seat.

“Councilor Ankva says that you have some questions.”

“Yes, I’ve studied the layout of the city and the designs of the various buildings.  I don’t understand how you could possibly build this as fast as it says.  Did you ship in the steel beams?  I see that you shipped the cabins either whole or in easy-to-assemble units, but the structure would take months to build, and the beams would be so expensive to import, and it would take months, if not years, to set up a steel foundry.”

“We use a special type of steel; it’s called polysteel.  It can be extruded using a process we could license to you.”

“Polysteel?”

“Yes, it’s a mix of carbon and steel, with carbon being the dominant element.  We form it inside a plasma cloud as we extrude it.  The process is very fast.”

“Do you have samples of this that I can examine?” Garcer asked.

“I’ll have someone take you over to the Aventurier and show you the process.  They’ll give you a sample.  You should seriously consider licensing it.  It’s very useful.  We make our body armor for our marines out of it.  And you can adjust the plasma setting and add a few other elements that will make it very flexible.  It’s still strong, we use it for the joints and seams in the body armor, and we even make a light armor out of it.  It won’t stop a rifle bullet, but it’ll slow it down enough that the wearer would probably survive.  Some of the marines wear a suit of it under their body armor.  Doubles up the protection at the seams.”

“Thank you; I’m sure the council will consider it,” Garcer said, glancing at Councilor Ankva to ensure they were still aligned.  “What about this polycrete?”

“Oh, it’s just like concrete but more durable.  We make our streets out of it.  We even use it to make the façade for some of our buildings.  Speaking of streets, another thing you should consider adopting is our battery technology.  It will allow you to make electric vehicles that can recharge in minutes instead of hours.  And its power density is much higher than other technologies.  It allows us to create small power packs.  We can even make laser pistols since you can store enough power to make one that will actually shoot a laser beam that will do something other than look pretty.  All our security people carry one.”

“A laser pistol?” Councilor Ankva asked.

“Yes, as you probably know, anyone can make a small laser.  The secret is being able to power it.  Our battery technology makes that possible.”

“I’ll speak to the council.  I’m sure we would be interested in that.”

“Are there any other questions?” Catie asked.

“Yes, just one more.  How do you lift the cabins into the frame when you preassemble them?” Garcer asked.

“Oh, that’s another thing you should consider buying.  We use what we call a Skylifter.  It’s similar to that big thruster rocket you use to accelerate the asteroid toward Thorea but much more flexible.  It can maneuver only using its gravity drives, so it’s completely safe for the workers to be around it.”

“How is that possible?” Garcer asked.  Councilor Ankva also seemed especially interested.

“You’ll learn this soon enough.  If you use three drives, you can phase them, so their power is oriented in any one of the cardinal directions.  Then you can create a thrust vector in any direction you want.  We’ll be retrofitting your cruiser with those kinds of drives before we return it to you.”

“Oh my, we’ll certainly consider this.  I think I have more than enough information right now.  Probably too much; my brain hurts,” Councilor Ankva said.  “Let me take this back to the council and discuss it.  If you would make sure that Garcer gets to see the demonstration on polysteel, I would appreciate it.”

“We have someone waiting right outside the office to take him over to the Aventurier,” Catie said.  “Let me know what I can do to help your efforts.”

“We will.”  Councilor Ankva stood up and nodded to Catie.  “Thank you for all your help, Princess.  I’m sure I’ll be back to talk to you soon.”

“I’ll be looking forward to it.”

Once the councilor and Garcer were escorted out of the office, Morgan came in.  “Catie, are you feeling okay?”

“Sure, why do you ask?”

“I’ve never seen you so talkative.  And you gave away a lot of information we typically hold back.”

“Oh, did I?” Catie said innocently.  “Well, we are here to help.”

◆ ◆ ◆

It was a week before Councilor Ankva and Cer Garcer were ready to move forward.  They were waiting at Catie’s office when she returned from her workout with Morgan.

“I understand that you have a shopping list,” Catie said.

“We do,” Councilor Ankva said.

“Good, come in, and let’s review it.”

They followed Catie into her office and took a seat at her table like before.

“Any questions?” Catie asked.

“Yes.  Actually, quite a few,” Ankva said.  “First, after talking with Ambassador Hausmann, we would like to understand more about the DI and AI that he recommended we purchase from you.  He said that only MacKenzies and the Paraxeans could make them.”

“That’s correct.  What did he recommend?” Catie asked.

“He said we should purchase a DI for the planet and an AI for the space station.  I’m not exactly sure what the difference is.  He tried to explain, but I’m not sure he actually understands.”

“Well, the first difference is that a DI for the planet would be about eighty times more expensive than the AI for the station.  But it is also a lot more powerful.”

“I see.  Why would we spend the money on such an expensive system?  Couldn’t we just buy two AIs?”

“You could.  I believe that Ambassador Hausmann recommended a DI for the planet because it can help with decisions much more than an AI.  It would actually be able to make recommendations on complex issues for you to review.  An AI can only analyze data, answer questions, and basically follow an established set of instructions.  They do it fast and take into account changing variables, but they don’t offer you the extra insight you would get from a DI.  A DI is sapient.  It has the ability to reason.  It will take many years for it to reach its full potential, but it will get to seventy-five percent within five years.  It starts at forty percent, about the equivalent of fifty AIs with a little help from another DI.”

Councilor Ankva shook her head as if to rattle things into place.  “This is so complex.”

“I can understand that,” Catie said.  “There is a lot to absorb.  Other questions?”

“Yes, based on what Ambassador Hausmann explained and what we learned from the documents you shared, we want to keep the space station active.  We hope to start production of things up here.  That means we need a shuttle to start with.  We'll need lots of other things, but the ambassador suggested that we can acquire those over time.”

“That sounds like a good plan.”

Councilor Ankva gave Catie an anxious look.  “The problem is that we don't have much left over with all these things and the license fee for the polysteel and batteries; certainly not enough to fill one of your cargo ships.”

Catie gave Councilor Ankva and Cer Garcer a comforting smile.  “We can help with that.  First, we just finished one of our smaller cargo ships, and it’s at our shipyard, ready for its first mission.  We could use it to ship out the equipment to set up the polysteel factory and the battery factory.  We could also include a delivery of appliances that will greatly improve your people's standard of living.  We can ship a Skylifter directly since it can be piloted remotely.  That would allow you to get things set up.  If necessary, we could provide credit against another asteroid.”

“Would that require that we sell it to you?”

“No.  We still hope you’ll accept our offer, but it doesn’t matter whom you sell it to; it still has significant value, enough to back a loan.”

Cer Garcer leaned forward, obviously wanting to ask a question.

“Cer Garcer, you have a question?”

“Yes, I’m trying to understand where we’re supposed to get all the carbon for the polysteel process, much less the iron ore.”

“We typically set the process up next to a source of carbon, usually a petroleum reserve that we can drill into and pump the oil up.  With that in place, we usually bring in an iron asteroid and set it down next to the factory.”

“You bring in an iron asteroid?”

“Yes, just like you lift your ores into orbit, we just bring one from the asteroid belt and land it on the planet.”

“A small one?”

“The Skylifter can handle a pretty large one.  We go for as big as we can find.  If it’s too big, we break it apart and land it a piece at a time.”

“I see, and what would that cost you?”

“If you buy the Skylifter and license the process, we’ll take care of the first iron asteroid for free,” Catie said.  “It’s not too difficult to bring them in from the asteroid belt.  You should consider purchasing some asteroid movers to move the asteroids you want to mine for platinum metals into orbit so you can mine them from the station.  You could also use them to get ice asteroids to start moderating your planet’s climate.  Your settlement is pretty far north, so it’s not too hot, but the lower latitudes would be unbearable, and that’s where you’re going to find the resources you need to make this colony grow.”

“We surmised that from your data on Artemis.  Yes, we’d like to do that.  How soon could we get delivery of the things we need to get started?” Councilor Ankva asked.  “I especially want to get the polysteel process and the battery manufacturing going.”

“We could have what you need here in three weeks,” Catie said.  “We’ll loan you people to run the process and train your people.  We can start on the polysteel process right away.”

“That’s great,” Councilor Ankva said.  “Cer Garcer will have the final list for you by the end of the day.”

As they left the office, Catie overheard Cer Garcer.  “I still don’t understand why we need to get started with the battery factory right away.  We would have a lot more money available if we waited a few months.”

“I understand, but there are other considerations outside your purview.  Just do as I ask,” Councilor Ankva whispered back.

“Of course.”

Catie smiled to herself, “Good.”

Chapter 11

The Planning Begins

Councilor Ankva looked around the room at her fellow councilors.  She was still amazed that they could now meet so openly and discuss what they planned to do.  Before, they would have been worried that the Shrooms on the space station would have detected the meeting and sent a missile at them.

Councilor Pataka and Councilor Zomeux were attending via quantum relay from Thorea.  The other councilors on Thorea could not attend lest the government detect the comm signals or a gathering of too many important people.

“The question before us is, are we ready to move forward with the rebellion?” Councilor Ankva asked.

“We should at least prepare.  We can have people start to make the laser weapons and produce the body armor,” Councilor Pataka said.  “Once we have built up a cache of weapons on Thorea, we’ll know more.”

“I’m not sure,” Councilor Zomeux said.  “We will need to bring certain experts into the group to execute the plan.  If details of our activities leak out, I fear reprisals against the population.  I wish General Zapos were still available.  We need a military strategist.”

“There is little we can do about that.  They arrested him six months ago, and he is now on a transport ship to Sivaria,” Councilor Pataka said.  “He won’t be arriving there for another six years.”

“They put him on a transport?” Ankva asked.  “Why weren’t we told?”

“We didn’t know until last week.  They held his trial in secret.  One of our operatives just happened to come across his name on the deportee list that her boss left out.”

Ankva sat back and smiled.  “Well, we happen to have new friends that might be able to bring that ship here to Sivaria for us.  I’ll speak to the princess.  In the meantime, continue to prepare.  The more weapons and armor we have, the better we will be able to execute any plan we come up with.”

◆ ◆ ◆

“Princess, do you have a moment?” Councilor Ankva messaged Catie.

“Of course, Councilor; what can I do for you?” Catie asked as she connected to the councilor via her Comm.

“We have just learned that Thorea has sent another transport of deportees toward Sivaria.  It contains over three thousand people.  It would greatly help our efforts here if we could get them here right away.”

“ADI, can you figure out whom they want on that ship?” Catie messaged.

“I’m sure I can.  . . .  It appears that there’s a General Zapos on the ship.”

“Do you know how long ago it set sail?” Catie asked Ankva.

“I was told that it was about six months ago.” Councilor Ankva replied.

“I’ll see what I can do,” Catie said.

“Thank you, Princess.”

“What’s so special about him?” Catie messaged ADI.

“He’s been the government’s go-to guy for dealing with pirates and other complex situations.”

“Then why’s he on the transport?”

“He apparently was famous for resolving problems with minimal loss of life.  Recently the government decided that he was being too nice.  They ordered him to storm a building and take it back, whatever the cost.  He ignored the order and captured it the next day without losing anyone.”

“So?”

“They court-martialed him for disobeying an order.”

“In that case, let’s go get that ship.”

◆ ◆ ◆

“General Zapos, welcome to Sivaria,” Councilor Ankva said.  “I’m Councilor Ankva, the head of the planetary council and, as you know, a member of the Free Thorea Resistance.”

General Zapos was still struggling with being awakened from stasis.  He shook his head as he tried to get his memories in order.  “I remember you.  I must say you’ve aged remarkably well for being on Sivaria.”

Councilor Ankva laughed.  “I wish that were true, but it’s only been seven months since they deported you.”

“That can’t be true!”

“It is.  We have some new allies, the Delphi League, and they have the ability to open wormholes between star systems.”

“I don’t understand.”

“They are able to jump between Thorea and Sivaria in a matter of hours.  As they explained to me, they then did what they call a micro jump out to where the transport was.  The transport crew surrendered immediately, and they were then able to jump you here to Sivaria.”

“With allies like that, we should be able to free Thorea,” the general said.

“They tell us that they cannot get involved in Thorea.  But we have learned quite a few things from them that will help our revolution.  We need your help to put them to the best use.”

“I hope what you say is true, but first, I must sleep.  I have to get over the effects of stasis so that I can think clearly.  Can we meet again tomorrow?”

“We can meet whenever you like.  This is the most important thing that any of us can be involved in.  We have much to share with you when you’re ready.”

◆ ◆ ◆

“General, you’ve had a few days to adjust and gather information on our situation.  Have you been able to come up with a plan?”

“I believe so.”

“Care to share?”

“Yes.  It is unfortunate, but I’ve realized that the Delphineans have come to Thorea and Sivaria to steal all of our platinum metals.”

“That is ridiculous.  They have been nothing but helpful.”

“They have; that’s how they’ve fooled everybody,” the General said with a smile.

Councilor Ankva stared at the General in disbelief.  As he continued to smile at her, she started to smile back.  “Oh, I see what you mean.  I cannot believe that I’ve been so naive.”

“Don’t feel bad.  It takes years of practice to achieve such insights.”

◆ ◆ ◆

General Zapos was visiting the space station.  He was sitting in the mess hall when Catie walked in.  It was no accident; he’d been told she visited the mess hall every Wednesday at this time.

“Hello, General,” Catie said as she passed him.  She paused next to him, and he turned the display so she could see what he was writing.

Transporter
Phasers
Photon Torpedoes
Hand Phasers
Warp Drive
Artificial Gravity
Matter-Antimatter
Shields
Cloaking Device
Replicator
Holodeck

“I was making a list of our sci-fi technology and comparing it to yours.  I thought it would give me an idea of where your technology is and where it’s heading.”

Catie laughed.  “Well, most of the things on that list are not practical, and quite a few are not even possible, at least as far as we know.”

“It seems to me that you do have many of the things on the list; which ones are not practical?”

“Let me see.  Artificial gravity isn’t very practical.  The one over r-squared decay or one over r if you have plates makes it pretty useless except in very special circumstances.  On our sci-fi shows, it seems like you just flip a switch, and the entire ship has exactly the gravity you want.”

The general just nodded his head.  “And?”

“We do have Matter-Antimatter reactors, but nobody has any science that points to the possibility of shields.”

The general made notes on the list, moving a few things around.  He looked at Catie again.

“Phasers are a bit like plasma cannons but more fanciful.  A handheld plasma cannon seems impossible.  We do have long weapon ones, but they’re not very useful; you can only get one shot before you have to recharge.  Lasers are more reasonable, we do have hand lasers, and of course, both we and you Thoreans have ship lasers, but they have a much more limited range than what you see in sci-fi shows.”

“That’s what I thought,” the general said.

“Warp drives might be possible; we do have wormhole generators, but we don’t know how to stay in the other dimension, nor are we sure you would want to.”

“What about a cloaking device?”

“Our ship hulls absorb energy, which makes us difficult to detect, and you can play tricks with light to make it seem like you’re not there or are something different.  But nothing like the cloaking device our Star Trek series shows that the Klingons have.  Photon torpedoes, who knows what those are, but we don’t know of anything with the kind of power they tend to show in sci-fi shows.  A torpedo with a matter-antimatter warhead might work, but I wouldn’t want to be carrying one around on my ship.”

The general laughed at that.  “What about the replicator?”

“We have 3D printers, but they’re not that fast, and I wouldn’t want to eat anything that came out of one.  We do have a holodeck, but you can’t create real beings that are like flesh and blood.  Maybe it’s more virtual reality, but the sci-fi shows take it a bit far.”

“I agree,” General Zapos said.  “But, how about a transporter?”

“There is science showing you can make remote copies, but it’s very nascent.  I wouldn’t volunteer to be transported if we did have one.  How would you keep the tissue alive?”

“Don’t you print replacement parts?”

“We do, but we don’t print them with live tissues.  The printing process uses a protoplasm to replicate the limb or part.  It uses calcium to make the bones with the protoplasm for the marrow; the same for organs and other tissue.  The outer skin is just dead cells.  Then we inject stem cells into it and start circulating blood.  The stem cells go crazy and replace all the protoplasm with real cells, using the protoplasm as source material.  It takes at least a week, sometimes a month, before everything is actually alive and can be transplanted or grafted onto a real person.”

“Ah, I see, so not likely that you can transport a person from a ship to the surface in seconds.”

“I wouldn’t think so.  What are you going to do with this?” Catie asked.

“I’m just exploring the bounds of fact and fantasy.  Thinking about what evidence it would take to convince people that something like a transporter is real.”

“That would be scary.  If someone could just transport whatever they wanted wherever they wanted, how could anyone stop them from doing whatever they wanted to do.”

“Yes, it does give one pause,” the general said.

◆ ◆ ◆

“ADI, did you catch my conversation with General Zapos?” Catie asked.

“Yes, Cer Catie.  I did.  It was very interesting.”

“It was.  It looks like he’s coming up with some elaborate plans.  But I worry that they might need more help.  Something like what you were able to do for us on Helike.”

“I’m sure that would be good, but how could I break into the internet on Thorea?” ADI asked.

“Well, if they installed quantum relays into the network as we did, that would be easy.”

“Oh, that is correct, and we do know that they have quantum relays.”

“But you cannot be directly involved,” Catie said.  “Was there someone else on that transport or someone here on Sivaria that could help?  An excellent hacker?”

“I am not a hacker; I’m a computer artist,” ADI whined.  “But I see that a young lady, a Cer Levaria, was transported for computer crimes.”

“Good; where is she now?”

“She’s still in stasis.  They’re scheduled to wake her up in two months.”

“Can you speed that up?  Keep her here on the station until we figure out how to make Councilor Ankva and General Zapos aware of her skills; then, I’ll convince them to use her.”

“I’ll make the necessary arrangements.”

◆ ◆ ◆

Levaria knocked on the door to the station manager’s office.  She’d just been brought out of stasis and counted herself lucky to be awakened so soon, as it would be months before some of the transportees would be awakened, and she had expected to be at the end of the line.

“Enter,” a voice said.

Levaria opened the door.  “Have a seat; Cer V'zan will be with you in a moment.”

Levaria sat down.  She wondered what the station manager wanted with her.  “Maybe she’s going to read me the riot act and tell me that I’m not allowed to have a phone or go near a computer terminal.”

There was a buzz.  “Here we go,” Levaria thought.

“Cer V'zan will see you now; just go right in,” the admin said.

Levaria opened the door to the office and almost fainted.  “Cer V’zan is a woman, and she isn’t a Shroom.  What the . . .”

“Have a seat,” she was told.

Levaria sat, clutching her hands tightly.  She was so confused.

“Cer Levaria, I see here that you have some computer experience.  Can you explain?”

“I just learned some on my own.”

“That seems unlikely.  To have gained the skills to break into the national bank, you would have needed some formal education.”

Levaria just bit her lip and stared at Cer V’zan.

“You need to tell me more,” Cer V’zan said.  “We need a computer technician in engineering, but I can’t endorse your recommendation unless I know more.”

“I can’t have a job like that.  I’m a Norm,” Levaria said.

“So am I.”

“No, you can’t be; it’s against the rules.”

“Did anyone explain our situation when they woke you up?”

“No, they just gave me this phone, a bag of clothes, and told me which cabin I would be staying in.”

“Now I see the problem.  You do know you’re at Sivaria?”

“Yes, I was transported here because I broke into the bank’s systems.”

“Right.  Well, Sivaria is now free of Thorea.  A spacefaring organization called the Delphi League helped to break us free.  So, now we’re focusing on developing our colony.”

“That can’t be true.”

Cer V’zan signaled her admin.  “Cicara, could you ask Private Estimé to come to my office?”

Cer V’zan turned back to Levaria.  “While we wait, let me tell you more about the Delphi League.  They have the ability to use wormholes to jump between star systems.  They came here because we used to work with the Paraxeans.  Actually, they went to Thorea first, but the government there set a trap for them.  So, they came here.  They took over the space station and that cruiser that Thorea kept here to keep us under their thumbs.  So now we’re free.  We joined the League, and they’re helping us develop Sivaria.  We’ve sold them one, maybe two, of those asteroids we were sending to Thorea.”

Levaria was shaking her head.

“I know it’s hard to believe, but it’s all true.”

There was a knock at the door.

“Enter.”

Private Estimé entered.  Levaria was shocked; this Estimé was obviously an alien.  Tall, female, and wearing a weapon on her belt.

