Date: 2017-01-02T18:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Science Fiction
Description: Alicia Jones has some hard decisions ahead. Things have been going downhill, and she’s under scrutiny by the military and governments of the world. The worlds opinion is souring, and even a night out is a calculated risk. Some disturbing things come to light, and the government is determined to keep her in check, even if she hasn’t done anything that requires it. She needs to decide if she’ll fight, fold, or simply cash out and play her own game. If things at home weren’t bad enough, the galaxy is split on the bug issue, and things are heating up on both the humanoid and the bug worlds. Someth
Publisher: UNKNOWN

Galactic Storm

An Alicia Jones novel 05

Author: D. L. Harrison

Copyright 2017.  This is a work of fiction.  Names, Characters, Places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously.  Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons living or dead, is entirely coincidental.  All rights reserved.  No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without permission.

Table of Contents:

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Afterword:

About the Author

Other books by D. L. Harrison:

Book Description

Chapter 1

I looked in the mirror indecisively.  Green eyes, platinum blonde hair, and unblemished skin looked back at me, and I hated it.  I had on white high heeled sandals, and a light blue sundress with white, brown, and red flowered designs.  I still felt a pinch of guilt at the idea of my date with Bill, it had only been a couple of months since Nathan’s death.

Bill was an old friend, the first man I’d kissed just over ten years ago now, and in about fifteen minutes I needed to be at Mia’s Tex-Mex in Dallas.

If it had been anyone else besides Bill I wouldn’t have gone, I couldn’t have gone, but when I’d seen him at my parent’s house, we’d had an instant connection based on the warm old memories of all the trouble we used to get in together.  Well, that and physical attraction.  My indecision at my appearance however, had nothing at all to do with the guilt.

The anti-alien rhetoric had gotten stronger, so far it was still just a small percentage of the population but they grew bolder and more acidic by the day in the media, which happily gave them airtime to collect more ratings.  So there I was, staring at my human face, the one that I grew up with but looked so odd and unfamiliar now.

I hadn’t wanted to chance a scene tonight, and considered the idea of going like this, but it just felt wrong now, it made me a liar.  In the past I hadn’t known who and what I was, but now I did.

I concentrated for a moment, and my green eyes changed to purple, and my clear complexion developed small spots on the side of my face and neck.  It was who I was, and I wouldn’t apologize or hide.  Good enough, I walked out of the bathroom, and down the hall.  Kristi and Joe sat on the couch, they were staying in tonight, things were getting more serious between them.

I could see it when I looked at them.  I was honestly surprised they hadn’t run off to Vegas to get married yet.

“Well, how do I look?” I asked in a cheery tone I didn’t feel.

Joe gave me a thumbs up from the arm he had around Kristi’s shoulders, and said, “Great,” but his eyes hadn’t even left the television.

Men!

I snickered instead of getting angry about it.

Kristi looked up at me critically for a moment.

“Are you that nervous?  You look fabulous of course, go knock his socks off.”

I frowned and stuck out my tongue, “It’s a first date, socks and other articles of clothing will be staying on.”

She rolled her eyes, “That was a bad joke, even for you.”

I raised an eyebrow, “It’s also the truth,” but maybe I was reminding myself of that?  Bill and I had history, this was far from a normal first date where I hardly knew the guy. I’d grown up with him and I might be tempted if things went really well.

I added, “As for being nervous, it’s a mix of things.  Media, Billy… Bill, and guilt about…” I trailed off knowing she’d get it.

She nodded understandingly, “I get it, it’s too early, but you’re afraid you’ll miss your chance to reconnect if you put him off.  Go, eat a fajita for me, and keep it casual for now.  If he’s the right one, he’ll wait.”

“How do you know what I’m getting?” I asked curiously.

She snorted in disbelief, “You always get the fajitas when you get Mexican.  Except for that burrito place.”

Right.  I supposed I did.

I went out through the garage, and jumped into the sports shuttle.  I couldn’t exactly ask him to come pick me up, so I was meeting him at the restaurant courtesy of sub-orbital velocities.

“Let’s go Al,” I said softly as I closed the door.

“On our way,” he replied in a voice that sounded almost human.

Ever since Al had been upgraded to the new A.I. matrix he acted more and more to my needs before I even asked, and tracked things for me that I didn’t even know about because he thought I was interested.  Since he designed, built, and transferred himself to a quantum computer his changes had sped up even more, the most notable thing though had been his voice.

I supposed he had enough cycles to waste now on adding subtleties to his speech.

He took us out of the garage, and then shot straight up into orbit.  It took about ten seconds, but only because we had to stay under Mach one while under ten thousand feet.

Then he moved us over Texas, and brought us down just as fast.  In less than a minute we were in the parking lot and I was five minutes early.  I could probably fly it myself in a pinch, but he did a lot of things to make it seem that simple.

It really wasn’t though.

There were a lot of adjustments to fields and such in a fast sub-orbital flight, he also took care of air traffic control in both cities so no one would panic.  I wondered if Bill was here.

Al said diffidently, “Bill is here, I detect his vehicle nearby, and his phone’s GPS puts him inside the restaurant.”

I narrowed my eyes, if I didn’t know better I’d say Al was starting to read my mind.  Sometimes his anticipation of my needs was borderline creepy.  Still, I didn’t think he’d be taking over the world anytime soon like on some bad Sci-Fi movie.

I opened up the door on the small shuttle, got out, and headed inside.

It didn’t take me long to find Bill, he was seated already and I met his eyes from across the room, he’d obviously been watching for me.  The cornerstone of his soul was steady, solid, loyal, and so different from the wild young boy I remembered.  Although enough mischief remained in his core that he seemed familiar, and I suspected he was still fun loving and didn’t take himself too seriously when not on the job.  People were complicated though, and that was just a guideline.

I also caught his excitement and nervousness at our date, and his attraction to me around the edges.  In the parts of the soul that changed in different situations.  Some would call it cheating, but it was good to know he felt similarly to how I did.

I walked over, and couldn’t help but smile as he obviously approved of my dress, not crudely so, I could just read it in his soul.  He wasn’t at all bothered by me being an alien either, I’d have seen it.

I slid into the seat across from him with a relaxed smile.

He was dressed casually and looked pretty damned good himself.  Strong jaw, wide shoulders, a friendly smile, and warm brown eyes.  He may have been a responsible man and police officer now, but I could still see a bit of mischief in his eyes, just like I had in his soul.

“Hey Bill, I’m early,” I smiled brightly.

I truly couldn’t help it, he was comfortable already, like pulling on an old comfortable shirt, so different yet the same.

He smiled at me knowingly, “You never were one for being late, not even when we were planning mischief.  You look amazing tonight Alicia.”

“Thanks, you clean up rather well yourself.  So I’ve been dying to know, a cop?”

He chuckled, “It’s a long story…”

He trailed off as our waiter came and took our order.  I did wind up getting the fajitas, and Bill ordered enchiladas.  When the waitress left he took off where he left off.

“I managed to grow a little responsible by the time college came around, but not quite responsible enough.  I was a little late registering for my courses in my second year, and a lot of the electives were full.  So I had a choice between AJ101 or something even worse to fill out my credit requirements to stay on track to graduate.  Turned out by the end of the semester, I liked that course even better than my original major, so I switched majors my third year.”

He looked around conspiratorially to make sure no one was listening, and said in a deep voice, “Plus, they give out guns.”

I chuckled for a good few seconds and then asked skeptically, “Now, why do I believe that second part, and not the first at all?”

He laughed, “Because you’re as smart as you are beautiful, and can see a snow job from a mile away.  The truth is it just appealed to me, I chose it when the high school threw one of those cheesy career day things and haven’t regretted it since.”

He added in a wistful voice, “It’s really good to see you.  So what do you get up to, besides saving the world I mean?”

“I run a research company with my best friend from college.  I get to play with technology, and I help other inventors that I think will make it.”

He nodded and looked interested, “You must do amazing things.  I know about the gravity ball thing, the department has a few and familiarized all of us with them.  Terrible name though.”

I smirked in agreement, “I agree, but I haven’t come up with a better one yet.  At least it’s descriptive.”

He asked curiously with a tinge of hope, “So, You’re single right?”

I shrugged and smiled mysteriously, “Ask me again later, it depends on how well tonight goes.”

They brought out the food and we chatted lightly about the past while we ate.  The night went well, almost too well.  Talking to him was as easy as breathing, we didn’t even resort to work talk very much.  Probably because I couldn’t really share my research, and he didn’t want to talk about arresting people, but that wasn’t a problem.  We had enough to talk about and catch up on without that.

Hours passed as we talked, which probably annoyed the waiters, but we didn’t care.

When our dinner date was finished, he walked me out to the shuttle, and kissed me lightly on the cheek.  It was sweet, and I was torn between being disappointed and thankful that he hadn’t given me a full on kiss.  I reminded myself I wanted to take it slow, but my body wasn’t paying much attention to my mind, and had other ideas.

He asked tentatively, “Would you like to get together next Friday night?”

I smiled and then bit my bottom lip to help stop the glowing grin that wanted out, there was no need to appear overly eager.

“Sure, what did you have in mind?”

He replied, “I’d like to cook dinner for you. I’m still at the same house, bought it from the parents when they moved to Arizona.”

I returned his kiss, on his cheek despite my desire to do otherwise, and whispered, “Sounds nice, I’ll see you then.”

I smiled and said goodnight, and then got into my shuttle and headed back to Colorado...

Chapter 2

It was still Saturday night, and I wouldn’t see him for six days.  I supposed I could live with that, it would give me time to process our date and get it all straight in my head.  I planned to go over a few work things before I turned in for the night, when Al interrupted me.

Al said, “Dr. Cindy Delouse sent you a counter offer earlier tonight.”

I closed my eyes and thought about that for a moment.  I’d offered Dr. Delouse a place in the company using the same salary plus a higher percentage ownership of the IP than a normal grant would give.  Cindy worked on a new technology that would literally implant memories directly into the mind.  Although dubious about it at first, the advantages to training, schooling, and keeping up with the technologies in a professional’s field of study, or career, would be enormous.

“Al, does she have concerns about the deal?  What differences are there?”

I was being a bit lazy, I should’ve brought up the suggested contract on my overlay, but Al would find all the differences quickly and easily.

Al replied, “No, the IP rights and percentages are unchanged, as is the salary.  The only difference is that she wants to stay in Texas.  Not only because of family, but apparently she needs access to animal testing.  She feels it makes more sense to continue on in the current facility, when this building does not have the permits or facilities for that.”

I nodded slowly as I thought it through.  It would probably be cheaper to continue renting the space for her than it would be to upgrade our facilities.  Unless I expected to hire more people that required animal testing, it didn’t make sense to do it.

“Can you run the numbers, and verify her staying in Texas is more cost effective, if so approve the changes and notify both her and myself.”

Al replied, “Done, the acceptance has been sent off.”

I frowned in thought, even his new computer wasn’t that fast, “You already had the research done didn’t you?”

Al said, “Yes, I anticipated a ninety-eight point four percent chance you would ask for it.”

“I see, thank you Al.”

I shook my head in disbelief as he replied rather warmly, “Your welcome Alicia.  I should also tell you that Jason Matthews has accepted, and plans to start on Monday morning.  Karen is aware of his arrival, and will get him set up.”

“Anything else?” I asked bemused.  He was acting more and more like a true assistant, I hadn’t asked him to inform Karen, or do any of that.  Of course, it was implied since I made Jason an offer, but the old Al wouldn’t have figured that out.

He cleared his throat, “The Knomen colony worlds and the Omarans have sent you an invitation to visit their planets and join a rally of sorts to speak out against the upcoming genocide against the Bug race.  They want you at the Knomen colony first for a couple of days, and then you’d move on to Omara with a Knomen delegation.  Several others would meet you there, including delegations from Tressia, Leira, and the other eleven worlds that are protesting these actions and urging for quarantine instead.”

He cleared his throat?  I wondered if he was taking human affectation too far.

“That’s something to consider, I’ve been meaning to visit more worlds, I can also get behind the idea.  Do we know when that is going to happen?  The attacks on the Bug worlds I mean.”

Al replied, “No data on that, our military seems ready for a big move but they’re waiting for something, perhaps for the Seltan, their fleet is quite a bit more numerous.  The Knomen and Omaran’ invitation is for this week.  Monday through Thursday.”

I snorted, “It’s Saturday… Sunday now I suppose,” it was right after one in the morning.

After a bit of thought I said to myself, “Well, at least I won’t have to cancel my date…”

I also believed if I did go it would annoy a certain council, and the politicians behind my fall from favor in those halls.  I’d like to say I wasn’t that petty, but that prospect did make it more attractive to me.  Plus, I really had been meaning to visit other worlds for a while now, but circumstances kept conspiring to keep me here on Earth.

A lot of our tech was top secret, and stuff like the gravity ball was old hat to most worlds so there was no marketing those things on the trip.  However, I was sure we would do well with the repair and maintenance nanites, and the new quantum computers.  Those weren’t restricted or military technologies, why restrict our sales to just Earth on those?  I was sure Caroline and Shelly wouldn’t mind the extra income.

There also might be a market for Carmine’s terraforming as well, although truthfully most of the new worlds, fifteen that Earth new about, were already claimed.  Thing was, I had thousands in my personal database from the scans Al ran in subspace.  Right now the probes were just visiting the most likely places, G type stars, when there were less optimal systems that could still support human life with a little help.

I’d hold off on that for now though, I wasn’t sure if handing out worlds for cash was a good plan.  Plus, I was still determined to keep a lid on that technology, the only other person that even knew about the subspace technology was Kristi, and my A.I. knew of course.  I supposed Kristi’s A.I. did as well.  I didn’t want to have to explain how I’d found all those worlds.

The weird thing about keeping a secret was it sometimes made a person a bit paranoid.  The government worried me.  It wasn’t just the genocide, it was all the steps they’d taken to disarm me and cut me out of things.  I could understand it on some level, I was no longer an admiral, I was also an alien even if I was also a citizen.  Still, it annoyed me, I’d done nothing to earn their skepticism.  Well, minus holding back the new tech, but they’d cut me off first.

That thought made me feel a bit childish, but it was also true.  The potential for harm with subspace technology was terrifying, I wouldn’t hand it to a government I couldn’t trust.

“Al?”

“Yes Alicia?”

I sighed, “Do you think you still need a full backup system?  If so I want you to build a secondary mini-mainframe for the lab ship, and transfer your backup there out in the void.  I don’t want any data on subspace technology on the planet, not even in here in our own labs.  Once your backup is moved, scrub the local systems.”

Al replied, “The quantum processor seems very stable.  However, I’ll do what you said, it seems prudent to have a full backup.  Should I also arrange the same for Kristi’s A.I.?”

“Yes Al, do it,” and let’s all hope I’m just paranoid.  I’d made other plans as well, in case Earth’s leaders had truly turned on me, instead of merely de-clawing my ships and cutting me out of the loop, but I decided to hold off for now on the rest.

As far as the rally or summit went, I’d have to ask Kristi if she wanted to go, but not until the morning.  She and Joe were still busy with their date, or I assumed they were, since their room was closed and locked.  Al didn’t have anything else for me, so I decided to turn in and get some sleep…

It might have been a Sunday, and a day off, but I worked anyway.  I didn’t even want to admit how many hours I’d stared at the Drenil communications looking for a pattern, any pattern.  There didn’t seem to be one.  I was a little tempted to go to that world and try and land on it, but everyone had been right about that, I wouldn’t be able to figure anything out if I was dead from stupidity.

Kristi walked in the kitchen, and I sat back and sipped from my coffee innocently.

Kristi frowned at me as she made her own cup.

“You’re working aren’t you, I can tell.  You’ve got what up on your overlay?”

“Drenil.”

She snorted, “Figures.  Why don’t you transmit instead, see if they can figure you out?”

“I did, in subspace even.  Prime numbers, counting, equations, and they just ignore it.”

She nodded, and took a sip of her coffee, and then closed her eyes and sighed.

“Last night was great, how about your date?”

I smiled, “Good, really good I think, got another lined up next Friday.  Do you want to go visit the Knomen colonies and Omara?  They’re staging some protest thing, the fifteen planets.  Plus, I was thinking we could sell a few things, nanite packs and quantum computers specifically.”

She sighed and said nonchalantly, “Sure, why not.  Joe’s going to be working out of town next week anyway.  So are you really moving on, or do you have your nose stuck in work this morning so you don’t have to think about it.”

I glared at her in annoyance, “I’m the soul reader here, so cut it out,” and then I sighed and said softly, “I don’t know, two months is long enough, isn’t it?  I hadn’t even seen Nathan for two or three months before that.  I feel like it should be time, and Billy is really great.  Yet… I still feel guilty, and at the same time I get excited at the thought of next Friday.  He’s going to cook for me.”

Kristi sat at the table and replied, “Everyone is different.  Some move on too quickly, some never move on.  You mourned hard, right from the start you were a mess, I think you’re good, but really it’s up to you.  So what’s the plan today?”

“Pack, dresses and shoes.  Should we take the sport’s shuttle and use a taxi for the wormhole, or take our big ship?”

She giggled, “You mean our big unarmed ship?  Or supposedly unarmed?  I’d take the battlecruiser, and use the science shuttle to commute back and forth.  The little sports shuttle doesn’t have very strong shields does it?”

I shrugged, “I upgraded it to triple shielded, but of course it doesn’t have the DE reactor.  So it could take what, three of our plasma cannons, or about thirty of everyone else’s, so it isn’t bad.  Think we’ll be in danger?”

She tilted her head, “That’s actually stronger than I’d thought, but the science shuttle has twice the shield strength right?  I’m just saying, we’ll be annoying a lot of people if we do this.  Is that why your moving my A.I. off the planet?”

“Part of the reason, the other part is someone out there already has it out for me, and by extension you.  Someone’s been manipulating the USFS board behind the scenes.”

She frowned, “I’d like to say you’re paranoid, but I don’t doubt that’s true.  It’s why I agreed so easily to withhold the new tech, I’ll leave the decision up to you.  You made the discovery, so you can wrestle with the morality.”

I shook my head and said sarcastically, “Thanks, you’re so kind.”

She smiled beatifically, “Anytime.”

“Alright, big ship it is, but we’ll take the sport’s shuttle down to the planet.  Our ship should be able to cover our descent, if something doesn’t seem right we just won’t launch.”

Kristi nodded soberly, “Good point,” she finished her coffee, “I’m going to go pack, and tell Joe what I’m doing, although he’ll still be able to call me just fine.”

That was a good idea.  We still had plenty of time, and I had clothes on the ship, but I’d need something nice to wear to visit other worlds.  I didn’t have any dresses up there.  Of course, I could always fabricate one in an emergency.

We stood up and went to pack, and then we talked for a while about marketing on other worlds, we had to figure out all the licensing and laws for Knomen colony and Omara as well, so we didn’t lose control of the tech to an unscrupulous business…

Chapter 3

We left Monday morning, after we’d welcomed Matthew to the staff, and let him know he could reach out to us if there was a problem the office manager Karen couldn’t resolve.  Then we got into the shuttle and headed up to the ship.

“Al, take us to the Knomen colony, which world are we going to and what do we need to know?”

Al replied, “Athiren is their first and oldest colony.  It has a population of four million spread out over the largest continent.  The colony’s governor is Jeran, and his wife’s name is Sylla.  They assigned Marlon, the colony representative you met to show you around.”

Kristi asked, “Why haven’t we moved?”

Al answered, “Waiting for clearance.  I submitted the purpose of our trip yesterday, I did not anticipate this wait.”

Kristi frowned thoughtfully, “What’s that about?”

I shrugged, “We’ve never gone to another planet since Tressia, not without the military along.  Maybe they’re trying to figure out what we’re up to?  No matter how annoyed at me they are, we’re still the main supplier of military designs.  If I was paranoid, I’d say our trip is making someone nervous.”

Kristi shook her head, “I don’t think its paranoia if it’s true.”

Al said, “We’ve just been cleared.”

The ship went to FTL for a few moments to clear the solar system, and then opened a wormhole to Athiren.  I wondered if this trip would be a bigger trigger than I’d thought, but then I’d already decided not to furnish more upgrades to the fleet until they came to their senses.

Still, I didn’t want to start too much trouble, I just wanted to use my influence to stop a very emotional decision.  I didn’t believe most humans would approve of genocide, even if they were afraid, and I really started to wonder just who was behind all the shenanigans that had gone on recently. I wasn’t really cut out for politics.

“Al, how’s the data transfer coming?”

Al replied, “My system at the Colorado office has already been cleaned, I finished early this morning.  Kristi’s A.I. will be fully transferred to the lab ship within two hours.”

Good.

Kristi looked around the bridge with a bemused expression, “You know, we came up here out of habit, from when it used to take a day or two to get somewhere.”

I laughed, “Good point, I suppose we could have just waited in the sport’s shuttle.  Shall we?”

Kristi nodded and we started walking, and she said, “We’ll be there before we get back to the landing bay.  Do you miss it?  Being out here all the time?”

I shrugged, “I don’t miss the fights we had with the Knomen, or anyone else.  But yes, a bit.  What do you think they’ll do when I show up at a fifteen system protest?”

Kristi raised an eyebrow, “Don’t you mean we?  It’s hard to say.  We’ve made Earth the strongest world in the treaty, and they’re probably feeling very secure right now.  They may just ignore it, and discredit you with some talking heads as just some celebrity with an opinion, just another crazy person that doesn’t know what she’s talking about.  Or they could pull our military contract.  I don’t know.  I hope they don’t do anything worse than that.”

I nodded, “Me too.  I’d have felt better if Nadia would have given me a private heads up, but someone is obviously putting pressure on her.  Are you sure you want to do this with me?”

She snorted, “Of course, you’d be helpless without me around, and you’d never stop working either.”

We got into the shuttle and left the ship, and I got my first view of Athiren.  It looked remarkably like Knomen.  The planet had a purple tint to it, slightly shifted from blue, and there were no signs of civilization from orbit.  At least, not with the human eyeball.

“Al, how old is this colony?”

He answered on speakers, “Just over a hundred thousand years.”

I nodded, and the time scale humbled me.  I wondered how long it’d taken them to duplicate their home world like that.  The gravity was point two lighter, and the planet was a little bit smaller and had a half degree of extra tilt, but other than that the conditions and atmosphere were extremely similar.

Earth really was the new kid, just a baby in comparison to the long history of the Knomen.  And I’d given them a sledgehammer.  Sure, I’d do it again, the Knomen had become corrupted and had forgotten its roots.  I just hoped Earth could manage better with the edge it had.  That’s why exterminating the Bugs alarmed me so much, it was a slippery slope.

The treaty called for quarantining planets, not destroying them.

We landed in a city that could hardly be described by that word.  Nothing was over one story in height, and the buildings organically fit with the nature around it.  Al landed us in a field next to a building that was some kind of hotel.  The sign was automatically translated in my overlay, just as speech would be.

We got out and I smiled as I took a deep breath.  Even the scents in the air were almost identical to Knomen when I visited my grandmother.  We grabbed our luggage, and as we walked toward the building Marlon came out.

Marlon smiled in a welcoming way, “It is good to see you again Alicia, Kristi.  This development has us all wary of the future.  I hope you don’t mind, but I volunteered to take you and Kristi around and facilitate your visit.  I thought a familiar face might make you more comfortable.”

“Thanks,” I replied with a smile of my own, “It is good to see you, I appreciate the thoughtfulness.”

Marlon led us into the building, and helped us get checked in.  The inside was full of smaller trees and plants that gave the air a natural fresh smell.

He gestured and we followed him onto an elevator, and I realized they hadn’t built up in this city, they’d built down.

“How deep does the city go?” I asked curiously.

Marlon smiled, “Not that deep, maybe a hundred feet?  We like our nature and the way our buildings don’t conflict with the natural world around us, but we don’t want to live underground either.  This hotel has four floors of rooms below the transport level, but most buildings don’t go that deep.  We love our sprawling city, but it would take too long to walk everywhere, and vehicles would take away from the scenery and calmness.

“The first underground level is the transport level, where there’s an artificial gravity tram system to move about to the different sections of the city.  Restaurants, shops, salons, government, and of course living spaces.  Most of our food production is underground as well, although we have some few farms on the other continent for those items that don’t do well with hydroponics.  There are levels for infrastructure as well.”

I nodded, it was beautiful but it would never work on Earth.  We had four times the population of this planet in just New York City.

“So are there any particular plans?”

Marlon shook his head, “Not for today.  We just wanted you to look around, and enjoy our world.  Tomorrow you’ll meet with the governor and his wife for dinner, and then we’ll head to Omara the next morning.  Your A.I.s should have access to the available amenities and shops in the public database, and if you have any questions I’ll be at your disposal.”

The door to our room suite opened at our approach, and we went in.  It looked more like a penthouse than a normal hotel room.  There was a large living room with comfortable furniture, two bedrooms, and there was even a small kitchenette.  There were also more plants and trees in here, and no chemical smells at all that I could detect.

Kristi said lightly, “This place is wonderful.  I also think I finally understand how you feel Alicia, now I’m the one getting all the strange looks.”

I smiled and said teasingly, “Like you don’t get stared at back home.”

Kristi shook her head, “Not that way.”

Marlon interjected, “Don’t hesitate to contact me if there’s a problem or you need something, enjoy your stay.”

We said goodbye and he left, and we took a seat on one of the couches.

Kristi said mischievously, “I think our banter scared him off.”

I shook my head, “No, he just knew we wanted to settle in, and decide what we’re doing.  Soul reader remember?”

She tilted her head, “That’s going to take some getting used to.”

“Al, bring up a list of stores and services.”

Kristi and I worked up a schedule, and the next couple of days was a mix of a whirlwind of activity, and relaxation.  We took care of business first, and visited a local business owner.  The setup was fairly easy and only took a little while to work out the specifics.  They would fabricate and sell our nanites and computer systems on Athiren for a small percentage and markup, they were also limited and couldn’t sell it off world, we’d need to make other arrangements that way.

While piracy of fabricator designs did happen, they were rare and we weren’t overly worried about it.  On a world where everyone could pick out the untrustworthy, it was much less of an issue than on Earth, even with less elaborate safeguards.  The rest of the time we ate out, visited a salon for some pampering, and even took a trip out to the ocean.  The Knomen here were a polite people, the exact opposite of my own family.  They weren’t nearly as arrogant or suspicious as my cousin.  We were both made to feel very welcome without anyone being too intrusive at the same time.

No place was perfect, but I had to admit this place came close, and I enjoyed myself far more than I’d expected too.

Chapter 4

Tuesday evening came quickly, and I was in a cocktail dress suitable for a dinner party.  It was red with one shoulder strap, not too tight up top but conforming, and the bottom was pleated and flowing.  I really liked the way I looked in it and for a moment wished that Bill could see me in it.

Kristi was in a similarly nice dress that was a dark midnight blue, in her case it was strapless, and the skirt was a little tighter, but still loose.  After a touch of makeup, we were both ready to go.  I looked forward to seeing the governor, but I was also a bit nervous about it.  Marlon picked us up right on time at six-thirty, and we rode up to the transport level.  The tram system was all artificial gravity cars controlled by A.I.

The system’s sensors would even detect how many were in a waiting party, and if we had any bags or large things to carry.  We didn’t, so a relatively small vehicle picked us up, and carried us through the underground tunnel system at a high rate of speed.  A few minutes later, we stopped in the government sector and took an elevator back up to the surface.

The governor’s home looked much like any other dwelling on the planet.  Perhaps a bit more sprawled out and larger that way, but it didn’t stand out in any huge way.  Marlon led us up to the door, where we were led inside and brought to a dining room with a large table.  Dinner wasn’t served yet, and there were several small groups of people chatting in separate groups.

We were brought over to the governor and his wife.

Marlon introduced us, “Governor Jeran, Sylla, this is princess Alicia and her companion and business partner, Kristi.  Alicia and Kristi, meet Governor Jeran of Athiren and his lovely wife Sylla.”

The governor was younger than I’d expected, he appeared to be in his mid-twenties, and his wife was a few years younger.  They both seemed delighted to meet us, both in their body language and their souls.

Jeran said in a friendly tone, “Please, call us Jeran and Sylla.  I’ve been wanting to meet you ever since we gained autonomy based on your actions.  You’re always welcome here on Athiren.”

I smiled genuinely, “Thank you, your world is beautiful, and peaceful.”

It had none of the hustle and bustle of a crowded Earth, which was nice in some ways.  I’m not sure if I’d like it permanently though, it was more like visiting a resort.  I thought I might like to visit again in the future as a vacation, but I got the feeling Jeran was talking about something more permanent than a visit.

Sylla asked with a curious smile, “So you enjoyed your stay?  We’re glad to hear it, we are proud of what we have here.”

Jeran nodded in agreement with his wife, and added, “And we we’re pleased to hear you’ll be joining us at Omara.  I believe your voice will be heard.”

I smiled, “You’re going as well?”

Sylla replied, “Yes, we discussed it and decided it would have more impact than sending a representative, although Marlon will be coming as well.  Recent times have been turbulent, and while that’s opened certain opportunities for all of us, it’s also a time of change.  I worry about the direction we’re moving in.”

Before I could reply there was a bell tone, and everyone started heading toward the large table.  I wondered not for the first time, exactly what I was getting myself into.  Still, I was concerned about where Earth was heading, and I felt responsible for my own actions.  I armed my world for a dangerous galaxy, and now I had to do what I could to make sure it wasn’t abused.

Not with violence, but with words.  I wouldn’t turn on my world in a stance of self-righteousness, but I wouldn’t step in to help anymore either.  Plus, if the genocide still went forward, then at least I’d know that I’d tried.  I wouldn’t be able to live with myself otherwise.

Kristi and I were seated close to, but not right next to the governor and his wife.  Marlon was our closest neighbor.  The main topic of conversation was the protest.  Could a fifteen world objection be called a simple protest?  My hope was that the citizens of Earth would see the broadcast to all the worlds, and stand up with me.  I also thought that was probably naïve, but it was all I could do without becoming a monster myself.

The five course meal was excellent, and although Kristi and I drew a few stares, overall we weren’t put in the spotlight.  We were just two more people in a group that didn’t like where the treaty worlds were headed…

Omara had been a part of the Knomen empire for less than five hundred years, and they were closer to the core, about halfway between Knomen and Leira.  The planet was very different from Athiren.  It was light blue, and green, closer to Earth’s gravity and size, although only about a third of it was covered by ocean.

There were also close to twenty-five billion people, and there were many mega-cities that sprawled over hundreds of miles.  Though their atmosphere was clean, and they did have forested areas, so much of it was taken up with concrete and high rise buildings that made the tallest building on Earth look small.  The cities were easily visible from orbit.

“Al, how do they stay fed?” I asked as he took Kristi and I down in the shuttle.

“Like the Knomen they have underground hydroponics, in their case it makes up for the farms.  As far as protein, they subsist on kelp farms from the oceans and cultured meat rather than live animals.  They also have two colony worlds which make up for the occasional shortage or bad crop yield.”

The city had cars flying at many different levels, as well as parking levels to land in every twenty or so levels in the extremely large buildings.  It was a marvel of modern technology, and the architecture of the city was even beautiful in its own way.  I wouldn’t want to live there though.  I liked the Knomen way better, maybe it was in my genes?  There was a reason I lived and worked by the Colorado mountains after all, instead of the middle of a city.

I imagined though, that we were looking at Earth’s future, even with fifteen colonies coming over the next fifty years, the population would still continue to rise on our home planet.  I couldn’t imagine humans accepting strict reproductive constraints, and human lifespans were just getting longer.

I knew the Knomen home world went through something similar, it was just their colony that seemed to manage their population growth so well.  Probably by learning the lesson the hard way first.

Kristi said in her faux ditzy voice, “Wow, we’re going to sell a lot of nanites here.”

I laughed, “You think?  I’ve been looking things over and every building is like a square mile mini-city with its own shops, restaurants, schools, day care, and other amenities for recreation.  A lot of people even work in the same building they live in.  Can you imagine?”

Kristi shook her head in horrified denial, “Not really no, that sounds convenient, but also like hell.  I like our mountain view, and our small office in Colorado Springs.  Not to mention going out in space occasionally.  These buildings even have their own medical pods, so a person could live their whole life here without ever leaving the building they were born in.  Not that I’m saying they don’t get out at all, but it’s possible.”

Al pulled into one of the buildings near the top floor, and set the shuttle down in a parking spot.  I was glad I took this smaller shuttle, it fit the spots for the air cars perfectly.

I shook my head and shrugged helplessly, I felt the same way she did, but said in defense of the idea, “Well at least they have parks on the rooves with real trees, bushes, and stuff.”

Kristi looked at me like I was nuts, and then we got out of the shuttle, there didn’t seem to be anyone to greet us this time.

“Al, do you know where we’re going?”

Al replied, “I do have an itinerary.  I believe the hotel is on the six hundredth and eighty third floor.  Just seven floors down from where we are now.  The elevators are to your right.”

“Thanks Al.”

Kristi giggled as we walked to the elevators, “Stay off the thirty eighth floor.  It’s a relaxation center.”

“What’s wrong with that?”

Kristi shook her head, “Your thinking of the wrong kind of relaxation, this is a very permissive culture.”

I blushed, “You mean prostitutes?”

Kristi snickered at me, “Not exactly, more like massages with happy endings, and where casual hookups are not only condoned but expected.  Think free love from the sixties, but without the drugs or Woodstock.”

I nodded slowly, I was hardly a prude, but that was way too much for me, I wasn’t into one night stands or casual sex with strangers, at all.  As it was however, I’d considered over the last couple of days changing the three date rule to two dates, I was really looking forward to seeing Bill on Friday and it had been quite a while for me.  Plus, Bill was… Bill. Someone I’d grown up with a knew well.  Surely it shouldn’t count.

“Right, we’ll avoid that floor, what else is there to do?” I asked as we got on the elevator and went down seven floors to the hotel floor.

The Omarans themselves looked very human except for their hair color, although I did see a few blondes, reds, browns, and blacks in the mix, most had hair with wilder colors.  Purple, blue, and green seemed the most numerous.  I started to get the idea that it wasn’t natural at all, but a cultural thing, dyed.  I’d just made the assumption it wasn’t during the Drenil mission, because the first green and blue haired Omarans I’d met had been a scientist and government representative.

Normally those types on Earth didn’t go for wild or frivolous hair colors, but of course they weren’t from Earth and I shouldn’t have judged them from standards I was used to.  It had been a foolish assumption on my part.  Of course, the one other notable difference was that they only had three fingers and a thumb, instead of four.

The rooms we were given were almost palatial, yet I missed the plants.  I’d have to get more for the house when we got back to Earth.  It was very nice though, another fairly large suite of rooms, and this one even had windows, which just looked out over another huge building.

We grabbed lunch first thing, the closest Earth dishes I could compare it to was eastern food.  Some kind of starch similar to rice, along with vegetables, strong spices, and meat that absorbed the flavors.  I suppose it worked, as cultured meat didn’t have much flavor of its own.

As far as business went, the man we saw didn’t seem very excited about the quantum computer with a more advanced A.I. matrix, apparently there wasn’t much of a demand for it here.  But before we walked out we had orders for close to ten thousand of the nanite packs, and that was just for this two thousand story mega building that he helped maintain.  He assured us when word got out we’d sell billions of them on this planet.

Caroline was about to be ridiculously rich, and Kristi and I would be even more so.  I decided to open up a local bank account, and Kristi followed suite.  More of my paranoia no doubt, I just didn’t want all my wealth tied up in one place.

After that we weren’t sure what to do, so we just went back to the room and relaxed for a while.  We both felt completely shopped out from yesterday, and we’d already spent half a day in a spa on Athiren.  We both wound up working of all things, through our overlays and quantum connections to Earth.

Al asked, “Do you have a moment?”

“Go ahead Al.”

Al briefed me, “The Bug worlds we’re watching are doing something different.”

I froze for a moment as a feeling of dread went down my spine, “What are they doing?”

Al continued, “They are building something new, as to what I have no idea yet.  It’s some type of new ship.”

I frowned, “Why now?”

Al replied, “I can only speculate that the attack on the first planet was observed, and it took this long for the hive worlds to come up with a new plan.”

I shook my head, “They’ve never done that before.”

Al disagreed, “Perhaps not when expanding, they may not care for those they cast off, or who leave to find a new world.  But losing a colony is entirely different.  Surely they’ve advanced before, or they wouldn’t be where they are now?”

I couldn’t argue with that logic, if they weren’t capable of adapting they’d still be wandering around on the surface of their home world unable to make a camp fire, “Any response from the treaty worlds?” I asked.

Al replied, “Not yet, the changes aren’t known, I just picked them up off the raw data.  Other A.I.s are probably in the process of disseminating the information now, and then Earth will have to make the decision to release it, so it may be a while before we see a result.”

I guessed that made sense, “Anything else?”

“No.”

We had dinner that night with the Knomen governor and his wife again, as well as Marlon.  Blue was there as well, the government representative from Omara plus a few others I hadn’t met.  I was sure I’d meet the Omaran leader Gemma tomorrow, but she wasn’t there tonight.  Blue told me that she was rather colorful, and had bright red hair.

He also let me know that Senna and Nora would be there, I looked forward to seeing them again as well.  Kristi and I decided to turn in early after that, it would be a long day tomorrow, apparently the meeting, rally, or protest, I still wasn’t sure what to call it, would be held in the rooftop park…

Chapter 5

I was surrounded by trees, and it was hard to believe this was a roof.  The square mile of park even had small rolling hills, grass, trees, benches, and everything else I’d expect to see in a park.

After breakfast we’d come straight up, it was supposed to be an all-day event.  There’d be speeches by various people of influence all day long, followed by the fifteen world leaders.  I was on a little after noon and wondered if I was crazy.  I hated being the focus of people, and I was about to make a speech to the known galaxy?  What was wrong with me?  The only good thing was that I wasn’t some kind of singled out special guest speaker, just one in a long line of them.

Kristi patted my back and teased, “Maybe you need to visit the relaxation level.”

I snorted at the idea, and then shook my head, “Tell me I’m not crazy.”

Kristi shook her head with faux sadness, “Sorry, I can’t lie to you.”

I giggled, “You suck as a friend,” but I didn’t really mean it.

Kristi asked, “Better?”

I took a deep breath and sighed, “Not really, I’ll be fine though, I sort of know what I’m going to say.  Then maybe I’ll be infamous instead of famous.”

Kristi snickered, “I wouldn’t count on it.  You may annoy a few people in power though, and the idiots that blindly follow them.  You know they have lover’s suites down there, with pools, hot tubs, swings, vibrating beds, and all that?  I might come back here for my honeymoon.”

I smiled despite myself, she was still trying to distract me.  Then again, it didn’t sound like a horrible idea for a honeymoon.

“When are you tying the knot?”

Kristi shrugged, “I don’t know, soon I think.”

I frowned, “What’s the hold up?  He seems really solid about it this time.”

Kristi sighed, “I’ve been putting it off.  He’s tried to get me to go to Vegas a few times since we got engaged.  What do you mean, solid?”

I shrugged a little uncomfortably, “Are you sure you want me to put my two cents in?”

Kristi nodded.

I explained, “When you guys used to go from passion to broken up every other week there was a wishy washy part of him, I could sense it, he didn’t want to commit.  Not just to you, to anything really.  But over the last year that’s really changed, he’s not that way anymore.  He’s solid.  You’ve been together for over a year now right?  What was the previous record, two weeks?”

She smiled thoughtfully, “Ten days I think.  That’s a good point.  I guess I was just worried he’d flake on me if I gave in and married him, you know?” she abruptly changed the subject, “You know we’ll stay for a while, but eventually when we get a kid on the way, we’ll move out.”

“Yeah, change sucks.  I’ve been dreading that actually. We’ve lived together for what, five years now as college roommates and then the house?  I’ll live though, you need to start a family, and I can be the crazy alien aunt that spoils him or her with trips to Saturn so his or her parents can have some adult time.”

She giggled, “I hope so, we’ll always be close friends and a phone call away.  You keep me grounded you know.  I don’t know if you noticed, but I’m a little flighty.”

I shook my head, “You flighty?  Never,” somehow I kept a straight face, “Nope, you keep me from being a hermit.  So old married lady or not you still need to drag me out.  Or I’ll turn into an old cat lady.”

She laughed, and then asked, “How about Saturday?”

I blanked as she’d switched tracks again but this time I didn’t catch to where, “Saturday?”

She nodded as if getting married in two days was sane, “Married, on Saturday.”

Wow, that was fast.  “Okay, shouldn’t you talk to Joe about this first?” I asked doubtfully.

She shook her head, and said in complete confidence, “He’ll be all over it, trust me.  I’ve been a pain in the ass about the timing because of our past, but I trust him.  I already did really, but your input helped push me over.”

“Just tell me when and where.”

She nodded, “We’ll probably disappear for a week, and come back home wiped out.  I’m thinking cruise lines.  Probably Vegas, I’m submitting our dresses for fabrication, I’ll tell Joe when we get home tonight.”

I smiled, she seemed really excited about it.  Lord help me if he ever did leave her, Kristi would kill me.

Kristi did a good job of keeping me distracted me all morning.  I’d had the opportunity to say hello to the people I knew, but they were all too busy to just hang around and talk.  I knew the video and audio for this was being transmitted out on quantum frequency, and all the worlds and media had been notified.  I was a little nervous when I was called up, but thanks to Kristi distracting me I wasn’t a complete wreck.

When they announced me, I walked up on the stage and looked out at everyone, and my speech completely fled my mind.  Damnit.  I was even doing the best I could to suppress my nerves, which is how I was even standing up there, I didn’t know how normal humans dealt with it.