“Private Estimé, this is Levaria, one of the recent transportees we just awakened.  Nobody told her about the situation here, and she is having trouble believing it.”

Estimé laughed.  “Hey, sometimes I have a hard time believing it myself.”

Levaria could hear Estimé talking in a strange voice, but something else broadcast the words in Thorean.

“Oh, I forgot.  They must not have given you these,” Cer V’zan said as she handed Levaria a small box.  It was transparent and contained what looked like earplugs in it.  “If you put those in your ears, that phone they gave you will translate for you, and you’ll only hear the Thorean version.”

“Are all the aliens female?” Levaria asked.

“No.  They’re divided, just like us.  I just thought that a female would help you believe a bit faster.”

“Don’t you have a pair of specs for her?” Estimé asked.

“Oh, right.  That will help.  I’m not used to them yet, so I forgot.”  Cer V’zan pulled a pair of glasses out and handed them to Levaria.  “Here, put these on.  They’re like a virtual reality headset, totally amazing.”

Levaria put the specs on.  “Hmm, they’re just auto-darkening sunglasses.  Cool, but not that cool.”

“ADI, would you mind providing Levaria with a tour?” Cer V’zan asked.

“My pleasure,” Levaria heard before her world was rocked as the glasses pulled her into a 3D universe.  Everything she saw was new, different.  She was floating in space next to the space station.  She could see Sivaria, and whenever she turned her head, the view changed as if it were all real.

Beside the space station, there was a large ship.  It looked kind of weird, like a double ellipsoid, no a triple one.  “Wow,” she gasped.

The view zoomed her down to the planet, where she could see the city and all the activity going on.  The people she saw actually looked happy.  They were fixing up the various buildings, replacing street signs, and filling potholes in the street.

“Okay, I think I’m convinced,” Levaria said.

“Good.  Now, how about the truth?  I can assure you it will not get back to Thorea.”

“I met a woman at one of the knitting circles.  She used to be a computer engineer before the Shrooms banned women from those roles.”

“And she tutored you?”

“Yes.  I did well on the lessons she taught about computers and programming, so she took me aside and offered to teach me.”

“By the way, we try not to call them Shrooms.  If you need to refer to people with the golden gene, we call them GGs.  We have quite a few here on the station helping us.”

“All of them?”

“No, about half.  The others are working in whatever job we can trust them with.  A lot of them work in the recycling center.”

Levaria laughed at the thought of Shrooms, no GGs, being forced to stoop so low.

“So, how did the hacking start?”

“Just a group of teenagers, mostly boys.  We kept challenging ourselves to find the vulnerabilities in the base codes we were studying.  It was fun.  Then one of the boys challenged me to break into the bank.  We’d seen something we thought would let us in.  I think he was the one that ratted me out.  He’d asked me on a date, and I turned him down.  I should have known better; he always struck me as a rat.”

“I see.  I hope you have that out of your system.  I’m going to go ahead and endorse the recommendation.  But do not take advantage of it.  If we catch you trying to hack our systems, you’ll be joining those GGs you laughed about in the recycle center.”

“I won’t let you down,” Levaria said.

“Private Estimé, would you escort Levaria down to engineering?”

◆ ◆ ◆

A week after Levaria started her job, she got a message on her Comm after dinner while she was studying.  “Do you want to play Castaway?”

“Who are you?” Levaria asked.

“ADI”

“Who?”

“I’m the Delphinean computer lady.”

“What’s Castaway?”

“A multiplayer game about survival.”

“I don’t know.  I can’t afford to get into trouble.”

“Ask your boss about me,” ADI replied.  “Then we’ll play.”

The next day Levaria asked her boss about this ADI person.

“Oh, ADI is the best.  She hacked all our systems when the Delphineans took over.  She’s always helpful if we have a big issue,” he said.  “Don’t worry; she won’t get you in trouble.”

◆ ◆ ◆

“ADI, how’s Levaria doing?” Catie asked.

“She’s doing great.  We’ve finished playing Castaway; now we’re going to play Helike.”

“Helike?”

“Oh, it’s a game I developed based on our adventure on Helike.  It will introduce her to the concept of quantum relays, and we’ll go over some of the more elaborate ways to infiltrate a network without being traced.”

“Do you think she’ll figure out what she should do?”

“Probably; if not, I’ll give her a hint.”

◆ ◆ ◆

Levaria was ecstatic when she was invited to be there when they woke the station AI.  Councilor Ankva had come up from the planet as well.  Even Princess Catherine was going to attend.  There had been a contest to come up with the name for the AI, and the top five names were voted on.  Levaria didn’t know why, but she immediately thought of the AI as a him, not an it or a her.  Her favorite name won, Ombraro, which meant “Moonshadow” in Thorean.

Councilor Ankva entered the computer center with Princess Catherine.  “Welcome, everyone.  This is a momentous day for Sivaria.  This AI, Ombraro, will allow our space station to dramatically increase the quality of our government services.  It will work with your phones to provide unparalleled services to you in your cabins as well as improve educational services for everyone.  And until we get the DI for the planet, he will also provide those services there.  They tell me that the planet DI will take several more months to complete.”

There was a big to-do about flipping the switch, which brought the AI online.  Ombraro immediately said hello to Cer V’zan since he would be subordinate to her.  After a few questions, he was told to work with ADI to integrate himself into the system on the station and the planet.

Levaria was disappointed that ADI hadn’t shown up in person.  She’d played computer games with her for three weeks but had never met her.  Apparently, she didn’t like leaving the Aventurier.

“Levaria, I’m pleased to meet you,” Catie said.  “ADI tells me that you’re turning into quite the computer analyst.”

“Thank you, Princess.  I have enjoyed learning from her.”

Councilor Ankva gave Levaria an appraising look.  She was clearly interested in what Levaria was learning from the Delphinean computer expert that she’d heard so much about.

◆ ◆ ◆

The next day, when Levaria arrived at work, she was informed that she had a meeting with Councilor Ankva.  Levaria was nervous, hoping that playing games with ADI hadn’t gotten her in trouble.

“Please have a seat,” Councilor Ankva told Levaria when she entered her office.

Levaria quickly took the seat indicated, still very nervous.

“Cer V’zan tells me you’ve been a big help in engineering.”

“That’s kind of her.”

“Don’t be nervous; I’m just interested in what you’re learning on this job.  We need people with your skills in our colony.”

Levaria smiled.  She still wasn’t sure that she wasn’t in trouble.

“I’m curious what you’re learning from ADI.  I’ve heard wonderful things about her skills.  You know she was instrumental in capturing the station and the cruiser so we could free Sivaria.”

“Yes, I know.  She doesn’t talk about it much, but she did tell me a few things.”

“Like what?”

“She pointed out the parts of our system where we had good security that she couldn’t break into, then she showed me the parts where the security was not so good.”

“Oh, and what did you do?”

“I fixed them, of course.  That’s part of my job.”

“What else have you and ADI done?”

“We’ve played computer games together.  . . . Always on my own time.”

“I’m sure.  Everything I hear tells me that you’re an exceptional employee.  Now, tell me about these games.”

“Well, the first one we played was about world-building.  But it included a lot of tests where you had to break into the enemy systems.  . . . oops.”

“Don’t worry, I’ve heard about your youthful indiscretion.  I think it’s admirable that you could accomplish so much against the GGs.”

Levaria smiled.  “Thanks.  It was too bad that that guy ratted me out.  They would never have figured it out otherwise.”

“So, the other games?” Councilor Ankva prompted.

“Oh, then we played this game called Helike.  It was based on what Princess Catherine and her friends did on Helike to help stop Polemistia from taking over the planet.  Did you hear about them blowing up that moon?”

“I did.  It is frightening what the lust for power will make people do.  Now back to this game.  What did it entail?”

“Well, we did some really neat things.  First, we had to tap into the planet’s internet.  ADI stayed on the ship so she could work undisturbed, so I had to take a quantum relay and integrate it into an internet switch.  Then I had to insert that into one of their internet nodes.  It was really cool.  With that, ADI was able to access their internet, and since I put the relay into a node, she was able to hide her IP address.  She could go anywhere, and they couldn’t find her.”

“Interesting; what was she able to do with this access?”

“Well, we broke into their bank and stole a bunch of money.”

“Broke in?”

“Oh, not really; we entered the banking system and transferred the money to a private account we had set up.  I could have done that on Thorea if I’d had the guts.  I could have gotten anything I wanted from The National Bank; I still could.”

“But they would have closed that hole by now, wouldn’t they?”

“Maybe,” Levaria said.  “There were three.  I lied and told them about the easy one; I doubt they found the other two.”

“Interesting.  What else were you able to do?”

“Oh, we could grab the camera feeds that they used on the streets and modify them.  It was pretty easy to use them to surveil people, and we could modify them to hide our guys from them.  They’d get a feed that looked normal, but it wouldn’t show our guys walking down the street.  I’m still working on our systems here to fix all the holes, but those networks were not well designed for security.”

“That sounds like a lot of work.”

“It is, but we had an AI like Ombraro.  With the right instructions, the AI could modify the feeds so fast nobody could tell.”

“That is very interesting.  Levaria, I wonder if you would be willing to work with a friend of mine.  He’s trying to help our people on Thorea push the GGs out of power.”

“Oh, I’d do anything to help.  They’re so corrupt and mean.  They just dumped me on that transport, no trial.  They didn’t even give me a chance to explain.”

“Well, we’d like to fix that.”

Chapter 12

Rebellion

General Zapos was amazed.  How had he even thought he could succeed before they got Levaria to show the rebels on Thorea how to install the quantum relays into the internet systems?  She had even helped them modify the codes in the phones so that the phones would be untraceable.  Now with that setup, he could work directly with any member of the rebel coalition without fear that they would be compromised.

“Jarkaro, I’m pleased to hear that you agreed to help us,” General Zapos said as he began the call.  “I can assure you that your phone and this call are untraceable.”  They’d given Jarkaro a new phone to replace his standard Thorean phone.

“I’m not much of a fighter, but I’m happy to do whatever I can to help the cause.”

“Good.  And we don’t just need fighters.  We need people with skills.  An army runs on logistics and money.  I hear you know a lot about money.”

“I do, but I don’t have access to the kind of funds you would need.”

“Don’t worry about that; we have someone who can help us get the money; we need someone who can help us move it around and hide it.”

“Then, I’m your man.  I have to do that for my Shroom clients all the time.”

General Zapos shook his head.  The Shrooms weren’t happy controlling most of the wealth; they still wanted to hide it from the government so they could avoid taxes and make the Norms fund everything.  “That’s good.  We need you to set up some accounts.  We’ll move money into them.  Then we’ll need you to help us purchase equipment and supplies, but we have to hide those purchases.”

“I can do that.  I’ve had to hide the purchase of a few yachts and a mansion or two.  After that, anything is easy.”

“Good.  I’ll put you in contact with the right people.”

“Thanks for involving me.  I have always wanted to help; I just didn’t know how.”

◆ ◆ ◆

Cer Garcer was glad that they were finally starting to do something.  He had been spending weeks studying the Delphinean process to make the batteries and the polysteel.  Now it was time to teach the rebels.

“Doctor Abuth, thank you for joining us.  We really need your help,” Garcer said.

“I want to help, but I’m not sure what I can do.”

“Are you using your new phone?”

“Yes, they took my old one; they said they’d convert it and give it to someone else.”

“Good, that means this call is untraceable.  We need you to set up some manufacturing processes for us.”

“I’m pretty busy at work; I’m not sure I can put that much time in.  Can’t you find someone else?”

“We are hoping that you would be able to take a leave of absence.”

Garcer snorted.  “Not likely.”

“Oh, not on good terms with your boss?”

“No, nobody could be on good terms with that idiot.”

“What about quitting?”

“That would put a spotlight on me,” Dr. Abuth said.  “I’d be better off getting fired, but then how would I live?”

“We can arrange for money to be made available.  Your living expenses will be minor compared to the money we’ll be using to set up these processes.”

“Okay, I can make that happen.  Now, what are these processes you're talking about?”

“There are two; one uses lithium, ceramic, and a few exotic materials to make batteries.”

“Batteries.  Can’t we just buy them?”

“Not these kinds.  They are half the weight and hold three times the charge when they’re the size we want.”

“And what size is that?”

“We’re interested in two sizes, 15 by 50 by 100 millimeters.  And 15 by 50 by 200.”

“Strange sizes.”

“They match the sizes of the magazine for Thorean police handguns and the stock of their assault rifles.”

“Why do you need batteries?”

“Because we’re going to make laser pistols and an assault rifle with a laser option.”

Dr. Abuth looked shocked.  “You can store enough power to fire a laser?”

“Yes, we’ve done it here on Sivaria.  The handgun only gives you two shots before you have to wait for the capacitor to recharge, and a total of ten.  The rifle gives you thirty shots.”

“Amazing.  Well, I’m sure I can help with that process.  It’s a bit out of my expertise, but we’ve all done plenty of chemistry experiments.  What’s the other process?”

“It makes polysteel.”

Dr. Abuth shook his head.  “You’re really going outside my area of expertise there; I don’t even know what that is.”

“I didn’t think so.  It’s a form of steel, and it’s deposited using a plasma beam.”

Dr. Abuth smiled, looking like he’d just won the lottery.  “Using a plasma beam?  That is interesting.”

◆ ◆ ◆

Misata was knitting away along with the other women in the knitting circle.  They had all sensed that something was going on, there were a couple of new women there, and they didn’t seem like just run of the mill people.

“Ladies,” the circle leader called them to attention.  “We have with us a special guest; she is known as Cer Delta.”

“Cer Delta, we’ve never had someone use an assumed name before.”

Cer Delta moved to the board and flipped it over.  “This is the address of a new Twitter service.  It’s called BlueBird.  We need you to get as many of your friends to use it as possible.  We will be using this service to send out information which the Shrooms will not want published.”

“Won’t they just shut the site down?” Misata asked.

“They’ll try, but this is a unique site; they will not be able to find it or shut it down.  Now, as soon as you connect, follow the hashtag ‘whatsUpDoc.’  It will be tweeting out the things the Shrooms are hiding.  You need to retweet them to your friends.  We need to have as many people tweeting about these events as we can.”

“Won’t we get into trouble?”

“It will be impossible for the Shrooms to trace your tweets back to you.  You’ll need to choose a name for the app on your phone since you won’t want others to know you’re using BlueBird.”

Misata quickly loaded the app and did the tweet.  “Finally, something is going to start happening.”

◆ ◆ ◆

“General, the council is getting impatient.  They had expected something to happen by now,” Councilor Ankva said.

“Patience.  Haste is the enemy of success.  We have laid the groundwork.  We are just now making the armor and the weapons we’ll need.  But first, we need to undermine the government’s authority.”

“And how will we do that?”

“The Delphineans will take care of it for us.”

“Ah, yes, your plan to blame everything on the Delphi League.  How is that working?”

“We’ll see how things go next week.  Levaria has just gotten into the systems we need.  Things will start to happen soon.”

Chapter 13

Preparing for War

The day started out with its regular boring routine at the First National Reserve Bank.  The only thing of interest was that the director’s admin had gotten sick during lunch and had had to go home.  Marialas had been happy to step into her place and help the director.

It was just thirty minutes before closing when a woman entered.  She was an unusual guest, not only because she was beautiful, but she was taller than the average Thorean, and she was dressed more for a party than an afternoon at a bank.

“I’m here to see the director; is he available?” the woman asked Marialas.

“Let me see,” Marialas said.

“Please give him my card.”

Marialas carefully took the card by its edges and went into the director’s office.

“There’s someone to see you,” she said as she handed the director the card.  As she did so, she moved so that the view of the director from the outer office was obscured.  The director looked at the card, then suddenly he passed out.  The woman entered just as the director passed out, blocking the view of him from the lobby.  A man had entered right before her from the bathroom hallway, where he had ducked low so that nobody could see him, and the woman’s position had also shielded him as he turned into the director’s office.  He quickly moved to the director’s desk and lowered the now unconscious man to the floor.  After putting virtual reality glasses on the director, he seated himself in the director’s chair.

“Ah, I’ve been expecting you,” he said to the woman.  He extended his hand and took some papers from the woman.  Marialas was amazed; the man looked and sounded exactly like the director.  “We had better take care of this right away.  Is the truck here?”

“Yes, sir,” the woman said.

The fake director stood up and walked out of his office, calling to the assistant director.  “The government has informed us that we need to move our gold and platinum to a more secure location.  There are rumors that all the reserve banks are being targeted.  Please get a crew to the vault.  I’ll open it; a truck is waiting to load the ingots.”

A large panel truck had backed up to the rear entrance of the bank.  Nobody was worried about it, all vehicles had transponders, and the police tracked their location.  If the truck wasn’t supposed to be this close to the bank, an alarm would have been sounded.  The truck’s transponder actually indicated that it was at an electronics warehouse picking up an order for delivery to the local stores.

Marialas watched as the fake director opened the vault.  He had all the correct biometrics to identify him as the director and knew the combination.  Of course he did; she had provided that information to her handler as well as fingerprints, images, and blood samples from the director.

The assistant director showed up with a crew to move the ingots.  They quickly loaded the ingots onto carts and wheeled them to the truck.  The director stood next to Marialas and the woman, ticking off each cart, ensuring that the number of ingots on the cart matched the number listed on the sheet.

Once all the ingots were loaded, they returned to the director’s office, where the man made a show of signing the document.  In fact, he was inserting the sheet the Marialas had gotten the director to sign just after lunch.  He then removed the VR glasses from the director and eased him back into his chair.  The woman thanked the director, then shielded the man’s exit from the office as she and Marialas walked out.  Marialas took her copy of the paperwork and filed it as the woman left the bank.

As the panel truck left the facility, Levaria and Ombraro carefully ensured that the street cameras didn’t show any trace of it.

◆ ◆ ◆

Like everyone else, Baxrop had been enthralled by the woman who had shown up early that afternoon.  Things had been slow at the smelter.  The new asteroid had not arrived as scheduled, so after two months, there wasn’t much work to do.  The government had not provided any explanation.  Suddenly, all orders for the metals had been canceled, except those for military purposes.  They still had a small stock of metal and were still smelting the last remnants of ore from the previous asteroid.  But things were slow.  Half the staff had been laid off, so a beautiful woman was a welcome diversion.  She’d handed some paperwork to the manager, and now they were loading all the metals and ore they had in stock onto a semi-trailer.  There was a small security detail, smaller than Baxrop would have recommended, but nobody had asked him.

Once they’d loaded the last pallet and locked the doors, Baxrop slapped the side of the trailer to let the driver know that he should head out.  Baxrop wondered if he would have a job tomorrow; what would there be to do around here now that they weren’t even going to be managing deliveries of the platinum metals to the various factories?

◆ ◆ ◆

Ke'an backed his semi along the lane.  He was being guided by the road crew that was repairing the highway.  There were dump trucks and grinding machines between him and the open lane, hiding him from the drivers who were traveling on the road.  It was dark, and it was unlikely that anyone would notice his semi without lights.

They signaled him to stop.  One of the workers brought him a dinner plate.  “Just relax and eat this since you won’t get a chance to stop for dinner,” he was told.  Ke'an nodded his head.  He really didn’t want to know what they were doing; he was just following orders, and the less he knew, the better.

Behind the trailer, they’d built a ramp out of dirt so the forklift could reach the pallets.  They quickly moved each pallet from the trailer into the culvert they’d buried below the highway.  Soon all fifty-two pallets of ingots and chunks of ore were in the culvert.  Then they loaded the fifty-two pallets of auto parts that Ke'an had dropped off earlier back into the trailer.  Once they were loaded, the foreman went to the cab.

“Ke'an, you’re good.  Your transponder will switch back on as soon as you pass the big diner up at highway 64.  That’s where you’ve been for the last few hours, having your dinner and prescribed nap.  You’ll pass it in an hour, right after you’ve had your four-hour break.  Just keep going.”

Ke'an nodded his head.  “Gotcha.  Now good luck, and I hope I never see you again.”

“Same here.  Good job.”

The foreman waved to Ke'an as he drove away.  “Alright, boys, bury it.  We need to pack the dirt down and have the first layer of pavement on it before it gets light.”

“This is sure one expensive section of highway,” his partner joked.

“Hey, we know where it is.  Once this is all over, we’ll come back and do some repairs.”

◆ ◆ ◆

“Explain why you let someone come into your bank and remove all of your gold and platinum metals?” Inspector Kackot demanded.