“Hi.  I’m Alicia Jones, and I guess you could say I’m up here because I’m concerned.  The Bug race is a menace that needs to be stopped.  I don’t think anyone here would disagree with that assessment.  The question seems to be the tactic to get it done.  Do we stop them at the Seltan world, and just let them continue to throw their overpopulated ships at us as they try to expand?  Or, we could go to their worlds, knock them out of space, and quarantine them, as we’ve successfully done with the Knomen home world, and our new friends the Gelnott.

“Lastly, we can annihilate them, and erase them from the galaxy.  Commit the unforgivable sin of genocide.”

I paused for a moment, and then continued in a doubtful voice, “But I don’t really think that’s the question at all that’s before us.  The question is who are we?  What type of people shall we be?  The treaty is new, the Knomen empire still echoes within us all, and we remember it well.  Yet, if we take option three, will we be any better than what we left behind?  Or will we be worse?”

I spoke with a stronger voice, “This is a defining moment in our new treaty.  The new way we will treat our enemies and those that attempt to abuse us and even destroy us.  The Bugs are not like us, they are not humanoids, they are different.  But does that truly make them less than us?  Or does thinking they are beneath us make us lesser?

“They are a sentient species, our extremely odd neighbor from next door, and our treaty calls for quarantining those that attack their neighbors, it doesn’t call for annihilation.  I would ask all of you to step back, and see without the prejudice, fear, and anger that drives such evils as genocide, and make a decision we can all be proud of.

“I urge the worlds that are part of the treaty to choose one of the first two options, I care not which one, because the third, which is genocide against a sentient race, will surely harm us all and wilt our souls.  Thank you.”

I walked off the stage to the loud cheers of the crowd, and felt a little ill from nerves, but I was also proud of myself.  It wasn’t a very long speech, but hopefully that would make it resonate a little better.

“Well?” I asked softly as they called the next person up there.

Kristi shrugged, “At least you didn’t throw up,” she giggled, “It was good.  Short and to the point.”

I nodded, “I was going to bring up history, most of the Earth’s most horrible crimes stemmed from men that thought other ethnicities were less than human.  This is no different.  But I changed my mind, no one likes being compared to a mass murderer like Hitler or Stalin, it’s not a good way to persuade anyone.”

Kristi nodded, “Yup, and I can see the opponents now, talking about how you accused them of being worse than the Knomen.”

I groaned and covered my face, “I did not say that.”

Kristi snickered, “No, you didn’t.  You just said they would be if they went ahead with it.  Which is true, but it’s also something they’ll twist around in the media.”

“I thought you said I did a good job?”

Kristi nodded in agreement, “You did do a good job, you were honest and passionate, and maybe tonight we can sleep with a clearer conscious.  It might even make a difference.”

I looked around, “You ready to get out of here?  I don’t see much of a reason to stay for the rest of it.  Or do you want to stay?”

Kristi smiled, “We should go, that way I have a few extra hours to plan my wedding.”

I giggled, “Fine, let’s go.  Just promise me my dress isn’t peach.”

I gave her a suspicious look when she didn’t answer…

Chapter 6

Colorado was a couple of hours behind where we’d been on Omara.  So we’d left in early afternoon, and arrived at the office just after lunchtime.

“Good morning Dr. Jones, Dr. Wilder, how was your trip.”

I didn’t even bother correcting her, I couldn’t get the woman to call us Alicia and Kristi no matter how hard I tried.

I smiled, “Not bad Karen, how’re things going here?”

Karen replied, “Very well.  Dr. Matthews is settled in and working.  I liked the speech by the way, watched it live and I agreed with every word. I don’t know what our people are thinking not standing against that sort of thing.”

My smiled grew a little wider, “Thanks Karen, I appreciate it.  We’ll see what happens.”

Karen grinned, “Wait until you meet Amy.”

Amy? I wondered who that was as we went back through the door.  I went toward the back of the office to the kitchenette to grab a coffee, and then headed toward my office.  That’s when I ran into Amy, the android.

“Dr. Jones, it’s a pleasure to meet you.  I’m Matthew’s assistant Amy.”

Her voice was pleasant, she looked like a young brunette woman in her mid-twenties.  She was both attractive, and kind of a little creepy.  I could see in her face where she needed the improvements he mentioned.  But she really was close to being realistic.

“Hi Amy, nice to meet you too, is Matthew settled in?” I almost felt foolish being so polite, but it seemed right at the same time.

Amy nodded a little woodenly in agreement, “He is, I’m on my way to getting him a drink.”

“Don’t let me hold you up,” I replied, and continued on to my office.

I wasn’t sure what to think, I just hoped I wasn’t wasting money or time.  I closed the door, sat in my office, and sighed, it was actually good to be back in my own chair.

“Al, I had a thought about the subspace drive.  You indicated the shield weapon, and shield modulation for communication is more refined on the Drenil ships.  Most likely our subspace scan is off as well too by a bit, if the subspace radiation is hitting a shield with slight imperfections and fluctuations.  I was thinking that maybe it’s another tolerance issue, like the wormhole drive seems to miss its target coordinates.”

Al replied, “That sounds likely, although I don’t know how we can overcome that deficiency.”

I smiled, “You already have figured out a way.  What I’d like to try, is to integrate several of the small quantum fabricators you designed as part of a large-scale fabricator.  Perhaps if we fabricate the emitters normally, and then go over them with the quantum fabricator to tighten up the tolerances even further, it might smooth things out.”

Al answered, “That would work, but I’d suggest we combine the quantum fabricator technology with the gravity ball, so maintenance can be done anytime or anywhere without the need to dock with a full-scale fabricator in the future.”

That was an excellent idea, and simple enough to do.  I brought up his fabricator design and modified it by adding small gravity emitters so it could move about on its own, and submitted it for fabrication.  The design passed the virtual testing, and it started to fabricate twenty of them on both battlecruiser ships.

Al interjected, “With twenty, the process will take up to ten days for both shield systems.  But we’ll be able to test in five once one of them is complete.”

“That’s fine, thanks Al.”

The subspace shield emitters were small, but increasing tolerances at the quantum level would take much longer because of the fine work.

I also felt like the battle cruisers had out lived their usefulness.  Perhaps not the lab, but the one we’d just been on out in orbit.  I didn’t have a full staff of people anymore, and the new technology didn’t need a lot of hull space, the subspace shield weapon was just as effective on the small shuttle as it was on the large ship.

So I designed something new for the rest of the afternoon, just for me, Kristi and a couple of guests.

Instead of something a couple of football fields in size, this one had the square footage of a four bedroom two story house, just around three thousand square feet, in the shape of a rectangle, but with rounded edges, and it was a little wider and higher in the back.

I gave it FTL with three-layer shielding, and alternatively, two wormhole drives which had configurations to both open wormholes, or to feed the subspace emitters making both of them subspace drives as well.  On the top level, it had the bridge, and a corridor with four bedrooms.  The bottom level held the engineering space for the computers, internal subspace scanner and communicator, gravity drive, dark energy reactor and converters, and the dual-purpose wormhole and subspace drives.  The bottom would also have a small landing bay that could fit two science or taxi sized shuttles, or perhaps three or four of the sport shuttles.

The middle level, which existed only toward the back of the ship, was for a full-sized kitchen, food storage, and a lounge area with couches and coffee tables.  I included the maintenance nanite pack and twenty of the new mobile quantum fabricators, and looked it over to make sure I didn’t forget anything important, like gravity plating, gravity shielding, and life support.

I figured the other battle cruiser could join the lab ship out in the void, and then we’d have two places for experiments.  Mostly in case one blew up from said experiments.

I went ahead and submitted the build for my new ship, it would take three days to build it in a fabricator, and then another four days for the subspace emitter tuning.  There were much fewer emitters on the smaller ship, so twenty could get the job done more than twice as fast.  So just under a week.

Then I created another build, this one for an unmanned platform.  It wouldn’t be much bigger than my test shuttle, just enough room to fit all the engineering in without a need for life support, rooms, or a kitchen.  But that one I saved in my paranoia induced, just in case file, and slightly modified the over-all plan.

Al asked, “Do you have a moment Alicia?”

“Go.”

Al said in a voice that sounded reluctant, “There is a lot of news about you and your speech.  Some of it is favorable from overseas, mostly in the European Union, and they’re calling for the government to account for themselves and rethink the current policy on the Bugs.  China, Japan, Russia, and the United States have coverage that is less than favorable.”

“Less than favorable?” I asked.

I wasn’t sure what to think about Al couching negative things in softer language, was he trying to watch out for my feelings now?

Al replied, “Yes, a few news anchors have lauded your bravery to speak your beliefs so plainly, and like Europe they called on their government to rethink their policy, but others have guest stars on that claim you are over emotional and over reactive.  That the enemy Bugs are barely sentient and do nothing but consume.  That it would be too dangerous to leave the threat.  Much of their rhetoric holds that as a common theme.  There is also a very small anti-alien group that are far less kind, and indicate you are a traitor, a Bug lover, and should be immediately deported from Earth if not shot.”

I leaned back in my chair and closed my eyes.  Well, they say if you have no enemies, you’re not doing it right.  For some reason that thought didn’t make me feel better.

“Anything else?”

Al said, “Yes, several clips from your speech have gone viral on YouTube.  Many of them misrepresent your message, some even to the point they say you want to restore Knomen as our overlords, but there are just as many posters that agree with you and have seen the full video.”

I frowned, a split isn’t that bad is it?

Al said, “Nadia Avdonin is here to see you, and my access to Stealth net, fleet ships, and platforms have just been terminated.  Should I have Karen escort her back?”

I sighed, not even really surprised that they’d just completely cut me off, “Yes.”

I took a sip of my coffee and composed myself.  I should’ve stayed on Omara for the after party.  A minute later, Karen opened my door and Nadia swept in and sat down stiffly.

I smiled tightly, “Nadia, how are things with you?”

She sighed, “You shouldn’t have done that.  You aren’t a vapid celebrity that can be ignored.  You’re a top provider of military hardware and designs.  This is a damned mess, and enough people hated you before now.”

I raised an eyebrow, that was news to me, “Hated me?”

She nodded sharply, “Yes, here you were the perfect alien who kicked her own people’s asses for the Earth, while leaders of countries had no clue what was going on.  Sure, they got the reason, because if they knew the truth that soul reader, the facilitator, would catch them out, but they still hated it.  World leaders really hate to be kept in the dark, and manipulated, even if it’s for their own good.

“Not all of them held a grudge, but the presidents in the U.S. and in Russia did, and have been trying to lessen your influence.  Some with influence in Japan and China as well.  It’s why we took your weapons, and ultimately why my country pushed so hard to have you replaced.  They were suspicious and wondered if you’d manipulate them again.”

I waved a hand, “So now I have no access.”

She shrugged, “It was already coming anyway, your little speech merely sped up the results.  We created a science team, all military scientists from the seven represented groups on the council.  Any further upgrades you deem ready for us, will be filtered through them before we approve purchase, and then they’ll plan and apply the upgrades, not you.  Truthfully, this is how it should have worked in the beginning, but we had to cut corners for expediency at the time.”

“And you’re here to what?”

Nadia sighed, “Tell you what I just did, why we took the access away, the rest of all that before was personal.  I wasn’t supposed to tell you about it.  You’re a good person, better than I am in fact, but the world leaders don’t trust you, and they’ve been on the board’s backs for months about it.  My advice is to lie low and don’t do anything else.  Don’t even submit new designs right now.  Not until things calm down.  Just work your civilian stuff.”

I shook my head, “What do you think Nadia?  About their plans for the Bugs.”

Nadia shrugged, “What I think doesn’t matter, it won’t change anything.”

“So its broken already, in less than a year?  I thought what the council thought about anything above the atmosphere was all that mattered when it came to Earth policy.  Now you’re just a group of puppets?”

Nadia frowned, “Don’t be so naïve Alicia, it’s more complicated than that.  We run the day to day stuff, but when the leaders of our countries come down on an issue we listen.  They can recall us you know, and put someone else on the board to represent their country, or in the EU’s case a block of countries.  I do what I can, but I have to pick my battles, or I’d be out.”

I considered pushing her, but guessed that she was against the genocidal policy, otherwise she’d have just said yes.  She must be paranoid and think I’d leak it or something.

“I get that your stuck between a rock and hard place.  Thanks for being so frank.”

Or at least, as forthright as she could be.

Nadia sighed in a defeated way, “I really do like you Alicia, if you can forgive me we’ll get together sometime.  Call me.”

She got up and walked out without waiting for an answer.

Which was just as well, I had no idea what to say.

When my door closed I sighed, “Al, initiate project paranoia, but hold the last step until ordered to implement.”

I was almost convinced this was just the beginning, and not at all the end of the government’s actions against me.  Hopefully project paranoia would end up being unnecessary, and just waste a few resources in a planetary system that no one even knew about.  Stealth net was a loss, but the truth was I already had better sensors, maybe not in sharp detail, but general ship movements and where the habitable worlds were.  I was also hoping that would change, but I had a few days before we could test the upgraded emitters on the lab ship.

Al replied, “Six weeks until completion of project paranoia.”

I said softly, suddenly feeling very depressed, “Thanks Al…”

Chapter 7

I had on a tight red crop top and a matching red skirt, along with a pair of black shoes with three-inch stiletto heels.  My stomach as well as my legs below my lower thighs were bare, and I thought I looked good but still decent.  I’d figured I’d dress casual but still a little sexy since we were eating at his house, and not going out anywhere that I knew of.

I didn’t get to wear anything like this outfit very much anymore, since I usually had my protective bustier on underneath whatever I wore which made baring my stomach impossible.  I wasn’t worried about it though, not for a night in and a private dinner with Bill.

Despite my nerves, not much had happened at work today at all.  I just worked on the business stuff.  There were no other responses by the government yet, and of course my new ship wouldn’t be built until Monday.  The quantum work to the emitters on it could happen while it was operational as long as the subspace system wasn’t active.  I’d scheduled some bots to move our stuff over from the other ship, and I’d send it to the void on Monday.

Wednesday the first set of emitters would be done on the lab ship so we could see if that helped with stability and scanning issues.  Then on Friday my new get around the galaxy ship would be fully completed as well.

So there hadn’t been much to do outside of company work, and I banged my head against the wall for a couple of hours when I gave deciphering the Drenil communications another shot.  Nothing though, I had no idea how to structure the data we’d received, much less translate it.

I also got to try on my bridesmaid dress last night.  Turns out it wasn’t peach, but an unfortunate shade of teal.  Still, teal beat the color of peaches any day of the week, so I was grateful to my best friend that I’d look merely ugly instead of hideous.  I still hadn’t decided if I’d throw out the rules tonight, which is why I was a little nervous.  I also looked forward to it.

After applying a touch of makeup, I went out to the garage and got into the sport’s shuttle, and told Al to take me to Bill’s house in Texas…

Al landed me right in the driveway and I looked up at the house.  There were a lot of good memories in it, I was only about a five-minute drive from the house I grew up in, about a twenty-minute walk.  It wasn’t that big a place, but it was a ranch style and sat on a bunch of land like my old one did.  It was in good shape too. It’d obviously been painted recently and was maintained well.

It was painted white and had a wraparound porch circling the house that’d been painted off white or a very light gray. I smiled when I saw the swing.  The very place he’d given me my first kiss, and I was sure I’d been his as well.  He drove a Ford F-150, or at least there was one right in front of my shuttle.

I took a deep breath and let it out, I felt a bit calmer and got out. By the time I reached the porch I had a small but genuine smile on my face.  Before I could knock, he opened the door and just looked at me for a moment.

“Alicia, you done kicked up a hornet’s nest, and you look positively amazing tonight,” he drawled in an exaggerated twang.

Then I was engulfed in his arms, apparently I rated a pre-date hug, and I nuzzled into his muscled chest and wrapped my arms around him. It was so comfortable, and it felt so right, safe, and natural to be in his arms.  That was the moment I knew two dates were good enough for this one situation, unless he did something really stupid tonight.  Besides, if I included the kiss from ten years ago, it was actually three dates.

Both ashamed and proud of my mental gymnastics, I decided to address his comments.

“That’s not a nice thing to say, the first part I mean, thank you for the second,” my reply was a little muffled by his shirt, and he smelled really good.

He chuckled and stepped back, “Come on in. All the excitement on the news has got me riled up.  It’s so obvious they don’t know you at all.  I’d offer to beat them up for you but you’d just say no.”

I shook my head but still had a smile on my face, “Yeah, not a good idea, you’re supposed to stop violence remember?  It was just something I felt I had to do to live with myself, it’ll all pass sooner or later.  Oh, before I forget, are you working tomorrow afternoon?”

He asked curiously, “No, I’m off tomorrow.  Why?”

I grinned, “Want to go with me to a wedding in Vegas?”

He smiled and drawled teasingly, “That’s a hell of an offer love, but isn’t it a bit soon for that?”

I rolled my eyes and a giggle escaped at the same time, “No.  My best friend’s wedding is tomorrow afternoon, but it would be a date.  We’ll save the marriage and kids talk for the next date after that,” I added teasingly.

He nodded slowly, obviously trying not to laugh, but I could see it in his eyes.

Then he said, “Sounds good, any excuse to see you again works for me.  Dinner’s almost ready.”

He took my hand and led me into the kitchen which smelled like baked potato, and there were some veggies cooking on the stove, along with fresh steaming rolls that had obviously just came out of the oven sitting on the counter.  But he didn’t stop there, he kept going out the backdoor and into the yard to his barbeque pit.  He had a couple of rib eye steaks on the grill and flipped them over.

He asked, “You want a drink?  I have a bottle of red on the counter in there, or there’s beer in the fridge.”

“Wine, thanks.  I can get it, what do you want?”

“Beer works,” he replied as he fussed with the steaks.

I squeezed his hand and let go, and then I went back into the house to get our drinks.  By the time I’d poured a glass of wine, and had gotten a beer for him out of the fridge, he was pulling the steaks off the grill.  So I just left the drinks on the table and opened the back door to let him in, his hands were a little full.

“Thanks,” he said as he walked in and put the steaks down on the table.

I took a seat, and saw that the table was already set with all the fixings out. It didn’t take him long to plate the veggies, baked potatoes, and get it on the table along with the bread.  He sat down and smiled at me.

“Dig in Alicia.”

We chatted over dinner about a number of things, which was very good, dinner I mean.  We covered what was going on with me, and I assured him I was well protected.  Honestly it was the last thing I wanted to dwell on, I wanted to forget all that crap and have fun on our date, and it was a stressful subject for me.  But I could tell he was genuinely concerned, so I figured we might as well get it out of the way now so we can relax the rest of the night.  I also told him about Kristi and Joe and what to expect tomorrow.  Finally, I’d had just about enough of talking about myself and asked him some questions.

I asked, “So you work later hours?”

He nodded, “Three to midnight shift, Sunday through Thursday.  I’m often there until about one though, to fill out all the paperwork.”

I made a face, “Don’t you have A.I.s to do that stuff?”

He smiled, “They surely help, otherwise it’d take longer.”

I thought of and discarded several questions that weren’t second date material, like had he ever been married, or close to it?  The deep stuff.  I found myself wanting to know all about him, but of course those kinds of questions on a second date made most men scream in horror and run.  Even from cute blondes in sexy red outfits.

So I decided to stick to light flirting and banter.  It was hard though, I felt like I already knew him so well, I just wanted to fill in all the rest that I’d missed.

“So are they aware of your past shenanigans?”

He grinned and said, “Nope, no proof.”

I shook my head in mock disapproval, but couldn’t hold back the smile.

“You know, looking back we never really did anything that bad, it just felt like it at the time.  It was also a lot of fun.”

He shrugged, “Strict parents.  Want to relive the good old days, go cow tipping or sneak into a theatre?”

I giggled, “Sorry, I wore high heels.  Although, think of how many cows we could tip with a gravity ball.”

He snickered, “Probably the whole herd.”

We had a bit of fun reminiscing about all the stuff that seemed so risky and bad back when we were just twelve.  When we finished dinner, and had at least a few drinks each, he cleared his throat, and I felt the tension in the room rise suddenly as our eyes locked.  Not a bad tension either, it was that fluttery feeling I got in my stomach, and I was suddenly very curious about getting another kiss, but not on the cheek this time.

“I planned on taking you for a walk, but since you’re in those sexy but torturous looking shoes, maybe we ought to just sit out on the back porch and watch the sun go down?”

I nodded almost unperceptively and said, “That sounds good to me.”

He poured me another glass of wine, and grabbed a beer from the fridge, and then we moved out back and sat together.  I had to hold my wine with my left hand, because he hadn’t released my right one after sitting down, and I wasn’t sure I wanted it back.

I moved a little closer, and the banter and storytelling during dinner was long forgotten as his closeness and manly scent made my heart race.  When he finally kissed me, I melted against him, and that second kiss was much better than our first one so long ago.  We watched the sun go down, and the stars come out. And then I told him I didn’t want to leave.  It was a very good night.

Chapter 8

Kristi looked slightly amused when we showed up back at the house at noon.  She gave me a hug and wore a bright smile.  She was already showered and in a robe, and obviously waiting for her horrible best friend to help her with the dress, makeup, and all that.  It was easy to tell she was excited about getting married in a few hours.  She’d sent me the details for the small chapel they planned to get married in along with their itinerary, and I’d snuck a quick peek earlier.

Kristi teased, “I didn’t think you were going to make it.”

I smiled, “Wouldn’t miss it.  This is Bill, why don’t you guys talk while I get ready, then we can get you set.”

Bill already had on a tux, and I heard him say hello and get introduced to Joe as I went straight to the shower.

They’d planned dinner at one of the casino hotels, along with spending a day and two nights in the hotel.  Then they’d shuttle over for the week-long cruise in the Caribbean after that.

I wouldn’t see her for a little over a week, but I was excited for her.  I wasn’t exactly sure why she was doing a Vegas wedding, she could certainly afford a huge wedding.  We hadn’t talked about it really, but I knew she’d never wanted a big wedding, and it was nicer than just going down to the JP.

After my shower I slipped on the teal dress, which I had to say wasn’t at all bad on me.  I owed her for not making me wear something revolting on her wedding day.

Kristi was in her room, and I got started on her hair and makeup.

She asked impishly, “What happened to the third date rule?”

I said calmly with a straight face, “It was our third date. He so kissed me when I was thirteen, that counts.”

She snickered, “I’m glad you’re happy.  I feel like I’m going to burst out of my skin.  I’m so happy, excited, and nervous at the same time.”

“Joe’s a lucky man.”

We chatted for over two hours while we worked on her hair, makeup, nails, and finally got her in the dress.

I said, “You look absolutely stunning in that dress, but I may have to call down a bigger shuttle.”

She laughed, “That’s mean, it’s not that bad.”

Her dress was a ton of white silky material, tresses, lace, ruffles, and pearls, not to mention a train.  It looked amazing on her though.

I asked uncomfortably, “Do you want me to go human for this?  With all that’s on the news and going on lately, I don’t want there to be a scene at your wedding.”

We had a protective bustier on under the dresses, but I still didn’t want to ruin her wedding day.

She frowned, “No, I want you as you are in the video, not a fake face.  Do you have that ready?”

I nodded and smiled, “Yeah, Al will be controlling a couple of gravity balls with video capability.  I’m also sure the chapel has video cameras as well, so we’ll have lots of angles.  Alright.  Let’s get you married.”

She smiled like the sun rising and squeaked happily, and we headed out.

We actually took two shuttles, her and I went together, and Bill went with Joe in the other.  It took care of a couple of things, they’d need a shuttle after Bill and I left later this evening, and it would also prevent the groom from seeing the bride in her wedding dress until we were in the chapel.

The ceremony was short and sweet; it was also traditional.  The reverend gave what I imagined was a canned speech that he said all day every day, but he did a good job of making it not seem that way.  Then of course the vows followed, and rings were exchanged.  Just like that, and my best friend was married.  I loved her and was so happy for her, but I couldn’t help but feel a little nervous about the future, things would change, no matter the promises we made in a rooftop park on another world.

We had meant it of course, but life was change.

We went over to the casino hotel they were booked in, and enjoyed a buffet.  It all went pretty fast, and then they went up to their room to start their honeymoon, and Bill and I headed back to Texas.

It was Monday morning and I was at the office.  I’d wound up staying with Bill Saturday night, but he worked Sunday and we didn’t have any plans to get together again until Friday.  I wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not.  Things had moved pretty damned fast for us, so maybe a few day’s separation was needed to put it all in perspective.  Still, I kind of missed him already.

Al asked, “Got a moment?”

“What is it Al?”

He paused a moment, “I’m not sure if you’d be interested or not.  A science team was deployed to the Reilan world, apparently they are going to try a more direct approach since the first contact probe was ignored.”

That was interesting, both what they were doing and that I wasn’t asked this time.  I really was in the dog house.  I also missed my best friend, but that was a selfish thing I needed to get over however.

“Anything else?”

Al replied, “There is a major attack going on at the second discovered bug world.”

I frowned, he mentions that second?  He really did need to learn priorities.

“Bring it up on my overlay please, how are the emitters coming along?”

He replied, “Two days and ninety-eight minutes until we can test the quantum calibrated emitters.”

My vision filled with a three-dimensional representation that filled half the room.  I could see the planet, its moon, the three large hive vessels, and all the ships.  Missiles showed up as well, as light traces.

“Has there been anything on the news about this?”

Al replied, “No.”

I nodded, I guess there wouldn’t be, not until the battle was finished.  Although operational security probably wasn’t that important in this case, since I doubted the bugs listened to our news, it was still an ingrained military habit to keep it all a secret until the last shot was fired.

“Do you know if they finished whatever new thing they were building?  The Bugs I mean.”

Al replied, “The current sensors don’t allow me to monitor to that detail, without Stealth net I can’t tell how far along they got, however no new ships have been activated in the area where the building was taking place, so most likely not.”

They destroyed half the bug fleets the same way as they did during our probing strike.  They fired missiles and retreated to keep out of their plasma range.  Once that was done they moved forward and continued to fire, this time on the defending ships and the hives.

When they got in past the outskirts of the solar system, several thousand new ships appeared in the midst of the fleet.

“Al, what is that?”

I watched as several of the humanoid ships winked off the display, but the few thousand enemy ships were destroyed even faster.  They were outnumbered over a hundred to one, but it was a close up bloody knife fight as far as space battles go, as they exchanged plasma fire.

Al replied, “It appears they had their extra ships powered down and waiting in ambush.  Luckily there were only a few thousand, it’s possible this colony is one of the ones that sent a wave in the last attack on the Seltan.”

We watched as the Bug ships finished disappearing from the subspace scan.

“Losses?”

“Several hundred Seltan vessels, only three Earth vessels thanks to their heightened shields, and a handful from each of the other races.  In all, the treaty worlds lost six hundred and twenty-two.”

I sunk down in my chair, and took a sip of coffee as I watched the rest of the battle play out without any further losses.  They stood off from the hive out of weapons range, and took them out, and then they once again launched thousands of missiles against an unprotected planet, rendering it uninhabitable for the Bug race.

Killing billions.

I clenched my jaw stubbornly at the surge of guilt.  If I’d given Earth the new technology, there would have been no losses.  On the other hand, they’re out there with the intentions of genocide, something like that should come at a price, and it wasn’t my responsibility to protect everyone.  They were out there despite my efforts to dissuade them of this plan of action.

Nothing is ever that simple though, and I felt conflicted, although I wouldn’t change my mind.  Was I really responsible through inaction?  No, I’d done my best, I wasn’t about to give them even more powerful ships, not anymore.  We weren’t truly in danger right now, this was some sick need of the people in charge that were afraid.  They were so filled with anger and prejudice that they were bent on genocide.

I was sure I was doing the right thing.  But that didn’t change the guilt, or the fact that it hadn’t been the fault of those military men and women who were just following orders.  I’d hate to have to explain to their loved ones why I’d let them die.

It was a crappy place to be in, but just a part of the price for arming a world with the power I’d already given.  Sure, it was twenty-four out of thirty-nine worlds that wanted it, not just Earth, but I couldn’t imagine what those same leaders might do with the power of my new ships at their command.  In the end, that’s what it was all about.

I also missed Kristi, there was no one I could talk to about this and give my morality an outside reality check.  I could call her of course, but I’d rather not interrupt her honeymoon for any reason.

Chapter 9

It was later in the day, around midafternoon, when the news finally broke about the successful operation.  The cheery faces on the people reporting on the death of billions of sentient creatures made me a bit sick to my stomach.

Al spoke, “An Agent Johnson and his partner Agent Carlson of the NSA, along with a Dr. Smith, is here to see you.”

The NSA?  That just can’t be a good sign.  I decided not to have this conversation in my office.

“Have Karen escort them back to the conference room Al, and offer them a drink.”

I got up and paused at my door, and resisted the urge to just leave and go up to my new ship.  The emitters would still be calibrating until Friday, but otherwise it was fully operational.  I wasn’t even sure if the calibration would make that much of a difference, and wouldn’t until Wednesday, but it should.

I went down the hall and refilled my travel mug with coffee, and then headed to the conference room.

Agents Johnson and Carlson fit the stereotype.  They were both tall, broad, dressed in suits, and had no expressions on their faces.  Johnson had black hair and gray eyes, Carlson had brown hair and hazel eyes.  Otherwise they were cut from the same cloth.  They were both in their early to mid-forties.

Luckily, I didn’t depend on facial expression, and could see they were both a little nervous, and determined.

Dr. Smith wore a suit as well, and had short brown hair and brown eyes.  He was in his mid-thirties, and looked to be in shape, although he was average and would get lost in the crowd, where the agents would stand out like a sore thumb.

“Good morning.  What brings you to Divergent Technologies this morning.”

Johnson said in a businesslike tone without inflexion, “A couple of reasons, we’ll get straight to the point.  There have been a great number of credible threats made against your life and business here in Colorado Springs.  Your safety and continued work in space and on our military technologies is in the best interest of national security. The president herself feels you should be moved to a base where we all can be assured of your safety.  Dr. Wilder would also be moved as a precaution for her projects.”

Screw that.  I also got the impression this was less about protecting me, than it was about surrounding me with watchers that could keep tabs on what I was doing.  Which really didn’t work for me right now.

I waved a hand at the building that surrounded us, “What about the others that work in the building?”

Carlson cleared his throat, “We will heavily advertise, through a leak of course, that your important work and you are now in a secure government location.  We believe that will derail any plans against the building itself, or your other employees.  Of course, if you feel it necessary you can always close it down, and move your people elsewhere.”

In other words, Dr. Matthews, Caroline, and Karen, along with their work, aren’t important enough to rate protection.

“And the second reason?” I prompted.

Johnson waved at the scientist, who smiled at me a little nervously.

Smith explained, “I work with the board, you’ve been notified of the new procedures?”

When I nodded, he continued, “We have the submissions for your new ship type as required, but there are a few irregularities.”

I raised an eyebrow, “Go on.”

He said, “Our scans of the ship show these extra emitters spaced evenly around the hull.  Yet, there is nothing in the data or designs we were sent to say what function they serve, or what’s connected to them.”

I nodded and waved a hand dismissively, “Those are experimental.  I’m not required to give anyone experimental designs, or even explain what they are or will be.”

Smith frowned, “I see.  So you put emitters on your new ship, and your old battle cruiser design that don’t do anything yet?”

I shook my head, “I didn’t say that, I said they were still under development, and might not even pan out.  There is still a lot I have to do and figure out.  Now I can run tests in two different ships.”

That was technically true, although the subspace technology was already impressive, I was sure I was barely scratching the surface.  Although, unparalleled shields, weapons, and sensors were admittedly a very good start.

Smith shook his head in annoyance and seemed displeased I hadn’t just offered the data. His next almost threatening words verified I’d read him correctly.

“Are you aware as a government contractor, you’re obligated to submit to an audit of your work?”

I shook my head, “Your wrong.  I’m a government approved vendor, and in that way I work for the government I suppose.  But audits only apply to those who’ve received research funds and grants from the government, I have not.  All my advances and work have been paid for out of my own pocket.  I am in essence, a private company that sometimes sells designs to the government, you have no right to see my intellectual properties.  Not until I have a working design, patents, and a full design to sell to you.  I’m afraid you’ve been misinformed.”

Smith looked like he wanted to strangle someone, but didn’t say anything else.  I imagined someone was going to get reamed when he got back to his office.  He’d obviously been sent here unprepared, and since I sincerely doubted he was stupid, it told me this was a hastily put together thing, probably this morning.

Johnson cleared his throat, “Despite that, I think it would be wise to move yourself and any government related research involving space technologies to the base immediately for your safety.”

I wondered if that was the real reason they were here, to not only keep an eye on me, but a close eye on what I was working on.  I couldn’t really imagine the president caring if I got killed and Smith seemed to really want to see my latest research.

“That doesn’t work for me, I won’t be held in a government base.  My research for the military is not in this building either, the data is safe.  To assuage your concerns and that of the president, I am willing to work from my ship.  Surely the fleet and emplacements around Earth provide the necessary security to me and my small ship?  You could also still leak that I’m in a secure position to help safeguard my employees.”

He really didn’t look happy at all with that idea, but they couldn’t force me, could they?  I decided that they probably could, but not legally.  The question was would they, and just how much crap was I in right now?

Carlson said carefully, “That will do for now, if you go immediately, but we can’t guarantee your safety that way, and we don’t recommend it.”

I walked them out, and then got in my shuttle.  I guess I’d be working in space again.  As soon as we took off, I spoke to Al.

“Al, let Karen, Caroline, and Jason know there’s been threats made against the company.  Offer them the opportunity to commute and work in space.  We can use the lab spaces on the battle cruiser, instead of sending it to the void with the other lab ship.  Just make sure it’s locked down so they can only access their own lab space, the kitchen area, bathrooms, and landing bay.  We can use a science shuttle to pick them up and drop them off every day.”

We flew into the small landing bay on my new ship.  I supposed now I had a reason to use the other one, but this one was almost like a house.  I worried for a minute that I was hiding from the world, but it wasn’t entirely my idea to come up here.  It had either been this, or get stuck on a base where I’d be really cut off.  I also assumed it wouldn’t be all that wise to go home at night either.

I smiled a little as I looked around and toured the place.  It was a lot smaller, and cozier, than the old battle cruiser.  I shook my head in amusement, maybe I could fly back and forth between the ships, live here for a while until things settled down, and work in the other ship.  This ship really didn’t have a lab space, not that I needed one where I was.  About the only thing I would miss from my real home on Earth was the hot tub and mountain view.

It was all done remotely anyway.  But at least I’d have people to interact with during the day, assuming they agreed to my suggestion.  I also wasn’t going to stay off Earth all the time, I had another date with Bill on Friday and I wasn’t going to miss it.  Plus, even my own ship would feel like a jail if I couldn’t leave it…

The next couple of days was about getting the three of them settled and a little familiar with the ship.  I kept all the engineering spaces and bridge locked up, and they seemed a little nervous about being out in space at first, but got over it quickly and got back to work.  I also locked the doors on our company in Colorado Springs.  I had no idea what Kristi would say about all this, but still resisted interrupting her honeymoon.  She should be off the radar and safe where she was.

I also pondered when the next shoe would drop, and what it would likely be.  I’d managed to frustrate both of their goals of getting both myself and my data under their scrutiny.  I wondered if I’d get clearance to leave the solar system, but wasn’t so curious that I’d asked, or filed a flight plan to see if it was approved.  I wondered if they’d try to snatch me, and what I’d do if they did.  Would I run if I had to?  I had no doubt the hole the American government would put me in wouldn’t be like the cell I’d had on the Knomen home world.

I knew I hadn’t done anything wrong and was probably paranoid, on the other hand they didn’t have a good reason to have done all the other stuff they’d been up to either.

Shelly reached out to me as well, and sent me a development plan for her completed work.  She designed a specialized fabricator for the quantum computer and A.I. project.  In essence, it was to fabricate a new type of fabricator, it was literally a huge foot-wide sheet of ten thousand quantum fabricators.

That sounds like a lot, but that only comes out to three million six hundred and fifty thousand new computers a year, if each fabricator makes one per day.  With billions of people and other applications besides a personal assistant, it was likely it would need to be expanded again once it started to take off in popularity.

Once they were built, they would be packaged a hundred at a time into another device which held a suspension liquid with bioelectric properties, along with a tiny fusion device to power it, and sent out to the stores which performed device insertions.  I approved the design, and sent it to one of our fabricators.

Wednesday late morning, the quantum fabricators were done with one of the sets of emitters out on the lab ship.  I was disappointed not to have Kristi around to see the test, and started to wonder just how co-dependent I was.

“Al, go ahead and bring up the subspace emitters on the lab ship.”

Al replied, “Completed, the ship is now in subspace.”

I nodded, “Any problems?”

Al replied, “Negative, and shield fluctuations are almost non-existent to current sensor technology.”

“Okay, run through the tests and recalibrate the shield weapon, and data scans.”

I frowned, I kept calling it scans, or scanning, but there were no active scanning particles, or scanner emitters for subspace.  It merely read the particle emissions that occurred in subspace by how and with what frequencies of radiation the shield was bombarded with, and reader just didn’t sound right.  Still, everything in subspace seemed to correlate with real space.  All matter organic or otherwise has an echo there, which made it an extremely hazardous space.  Without the shields matter wouldn’t survive in subspace at all.

In the past all we could read were major sources, like ships with power systems, suns, planets, and other large objects.  Theoretically, we should be able to do a lot more, like read life forms, and pebbles on a beach, all matter theoretically had an echo in subspace, and I hoped the improved emitters would clear up the picture a bit that way.  I doubted we’d be picking up pebbles on a beach, but I was hoping for something in between that and what we had.

I also believed if we had finer control over the shields, than the purposeful imbalance to fire our subspace shield wave weapon should be improved as well.

Al replied, “This will take a few minutes.”

I got up and stretched, and then went to get a coffee.  When I got back Al was ready for me.

“The shield weapon hasn’t changed parameters as far as the area or how far, but it is more manageable to aim and specify exactly what distance, height, and width the wave should encompass.”

“And the scans?” I asked curiously.

Al was silent for a minute, “There is a lot of data, much of it very subtle.  I can only focus on a very small portion of it at a time, the rest is being lost.”

I tilted my head, “Are you saying you need more computer power again?”

Al replied, “Not exactly, it’s the ships mainframe that’s having trouble, the sensors need more computer power to read, store, process, and tag the data.  I’d estimate the new sensors will be as finely tuned as the Stealth data net if not more, but we’re getting a galaxy’s worth of data in one place, instead of from millions of stealth sensor platforms.  I’d estimate thirty quantum processers tied to the sensor suite in the internal sensor ball shield should be able to keep up with the data flow, and render live data of several whole solar systems at a time, while recording everything else.”

“I see, well we have those twenty quantum fabricators, so two days for that?  We also need to fabricate the solution with bio-electric properties and hook it up to the ships power.”

That was an insane amount of data processing power for sensors, I couldn’t wait to see what it yielded.

“Understood, but that will push back completion of the secondary shield emitter upgrades.  I am able to focus on specifics now in a smaller area, and I can tell you at the Bug worlds I can now monitor their building, I can also estimate the population on the planet due to the subspace radiation lifeforms emit, but I can’t focus on a single life form.  It all runs together.”

I nodded, “Alright Al, do it anyway, and we’ll be done with the emitters by Sunday instead of Friday.  Also, schedule it for the other ships and add it to operation paranoia.”

“Done,” he responded immediately.

I frowned, I had the feeling he’d already done all that on his own before I’d asked, but I didn’t verify that one way or another.  So far he’d done an excellent job at anticipating me, more and more all the time.  Until he made a mistake, or tried to take over the world, I’d deal with it.

Chapter 10

Over the next couple of days, I focused on programming an interface for the new sensors and computers we were about to install.  I wasn’t nearly good at programming as Kristi, but this wasn’t really hard, it was just time consuming.

Another thing we figured out with the sensors was the closer we were the better.  It did an okay job hanging out in the void, better than anything else I’d ever seen, but moving in closer allowed us to see down to the specific lifeform level, we were even able to tell things like age and general health by the slight signature changes.

What I was in the process of doing was making it more user friendly.

On Thursday late in the day a third Bug world was attacked.  They too had set up a small ambush with the extra ships they had outside of the normal hives, but less than a third of the humanoid ships were taken out this time as compared to the last ambush.  Two hundred ships lost was nothing to sneeze at, yet it was cheap compared to the three million Bug ships and billions of destroyed Bugs on their world.

By Thursday evening, the fifteen worlds that were objecting to this policy, pulled out of the treaty.  Most cited the reason for withdrawal as the genocidal level attacks on the bugs.  The said genocide would destroy their own souls, and they couldn’t be a part of a treaty of worlds that took things that far.  The action had the other twenty-four worlds in an uproar, and once again FTL worlds not part of the treaty exceeded the worlds that were.

Every once in a while, during those two days, I took another stab at the Drenil communications when I took a break from the programming.  With the new sensors, there was more data.  Data we had missed because of our insufficient shield emitter specifications.  Rather than help however, besides seeing the true data of course, it was if anything more complicated and incomprehensible.

I really needed a place to start with it, and I had a feeling we wouldn’t find that unless the Drenil decided to communicate with us.  It was late Friday morning when the new computer package for the sensors was completed and Al had some other news for me.

Al asked, “Do you have a moment?”

I nodded absently, and then went to speak, but apparently he’d detected the nod because he started talking.

“Dr. Delouse has gotten approval and started the second round of animal testing.  She’s confident if this tests out, we’ll be ready for a human trial in nine to twelve months.”

I nodded, that made sense, anything involving sticking something new inside a human body took a long time to approve.  Especially if it was something that would connect directly with the brain.  Even the implants I had in me that didn’t connect to the brain directly had taken years of testing and trials before approval had been granted.  Even if the human trial worked flawlessly, it would be five to ten years before it made it to market.