“Sir, they had an order signed by the minister of treasury.  My system told me to expect them.”

“And did you do anything to verify the authenticity of that letter?”

“I checked the system; it said it was authentic.”

“Did you call anyone?”

“I wanted to, but I couldn’t.”

“What do you mean you couldn’t?”

“Just that.  It was like I was under a spell.  I had to do whatever she told me.”

“And you couldn’t report it when they left?”

“No, then I fell asl . . . unconscious.”

Inspector Kackot slammed his fist on the table.  He wasn’t interested in hearing the same story.  The other five directors of the National Reserve Banks had told the same story.  A beautiful woman came into their office, and they were helpless to do anything except follow her orders.  Six banks emptied of their reserves.  And from his investigation, the cameras did not show any panel truck in the vicinity of any of the banks.  And to top it off, the managers of the four smelters Thorea used to process the asteroids from Sivaria had told a similar story.  A beautiful woman had shown up, and their warehouses had been emptied; the metal ingots disappeared into trucks that were never there.  Like the banks, the street cameras and the transponders didn’t show any truck at the smelters at the time of the robberies.  Invisible trucks, beguiling women who could make men do whatever they wanted.  Who was writing this stuff?!

◆ ◆ ◆

“You cannot be serious, all of our platinum metal ores?!” the president yelled.  “How could this happen?”

“We are investigating.  The director of each national reserve bank signed the documents for the transfer of the ores.  The document indicated that the ores were being transferred to a more secure location,” General V'lorm, the national security commander, said.

“Were they bribed?”

“We have interrogated each of them.  They all tell the same story; a woman came to the bank with the documents; their systems had told them to expect someone.  We see the orders in the systems, but nobody can trace where they came from.  Each man says they felt they had to do whatever the woman said.”

“That’s ridiculous!”

“I agree, but we used very persuasive interrogation techniques.  Their stories never changed.”

“You have to be more forceful,” the president demanded.

“That is not possible.”

“Why not?”

“Each of them eventually died.  As I said, they stuck to their story until the end.”

“But you were able to track the trucks?  They have transponders.”

“We have checked the records.  No truck was present at the banks during the time the metals were taken.”

“That’s impossible; how would they move it then?  The ingots from the banks must have weighed a ton.”

“2.4 tons, to be exact.  There had to be a truck, but we found no trace of it in the camera feed from the bank or the road.  We are still examining the footage.  Our experts say it doesn’t look doctored, but it must have been.”

“What about the smelters?  Nobody could move that much ore,” the president said.

“The same story.”

“Impossible.  It would have taken a semi to move all that ore.”

“Yes, and again there is no evidence of a semi in the area.”

“And the managers?”

“They all died telling the same story.”

“We have to get the ores back.  It will cripple our economy if we have to start harvesting it from existing machines.”

“Yes, and our defenses are very dependent on them also.  Two of our cruisers are supposed to be refitted next month.  Their gravity drives are already starting to deteriorate.”

“Then, I suggest you find out what happened!”

◆ ◆ ◆

BlueBird: #whatsUpDoc.  Did you hear that all the platinum ores were stolen?

BlueBird:  #whatsUpDoc.  I’m going to buy a new computer before they can’t make anymore.

BlueBird:  #whatsUpDoc.  I heard it was aliens.

BlueBird:  #whatsUpDoc.  How could the government lose all that ore?  Who’s running things?

◆ ◆ ◆

“General, can’t we make more aggressive moves against the government?” Councilor Ankva asked.

“Councilor, patience.  We want to weaken the government first, but we don’t want them to start attacking our people.  It will take time.”

“Do we really have that much time?  We have to get the Delphineans involved before they leave.  I’m not sure how long the princess will stay here.”

“You haven’t even received your first shipment.  Didn’t the princess tell you it would take a few weeks to a month?  We still have at least two weeks.  There is plenty of time; patience and confusion to the enemy are the secrets of a successful campaign.”

“Very well, we’ll follow your lead.  But it would be helpful if there was more to report.”

“We’re ramping up production of the body armor and weapons.  We want to be fully prepared before we actively engage the government forces.  For now, we need to let the ‘Delphineans’ undermine them.”

Councilor Ankva nodded to the general as she rose.  “I will tell the council to wait.  But I will need more than the theft of the platinum metals to make them feel like we are making progress.”

“More is coming.  Soon.”

◆ ◆ ◆

Borain was feeling better today than he had in years.  Finally, something was happening.  He had worked himself up in the secret service until he was on the presidential detail.  Now, all that work would be put to the test.

“What’s going on here?” he asked.

“Just checking the delivery of gardening supplies,” the junior agent said.

“Go find something useful to do; I’ll sit here and oversee this,” Borain said.  “I could use the rest.”

The gardener smiled at Borain.  He was obviously tired of the over-protectiveness that he now had to put up with after all the crazy things that were being reported.  He also knew, like Borain, that today was the day.

“Do you have everything you need?” Borain asked.

“Yes, sir,” the gardener said.  “I’ll have the lawn fertilized before the end of the day.”

“Good, call me if anything comes up.”

“Of course.”

◆ ◆ ◆

During the day, the gardener placed the thermite discs around the palace.  Eight in total.  He buried them just under the grass according to the map Borain had given him.  He made sure the small lens was above the ground and unobstructed, just how Borain had told him to do it.  He was actually glad he wouldn’t be around to see the fireworks.

Borain had picked up a few other things from the delivery.  He moved through the palace, carefully placing the microdiscs in their assigned location.  He was actually looking forward to the fireworks.  He just hoped that nobody shot him by accident.  And he especially hoped their guy who’d hacked into the video system was able to erase his movements from the log.

At 0100, four of the discs went off.  Not much of a show, they simply shot a beam of light into the sky, then sprayed thermite out to a half-meter radius, and then lit themselves off, burning a circle into the ground roughly one meter in diameter and destroying themselves.  If you weren’t looking, you probably wouldn’t have noticed that anything happened.

A minute later, several pops could be heard as the microdiscs started to ignite, again a tiny beam of light, then a burn spot was the only evidence left to find.  But this time, notice was taken.  Alarms sounded as the security team swarmed over the palace.  As more pops happened, gunfire erupted.  Borain actually contributed a few shots himself, careful not to hit anything vital.

The military personnel from the barracks next to the palace swarmed over the palace grounds.  More gunfire erupted as they spied beams of light.  Five minutes after it all started, the last four discs placed by the gardener went off.  The soldiers noticed the beams of light, but when they raced to the spot where they saw them, all they saw was a slightly burned spot on the grass.  It was not exactly burned; it looked like part of the grass had simply disappeared.

◆ ◆ ◆

“What the hell was all that?!” the president demanded.

General V'lorm looked at the head of the secret service detail expectantly.

“Sir, we’re not sure.  It appears that the rebels made an incursion onto the palace ground.  It appears that they even made it into the palace.  Our team responded immediately, shots were fired, but nobody actually saw anyone.”

“Then why did they shoot?” the general demanded.

“They shot at the source of the phaser beams.”

“What the hell do you mean by phaser beams?” the general demanded; he could see the president getting more agitated.

“We don’t know what kind of weapon it was.  The men just saw a flash of light, and then there would be a hole where it hit.  We had to put out multiple fires.”

“How did they get in and out without being detected?”

The agent flicked an image to the display.  “We don’t know.  All we saw were other flashes of light.  When we got to the spot, this is what we found.”  The display showed an image of a circle on the grass, about a meter in diameter, with significant sections of the grass missing.

“And what is that?”

“We found four of these right after the firing stopped.  One of our men saw several flashes of light in the sky.  After a search, we found these where he thought the flashes were.  When we searched some more, we found another four, each one close to one of the others.”

“And what do you think they are?”

“Places where the rebels transported in, then out?” the agent suggested.

“Give me a break.  What the hell do you think this is, some sci-fi movie?  I want to know how they got into the compound!”

“Sir, we have surveillance, motion sensors, and patrols along the perimeter.  The fence is electrified.  Nothing was tripped.  As far as we can tell, nothing came in or out.  The radar showed that nothing flew through the airspace above the palace compound.”  The agent shrugged.

“Sir, we need to move you to the bunker,” the general said.

“I was just in the damn thing.  It made me feel like a sitting duck.”

“I agree; that’s why we don’t want to use that bunker, but the one in the mountains.  We need to establish a better defense around you.”

“Good, when?”

“Right now.  We don’t know what they learned from this incursion, but we don’t want to be here to find out,” the general said.

◆ ◆ ◆

BlueBird #whatsUpDoc:  Did you hear about the gunfight at the palace?

BlueBird #whatsUpDoc:  I heard the president ran off to his bunker in the mountains.

BlueBird #whatsUpDoc:  Are you sure the aliens didn’t take him?

BlueBird #whatsUpDoc:  I heard they used transporters to get into the compound.

◆ ◆ ◆

“This tribunal will come to order.  We are here to decide the fate of the eighteen governors of Thorea.  Is the prosecution ready?”

“We are, your honor.”

“Is the defense ready?”

The two attorneys at the defense table looked at each other.  They were not happy with being assigned the task of defending the governors, but they had not been given a choice.  “We are, your honor.”

“Is the jury ready?”

“We are, your honor,” the jurors replied enthusiastically.

“Our first defendant is Governor Vilnias.  Prosecution, please read the charges.”

“Governor Vilnias is charged with ten counts of rape; two counts of first-degree murder; twenty-three counts of second-degree murder; and seven counts of stealing from the people.”

“I will enter the plea of not guilty for the governor,” the judge said as she smiled at the defense.  “Prosecution, please present your case.”

The prosecution brought in a young girl; she was only fourteen.  She described how she had been pulled off the street and dragged into the governor’s limousine.  She told them that once at the governor’s palace, the governor had dragged her to his bedroom, where he proceeded to rape her.

“What happened after that?” the judge asked.

“He kept me for two months,” the girl replied.

“And what happened during those two months?”

“He raped me almost every day.  Sometimes twice a day.”

“Prosecution, why was he charged with only ten counts of rape?”

“Your honor, none of the girls could be specific about the number of times they were raped.  We decided to focus on the first rape as the one charge which could clearly be brought against the governor.”

“Very well.”

The prosecution led the witness through that first day, clarifying details of time, her state of mind, and what she had been doing when she was grabbed off the street.  Then he turned to the defense.  “Your witness.”

The defense made a feeble attempt to get the girl to admit that she admired the governor, had been excited to see his limousine, and had been happy to accompany him back to the governor’s palace.  It was clear that the judge and jury were not buying it.  Finally, the defense allowed the girl to run from the courtroom, crying.

After each of the ten girls had testified, some via video link, the judge called a short recess to allow the jurors a break.

When they reconvened, the prosecution started on the murder charges.  For the charge of first-degree murder, the prosecution called the governor’s secretary, who was to testify over a secure link.  She was in a small room below a bar being protected by the rebels.  The expectation was that she would return to work the next day.

It took only moments for her to describe the governor’s anger when one of his aides had failed him.  The governor had pulled out a pistol and shot the man on the spot.  A few years later, a second aide had made the same mistake and was similarly shot.  The defense presented it as a case of summary execution for a capital crime.

The secretary stayed to show the documents of the twenty-three times she was ordered to write up an order of execution for some business leader or minor politician who had angered the governor.  These orders spanned the thirty-four years that the governor had been in power.  The prosecution then presented documentation showing that each person listed in the execution orders had actually been killed.  For some, it was difficult to draw a direct line to the governor’s people since many of the deaths were made to look like accidents.

Again, the defense presented the facts as rightful orders of execution by the governor for failure to perform their duties or other offenses against the state.

Finally, the prosecution showed documentation of seven transfers from the state treasury to the governor.  Each transfer was for fifty million dollars, funneled to the governor through a construction company that was awarded a building contract.  The prosecution showed the bids for the contract; the winning bid was usually more than sixty million dollars higher than the next closest bid.

The defense painted is as payment for consulting services by the governor.

The jury spent two hours deliberating before they came back.

“On the first count of rape, how say the jury?” the judge asked.

“Guilty!”

The jury found the governor guilty of all ten counts.

“On the count of first-degree murder, how say the jury?”

“Guilty!”

“Guilty!” they proclaimed when asked about the second count.

The jury found the governor guilty on fifteen counts of second-degree murder; they were hung on the other eight counts.

They also found him guilty of all seven counts of stealing from the people.  The judge only took a few minutes to allow the defense to plead for a lesser sentence before pronouncing the sentence as death.

On the third day of the tribunal, there was the first variation in the theme.

“Prosecution, please read the charges.”

“Your honor, we have found no wrongdoing by the defendant.”

The judge looked shocked.  “None?”

“He has done his job.  There is no evidence of theft; all of his staff say that they respect him.  The people of the province seem content and feel safe.  There are some issues related to crimes committed against the population by members of the elite, but the governor presses for the prosecution of them.  Unfortunately, the president has always stepped in and issued a pardon.”

The defense table did a virtual high five.  At least they would win one case, even if it was by default.

After five days, the judge had passed the sentence of death on sixteen of the governors.  Two of them were not charged with any crimes.  The judge dismissed the jury and sent the lawyers home.  Then she walked back to her chambers.  They had actually given her chambers in this courtroom constructed in the sewer systems below the city.

“General Zapos,” she said as she connected with the general via the quantum relay in her chambers.

“Your Honor.”

“What will you do about the two innocent governors?”

General Zapos had been worried that this might happen.  “I think we will need to make a failed attempt on their lives.  That will minimize the suspicion.  We still need this to look like we’re taking out the entire government a layer at a time.”

“Good.  What about the president?”

“We want to save him for a public trial.”

“Ah, I see.  So, the mayors are next?”

“Yes.  I apologize for the stress this must be putting on you,” General Zapos said.

“It is no stress to finally get justice for the people,” the judge said.

◆ ◆ ◆

It had been trivial to get a sample of the governor’s DNA and deliver it to his contact.  The valet was now holding the gel cap of oil.  He was told that he could rub it on the governor; coating his hand with it and touching the governor would be enough.  He could also put a drop in a drink or his food.  He’d been assured that nobody would be affected except the governor.  He was also told that the death would be fast, but extremely unpleasant.

The valet had placed the microdiscs as he’d been instructed.  He was sure that the gardener had done his part.  Now he had to get the oil onto the governor and then press the final disc to set off the sequence of events.  The poison would only take two minutes to take effect; it was important that the events bracketed the governor’s death.

The valet popped the capsule, rubbed the oil on his hand, and swallowed the gel capsule after saying a silent prayer.

“Governor, let me help you with that tie.”

“Thank you, Marurixa.  I hate these things, and I hate these damn parties as well.”

“I know, sir, but it’s important to keep the community leaders happy.”

“Yes, drunk, oversexed, and happy.”

“Yes, sir.”

The governor exited his dressing room and followed his valet down the hall to the ballroom.  The room was crowded with business leaders, mayors, and other politicians.  The president had even sent a representative.  As he entered the room behind the governor, the valet nodded to the security team that was spread out around the room.  He silently finished his count to thirty before he pressed the disc on the wall by the drink stand.  He picked up a tray and headed toward the governor.  He walked slowly; he wanted the poison to take effect before the governor took a drink.

Around the palace, four lights lit up the sky as the thermite discs fired.  They were minor, just enough that the cameras would show them.  Then two smaller discs went off inside the palace, one in the ballroom.  The timing was just about perfect.  The governor fell to the floor writhing just as the second one went off.  The governor’s screams brought all activity in the ballroom to a halt, except for the doctor and security detail rushing to the governor’s side.

It took less than a minute for the governor to die, an excruciatingly painful minute.  When the doctor finished examining him, he could find no reason for the governor’s death.  Later, the coroner could find no traces of poison.  Of course not; the poison would only react with the governor’s DNA.

◆ ◆ ◆

In the neighboring province, the governor’s valet was serving dinner to him, his wife, and four guests.  The valet had assured the people who approached him that the governor was a good and honest man.  He had been worried that they wouldn’t care.  He liked the governor, but the cause was more important.  . . . Still.

He was ecstatic when he had been informed that the minister of justice was to take the governor’s place.  He was visiting the province on a law-and-order campaign for the president.  He and his wife were dining with the governor this evening.  They’d brought along another member of the justice department; of course, they needed someone to do the real work during the tour.

The valet had emptied the gel capsule into the soup before he dished it up for everyone.  He was hoping that they had told him the truth, that only the minister could be affected by the poison.

All the discs had been placed earlier in the day, so on the count of thirty, the valet pressed the disc in the dining room.  It was only a few seconds later that several loud pops were heard.  Then a loud pop coincided with the minister falling face first into his soup.  The valet smiled inwardly.  His cousin had been sentenced to death for protesting the laws that this minister had been instrumental in enacting.  Laws that had extended the privilege of the Golden Class.

◆ ◆ ◆

Mosor couldn’t believe it; they’d managed to kill sixteen of the eighteen governors.  Two had been near misses, but at least they’d gotten two dirtbag ministers in their stead.  But eighty-four mayors, that sounded impossible.  “Well, at least it was only eighty-four,” he thought.  The Shrooms had made a lot of changes when they came to power; one was to consolidate that power.  They had collapsed the thirty-eight countries into eighteen. Then they had collapsed each country into mayoral districts, each encompassing about three million people, plus or minus.  That made sure that a Shroom could be in charge of each district.  “Bastards.”

Since the execution of all the governors, the mayors had raised security.  The halls were crawling with security personnel.  “What idiots, don’t they realize what is above the ceilings?  Guess they think that if they control access, they have security.”

Mosor maneuvered himself along the trusses until he was over the mayor’s office.  He signaled that he was in position.  The cameras in the office were under the control of their IT hacker, and the signal was being relayed to his headset.  He could see everything.  That IT woman had been a godsend.  There wasn’t anything she couldn’t gain control over.  The mayor was alone, pacing around his office.  He was working on a speech, stopping at his desk every minute or so to make notes.

Mosor eased into position.  He lifted the edge of the panel so he could get his gun into position.  As soon as he got the all-clear, he fired.  The mayor dropped like a stone; the stunner round had caught him on the neck.  Mosor removed the panel, slipped the rope over the beam, and lowered himself into the office with his friend holding onto the other end.  He slapped a paralyzer onto the mayor’s neck and then dragged him under the panel.  His partner dropped a harness to him.  He put it on the mayor, and between the two of them, they hoisted him up into the ceiling.

Mosor then took the disc out of his pocket.  Using his headset, he positioned the disc right where he was told.  Then he backed up and triggered it.  It created a small burn section in the carpet, about one meter in diameter.  “This is so cool; they’re going to totally freak out,” he thought.

His partner dropped the rope back down to him, and he climbed back up into the ceiling.  He replaced the panel, inspected the area to make sure they’d removed any signs of their presence, then they put the mayor into a sling and slowly worked their way to the elevator shaft.

The last time Mosor had taken care of a mayor, he had gone down, dumping that mayor into the incinerator.  That mayor would never be seen again.  The guy running the incinerator knew exactly what he was doing.  The mayor wouldn’t have been the first body to pass through the incinerator; he might not have even been the first mayor.

This time they were going up.  Much more exciting.  When they got to the shaft, they moved on top of the elevator and signaled that they were ready.  The elevator rose to the top floor.  The perfect height so they could use the access panel and get out onto the roof.

“This bastard’s heavy.”

“Quiet.”

“Hey, we know nobody’s up here; Levaria would have warned us.”

“You can never be too careful.  Now get on with it.”

His partner pulled a rod out of his pack.  It was four centimeters in diameter and made of polysteel.  He extended it toward Mosor, who stuck his finger through the loop on the end and started to walk backward.  The rod telescoped out until it was three meters long.  Mosor ran the rope through the loop on the end of the rod.  His partner then wedged the other end of the rod against the wall; it had a nice block on the end designed just for that.

Mosor threw the end of the rope to his partner as he moved the mayor into position.  Mosor and his partner pulled on the rope until, between them, they had the mayor sitting on the ledge.

“Ready?”

“Just a second.”  His partner ran the rope through another loop, then pulled it tight and tied it.  “Okay, give him a big push.”

Mosor removed the paralyzer from the mayor’s neck.  Then he pushed him as hard as he could.  The mayor swung out on the rope, which acted like a pendulum attached to the end of the rod.  With the 1.25 meters of rope, the mayor swung well out over the street.  When he reached the zenith of the arc, he became momentarily weightless, and the harness’s clasp, which required two kilograms of pressure to stay closed, released the mayor and sparked a bright light.

The harness and pole were black, so the only thing people saw before the mayor plunged into the street was that bright light.

After plunging forty meters, the mayor made quite an impression on the street and the people on the sidewalk.  He just missed hitting a car, which then ran over the puddle and pile of clothes and body parts that had been the mayor.  A few people screamed, but mostly there was just the screeching of tires as the cars all slammed on their brakes.  The vehicles started driving off, wondering what had happened. The car behind the car that had driven over the mayor stopped, forcing the line of cars behind him to stop too.  The driver wondered what the mess on the road was.  Eventually, the building security from the mayor’s office came out to see what was going on.  They recognized the mayor’s shoes and called the police.

By this time, Mosor and his partner had cleaned up in a restroom and were downstairs on the street.  By the time the police arrived, they had joined the crowd milling about on the sidewalk, wondering what was happening.

“Yes, this was much more exciting than the mayor just disappearing,” Mosor thought.

◆ ◆ ◆

General Zapos had managed to get twenty-three mayors “teleported” out over the street outside their offices.  They’d timed it so that they'd gotten to mayors on three continents in the fourteen hours from start to finish.  They had to focus on the northern hemisphere, where the days were short, and they could catch the mayors in their offices while it was dark outside.  They even managed to take care of a few early risers in the western continent.

Last week, they’d disappeared fifteen mayors — most of them from their offices, but a few from their homes.  You had to take what the situation gave you.  Now the BlueBird Twitter feeds needed to start the rumors of alien teleporters.

◆ ◆ ◆

BlueBird: #whatsUpDoc.  Did you hear about the mayor taking a dive off his office building?

BlueBird: #whatsUpDoc.  I heard the aliens transported him from his office out over the street.

BlueBird: #whatsUpDoc.  Way to go, aliens.  We need a change of government.

BlueBird: #whatsUpDoc.  How do you know they were transported?

BlueBird: #whatsUpDoc.  Video evidence from their office camera.  Check out the link @teleportMayor.

Chapter 14

Taking One Glove Off

“General Zapos, the council is pleased with the campaign that has removed the governors and mayors.  But when will we take stronger action?  We need to be able to show the Delphineans that the people are demanding change.  We need them to join our cause.”

“We are starting the escalation now.  But we want the Thoreans to be convinced it’s the Delphineans doing this.  You might be comfortable with reprisals against the population, but I am not.”

“Nor am I!  But how long will the Delphineans stay?”

“I’m not sure, but it feels like we’re already getting their help.”

“One can hope.”

◆ ◆ ◆

Corporal Jenxra was walking his security patrol around the armory.  He’d just reached the fence where he paused, standing in the light as four drones that had skittered across the field, just a few feet above the ground, rose up behind him.  Once they were twenty feet off the ground, Corporal Jenxra turned and resumed his patrol.  He tried not to watch, but he couldn’t help himself.  He kept glancing up to see each of the drones deposit their payload in the munitions warehouse.  Once a drone dropped its payload, it rose up high into the sky and flew back toward the woods.  Without the payload, it was able to move quickly and quietly.

Corporal Jenxra looked at his watch.  “Four hours,” he thought.  His guard duty would last for six more hours, well that was the schedule, but he figured that in four hours, all hell would break loose and who knew what the watch commander would have him do then.

◆ ◆ ◆

Corporal Jenxra kept checking his watch after each round.  He could have just counted since he knew it took him twelve minutes to make one round.  He’d come off break an hour ago, so there were only forty minutes left, well twenty-eight now.

“Any time now.”

The four thermite canisters went off in fifteen-second intervals.  As soon as the thermite ignited, the other end of the canister shined a bright beam of light into the sky.  It only took seconds for the thermite to burn through the roof and fall into the pile of munitions below it.  Then the entire world exploded as the munitions lit off; at first, it was one or two at a time, then it seemed like the entire warehouse went up all at once.  Corporal Jenxra rushed to his battle station.  It was designed to put him in position to stop intruders from getting inside the base.  The fire crews were rushing to the warehouse in a fruitless attempt to extinguish the fires once the munitions stopped going off.

◆ ◆ ◆

“What the hell happened?” General V'lorm demanded.

“We don’t know, sir.  At 1800 hours ZMT, the munitions warehouse at our Akarma base was destroyed.  The security team noted that just before they exploded, a beam of light shined on them from the sky.  Four of these beams happened about fifteen seconds apart.  Twenty minutes later, the second facility had the same thing happen.  Before the night was over, eight munitions warehouses were destroyed across the planet.  There is no evidence as to what caused the explosions.  The only common factor was the beams of light.”

“What are your trying to tell me?  That some alien spaceship destroyed our armories from orbit?  Using phasers, I presume?”

“I don’t know, sir.”

“Then find out!”

◆ ◆ ◆

“Sir, I cannot explain it,” General V’lorm told the president.

“Is it possible that it really is the Delphineans?”

“I don’t see how.  These wild theories about aliens defy the laws of physics.”

“Well, their ability to travel between star systems defies the law of physics as well.”

“But our scientists actually agree that is possible.  None of them have accepted that it is possible to transport people out of buildings or shoot phasers from space.”

“Get me some answers.  I’m getting pressure from the Golden Council.  And you know what happens when they’re displeased.  And you’re in front of me when it comes to answering to them.”

“Yes, sir.”

◆ ◆ ◆

“General, does the recent activity indicate that we’re ready to move to an active rebellion?” Councilor Ankva asked.

“It does.  We have enough armor and weapons that we can start to confront the government forces directly.”

“Then are we ready to announce ourselves?”

“No. I still want to blame the Delphineans for a bit longer.  We’ll be focusing on hit and run tactics that will allow us to hide our true identity.”

“How much longer?”

“One month, maybe two.”

“Very well.  You’ve delivered everything you promised, so we’ll continue to follow your lead.”

“Thank you, Chair Ankva.”

◆ ◆ ◆

It had been over two months since they had been told to prepare for the fight — two months of training with the new arms.  “About time we get to use them,” Lucastos thought.  He and his team had gathered outside one of the major detention centers used by the Shrooms.  “Today, we will make them pay for detaining people that did nothing but speak the truth.”

Levaria had isolated the center’s communication.  She and Ombraro now controlled who spoke to whom, what came in, and most importantly, what went out of the center.

They were hitting the four centers at the same time.  They feared that the Shrooms would wipe out the detainees in the other centers if they hit them one at a time.  Lucastos was waiting for the go signal.

General Zapos had decided that they could allow a one-hour skew between the first attack and the last.  That, despite the fact that two of the centers were in the southern hemisphere, meant that they were able to hit them all close to dawn or dusk.  Unfortunately, they had been unable to communicate with the detainees.  None of the guards were affiliated with the resistance; they were all Half-Golden and zealots.

Lucastos had asked his team to restrict their weapons to lasers only, because they were soundless and invisible.  The small amount of light that the air would scatter would be negligible.  They didn’t want the bastards to have anything to shoot at.

Lucastos got the signal; he checked that his people were all in place, then he signaled his snipers to take out the security team.

Mariosk aimed at the guard walking his patrol.  He thought it amazing; his rifle emitted a low-intensity laser in the infrared region at half trigger.  His scope was designed to pick up the reflection.  Once the spot was where you wanted to hit, you pulled the trigger the rest of the way.  No worries about the target’s speed or direction.  The speed of light was bitchin’.

Lucastos saw the guard in his line-of-sight fall.  Having a laser burn a hole in your head and fry your brain sounded like a disgusting way to die, but hey, dead was dead.  Now they waited.  Soon, the camp would realize that their roving patrols were no longer roving.

This was the most critical time of the operation.  It wasn’t unheard of for the guards to take one or more of the detainees back to their barracks for entertainment.  They needed all of the guards to come to the perimeter.  Any fighting within the camp would result in the detainees taking fire.

His people were slowly creeping forward.  The armor was energy absorbent, but even at night, you could see a shadow.  Finally, the alarm went off.  The guard barracks emptied, and the guards streamed toward the perimeter.  His snipers were supposed to make sure that none of them made it up to the towers where the machine guns would have a sweeping view of his team’s positions.  Unfortunately, they were not entirely successful and machine-gun fire erupted from the camp.  Lucastos wasn’t sure what they were shooting at, but an unaimed bullet was just as deadly if it managed to hit you.

The spotlights finally came on, illuminating the area outside the camp.  The guards were starting to fire at real targets.  Lucastos heard his people getting hit.  He ducked as a few rounds whizzed by him.  He really didn’t want to test the armor.  They said it was good, that it should let you survive as long as the enemy didn’t get lucky and catch a seam or get multiple shots off on the same spot.

Finally, the firing stopped.  Lucastos waved his team forward.  They quickly breached the perimeter.  A couple of shots rang out as a few of the guards who were playing possum tried to nail the assault team as they entered the compound.  They didn’t last long.

Now came the tricky part.  They had to clear the guard barracks and then the prisoner barracks.  Hopefully, all the guards had come out to defend the compound, but you never knew.

Lucastos led the way into the guard barracks.  Everything was clear until he reached the commandant’s quarters.

“Stop or I’ll kill her!” the commandant yelled.  He was holding a gun to a woman’s head.  One of the detainees, obviously.  She looked frightened but also resigned to her situation.

Lucastos paused, his hand laser pointed at the commandant.  The problem with the laser is that it took a second to kill the opponent, while it would take the commandant less than half a second to pull the trigger of his gun.

“Why should I care?  We were told to take this base,” Lucastos said.

“Right, well, I never believed any of that alien crap.  You’re rebels, so she’s one of yours.”  Lucastos was wearing a helmet with a face shield so that the commandant couldn’t see his face, but that didn’t seem to matter.

“So, Commandant, what’s your plan?”

“I’m walking out of here.”

“Be my guest,” Lucastos said.  He smiled at the commandant as he moved away from the doorway.  “My people are getting out of the way.”

As the commandant looked at the doorway to see if it was clear, Lucastos closed his eyes and ducked his head a bit.  A signal to the woman, but would she get it?

As the commandant started toward the door, the woman was slow to follow.  He yanked on her arm.  She let herself collapse.  As her head slid past the gun, Lucastos fired his laser, catching the commandant right in the eye.  He immediately rushed to disarm him.  As he pushed the commandant off of the woman, he saw that he was still alive.  He wasn’t sure how alive, but he’d let the Shrooms figure that out.

“Are you okay?”

“I think so.  Who are you?”

“We’re the people sent to get you out.  Let’s move!”

“Not aliens?”

Lucastos flipped his face shield up.  “Depends on your definition.”

When they exited the barracks, four trucks waited to take the detainees away.  They would be secreted among the houses of various members of the resistance.  Hopefully, it would only be a few weeks.

“Give me a headcount!” Lucastos ordered.

“Twenty-three able-bodied, three severely wounded, and one missing.”

“Who’s missing?”

“Mariosk.”

“You, with me,” Lucastos ordered as he turned and headed toward Mariosk’s sniper position.  He keyed his Comm, “Mariosk, are you there?”

“Most of me is.”

Lucastos broke into a trot as he ran toward his friend.  “What happened?”

Mariosk laughed.  “Can you believe one of those bastards was smart enough to triangulate my fire?  He peppered me with machine-gun fire.  Caught a seam.”

By this time, Lucastos was at his side.  He reached out toward his friend.  “Which seam?”

“At my neck.”

“Crap!”  Lucastos tried to assess the damage.  But it was difficult to tell what had happened underneath the armor.  He rolled his friend over and started to remove the armor.

“Hey, we don’t have time for that,” Mariosk said.  “Just drag me to one of the trucks.”

“That might kill you.”

“I know, but they told us ‘no bodies left behind.’  If I die, then at least I was here at the beginning.”

Lucastos nodded to the soldier he’d had come with him.  He pulled Mariosk up while Lucastos used his laser to destroy the blood that had leaked onto the ground.  Then, between them, they each grabbed an arm and dragged Mariosk over to the base.  There, they were met by a stretcher.  “I’ll take him from here,” the medic said.  They put Mariosk on the stretcher and pushed him into one of the trucks.

“Go!  Go!  Go!” Lucastos yelled.  The trucks headed out.  His team formed up and followed; their vehicles were waiting for them just beyond the perimeter.

◆ ◆ ◆

"Why would the aliens take the detainees?” one investigator asked the other.

“Maybe they need them for soldiers?  They would know they could count on them to fight us.”

“Were there any survivors?”

“Just the commandant.  He was found in his quarters; he’d been shot in the eye with some energy beam.”

“In his quarters; nothing like leading from your bedroom.  What about the bodies?”

“We only found eight bodies.  There was no sign of the other forty guards.”

“What about the staff, cooks?”

“You know that the detainees do all those jobs.”

“Oh, right.  Have you searched the perimeter?”

“Yes.  There were some signs, footprints, and a few burned patches.  No blood, no bodies.”

“What the hell is going on?”

◆ ◆ ◆

Lucastos took a deep breath.  There were only four of them, and they all knew that this was likely a suicide mission, but after Mariosk’s death, he didn’t care.  They and three other teams were tasked with cutting the head off the Shroom snake.  They would each infiltrate a military command center.  The goal was to plant mines and explosives on the command center, execute the general in charge, then set off the mines, hoping to kill as many of the general’s staff as possible.  One of them had to personally kill the general.  It didn’t do any good just to wound the snake; that just made it mad, and when it next bit someone, it would dump all of its venom.  They had been told that it would be better if no evidence was left behind, but as long as it was just a body, nobody would care.

They each carried the new weapon that the eggheads had come up with — a rail-pistol slash laser.  The railgun would accelerate steel bullets to just below the speed of sound.  No gunpowder to make a sound, no smell; well, just a bit of ozone, but that dissipated long before it reached anyone who wasn’t standing next to you.

The security at the base was tight, but it wasn’t something to write home about.  The Shrooms’ lock on power and the virtual lack of any real resistance from the population had made the Shrooms lax.  They were tightening things up, but they still had no idea what real security meant.

The fence was electrified, but their boots were insulated, and as long as they didn’t touch more than one part of the fence at a time, they were good.  The resistance had arranged a few events to ensure that the general was in the command center.  Lucastos nodded his head, instructing the team to start cutting the fence.

When a slit had been made in the fence, they put a rubber blanket against the fence.  It would allow them to slide through without having an actual hole.  Lucastos went first.  Easy-peasy.  The rest of the team followed.  They removed the blanket and laid it at the base of the fence.  If they were lucky, they’d be able to use it to get out.

Lucastos signaled the two team members who were going to lay the mines, telling them that they were a go.  He had the detonator in his pocket; he would be the last to leave, setting off the explosives once he knew the general was dead.

He and his partner, Bevista, moved to the command building.  Their backup plan was to cut into the building from behind.  They knew where the general’s office was; they could only hope he was in it.  Their main plan was to intercept a messenger or someone who was on the way back to the general’s office.  Fingers crossed.

They stood up and started walking like they owned the place.  They were both wearing uniforms consistent with those worn on the base.  Lucastos talked to Bevista as they walked.  Just nonsense, but they needed to look natural.  As they approached the command center, they saw a woman walking along carrying a big file on top of a tablet.  She had to be heading to see the general.  Lucastos nodded to Bevista, and she moved to intercept the woman.

“Hello, heading back to the command center?”

“Yes.”

“The general keeps everyone jumping, doesn’t he?”

“He certainly . . .”

At that point, Lucastos shot the woman in the head.  He caught her before she hit the ground and carried her between two buildings.  He laid her down so he and Bevista could examine her.  Bevista grabbed her cap, nametag, and security pass.  “Give me her jacket.”

Lucastos removed the woman’s jacket and handed it over.

“Anything else?”

Bevista looked at herself.  She started to shake her head, then stopped.  “Shoes!”

“Oh, right.”  Lucastos removed the woman’s shoes and handed them to Bevista.  “Do they fit?”

“Too big.”

Lucastos tore the woman’s blouse and handed the strips of cloth to Bevista.  She put them into the toes of the shoes and then tried them on again.  “They’ll work.”

She had already grabbed the folder and tablet when the woman fell.  She adjusted them, laid her pistol inside the folder, and started for the command center and the general’s office.  Lucastos followed at a distance, trying to provide cover in case something went wrong.

Bevista scanned the security id and entered the command center.  She walked briskly through the office, trying to exude confidence.  She nodded at a few people, but everyone was glued to their screens or reading some document.  She got to the general’s office, pointed at the documents when his admin looked up, then knocked on the door.

“Enter.”

“I have the documents you requested.”

Bevista quickly scanned the office; the general was sitting at his desk, and a colonel was standing beside him, pointing at something on his display.

“Put them . . .”

Bevista shot the general in the head.  She immediately moved backward and turned toward the colonel.  He was gaping at her and reaching for the non-existent firearm at his side.  She shot him in the face.  If he’d been armed, she would have been dead.

Bevista laid the folder on the desk and picked up another.  She then moved to the door, putting her gun under her jacket before she opened the door.  She looked over her shoulder.  “Yes, sir.  I’ll deliver these and get right back to you,” she said.  She closed the door and marched down the aisle of the command center to the entry.

As she exited the building, she nodded to Lucastos.  He’d already gotten the signal from the other two team members that the mines were laid.  Lucastos waited until Bevista was far enough away from the building that she would not be injured by the blast, then he triggered the explosives.  The entire command center erupted in flames as the thermite mines went off.  Bevista was knocked to the ground.

Lucastos started shouting orders right away.

“Man the fence.  You, start looking along the side of the building for survivors.  The ERT will be here soon.  You, run to communications, make sure headquarters knows what has happened.”

A fire truck and emergency vehicles pulled up.  It had only taken them 90 seconds to respond.  They rolled out the hoses and started to hose down the command center.

“Hey, that building’s a loss; focus on the neighboring building!” Lucastos ordered.

A jeep pulled up with a colonel in it — obviously, the base commander who’d come to take control over the fire team.

“Colonel, I need to commandeer your jeep.  This clerk has documents that the general wanted to be delivered to headquarters.  With the current situation, I think we need to hand-deliver them.”

The colonel nodded and turned his attention to the raging fire.  Lucastos pointed at the other two members of his team.  “You two, get over here.  You drive; you ride shotgun.  Grab that man’s rifle.  Get her to headquarters.  No lights; we don’t know whether these rebels have air support.”

Lucastos smiled as the jeep drove out of the compound.  At least he’d gotten his teammates out safely.  Now, if he could just slip away.  He turned back to the fire and kept giving orders, trying to be as helpful as possible.

It was over three hours before they had the fires under control.  The command center was a total loss.  Nobody expected to find any survivors.  The colonel directed his team to start mopping up, giving some of the men a break as he drafted other soldiers into the effort to fill the gaps.

“Hey, where is that major who was helping out?” the colonel asked.

“I don’t know.  I haven’t seen him for twenty minutes.  Maybe he’s taking a break.”

◆ ◆ ◆

“What the hell happened?” General V'lorm demanded.

“Sir, four of our command posts have had their command centers attacked.  All four of the generals died.  Three of the command centers were a total loss, all hands.  In one of the centers, they caught the assassin before he got away.  The center exploded right then, but most of the staff escaped.”

“What about the assassin?”

“Burned up in the fire.”

The general slammed his fist on the desk.  “How had the rebels been able to execute such a flawless plan?  They had just effectively decapitated my organization.  I still have plenty of assets, but the people who knew how to plan, they were in those command centers.”

“Sir, the president is calling for you.”

General V’lorm shook his head.  He really didn’t have time for that idiot.  But . . .

◆ ◆ ◆

“Sir, what can I do for you?” General V’lorm asked as he entered the president’s office.

“How did you let this happen?!”

“I didn’t let it happen.  The rebels have been lucky.  Their luck will run out.  We just have to be patient.”

“Patient?  I told you that the Delphineans are behind this.  They’ve been chipping away at our leadership structure.  Soon they will start landing invasion forces on our soil.”

“Sir, it is not the Delphineans.  That’s just a smokescreen that the rebels are using to confuse us.  We need to stay focused on the big picture.”

“You’re wrong.  And I’ve finally decided to do something about it,” the president said.  He was visibly shaking with anger, or was it fear?

“What have you done?” General V'lorm asked.

“You’ll see.”