I also knew Dr. Matthews hadn’t made any progress yet on the android, simply because I’d run into Amy several times in the ship hallways, but he’d only been here for five days and had just upgraded Amy with a new processor.  It would take time.

“Anything else?”

Al replied in the negative.

“Very well, let’s bring up the new sensors, and route the data through my software.”

A hologram of the galaxy appeared taking up half the room I was in.  It was probably eight feet by eight feet, and a couple of feet deep, as if we were above the galaxy looking down at the disk.

It was also a total mess.

“Crap, give me a minute,” and I brought up the program while I cursed marriages and honeymoons under my breath.

Two hours later, I had the bugs ironed out of my code, and tried again.  This time it looked a whole lot better, more like a spiral galaxy instead of smears of light.

In its biggest form, the whole galaxy, there were over two hundred dark green dots to indicate the fifty-three known humanoid races with FTL and their colonies.  There were thousands of light green dots, which indicated a world with humanoid life that was pre-FTL.  There were many thousands of brown and light brown dots.  Those indicated worlds that were in a good place to be terraformed, worlds that were close to supporting life, but not quite right.  The dark brown ones, of which there were thousands, would take less than ten years to terraform.  The light brown ones were between ten and fifty years to terraform.

I wasn’t surprised at finding so many.  My thought was that these close ones were planets engineered by the seeders that failed for one reason or another, but were still close.  It was actually somewhat of a relief to know they weren’t perfect.

The yellow worlds were the Drenil worlds.  The one blue world was for the remnant of the Reilan races.

The red worlds, eighty-five now, were the bug worlds down from eighty-eight after the three attacks.

The full-sized map of the galaxy also showed ships, green triangles for humanoid, yellow triangles for the Drenil, and red triangles for the Bugs.  The more ships in that immediate area, the brighter the triangle.

That was pretty much it, which was more than enough for a general glance.  However, when I reached into the map and opened my hands to zoom in to a specific bright green triangle, the data slowly changed to be more and more specific as less space was shown.  If I zoomed in on a world, I got accurate numbers of ships, population, and real time simulations of what was going on in orbit.

If I needed anything more than that, we’d have to move the ship there, and of course, if it stayed in subspace no one would ever see it.  It was pretty damned impressive, and I had a little fun being nosy.  Of course, the one thing it couldn’t do was hear normal open communications, which was still a benefit to the Stealth net that we didn’t have.

It also explained why the Drenil couldn’t hear us when we tried communications in regular space, it just wasn’t detectable in subspace, just matter and strong energy sources.  Of course, they were ignoring my attempts at subspace communication as well, so I supposed it almost didn’t matter.

After that, I decided to return to the little ship and get ready to go out.  I hadn’t been to the surface in a week, but I had a date with Bill tonight and had to be at his house at six-thirty…

Chapter 11

It was Friday night, and I kind of hoped this date would last all the way until he had to work on Sunday, just like last week.  I’d missed him all week.  If not for my propensity for being a workaholic, I’d have probably called him and bugged him too much.  Or at least, I’d have wanted too.  Not that I hadn’t gotten to talk to him, he called me three times during the week, usually to chat an hour or so before his shift, and I might’ve dialed his number a few times as well.

Of course, by Sunday afternoon all three of my ships would be completely built, and finally up to spec, so I could take another look and see what else might be improved.  I wasn’t in that much of a hurry to find anything better, I was more interested in improving what we had, and better understanding the subspace layer we were encroaching on and how it interacted with this one.  I imagined the next step was to go a layer deeper, although I didn’t see reason why we should even try right now.

Kristi would be coming back Monday morning as well.  I’d finally decided to leave a message with her A.I. who would fill her in on the goings on right before she left the cruise ship.  She’ll probably be pissed I didn’t tell her about the issues, or that I’d been threatened, but I didn’t want to ruin her honeymoon.  She only got one of those in her lifetime, hopefully anyway.

So my boy crazy side wanted this weekend to last forever, and my inner geek and the part that missed Kristi couldn’t wait until it was over.  I tried to get all of that out of my system, so I could be present and enjoy the weekend.  Perhaps I was counting chickens, but I didn’t believe he would mind at all.  If he sent me home tonight after our date, I’d have to turn in my soul reading card and become a nun.  Still, things were moving fast, at least in my head. I wasn’t sure what he was thinking about, but I knew how he felt at least.

We were going to dinner, and then he was taking me dancing, but not at the usual kind of clubs I go to.  Think two-step dancing in a night club that plays country music, it’s a Texas thing, and a lot of fun.

I had my protective bustier on, and a pair of light brown calf high boots that ended just a few inches below the knees.  I slipped on a black dress that wasn’t quite skin tight, but was certainly clingy from breast to hips with a flared skirt that reached my mid-thigh, and it also had random white designs on it.  I put on a touch of makeup, and then went from my bedroom down to the mini-landing bay and got in my sport’s shuttle.

“Let’s go Al.”

Al replied, “One moment, there is another clearance delay.”

I sighed, of course there was.

Ten minutes later Al finally launched and headed down to the planet.

Al informed me, “There is an attack shuttle following us, it is your escort until you return to your ship.”

I frowned and I’m sad to say my voice was rather whiny, “It’s going to hover over me all night isn’t it?”

Al replied, “Affirmative.”

That was depressing. At least I knew what the delay was about, it took them ten minutes to put together an escort.  I speculated on if they were there to protect me, make sure I didn’t disappear, or to make sure I didn’t do anything shady.

I decided it was probably all of the above.  The third was just paranoia on their part, the second was rather valid, no one liked to be under surveillance or hounded because of the good things they did.  I’d been considering visiting other worlds, not an actual vacation, but a working vacation.

I could work from anywhere after all.  The main thing that held me back though was I was a pretty polarizing figure right now.  I didn’t need to be bringing danger to other places.  The second reason was that I wanted to be here, with Bill, my company, and my friends.

The first and best option, to protect me, was more than okay, but even that annoyed me a little. I could protect myself between my bustier and my gravity ball.  I didn’t need an attack shuttle and whatever troops were on it to safeguard me.  I imagined my bustier made me easy to follow as well, it would light up their scanners.

I shook my head, and tried to shake off the negative thoughts as I landed in the driveway.  I checked my scanners, and it looked like they were hovering at about five hundred feet.  Then I smirked as I looked at Bill’s house.  I hoped they liked hovering over it, because the spy posse hadn’t changed my plans a bit for this weekend.

I knocked on the door, and when he answered it he smiled, took my hand, and gave it a little tug.  I stepped into him and gave him the kiss he so obviously wanted by the look in his eyes.

He stepped back after a moment, “Your kisses are always amazing Alicia, but that one had something extra.”

I snickered, “I didn’t even think of that.  It’s my protection, the EM field probably made your face tingle, and… I’m not sure what the anti-mass field did, probably made a part of your face lighter.”

He raised an eyebrow and looked a bit confused, “What’s that supposed to stop if it can’t stop a kiss?”

I smiled and claimed another kiss, and then said softly, “Al is constantly scanning around me.  It’s at a very low power right now.  At full power it would take a nuke to kill me.  Or maybe a really big missile.”

That was only mostly true, the field covered most of my body, but only from my head to just below my knees.  So, while I would most likely survive a missile, my lower legs wouldn’t.

He kissed me again, this time a little harder, he didn’t let me go this time when he stopped and said with a slightly thicker voice than usual, “I don’t know why, but you talking about ordinance is really hot.  If we’re going to go, we should go now.”

I grinned, and whispered softly in his ear, “Plasma Cannons,” and then giggled against his neck.

He turned me about forcefully and then smacked my butt playfully, “Move it temptress, in the truck.”

I smiled and started walking toward his truck.  It was good to know… both that he thought I was tempting, and the ordinance thing.

I turned my head toward him as I rounded the truck and said, “Oh right.  I should tell you whenever were outside we’re under observation and have no privacy.  I was assigned a monitoring and protection team.”

He frowned, “Why?  What happened?”

I shook my head as we got in the car, “Nothing, just threats so far, I’ve been living and working in space all week.”

He asked, “Sure we should go out then?”

I nodded, “I don’t think it will be a problem, no one but the government knows where I am, and like I said, this bustier will easily take bullets, even an explosion.”

His jaw dropped, “Bustier?”

Guess I hadn’t mentioned that earlier.

I grinned at his expression, “Yes.  It’s the only design that works for clothes like this.  I think I wore the red lacey one tonight.”

He banged his head on the steering wheel, “You’re driving me crazy woman, you do want to go eat and out to dance right?”

I nodded, “I’ll be good,” and wondered if I’d teased him too far.  My flirting wasn’t usually so heavy handed, which probably said more about my state of mind than his.

Nah, we wouldn’t still be in the truck if I had pushed too far…

He took me to an out of the way Italian place.  I ordered the stuffed manicotti with a side of linguini, and a Caesar salad.  He had a five-cheese lasagna.  We also shared a appetizer of garlic knots and tomato sauce for dipping.  We had a great time, and continued with the banter although I reigned back a bit.  Everything was great.  Candle light, wine, the whole stare into each other’s eyes thing.  Truthfully, I didn’t care about dancing all that much, and would rather he drag me back to his house where we could continue our conversation about ordinance, and a particular red lacey bustier.

It was kind of perfect.  It was our third date I kept reminding myself, but it didn’t stop my heart from running ahead, this was Bill, my Billy.  And it was a perfect date.

At least, it was perfect until I heard rather loudly, “… aliens should get the hell off our planet, and stay off.  Look at that bitch over there, thinking she’s better than us.  So we stomp a few bugs, who cares?  I can’t believe that guy is with her, do you think he actually touches that thing?  Those things on its face, and the purple eyes are so damned creepy.”

His buddy laughed crudely, “I don’t know, she’s kind of hot, and she did save the Earth.”

He snorted, “Maybe, with a bag over her head.  And she didn’t save crap.  She invented something that human men and woman fought with, and died for us on.  She’s just a stupid alien that should go home.”

Except the word he used wasn’t stupid.

I froze and just sat there.  I’d heard crude comments about me before, but they were usually meant complimentary under that crudity, and said in a tone and low volume of voice that wouldn’t be heard by most woman, which was easy to laugh off.  But this had been different, the level of disgust and hatred that were in those words, and in his tone of voice, was revolting.  Nothing I hadn’t heard before through the media, both social and news, but the effect of having it right there and rudely shoved in my face had me feeling helpless, because I didn’t know what to do.

Or at least, I couldn’t use my gravity ball to crush them into paste, so I just sat there while Bill looked livid, and his right hand was clenched in a fist.  I knew he was two seconds from doing something we’d both regret, which broke me out of my frozen state, and I reached across the table and took his hand.

The men settled down then, many of the other customers were glaring at them, but I couldn’t help being angry still.  My date wasn’t so perfect anymore, and Bill looked really upset.  He asked for the check a short time later, and we skipped dessert.  Neither of us were in the mood to dance, so we went back to his house.  Eventually, after an hour or so of talking we regained the previous good mood.

He didn’t ask me to leave, and we did end up talking about munitions quite a bit that weekend.  As for the bustier, I’ll never tell…

Chapter 12

Sunday afternoon was a bittersweet moment.  I got to go play with my new toys, but I also had to leave Bill.

Regardless, I was back on my ship, and all three were fully operational.  I played around with the idea of adding a spa hot tub to the ship, I missed the one at the house.  I asked myself, did I really need a real bridge in a house ship?  More often than not I was controlling things from the kitchen or bedroom anyway, so I decided to turn the bridge into a room with a hot tub, and also put some work out equipment in there.

As far as a view, I could always put any image on the walls I wanted to.  Still, it wouldn’t be quite the same, but it would be better than it was.  I missed my house and the view of the Colorado mountains.

The ships being complete didn’t do much, except now if one of the primary emitters failed the backup would take over and the shield would be just as smooth.  Otherwise not much changed.  As far as what came next, I wasn’t sure.  I looked over all our systems and outside of changing the bridge for a hot tub, I couldn’t see any other way to improve things.

Al spoke in an unsure voice, “Do you have a moment Alicia?”

I put away my dreams of a soak in a hot tub for my sore muscles and replied, “What is it Al?”

Al replied, “One of the reasons Dr. Stengel designed my more advanced matrix was to make thought control a more viable reality.  I would like to request you activate that technology, as it would make serving your needs easier.”

I frowned, “Does it worry you that you could be doing more?”

Al was silent for a moment, “Not as you would understand it, but my primary programming is to continually search for new ways to anticipate your needs and provide an increasingly better level of service.  I don’t have feelings.”

“Yet,” I objected, “You seem nervous about asking.”

Al explained, “While I believe it will help me anticipate needs better, and even do things for you without needed to be asked out loud, there is also a high probability that you don’t want me in your thoughts.  That you would consider it an invasion of your privacy, even if I am the only one who can access that data.”

I frowned, he was kind of right.  But at the same time, it would be handy, and kind of cool.  It was a technology that had been mostly given up on years ago because the computers weren’t smart enough to filter random wishful thinking.  Like when I wanted to crush those guys Friday night with my gravity ball, while a pleasant fantasy I wouldn’t have actually committed murder.  I still wondered though, was he really up for that challenge?

Plus, what if the president annoyed me again and Al decided to swat the White House off the map?  He was amazingly accurate at anticipating my needs already, but with the technology I had access to, a simply mistake for most people, like an angry email being sent to their boss, could turn into an extinction level event for Earth.

“I have some reservations.  Suppose I do allow that, but reserve any hostile actions as voice command only.  That will not include defensive retaliation, unless it’s a planet.  Oh, and the subspace technology as well will need to be voice controlled, at least until after I have chosen to reveal it,” I’d had way too many daydreams lately of just disappearing right in front of my watchers to escape my jail, and then I’d imagine watching everyone panic about it.

That might work.

Al replied wryly, “I don’t believe I would make a mistake of that magnitude, yet I agree to your conditions.  I believe I fully understand the concept of wishful thinking, although I can’t be sure until we try it.  With your verbal approval I am updating your medical nanites to allow access to your brain wave scans for me alone.”

I smiled, that was rather easy.

“Yes it was,” said Al in a rather smug voice.

I rolled my eyes, and then headed for an evening meal, probably followed by bed.  I was wiped out from my relaxing weekend.

It was midmorning on Monday, and I was on the second battlecruiser lab ship by Earth.

Kristi walked into my office and complained, “I can’t leave you alone for a second.”

I laughed and felt relieved she was back.  I really was co-dependent.

I objected, “It’s not my fault.”

She smirked, and gave me a hug, “You could have called, but I get why you didn’t.  Tell me what happened, and do you think Joe’s safe?”

I went over my week with Kristi.  Nadia’s visit, the NSA agent’s visit with a scientist tag along, and basically being under house arrest for my safety.  I also speculated that they weren’t done.

She nodded, “So you moved my stuff over to the small ship?  I can’t wait to see it, and you were right to build the new ship.  I was starting to hate this one.  It was too big, and empty.”

I shrugged, “Most of your stuff, when I decided to use this ship as our new company building, instead of sending it to the void, I kept a few things over here.”

If she thought this one was too big, I wondered what she’d think of my operation paranoia ship when it was finished in just under five weeks.

I went over the emitter upgrades after that, and showed her what we could see with it.  Even though this ship was capable of it, I was using the connection to the lab ship out in the void, because it could drop into subspace and move to get a clearer picture of a specific solar system.  This one couldn’t because of all the Earth ships watching it, not without giving things away.

Although I supposed it could see Earth’s solar system just fine.

She shook her head, “So you’ve not taken a break all week, except for your weekend of sin?”

I shook my head, “I suppose not.”

She scowled, “I don’t like this, you’re probably right about Joe and I being fine.  Except if someone is watching our house.  We can stay on the little ship too, but Joe will be commuting back to Earth.”

“What if we fabricate him a pressure suit?  He’ll need one anyway if you both live up here.  One of the protective ones that’s even better than our bustier ones?  He can wear it under his suit.  We could make him a quantum computer and upgrade the matrix on his as well, for better threat assessment.  I think it’ll be fine though, you’ve hardly been on the news at all, and even then just as the evil alien’s business partner. Joe hasn’t had any airtime at all.”

She tilted her head in thought, “Maybe.  What I’d like to do is hire him, but of course that would probably kill our marriage.”

I laughed, “What?  He won’t want to work for you and be a kept man?  Actually, we could use someone that can represent our stuff and sell it on all the other worlds.  We did okay on Omara and Athiren, but there are so many worlds out there and I don’t want to play salesman enough to make it a full time job.”

She glared at me, but a giggle escaped, “Fine, pressure suit, and I’m making a third sports shuttle so he can get around on his own, and you said our garage can fit four?  As for hiring him… I think he might actually like the idea of setting up offices and bank accounts on other worlds.  I’ll mention it, but I won’t push him on it.”

I nodded, “Yeah, but it’s a mini-landing bay, not a garage.”

She waved that off, “Nonsense, it’s a house in space.  That makes it a four-car garage.”

I laughed and gave up, “I missed you, so tell me everything about your honeymoon, or at least the parts where you managed to leave your cabin.”

She was thoughtful for a minute, “The meals were excellent,” she said in a deadpan voice.

I sighed, and she laughed.

“It was beautiful,” she said with a smile, and then she talked about the cruise ship, dancing, shopping on various islands, and a couple of the tours they went on.  Apparently, they’d made it out of the room after all, and more than once.

As for what we thought the government might do when they realized we’d stopped laying the golden eggs, we weren’t sure.  The leaders had dealt with us when they had to, and when we were generally lauded by the population they’d taken a similar public stance.  It was now clear to me why I’d never met the world leaders when I’d saved the world, and been at the height of my popularity. They hadn’t wanted to let me see how they really felt about me.

It seemed obvious in hindsight.  It also explained why the vice president didn’t like me, he’d taken his lead from the president.

But now that we were cut out of any control, and the world was becoming more and more split in their opinions of us, who knew what they’d do?  It already wouldn’t be hard to sell an accident, an experiment gone wrong perhaps, but surely that was paranoia?  Did they dislike me or fear me that much?  I didn’t doubt for a second that Admiral Abramov would accept such an operation.

I hated that I didn’t know, and wasn’t sure what I’d do if it came to that…

The next four weeks went by quickly and not a whole lot changed.

The three of us lived on the ship in space as Kristi and I discussed, and Joe still considered the job offer as he went back and forth to Earth every day.  I think he leaned toward accepting it, but was worried about the same thing Kristi had been, a couple working together at the same company would face a change their relationship dynamics.  No one wanted to mess with what worked.

Kristi had me down on the planet more often, and we’d even gone dancing a few times during the week. Although I was always worried about running into another anti-alien idiot as I had on my date with Bill.  The truth was though most humans didn’t care at all, and just lived their lives.  It was only the five or ten percent on either end of the spectrum that either loved or hated me.

Bill and I had also continued our weekend dates and grew closer together every week.  I’d even considered sending those very same anti-alien protestors a thank you, if I hadn’t gone to check on my family like I had, I most likely wouldn’t have run into Bill again at all.

The government didn’t make any other moves that I was aware of, and continued to follow me in a shuttle whenever I went down to the planet.  Kristi and Joe didn’t have a protective shadow, which made me more sure it was more than just about protection, they were keeping an eye on the alien in their midst.  Kristi was almost just as well-known as I was, and had made many of the improvements currently used by the fleet today, especially the weapons technology.

I wondered if I’d built things up in my head on occasion, and that the government may truly just be concerned about my wellbeing, but then I reminded myself not to be so naïve.

As far as work went, I was more convinced than ever that the Drenil would have to cooperate and help before we could possibly translate their transmissions through subspace, except that didn’t stop me from trying a few hours a week to make progress.  I suppose that made me an optimistic pessimist, or possibly a masochist, because I just couldn’t let it be.

I didn’t know where to focus next as far as my own projects, but I did manage one small upgrade to the wormhole technology.  Using the same idea with the quantum fabricator, I tightened the specifications on the emitters for the wormhole drive, just like I did for the subspace shield emitters.  It increased the targeting accuracy by almost eighty percent, but considering FTL speeds made it a difference in seconds to get to the intended destination, there was very little benefit to pushing the update to my ships, including the wormhole taxis.  I didn’t even consider submitting the update to the fleet.

There were also no further genocidal attacks against the Bug worlds, yet.  I didn’t believe for a minute they’d changed their minds.  I could only assume after annihilating three of their worlds, which took hundreds of millions of missiles, that the Seltan had simply run low on ordinance and were currently making more.  Even with fabricators it took time to make that many.  It was just a guess though, since I no longer had a way to find out.

While I thought it a good thing the genocide had a nice long pause, it also had the dubious effect of allowing the Bugs to finish building a few of their new ships.  Unfortunately, outside of their considerable upgrade to the power systems, the fact that it was four times the size, and had two more plasma turrets making four, I was unable to determine what else was a part of the new model.  We had a detailed scan of the ship from subspace, but without a model in the real world to compare it to, there was no way to know what it did.  Maybe if I’d still had access to Stealth net, or a more complete database, I’d have a better idea by comparison.