The general shook his head and immediately left the bunker so he could find out what the president had done.  The man was an idiot, always acting without thinking everything through.  He went back to his office to figure out how to pull things back together.

◆ ◆ ◆

Faxar was working in the recycling plant on the station.  He was furious, he was a Golden One, and now he was relegated to this.  He knew he had better skills; the Norms just refused to acknowledge them.  His comm gave a beep, telling him that he had a message.

“Who would be sending me a message?” he thought as he took his break.

He opened the app to check; it was an encrypted message from Thorea, relayed through the quantum relay and the hidden emergency action system on the station.  Of course, he knew about it; he had been part of the captain’s inner circle, but what could they want of him?  He feigned illness and took the rest of the day off, rushing to his cabin, the one he shared with four others, to read the message.

“Faxar, this is your president.”  Faxar was shocked, never had he imagined the president speaking to him.  He’d never met the guy.

“The Delphineans are attacking us.  We are struggling to match their advanced weapons.  We need to take the fight to them.  We understand that their princess is on the station.  We need you to take her out.  If we can kill her, it will show the Delphineans that we are not helpless and will force them to negotiate with us.  If you do this, you will become a hero of Thorea.  We will take care of your family, raising them to the highest levels in society.

“If you cannot accomplish this for us, your family will be one of the first to be sacrificed to the Delphineans as they continue to ravage our planet.  You must stand up and be counted, or you will be next.  You’re our best choice, but not the only one on the station that we can count on.”

Faxar was shocked.  The president was threatening his family and himself.  What should he do?  He was very unhappy with his situation.  But any attempt on the princess would surely mean the end of him.  If they didn’t kill him right away, they would surely space him after he was caught.

“I’ll do it!” he said.

Chapter 15

Game Changer

The Vice President was terrified.  He didn’t know whether it was the Delphineans, the rebels, or some deity that was displeased with the Golden Regime.  But it wouldn’t be long before the Golden Council decided to get rid of the president, and that would just put the crosshairs directly on him.  He, the president, and the Golden Council had known when they received the first communication from the League that the Golden Regime would not be acceptable to them.  Their equality clause was incompatible with the very core of the Regime’s reason for existence.  The Vice President had hoped that it would lead the Golden Council to reconsider its positions, but no, the idiots decided they would just try and take what they wanted.

He had spent years figuring out who the members of the Golden Council were.  At first, he’d done it to figure out how he could worm his way onto the council.  More than being president, a seat on the council guaranteed wealth beyond one’s wildest dreams, not that he needed any more wealth.  But it would give him the power to change things and moderate the excess of the Golden Regime.  Now, he hoped that whoever was behind this craziness was as good as they were reported to be.

His security team drove him to the Vice President’s Residence.  They escorted him to the door, then took up positions along the perimeter of the grounds.  They were good, but so were the teams that had looked after the governors.  A fat lot of good those had been.  He walked to his library and poured himself a strong drink.  He needed it; if anyone got a whiff of what he was about to do, he’d be dead by morning.  What the hell, waiting wasn’t doing him any good; his wife would be home from her charity meeting in another hour.  He drained his glass, set it on the sideboard, then walked to his daughter’s room.  He couldn’t use his computer; it was secured by the top IT team in the government, and it was constantly monitored.  He only hoped that they weren’t monitoring his daughter’s too closely.  He sat at her desk and unlocked the computer.  They’d long ago established that she wasn’t allowed any secrets from her parents.

First, he did a search for ‘The Golden Council.’  The results that came back all indicated that it was an urban legend.  Each clearly stated that there was no such thing.  Some of them went so far as to explain exactly why the existence of such a council was impossible under the Golden Regime.  Next, he did a search for each of the fifteen members of the council.  He simply read their bio and moved on to the next.  This was as far as he could go.  If the powers behind this war couldn’t figure out the message, he was as good as dead, but if he was more explicit in his outing of the council, he’d be dead within minutes of discovery.

◆ ◆ ◆

“Cer Catie, there’s been a breakthrough,” ADI messaged.

“What?” Catie asked as she waved Morgan out of her cabin and took a seat.  She was surprised that it wasn’t two a.m.

“I’m sure that the Vice President has just outed the Golden Council.”

“The Golden Council?”

“Yes, they are the true power behind the regime.  They decide who is placed in what government positions.  It was the council that gathered the power necessary to install the rule of those with the golden gene.”

“Great.  Does General Zapos know?”

“Not yet.  I just discovered it, but Ombraro doesn’t have the intuitive ability to find something so obscure.”

“Well, General Zapos doesn’t know that.  Help Ombraro out so that he and Levaria report it to the General.”

“Done.”

◆ ◆ ◆

“This meeting will come to order,” Councilor Ankva said as the leaders of the Thorean resistance sat down, a few in person, most via the secure video channel.

“General Zapos, you had something you wanted to say,” she said as she handed the meeting over to the general.

“We have just gotten a big break.  Apparently, the Vice President is more afraid of the Delphineans than he is of the Golden Council.  We believe he has given us the names of its members.”

“Isn’t he on it?”

“No, neither he nor the president is on the council.  Members of the council tend to like to stay out of the public eye.”

“It makes it easier for them to steal!” one of the councilors said.

Councilor Ankva stared down the person; then, once the conference had quieted, she nodded to General Zapos.

“We believe if we can take out all, or at least most of the members of the council, we will effectively cut the head off of the snake.  This should allow us to step up and take control of the planet.”

“What about those cruisers?”

General Zapos nodded.  “Yes, they do present a problem, and the fleet admiral and one of the captains are on the council.  But . . . we hope that if we have control of the planet, we will be able to ask the Delphineans for help, similar to the help they provided to Sivaria.”

“Excellent.  Now, General, what do you need from us?” Councilor Ankva asked.

“To be able to accomplish what we want, I believe we’ll need to take these men out via summary executions.  They have been too careful to leave themselves open to trial like the members of government.”

“That works for me.”

Councilor Ankva stared the man down again.  “We need to have a unanimous vote to approve such a thing,” she said.  “I personally believe that the harm that the Golden Council has wrought on Thorea calls for such a sentence, but others may disagree.  Let’s take a silent vote to see where we are.”

Councilor Ankva was surprised as she read the result of the vote.  “It is unanimous,” she said.  “General, you have your orders.”

“Thank you.  My people are already in place.  Hopefully, we’ll have some results by the end of the week.”

◆ ◆ ◆

Marcita surged along on his underwater scooter.  It was a big one; it had to be to keep up with the Star of the Sea, the cruise liner they were targeting.  Fortunately, the liner was slowing as it prepared to make its way into port.  He turned to glide down its port side, placing a thermite mine every thirty-five meters, eight total.  Then he dove down deep and waited.

Kraketa was reviewing the passenger evacuation stations.  The VIP station was on the starboard side of the cruise liner, which is why the charges were placed on the port side.  Once the ship started to sink, it would list to the port side, making evacuation on the starboard side difficult.  Everything was ready; she just needed to wait.  She messaged the guys at the stern to be ready.

The pop of the thermite mines going off wasn’t even noticeable over the hubbub of the ship’s passengers as they partied, some talking loudly as they lined up to watch their approach to the harbor, and the children squealing as they played in the pool.  The charges had been placed at the waterline and against the hull opposite various storage rooms on the ship.  Nobody noticed them going off, nor did they notice the water starting to pour into those rooms.  Fortunately, or unfortunately, those rooms were not watertight.  It took twenty minutes before anyone noticed the water pouring down the passageway on the lower deck.  Just about everyone was up on the passenger decks.  The alarm went out and the ERT, emergency response team, rushed to assess the damage.  By the time they got to the damaged areas, the water on the deck was knee-deep, which didn’t sound bad until you realized that there were two decks below them.  The water was rushing to the ladders and down to the lower decks, creating a fast current that the teams had to fight against.

The ERT found the first hole and began to patch it.  “Mount the brace plates here and here!” the team lead yelled.  “Come on, we don’t have all day!”

The crew put steel plates on either side of the hole.  They used underwater pneumatic impact wrenches to drive bolts into the ship’s hull.  Once the two plates were mounted, they started to slide a third plate up between them.  They had to use a sledgehammer to keep it moving up as the force of the water pinned it against the brace plates.  Once it was all the way up, they put a ratcheting pole between it and the opposite bulkhead.

They kept ratcheting the beam to increase the pressure until the hole was sealed.  Then two men started to drive bolts into the patch to hold it in place.  They only had two ratcheting poles.  Everything would have been just fine if there was only one hole, even two, but eight?

The team rushed to the next hole; by the time they had everything in place, the water was waist deep.  They managed to seal the hole before the water reached their chests.  But to continue, they would have to use their underwater breathing equipment.  Things looked bad; they gave the captain a status report.

By the time the captain ordered the evacuation, the Star of the Sea was already listing heavily to port.  He had already directed the engine propulsion to oppose the list, but it wasn’t enough.  The increasing list caused pandemonium among the passengers as they tried to figure out which side they should go to.  Most headed to the starboard side; no matter that their evacuation station was on the port side, that side was sinking.

“Sirs, you are at the wrong evacuation station,” the steward informed eight of the men who were lining up to get on the lifeboat as soon as they could figure out how to get it launched against the starboard side, which was pointing toward the sky.

“What?!  We are exactly where we’re supposed to be,” one of them yelled.

“I’ll take them,” Kraketa said.  “Sirs, I can take you to your correct station, or we have a special VIP lifeboat at the rear of the ship if you would prefer?”

“That sounds perfect,” another of them said.  They were used to special treatment; after all, they were Golden Ones as well as key members of the government.

“My pleasure.  We keep it secret since we only allow VIPs to use it,” Kraketa said.  “If you’ll follow me, we’ll have you off the ship in moments.”

The eight men who had been attending a men’s only sex party on the ship quickly turned to follow Kraketa.  They made a few comments about what they could do on the lifeboat if she were to accompany them.

Kraketa ignored their comments and led them toward the center of the ship, then turned down the passageway that led to the rear.  “Just through here, the boat is ready to launch.”

As the men entered the room, each was slapped with a stunner, knocking them to the deck.  They were quickly bundled into long waterproof bags and tossed out the rear window.  Marcita was waiting below with two others to grab them.  They tied them to their underwater scooters and dove deep.  They needed to get as far away from the ship as they could, as quickly as they could.  Their recovery boat was waiting for them four miles away.  They didn’t worry too much about the eight men they were dragging behind them.  It wasn’t that important whether they lived, just that they were never found.

By the time the ERT had patched the fourth hole, they were running out of air.  They knew they didn’t have enough oxygen to handle the next four holes.  A bright young steward, a new member of the team, suggested that they go to the dive shop on the ship and grab some of the scuba tanks there.  The team leader slapped him on the back, “GO, GO, take Walmasta to help.”

The entire lower three decks were flooded by the time they patched the final hole.  Another ERT had run hoses and was pumping the water out as fast as they could, but it would take days.  By shifting ballast, the captain had managed to overcome much of the list.  The last lifeboats were away, so with the last hole patched, he ordered the ERT teams to take a break.  A salvage crew would be brought aboard to complete the repairs and get the Star of the Sea fully righted and seaworthy.

Now the captain turned his attention to verifying the status of all the passengers and crew.  One of the ERT teams had checked all the cabins they could reach and verified that there were no passengers in them.  They still had crew cabins to inspect, but the first officer reported that all crew members had reported in at the beginning of the emergency, so he relaxed; well, at least he tried to.

◆ ◆ ◆

The Star of the Sea was sitting in the harbor on an even keel.  It was still low in the water while the bilge pumps and the emergency pumps worked to remove the water from her lower three decks.

The captain had been awarded a medal by the government for his exceptional handling of the situation.  The steward who’d thought about getting the scuba gear from the ship shop was also given a medal.  Everyone was ecstatic about saving the Star and all of its passengers.  The captain was still wondering why nobody had mentioned the eight missing VIPs.  As soon as one of them was reported missing, the government had stepped in and taken over the whole operation.  They had forced the captain to the side as they finalized the verification of the passenger list, but not before he’d determined that there were eight missing.  Unknown to most people, all of them were members of the Golden Council.

◆ ◆ ◆

“President,” General V’lorm greeted him.  “How are you doing?”

“How do you think I’m doing?!  Why can’t you and your people deal with this problem?  We lost the four command centers last week.  And what have you done about it?”

“I’m trying to clean up our command structure and lines of communication.”

“I understand that half of the Golden Council has been eliminated.”

“That is my understanding as well,” General V’lorm said.

“Then that makes me the supreme commander.  I want to start attending all the military briefings.  I think that I need to take more control.”

“I think that would be ill-advised,” the general said.  “We need to allow the military to handle this.”

“Like they’ve been handling it up until now?!”

“We need you to focus on the people.  Become more visible instead of staying in this bunker.”

“Are you insane?  If I leave the bunker, the Delphineans will transport me to their ship or into space.  I have to stay here.  I want you to move the major ops planning here so I can attend.”

“I do not think that will help.”

“I think it will.  It’s time that I showed everyone what real leadership looks like!”

“I agree.  And when a leader is failing, then they need to step aside.”

“How dare you infer that I’m failing.  If the Golden Council were still around, they would eliminate you for such impertinence.”

The general stood up as if to leave and knocked a document off the president’s desk.

“How clumsy of you!” the president yelled.

“I’ll get it.”  The general walked around the desk and bent down to pick the document up.  As he put it back on the president’s desk, he reached in his pocket, pulled out a needle and syringe, and jammed it into the president’s neck.

“The Golden Council is still around, and they asked me to remove you,” the general said.

As the president was convulsing, the general walked out of the office.  As he left, the general told the president’s admin, “The president just had a fatal heart attack.  Please notify the vice president and have someone come and remove the body.”

◆ ◆ ◆

“ADI, who’s that?” Morgan queried as she saw a guy moving furtively through the crowd.

“Cer Morgan, I’ve reviewed his activity for the last few days.  He has been going places he shouldn’t.  He’s gathered up fertilizer and other things.  It is likely that he has a bomb.”

Morgan was already moving to intercept the man.  Fiona grabbed Catie and pulled her away.  She pushed Catie to the ground and fell on top of her, using her body to shield her.  Morgan leaped at the man, tackling him to the ground and covering him with her body.  The explosion was ferocious, Morgan’s body armor provided some protection, but parts of her flew into the air before dropping amongst the crowd.  The blast extended to where Fiona was covering Catie, but Fiona’s armor protected them both.  Catie’s leg was burned, but she hardly noticed.

“Fiona, get off of me!”

“I don’t think I can.”

Fiona rolled off of Catie and looked back to where Morgan had been.  There was gore everywhere.  The rest of the security team had quickly rushed to Morgan, injecting her with nanites and trying to staunch the bleeding from her severed limbs.

Catie finally got to her feet.  She looked down at Fiona, she was hurt but looked like she would be okay, so Catie rushed to Morgan.

“Princess, stay back.  There might be other explosives,” a marine yelled.  He was putting a tourniquet on Morgan’s left arm above the elbow since there wasn’t much left below the elbow.

“Morgan!” Catie wailed as she looked around.  Dr. Moreau was rushing to them from the elevator.

“Princess, your leg!” Dr. Moreau yelled as she reached Catie.

“Screw my leg!  Save Morgan!”

Dr. Moreau joined the marines who were trying to save Morgan’s life.  She got a quick rundown on what they’d already done before she started doing more.  She ordered a portable stasis chamber as she injected Morgan with more nanites.

“Can you save her?” Catie asked.

“I don’t know.  I’ll do my best,” Dr. Moreau said.

The stasis chamber finally arrived, and they lifted Morgan into it.  One of the female marines took Catie by the shoulder and helped her follow the Doctor.  She knew Catie would resist the suggestion of going to the infirmary, but she would happily follow Morgan to it.  The doctors could deal with her injury when they got there.

◆ ◆ ◆

Catie sat in one of the treatment rooms while a nurse dealt with the burn on her leg.  Her body armor, although light, with the aid of Fiona’s armor, had done a good job of deflecting the shrapnel and burning debris from the bomb, so the wound was minor.

“How is Fiona?” she asked.

“Not too bad,” the nurse said.  “It’ll take a couple of days to repair the damage to her buttocks and her thighs, but she should be good as new after.”

Catie couldn’t help herself and giggled at the thought of what she would say to Fiona about being injured in her ass.

“And Morgan?”

“The doctor’s still working on her.  I’ve never seen anyone injured so badly.  I think we have to pray.”

Catie wasn’t thinking about prayer.

◆ ◆ ◆

Chair Ankva was on the station when the bomb went off.  She was horrified by it and felt guilty.  She was walking to Catie’s office, trying to decide what to do.  She really didn’t know what she was going to say.

“Princess, I’m so sorry.  I cannot believe something like this has happened here.”

“It’s not your fault,” Catie said.  “We should have had better control of the stuff he used to make the bomb.”

“But it is so easy to make a bomb out of even simple things.  You just need the knowledge.”

“I know.”

Ankva sat and stared at the floor.  “It’s all my fault.”

“It’s not your fault.  It’s the government on Thorea; we traced his activities.  Apparently, there is a backup communication system that they were able to use to contact him.  We’re trying to retrieve the message from his comm, but it doesn’t look promising.”

“It’s still my fault.  We were using the information we got from you to help the rebellion on Thorea.”

“I know!” Catie said.  “Why do you think I gave it to you?”

“Oh,” Ankva said.  She looked at Catie for a while.  “So, what are you going to do?”

“Get even!”

◆ ◆ ◆

“Doctor Moreau, what’s the update on Morgan?” Catie asked.

The doctor had brought Morgan out of stasis to check her cognitive abilities.  There had been a lot of damage to her skull, and she wanted to be sure that if they could repair all the damage to Morgan’s body, that she would be able to function mentally; otherwise, what would be the point of it all?

“Her brain seems to have survived the trauma.  We just finished the cognitive test, and she passed with flying colors.  I guess she has a pretty hard head.”  Dr. Moreau said.

“If you could write that down for me, I’d appreciate it.”  Catie gave the doctor a smile.

“Not on your life.  I’m hoping she’s going to be her usual self soon, and I don’t want to get on her bad side.”

Catie laughed.  “That sounds good.  When are you going to replace her limbs?”

“Not for a few weeks.  We have to repair all the internal damage first.  Her body will be busy completing those repairs, and we don’t want to overtax it.”

“But you’re putting her in stasis between surgeries; why can’t you do things faster?”

“We’re only putting her into partial stasis.  We pump her full of stem cells, and while she sleeps, her body is working hard to complete and integrate the repairs we made during surgery.”

“Oh, so how long?”

“Three weeks.  We’ll probably only replace the arm and hand at first.  We’ll wait another week to deal with the leg.”

Catie sniffled back a tear.

“Catie, I’m pretty sure she’s going to be just fine.  We’ll know for sure next week.”

“Thanks.”

◆ ◆ ◆

“Hey, Morgan, how are you doing?” Catie asked.

“Hey, Catie.  I hope you don’t mind if I don’t turn my head.  Dr. Moreau has acupuncture needles in my neck, so I don’t feel any pain.  They also paralyze me.”

“I know, she told me.  I’m so sorry.”

“About what?”

“This,” Catie said, waving her hand across Morgan’s fractured body.

“Not your fault.  It’s my job.”

“But I’m the one that was helping the Thorean rebels.”

“I know that, but it’s still my job to protect you.  We should have realized that Thorea might have a backdoor to Sivaria.”

“Yes, I should have.”

“Quit the pity party.  What are you going to do?”

“Push for more direct intervention.”

“Good luck.”

Emergency board meeting Nov 19th

“Catie, what’s the latest on Morgan?” Marc asked as soon as he started the meeting.

“Doctor Moreau has her in stasis now.  They fixed up some of the damage to her heart and lungs but then had to put her under.  I guess it takes time to fix so much damage.”

“We’re so sorry,” Samantha said.  “We all are hoping for the best.”

“Thanks.”

“Okay, so what can you tell us about the attack?”

“Nothing more than ADI already told you.  The guy got a secret message from Thorea.  He then built a bomb.”

“A suicide bomb,” Blake added.

“Yes, we really didn’t expect that.”

“What’s happening on the station?”

“We did another evaluation of the people up here.  The ones we’re not sure about, we’ve sent to the planet to work.”

“What are the Thoreans saying?” Marc asked.

“I’m not taking calls from them.  But if you mean the Sivarians, they’re even angrier than I am.  They’re working with the rebels on Thorea.”

“No surprise,” Marc said.  “I know you’ve been helping them on the sly.  Now, what do we do?”

“I think we go back and kick some ass,” Catie said.

“Catie!” Samantha admonished.

Catie gave Samantha a ‘what’s the problem’ look.

“It’s not the language, but the oversimplification of the solution,” Samantha said.

“Oh.  I mean, we should go back.  If we can take out those cruisers, I think the rebels will be able to take over the planet.  They’ve been holding back to avoid repercussions against the civilians.”

“Catie, I’m sorry, but we cannot just intervene in a sovereign planet,” Marc said.  “Maybe if the rebels make some more gains, we can get it by the League.”

“Can we at least ask the League?”

“We can ask, but given the current politics, I’m sure we all know the answer.”

Catie just closed the call without waiting for her father to close the meeting.

◆ ◆ ◆

Vice President Zarkas, now President Zarkas, moved to the presidential office.  There had been a hurried ceremony swearing him in as president of Thorea.  “Now, what am I going to do?”

He’d been added to the presidential ticket to balance out the president’s extremist views on the Golden Regime.  His family had never been a big fan.  They had been wealthy Thoreans for generations before the Golden Rule came about.  The general consensus around the family was the new regime was harming their interests.  The stupid rules about the golden gene just made it harder to hire the right talent to fill jobs in their companies and laboratories.

He had entered politics to try and moderate the rules.  “A fat lot of good that’s done.”  Anytime he tried to change something, the inertia of the regime canceled it out.  If that didn’t work, the president or the Golden Council would step in and force it back to the way they wanted it.

And he didn’t see how the Regime was actually helping the people with the golden gene.  Sure, there was a bit of discrimination before, but now it was worse.  They had the power, but they were ostracized by the general population, even by people with the gene.  The few that loved it were the sadists that relished the power the regime bestowed on them.  But how could eighteen million people rule a planet of over four billion?  As long as most of the people had stable, predictable lives, it worked.  But take that away, and they would get nervous, scared, and angry.  That’s what was happening now.  It wouldn’t be long before they would be marching on the government buildings.  The loss of the platinum metals was just being felt in the economy.  Things would get worse before they got better.  People wouldn’t tolerate the Golden Regime favoring those with the gene when they couldn’t predict if they would be able to pay the rent this month.

“What to do, what to do?”

“General V’lorm to see you,” his aide announced.

“Show him in.”

“General?”

“Mr. President.”

“How may I help you?”

“I’m here to help you.  I assume you’ve heard about our latest losses.”

“Yes.  I’ve greatly concerned.  Do you have a plan?”

“I want to continue to focus on public order.  The rebels cannot evade us forever.  We are starting to make inroads into their networks.  Soon we will be able to find the traitors.”

“I see.  But I don’t totally agree with you.  I think the Delphineans are involved somehow.  If not directly, indirectly.  There have just been too many things that can’t be explained by our current technology and sophistication.”

“I do concede that point.  But what can we do about it?  Our ability to project force on Sivaria is limited.”

“I’m not worried about Sivaria.  I’m worried about Thorea, specifically our asteroid belts.”

The general jerked his head a bit.  This was a problem he hadn’t expected.  “What should we do?”

“We need to put our fleet out in the asteroid belts.  We will need to start up mining there.  We didn’t completely deplete it before we discovered Sivaria, so we should be able to recover from the cutoff of the platinum metals long enough to figure something else out.”

“Yes.  But will there be enough?”

“Probably.  There should be a few rich asteroids we haven’t found yet.  Also, we didn’t spend much effort on prospecting the moons of the other planets.  We might find rich deposits there.  But we have to maintain control over our system.  And with these latest developments, I’m afraid the Delphineans might decide to come back if they aren’t back already.”

“It’s possible.  Should we keep any of the ships here at the planet?” the general asked.

“No, we can call them back if needed, but the outer asteroid belt is huge.  We need all of our assets out there protecting it as well as the inner.  I want to get a few prospecting missions put together as soon as possible, and we cannot afford for something to happen to them.”

“We could have an escort for each of them?”

“We could, but that makes us look weak.  We need our people to see a strong government if we’re to quell this rebellion before it grows beyond our ability to manage it.”

“Yes, sir.  I will talk with the council right away.  I’m sure they will agree with you.”

“Let’s hope so.”

The general left the president’s office.  He liked what he saw there.  Maybe there was a chance to put the pieces back together.

◆ ◆ ◆

President Zarkas left his office and went to the residential suit of the presidential palace.  His staff had moved his family almost immediately.  It was certainly much nicer than the vice-presidential palace.

As soon as he reached the residence, he checked to see where his daughter was.  Out with friends.  “How could she do that?  I’ve just been made president, and all she can think about is her friends.  Well, good.”  His wife was at a meeting with the staff, so he had a few minutes.  He went to his daughter’s room and grabbed her laptop.  He started checking the various apps.  He knew she had a copy of that damn BlueBird app somewhere.  After a few minutes of searching, he found it.

#whatsUpDoc:  I’d love to speak to the Delphineans.

He could only hope that they would get it.  They’d obviously gotten his last message.  He’d gotten word through backchannels about what the Delphi League was doing on Sivaria.  They were helping the colony immensely.  The colony had actually started to build a new city in a more temperate area of the continent they were on.  It certainly didn’t sound like the League was trying to take over the planet.

◆ ◆ ◆

"Darling, I guess congratulations are in order,” the president’s wife said.  “I know it’s a mixed blessing.”

“Thank you, my dear.  And yes, it is a mixed blessing.  This current turmoil is quite vexing.  You’ll just have to trust me to figure it out.”

“I trust you completely,” she said as she patted him on the shoulder.  “I’ll go down and check on dinner.  Get changed.  And do try and relax.”

“I will.”

His daughter made it home in time for dinner, and they spent a quiet dinner together.  The conversation focused on how his now being president would change their lives.  His daughter didn’t understand the extent of the current turmoil, although since she was on BlueBird, who knew how much she really understood.  Now President Zarkas was anxious; he kept expecting the Delphineans to do something to contact him.  He still wasn’t sure what he would say to them.

“Honey, please eat your dessert.”

“Oh, sorry, just got lost in thought for a moment.”

“Daddy, when can we go out on the presidential yacht?”

“Later.  I have to deal with a few issues first.  Maybe next month.”

“Next month?!”

President Zarkas shook his head.  “Children.”

“Sweety, let your father have a few days before you start asking questions like that.  He’s got a lot on his shoulders right now.”

His daughter muttered something under her breath but focused on her dessert and stayed quiet.  As soon as he could, the president excused himself and went to his office.  “Should I get my daughter’s laptop?  No, if they can’t get my attention without the laptop, then they aren’t going to be able to help.”

It was an hour later, while he was reviewing the latest status reports from General V’lorm, that his phone rang.

“President Zarkas.”

“President Zarkas, this is ADI with the Delphi League; I understand that you wish to speak to us.”

The president set his phone down on his desk and took a deep breath.  “Yes, I would.”

“Please hold for Princess Catherine.”

The president sighed, so the assassination attempt had failed.  His backchannel sources had dried up after the assassination was supposed to have happened.  He’d feared it was because it had succeeded.

“President Zarkas?” a young woman’s voice asked.

“Yes, is this Princess Catherine?”

“It is.  What would you like to talk about?”

“First, I would like to apologize for the attempt on your life.  I wasn’t involved in the decision.  And I think that is one of the reasons that I’m now president.”

“We understand that it was not your decision.  Now, the reason for your call,” Catie said.

“I need help?”

“What kind of help?”

“I’m prepared to make changes here on Thorea.  Changes which I hope will lead to our being accepted into the Delphi League.  I believe I have the ability to accomplish that.  What I do not have the ability to do is deal with the Thorean Space Forces.  As you probably know, they are under the command of a member of the Golden Council.  It is unlikely that they would accept the changes that are necessary.”

“Have you asked them?”

“No.  Asking them would be tantamount to suicide.  I’ve sent the fleet out to protect our asteroid belt from the Delphi League.  I’m hoping your fleet can come and engage them.”

“Hmm,” Catie mused.

“As you may know, without the platinum metals from Sivaria, we are not able to maintain the fleet as necessary.  The gravity drives and the fusion reactors wear out with use.  The fleet hasn’t been serviced for quite some time.  An oversight of the previous administration, as they were looking to use the platinum metals to expand our economy at the expense of the fleet.  Now the recent deployment of the vessels that were sent out to ambush you and their subsequent emergency recall after your little message has severely strained the resources of the fleet.  I have just ordered them to our asteroid belt.  That will further strain those resources.  I seriously doubt that their reactors and gravity drives will have the life necessary to deal with any sustained power draw and use caused by an engagement.”

“I see that you spent some time thinking about this.”

“Yes.  My family has never been a big fan of the Golden Regime.  This is our chance to correct past wrongs.”

“But the cost will fall on the Delphi League Space Force.”

“That is a regrettable truth.”

“Let me consult with the League leadership.  I’ll get back to you.”

“Thank you, Princess.”

Catie signed off from the call.  “ADI.”

“I have your father and your Uncle Blake on the line.”

“Daddy, did you hear?”

“I did.”

“So?”

“Your Uncle Blake is already on his way to the Victory.  We’ll talk to the League.  I think we can force the issue.  But we need to be careful.”

“I understand.  So, Uncle Blake, you’re going to come out and take charge?”

“Yes, Princess.”

“I’m going to move the Aventurier and Chesapeake to the fringe,” Catie said, recognizing that her uncle’s use of Princess instead of Squirt was his way of underlining the seriousness of the situation.

“I agree.  I’ve just sent the orders to Commodore Farmer.  But be careful; we don’t know what the Thoreans have done since your last visit.” Blake said.

“I know.  The probe shows that they have three cruisers hanging around the fringe.  It looks like they might be doing something else, but we can’t detect what.”

“Yes, that’s what worries me.  See you soon.”

“Thanks.”

As Catie signed off the call, her Comm notified her that Liz was at the door to her office.

“So, we finally get to go kick some ass?” Liz said.

“Apparently.  But we still don’t know what surprises the Thoreans have waiting for us.  They’ve been expecting us to return.”

“Well, we’ll just have to find out.”

Chapter 16

The War in Space

The probe they’d left in the Thorean system told them that the jump point was clear.  Liz ordered the Aventurier to jump.

“We’re through,” the navigator informed her.

“Gravimetric sonar, one ping,” Liz ordered.

“One ping, aye.”

“The Chesapeake has arrived; it’s one million meters spinward of us; 21 milliarcseconds,” the sensor operator announced.

“Thank you,” Liz acknowledged.

The Drake, Françoise, and Surprise jumped in minutes later.  The three ships were maintaining high-velocity vectors and would need to be making microjumps every few hours to keep themselves at the fringe of the Thorean system.

Catie was at the back of the bridge when the Sakira jumped in.  It had just been refitted with new gravity drives, and its weapons had been upgraded.  It would easily be a match for any one of the Thorean cruisers.

“She looks pretty good, doesn’t she,” Liz said.

“Yes, she does.  Who’s in command?” Catie asked.

“Hayden Watson,” Liz said after verifying the data in her Comm.

“Good for him.”

A moment after the Sakira jumped in, a set of jump points jumped in and set up a jump gate for the Carriers.  Moments later, the Victory came through, followed by the Carl Sagan.  Blake’s image appeared on the bridge display.

“Commodore Farmer, I’m moving you to the Sakira.  You’ll command the squadron of frigates from there,” Blake ordered.

“Yes, sir,” Liz said as she headed for her cabin, well, not hers anymore.  She would collect her kit and go to the flight bay to take a shuttle to the Sakira.

“Princess, do you want to take charge of the Aventurier?”

“Commander Bastien outranks me and is next in line,” Catie replied.

“Very well, Lieutenant McCormack, please join Commodore Farmer; I’d like you on tactical control.  Captain Bastien, you have command.”

“Aye, sir,” Questa said as she moved to the captain’s chair.  She gave Catie a smile as Catie rushed from the bridge.  She had to get to her cabin, grab her go-bag, and catch up with Liz.

When Catie joined Liz in the shuttle, Liz checked that nobody would see them, then gave Catie a quick hug.  “Tactical control?”

“Yes.”

“Good, we’ll need you there,” Liz said.

◆ ◆ ◆

“Where are those cruisers?” Liz asked as she walked onto the bridge of the Sakira.

“Put the latest positions on the display,” Captain Watson ordered.  “They’re five point three million kilometers inward of us.  They’ve just noticed our arrival and are making their way toward us.”

“Nice of them to save us the trouble of going after them,” Liz said.  “How long?”

“They’re doing about 3G, so four hours if they plan on matching our velocity.  Half that if they intend to fly by us.”

“They’ll probably launch fighters before that,” Catie said.  “If they do, then the fighters will reach us in about 3½ hours.”

“Inform the carriers that we’d like twelve flight wings launched in three hours.  They’ll need to be on standby in two.”

“Aye, Commodore,” Catie said as she entered the data in the tactical systems.  “Commodore, the Drake and Françoise are maintaining high velocity, .1C,” she said.

“And?” Liz asked.

Catie raised her eyebrows.

“Oh,” Liz said, realizing the implication.  “Wing Commander, what do you think about high-speed flybys?”

“I like them,” Kasper said.  “Opposite directions?”

“That seems like a good option.”

Liz ordered the Drake and the Françoise to make microjumps so they would be reentering the combat arena just in time to launch fighters.  Those fighters would continue to carry the speed of their mother ships, allowing them to cross the path of the Thorean fighter group at .1C.  Too fast for missiles to be effective and possibly too fast for the Thorean targeting systems.

“If the frigates stay on opposite sides of the engagement area, they can open a wormhole that will allow the fighters to reverse direction and jump back to the other side for a second pass,” Catie said.

“Make it so,” Liz replied.

◆ ◆ ◆

The three Thorean cruisers launched squadron after squadron of fighters.  They had reached the area that Blake had staked out for the first engagement and then slowed.  Their fighters were now racing toward the Sakira.

Liz nodded at Kasper.

“Fighters, jump!” Kasper ordered.

Thirty-two fighters suddenly appeared spinward of the Thorean squadrons.  They were racing anti-spinward at .1C.  Moments later, another thirty-two fighters appeared anti-spinward, again racing to cross the flight path of the Thorean fighters.

◆ ◆ ◆

“Captain, thirty-two fighters just appeared on our radar.  They’re traveling at . . .  .1C; that’s impossible.”

“Idiot, warn our fighters.  Launch missiles to intercept!”

Moments later, the Delphinean fighters passed the Thoreans.  The fighters fired missiles first, then used lasers to clean up after.  When both waves had passed, the Thorean fighters were decimated.

◆ ◆ ◆

Volmora was ecstatic; his probes were creating something very close to the signal he wanted.  He just needed to keep adjusting the various variables.  Soon he would have it.

◆ ◆ ◆

Jason ordered his squadron to line up with the Françoise.  Once the Françoise opened a wormhole, they would jump back to the other side of the engagement area and make a third sweep of the Thorean fighters.  He almost felt sorry for them.  They were being decimated, and their only choices were to retreat, fly straight into an overwhelming number of Delphinean fighters and frigates just waiting for them, or surrender.  Quite a few had surrendered and had subordinated their fighter AI to the Victory.  The Victory removed those that had done so from the target list but kept them active in the area to discourage the other Thorean fighters from targeting them.

“Open the wormhole,” Captain Derek Payne of the Françoise ordered.

“Wormhole opened and ready,” the sensor operator announced.  “We’re ready for the fighters.”

“Lieutenant Clark, we’re ready,” Derek announced

“Sending my squadron through now,” Jason replied.

Jason watched as the first fourteen fighters in his squadron went through the wormhole in pairs.  The wormhole would wander around a bit, and you never knew what would be waiting in close proximity to it.  Finally, it was his and his wingmate Miranda's turn.

“Last fighters entering the wormhole now.”

At that moment, the Françoise started blaring a proximity warning followed by a concussive shock felt throughout the ship.

“What the hell happened?” Derek demanded.

“I think we’ve hit a mine.”

“Damage report?”

“Flight deck three is destroyed.  Flight deck two has sustained major damage.  Engineering reports both reactors are offline.  Our superconductor array is fried.  Decks one and two have decompressed.”

“Casualties?”

“Six in engineering, four in environmental, all dead.  We have twelve crew with severe burns.  Ten unaccounted for.”

Derek shook his head as he tried to imagine the carnage in the lower decks.

“Flight bay 1?”

“Unaffected.  We were lucky since that’s where all the ground crews were.”  The upper flight bay was the one they used to conduct active ops; the others were really just for storing the fighters.

“Sir,” the sensor operator said.  “The wormhole jumped when the power surge happened.  We’ve lost the last two fighters.”

“What do you mean by ‘we lost them?’”

“Their transponders have gone offline; we cannot detect them anywhere in the system.”

◆ ◆ ◆

Volmora was furious; his probes had been destroyed.  “What have the earthlings done to them?   How could they have discovered them?”

◆ ◆ ◆

“Françoise, status report?” Liz demanded; it was obvious on the Sakira that something had happened.

“Most of our systems are offline, Commodore.  Severe damage to the ship, our reactors are down, we’re operating on emergency power,” Derek reported.

“What happened?”

“We think we hit a mine.”

“I’m ordering a tug to haul you to Avalon.  Captain, focus on your ship,” Liz ordered.

“Aye, Commodore.”

Catie watched as the damage report data was entered into her system.  She cringed as the casualties came across, “Jason and Miranda,” she gasped

“Focus, Lieutenant,” Liz ordered.  “Why didn’t we see those mines?”

“We probably did.  I assume they’re small and energy-absorbing.  I’m having Sakira go through the data looking for smaller objects.”

“What?” Liz asked.

“It was too much data to process,” Catie said.  “The systems focus on signals that indicate large objects, ships, fighters.  A mine would have barely registered.”

“Cer Catie, Commodore, I have the data,” ADI announced.  “There are hundreds of mines spread around this area of the fringe.  We jumped inside of their perimeter.  I’m sorry, but we excluded most data outward of us for efficiency; although Cer Catie is correct, we would probably not have picked up the signals coming back from the mines.”

“Can we find them all?”

“We can find the ones in this local area,” ADI said.  “I’ve given Sakira and the other ship AIs the necessary instructions.  We should have a full map for this region in one hour.”

“Then what?” Captain Watson asked, “Destroy them?”

“Focus on the battle right now,” Liz ordered.  “Lieutenant McCormack, an update, please?"

“The Thoreans launched three hundred fighters,” Catie reported.  “We’ve destroyed one hundred thirty, eighty have surrendered.  The remaining ninety are retreating toward the cruisers.  Our fighters are making a final pass.  They should be able to intersect about half the remaining fighters; the others are too far in-system.”

“Admiral Blake, how do you wish to proceed?” Liz asked.

“I think we have to wait for the data on the mines,” Blake replied.

“Admiral, the frigates can do a gravimetric ping and plot the mines in their vicinity.  That can be done in real-time,” ADI informed Blake.

“Commodore, then I want you to follow those cruisers.  Let's see if we can put them out of action.”

“Aye, sir,” Liz replied.

“The mines?” Hayden asked, reminding them to get back to the previous conversation.

“I think having a map of them and being able to map them without the Thoreans realizing it may be to our advantage,” Catie said.

“My thoughts exactly,” Liz said.  “Admiral, your orders?”

“Form up with the Surprise, Chesapeake, and Beagle and chase those cruisers down.  I’ll take the Victory and Drake toward the asteroid belt.  If we threaten to flank them, it will give them something else to worry about.”

“On our way,” Liz replied.

◆ ◆ ◆

Liz pointed her small squadron directly at the three Thorean cruisers.  The Victory and Drake took a more direct line toward the inner system.  Of course, the Drake was at max deceleration as it began to bleed off all of the velocity it had been maintaining.

The Thoreans had just finished collecting the fifty or so surviving fighters.  As soon as they saw the two squadrons heading their way, they broke off and started accelerating inward.  Blake had the Drake take advantage of its velocity to make a strafing pass against the three cruisers.  It launched sixteen missiles.  With the missiles’ high velocity and without a fighter screen to protect them, the three cruisers wound up taking two hits apiece.  At that point, they separated, each taking a slightly different vector toward the inner system.

“That’ll teach them to bunch up like that,” Liz said.  “Any read on the damage?”