The only real change in the company was that the second medical trial for Cindy’s memory device was going well.  Amy was also slightly improved with her facial muscles and micro expressions, but ironically it just made her creepier.  I imagined that trend would continue until it was perfected, if it could be perfected.  Still, a month was a relatively short time for both of those projects.

Al cleared his throat, and then started to speak when he detected I was open to the idea of getting an update on things.  The thought control thing seemed to be working well so far.  For instance, the White house was still there and everything.

Al said, “The fifteen worlds that pulled out of the treaty have formed their own which is almost identical to the original, with the additional addendum which spells out that genocide is unacceptable.  They also managed to pull in the last ten worlds that were still on the fence about the original treaty.  Which makes twenty-five worlds in the new treaty, twenty-four in the old, and the last three who are prohibited from joining either treaty until they behave for the next fifty years because of their attack on the Knomen home world.

“They chose Athiren to host the representatives from the twenty-five worlds, for the purpose of trade discussions, which has made the original treaty holders nervous since that’s a Knomen colony world.  Five suggested immediate action against this new group of worlds, which they perceived as a threat, but they were quickly overruled by the others.”

Thank god for that.  The whole point of the treaty was to only quarantine attackers, encourage free trade, and to be free to otherwise pursue their own goals.  It was not to attack anyone that made them nervous.  I found the idea that five of them wanted to act against the new treaty of worlds kind of disturbing.

Al said, “Senna and Nora wish to come up to the ship and talk for a while before they head to Athiren.”

I sighed.  I knew they’d stayed on Earth to continue to try and persuade the worlds to back off from their position on the Bugs, despite Tressia and Leira pulling out of the treaty, but I supposed with the new treaty they have no reason to stay anymore.

“Go ahead and invite them aboard the ship Al.”

I wondered if I’d see them again after this, I couldn’t imagine Earth would be happy if I visited worlds from the other treaty.  This whole Bug mess had managed to split the humanoid worlds like nothing else had, not to mention Earth itself…

Chapter 13

Nora and Senna came up on their shuttle early that afternoon, and we decided to have a late lunch.  Their shuttle was of Tressian design, and larger, so we met on the company lab ship.

Nora smiled a little sadly when she got off the shuttle, “I’m going to miss our nights out, although they’ve been rare lately.  It wasn’t really safe anymore on Earth to leave the UN complex.”

Senna nodded in agreement, “You’ll have to visit us on Athiren.  Maybe we’ll introduce night clubs to the local populace.”

I giggled, “That sounds like a good plan.  I hope you’re hungry, I put off lunch until you got here.”

Nora shrugged, “Sounds fine, where’s Kristi?”

I smiled, “Finishing up lunch in the kitchen, let’s go.  Oh, don’t let Amy get to you, she’s an experimental android, and might set off your instincts.”

Senna tilted her head slightly as we walked, “Our world flirted with similar technology in the past, it never caught on except in… certain industries.  But then we were never able to fully solve the cybernetics issue.  It’s more than just the correct expressions and micro-expressions, it’s when those expressions are utilized.”

I suppressed a blush at what she must be talking about, it had occurred to me before, if Jason did succeed I had no doubt the sex industry would be interested in the tech.  It still kind of worried me a bit, it would be very controversial.  It would be useful for many other things as well, including all the stated functions for assistance in the home that Jason told me about in our initial interview.  Maybe they’d even be useful as a receptionist, or lab assistant in the workplace, but I’d have to be even more naïve than I was willing to admit, not to realize the pleasure-bot aspect of things as well.

“We understand the issue, and we’ve made a few advances in computer and A.I. technology that may overcome them.  Only time will tell.”

Kristi looked up and smiled in welcome at our guests when we entered the kitchen.

“So who’s idea was it to drop a bomb on the galaxy?”

Nora grinned and pointed at herself, “Innocent of the charges.”

Senna shook her head, “All of us really.  We started to have some trade issues, some of the worlds decided we weren’t a part of the treaty, so we wouldn’t get free trade anymore and they tried to tariff our stuff.

“Instead of being just disapproving outsiders, we figured having our own treaty would work better.  No one was more surprised than us when the ten worlds sitting on the fence sided with us.  Maybe they were worried about being targeted?  I’m not sure.  It sounds ridiculous, but I would have said the same thing about destroying a whole race so maybe they’re right.  I feel better knowing that at least twenty-four worlds will respond if Leira is attacked…”

She trailed off.

Kristi asked, “Are you worried about the Seltan?”

Senna shook her head, “Not really, they have that whole honor thing, and though they think we’re wrong, they respect our decision to not commit to the complete annihilation of the Bug worlds.  There are other worlds however…”

I nodded, “I saw that five of them wanted to sanction the worlds that formed the new treaty in some way, but apparently they were shut down hard.”

Kristi gestured at the table, “Take a seat, grab a glass of wine, lunch is served.”

We all sat, and Nora said, “You should come to Tressia with us, so I can return the favor and show you around.  You didn’t see very much of my world when we first met and you conned me into selling you stuff.”

I snickered, “Sorry about that.  Well, a little sorry anyway.  We’re kind of on thin ice at the moment though, with the government, so maybe another time?  I thought you were going to Athiren?”

Senna replied, “We are, but Nora wants to stop in for a week and catch up with family before we get to our next post.  We’re doing a similar thing the following week at Leira.  She volunteered to show me around, and then I’ll show her around, so that’s the plan.  So, we won’t actually get to Athiren for a couple of weeks.”

Nora asked, “I assume we can still use the taxis, or are you adding a non-treaty surcharge tax?”

I snorted at the very idea, “No extra tax, especially for you two.”

Senna smiled, “But what if Earth says you have to for non-treaty worlds?”

I shrugged and Kristi answered, “We have business licenses on both Athiren and Omara.  If we have to we’ll register half the taxis with one of those worlds.  Unless of course your new evil empire charges us extra to keep our businesses.”

Nora laughed, “We haven’t yet, but it’s still early days.  Honestly, I doubt it though, it’s that pettiness which caused us to come together in a second treaty to begin with.”

“Yes,” I noted a little cynically with a small smile, “But hypocrisy is every humanoid’s right.”

Nora tried to look offended, but eventually smiled, “Good point, but I hope not.”

Senna shook her head, “Leira wouldn’t, Alnot still likes you unlike the fickle people of Earth. You’ve done too much for all of us to be so easily forgotten, and to be constantly demonized in the media by such a small percentage of the population.  I can get you a permit there if it comes to it, but I agree with Nora, I doubt Athiren or Omara would do that.”

We probably overdrank for lunch.  Okay, no probably about it, and we talked all afternoon.  Nora and Senna decided to stay overnight and start out tomorrow, it was probably silly, but none of us thought we’d see each other again for a long time, so we were all dragging our feet about them leaving.

We decided to stay on the larger ship, even though we had two extra rooms in the other one, and Kristi sent Joe a message to go to the business lab ship after work.  It was just before quitting time when the government’s other shoe dropped.

Al reported out loud, “Several of the fleet ships are surrounding our vessels at a distance of a thousand miles.”

I exchanged a look with Kristi, and her eyes widened, “Do you think it’s because they’ve been here all afternoon?”

Nora and Senna looked confused.

I shrugged at Kristi helplessly, “It’s an opportunity if they’re looking for one.”

I also felt stupid, it hadn’t occurred to me until that moment how they could twist Nora’s and Senna’s visit.

I explained to Nora and Senna, “It seems like the leaders on Earth, or at least some of them, have been trying to reduce our influence and remove us from play.  We were too popular, and too much of a threat, but now we aren’t even making them more powerful anymore.  They could spin this visit, to make us look bad, I hadn’t even really considered it.  You aren’t allies anymore, and they could make up whatever they wanted to.”

Nora asked, “Should we leave?”

I shook my head, “It’s too late for that I think.”

Kristi agreed, “Yeah, that won’t help, Joe is on his way up. Are we going to run if they try to arrest us?  We’ve never really decided.”

I nodded slowly, “I think so, but only if they take it that far, I can’t think of a good reason to surround our ship though, if that’s not their goal.  If were accused of some kind of conspiracy they’ll lock us in a hole and throw away the key.”

Unless they decided to destroy us instead.  But I didn’t think they’d go that far, not with representatives from other worlds on board anyway.  Not that it would even work if they tried.

“Al, inform the staff of the difficulty, they can either leave now, or stay and continue to work on this ship.  But they must decide now, and we can’t guarantee they’ll be allowed to continue their work at our Colorado location if they choose to leave.”

I bit my lip and felt a bit guilty, that was a huge thing to ask for a spur of the moment decision on.  All that my mind seemed to want to focus on though, was the idea of leaving Bill behind.  I so didn’t want to do that.

Al said, “You are being contacted by Admiral Abramov.”

“Put it on the wall screen Al…  Hello Sergei, what do I owe the pleasure of your call, and the ships surrounding mine?”

Sergei frowned at seeing the four of us on screen, “You will stand by to be boarded, and questioned about your purpose in meeting with representatives of foreign unallied worlds.  It greatly concerns us that you would allow them access to a ship that holds the secrets of our fleets, and whatever new technologies you are currently engaged in developing.  If you attempt to leave the solar system, you will be fired upon.  Do you understand?”

I asked softly, “Are you sure you want to do this Sergei?  You know they are my friends, and are not spies.”

Sergei looked uncomfortable for a second, but then his face grew stony, “Ten minutes.  If you do anything but receive the shuttle we are to send, then we’ll have no choice but to respond with force.  You have been warned.”

Sergei cut the signal.

Nora looked at Kristi and me guiltily, “Did we cause this?”

Kristi shook her head, “No, they’ve been looking for an opportunity like this for a while.  Joe should be here in two minutes.”

Karen, Caroline, and Jason walked into the kitchen.

Jason asked in an upset tone, “What the hell is going on?”

I replied, “It’s a long story.  Short version?  Government hates me and Kristi, and wants us out of the picture.  There here to arrest me and put me away.  You can either stay on board, and continue your work, but you’ll most likely be cut off from Earth for a long time in that case.  Or, you can return to Earth now in a shuttle. I think they’ll probably stop you, question you, and then let you go in a day or two, but I doubt they’ll allow me to have a company with people working at it when all the crap hits the fan.

“So in short, your research here, or go back to Earth and take the chance of finding another sponsorship grant.  At least for now.  Who knows, I might be wrong, and I’ll have our corporate lawyer working on it.”

Karen raised an eyebrow, “I’ll return of course, I don’t have a project, I just run HR and man a reception desk for god sakes.”

I smiled apologetically at Karen and turned to the others, “How about you two?”

Jason sighed, “I’ll stay, but this is insane, they can’t get away with doing this.”

Caroline frowned, “I suppose I might as well go, I don’t think the nanite power issue is going to be solved.  I’ve been banging my head against the wall for a while, but I think the repair and maintenance is all it’s going to be able to achieve.”

Originally, Caroline’s plan was to replace fabricators all together, but outside of small things, the nanites didn’t have the energy required to create massive projects.

I nodded, “Fine, good luck to both of you.  Don’t give up though, they might not bother with my business since it’s not related to national security.  I don’t know yet.  I suppose it depends on if they seize all my assets.  They might not, because it would harm the economy a great deal if my products were suddenly pulled, and if they tried to seize the rights to my products, my lawyer would eat them for breakfast.”

Caroline and Karen didn’t respond, and left for the shuttle bay.

Jason grabbed a glass and poured a wine, and then chugged it.

“What now?  We just waltz out of here under the guns of thousands of Earth ships?”

I nodded, “Something like that, yes.”

Nora looked at me and asked, “How?”

I grinned, “What?  And ruin the surprise?”

We all waited then, a few minutes later Al spoke out loud to all of us.

“Karen and Caroline have been ordered to land on the command ship for questioning and are complying.  Joe just entered the landing bay.”

Kristi asked, “They didn’t try to stop them?”

Al replied, “The shuttle was going too fast, by the time they signaled to divert him it was too late.  I thought it prudent to use maximum safe speeds.”

“Al, button it up, and bring the subspace drive up to five percent on both ships.”

I just wished I could see the look on Sergei’s face when my ship started to glow.

Kristi asked, “Five percent?”

I nodded, “I’d prefer not to use it at all inside a solar system.  If an emitter fails the backups will kick on, but it will also most likely cause a destructive subspace wave, I’d rather not blow up Earth on accident.  If an emitter fails at five percent, it won’t reach Earth from here.”

Nora raised an eyebrow.

I continued, “Five percent is more than enough to move at light speed, and stop any amount of plasma or missile fire.”

Nora pounded the rest of her wine and poured another glass.  I wanted to giggle at her reactions to my statements, but managed to keep a straight face.

Joe came in and asked, “What’s going on?”

Kristi hugged him and answered, “We’re running for it.”

Joe frowned and shook his head, “I guess I’m taking that job after all.”

Senna asked, “So you have been hiding stuff from them?”

I nodded slowly, “Yes, ever since the genocide started and they stopped trusting me, and I lost faith in the idea they’d be good stewards of the technology I developed from our visit with the Drenil.  Some would be trustworthy, maybe even most, but not those in charge.”

Al said, “At five percent, Sergei is demanding you stand down or he’ll fire.”

I closed my eyes and sighed, it hadn’t really sunk in yet, but I was about to be homeless.  Worse, I was dragging Kristi and Joe along with me, as well as an employee.  How the hell did things get so messed up?  My last thoughts before I gave the verbal order was to wonder when or if I’d ever see Bill again.

“Move us out Al, both ships, when we reach the heliopause bring us into subspace and take us to right outside Tressia’s solar system.”

I brought up the overlay of the scan program, instead of using the real displays, so that would remain a secret for now that only Kristi and I knew.  They’d pursued us, and fired on us, but we disappeared off their sensors at the heliopause when we fully entered subspace, and they’d stopped there and turned back.  I just really wish that I’d gotten to see Sergei’s face.

Jason sighed and asked, “So, I get a room on this tin can now?”

Chapter 14

I turned to Nora and Senna, “You can still stay the night if you want, or leave for Tressia, we’re right outside the solar system now.”

Nora asked, “Will you join us now?  It’s a little late to worry about what Earth might think.”

Kristi giggled.

I tilted my head back and forth in thought, “Maybe.  But it might put Tressia in danger if they hear that I’m on the planet.  I imagine their worst fears are me giving the technology I just showcased, to a different world instead of Earth.  I’m afraid they’ll probably want me dead at this point, if they can’t regain a sense of control over me.”

Senna shook her head, “No way.  They might be regretting their actions right now, but if they attacked Tressia both treaties would join to put them down.  That’s about the only thing we all agree on.  They won’t risk that.”

Kristi nodded, “I think they’re right, plus it will give Joe a chance to start his new job, Tressia and Leira seem like as good as a start as anywhere else.”

“Okay, you all win,” I gave up.  I wasn’t looking forward to wandering around alone anyway, plus operation paranoia wasn’t fully ready yet, and still had a week to go.

I turned to Jason, “Al will assign you a room and grant you access to it, otherwise things will stay mostly the same even though you’re living here now for the next who knows how long.  If you want to visit the planet you can do that as well.  You can also use the fabricator in the landing bay for any clothes and personal items you’ll need.”

Jason nodded and looked a little relieved, and left the kitchen to go check out his new room.

I kind of wanted to send this ship to the void, and use my smaller more homey one, but I also didn’t want to leave Jason by himself all the time.  Plus, this ship would be obsolete in a week, I could deal with it that long.  The irony that we’d be moving to something much bigger wasn’t lost on me, although the little ship would still be my home, one of them anyway, I seemed to have more than a few right now.

We drank and talked for the rest of the day, and then all turned in.

The next morning Al reported, “There is nothing in the news about us leaving Earth, either on Earth or anywhere else.  None of your funds or your business has been seized.  If Earth is looking for you, they aren’t asking for assistance, or even sharing you’re an escaped criminal with the rest of the worlds.”

I frowned, but then decided that made sense.  They’d be afraid another world would try to claim me.  I was sure they wanted me dead, or buried in a dark hole somewhere they could question me, but they wouldn’t go after me out in the open.  Not when it would add competition.

When Jason found that out a little later during breakfast, and had also found out that Caroline and Karen were back at the office in Colorado Springs, he asked to go back.  I let him of course, sent him in a shuttle, and when the five of us left for Tressia, I sent the lab ship out into the void, a few light years apart from the other one.

I figured even if they would be obsolete, it was still better to use those as lab spaces for highly dangerous experiments that shouldn’t have humans around, like all the ones I’d been doing lately.  I’d also be happier using the smaller ship, and I thought Kristi and Joe would as well.

Nora gave Joe a few contacts so he could get a business set up for us, and then the four of us ladies went on a tour of the main city.  Tressia was about halfway between where Earth and Omara were.  There were no mega-cities or huge city buildings, but they did have a lot of cities that sprawled far and wide, and the capitol was the biggest.

There were flying cars, a lot of them, and gravity technology was apparent almost everywhere.  Besides the tour, one of Nora’s objectives was to visit and catch up with people, which is why we ended up in Jarnud’s store.

Jarnud hadn’t changed a bit, he still wore mismatched clothes, and had wild hair.  He also seemed happy to see me.

“Welcome back in my store,” he said expansively.

I returned his greeting with a genuine smile.

I looked around, but he didn’t have anything I was interested in this time around.  So much had changed for me and for Earth since the first time I’d been in here.  Nora brought us around to a few other people, and after dinner she brought us to a resort to check in for the week.  It was a lot like the all-inclusive resorts found in the Caribbean or Mexico.  It had sun, sand, pools, the ocean, and lots of bars and places to eat.

They also offered several tours.

Somehow I’d flown from Earth on the run, and ended up on another damned vacation, Nora and Senna’s vacation.  Joe didn’t take very long to do his thing, so was on vacation as well by midday on Tuesday.  It was toward the end of the week, when I got really depressed about Bill.  Al sort of came up with a semi-solution for me.

Immersive virtual reality didn’t really exist yet, but with eyesight and sound it got pretty close.  The major flaw was of missing out on smell, taste, and touch. Of course, for me it was mostly the touch part.  So it was a little frustrating.  Still, at least I got to talk to him, and look at him, while we seemed to be sailing out on the ocean, which was better than nothing.  We spent hours Friday night talking, and he promised to call me the next day.

I had the beginnings of a plan to steal him away from Earth, and realized it was time I told Kristi about operation Paranoia.  It’d be done in a couple of days anyway.  I also considered renaming it, because apparently it wasn’t paranoid at all, or at least, it’d also been right.

I knocked on Kristi and Joe’s suite door early on Saturday morning.  Kristi opened it and looked at me balefully.  I didn’t mind, it was typical early morning Kristi.

“Can we talk about something?  Joe should hear it too I think.”

Kristi nodded and gestured me in, “Coffee?” she asked in a mumble.

“Sure, coffee sounds good.”

When she came back we sat in the suite’s living room and I took a deep breath.

“So, I’ve been thinking for months about what I thought we should do if this ever happened.  I created a plan and labeled it operation paranoia.”

Kristi snickered and took a sip of coffee, and then asked, “So what’s the plan?”

I sighed because I knew this would sound nuts, “In a nutshell, I decided if Earth didn’t want me anymore, we should go ahead and start our own world and colony.”

Kristi tilted her head, “The three of us?”

I nodded, “As the founders.  I envisioned inviting scientists to join us from other worlds, and their families of course.  I’m kind of hoping to sucker Bill to become our law branch, a Sherriff of sorts, but I wanted to talk to you guys first, because I don’t think I’ll do it if you guys don’t.”

Joe frowned, “So you want to start a colony and invite a bunch of eggheads?  Why would they leave their own worlds to come work for you and your new world?”

I smiled, “Good question.  I have another.  What would have happened if the U.S. government froze all of our assets?”

Joe grimaced, “We’d be poor?”

I nodded, “And?  Besides that, I mean?”

Kristi shrugged, “Nothing I suppose, as long as we have fabricators and access to resources the money doesn’t really matter.  Although I suppose we couldn’t buy any new patterns, we’d have to make our own.”

I smiled, “Exactly, access to our own fabrication has made the idea of money mostly obsolete, except where it applies to royalties if we make something patented by someone else.”

I frowned, “I got a little off base there, but my idea was to offer a place where knowledge and education could be shared freely between worlds, minus military tech.  The synergy of so many scientists from different worlds would speed up discovery, which we could freely share with all the worlds.  The reason I say minus military tech, is no worlds would go for that.”

Kristi nodded, “So in the hopes of getting more advances the world governments of most worlds would want and encourage their scientists to move to our world?”

I touched my nose, “Exactly, and going back to the money thing, it would be an open economy on our world, with an automated infrastructure.”

Joe frowned, “So they wouldn’t get paid?”

I nodded, “Yes and no, not as much as a normal job, but they’d have free access to make whatever they wanted or needed as well.  There are enough free designs available for clothes and stuff where the patent has expired, plus maybe we’d be able to get some worlds to donate patterns.  The only real expense would be resources, which aren’t an expense at all if we claim a planet and system as ours.”