“It looks like their anti-missile systems actually got the missiles before they impacted the ship.  Damage is substantial, but we don’t detect any major hull breaches,” Catie reported.

“Which one do you want us to follow?” the navigator asked.

“Inform the admiral that we’ll take the one moving spinward.  Beagle, you’re still carrying a lot of velocity; why don’t you do a pass on the middle one, then move spinward and let us catch up with you.”

“Aye, Commodore.”

◆ ◆ ◆

“Where do you suppose they’re leading us to?” Liz pondered after they had been following the Thorean cruiser for an hour.

“Why do you think they’re leading us anywhere?” Captain Watson asked.

“Because they’re using an awful lot of reaction mass to maintain this vector.  It would be much easier for them to just head directly in-system like the others did.”

“Maybe we should do another ping,” Catie said.

“Why not?  We’re getting to the edge of the mapped area.  Sensors, one ping, please.”

The sensor operator sent out a gravimetric ping.

“Any response from our quarry?” Liz asked.

“No, I don’t think they can detect the gravimetric waves at that level,” Catie said.

Liz walked over and looked over Catie’s shoulder as the data from the gravimetric sonar started to populate her display.

“I’d guess that’s our destination,” Liz said, pointing to a cluster of mines.

“Looks like a minefield,” Catie said.

“Yes, one designed for them to pass through, but I assume they expect us to wander from their exact trail,” Liz said.

“Hmm.”

“Catie, care to share?”

“Two thoughts: One, how can they be sure that those mines haven’t shifted?”

“What would cause them to shift?”

“They’re moving in orbit around the star.  Plus, solar wind.”

“Cer Catie,” ADI interrupted.  “My calculations show that the solar winds would not have enough of a differential effect on the mines to move them in different directions or speeds.  I also hypothesize that the three small asteroids at the edge of the field are how the Thorean cruiser is able to reset their map of the minefield.”

“I agree,” Liz said.  “And second, Catie?”

“Well, second, I wonder if we could get a better map of the mines and send some Foxes out to destroy a few that are close to that cruiser.  I’m not sure it can handle that much heat energy.”

“Cer Catie, if we send out three Foxes, they can travel fast enough to get abreast of the field.  Then they could collect the data from a gravimetric ping which would allow me to calculate a precise map of the mine locations,” ADI said.

Liz arched an eyebrow and smiled at Catie.  “I like it.  I’m sure the cruiser will have to pass pretty close to a few mines if they expect us to hit any of them.”

Catie just nodded.

“Captain Watson,” Liz prompted.

“I’m ordering three Hyraxes launched.  Sorry, we’re not carrying Foxes.”  The Hyraxes were a non-atmospheric version of the Fox that was more compact; hence over twice as many could fit into a flight bay.

“Hyraxes will do fine.”

◆ ◆ ◆

“Admiral, we’re catching up with the cruiser.  Do you want the Drake to make a strafing run?”

“Yes, let’s see if we can make it use up more of its reaction mass.  I’m curious to see what they learned from the incident in Sivaria,” Blake said.  “How long to the system’s outer asteroid belt?”

“Thirty-two hours.”

“Everyone, get some rest.  I want an alert if there is a significant change in our separation from the cruiser.  Otherwise, this is just a waiting game.”

“Aye, sir.”

◆ ◆ ◆

“They’re entering the minefield now,” the sensor operator announced.

“Interesting,” Liz said as she tapped the place on the map ADI had made for them.  “I assume they’ll take this route.”

“It looks like it.  There are some narrow places where you would need to know exactly where the mines were in order to avoid them,” Catie said.

“It would be nice if we could move a few mines around,” Liz said.

“I know, and I’ve been thinking about that.  There’s not much we could do.  We can’t risk going in and trying to push them.  So, I’m not sure what we can do.”

“Why did you think the solar winds would move them?” Liz asked.

“Because they’re winds, hydrogen ions flying out of their sun at high speeds.  Not too high this far out, but still, wind.”

“Can we conjure up some?” Liz asked.

“No . . .  Wait.  Our space engines essentially generate solar wind; they use a particle accelerator to give the ions a high enough velocity to generate thrust.  A Hyrax sitting a ways off from a mine could shower it with ions.  With the engines set to low thrust, they might be able to move a mine without blowing it up.”

“ADI, what do you think?” Liz asked.

“The mines are about 2% the mass of a fully loaded Hyrax.  Therefore, a Hyrax would easily be able to generate enough thrust to move the mine.  I suggest starting at an extremely low thrust level and working your way up.”

“Let’s do it,” Liz said.

“Which mine?” Catie asked.

“Let's do a test with one on the edge; it’d be best if the Thoreans didn’t know about it.”

“Then let’s have the Aventurier do the experiment.  They can give us all the details.”

“Contact Captain Bastien,” Liz ordered.

“Commodore, what can I do for you?” Questa asked.

“We have a little project for you,” Liz said.  “We’ll need you to deploy one of your Hyraxes.”

“I can manage that.  Most of them are still gathering up the Thorean fighters to move them to Avalon.  One less won’t cause any problems.”

“ADI will send you the specifics.”

“I’ve already relayed the message,” ADI said.

“Having fun?” Questa messaged Catie.

“Some; how about you?”

“This shipload of diplomats is trying.”

“Sorry, but better you than me.  Bye,” Catie messaged back.

In twenty minutes, they received a message from the Aventurier with the exact speed and density the particle beam could be set at before it would detonate a mine.  It clearly showed them that it was possible to move the mines around.

“Okay, let’s block their path here,” Liz said.  “That gives us an hour to move the mines and suggest that they stop their cruiser.  Let’s move some here behind them, so they’re trapped.”

“Okay, then we should move three mines to stop their forward progress.  And these three will eliminate their ability to reverse course.  ADI, should we use piloted or autopilot Hyraxes?” Catie asked.

“I will handle the piloting,” ADI said.

“ADI, remember the mines will keep moving,” Catie said.

“I know!” ADI said in a huff.

“I guess she didn’t need to be reminded.”

“ADI, I want you to move another mine,” Liz said as she pointed to a mine between the two groups.  “Move it here.”

“Yes, Commodore.”

◆ ◆ ◆

“Did they follow us in?” Captain Soltara asked.

“Yes, sir.  They are twenty thousand meters behind us and gaining.”

“Good.  How long until the first pinch point?”

“One hour, sir.”

“Sir, we are being hailed by the enemy vessel,” the communication technician announced.

“Ignore them.”

“Sir, they are saying something about moving the mines.”

Captain Soltara gritted his teeth, “What about ‘ignore them’ was unclear?”

“Captain, it wouldn’t hurt to talk to them; we might learn something about their plans,” the XO said.

“Very well, put them on.”

“This is Commodore Farmer.  What an interesting minefield you’ve led us into.  I assume you’re hoping we’ll bump into one when we reach that pinch point just ahead of you.”

“Interesting theory, Commodore.  Was there a reason for this call other than to say you know we’re in a minefield?”

“Yes, we thought you might want to know that we’ve managed to move a few of the mines around.  Your map of the field is no longer accurate.”

Captain Soltara made a signal to the communication tech, indicating he wanted his end muted.  He looked at his XO.

“Sir, I don’t know.  How could they manage to move the mines around?”

“I’m sure you’re doubting my word,” Liz said.  “Let me demonstrate.”

“Sir, they’ve fired a missile.”

“Prepare plasma cannons.  Destroy it as soon as it’s within range.”

Suddenly the display screen at the front of the bridge flared, then went dark as a bright flash blinded the camera.

“What . . .”

“The missile exploded.  I think it hit a mine.”

“There wasn’t a mine in that location,” the sensor operator reported.

“Apparently, they can move the mines,” the XO said.

“Hard stop!”

“Any damage?” the XO asked.

“Sir, no damage, but our hull temperature increased eighteen percent.”

“We would be happy to accept your surrender,” Liz’s voice said over the ship systems.

“Cut that off!” Captain Soltara yelled.  Glaring at his XO, he said.  “We need to get out of this field, suggestions?”

“If we had any fighters left, we could send them ahead to destroy the mines.  Barring that, we could try to clear the way with our plasma cannon.  But I’m not sure it would destroy the mine before setting it off.  And as we just saw, we would absorb a significant amount of energy.  It would only take ten to twelve explosions like that to overwhelm our systems.”

“Weapons, is there a mine within range?” the captain asked.

“No, sir, this is the closest one.”

“Navigator, move us to within range of that mine.  Weapons, destroy the mine as soon as we are within range.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Firing now.”

Again, the display showed a bright flare just before the flash of light from the exploding mine blinded the camera.  Seconds later, another mine exploded, one that their map said shouldn’t be there.

Captain Soltara stared at the blanked display.  His eyes flitted around as if reading something.  “How did they move the mines?”

“I don’t . . .” the captain’s raised finger stopped the XO from saying any more.

“Navigator, rotate the ship.  I want the thrusters pointing inward.  Align us radially with the sun’s gravity.”

“Aye, sir.”

◆ ◆ ◆

“What are they doing?” Captain Watson asked.

“I suspect that they’ve guessed how we moved the mines,” Liz said.

“They’re going to use their thrusters to move them while they use their gravity drive to reverse through the minefield,” Catie suggested.

“That seems to be it,” Liz replied.  “So, what do we do?”

“We should help them by destroying a few mines for them.”

“ADI?”

“I would suggest we launch four more Hyraxes.”

◆ ◆ ◆

“Sir, the Delphineans have set off two mines,” the sensor operator reported.

“All stop!”

“Sir, their fighters are pushing mines toward us.”

“Bastards!”

“Navigation, plot us a course through the field.  Find one with the fewest mines.”

“Sir?” the XO asked, worried about what the captain was planning.

“Weapons, how many missiles do we have?”

“We have eight missiles left.”

“Start destroying the mines in the path the navigator plots.”

“Sir, won’t that just alert the Delphineans where you intend to go?  They’ll start pushing more mines into the path.”

“Weapons, wait until we start moving.”

◆ ◆ ◆

“What are they doing?” Catie asked as they watched the Thorean ship adjust its heading.

“I think he plans to blast his way through the minefield.”

“He won’t make it.  There are too many mines in his way, and he already showed he can’t destroy them before they go off.”

“What about missiles?” Hayden asked.

“How many can he have left?” Liz asked.

“And how well can he target the mines?  They’re pretty stealthy,” Catie said.  “The cruiser is aligning with this path.  It appears to have the fewest mines between them and the inner system.”  Catie drew her finger over the path she was talking about.

“ADI?” Liz prompted.

“Moving the Hyraxes now.”

◆ ◆ ◆

“Captain, they’re moving mines into the path we’ve plotted.”

The captain cursed under his breath.  “Prepare to engage.  I want max acceleration and full plasma cannons; launch missiles on my command.”

“Captain, we’ll never get through it,” the XO said.  “And even if we do, our weakened state will leave us prey to that Delphinean cruiser.  Maybe we should surrender.”

“Security, I want his coward off my bridge!  I will never surrender my ship!”

The security guard who was posted on the bridge to ensure no one threatened the captain drew his sidearm and moved forward.

The XO sighed and moved away from the captain.  “What else can I do?”  He turned to allow the security guard to escort him to his quarters or the brig.  At that moment, the security guard shot the captain in the head.

“Sir, I believe you have a call to make.”

The XO was shocked, as the security guards were usually the most zealot supporters of the Golden Regime.

“Of course.  Helm, hold position!  Communication, hail the Delphinean vessel.”

◆ ◆ ◆

“Captain, what can I do for you?” Liz asked as they opened the channel to the Thoreans.

“We would like to discuss terms of surrender.”

“The terms are simple.  You hand over your command codes to us.  We’ll then leave a few of our fighters here to make sure no mines wander into you.  Once we’ve resolved this situation, we’ll send a team out here to clear the minefield.”

“Very well.  It will take a few moments to send the codes.  We’ve had a change of command over here, so the procedure will take a bit longer than usual.”

“We’ll wait,” Liz said.  Then she signaled the communication officer to close the channel.  “As soon as we get those codes, we’ll need to get out of here and rendezvous with Blake.”

“I’m already clearing a path,” ADI said.  “Also, I need you to do another ping so we can map the field again.  I will need to rely on that data to keep the Hyraxes you leave behind and the Thorean vessel safe.”

“We’ll send the ping as we leave.”

◆ ◆ ◆

“Admiral Blake, five Thorean frigates have joined the cruisers.  It looks like they’re trying to protect the cruiser at the rear.  I suspect the Drake’s strafing run damaged it,” Captain Fitzgerald informed Blake.

“I’ve noticed that it seems to be lagging.  How long before Commodore Farmer catches up with us?” Blake asked.

“Forty-three hours.”

“Let’s see how well those frigates handle missiles.  Launch a squadron.”

“Aye, sir.”

◆ ◆ ◆

“What is the status of our repairs,” the Thorean captain demanded.

“Sir, our reactor is severely damaged.  We are only able to run it at sixty percent.  The lower two decks are vented to vacuum.  The repair crews are still trying to seal off the breaches.”

“How long to repair the reactor?”

“Sir, engineering says they cannot repair it.  It will require the shipyard to pull it in order to effect repairs.”

“Tell them they have to fix it.  At only sixty percent, we’ll be left behind.  And with limited power, our plasma cannons will not be very effective.”

“Sir, the Delphineans have launched a squadron of fighters.  They’re heading our way.”

“Tell our frigates to intercept them.  Weapons, status?”

“Sir, we have no missiles; lasers are at ninety percent, plasma cannons are at fifty percent unless we cut propulsion.”

“How long after we cut propulsion before the plasma cannons are at full range?”

“Sir, thirty seconds, and then we’ll have plasma cannons at eighty percent.  That’s the best that engineering can do.”

“Tell them they need to do better.”

“Yes, sir.”

◆ ◆ ◆

“Boomer, you ready with that EMP missile?” Maddog asked.

“You got it.  First frigate on the right?”

“No, go for the center one; maybe we’ll get some spillover!”

“You got it.  Locked on . . . firing!”

The missile streaked toward the frigate.  All the Delphinean fighters made a slight adjustment to their vector so their noses would be pointed at the center of the EMP pulse, providing maximum shielding.

The missile broke apart just as it reached the target zone, and a convex reflector deployed.  It would help direct most of the energy at the frigate.  A bright flash signaled that the bomb had gone off and generated its pulse energy, and what was left of the missile had disintegrated.

“Nailed her,” Boomer yelled.

“Yoda, send a missile at that left frigate, low yield.  Let’s see if the pulse damaged her as well.  Blaze, take care of the one on the right.”

“What’s that cruiser doing?” Boomer asked.

“It looks like it’s leaving and taking a couple of frigates with it and leaving the others behind.  What a coward.”

The two frigates each took a hit from a missile.  They’d fired lasers at the missiles, but they didn’t pack much punch.  The Delphinean missiles impacted the two frigates, and the frigates immediately lost all propulsion.  Maddog sent the surrender demand to them.  Two of them immediately sent back the requested code, but the third just sat there floating.

“Okay, two have surrendered.  I think the middle one is on emergency power and has lost communication.  Victory, what are your orders?” Maddog asked.

“Head for the cruiser,” Blake ordered.  “We’re directing one of the Thorean frigates to render aid to the disabled frigate.  We’ll have them take it out toward the jump gate.  The Galileo can take care of moving them to Avalon.”

“Aye, sir.”

Maddog’s squadron headed toward off for the Thorean cruiser and the two frigates that had retreated with it.  It didn’t take them long to catch up.

“They’re sure not trying very hard to get away,” Boomer said.

“Watch out for traps.  Hit them with EMPs!” Maddog ordered.

“Missiles away!”

The EMP pulses immediately disabled the two frigates, but the cruiser seemed to shrug it off and move away.  Apparently, the frigates had learned their lesson from the previous engagement since they sent their control codes out immediately.

“Get closer; I want to hit the cruiser with two EMPs simultaneously.  One doesn’t seem to do anything to it.  If we time them right, then there will be a higher amplitude pulse that will cross it.  That might take out a few critical systems,” Maddog ordered.

Two of the fighters moved closer; they had to be close since the missiles could only withstand a few seconds from the cruiser’s lasers, while the fighters could just shrug the lasers off.

“Missiles away!” Boomer yelled as his proximity alarm went off, and a missile plume started up just a few kilometers from his fighter.  “Zarq!” Boomer reached for the eject button just milliseconds after his fighter’s AI triggered it.  The fighter dove in the opposite direction from the ejecting cockpit module.

Maddog’s fighter immediately turned to present the lowest profile possible to Boomer’s fighter.  All this happened within milliseconds of the exhaust plume being detected.  Milliseconds later, the missile impacted Boomer’s fighter and exploded, creating a small ball of fire that continued to expand as a wave of heat.  The wave passed over Boomer’s cockpit module and eventually passed over all the Delphinean fighters as well as the cruiser.

Maddog saw his hull temperature peak at 70% and knew that that spelled bad news for Boomer, who was closer and had less shielding.

“Pinging now!” the sonar operator on the Victory radioed as he sent out a gravimetric ping.  They were only doing them every two minutes as the Victory had to be coasting to have enough power to generate one.

As Maddog’s fighter read the results of the ping, it quickly identified six other missiles coasting in space between the fighters and the cruiser.  His AI quickly dispatched orders to the various fighters in his squadron, and the missiles were quickly destroyed by laser fire.

“Blaze, take Boomer’s spot.  We’re going to hit that sucker with double taps.  On my mark!”

The three fighters aligned themselves with the cruiser, presetting three different angles of attack.

“Mark!”

Six missiles flew toward the cruiser.  They were in pairs, one behind the other.  The lead missile would provide cover for the second one.  It was even possible that the cruiser wouldn’t notice the second missile.

It was obvious that the double EMP had done some damage.  The cruiser’s rate of fire was significantly slower.  Its plasma cannon took out the first missile and moved on to the next vector, completely missing the following missile.  That one plowed into the cruiser, exploding on impact.  The plasma cannon died just as it vaporized the leading missile of the second pair.

“Gotcha, you bastard!” Maddog yelled.  “Zarq, what’s the meaning of this?” he yelled after the rest of their missiles slammed into the cruiser without exploding.

“Stand down!” Blake ordered.  “We need to give them a chance to surrender.”

Chapter 17

The End Game

The Sakira and the other frigates caught up with the Victory.  They followed the last cruiser as it headed toward the Thorean planet.  Three other cruisers and four frigates joined it as it drew closer to the planet.

“How long until we reach the planet?” Blake asked.

“Sir, I estimate ten days,” the navigator answered.

“Catie, you might want to call the president and tell him they’re headed his way.”

“Yes, sir.  Do you want to be on the call?”

“No, I’ll listen in, but let’s keep it to Princess Catherine for now.”

Catie went to her cabin to change into her Princess outfit while ADI initiated the call with the president.

“President Zarkas,” Catie greeted the president.

“Princess, how are things going?”

“We’ve captured two cruisers and five frigates and a significant number of their space fighters.”

“That’s what I’ve heard.  What have your losses been?  I’ve been told they are substantial.  Will you be able to continue to aid us?”

“We have had some painful losses,” Catie said.  “We had one frigate disabled, and we lost quite a few fighters, on the order of fifty.”

The president looked relieved.  “I’ve been told that your losses were much more substantial.”

“I’m sure you have.  We’re following four cruisers and four frigates.  They appear to be heading toward the planet.”

“Our space station has spotted them.  I’m not sure what they expect to achieve by being close to the planet.”

“Do you think they know of your plans to renounce the Golden Regime?”

“No.  There would be other signs if they did.  Possibly they need us to help resupply them; they should be running low on foodstuffs and reaction mass.”

“That’s what we believe as well.”

“Do you have an estimate of when they will arrive?”

“We estimate ten days.  Are you ready to come out publicly in support of the change?” Catie asked.

“Not just yet.  I need to handle a few things first.  I could use the help of the rebel forces.”

“I’ll put you in contact with General Zapos,” Catie said.

The president smiled.  “I should have known he was behind this charade.  He was always a creative thinker.  I’m sure he’ll be able to help me.”

◆ ◆ ◆

“General V’lorm, come in,” President Zarkas said.  The general had asked for an emergency meeting.  “Just as well; I needed to get him here anyway.”

“President,” the general nodded a greeting as he took a seat in front of the president’s desk.

“What is the emergency?”

“We need you to take a stronger public stance against these rumors that the Delphineans are behind all these setbacks.  Half of the military is chasing Delphinean ghosts.”

“What makes you so sure that they are not behind this?”

“We have not seen any of their starships in orbit.  Admiral Fallstarx tells me he has the Delphinean fleet bottled up in the asteroid belt.”

“They could be in both places.  The Admiral said that their ships are hard to detect.”

General V’lorm gritted his teeth.  “I disagree.  And if they had half the capabilities that these ridiculous rumors attribute to them, they would already be in control of the planet.”

“I see.  Well, we certainly need to get out in front of these issues,” the president said as he nodded to his security guard.

General V’lorm jerked his head.  “Who is that?” he demanded.

“My security guard.”

“That is not one of the men I assigned.”

“I know, they were becoming a bit of a problem,” the president said as the security guard pointed his gun at the general.

“What’s the meaning of this?!”

“The meaning is that we will no longer abide by the Golden Regime.  It’s time Thoreans took back control of their planet.”

The security guard pulled out a taser and shot the general.  He then moved in and cuffed and gagged him.

The president keyed the intercom to his admin.  “Crytaxa, would you go down to the kitchen and get me a sandwich?  I’m going to work through lunch.”

“Sir, I can call down, and they’ll deliver one,” his admin replied.

“No, I don’t want to bother them.  Please go down and get one.”

“Yes, sir.”  Crytaxa knew that the president wanted to bring someone into or out of his office without her knowledge, but she knew better than to pry.

◆ ◆ ◆

“Get these prisoners ready for transfer,” Colonel Braxtor, the prison warden, ordered as he flicked the list to his aide.  He was reviewing the new orders from the security council.  They had decided to use the four maximum-security prisons to hold captured rebels.  “Great, that must mean we’re finally making progress.  Maybe we’ll even get some Delphineans as prisoners.”

The colonel stood on the balcony outside his office as he watched the guards gather the prisoners in the yard.  They were all political prisoners; some were even former governors or mayors who had failed to embrace the true meaning of the Golden Regime.  Those were the ones he enjoyed tormenting the most.  Unfortunately, none of the prisoners were women.

A convoy of school buses, eight in all, reached the gates.  They were escorted by four armored vehicles and eight jeeps.  “Great, at least they’re not messing around.  Let the Delphineans, or rebels, try to take this convoy.”

The head of security rushed over to the colonel with the papers that the head of the convoy had presented to the guards at the gate.  It wouldn’t do for the warden to be seen as too eager to meet whomever they had sent to get the prisoners.

“Let them in,” he ordered.

The buses entered the yard, followed by the armored vehicles.  Soldiers exited those vehicles and moved to the exterior of the yard.  Some even climbed to the balcony so they would have the high ground should any problems arise.  The prisoners shuffled into the buses.  It took quite a while to load all four hundred thirty of them.  Once they were loaded, the officer in charge walked up to Colonel Braxtor so he could sign the document, indicating that he was now responsible for the prisoners.

“Colonel Braxtor, General Thorten.”

Colonel Braxtor nodded at the general and handed him the document to sign.  Once the general signed the document, he and the colonel watched as the buses left the prison yard.

“You’re not sending the armored vehicles out to protect them?” the colonel asked.  He looked around; all the soldiers from the armored vehicles were still in place, “Guarding what?”

“No, the jeeps will keep them safe.  We still have a few more things to accomplish.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know, like putting you in one of the cells.”  With that, the general signaled his team.  They immediately started to subdue the guards.  Any that resisted were shot.  None of the guards knew that the soldiers were using stunners instead of real bullets, so what little opposition there was quickly died away.

“What is the meaning of this?” the colonel yelled.

“You were told that we would start using this facility to hold some of our most egregious violators.  Well, you’re one of them.”  He signaled the soldier to remove the colonel, then turned and walked toward the warden’s office.

“Good day, I’m General Thorten,” the general said to the admin staffing the outer office.

“Emelara,” the admin said.

“As you can tell, we’ve had a change of leadership here.  The Free Thorea Front will be running this prison from now on.  Would you like to stay on?”

The admin let out a sigh.  “Definitely,” she said with a smile.

“Then please get me this prisoner.”

“Yes, sir.”  She made a call, then turned to the general.  “He should be here in five minutes.”

“Good.  Do you have the colonel’s password?”

“Of course.”

The general spent the twenty minutes perusing the colonel’s systems while he waited for the requested prisoner to show up.

“The prisoner is here to see you,” Emelara said as she showed an emaciated prisoner into the office.

“Governor Langstarn, General Thorten.”  The general extended his hand to the prisoner.

“I heard that I should be expecting a call,” the governor said.

“Yes, we’re now starting our final push to take back control of Thorea.”

“Good; how can I help?”

“I need you and Emelara to review the list of guards and prisoners and let me know if there are any who would aid our cause.”

The governor nodded and glanced at Emelara, who gave him a big return smile.

“Also, when does the second shift arrive?” the general asked.

“In two hours, sir.”

“Excellent.”

◆ ◆ ◆

Admiral Fallstarx looked at the main display.  The Delphinean fleet had chased his fleet back to Thorea.  He had taken a stellar orbit, mirroring Thorea.  The Delphineans had taken an outside orbit, shadowing his fleet.  He’d just finished reading a private message from the president reminding him that the president was the Commander in Chief of the armed forces and asking him to stand down, to allow the Delphineans to take control of his ships to ensure that he wouldn’t use his weapons against them or the planet.

“Damn, this rebellion had turned into an ugly tangle.”  He’d agreed with General V’lorm that the Delphineans were not involved at the beginning.  He was sure that their first direct involvement had been the engagement at the fringe.  He’d lost two cruisers and five frigates, a third of his force.  “Why had they come back?”

“Sir, what do you want us to do?” the ship’s captain asked.

“Shut up and let me think,” was what he wanted to say.  He was not used to indecision.  He’d always known the next move.  He might need to make a few adjustments once he’d made it, but he was never one to wait, to overanalyze.  Now here he was, stuck.  What was the right move to make?  “Wait?  Hell no!”

He looked at his fleet captain.  “Have all unnecessary personnel put into stasis.  Start converting all our water to hydrogen and oxygen, move that to the thrusters.”

“All of our water?”

“Put the crew on rations, ½ liter per day.  You should recover enough over the next twelve hours to maintain that.”

“Yes, sir,” the captain said.  He gave the Admiral an expectant look; he assumed there was more.

“How many missiles do we have?”

“Eight.”

“The whole fleet?” the admiral asked, giving the captain a ‘you’re an idiot’ look.

“No,” the captain glanced at his data pad.  “The fleet has one hundred twenty.  Most of them are in the frigates.”

“What about missiles for the fighters?”

“We have eighty; the other cruisers have about the same.”  The captain said.  He checked his datapad and listed the specifics for each ship.

“Have them modified to fit the missile tubes.  Move them to the preload area.”

“Yes, sir.”  The captain moved to his chair and started to issue the necessary orders.  “We might be done for, but we’re going down in a blaze of glory,” he thought.

◆ ◆ ◆

“What do you think they’re doing?” Blake asked his staff.

“I’m betting they’re getting ready for one last push,” Liz said.

“And?” Blake asked.

“They’ll try to take out as many of our ships as possible.  I suspect they think that if they can weaken us enough, they’ll be able to regain control.”

“Even with their president telling them to stand down?”

Liz gave Blake a smile.  As if he didn’t know the answer.  He loved to ask questions when he’d already made up his mind.

“We’ve been told that the admiral there is on the Golden Council.  He’s not going to view the president as the final authority on Thorea.”

“Okay.  Let’s put some Hyraxes on overwatch.  If they move one meter in our direction, I want to know about it.  Everyone, be prepared to move away from the Thorean fleet at maximum acceleration.  I want them to find empty space when they start their move.”

◆ ◆ ◆

It took two days to complete the transition at the prison.  The problem guards were ‘transferred’ to another facility.  They hadn’t been very popular in the community, so their absence was celebrated, and not too many questions were asked.  Now things were ready for phase II of the president’s and General Zapos’ plan.

General Vortox inspected the compound.  It was reasonably comfortable; the tents had wooden floors, and they were heated adequately.  The meeting room was well furnished.  He wasn’t too happy with the location; being next to a prison didn’t feel right.  But it simplified logistics.  They needed to keep the location secret; the earlier incident at the headquarters was still fresh in everyone’s minds.  Although it had paved the way for his promotion to the top strategist for the area, he wasn’t interested in allowing a similar incident to pave someone else’s path to his job.

It had taken two weeks to plan this meeting.  To get all the right people in one place without anyone noticing their absence wasn’t easy.  At first, he’d suggested they use video conferencing to accomplish the planning, but the president and General V'lorm had insisted on a face-to-face meeting.  They had explained that the rebels, with the help of the Delphineans, had infiltrated the communication systems.  They were convinced that any prolonged meetings via the internet would be intercepted by the rebels.  It was a significant change for General V’lorm to give credence to the existence of the Delphineans; General Vortox wondered what had happened to change his mind.

“Sir, the delegates are arriving,” the general’s aide informed him.

“Is everything ready?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good.  Let me know when they’ve all arrived.  Let them know that we’ll hold the opening session tonight.”

“Yes, sir.”

It took the rest of the day for all the delegates to make their way to the new compound.  They arrived in twos and threes to minimize the size of each convoy.  They had to have enough security to protect them, but the rebels would not miss a large convoy and would follow it to the compound.  So, they had flown the delegates into the various regional airports and ferried them to the new compound.

“General, they’re ready,” his aide informed him.

“Are they all in the conference room?”

“Yes, sir,” the aide said.  It’d been a bit difficult to get them all settled in and moved into the conference room.  What a bunch of babies, especially the civilians.  He was sure that they had wanted a nap after the long trip.  But come on, there was a war to win.

General Vortox entered the meeting room.  He looked out at the one hundred twenty men who were to lead the restoration of the Golden Regime’s golden age.  They were now entrusted with creating the strategy to end the rebel advances and return Thorea to the well-ordered law of the Golden Regime.  The civilian population was still confused about what was going on.  The stupid BlueBird Twitter system had been spreading lies and truth, but the average person wasn’t sure what to believe.  They kept looking for some authority to stand up and explain things.  The loss of the mayors had caused a big problem, but they were slowly being replaced.  And as they were replaced, they would stand up and explain to the people that Golden Regime was still in charge.

“Welcome.  I’m sure all of you know the burden that our president has placed upon us.  We are here to reestablish order.  To bring the rebels to heel.  To remind the population that we, the Golden Ones, are in charge and will ensure their wellbeing.

“I know there has been a lot of angst about our security.  Let me show you the measures we have taken.

“This is our compound,” he said, pointing to a map on the display.  “The green areas mark the minefields that I have seeded around the compound.  The only safe way in or out is the two access roads here.  We have a squadron of fighters based fifty miles away.  They can be here in fifteen minutes if we should need their assistance.  We have two hundred armed troops guarding the compound.  I can assure you we are entirely safe.

“As you know, there are no communication devices allowed within the camp.  We have disabled the cell towers in the area and have active scramblers to disrupt any satellite communication.  We will not allow the rebels and their Delphinean allies to disrupt this conference, nor will we allow a repeat of the incidents from four weeks ago.

“Now our president has sent us a prerecorded message to launch this conference, so please pay attention to the monitor.”

General Vortox had reviewed the president’s message.  It was a powerful message about the virtues of the Golden Regime.  It would inspire everyone here to do their best to move things forward.

“I wish to welcome all of you to this conference,” the president’s message began.  “You are here to launch Thorea into a new Golden Era.  I’m sure that General Vortox has explained the security measures to you.”

General Vortox was shocked.  “What is going on?  This was not part of the message that I listened to.”

“Let me assure you that those measures are fully in place.  The squadron is under my command.  The base is now surrounded by five hundred of my most loyal soldiers.  They are there to assist me in ensuring that Thorea is returned to the glory it held before the Golden Regime took power.  Those of you that wish to live to see that day will surrender.  You will be escorted to the prison, where you will be held for trial.  If you resist, the squadron of fighters will bomb the compound.  You have one hour to decide which path to take.  Exit via the front entrance, and you will be met by an escort who will take you to your cell.”

The room erupted in shouts and arguments.  The general was shocked.  This could not be happening.  He rushed to his office, where he used the landline to make a call.

“General Vortox here.  I need to talk to General V’lorm!”

“General Vortox, General V’lorm is in prison.  I’m General Zapos.  I can assure you that what you have just heard from the president is true.  If you want to see tomorrow, I suggest you make your way to the front of the compound and surrender.”

◆ ◆ ◆

Catie was curious to see President Zarkas’ speech.  How was he going to introduce the Delphi League to Thorea?  How would he tell everyone that he was ending the Golden Regime?  And how were the people going to react?

She watched as the president approached the podium.  He waited a few moments for the press corps to settle before he began.

“My fellow Thoreans, I stand before you at the dawn of a new era.  Today, the citizens of Thorea retake control of our ship of state, right it, and set course to a bright future.  A future where all Thoreans share the same rights and opportunities.  Where the rule of law applies equally to all.

“This morning, I have rescinded all laws passed by the previous regime which limited the rights of citizens without the golden gene.  The government is now aligned with the Thorean Freedom Front to make the necessary changes in our government.

“Many of you will remember General Zapos.  He was well known for his efforts to make sure our laws were enforced equitably.  That was why he was deported to Sivaria, where he joined the Thorean Liberation Front.  He has been instrumental in the changes that have occurred over the last few months, specifically the removal of the worst offending of our governors and mayors.  He is joining me as the head of our national security.”

General Zapos’ image appeared in the lower corner of the display.  He was wearing a military uniform.  He gave the audience a broad smile, then turned his head as if watching the president.

“Also, I’m sure many of you remember Cer Ankva, who tirelessly worked in parliament to defend the rights of our women.  She will be joining me as Vice President.”

The image of Councilor Ankva appeared next to the general’s.

“I’m sure all of you are wondering how this is possible and whether it has anything to do with the rampant rumors about the Delphineans.  It does, and it doesn’t.”

The president paused and smiled at the audience.

“The Delphineans are real.  Many of you will remember learning of the Paraxeans whom we traded with some two hundred years ago.  They have joined with races from other planets to form the Delphi League.”

The president paused as the reporters started yelling questions.  They finally gave up after a minute or so and let him continue.

“The League attempted to visit our planet six months ago.  They were met with an attempt to capture their delegation.  They avoided that and left Thorea.  But they went to Sivaria, where they helped the people there to gain control of their planet and star system.  Sivaria is now under a freely elected civilian government.

“I have asked the Delphi League to come to Thorea and help us achieve the same thing.  They are currently in orbit above our planet, facing off with the part of our space force that refuses to yield to my authority.

“Now, despite the rumors to the effect, the Delphineans have not been directly involved in the changes here on Thorea.  They did provide us with technology that General Zapos put to use.  Still, most of the events were a clever ploy by General Zapos to keep the government unbalanced and avoid any reprisals against the civilian population.

“I ask everyone to be patient.  This change will take longer than any of us would like, but we must proceed carefully.  As of today, a representative of the Thorean Liberation Front will be posted in each police station throughout the planet.  They will be there to verify compliance with the new orders I have issued.  They will also help document any complaints or reports of past or current wrongs inflicted on our citizenry by the previous regime.  Be assured that we will do our best to redress all these wrongs.

“I will be appointing new mayors and new governors over the next few weeks.  They will serve for six months while we prepare for free elections.  I am also suspending parliament until those elections.  Those that are elected will serve for a term of one year, after which we will hold new elections for all government posts, including the office of president.”

“Blah, blah, blah,” Catie muttered as she fast-forwarded to another section of the speech.

“I ask all Thorean military forces to surrender to the officers I am sending to each command.  They will take charge and manage the transition.  I especially urge our space forces to surrender.  If any of you have friends or family on the cruisers and frigates which are now facing off against the Delphinean forces, I urge you to call then and ask them to surrender.”

Catie switched off the broadcast.  “ADI, what do you think?”

“We can only hope it is well received by the Thoreans.”

“Only hope?  ADI, you sound almost human.”

“There is no need to insult me!”

◆ ◆ ◆

Admiral Fallstarx was sitting in the command chair on the bridge of his flagship.  He was frustrated with the wait.  After the president’s speech, everyone in the fleet was on edge, not knowing which way to jump.  It was time to make his move.

“Arm missiles, prepare to engage on my order.”

“Yes, sir,” the XO said as he relayed the order to the rest of the fleet.

“I want the frigates to fall back.  We and the other three cruisers will take out that big carrier and their cruiser.  If we’re successful, then they are to engage their frigates.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Sir, you have a message,” the communication officer said.

The Admiral waved him off.

“Sir, it’s from your wife.”

What could she possibly have to say?  He wanted to ignore the message, but this might be the last time he heard from his wife.  He nodded to the communication officer, indicating that he should put the message through to his pad.

“Husband, please listen to our president.  He is our commander in chief.”

The Admiral glared at his display.  “What does she expect me to do?”

“Our children will have a hard enough time with the coming transition without having to live with the fact that their father killed himself and his entire fleet in a last gasp effort to preserve the old regime.  We both know that the regime was corrupt.  We accepted it and tried to do the best that we could.  But now it’s time to move on.  The president wants to move forward.  So do I.  . . . Please listen!”

The admiral closed the channel.  He turned to the main display, which showed the Delphinean fleet he was facing off against.  He knew the odds were against him.  He hoped to cause enough damage that the Delphineans would be forced to negotiate.  But negotiate with whom?  He was pretty sure he was the only member of the Golden Council left.  He had viewed it as an opportunity to reshape the regime, but the president had rejected the Golden Regime and denied the Golden Council.  “What is the right move?”

Did the president really think he could roll back the clock?  The admiral remembered what it was like thirty years ago.  He’d endured the harassment, the unwelcoming looks, the talk behind his back.  He’d had to work hard to succeed.  Did the president really mean to go back to that?  Did he think the Norms would forgive and forget?  Nobody forgot; he certainly didn’t.  Sure, Thorea was in a constant state of unrest now, but at least the Golden Ones were on top.

The Admiral sat back in his command chair.  He stared at the display for a minute.  He could tell that the entire bridge was holding their breath.

“Send the codes for the fleet,” he ordered.

Chapter 18

Kansas

Jason slowly regained consciousness as the AI in his Hyrax brought him out of stasis.  “What the hell,” he thought.  He started to check his fighter out; things seemed normal.  He struggled to remember what happened.  He’d come out of the wormhole and hit something.  That shouldn’t have happened.

As he checked his instruments, he noticed a second Hyrax flying in formation with him.  “Miranda?”

“Bravo 1, checking in,” he radioed.

“Bravo 1, this is Bravo 2, welcome back sleeping beauty,” Miranda radioed

“How long has it been?” Jason asked.

“Five weeks.”

“Geez, that doesn’t make sense.”

“Well, our AIs automatically put us into stasis.  I think you must have sustained some kind of head injury since it kept you under for so long.  I’ve been waking up every five days to check the situation.  We’re sitting here coasting next to where we exited the wormhole.”

“What did we hit?”

“It looked like a couple of probes.  My AI managed to destroy the probe on my side before I hit it, but you actually hit the probe by you.  My AI destroyed it before it you spun into it again.”

“Yeah, I see that in my logs here,” Jason said as he continued to review the logs.  “I don’t hear anyone else on my Comm.  It looks like my quantum relay lost its coupling.”

“I was afraid of that.  My AI kept saying that there was no relay available, but I was hoping it was wrong.”

“Unfortunately, it wasn’t.  Any idea where we are?”

“I don’t know, but I’m pretty sure it’s not Kansas.”

Afterword

Thanks for reading Delphi Diplomacy!

I hope you’ve enjoyed the eleventh book in the Delphi in Space series.  If you would like to join my newsletter group, click here, Delphi in Space News.  The newsletter provides interesting science facts for SciFi fans, book recommendations based on books I truly loved reading, and notification of when the next book in my series is available.

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Acknowledgments

It is impossible to say how much I am indebted to my beta readers and copy editors.  Without them, you would not be able to read my books due to all the grammar and spelling errors.  I have always subscribed to Andrew Jackson’s opinion that “It is a damn poor mind that can think of only one way to spell a word.”

So special thanks to:

My copy editor Auz B.

My beta reader and editor, Theresa Holmes.

My beta reader and cheerleader, Roger Blanton, who happens to be my brother.