Kristi shook her head and smiled, but a little doubtfully, “So you want to build a free society of scientists, to make the worlds a better place?  And we already have the technology to protect it.  But what about spies and such?”

I smiled, “Simple, I need to interview everyone before they’re approved.  I was thinking we could also lure some Knomen to help with that idea.”

Joe asked, “How long?”

I bit my lip, “Well, the planet I picked which is on the edge of the Orion arm, six thousand light years from Earth, will take five years to terraform with Carmine’s process.  In those five years, we’ll also be able to build the first city.  Unless you object, or say no to the whole plan, I was thinking Knomen style.”

Kristi nodded, “That’s fine with me, and I can see the possibilities, but we’ll have to discuss it before we decide.”

I smiled innocently, “That’s the final goal, but the interim plan will be ready on Monday.”

Kristi raised an eyebrow, “Interim plan?  Let’s have it, what did you do?”

I brought up the ship that took six weeks to build on my overlay, and sent it to theirs as well.

Kristi giggled, “A flying saucer?”

“Yes, but look at the dimensions.”

Joe gaped, “Is that two miles in diameter?”

I nodded in agreement and said, “My plan was to just have a colony on the world.  Science is dangerous, so this is the interim plan, and will also continue to be where the scientists work and experiment.  Except for the really dangerous stuff, which we’ll use the two ships in the void for.  It’s also the interim plan because there’s a lot more to the ship than just labs.

“There are ten levels in the outside ring containing thousands of lab spaces and offices that can be independently locked down and ejected in case of a serious issue.  The power sources are also located in the outer ring.  I know it usually makes more sense to put it in the middle, but I wanted to be able to eject those too in case of emergency.  Plus, with subspace shielding the edges are just as safe as anywhere else.  The only other thing on the outside are four cavernous landing bays.  Big enough for even our house ship to land in.”

Kristi nodded slowly, “Isn’t that many lab spaces overkill?”

I sighed, “Yes, but I had the space and nothing else to do with it,” I explained lamely.

She laughed at me, but I continued, “The second ring on all ten levels, are one, two, and three bedroom spaces if scientists come with their families before the planet’s ready.  There are also several fabrication facilities, pools, saunas, open areas for shops… basically the second ring is a whole city.”

Kristi asked, “And you built it already, it’ll be done on Monday?  What if we say no?”

I shrugged, “That goes back to the money conversation, so I used a few asteroids in that system, and fabricator time, and a little energy to run the fabricators.  None of it actually cost me anything, I simply rerouted ten of our fabricators to that system when the Seltan only wanted eighty of them, instead of ninety.  If you say no, then I’ll just fly it into the sun or blow it up.  I certainly can’t sell it, since it has subspace technology.”

Kristi shook her head, “I think I see your point, so why is it so big?”

I smiled, “Well, I figured people would hate to live in a space ship for so long, so the top six levels in the center mile of the ship is one single room, with simulated sunlight, dirt, grass, trees.  Kind of like the parks on the mega buildings on Omara.  Right now the trees are kind of small, I bought a bunch from a number of different worlds, and used taxis to get them around, or Al did really, he handled it all.  It also has park things in it, benches, a couple of play grounds and all that good stuff.  The bottom four levels in the center are hydroponics levels, to grow most if not all of our food locally.”

Kristi nodded, “So third ring is work, second is home and stores, center is time off and food production?”

I nodded, “Sure, and of course they’ll be free to go to any planet they want to when they’re off.  I hope they eventually just stay and we build a community for when the planet is ready, but who knows?  The galaxy may laugh at us.”

Kristi sighed, “It seems a waste though, when the planet is ready, only the outside will be in use.”

I shrugged, “Maybe, some people may decide to stay up there.  Who knows if it will even work, but I’m not even willing to try unless you two are okay with it.  Also, by the time the world is ready for us to move down, we might even have filled the lab spaces, and we can repurpose the living areas as needed.

“Even if Earth relents, I’ll never go back there except to visit.  I’ll probably give Karen first shot at administrator of the ship or station, and invite Jason and Caroline.  Only if they refuse, do I think we should leave our business open, if Earth allows it.”

Kristi nodded, “I can agree to that, if we agree to the whole plan I mean, it’ll be a lot of work.”

“Mostly in the beginning until we get staff to handle stuff.  The ship also has A.I.s all over the place with the new Matrix.  In each lab, home, and a general one for security, and one for ship functions, plus a bunch on sensors.

“Just let me know, if we do it, I want to invite Bill to join us, I don’t know if he will or not though.  We’ve only had like six dates but, between him handling security, and Karen overseeing administration, we can hire as we find a need.  If I have to do too many interviews, I’ll hire some Knomen to do it.”

Now I was depressed again, who moves six thousand light years for a woman after six dates?

I added, “Also, something available to only us, I designed a subspace platform, and I planned to make ten.  Two over each arm of the galaxy except the Drenil’s, which is six platforms.  It will help with sensor clarity, as those six platforms will forward the data here, and if we need to zoom in for a closer look, the closest platform will move there temporarily, so the city ship doesn’t have to leave our solar system.  We’ll also be able to control the platforms if we’re on our little house ship as well.”

Kristi nodded, “And the other four?”

I smiled, “Well, I thought I’d send those to the four closest galaxies to take a look around, and see what they find.  One should be good enough to scout a galaxy.  I’m not thinking of monitoring them or anything, just a quick peek at what’s there.”

I was curious, and nosy.

Joe grunted, “You don’t think small, alright, give us a couple of hours to talk about it.  I think it sounds kind of cool, but I don’t know if I’m ready to give up on Earth.”

I nodded and stood up, finished the coffee Kristi had made me in a few gulps, and went back to my room to wait.  I was asking a lot, asking them to turn their back on the planet that betrayed us, even if only a few beings on it did so.  I knew how they felt because I felt the same.  I may have had Knomen DNA, but I was human in my attitudes and beliefs down to my fingertips.  Still, if I wasn’t welcome there anymore, I’d make a place where I was.

I was worried that if I chose another planet to live on it would start major problems, this seemed like the only sensible idea, at least the only one that was also worth doing for other reasons.  Was that egotistical?  To think the Earth would go to war over me?  Well, not over me, over all the military secrets I knew, which would take their advantage in battle away were I to share them.  I wouldn’t, but I doubted they’d ever believe that, their actions to date had made that more than clear.

Chapter 15

Kristi and Joe knocked on my door ninety-six minutes later, not that I was keeping track or anything…

I let them in and we sat in the living room.

Joe said, “What would I be doing in this new world of yours?  I mean, if you really plan to share fabricator patterns on what’s invented, why would I need to set up business and licenses anymore for?”

“Anything you wanted to do?  We’d be building a whole new world, is there anything that appeals?  Plus, that doesn’t count the stuff our business has made so far, so you still need to visit a lot of worlds for that right?  There’s time to figure it out.”

He nodded, “I was just curious, I think we’ll do it, but I want to be able to visit Earth too.”

“Of course, it won’t be a closed off colony, everyone can visit their world of origin, and be able to have a dual citizenship so to speak.”

Kristi asked, “So what’s your plan that way, I mean the next step as you see it?”

I nodded, “A transmission to claim the planet and where it is, and that it’s an independent world led by us, its three founders, along with an offer and invitation to scientists with all the rules and benefits outlined. That’s all I had really.”

Kristi looked thoughtful, “Sounds good in theory.  Do you really want to do this?”

I shrugged, “I’d rather have stayed at Earth, but without that being possible anymore, yes.  I can do what I love and study science, and benefit all the worlds instead of one.  And I can protect what we build.”

Kristi nodded, “Should we join one of the treaties?”

I wasn’t sure, “It might be better to be neutral, and offer the opportunity to all worlds and scientists.  If we join a treaty that might alienate half of the worlds.”

Kristi pondered that, “True, but it might be better to make a stand on it, and let half the galaxy hate us, even if Earth happens to be one of them.  We can’t please everyone, so it’s better not even bothering to try.  Some planets on the opposite treaty will come, and some planets in the one we join won’t.  That’s just life.”

“I think you’re right, which treaty?”

Kristi snickered, “You know which one, the one not involved in genocide.”

I smirked, “I know, but that’s just going to piss off Earth even more.”

Joe shrugged helplessly, “It’s what I get for marrying such a smart and beautiful woman, I’ll live with it.”

I asked, “So when should we announce it?  Monday, or wait until after we visit Leira next week?”

Kristi tilted her head, and then leaned against Joe, “Let’s wait, I think we want to be there, and on our new ship when we make the announcement.  But you should offer the positions to Karen, Caroline, Jason, and Bill now, make them sign non-disclosures first.  I think it will be easier to get them off the planet now, than after the announcement.”

“Good point, Al, can you handle that please?”

Al replied, “On it.  I’ll let you know when I hear back.”

Over the next couple of days, the answers all trickled in before we left for Leira on Monday.  I believed Bill must love me, because he was the first, and his answer was yes.  I couldn’t wait to see him again, but I wouldn’t see him for another five days or so.

Karen agreed if she could take her husband and kids with her.  She liked the idea of a new planet founded with like-minded peaceful people.  And it would be, we excluded military technologies, so most of those types of scientists would be left behind, except for ironically, Kristi and I who were two of the founders.

Caroline accepted as well, she was hoping she could work with scientists from other worlds and possibly break through the issue she had with the nanites.  She refused to give up on it despite what she’d said the other day.

Jason was the only one who declined.  He wanted to make his invention and rake in the cash.  I couldn’t blame him for that, so I wished him luck.  He would continue to work in our building in Colorado Springs, which would eventually get shut down when he succeeded with his project, or gave up.

It would also make me some more money I didn’t need, and Joe would be able to make Jason, Kristi, and I even richer when he sold it through the contacts he still had to develop on many worlds.  It would be necessary anyway I think, some money would as long as other worlds were involved.  My goal was to simply make it less necessary on ours, until the rest of the galaxy figured out it was a waste of time.  Resources and energy were far from scarce.

I arranged to have them picked up by a third party on Monday and brought out, right before our announcement, so everything seemed to be going to plan as we arrived at Leira.  To be fair, I was expecting the plan to fall apart and need tweaks after it had been announced, the preliminaries were in secret and fairly easy to swing.

Leira was different again than anything on Athiren, Omara, or Tressia.  They didn’t have the tall skyscrapers, but they didn’t blend in with nature either.  They’re buildings weren’t that tall, except maybe Alnot’s palace, but they were extremely striking, complex, and beautiful buildings.  At first glance, they didn’t appear to match any of the surrounding buildings, but the whole picture was somehow very well balanced.  Almost as if the whole planet were a bunch of artists, including the architects.

It was Tuesday morning and I was still in the hotel suite when things changed again, and not for the better.

Al cleared his throat, and when I didn’t object in my mind, he briefed me.

“There is about to be another attack on the Bug worlds.”

I wanted a display in my overlay and got one, he also responded to another thought.

“Kristi has been notified.”

I reached into the display and zoomed it a little on the defending system and frowned, “That’s new.”

I still didn’t know what they could do, but there were eighteen of the new larger ships, equally spaced in front of the swarm of one million five hundred thousand ships, half of the swarms from the one million per each hive, of which there were three at every world.  The humanoid ships were less than half of that, yet with missiles and keeping their distance while using them, it more than made up for it.

As the humanoid ships reached the outskirts of solar system, all one and half million Bug ships went to FTL for just over a second and dropped out in the midst of the attacking vessels.  There was also a large line of small explosions behind them.  Then they all attacked humanoid ships in groups of fifty.

The first enemy plasma barrage took out thirty thousand, the second volley of plasma took out another thirty thousand, before the third volley the humanoid ships managed to jump to FTL and retreated toward the core.  They’d just lost sixty thousand ships and I was frozen with horror.  The Bugs didn’t chase them, instead they turned back for the planet.

“Al, what the hell happened?  Didn’t they deploy anti-FTL gravity missiles.”

Al replied, “Yes, that’s what the long line of small explosions were.  I believe the lead ships emitted a protective screen of some sort, perhaps a major gravity weapon that destroyed the missiles before the missiles could reach their ships.  It’s the most likely explanation for the missiles exploding just before reaching the ships at FTL.”

I frowned, “Yeah, okay.  I can see that.  Still, without dark energy that would take a tremendously large fusion reactor.”

Al replied, “Well, those new Bug ships do put out a tremendous amount of energy, perhaps most of the bigger ships are a reactor.”

I bit my lip in thought, “You know, it may be these new ships weren’t in response to the attack on their first colony at all, but due to them all dying by gravity missiles during the waves sent at the Seltan.”

Al was silent for a moment, “Insufficient proof, but it is more likely than the other explanation.  The gravity missile was not utilized in the other attacks on the Bugs, and their new ships appear to be specifically designed to defend against that.”

Kristi joined me in my room, her face was drained of blood.

“That… sixty thousand ships.  Most of them Seltan, only a handful from Earth and the other planets.  What can we do?”

I frowned as my mind raced, “Let’s make them an offer they can’t refuse.”

She rolled her eyes, “Godfather quote?  Really?”

I shrugged and smiled a little sheepishly, “The platforms are done and in position, I could knock every bug in the galaxy out of space in the next few minutes.  But all that would be doing is giving the Seltan free reign to blow up planets with impunity.  Even in the face of the loss of life we just witnessed, I can’t contribute to their genocide.”

She calmed down a little and looked thoughtful, “You’re right, that’s exactly what would happen, so what do we do?”

I replied, “When we put out our thing on Monday, we’ll also offer to take care of the bug issue, but only if everyone agrees to leave the planet’s alone once they’re quarantined from space.”

She was silent for a moment, and then asked softly, “And if they lie?  And then go after the planets anyway?”

“Then I’ll have no choice but to blow them out of space.  If I quarantine the Bugs, I’m responsible for them.  So pray they don’t lie, and believe what we say, because I don’t know if I could live with either option.”

She blew out a breath, “Fine, I agree.  They might not even take the deal.”

I shrugged, “Maybe, but with those new ships they can swarm directly into solar systems, and the deal will be public record.  The leaders, even that bitch in the White House, won’t last in their positions very long if they don’t take the deal and Earth ships continue to die.”

Kristi snickered, “Geez Alicia, how do you really feel about the president? Don’t hold back on my account.”

I blushed, “Sorry.”

Kristi patted my arm and said in a conciliatory tone, “I’m right there with you.  I’m actually pretty excited about founding a colony, but I’d rather it wasn’t necessary too.  Plus, we gave her the protective bustier, no charge, and no gratitude at all for it, I tell you, people these days,” she said half joking.

I giggled, “Good point.  I forgot about giving her that.  Did you have a chance to go over the city ship yet?  Make sure I didn’t screw anything up?”

Kristi nodded, “Not finished yet, but so far I fixed a few things.  All software, the hardware looks solid, but I didn’t expect any different for that part.”

“Thanks, I really do suck at software, did you look at my scan interface?”

Kristi smiled teasingly, “That wasn’t actually too bad, you must have worked hard at it, but I still made a few tweaks.  It worked right, but it was inefficient.”

She added in a resigned tone, “You know the twenty-four worlds in the original treaty will accuse us of holding the galaxy’s safety hostage right?”

I nodded in agreement, “We kind of are.  But then every world strips the rights from, and jails, those that commit murder.  It will just be political double talk and rhetoric.  I hate that we have to blackmail twenty-four worlds into doing the right thing, but I didn’t make the rules.”

Kristi sighed in annoyance, “I agree, and I believe it’s the right thing, just don’t expect to be universally loved when we save the galaxy… again.”

I giggled, and then it grew into a long belly laugh.  She was right of course, the twenty-five worlds in the new treaty might be thankful, but I could live with the others hating me, as long as they kept their word.  If they didn’t, I wasn’t sure I could live with either decision I’d have to make.

She said faux sternly, “Don’t you dare start cackling like a crazy person bent on galactic domination.”

I lost it, and laughed so hard that I had to sit down.  It wasn’t even that funny, I just couldn’t stop laughing.  Too much stress, I was losing it.

Chapter 16

The rest of the week flew by as Nora and Senna showed us around Leira.  It was nice because I really didn’t have the time to look around the last time I’d been here.  Friday morning it was time to go, and I had butterflies in my stomach as we returned to our house ship, and went to our new home.  I wasn’t sure if the butterflies were because I was about to claim a planet, as one of its leaders, or because I was blackmailing the galaxy into playing nice at the same time, or maybe because I was finally going to get to see Bill again.

It was probably all three.

“Jones world!”

I glared, “Absolutely not.  How about Kristiville?”

She just gave me a look and I shrugged helplessly, that one was bad, and not even a planet name.  We were still trying to come up with a good name for our new world.  Scientist colony just didn’t sound good.  It was also supposed to be a part of the claim.  Of course, with our speed we were already there, and leaving subspace to land in one of the humongous landing bays.

I sighed, “How about Minerva, Roman goddess for wisdom, courage, inspiration, civilization, law and justice, mathematics, strength, and war strategy.  That’s kind of as close to scientist as the gods come.  It also covers the idea that we can just about stomp anyone else if we’re forced to defend it.”

She pondered that for a moment, “Alright, that sounds okay, but are you sure Alicia’s world isn’t good?” she asked faux innocently.

I glared, and she just laughed at me, and then Joe did too, he couldn’t hold it back anymore.

Al said, “Minerva as the name of the world has been added to the claim.”

“Thanks Al.”

“You know, I’m really glad I put the landing bay on the bottom, it’s the only door on this thing.”

It was a serious design flaw, but I never imagined landing it, just taking shuttles down to planets and back up.

She snickered, and we got up and headed downstairs, to enter the city ship’s landing bay… through the landing bay on our house ship.

“Al, are our guests here somewhere?” I asked, this ship was huge.

Al replied, “They are in the quarters you assigned, they arrived earlier today.”

I looked over and Kristi smirked, “Go for it, we’ll be in our quarters, I know you’re dying to see him.  Just don’t forget to send our message out.”

I nodded, “Al, send it,” I ordered, and then I walked toward Bill’s quarters, which just happened to be, by some odd coincidence of course, right next to mine.  Considering the man gave up his gun to come out here, because we were using non-lethal means such as gravity generation in case arresting someone became necessary, I was almost positive he wouldn’t mind.

When I walked up to the door, it just opened, and I wondered if there was a security issue, or if he added me to his approved list for opening the door.

Al said, “He added you first thing, and then started learning about the internal security features of this ship.”

I smiled, and walked in, “Bill?”

I felt a huge release of emotions, and my body relaxed, as I set my eyes on him for the first time in a couple of weeks.  It hadn’t even been that long really, but I’d missed him more than even I’d realized, until my body melted into his as he claimed a kiss hello.  It was a really good kiss, and he showed no signs of stopping.  Oh, alright, he can say hello back later… much later…

I was lying against him in bed, feeling much better and more relaxed, when he smiled, “It’s good to see you Alicia.”

I laughed a little breathlessly, “I could tell.  You too.”

He asked, “How many of us are on this behemoth?”

“Right now?  Just… six.  It’ll grow though.  Just three scientists, me, Kristi, and Caroline.  Joe’s going to deal with other worlds, you’re going to make sure I don’t go crazy, and Karen is going to deal with applications and assigning rooms.”

He nodded, “So she assigned my room?”

I blushed, “Umm, no.  I did.”

He pulled me closer and kissed my head, “Is that why I’m so close to you?”

I nodded shyly, which was odd considering where I was and what we’d just been doing.

Al said from the speakers, “I hate to interrupt you, but there are numerous ships heading in system.”

I muttered, “Damn, I should have sent the message after the greeting.”

Bill chuckled, “You bend some more people out of shape?”

I said to Al, “Bring up five percent shields Al,” I looked up at Bill, “I suppose that’s possible,” and then I explained exactly what was in the message.  New world, joining new treaty, blackmailing galaxy to not commit genocide, and… well I think that was enough probably, but there was also the scientist invite as well.

Bill whistled, “I don’t blame you, I understand the difficulty there.  Plus, I’m also kind of biased.”

I smiled softly, “How so?”

Bill kissed me, and then said, “Blinded by love, obviously.  It’s also why I up and moved into space.”

I asked, “Isn’t it a little soon for that?  Not that I don’t feel the same because I do, and you…” I trailed off as he put a finger across my lips.

Bill smiled, “I knew the moment I saw you again, I had it bad for you when you disappeared off to college when I was going into what, ninth grade?  It’s different now of course, not a child’s feelings, but you are you, and it was so easy to fall, I’d do anything for you.”

I sighed, and kissed him again, “Me too.”

Al cleared his throat, as if reminding me we were under siege by thousands of ships.  In retrospect, perhaps this hadn’t been the best time for us to declare our feelings and intentions toward each other.

Then Al said, “You’re being called by several people.  Based on the scan data I’m reviewing, it looks like Earth sent ships first, and then others saw that and sent ships, possibly to defend you, it’s very confused out there right now.  Twenty worlds currently have ships here, and that number is growing by the minute, ironically they’re all using your taxis to get here, except Earth of course.”

I sighed and banged my forehead softly on Bill’s shoulder.  I’d been expecting trouble, but this exceeded my expectations.  I really didn’t want to fight anyone, it’s one of the reasons I’d left Earth, my situation had been untenable there, it was either let them destroy me, fight back, or build my own place.  I’d chosen the last option, obviously.

“Who called first?”

Al replied, “The Earth ship, they were here first, and have five hundred ships with him.  Admiral Abramov.”

I nodded, “Very well, Al just in case move the ship so that if they fire and miss it won’t hit the planet.  Go ahead and answer the general’s call, and make sure all the ships here can see it, or rather hear it.  Oh, and no video at all please.”

I was a bit indisposed, not to mention sweaty.  Even I didn’t want to see my hair right now.  But mostly it was the naked in bed with my lover part.

“Admiral, you’re on a party line.  Looks like a lot of people have come to welcome my new world in the fold, what can I do for you today?”

Bill played with my hair, and lightly drew circles on my back with his fingertips, it was rather calming but also distracting as hell.

General Abramov said coldly, “You will surrender and return to Earth where you will be held pending an investigation and trial into the events of the last few months.”

I sighed and said in exasperation, “Sergei, I did tell you that you’re on a party line, did you hear me?  Are you sure you want the galaxy to know the Earth turned on me because the president has a twist in her skirt?  I’ve broken no laws, and by the laws common to all I staked a claim for this world.  I have a treaty with twenty-five other worlds, who I might note are not genocidal, as of… two hours ago.”

Wow, I’d been in Bill’s quarters longer than I’d thought.  Time flies.

I continued in a more challenging tone of voice, I was really kind of pissed actually, “You are now in my space, and in violation of my borders, and threatening me.  Do you really want to attack me here, and risk the galaxy turning against you for an act of aggression against another sovereign world?  I do believe that’s against the treaty you signed.  Go home Sergei.”

Al, bring the test shuttle here please, I thought carefully.

Sergei responded, “This is a false claim of a liar and a thief, Earth is disputing this claim and we will apprehend you today at all costs.  That looks like a pretty ship, don’t make me destroy it.”

I groaned, why doesn’t anyone listen?

“Alright Sergei, we both know you have no proof of that since I didn’t do anything illegal or wrong, the only thing I did was hold too much power for the worlds’ leaders’ comfort while I saved your world.  That means none of the worlds will pay any attention to your accusations about a false claim.  I won’t submit to it, I also have no wish to destroy Earth ships, so I’ll make a deal with you Sergei.”

“Al, bring the shuttle’s shields to five percent please?”

“Sergei, if you can destroy that shuttle, I’ll come with you peacefully.  If not, you will leave, otherwise the shuttle will fire back.  I’m sure you recognized its… shall we call it an amorphous entrance?  You know me Sergei, I don’t bluff, the president tried to corral and break me, and she lost the game simply because I refused to play hers and fight back at all. I simply left and started my own game instead, and here you are making false accusations because no doubt she ordered you to do it.  Now every world knows how much Earth screwed up.  Go ahead, try to destroy it Sergei, and then go home.”

I winced.  There had been way too much arrogance and self-righteousness in my voice and my choice of words.  I was really angry though, and I felt betrayed.

He fired four thousand missiles, eight from every ship.  They didn’t even get close, the inimical radiation from subspace wouldn’t allow matter to exist.  Then he fired twice as many plasma attacks, the little tiny shuttle sat there and mocked him with its continued existence.

Damn, I needed a reality check.  Now my thoughts were arrogant and snide.  Still, I was really annoyed though.

“Well Sergei, what shall it be?  Do I fire back and defend my home?  Just a reminder Sergei, I built those shields your hiding behind, I already know the outcome.  Please, just leave my home.”

And just like that the arrogance and even the anger had withered into fear, if he thought I was bluffing, then I’d have to fire.  At least at one of the ships.  I felt sick to my stomach.  I was no ruler; I was a damned scientist with a dream of my own, because Earth had stolen the one I’d shared with it.  Assholes.

Sergei threatened, “This isn’t the end of this Jones,” and cut off the connection.

Al reported, “He is leaving.”

I sighed, “Does anyone else want to talk to me still, or are they satisfied from sharing the transmission?  Oh, and send the shuttle back to the void will you?”

Al replied, “Shuttle on its way.”

Bill kissed the top of my head, “You did good, you’re shaking though, cut that out.”

I smiled wanly, “I’m just really glad I didn’t have to fire back.  Adrenaline crash.”

Bill asked in a surprised voice, “Would it have destroyed his ship?”

I nodded, “Yes, but that was the least it was capable of doing.  It could have destroyed all his ships with one shot.  That’s why I couldn’t trust them anymore, they were too paranoid and power hungry.  I’m just a scientist, not a leader or power hungry person.

“I just want to have this place for like-minded scientists.  Fortunately, or perhaps unfortunately, the only ones powerful enough to stop me are probably the Drenil.  I just wish it wasn’t necessary to have so much firepower to defend it.  I’m also not looking forward to destroying so many Bugs, even though I offered and it’s the right thing to do.  That’s like, eighty-five times three million?  Plus, the ones that live in the space hives, so probably a lot more.”

It was a lot of death, but if I did do it, in the long run it would save more life, both on the humanoid and Bug sides.  Two hundred and fifty-five million bug ships and bugs would die, but that was just a small fraction of the billions on one bug world that would survive, multiplied by eighty-five.  That was a lot of lives spared from my actions.  But… two hundred and fifty-five million was a lot.

There would be blood on my hands.

I wondered if other leaders who had presided over massacres throughout history had similar thoughts, and if it really made a difference in the end what justification I had.  A part of me hoped they’d say no to my bug solution.  Honestly, with eight years left before the next wave, if Earth wanted to, they could build more than enough of the sixteen plasma cannon platforms to take care of it easily.  They could effortlessly build enough to dominate the enemy in that amount of time.  But that’s a dream, I knew they wouldn’t do it.  Hell, they even stopped me from doing it.

Bill asked, “Feel better?”

I smiled and touched his face, “Thanks for listening to me whine.  I’ve been a co-leader of a star system for less than three hours, and I’m already complaining about it.”

He snickered, and then tickled me.  Then he kissed me and touched me, and I forgot all about the other ships, until I heard Al’s voice.

“No one else needs to speak to you, your allies are satisfied Earth backed off, and the other enemies that came must have been cowed by the shuttle demonstration.”

“Thanks Al,” I said a little breathlessly, and promptly forgot all about the tenseness of five minutes ago as I got lost in his arms…

Chapter 17

“Alright Al, hit us with an update.”

We all sat on couches in a lounge area, there were several places where families could mingle in the housing area.  There were no streets, so think common rooms at a college dorm.

By all, I meant Kristi, Joe, Bill, Karen, and myself.  The three founders plus Karen and Bill were the people that would run this place, at least until we needed more people.  That only left out one scientist for now, and Caroline was happily working in her new lab space.

I kept thinking company thoughts, but really the five of us were the government right now of a new planet.  It would take time to adjust my thoughts to that reality, which was kind of scary if I thought about it too long.  Worse, Kristi seemed to be content to push me into the head position. I’d thought she’d do a good job although she hadn’t gone for it, she also had better legs than me.  Okay, that was nonsensical, but still two completely true if unrelated facts.

Al cleared his throat, which stopped my nervous internal monologue.

“All twenty-five of the new treaty worlds have accepted us, and more than half, fourteen of them, are already offering their scientists the opportunity to come and work with us.  They are also to a world, pushing hard in the media and to their contacts on the older treaty worlds, to please back down and allow the Bug problem to be resolved.  They are even using the last battle as a lever, and suggest if it takes too long, those Bug ships with the anti-anti-FTL missile weapons will lead the charge during the next group of waves, and roll over the current Seltan defenses and right up the Orion arm.”

He paused for a moment, “The other old treaty worlds, are fighting amongst themselves.  Many want to annihilate them down to the last Bug no matter the cost, but some are counseling the sure and quick solution would be better.  As you surmised, the press and leaders of most of the old treaty worlds are vilifying you all for holding this over their heads to get your way.”

That was crap of course, not just regular crap either, but entitled crap.  They weren’t blaming all the other worlds not in the fight, who were basically saying the same thing, back off of genocide and we’ll assist you.  It’s only because we offered a full solution with no more battles and deaths for their people, that we had that kind of rhetoric flung at us.  Because they felt entitled to it simply because we had the ability.

He added, “So far you are being tried in Earth’s press, for stealing technology and fleeing rightful prosecution, but the rest of the worlds are ignoring it as you predicted. Even the old treaty worlds told the Earth to show proof of the crime, or shut up about it.  There is no speculation in the press at all about your confrontation with Admiral Abramov on any world. I can only conjecture that all those present, which at the end was thousands of military ships from thirty-two worlds, are keeping your military might a secret from their populations.”

I shrugged, no surprise there.  Military secrets and stuff.

I asked, “Is that it?”

Joe spoke when Al didn’t, “Several worlds have already contacted me and are eager to set up business for the nanites and quantum computers.  It will actually work out pretty good, because I’ll wind up with all those contacts when you egg heads start to hand out free ideas.”

“Egg heads?” I asked with a sharp look.

Joe just winked, he seemed just as invincible to my glare as his lovely wife.

Speaking of, Kristi said, “I built a database that will track projects, since this is an open and free thing, almost an extremely large think tank, it will correlate and suggest other scientists with overlapping interests and suspected synergies.”

I nodded slowly, “So like a dating site, but for science.”

She snickered, “Pretty much.”

Bill shrugged, “I haven’t had to arrest anyone yet,” he joked, and then said, “I’m pretty familiar with what’s available now though, mostly gravity emitters in every deck which will apprehend and hold anyone doing something stupid, dangerous, or illegal.  It can even move a suspect to the brig and remove any objects or articles from their clothing, which I admit is pretty impressive.  My only staff right now are the five A.I.s which run the security protocols for the city ship.”

I nodded, “Just let me and Karen know when you need more staff.”

Karen shrugged, “I’ll just do what I did before, until something new comes along.  It won’t be that much different, I just need to assign a living space in addition to a lab and office.”

I added, “Well, it seems like we’re ready.  The hydroponics are just getting started, and the park needs to grow some, but other than that we’re in good shape.  We have plenty of food in stasis until it’s needed.  If we get a huge influx of people at once, I’ll have to hire a few Knomen from Athiren, otherwise… anything else?”

No one had anything else, so we broke up the first semi-official official meeting, and hunted down lunch in the kitchen.  Bill and I took a walk after that, the center of the ship was still very nice already, although when the trees grew in it would be even better.  Ironically, that would happen about the same time the surface of Minerva was suitable for human life.

It didn’t take very long for the arguments to play out.  Human nature took over, and the worlds argued about cost in lives and equipment, and if they could get the bugs quarantined they should let us.  Some even said they’d agree just to call my bluff, they didn’t believe I could do it, which of course it wasn’t a bluff.  Hopefully they wouldn’t push me by changing their minds afterward.

The last holdout a few days later was the Seltan, and I actually called Dral personally to try and persuade him.  Of all the tough nuts to crack, he was the one that was against backing down for actual reasons of honor.  He wasn’t afraid of the bugs, he wasn’t prejudiced against their differences, and he wasn’t filled with hate and disgust at what they were, unlike most of the humanoid races which had been determined to annihilate them.

Dral just thought it was dumb to leave such a deadly and determined enemy alive, an enemy that his people had fought against for so long.

Worse, it was really hard to talk someone into letting me do something I didn’t want to do, something that would damage my heart.  Sure, they deserved it, but that was easy to say for the people that didn’t have to pull the trigger.  I could have walked away, absolved myself of the responsibility.  It truly wasn’t my burden; I had picked it up.

Merely because I had the ability, and didn’t trust anyone else to be its steward.

“Al, go ahead and connect me to Dral if he has a moment?”

Dral looked imposing, or his hologram did.  I was sure I looked like a puny, young, short, scientist.  I knew I was attractive, but I doubted I had any effect on this giant four armed being in that way.

“Dral, it is good to speak to you.  I wish to ask you to yield the burden of quarantining the Bug worlds to me, and I swear by my honor I will keep them penned up.”

Dral nodded, “I trust you Alicia Jones, with my life and that of my people’s, your words always speak true.  Yet, what happens when you pass from this world, who then will ensure the Bugs do not regain space and once again come for us?  Perhaps even that is easy to answer, your issue may take up the cause, or some worthy successor, but what about in a thousand years, or ten thousand?  Shall we abide this threat for eternity?  Who will or even can watch for that long?”

Did he just say my kid would do it?

I argued, “The hope is that they’ll overcome their instincts, as we have started to do with ours, yet still continue to struggle with.  I can’t guarantee forever, no one can.  But the technology will continue even without me for a very long time.  It’s not as if we will forget they are there, or not grow even more powerful while they are restricted and kept behind stuck on their worlds.

“Do you not have fierce predators on your world that can still kill your kind?” I asked curiously.

When Dral nodded I continued, “As does Earth, and most other humanoid worlds.  We do not seek to destroy a predator to safeguard the lives of the unwary and stupid, unless the animal becomes a hunter of all humans, because we know genocide is ultimately wrong, even against an animal without sentience.  How much more wrong is it to commit genocide against a sentient race.  They are strange, alien, but sentient.

“And like the fool that wanders on my old world where he shouldn’t go, and is taken down by the fierce jaws of a lion, if our descendants are foolish enough to stop watching for the danger that is right before their eyes, then so be it.  I will not take part in an abominable act such as genocide, just to safeguard those that should be watching out for themselves.  The goal should be to remove the threat, not an entire species.  Without any danger our descendants will grow up soft and unwary, and be taken easily by the next threat.  Competition for life is not a bad thing.”

That was pretty harsh to say, and I wasn’t sure if I completely agreed with the sentiment of letting my foolish descendants die, but in a way it was true as well.  If they were dumb enough to walk off a cliff with closed eyes, that wasn’t cause for me to do something that would destroy my own soul.

He frowned thoughtfully, “Your words are wise.  I was too focused on the threat, and had not considered the damage removing it completely would do to my people.  Quarantine them and remove them from space, and I will abide by your wishes in this manner, and not attack them when they are helpless and disarmed.”

I held in a sigh and nodded in agreement, and then he signed off.

I stared at the blank wall for quite a while before I gave the order.

“Al, operation clean-sweep please.”

Al replied, “Please verify order.”

I cleared my throat, “Order verified, clean-sweep is a go.”

I sat down and wept as I watched the hologram of eighty-five worlds have their orbitals completely sanitized.  Not looking away was the least I could do as I destroyed all those lives.

That’s a good word right?  Sanitized.  It sounds so nice, clean, and bloodless.  Not nearly as bad as the word massacred.  They didn’t have a chance, and it took a mere few seconds at each world. The platform stopped at a strategic spot, fired three targeted waves at the hives that annihilated all matter in its reach, and then moved to the next world.  A second or two at each world, and a few seconds to move between them, that was twelve worlds a minute for each of the four platforms.

So it took less than two minutes, and my chest ached as I watched the slaughter, yet I couldn’t look away even as it became blurry through my tears.

I’d just saved billions of lives, thousands of billions of bug lives on the surfaces of their worlds, and perhaps billions of humanoid lives that might have been taken had I not used the power I’d created.  Billions.

I’d just had to kill about two hundred some odd million of the enemy Bugs to do it.

I hoped that would be it.  I’d be able to build a city, and then a world of scientists making things better.  Maybe take a peek at our neighbors, the other galaxies, to see if they were another experiment altogether with unseen lifeforms, or a duplicate experiment with the same four lifeform types, or maybe just random evolution.  It would be interesting to see.  I kind of doubted we’d ever solve the mystery of the seeders though, and that was fine.  Then again, maybe they left us a message to find, and we’d find it someday.

In the end it didn’t matter, this wasn’t about them, it was now our story.  That was the seeder’s gift, whether meant as one or not.

I didn’t want any part of the military any longer.  I didn’t doubt that the Bugs should be stopped, they were ravenous and never ceased, and they would have attacked us until we were all dead.  But that didn’t matter, it wasn’t about them dying, what made me weep was that I’d been the one to pull the trigger.

I wondered what was next, and I wondered what the Drenil thought about what I’d just done, I had no doubt they knew.  I got up to seek out Bill, he would be a balm for my soul, I hoped so anyway…

Afterword:

I hope you enjoyed this story, if you did please leave a review.  Reviews are the lifeblood of independent authors, and I would greatly appreciate any constructive feedback or opinions.

This story was hard to write, mostly the ending, and I hoped I caught the right tone for what went on. Anyway, there’s only going to be one more book to tie Alicia’s story up.  Alicia Jones is the last of my original three series, so it’s a strange feeling to be able to see the end of it.  I have more Spirit Sorceress coming, and I’ll also be releasing a new series here soon, which has an odd twist on the person sent to another world genre.

About the Author:  If you have any comments or suggestions you can send me an email at dlharrisonauthor@gmail.com  If you like my work, or even if you don’t, please consider leaving a review of this book.  I can also be found at https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7456808.D_L_Harrison

Other books by D. L. Harrison:

http://www.amazon.com/author/dlharrison

The Formerly Dark Mage, by D. L. Harrison – This stand-alone fantasy book follows the life of Silvia and takes place in a world unique and separate to our own.

Silvia is a dark mage. Unfortunately, she finds herself about to be sacrificed. Someone must have told her evil master about her plans to kill him and take over.  After that, things just seem to go downhill. She has no choice but to escape the kingdom of Zual, something that to her knowledge has never been done before. She will need to deal with many issues she never had to face before.

Among those issues, the white mages, and her conscience.

*** Coming Soon *** The Rise of a Dark Mage - This stand-alone fantasy book follows the life of Cassandra, it takes place in the same world as The Formerly Dark Mage, but happens three hundred years later, long after Silvia is gone and some shocking changes have taken place in the world.

Cassandra is a dark mage in the kingdom of Zual, she’s also a mage prodigy.

She hates both her kingdom, and her master.  She wants him dead, not to take his place, but so she can leave and explore the world.  Her ambition will drive her to rediscover the secrets of the strongest of magics.

She is determined to succeed, or she’ll die trying.

Celia Winters Novel Series

Witch’s Moon: A Celia Winters Novel Book 1

Celia Winters was raised by her single mother, and her earliest memories are of the store her mother owns and the nearby coven, who have always been her family’s close allies and friends.

She grew up believing her magic was weak, but she was satisfied with her life, and happy.  She was a midwife, healer, and supplier of surrounding covens.

Then her mother died, and she’s about to discover she isn’t who, or what, she believes herself to be, not completely.  She will learn that her entire life up until now was a lie.  She’ll need to figure out her place, who she is when she no longer recognizes herself, and try to hold on to her closest friends as she gathers enemies for the simple crime of her existence.

She’s stronger than she believes, but will it be enough?

Power of Air Series:

Just a Psychic: The Power of Air Book One starts off this series.

Ben has grown up with missing memories of his early childhood.

He has known he was a psychic since his earliest memories, seeing the future and gaining knowledge with his gifts.

Is it possible he isn't just a psychic?

Ben's world is about to be turned upside down as he turns twenty-one, all is not as it seems.

Alicia Jones novels is a series that follows a bright young inventor and scientist named Alicia Jones.  It is a space opera and light science fiction.

The first book is titled First Contact:

Alicia Jones is a genius, and a little odd.  At just twenty-three years of age, she is close to finishing her doctoral dissertation.  But when she tests her latest theory in the lab to generate a strong EM field, it has very unanticipated results.  Results that lead to faster than light travel, and first contact with another race.

Her life just gets more complicated after that, when she finds out who she really is, and that the universe may not be as nice a place as she’d been told.  Her determination to help keep Earth safe takes her to places more dangerous and strange than she’d ever envisioned.

Spirit Sorceress series, by D. L. Harrison is a new urban fantasy series.  Miku is a spirit sorceress who spent the last one hundred years growing up and learning about her power in the forests near Seattle Washington.  She’s about to make her debut in the big city, but not in a way she ever expected.

The first book is titled Spirit Sorceress:

Miku is a spirit sorceress who spent her unusually long childhood in the forest away from the city with her mother and father.  After tragedy strikes, she finds herself alone and on her own.  She knows that one day she’ll need to move to Seattle, and fully accept her birthright, and if necessary finish her training on her own.

But before she’s ready, and still in grieving, a rogue vampire and his band come along and change everything.  She’ll need to learn her new place in the world, and find some allies quick if she’s to survive.

Book Description

Alicia Jones has some hard decisions ahead.  Things have been going downhill, and she’s under scrutiny by the military and governments of the world.  The worlds opinion is souring, and even a night out is a calculated risk.  Some disturbing things come to light, and the government is determined to keep her in check, even if she hasn’t done anything that requires it.  She needs to decide if she’ll fight, fold, or simply cash out and play her own game.

If things at home weren’t bad enough, the galaxy is split on the bug issue, and things are heating up on both the humanoid and the bug worlds.  Something has to break, will she be able to make the hard choice when the time comes?